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This Day, February 11, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 11

55: Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, heir to the Roman Emperorship, dies under mysterious circumstances in Rome clearing the way for Nero to become Emperor Would things have been better or worse if Britannicus had ruled instead of Nero?  Nobody can say for sure since there is no record of his views on the Jewish people, Judea or Jerusalem. . Nero’s record regarding the Jews is a mixed bag (at least he did blame them for burning down Rome), he did appoint four inept governors to rule over Judea and appointed Vespasian to put down the Jewish Revolt when it began in 66. Given the rest of Nero’s behavior, the world (including the Jewish world) would have been better off with Britannicus.

1147 (24 Adar): The Jews of Wurzburg were attacked without warning by a band of Crusaders.  “More than twenty among them met a martyrs death including Rabbi Isaac ben Eliakim…The humane Bishop of Wurzburg assigned a burial place in his own private garden for the bodies of the martyrs and sent the survivors to a castle near Wurzburg.”

1201: In Worms, the Jews took up arms to fight alongside the city's non-Jewish residents against an attack by Otto. At that time, Jews were still permitted to bear arms in various cities in Germany, although this privilege was soon to be abolished

1250: During the Seventh Crusade, the three day Battle of Al Mansurah comes to an end with the French forces under the command of the anti-Semitic King Louis IX suffering a crushing defeat.

1349: Jews of Uberlingen, Switzerland were massacred.

1482: By a Papal order, seven new Inquisitors were nominated, among them Tomas de Torquemada who led the Spanish Inquisition that brought an end to the fabled Spanish Jewish community.

1490: In Spain it was declared that no Jew or convert ever be allowed to rule over any Muslims. This was part of Spanish/Muslim negotiations leading up to the eventual surrender of Granada, the last Muslim territory in Iberia.

1491: Isaac ben Judah ibn Katorzi produced the first printed copy of at Naples the Sefer ha-Shorashim a lexicon by Rabbi David Kimhi, known as RADAK.

1531: King Henry VIII is recognized as head of the Church of England, thus helping to unravel papal control of the British Isles, weaken the control of the Catholic Church and help the forces of what might be loosely called Protestant Christianity.  Over the long haul, this was beneficial to the Jews since the rise of Protestants in the Netherlands and England would prove to be beneficial to their acceptance and provide escape from the Church approved Inquistion that had driven them out of Iberia and kept them from New World Settlements in Latin America and French controlled Canada.

1535: Birthdate of Niccolò Sfondrati who as Pope Gregory XIV followed the comparatively benevolent policies of his predecessor Sixtus V.

1632: Nicolas Antoine, “a French Protestant theologian and pastor who attempted to convert to Judaism, although he was never officially admitted to Judaism, due to fears by the Jewish community that persecutions would happen if it became known that he was an apostate of Christianity” “was placed in an asylum for the insane” in an attempt by his fellow Christians to get him to recant his declarations that he was a Jew.

1673: In England, according to the Conventicle Act of 1664 any prayer meeting of more than five persons not according to the Book of Common Prayer would be considered seditious. The act had been originally designed as a device against the Puritans but soon Jews were prosecuted as well. The Jews requested from the King to either allowed freedom of worship or be allowed to leave the country with their possessions. Charles II ordered the Attorney General to desist from prosecuting the “offenders”.

1689(21st of Shevat): Rabbi Moses ben Galante of Jerusalem, author of Zevah ha-Shelamim passed away

1720: German born Moses Raphael Levy and the former Grace Mears of Jamaica gave birth to their fourth child Miriam Levy.

1758: David Franks received a post today in which was enclosed “the policy for £400 on the Charming Rachel” a cargo ship had sailed from Sandy Hook bound for Liverpool in November of 1757.

1767: In Curaco, Leah Cohen Peixotto Y Campos Perera and Samuel Levy Maduro Peixotto gave birth to Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto, the husband of Judith Lopes Salzedo with whom he had four children – Daniel, Raphael, Sarah and Grace – who later married Rachel Sasportas with whom he had two children – Leah and Samuel.

1772: Birthdate of Lewis Way, the English clergyman who in 1808 found he London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews  and who “traveled at his own expense through Holland, Germany, and Russia, in order to study the condition of the Jews, ameliorate their social and political status, and urge the Christians to missionary work among them”

1774: In New York City, “Judith Rachel Mears” and Moses Isaaks gave birth to Frances Isaacks the wife of Joseph Simson.

1786: Birthdate of Great Barrington, MA, native Lucy Avery, the wife of Albany, NY native Godfrey Lewis Rockefeller with whom she had ten children.

1789: Solomon Sodicky won a bareknuckle fight today in Herts, England. (As reported by Bob Wechsler)

1795: “Sheva, the Benevolent,” an adaptation of English playwright Richard Cumberland's “The Jew; or the Benevolent Hebrew”, the first English language play to feature a Jewish moneylender as the benevolent hero of a stage comedy had its American premiere in Philadelphia, PA.

1802(9thof Adar I, 5562): Joel Löwe the Biblical commentator “who was a follower of Moses Menedlssohn” and “biurists” – that group of commentators who helped to lay “the foundation of a critical historical study of the TaNaCh” passed away today.

1807: Marcus Hyams married Rachel Davis today at the Great Synagogue.

1809(25thof Shevat, 5569): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim  observed for the last time during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson.

1810: Philadelphia native Benjamin Jonas Phillips and Abigail Seixas gave birth to Benjamin Phillips, Jr.

1811: Birthdate of French banker and booklover Aaron Euryate Felix Solar.

1812(28th of Shevat, 5572): Rabbi Joseph David Sinzheim passed away.  According to The Jewish Encyclopedia, Sinzheim was born in 1745.  He was the son of R. Isaac Sinzheim of Treves and brother-in-law of Herz Cerfbeer and the first rabbi of Strasburg. He was the most learned and prominent member of the Assembly of Notables convened by Napoleon I. He was entrusted with task of answering the questions laid before the assembly by the imperial commissioner; a task which he accomplished in such an admirable fashion that he won the approval of the Emperor himself.

1814: Norway's independence is proclaimed, marking the ultimate end of the Kalmar Union, the union of Norway, Denmark and Sweden.  As part of its declaration of independence, Norway acquired its first constitution. “This document was relatively liberal, but in §2 it stated that the official state religion was Lutheran Protestantism and that Jews and Jesuits were forbidden from entering the kingdom. The lobbying to change this paragraph was led by the national poet, Henrik Wergeland. In 1851 the ban was indeed reversed, six years after the Wergeland's death.”

1822: Georgetown, SC native Divinah Cohen and Georgia born Isaac Minis who were married in 1803 gave birth to Frances (Fanny) Minis

1826: University College London is founded under the name University of London. As the first university to open its doors to Women, Roman Catholics and Dissenters, UCL was also the first to admit Jewish students. This traditional link of the College with the Anglo-Jewish community is very much alive today. University College London houses the largest department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies in Europe. The department is the only one in the UK to offer a full degree course and research supervision in Jewish Studies at the BA Honours, MA, MPhil and PhD levels in every subject of Hebrew and Jewish Studies - philology, history, and literature - covering virtually the entire chronological and geographical span of the Hebrew and Jewish civilization from antiquity through the Middle Ages to the modern period. Degrees can be completed on a full- or part-time basis.

1827: Benjamin Farmer married Isabella Myers today at the Great Synagogue.

1829(8thof Adar I, 5589): Sixty-seven-year-old Michael Marks, the English born son of Sarah Cohen and Henry Marks, the husband of Joachbed Issaks whom he married at Newport, RI in 1786 and with whom he had ten children passed away today in Philadlephia.

1831: In London, Amelia and Morris Harris gave birth toJacob Harris

1833: Birthdate of Auguste Scheurer-Kestner he became an ardent defender of Dreyfus going so far as to take up the case with Minister of War Jean-Baptiste Billot and President Felix Faure.

1837: Eliezer Eduard Hirschel Kann and Hyacintha Kann gave birth to Dorothea Jacobson.

1841: Hannah Weil and Benjamin Bloomingdale gave birth to Lyman Gustavus Bloomingdale the co-founder of Bloomingdale’s Department Store.

1842: Birthdate of Ludwig Barnay, “the son of the secretary of the Jewish congregation in Budapest who went on to become a leading German actor.

1846(15thof Shevat, 5606): Tu B’Shevat

1848: Birthdate of Abraham Leon Emanuel, the two-term May of Portsmouth and Trustee of Aria College in England.

1851: In Sarrebourg, Lorraine, France thirty-one-year-old Kalmus Calmann Levy (Calmann Levy) married Paulin Levy.

1852: One day after he had passed away, Moses Phillips, the husband of Esther Jacobs with whom he had had seven children was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemtery.”

1851: George Leverson married Henrietta Jonassohn today at Chester-le-Street, a town in County Durham, England.

1856: In Philadelphia, Levi Goldsmith, the German born sonof Seligmann Falcke Goldschmidt and Schönchen Hinka Alexander and his wife Henrietta Goldsmith gave birth to Eva Goldsmith who when she married Nathan Anathan became Eva Anathan, the mother of NN, Morton, Bessie and Helen Anathan.

1859: The New York Times reported that Jews of San Francisco were scheduled to hold a meeting to express their feelings over the kidnapping of “the Mortara child” and the refusal of the papal authorities to return him to his parents. [The Mortara Affair had a galvanizing effect on Jewish communities throughout the world, especially in Western Europe and the United States.  The public displays and attempts to get governments to act on behalf of Jewish victims, which is commonplace today, was almost unheard of one hundred and fifty years ago.]

1859: Heidenheimer, TX, which was named in honor Sampson Heidenheimer who along with his brother Isaac owned grocery stores in Galveston was located along the Santa Fe railway which was chartered today to join Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, with Santa Fe, New Mexico 

1861(1stof Adar, 5621): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1861: Joseph and Esther Cohen Sampson gave birth to Cornelia C. Sampson who became Cornelia C. Sampson Ehrich when she married Louis Seigman Ehrich with whom she had eight children before passing away at the age of seventy-seven after which was buried at Beth Elohim Cemetery in Georgetown, SC.

1861: Edwin Booth appeared as Shylock for the first time at The Winter Garden in New York City. According to the reviewer, “first to last, Mr. Booth preserved with thorough faithfulness the varying passions which from time to time usurped the heart of the Jew.”  In playing Shylock, Booth was following in the footsteps of his father Junius Brutus Booth who had previously this creation of Shakespeare’s pen.  

1865(15th of Sh'vat, 5625) Tu B'Shvat is observed for the last time during the Civil War.

1866: Ion Ghica who “was a valuable ally for Yiddish theater in Bucharest” and “on several occasions expressed his favorable view of the quality of acting, and even more of the technical aspects of the Yiddish theater” began serving as Prime Minister of Romania today.

1868: Birthdate of Nachman Syrkin, the Russian-born American Zionist leader.  He may have been the only American to have attended the First Zionist Congress and the Versailles Peace Conference. He was an early advocate of what became the Kibbutz Movement.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/nsyrkin.html

1868: In Savannah, GA, Mikveh Israel, a synagogue that had followed the Sephardic Minchag began its shift from the Orthodox to Reform Judaism today “with the addition of a musically-accompanied choir and the elimination of observance of the second day of festivals.”

1869: Jeannette and Aaron Schüler gave birth to Jewish German poet and playwright Else Lasker-Schüler

http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/library/Culture/12_artists/Else-Lasker-Schuler/Pages/else.aspx

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

1869: Louis Barnett, the Welch born son of Hebrew teacher Barnett Abrahams who later became a cantor in Manchester and his second wife Hannah, the headmaster of the Jews’ Free School in London” and a contributor to such publications as The Jewish Chronicle and The Jewish Encyclopedia married Fannie Rosetta Mosley with whom he had two sons including “Bertram Louis Abrahams, a physician, member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.”

1874: Birthdate of George Alexander Kohut an Hungarian-born American writer and bibliographer. He was educated at the gymnasium in Grosswardein, at the public schools in New York, at Columbia University (1893–1895), Berlin University, and the Berlin Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums (1895–97). In the year 1897 he became rabbi of the Congregation Emanu-El, Dallas, Texas, a post which he occupied for three years. In 1902 he became superintendent of the religious school of Temple Emanu-El in New York and was assistant librarian of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Kohut was the author of: The Index to the Italian words in the "Aruch,""Early Jewish Literature in America,""Sketches of Jewish Loyalty, Bravery, and Patriotism in the South American Colonies and the West Indies,""Martyrs of the Inquisition in South America," and “A Memoir of Dr. Alexander Kohut's Literary Activity," and many other monographs on historical subjects and on folklore. He also edited "Semitic Studies in Memory of Dr. Alexander Kohut". Kohut established a library of Judaica at Yale in 1915, an important collection made by his father, Alexander Kohut, and the "Kohut Endowment" to maintain and improve the "Alexander Kohut Memorial Collection". He passed away in 1933.

1874(24thof Shevat, 5634): Eleanor Ezekiel passed away in Philadelphia, PA

1874: Dr. Jacob Da Silva Solis Cohen a Sephardic Jew who served with Union forces during the Civil War before returning to Philadelphia signed the death certificate of Eleanor Ezekiel.

1875: Abraham H. Keinski, a Polish Jew, was arraigned at the Yorkville Police Court on charges that he was responsible for burning down a hat store that he owned which was located on Third Avenue. The prisoner was released after posting $5,000 in bail.

1866: In Antrim, Northern Island Anne Rosenbaum and George Betzold gave birth to Arthur Adolphus Betzold.

1874: Birthdate of Hungarian native Rabbi George Alexander Kohut, who at the age of 11 came to the United States where he studied at Columbia and the Jewish Theological Seminary, led several congregations including Congregation Emanu-El in Dallas, TX, founded the Kohut School for Boys and wrote several books including Early Jewish Literature in America, Jewish Martyrs of the Inquisition in South America and Ezra Stiles and the Jews.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1934/01/01/94480670.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1878: Birthdate of Bucharest native and CCNY graduate Meyer Bloomfield Boston University Law School trained attorney, the husband “the former Sylvia Palmer “and father of Joyce and Lincoln Bloomfield who was “a leading adviser on social and education problems and an expert in labor matters.”

https://digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/984

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/03/15/98111471.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1878(8thof Adar I, 5638): Fifty-two-year-old Bavarian born Pennsylvania lawyer Myer Strouse, who was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses and who later represented the “Molly Maguires,” a secret organization of Irish coal miners seeking to improve their working conditions, passed way today.

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S001026

1879: Birthdate of Philadelphia native and NYU Law School graduate Israel J.P. Alderman, the City Court Justice and husband of Saide Adlerman with whom he had three daughters – Marion, Leona and Elaine.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/09/04/105838521.pdf

1880(29thof Shevat, 5640): Asher Bijur passed at 4 o’clock this afternoon at his home on West 53rd Street at the age of 54.  He was born at Posen in 1825 and came to the United States when he was 20 years old.  He began his business career by manufacturing cigars and then moved into the leaf tobacco trade. He leaves behind a widow and two sons.

1881: Mr. Arbuckle, a pianist who had been engaged to play a benefit performance at the Park Theatre for the benefit of synagogue in Brooklyn explained his side of the conflict with another pianist named Joseffy.

1881: Birthdate of Louis Ginsberg.  Born in Russia, he came to the United States at the age of 22.  After working in West Virginia and Illinois, he settled in Marietta, Ohio, where he established the Producers’ Supply and Tool Company and became a pillar of the community serving as Secretary of B’Nai Israel, President of the Local Jewish War Suffers’ Society, Director of the Hebrew Immigration Society and a generous supporter of the Red Cross.

1882: Birthdate of Cincinnati, OH, native Carl J. Fechheimer, the Purdue trained engineer who settled in Milwaukee the husband of Carla Wilhemine Rich Fechheimer who left “a $150,000 bequest…to establish a chair in electrical engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.”

https://archives.lib.purdue.edu/repositories/resources?q[]=%2A&op[]=&field[]=title&from_year[]=&to_year[]=&limit=resource&filter_fields[]=subjects&filter_values[]=Electrical+engineering&sort=&filter_fields[]=published_agents&filter_values[]=Fechheimer%2C+Carl+J.

1884(15thof Shevat, 5644): Tu B’Shevat

1884: Today, twenty-three-year-old Bayonne, NJ resident Jacob Herman, the Rumanian born son of Joseph Hirsch Feige Herman who became a successful manufacturer of cloth caps and hats and trustee of Temple Emanu-El, the Roumanian Congregation of New York and the Talmud Torah of Bayonne married Rebecca Leah Vickron with whom had three sons and seven daughters.

1885: In Birmingham, England, Polish born English financer Isaac Abrahams and “his Welsh Jewish wife, Esther Isaacs gave birth Olympic competitor Sir Sidney “Solly” Solomon Abrahams, who served as the 26th Chief Justice of Ceylon and who was the brother of Harold Abrahams of “Chariots of Fire” fame.

1886: A charity ball sponsored by the Purim Association will be held this evening at the Metropolitan Opera House.

1888(29thof Shevat, 5648): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1888: Birthdate of Kiev native Gdal Salesski the cellist and composer who settled in the United States after World War I after which he was chosen to be “a member of the original N.B.C. Symphony Orchestra.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9E0DEFDC133DE23BA1575AC0A9669D946791D6CF

1888: In London, Rachel Sophia Waley and David Frederick Schloss gave birth to Frederick David Schloss who died when he was four months old.

1889(10th of Adar I, 5649): Simon Mussina, merchant, newspaper editor, and attorney passed away. [This lengthy entry is intended to provide a sense of what American Jewish life was like for those who lived outside of a few major metropolitan areas.] Born in 1805, to Zachariah and Nancy Mussina in Philadelphia, PA, Simon learned the mercantile business from his father. In 1821 Simon and his father took a business trip to Mobile and Clark County, Alabama, where Zachariah drowned while crossing a swollen creek. The family fortune of gold disappeared in the drowning, and Simon was left to support his mother and several younger brothers and sisters. He set up a mercantile store in Clark County, then moved to Mobile, where he developed one of the largest mercantile businesses in the South. Before 1836 a fire burned his savings, and that year he moved to Matagorda, Texas, with his family. He bought the Matagorda Bulletin and edited it until 1840, when he moved to Galveston, where he edited the National Banner to advertise his vast holdings of West Texas lands. When Austin became the state capital, Simon sold the Banner and returned to Matagorda to assume editorship of the Bulletin. He subsequently moved to Galveston, where he established a large drugstore. When the Mexican War started he went to Matamoros, bought land at Point Isabel on the Rio Grande, acquired controlling interest in a Matamoros newspaper, the American Flag, and developed it into one of the most popular newspapers of the time. At the end of the war he served as one of the surveyors who laid out the town of Brownsville. Mussina became a close friend of Sam Houston, who encouraged him to become the chief plaintiff against Judge John C. Watrous, charged with corrupt decisions on land claims in and about Brownsville. The litigation lasted most of Mussina's life. In 1868 he moved to Austin and began proceedings for the La Vega land grant, an eleven-league grant that embraced a part of eastern Waco. This case, too, stayed in litigation. In his sixties Mussina became a member of the State Bar of Texas and established himself as one of the most astute land attorneys in the state. From 1870 to 1873 he served as president of the board of trustees for the state blind and insane asylums and in 1871 he served as alderman for the city of Austin. Mussina never married, but he reared his father's family.” His sister, who had married a Presbyterian minister of Galveston, buried him from that church in Galveston.

1890: Isaac Jacobs was fired from his job as a janitor at Etz Chaim (The Tree of Life), a Hebrew School of which Isaac LIbermann and Hermann Rothstein are the trustees.

1890: A meeting took place at Temple Beth El this evening during which the young people discussed ways of helping the city’s poor Jews many of whom “live on the east side between 42nd and 86th streets from 5thAvenue to the River.”

1890: Among the recipients of the theatrical license fund which was distributed today was the United Hebrew Charities which received $1,500 out of total of $38,200.

1890(21stof Shevat, 5650): Solomon Eppinger passed away today.

1890: Henry Zirndorf retired from the Hebrew Union College and “was given he honorary title of D.D.”

1890: This and final day of the annular meeting of Grand Lodge, No.1 of the Independent Order of Free Sons Israel. The Jewish fraternal order’s newly elected officers are: Grand Mater – Louis B. Franklin; First Deputy Grand Master – Joseph Steiner; Grand Treasurer – Raphael Lehman; Grand Secretary – H.I. Goldsmith.

1890: In Vienna, Leopold and Emilie Kaluber Werner gave birth to Heinz Werner, the engineering student, turned composer, turned psychologist who, after being forced to leave his position at the University of Hamburg by the Nazis, came to the United states where he taught at Brooklyn College and Clark University,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27849450\

1891: Two days after he had passed away, 80-year-old Adolphus Italiener, the husband of the former Anna Catherina Embden and father of Frances Emily Italiener was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1892: In New York, the authorities expressed their concern today “over the worst outbreak of typhus…that has occurred since the organization of the Health Department.”  The outbreak was most severe among recently arrived Jewish immigrants from Russia.

1893(25thof Shevat, 5653): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalom

1893: In his lecture on the history of Morocco and Gibraltar delivered today, Professor Albert S. Bickmore reported that the population of Tangier totaled about 15,000 people of whom 4,000 were Jews.

1894: Birthdate of Isaac M Kolthoff, the Dutch born chemist who was considered by some to be the “Father of Analytical Chemistry” and who passed away in Minnesota in 1993 a month after his 99th birthday.

1894: In Russia, Judel Harkavy gave birth Fordham University trained attorney Julian Harkevy who in 1913 came to the United States where he practiced law and married Fannie Gottlieb with whom he had two children – Judith and Louise.

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/05/archives/henry-j-harkavy.html

http://proschan.net/p1813.htm

 

1894: It was reported today that the fifth and final volume or Ernest Renan’s History of the Jews “has had a unique reception in Paris.  “In an interview, Pere Henri Didon speaks tenderly of Renan, and almost approvingly of this closing work” which was published posthumously.

1894: “Diminutive Bride and Groom” published today described the nuptials of Maurice Bear and Bertha Levy, a leading member of the Birmingham, Alabama, Jewish community, both of whom are no more than four feet tall.

1894: Rabbi Joseph Silverman delivered a talk on “The Mistakes of Ingersoll About Moses” at Temple Emanu-El.

1895(17thof Shevat, 5655): Mrs. Hannah Steinberger, the wife of William Steinberger who teaches Hebrew and German, was found dead “in the miserable quarters” she occupied with her three children in a tenement on the Lower East Side.

1898:  Birthdate of Physicist Leo Szilard.  Born in Hungary, Szilard was a refugee from Hitler’s Europe who first sounded the alarm about the need to build an Atomic Bomb.  He worked with Einstein on the letter that Einstein would take to FDR in 1939.  This effort led to the Manhattan Project.

1898: During the trial of Emile Zola, Lt. Col George Picquart “described his mission to Tunis” which he made under the orders of General Leclerc “when the Dreyfus began afresh.

1899: In Richmond, VA, the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Association which had been founded in 1862 and whose members included Mrs. Milton E. Marcuse, Mrs. William Reinheimer and Mrs. Moses May was “chartered” today.

1899: Birthdate of Jeanne Adele Levylier, Parisian daughter of “an active” Jewish family and mistress of her distant cousin Leon Blum and who became Jeanne Blum when she married the French political leader while they were both imprisoned in Buchewald.

1900: The Thirty-Fourth Annual Convention of District Grand Lodge No. 1 of the Independent Order of the Free Sons of Israel took place today in New York City.

1900: Four days after he had passed away, James Joseph Schloss, the son of Adel and Joseph Schloss, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1901: It was reported today that the “world famous pacer Robert J, driven by his owner Nathan Straus” lost his latest with Edward M.

1902: Birthdate of Arne Jacobsen, Danish architect and designer.

1903: In a letter to the Grand Vizir, Herzl summarizes his proposal – the Ottomans will allow Jewish colonization in Palestine in exchange for a loan of 2 million Turkish pounds.

1903: The Zionist Commission led by Leopold Kessler and including Selig Soskin, Dr. Hillel Yaffe, and Colonel Albert Goldsmid began its tour of the area around El Arish.

1904: Birthdate of Koppel Shub Pinson the native of Postaway who came to the United States in 1907 who in 1945 “was appointed Director of Education and Culture for Jewish Displaced Persons in Germany and Austria by the Joint Distribution Committee” which enabled him to continue his work of providing aide for Holocaust survivors.

1904: One day after she had passed away, 55-year-old Rachel (Meyer) Davis, the wife of Woolf Davis and the mother of Abraham, Esther, Nancy and Lazarus Davis was buried today at the “Plashed Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1904: Florence Lowenstein, the daughter of Sophia Mendelsohn Lowenstein and Benedict Lowenstein and Louis Marshall gave birth to economist George Marshall whose interest in conservation led him to be
an early leader of both The Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club. His role in the civil rights movement led to him serving three months in prison after having been cited for Contempt for Congress when being investigated by the infamous and inappropriately named House Committee on Un-American Activities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/18/nyregion/george-marshall-96-pioneer-in-the-civil-rights-movement.html

1905: Jewish actress Katharina Hedwig Pringsheim married author Thomas Mann today.

1905: Pope Pius X publishes the encyclical Vehementer nos.Vehementer Nos was a papal encyclical by the French law of 1905 providing for the separation of church and state, it denounced the proposition that the state should be separated from the church as "a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error". It is safe to assume that what Pius really meant was that there could be no separation of state from the Catholic Church since he only recognized the validity of the Catholic Church. His view towards Jews can be seen in his response to Herzl’s 1904 request for Papal support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine Pius X responded: We are unable to favor this movement …. The Jews have not recognized our Lord; therefore, we cannot recognize the Jewish people.”

1906: “Israel’s Lost Tribes Again Found” published today examined the question of whether or not “the Japanese the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel”

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E05E4D9103EE733A25752C1A9649C946797D6CF

1906: It was reported today that Jewish refugees were among the 7,000 men being employed to shovel snow today in New York City following yesterday’s storm.

1907: One day after he had passed away, 7 year old Myer Doff, the son of Abraham Doff and Leah Goldstein was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1907: Birthdate of Fred Saidy the Los Angeles born scriptwriter and father of “chess master Anthony Saidy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/18/obituaries/fred-m-saidy-75-co-author-of-books-and-stage-musicals.html

1907: The Federation of American Zionists is scheduled to host a banquet this evening at the Vienna Hall in honor of Dr. Shmaryahu Lewin.

1908: “Blue Laws Stop Wedding” published today described how “a squad of police raided the Sharry Shomayim Synagogue” where Rabbi Levine was about to officiate at a wedding ceremony and stopped the proceedings because it was Sunday, and under “Lord’s Day Act,” no work was to be done on a Sunday and then took down the names of those at the wedding so the Attorney General can prosecute them for violating the law.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1908/02/11/104717269.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1909: In Wilkes-Barre, PA, Franz Mankiewicz and Johanna Blumeau gave birth to Oscar winning director and screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the brother of screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz and the uncle of Kenney campaign manager Frank Mankiewicz.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-joseph-mankiewicz-1471740.html

1909: Birthdate of Leslie Lazarus Paisner the London born solicitor who founded Paisner & Co a forerunner of the international law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner and whose Jewish communal activities included serving “on the Board of Governors of the Central Synagogue and a member of the Coucnil of the United Synagogue.”

1909: Birthdate of Max Baer, the heavyweight fighter who knocked out Max Schmeling, the German champion and symbol of Hitler's Germany, in 1933.  Baer had a Mogen David sown on his shorts.  However, he may really not have been Jewish.  According to some, his mother was a Christian and his father was only "a nominal Jew."  For more on the subject of Max Baer, and Jews in sports, you might want to read Ellis Island to Ebbets Field.

1910: The Turkish Council of State approves statutes, which will allow a Jewish bank to be opened in Salonica.

1910 (2nd of Adar I, 5670): Moshe Leib Lilienblum, Russian born scholar, teacher and philosopher passed away. Following the pogroms that began in 1881, Lilienblum took the unusual stance, for an Orthodox rabbi, of supporting the settlement of Palestine by the Jewish people as the only realistic course of action if Jews were ever to be safe.  This is yet another example of Zionism that pre-dated Herzl.

1911(13th of Shevat, 5671): Baron Albert von Rothschild of the Austrian branch of the House of Rothschild passed away at age 66.

1912(23rdof Shevat, 5672): Fifty-six year old Washington Seligman, the “son of James Seligman who founded the banking firm of J&W Seligiman & Co and brother of Mrs. Benjamin Guggenhieim and Jefferson and De Witt Seligman” took his own life today.  He left a note saying “I am tired of being sick all my life” – a reference to the illnesses that he has confronted over the last quarter of a century.

1912: Two days after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held today in New York for “impresario” Theodore David “Ted” Marks, the grandson of New Orleans merchant and philanthropist Isadore Newman after which his body will be taken to his native Louisiana for burial.

1913: “For Equal Rights for Jews” published today described the passage in Albany, NY, of the “concurrent resolution…expressing sympathy to the oppressed Jews of Rumania and call on the Federal Government to use its power to end that the Treaty of Berlin, assuring the equal rights of Jews, be lived up to by Romania.”

1914(15thof Shevat, 5674): Tu B’Shevat celebrated for the last time before the start of World War I which opened a four decades of world-wide cataclysm

1914: Menucha and R’Shneur Zalman gave birth to Rabbi Yisroel Shimon Kalmanson.

http://crownheights.info/something-jewish/41854/remembering-rabbi-yisroel-shimon-kalmanson-98/

1914: Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel completed his first term as Post-Master General in the cabinet of Prime Minister Asquith.

1914: Twenty-three year old Barney Sedran led the Utica Indians in the championship game of the New York State (basketball) League.

1914: In Swansea, Louis Levy and Have Levy (née Rubenstein) gave birth to writer, critic and art teacher Mervyn Levy.

http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s10-LEVY-MON-1914.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-mervyn-levy-1347766.html

1915: In New York, Edward Cahn and Martha Esther Cahn, the daughter of Rachel and Moses Isaac Binion, gave birth to Joshua Binion Cahn

1915: As of today the American Jewish Relief Committee has collected $468,792.05

1915: “The prediction that the present war will do away with anti-Semitism altogether in Germany and the assurance that by ‘lessening the power of the nobility and democratizing the people’ it already has removed most of the anti-Semitic prejudices are expressed in a statement given by the German Ambassador, Count von Bernstorff, to Dr. S. Melamed of the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung published in that paper” today.

1915: The Red Cross Fund of which Jacob H. Schiff is the treasurer received an additional $162.50 today bringing the total collections to $457,583.86.

1915: “The Jews in Serbia” published today contains the assessment by Mabel Grouitch, the American born wife of Serbian diplomat Dr. Slavo Grouitch of the Jewish condition in Serbia which she says “is the one country in the world next to England and America where people of the Hebrew race enjoy the fullest of religious and civil rights.

1916: Emma Goldman was arrested for lecturing on birth control

1916: Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel completed his second term as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.  His replacement would be Edwin Samuel Montagu, another prominent member of the Anglo-Jewish community.

1916: In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bernard Wetzler set aside “fifty thousand crowns ($10,000) to erect an institute for the study of the technical aspects of problems related to food based on scientific discoveries in chemistry, biology and physiology.”

1917: At the Halkett Hotel in Jersey (UK) W.A.R. Hill and Catherine Jacobs gave birth to their daughter Elizabeth Anneette.

1917: Four hundred and fifty-three delegates attended The Workman’s Convention on Jewish rights meeting at the Forwards Building voted 141 to 127 in favor of a resolution reaffirming their loyalty to the United States but expressing opposition to the United States “becoming involved in the European War.”

1917: Today, Chaim Weizman was elected president of the English Zionist Federation (EZF) and Joseph Cowen and Leopold Kessler began serving on the executive committee.

1917: In Chicago, Natalie Marcus and Ascher “Otto” Schechtel, a jewelry store manager gave birth to Sidney Schechtel who gained fame as author Sidney Shelton wjp won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in1947 for writing The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, a Tony Award in1959 for his musical Redhead, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for his work on I Dream of Jeannie, an NBC sitcom. He passed away in 2007 at the age of 89.

1917: At the Halkett Hotel, Jersey, Catherine Jacobs and W.A.R. Hill gave birth to their daughter Elizabeth Annette.

1918: Ronald Storrs, the British governor of Jerusalem, approved a plan put forth by British army engineers designed to alleviate the water shortage in Jerusalem.

1918: Abraham “Shiplacoff and his 9 socialist colleagues in the New York State Assembl refused to support a resolution of admiration for Abraham Lincoln because it included language expressing gratitude for American soldiers fighting in France.

1918: The Joint Distribution Committee of the American Funds for Jewish War Sufferers met today in the home of its chairman Felix M. Warburg where Dr. Boris D. Bogen and Max Senior, the committee’s representatives who had just returned from a mission to Europe told the committee members “of the arrangements which have been made for the distribution of funds raised in the United for the relief” of Jews in Europe – a task that has been complicated by the fact the United States has gone from the status of neutral to a belligerent on the side of the Allies.

1918: It was reported today that “the Maskel-el-Dol” a relief society on the east side of New York City, “intends to distribute about 75,000 pounds of the mutton to the poor” prior to Passover “including shipments which the society will make to various” camps where Jewish soldiers are stationed.

1919: Clarence Eiseman of Washington, DC, married Jennie Ruth Rice, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Rice of Chicago, Illinois.

1919: Frank Meyer, the husband of the late Helen Meyer, and father of Mrs. Ruth K. Marks and Will, Flora, Sam and Frank Meyer is scheduled to be laid to rest this morning at Shomar Hadash Cemetery.

1920: Birthdate of King Farouk I, the last king of Egypt, who led Egypt into its ill-fated war with Israel in 1948.  There are those who say that if Egypt had refused to join the other Arab states, there would never have been a war in 1948.  When Farouk was ousted in 1952, the Israelis thought the new reform government would want to end hostilities.  Unfortunately, the leader of the “Colonel’s Revolt,” Nasser, made destroying Israel the rallying cry for his Pan-Arab Movement.

1921: On Friday evening. Congregation Shaaray Tefila is scheduled to begin a celebration of the 75th anniversary of its incorporation.

1923: In New Orleans, LA, Balance Sternberger Benjamin and Edward Bernard Benjamin gave birth to Yale graduate and WW II Army Air Corps veteran Edward Bernard Benjamin, Jr. the Editor-in-Chief of the Tulane Law Review and member of Coif who was the husband of “the former Adelaide Wisdom” and “a well-known author and lecturer in the Tax and Estate Planning fields.”

1923: In the Bronx, Robert Kattleson, an electrician and the former Bertha Garfunkle, the owner of a corset shop, gave birth to street photographer and Photo League member Seymour Kattleston. (As reported by Daniel Slotnik)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/obituaries/sy-kattelson-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1924: It was reported today that according to Julius J. Dukas, the President of the Hebrew Free Loan Society “out of the $15,000,000 lent in small sums to half a million persons by the Hebrew Free Loan Society in a period of years, the losses have never exceeded one-fifth of 1 per cent.”

1925: University of Pennsylvania trained physician Myer Solis-Cohen the Philadelphia born son Jacob da Silva and Miriam (Binswanger) Solis-Cohen and a Major in the Medical Reserve Corps of the United States Army who served in France, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical College and the Woman’s College of Pennsylvania, an author of more than sixty medical journals who was a member of Mikve Israel and Temple Beth-El in Philadelphia married Lotta Teschner today.

1925: The White Star liner Olympic with Chiam Weizmann and Bernard Rosenblatt on board, arrived today from Southampton and Cherbourg twenty-four hours late because of the fog off the American coast.

1926: It was reported today that nearly a thousand people had been turned away from a speech given by Chairm Nachman Bialik, because all four thousand seats at the Mecca Temple had been sold at event designed to raise funds for the United Palestine Appeal.

1927(10th of Adar): Fifty-eight-year-old Composer Joel Engel passed away. Born at Berdyansk in 1868 he moved from Berlin to Palestine where he became “"the true founding father of the modern renascence of Jewish music."

http://yiddishsong.wordpress.com/tag/joel-engel/

1928: The II Olympic Winter Games where skater Irving Jaffee “had the best time in the Olympic 10,000 before the ice softened” opened today at St. Mortiz.

1929: Dedication of the Nathan and Lina Straus Health and Welfare Center in Jerusalem.

1929: “Pope Pius XI signs a Concordat and Lateran Treaty with fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini. The pope agrees to discriminate against Jews and Protestants while gaining the assurance that Catholicism would remain the sole and official religion of Italy.”  (Pious was, if anything, not consistent in this matter.  Later he would condemn fascism and racism and support efforts to rescue Jews.)

 1929: Sixty-six-year-old Frank Putnam Flint, the California Senator who has represented “a committee which petitioned for the commutation of Leo M. Frank’s death sentence” passed away today.

1930: “Opposition to any cooperation between rabbis and butchers to maintain kosher laws was expressed” today “in a resolution adopted at the second day’s session of the fifteenth annual convention of the Assembly of Hebrew Orthodox Rabbis of American and Canada meeting…in Brooklyn.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/02/12/96046920.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1931: The “first legally constituted Jewish National Assembly” continued to meet for a second day at the Nathan Straus Health Centre in Jerusalem.

1932: Birthdate of pianist Jerome Lowenthal.

1933(15thof Shevat, 5693): Parashat Beshalach; Tu B’Shevat

1933(15thof Shevat, 5693):  Conductor and composer Gabriel Hines, the 1914 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and “musical director at Swarthmore College” passed away today in Philadelphia.

https://archives.upenn.edu/collections/finding-aid/upt50h663#biographical-note

 1933: The national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) together with the Stahlhelm and the Agricultural League today once again formed a united Kampffront Schwarz-Weiß-Rot ("Struggle Front Black-White-Red" named after the colours of the German Empire) in an attempt to counter the Nazis which had outsmarted them during their march to power.

1934: “Following four hours of heated debate, the national executive committee of the ZOA voted at a meeting” today “to shelve the proposal to convene a World Jewish Congress in the spring of this year.

1934: Today, Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels “declared that the elimination of Jews from the production of films was essential in order to clear the way for talented young Germans.” (JTA)

1935: Birthdate of Emanuel Zisman the native of Bulgaria who made Aliyah in 1949 and returned to his native land as Israel’s Ambassador to Bulgaria in 2000.

1936: Eighty-four-year-old William “Coin” Harvey author of the novel A Tale of Two Nations, “the most notable example of Populist anti-Semitism” passed away today.

1936: In Washington, DC, Aaron Jacobson and Victoria Peyser gave birth to William Peyser “Bill” Jacobson the husband of Barbara Johnson and the father of Michael Peyser Jacobson and Stacy Ann Jacobson.

1936: Richard Tucker married Sarah Perelmuth, the only daughter of Levi and Perelmuth who were also the parents of Yakob Perelemtuh who would gain fame as Jan Peerce.

1936: “According to well-informed” sources at least 150 Catholics “including priests and layman” were arrested today by the secret police in “long-simmering conflict between the National Socialist State and the Catholic Church” over who will have control over nation’s youth and young people.

1936: Today, “at noon, Adolf Hitler assembled 25,000 of his oldest stormtroop comrades in the Lustgarten in Berlin” as part of national celebration marking “the third anniversary of National Socialism’s accession to power in 1933.”

1936: “Charles David Isaacson, the writer on music, director of thousands of free concerts in the metropolitan area and former opera impresario and radio director” who has been ill for several weeks “as a result of complications arising from an affection was transferred from Park West Hospital” to Bellevue thanks to the intervention of Mayor La Guardia – an intervention would not save his life since he passed away four days later.

1937: “Anti-Semitic rioting broke out anew in Warsaw and Vilna Universities today, causing numerous casualties among Jewish students.”

1937: A month before his 18th birthday, Bernard Abramofsky, a resident of Brooklyn who wanted to go to Spain to fight with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, received his passport today.

1937: George Gershwin performed his Piano Concerto in F in a special concert of his music with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of French maestro Pierre Monteux” during which he “suffered coordination problems and blackouts during the performance” which were symptomatic of the brain tumor that would claim his life a few months later in June of 1937.

1938: As the German government “denied…that there had been disorders or disturbances of a civilian or military nature in Germany,” Dr. Joseph Goebbels had a meeting of foreign journalist at the Propaganda Ministry where he described these reports as “a grotesque atrocity campaign organized by Jewish circles in Poland.”

1938: “Rumania’s new dictatorship” led by Patriarch Miron Cristea, the Premier who is anti-Semitic “lost no time in getting into its stride with measures of absolutism.”

1938: In Danzig, “the police confiscated copies of fourteen newspapers” including “four Polish-Jewish newspapers” “for spreading the most nonsensical reports about Germany.”

1938: The Palestine Post reported that an agreement was signed in Geneva providing for the status of German refugees who were to be furnished with travel documents, resembling Nansen passports, allowing them to work in the countries where they had been living for more than five years.

1938: The Palestine Post published a special Reporter's Report, a reproduction of a broadcast made on the Palestine Radio by Gershon Agron, the founder and editor of this newspaper, on the tragic situation of Jews in Romania where an authoritarian, anti-Semitic regime was deeply entrenched and had the solid backing of the king.

1939: Birthdate of Gerald “Gerry” Goffin the American lyricist and husband of Carole King.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/arts/music/gerry-goffin-prolific-pop-songwriter-is-dead-at-75.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&_r=0

1939:  Physicist Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Fritisch published a paper on nuclear fission in the hour “Nature.”  Her work contributed to the development of the atomic bomb. Meitner was the daughter of a Viennese Jewish family.

1940: Among those attending the American Jewish Congress Conference which is scheduled to begin today is Rabbi M.L. Perlzweig, “the head of the North Western London Reform Synagogue.

1940: Norma Shapiro, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Shapiro of the Bronx married Dr. Samuel Slovak today.

1940: Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Schoenfeld of New York City announced the marriage of their daughter Lillian “to Dr. Aron Horn, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Gustav Horn of Tel Aviv.

1940: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Religion of Abraham Lincoln” at Temple Emanu-El

1940: James Waterman Wise, a research consultant of the Council Against Intolerance in America is scheduled to deliver an address at the Free Synagogue worshipping at Carnegie Hall on “Coughlin or Lincoln – America Must Choose.”

1941: Birthdate of Avraham Hirchson, an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Likud and Kadima between 1981 and 1984, and again from 1992 until 2009. “He also held the posts of Minister of Communications, Minister of Finance and Minister of Tourism. He resigned following allegations of corruption and was ultimately convicted of stealing close to 2 million shekels from the National Workers Labor Federation while he was its chairman.”

1941: A pitched-street battle took placed between the NSB, a pro-Nazi Dutch movement and Jewish self-defense groups on the Waterloopein, a square in the center of Amsterdam.

1942 (24th of Shevat, 5702): Flight Lieutenant Michael Weizmann of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, the 25-year-old son of Chaim Weizmann, was shot down over the Bay of Biscay.  His body was never found.

1943(6thof Adar I, 5703): Sixty-seven-year-old Bess Houdini, the widow of Harry Houdini suffered a heart attack and passed away today in Needles, CA while aboard an eastbound train traveling from Los Angeles to New York City.

1943: The Nazis deported 123 children under the age of twelve without their parents from Paris to the chambers of Birkenau.

1944(17thof Shevat, 5704): Thirty-eight-year-old German national Leo Speyer, the son of Flora and Isaac Alfred Speier, the husband of Elize Nanette “Nanny” Speyer and the father of Isaac Alfred Speyer was murdered at Auschwitz today.

1944: “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” the movie version of the novel by the same name featuring an Academy Award Nominated original score by Dimitri Tiomkin was released in the United States today.

1945: A funeral service is scheduled to be held this evening for 98-year old Daniel Harris who served in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War and is “said to have been the lost survivor of the 8,000 Jewish ldiers who fought on the Union Side” in his home in Brooklyn.

1945: Edmund I. Kaufman, the president of the American Committee for the Weizmann Scientific Institute announced that five hundred thousand dollars has been donated toward the establishment of the institute in Palestine, which will help meet the goal of raising two million dollars.

1946: Dr. Jonas S.Friedenwald, who has just returned from Palestine, today told “the Medical Reference Board physician’s advisory group for the American Friends of the Hebrew University and Hadassah” that the proposed medical school to be built on Mt. Scopus “will provide integrated work in preventative medicine and public health” and that it will fill the void of there not being a “first class medical education center in Europe east of London.”

1947: Following the insistence of The American League for a Free Palestine, today “for the first time in the history of the State of Maryland negroes were permitted to attend the legitimate theatre without discrimination…when the Maryland Theatre sold orchestra and box seats to ‘A Flag is Born’ to anyone who asked for them without reference to race or color.”

1947: Birthdate of Derek Victor Shulman, the native of Glasgow, the lead vocalist for the band Gentile Giant which included his brothers Phil and Ray, who became a Scottish musician and singer, multi-instrumentalist, and record executive.

1947: Birthdate of Toronto native Abigail Hoffman, the medal winning track and field star who was Canada's flag-bearer at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal

1948: Birthdate of Dr. Arthur Gould Schatzkin, “an epidemiologist whose investigations into the connections between diet and cancer yielded new analytic tools and led to the discovery that eating fiber did not prevent the recurrence of polyps in the colon.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)

1948(1st of Adar I, 5708): Fifty year old Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein whose family had joined the Russian Orthodox Church passed away.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/where-begin-sergei-eisenstein

1948: In Los Angeles, actress and television director Ruth (Brandman) Barnard and photographer Bruno Bernard, a refugee from Hitler’s German gave birth to Susan Lynn Bernard who gained fame as cult-favorite actress, model and promoter of her father’s photographic collection. (As reported by Katherine Q. Seeley)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/obituaries/susan-bernard-dies.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1948(1st of Adar I, 5708): Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs GCB GCMG QC passed away, Born in 1855, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland, he was an “Australian judge and politician, the third Chief Justice of Australia, ninth Governor-General of Australia and the first born in Australia to occupy that post. He is the only person ever to have held both positions of Chief Justice of Australia and Governor-General of Australia. He also was an anti-Zionist.

1948: Oral arguments in the case of U.S. v Paramount Pictures, Inc, which had begun on February 9 came to a close.

1949(12th of Shevat, 5709): Eighty-seven-year-old Malinda Hirsh, the Alabama born daughter of Morris and Hannah Weiss, the wife of Benjamin Walter Hirsh and the mother of Bessie, Benjamin and Morris Hirsh passed away in Memphis, TN.

1950: After more than a month, “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” written by Sammy Fain and with lyrics by Irving Kahal was still the number on song on the Cash Box Best Sellers List.

1952(15thof Shevat, 5712): Tu B’Shevat is observed for the last time under the Presidency of Harry S. Truman.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that 19 persons were detained in Tel Aviv in an intense hunt for culprits responsible for the bombing of the Soviet Legation.

1953: The Soviet Union broke diplomatic relations with Israel. 

1953:  President Eisenhower refused clemency appeal for convicted spies, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg

1954: Simon Attali, is a self-educated person who achieved success in perfumery in Algiers and his wife Fernande Abécassis gave birth to Jacques Attali’s sister, Fabienne

1958: Seventy-year-old Alfred Ernest Jones a British neurologist who was the first the first English-speaking practitioner of psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud’s biographer passed away. In 1919 he found marital bliss when he wed Katherine Jokl “a Jewish economics graduate from Moravia” who had been a classmate of Freud’s daughters.

1958(21stof Shevat, 5718): Terrorists killed a resident of moshav Yanov who was on his way to Kfar Yona, in the Sharon area.

1959: Three days after he had passed away, funeral services are schedule to be held for sixty-year-old Pulitzer Prize winning “New York Timesman” Meyer Berger, the husband of “Mrs. Mae Gamsu Berger.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/02/09/80760429.pdf

1960: “Once More, with Feeling!” a comedy directed and produced by Stanley Donen, written by Harvey Kurnitz and co-starring Gregory Ratoff was released today in the United Kingdom.

1960(13th of Shevat, 5720): Victor Klemperer passed away.  Born in 1881, he “was a businessman, journalist and eventually a Professor of Literature, specializing in the French Enlightenment at the Technische Universität Dresden. His diaries detailing his life, successively, in the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and in the German Democratic Republic were published in 1995.”

1961: The trial of Adolf Eichmann began in Jerusalem.

1962: In Madison, WI, the former Pamela Green and Joseph Edward Baldwin gave birth Senator Tammy Suzanne Green Baldwin whose maternal grandfather was Jewish biochemist David E. Green.

1963: “Hot Spot,” a Stephen Sondheim musical began tryouts today at the National Theatre in Washington, DC.

1963(17thof Shevat, 5723): Sixty-nine-year-old Charles Leon Strauss, the St. Louis born son of Flora Isaacs Strauss and “major portrait photographer Julius Caesar Strauss” passed away today in Houston, TX.

1964: “The Passion of Josef D” a play written and directed by Paddy Chayefsky starring Luther Adler and Peter Falk and featuring Milt Kamen in his Broadway debut opened in New York today.

1968: Border fighting broke out between Israeli and Jordanian forces.

1968: “Charlie Bubbles” a British comedy filmed by cinematographer Peter Suschitzky was released in the United States today.

1968: “Funeral services were held today” in New York for 75-year-old Dr. William F. Rosenblum who had served Temple Israel for the thirty years and was active in interfaith efforts designed to improve relations between Christians in the years following WW II.

1970: In a sign of how the “poor food of eastern European Jewish immigrants” has become chic and trendy, bagels, seedless light rye and “a new marbled bread combining twists of black and regular pumpernickels are among 113 different varieties of breads, from nine Old-World-Style bakers, at Bloomingdale's Bread Basket, which opens today in the delicacies department.

1973(9thof Adar I, 5733): Eighty-four-year-old David Lawrence, the conservative syndicated columnist and editor of U.S. New and World Report passed away today in Sarasota, FL.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1973/02/12/90917039.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1975: “Shampoo” a comedy co-starring Goldie Hawn and Lee Grant with music by Paul Simon was released in the United States today.

1975: When asked in Parliament by a National Party MP if he supported Enthoven's liberal positions, Harry Schwarz replied "I make no secret of it. I am my brother's keeper".

1976: “Gable and Lombard” a biopic featuring Allen Garfield, Red Buttons and Melanie Mayron was released today in New York City.

1976 (10th of Adar I, 5736): Actor Lee J Cobb passed away at the age of 64.  Some of Cobb’s most famous roles were in 12 Angry Men, On the Waterfrontand Death of a Salesman.

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

1976: Adlene Harrison became the first Jewish female mayor of a major American city when she was appointed mayor of Dallas.

1978: “Lemon Popsicle” a comedy “co-written and directed by Boaz Davidson” was released in Israel today.

1979: Under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi is swept from power with the success of the Islamic Revolution. Khomeini. When Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi held power, Iran was the world's biggest buyer of Israeli arms. The Islamic fundamentalist government which succeeded the Shah militantly damned Zionism up and down and hung a prominent Iranian Jew for "spying for Israel." In 1980, however, when the Iraq-Iran war began, Iranian representatives met in Paris with Israel's deputy defense minister and worked out a "Jews for arms" deal. Iran permitted Jews to emigrate and Israel sold Iran ammunition and spare parts for Chieftain Tanks and US-made F-4 Phantom aircraft. Channeled through a private Israeli arms dealer, this particular agreement appropriately ended in 1984, when Iran was slow in paying its bills.  At the same time, under the Ayatollah and his successors, Iran would arm and train Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.  Nothing is ever straight forward in the swirl of the Middle East.

1979: “They're Playing Our Song,’ “a musical with a book by Neil Simon, lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager, and music by Marvin Hamlisch’ opened on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre.

1980: Moisei Tonkonogy, who had been “denied an exit visa due to previous service in the Red Army as a private” was arrested today and later “sentenced to a year in custody ‘for parasitism.’”

1981: Birthdate of Michael Andrew “Mike” Seidman who played tight end for UCLA, the Carolina Panthers and Indianapolis Colts.

1982: After a premiere in San Francisco, and a preview in New York City, “One from the Heart” featuring Allen Garfield was released in the United States today.

1982: “Several Moscow activists were summoned to the KGB, police, or CPSU Central Committee and warned that they must halt Hebrew studies.”

1983: “Music From Tin Pan Alley” published today reviews the 92nd Street Y’s “Lyrics and Lyricists” presentation which includes a look at some “unknown” composers including Albert von Tilzer.

1986:  Having been released from imprisonment by the USSR, Anatoly Sharansky leaves the country and begins his journey to Israel.

1988(22nd of Shevat, 5748): Rabbi Israel Raphael Margolies, “who spoke out on a variety of social issues and was a longtime civil rights advocate, died of complications from hypoglycemia” at his home in Teaneck, N.J. at the age of 72. Rabbi Margolies grew up in the Williamsburg and Crown Heights sections of Brooklyn and graduated from the Jewish Institute of Religion in Manhattan, a seminary for the education of conservative and reform rabbis He served at Temple Emanu-el in Engelwood, N.J., from 1937 until 1953 and at Beth Am The People's Temple in Manhattan, from 1953 to 1981 From his pulpit, Rabbi Margolies frequently called for equality for minority group members and for women. He was a supporter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and once marched alongside him in a civil rights parade in Englewood Rabbi Margolies was often quoted for his opposition to the Vietnam War and for his belief in peaceful protest, and he was a founding member of the New Jersey chapter of SANE, a Washington-based organization that opposes nuclear weapons.”

1989 (6 Adar I):Rabbi Shmaryahu Gurary ("Rashag") passed away. He was born in 1898. His father, a wealthy businessman and erudite scholar, was a leading Chassid of the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneersohn. In 1921, Rabbi Shmaryahu wed Chanah Schneersohn,the oldest daughter of the 6th Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn.When Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak passed away in 1950, there were those who saw Rabbi Shmaryahu -- an accomplished Chassidic scholar and the elder of the Rebbe's two surviving sons-in-law -- as the natural candidate to head of the movement; but when the younger son-in-law, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, was chosen as Rebbe, Rabbi Shmaryahu became his devoted Chassid. Rabbi Shmaryahu served as the executive director of Tomchei Temimim, the world-wide Lubavitch yeshiva system -- a task entrusted to him by his father-in-law -- until his passing on the 6th of Adar I in 1989.

1990: In Mobile, Alabama, members of Ahava Chesed dedicated their new synagogue on Regents Way. (Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life)

1991(27thof Shevat, 5751): Eighty-two-year-old cultural anthropologist and holder of a Ph.D. from Columbia, Ruth Landes the New York born daughter of Anna Grossman and Joseph Schlossberg, a co-founder of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and a mentee of Franz Boas passed away leaving no family members to mourn her demise.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/landes-ruth-schlossberg

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/24/obituaries/ruth-landes-is-dead-anthropologist-was-82.html

1991: Israel's Defense Minister, Moshe Arens, in a hastily arranged one-day visit to Washington, told President Bush today that Israel was suffering heavy "destruction" from Iraqi missile attacks and that its willingness to refrain from retaliating was wearing thin.

1991: This evening Iraq fired a scud aimed at Tel Aviv. It was the 12thattack against Israel since the start of the Persian Gulf War.  Debris from the attack appeared to fall harmlessly in an unpopulated area causing no injuries or property damage.

1993: The Oslo Talks, which were being conducted in strictest secrecy, were resumed for another two days.  Yossi Beilin sent Dr. Ron Pundak and Dr. Yair Hirschfeld  “to a second round of talks at Sarpsbourg, Norway.

1994(30thof Shevat, 5754): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1994: Sheldon Silver assumed office as the 119th Speaker of the New York State Assembly.

1995(11thof Adar I, 5755): Eighty-eight-year-old Irving Loeb Goldberg, the U.T. and Harvard Law School grad who was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit by Lyndon Johnson passed away today.

http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/nGetInfo?jid=876&cid=999&ctype=na&instate=na

2000: “The End of the Affair” the movie version of the novel by the same name featuring Jason Isaacs and with music by Michael Nyman was released in the United Kingdom today two days after premiering in the United States.

2001(17th of Shevat, 5761): Screenwriter, author and producer Sy Gomberg passed away at the age of 82. Born in New York City, he received an Oscar Nomination in 1951 for the script he wrote for “When Willie Comes Marching Home.” He also wrote and produced “The Law and Mr. Jones,” a legal sit-com in the 1960’s. Gomberg organized a Hollywood contingent to march with Dr. Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights protests. 

2001: The Chicago Tribune published “Holocaust Suit, Book Claim IBM Aided Nazis.”

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-02-11/news/0102110388_1_ibm-technology-carol-makovich-edwin-black

2001: In “IBM Technology Aided Holocaust, Author Alleges” published today Michael Dobbs describes the efforts of Edwin Black to connect IBM to the Final Solution in IBM and the Holocaust

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cia-drugs_archives/message/18358

2002: Israel attacked Palestinian security headquarters in Gaza City in response to unprecedented Palestinian rocket fire and a shooting attack on Israeli civilians.

2002: French premiere of The Heidi Chronicles a made-for-television film by Wendy Wasserstein based on her play of the same name.

2003:After a three-year legal fight, a Paris court today rejected a lawsuit by French human rights advocates and Holocaust survivors who sued Yahoo for one symbolic euro” because they accused Yahoo of having condoned war crimes when it sold Nazi paraphernalia, including flags with swastikas, on its auction pages” which is forbidden under French Law because “the court said that Yahoo did not seek to ''justify war crimes and crimes against humanity'' when it sold the items on its Web site.”

2004: In what may be an explanation for the poverty suffered by Palestinians, “French prosecutors reveal that they had opened a money-laundering probe into the transfers of millions of dollars to accounts held by Suha Arafat, the wife of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. It had been discovered that nearly $1.27 million had been transferred with some regularity from Switzerland to Mrs. Arafat's accounts in Paris.”

2005:  The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that playwright Arthur Miller had passed away on February 10 at the age of 89.  The Gazette, along with several other newspapers, was able to report on the life of this famous dramatist without once mentioning that he was Jewish.  This despite the fact that one of Miller's first dramatic works dealt with the topic of anti-Semitism and that Marilyn Monroe converted to Judaism when she married Miller.  (They always mention the Monroe part.)

2005:“The Merchant of Venice” directed by Michael Radford who “believed that Shylock was Shakespeare's first great tragic hero” and which “begins with text and a montage of how the Jewish community is abused by the Christian population” was released today in the Italy weeks after opening in the United Kingdom and the United States.

2005: Founding of Autism Speaks an “advocacy group that sponsors autism research and conducts awareness and outreach activites” whose “national celebrity spokesperson is Didi Cohn whose son “was diagnosed with autism.”

2006(13th of Shevat, 5766): Parashat Beshalach

2006: Seventy-seven-year-old Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who “has been in a comma since suffering a major stroke” in January “underwent emergency surgery on his large intestine today at Ein Kerem Hospital and emerged in stable condition

2007: The synagogue of the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva “the first to be entirely renovated by the Jewish community of Poland since World War II, was reopened” today.

2007: Woodwind player Ned Rothenberg, whose newest release is “Inner Diaspora,” on the Tzadik label, performs at the New Art Center in Newtonville, Massachusetts.

2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section features a review of Arianna Franklin’sA Mistress of the Art of Death, a novel set in Medieval Cambridge where the Jews are accused of killing Christian children and an Italian female doctor must discover the truth.

2007: “Wonder Wheel” recorded by the Klexmatics competed for a Grammy for best world of music album.

2007: “Flawless” a crime movie directed by Michael Radford premiered in Germany today.

2007: The Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism is scheduled to convene today with an address by the Foreign Minister in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem.

2008 (5th of Adar I, 5768): Eighty-year-old Tom Lantos the only Holocaust Survivor to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives passed away. (As reported by David Herszenhorn)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/washington/12lantos.html?_r=0

2008: The 12th New York Sephardic Jewish Festival continues with showings of “Mortgage” (Mashkanta)followed by the New York premiere of “Black Over White.”

2009: Tel Aviv born magician Uri Geller “purchased the uninhabited 100-meter-by-50-meter Lamb Island off the eastern coast of Scotland, previously known for its witch trials, and beaches that Robert Louis Stevenson is said to have described in his novel Treasure Island”

2009: The Department of Academic Affairs offers an exclusive seminar with Dr. Asher Susser, past director and senior researcher at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University.

2009: Gaza terrorists fired three mortar shells at the Eshkol region

 2009:Jewish students at York University in Toronto were forced to take refuge in the Hillel office tonight as anti-Israel protesters banged on the glass doors, chanting, "Die, bitch, go back to Israel," and "Die, Jew, get the hell off campus."

2010: The first class of the David Project which is designed to educate and equip people with knowledge about the Arab/Israeli conflict is scheduled to begin at Beit Shalom Synagogue, the Jewish Congregation of Maui.

2010: An exhibition entitled “Our Struggle: Responding to Mein Kampf” opened today at the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco.

2010: The 14th New York Jewish Sephardic Festival is scheduled to come to an end with New York premiere of “Children of the Bible,” a film about the “complex situations facing Ethiopian-Israeli youth.”

2010: Ihad Khatib, the IDF officer who was stabbed to death yesterday by a member of the Palestinian Authority, was laid to rest in his Druze community of Maghar today. Khatib, 28, a non-commissioned logistics officer in the elite Kfir Brigade, was attacked at Tapuach Junction, south of Nablus. Hundreds of people attended the funereal, including Major Tomer Levi, Khatib's direct commander, as well as the commander of the Kfir Brigade, Colonel Oren Abman.

2010: After a media blackout was lifted today, the defense establishment revealed that the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) had foiled a Hamas attempt to kidnap an IDF soldier in December of 2009 when five Hamas men were arrested while trying to infiltrate Israel from Egypt, carrying explosives, a gun, a silencer and $15,000 in counterfeit bills, according to the announcement. 

2011(7th of Adar I, 5771): Ninety-two-year-old Roy Gussow, an abstract sculptor whose polished stainless-steel works with swooping contours gleam in public squares and corporate spaces, died today in Queens. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/arts/design/21gussow.html

2011: Release date for “Just Go with It” with a screenplay co-authored by Allan Loeb starring Alan Sandler who also co-produced this remake I.A.L. Diamond’s “Cactus Flower.”

2011: “Surviving Hitler: A Love Story” and “Ingelore” are two documentaries scheduled to be shown at The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: “Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment” is scheduled to be shown at the 21stAnnual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2011: Temple Judah is scheduled to host a Musical Shabbat in Cedar Rapids, IA.

2011: “It was announced today that Michael Rosenbaum would return to ‘Smallville’ for the two hour-series finale which” was broadcast later in the year.

2011: In initial statements, Jewish groups congratulated Egyptians on ousting Hosni Mubarak today and expressed hope for continued peace with Israel.

 2011: “Never Let Me Go” a movie based on the novel of the same name co-starring Andrew Garfield was released in the United Kingdom today.

2011: The last in a series of three concerts featuring the works of John Cage and Morton Feldman took place at Carnegie Hall. They were a unique duo – a Jew from New York a California transplant who dabbled in all sorts of eastern religions.

2011: U.S. premiere of ‘Just Go With It” a comedy produced by and starring Adam Sandler based on I.A.L. Diamond and Abe Burrows’ “Cactus Flower” with a script by Allan Loeb.

2012: In Olney, MD, Shaare Tefila Congregation is scheduled to host a Community Erev Shira in Celebration of Tu B’Shevat.

2012: The Anat Cohen Quartet, featuring works by Israeli woodwind virtuoso Anat Cohen, is scheduled to make its debut performance at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre in New York City.

2012: IAF aircraft struck four terror targets in the Gaza Strip tonight, in response to a Kassam rocket that was fired from Gaza a few hours earlier at the Eskol Council area.

 2012(18thof Shevat, 5772): Medal of Courage winner Aharon Davidi a sabra who began fighting for Israel in IDF and after retiring as a General in 1970 held several different positions including serving as the first director of Sar-El (Service for Israel) passed away today.

2012: More than fifty years after premiering at Cannes,“The Connection,” the film version of the play written by Jack Gelber opened in Berlin.

2012: As the body count rises in Syria, a group of activists held a candlelight vigil tonight outside the Russian embassy in Tel Aviv to protest Moscow’s defense of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.

2013: Temple Shaaray Tefila is scheduled to host “The Feminine Face of Spirituality” which will explore essays and poetry that will help to “reveal the feminine voice (bat kol) embedded in Jewish traction.” 

2013: Speaking in the Knesset for the first time since becoming an MK, Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid lambasted the ultra-Orthodox community, saying the country’s Haredi minority can’t hold the rest of the country hostage.

2013(1stof Adar, 5773): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2013: Four veterans of the battle for Jerusalem ensured a monthly female prayer service, complete with prayer shawls, went ahead undisturbed at the Western Wall for the first time in 24 years. Then the former fighters departed, and the women were arrested (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)

2014: The Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning at Temple Emanu-El is scheduled another lecture by Dr. Daniel Rynhold on “Rav Kook and the Heroism of the Holy.

2014: “Aftermath” and “Brave Miss World” are scheduled to be shown at the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture’s 24th annual Jewish Film Festival.

2014: The Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “Masterpieces & Curiosities: A Medieval Aquamanile.

2014: Today Natalie Portman was in Jerusalem’s Nahlaot neighborhood directed a scene from “A Tale of Love and Darkness” which is an adaptation of “an autobiographical novel by Amos Oz.”

2014: “The president of the largest Reform Jewish organization in the world welcomed MK David Rotem’s full apology for reportedly saying the movement is “not Jewish.”

2014: “The filming of “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” based on the book by Israeli author Amos Oz, began today in the Nahalot neighborhood. Portman, who appears as Oz’s mother, is making her debut as a director.” (As reported by JTA)

2014: “The Jerusalem District Court granted Hadassah hospitals’ request for a stay of proceedings today, temporarily protecting them from creditors, and appointed two trustees to formulate a rehabilitation plan for the hospitals, which are currently struggling with a deficit of NIS 1.7 billion ($482 million.” (As reported by Spencer Ho)

2014: “Scientists from the Technion and Hebrew University are this year’s winners of the Rappaport Prize for Excellence in Biomedical Research, given out by the Technion’s Rappaport Institute. Prof. Yair Reisner of the Weizmann Institute of Science will be recognized for his work in bone marrow transplant therapy, while Dr. Yaakov Nahmias of Hebrew University will receive the award for identifying a grapefruit molecule that can block viruses.” (As reported by David Shamah)

2014: “The Israeli Air Force attacked targets in the Gaza Strip overnight after two rockets launched from the Hamas-controlled territory landed in the southern part of the country earlier in the day.”

2015(22ndof Shevat, 5775): Seventy-three-year-old CBS newsman Robert David “Bob” Simon died today as the result of a car crash.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/12/nyregion/bob-simon-cbs-correspondent-is-killed-in-manhattan-car-crash.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

 

2015: Gail Sherman, Professor of English and Humanities at Reed College, is scheduled to lead a discussion about Nathan Englander's powerful short story, What We Talk About when We Talk About Anne Frank at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education

2015: Today, in an interview with JTA, Sammy Ghozlan, founder of the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, and a former police commissioner, spoke out against President Obama’s assertion that the attack on a Kosher market in Paris was “random” rather than “anti-Semitic.”

2015: Lucinda Franks, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize and the widow of Robert Morgenthau, is scheduled to speak about TIMELESS: Love, Morgenthau and Me

2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Joseph Bau; From Schindler’s List to Syria.”

http://us9.campaign-archive1.com/?u=9ee686c09238e3a1fb7447ee7&id=f9acfe517d&e=9870a7a862

2015: In London, Ben Quash, Professor of Christianity and the Arts at King's College, London, is scheduled to speak about Love in the context of the current exhibition “Your Jewish Museum: Love.”

2016: The Jewish Museum is scheduled to host an Adult Studio Workshop where attendees will “explore a range of avant-garde aesthetics and photographic techniques inspired by the exhibition ‘The Power of Pictures: Early Soviet Photography, Early Soviet Film.’”

2016: The world of astronomy was electrified today when scientist said “they have finally glimpsed the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time, which Albert Einstein predicted a century ago.”

2016: Police in Columbus, Ohio shot and killed a man who stormed into an Israeli-owned restaurant wielding a machete and randomly attacking people as they sat unsuspectingly at their dinner tables this evening

2016: “U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might meet in Washington next month and complete a deal on future defense aid to Israel that has been dogged by disagreement, the U.S. ambassador to Israel said today.”

2016: “The Law” a film that “chronicles the 1974-1975 efforts of Simone Veil, French Minister of Health appointed by President Valéry Giscard d’Estang, to legalize abortion in France” is scheduled to be shown for the first time in San Diego today at the 26th Annual Jewish Film Festival.

2017(15thof Shevat, 5777): Shabbat Shirah and Tu B’Shevat; Parashat Beshalach

2017(15thof Shevat, 5777): Eight-seven-year-old Harvey Lichtenstein who devoted much of his life to making the Brooklyn Academy of Music into a major cultural force passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/arts/music/harvey-lichtenstein-dead-led-bam.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2017(15thof Shevat, 5777): Ninety-three-year-old Warsaw native Abba Tour, the Technion engineering student who helped start the IDF and was the “engineer of choice” for such archeticural giants as Leo Kahn, passed away today.

https://archpaper.com/2017/02/abba-tor-engineer-obituary/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/nyregion/abba-tor-dead.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017: Today, The Wall Street Journaldescribed Gary Cohn as an "economic-policy powerhouse" and The New York Times“called him Trump's "go-to figure on matters related to jobs, business and growth".

2017: Following Shabbat morning services and a luncheon, the chaplains of the Oxford University Jewish Society are scheduled to lead a Walking Tour of Jewish Oxford and a “short learning session on Tu B’Shevat” as part of Parents’ Shabbat.

2017: “Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill: A Musical Voyage,” “a joyous and moving celebration of Kurt Weill, a cantor's son and one of the most extraordinary composers of the twentieth century” is scheduled to open in New York.

2018:”The Jewish Silk, a tour of the Bukharin Community in Rego Park that will provide an opportunity to “learn about the Jewish community that lived for over 2000 years on the Silk Road in cities such as Samarkand, Dunshabe and Tashkent” and that now has “resettled in large diasporic enclaves in Queens and Israel, where  community members continue to preserve unique Central Asian traditions while creating one of New York's most vibrant contemporary Jewish communities is scheduled to begin this morning at the Bukharin Jewish Community Center.

2018: JW3 is scheduled to present the initial London screening of the award winning film “Scaffolding” today

2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a screening of “Besa: The Promise” which “tells the story of the Muslim men and women of Albania who saved the lives of nearly 2,000 Jews during World War II.”

2018: “Rosenwald: The Remarkable Story of a Jewish Partnership with African American Communities, is scheduled to be screened at the Wayne Theatre in Waynesboro, VA.

2019: A free trip to Israel paid for by PJ Library and PJ Our Way for “published authors interested in bring Israel and Jewish ideas into their writing” is scheduled to begin today.

2019: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Jewish Oscars,” the second in the Jewish American Hit Parade series where attendees can hear “the works of Alfred Newman, Randy Newman, Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Alan Menken, Marvin Hamlisch, Barbra Streisand and Stephen Sondheim performed by Broadway and nightclub singers.”

2019: Sixty-nine-year-old Gonen Segev who served as energy minister in “Yitzhak Rabin’s cabinet in the 1990’s” and who “will spend 11 years behind bars for telling Iranian agents about sensitive Israeli sites and personnel” is scheduled to appear is scheduled to appear before a judge today before “being put behind bars.”

2020: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to co-host “bestselling author Matthew Goodman as he discusses his critically acclaimed new book, The City Game: Triumph, Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team, with Clyde Haberman, CCNY 1966, former City College basketball co-captain, Ron Nadell, CCNY ’51 and former sports editor of The Campus, Mort Sheinman CCNY ’54.”

2020: In Berkeley, CA is scheduled to host “Anti-Jewish Violence in French Algeria,” during which “UC Berkeley Center for Jewish Studies Professor Joshua Cole of U. of Michigan lectures on violence faced by Jews in colonial Algeria from 1830 to 1962.

2020: In San Francisco, CA, Adath Israel is scheduled to host “Educator-author Rabbi Zev Leff as he lectures on how to find the time to be Jewish.

2020: As part of the Boston Israeli Film Festival, the West Newton Cinema is scheduled to host a screening of “Breaking Bread.”

2020: In Cincinnati, OH, the 2020 Jewish and Israeli Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Leona.”

2020: Joshua Teplitsky, the assistant professor of history at Stony Brook University, is scheduled to his new book Prince of the Press: How One Collector Built History’s Most Enduring and Remarkable Jewish Library which tells the tale about “David Oppenheim, the chief rabbi of Prague in the early 18thcentury.”

2021: The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to co-host a presentation by “world-renowned Holocaust Historian Christopher Browning, author of Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, as he “provides the shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews, and how themes in Ordinary Men continue to resonate today.”

2021: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host Mike Harris, author of Mike Nichols: A Life as he talks about how a seven-year-old boy who had escaped from Berlin just before Kristallnacht became “a king of comedy, stage and film.”

2021: Shir Chadash, the newest program of the Cantors Assembly, hosted by Abbie Straus and Laurie Akers, is scheduled to begin today via Zoom.

2021: Temple Emanuel of Newton is scheduled to present a screening of “A Father’s Kaddish.”

2021: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present a lecture by Robin Magid as part of “Family History Today: Finding Your Eastern European Jewish Family on JRI-Poland.org.”

2021: Based on yesterday’s report by the BBC “the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in London” is one of the least safe places to be during the Pandemic since “a new study has found that the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in London boasts one of the highest COVID-19 infection rates in the world.”

2021: The Berkley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies is scheduled to present “acclaimed Israeli author Etgar Keret, in conversation with GTU’s Deena Aranoff, as he talks about his recent and future projects, his approaches to storytelling and his penchant for the absurd.”

2021: The first session, online, of the BBYO International Convention is scheduled to begin today.

 

 


This Day, February 12, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 12

 553: Byzantine Emperor Justinian ordered the public reading of the Greek translation to Parshat Hashavuah (weekly Torah portion) on Shabbat morning and prohibited Rabbis from giving drashot on the Torah portion.

1049: Beginning of the papacy of Leo IX, one of the major players in the creation of the Schism of 1054 that would result in the official split of Christianity into the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.  Over the next several centuries, Jewish communities would get caught in the cross-fire between these completing Christian sects resulting in death and destruction.  One example was the Great Cossack Uprising that would pit Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians against their Polish Catholic masters.  The worst example is World War I which started, in part, when the Tsar saw himself as the protector of the Serbs who were Orthodox against the Austrians who were Roman Catholics.

1130: Innocent II was elected Pope. He presided over the Second Council of the Latern which did not issue any canons aimed at the Jews.  But it did issue one that forbade Christians from lending money for interest which would have a long-range impact on the Jews.

1209: Pope Innocent III confirmed the election of Rodrigo Jimenez as archbishop of Toledo who, when he became “vexed the prosperity of the Jews in his diocese” led a “mob” to the Synagogue where “he dispersed” the Jews and “then began to plunder the houses of the unbelivers..”

1481: The first Auto de Fe took place in Seville, Spain. Six Morrano men and six women were burned for allegedly practicing Judaism. These practices could include not eating pig - for whatever reason, washing hands before prayer, changing clothes on the Sabbath, etc. Over two thousand Inquisitions are said to have taken place in the Iberian Peninsula and its colonies. The number of victims in Spain alone is estimated at 39,912.

1486: Over 750 people would be mandated to participate on this very cold day as prisoners in an auto-de-fe in Toledo. They were forced to march barefooted and bareheaded through the streets. Many people came from the countryside to howl and scorn at the prisoners. Among some of the many stipulations of punishment, was the fining of 1/5 of their property, to which the funds went to battle the Muslims in Granada, as well as public self-flagellation over six consecutive Fridays.

1541: Santiago, Chile is founded by Pedro de Valdivia. One of those accompanying de Valdivia was a Converso named Rodrigo de Orgonos. Any “Jews” settling in the lands of the Inquisition would have been Conversos so lineage can be a difficult thing to establish.

1663: Birthdate of Cotton Mather the famous Puritan minister who wanted the Jews to convert to his brand of Christianity but who was not an anti-Semite willing to use secular power to bring this about.

1689: The Declaration of Rights which had been drawn by the Convention Parliament was finalized today.  The Declaration created the legal fiction that would protect the rights of Protestants in England and pave the way for William and Mary to ascend to the throne.  The latter event was in the best interest of England’s fledgling Jewish population.

1699: A committee consisting of António Gomes Serra, Menasseh Mendes, Alfonso Rodrigues, Manuel Nunez Miranda, Andrea Lopez, and Pontaleão Rodriguez signed a contract with Joseph Avis, a Quaker, for the construction of a building that would serve as a new synagogue in London at a cost of £2,750. Avis would later decline to collect his fee, on the ground that it was wrong to profit from building a house of God. In 1698 Rabbi David Nieto had taken charge of a congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews or Sephardim who met in a small synagogue in Creechurch Lane. A significant growth in the Jewish community had made it necessary to find larger quarters for the congregation.  The result of this quest was this new construction which would eventually take place on a tract of land at Plough Yard in a section called Bevis Marks; hence the synagogue came to be known as the Bevis Marks Congreaton.

1753: Birthdate Bernhard Eskeles, the Viennese son-in-law of Daniel Itzig who established the banking house of Arnstein and Eskeles with his brother-in-law Nathan Arnstein and who provided financial guidance to “Emperors Joseph II and Francis II.”

1768: In Tuscany Emperor Leopold I and Maria Luisa of Spain gave birth to Frederick II, the last of the Holy Roman Emperors and Fredrick I, the first of the Emperors of Austria.

1737: Prince Carl Alexander, the duke of Württemberg, declared in a decree today "that the privy councillor of finance Joseph Süß Oppenheimer was a faithful servant of his prince and of the state, and was intent in every way upon the welfare of both, for which he deserved the thanks of all. Since instead he was persecuted by envy and ill-will to such an extent that attempts were even made to bring him into disfavor with the duke, the latter accorded him his especial protection and expressly forbade the continuation of such attacks." This was the Duke’s way of protecting Oppenheimer.  The protection would end with the Duke’s death.

1759: Birthdate of Bavria native Gabriel Hirsch Benda, the husband of Sara Asscher with whom he had five children.

1762: In London, Hirschel Levin, the Chief Rabbi of London and his wife gave birth to Solomon Hirschell who served as Chief Rabbi of Great Britain from 1802 until his death in 1842.

https://www.oztorah.com/2010/06/solomon-hirschel-high-priest-of-the-jews/#.WoDD3UxFx9A

1771: Gustavus III, during whose reign the Jews of Stockholm invited Levi Hirsch to serve as their rabbi, ascended to the Kingship of Sweden today.

1779: In Charleston, SC, Rachel Andrews and Myer Moses, gave birth to Myer Moses, the husband of Esther Phillips with whom he had five children.

1786: In Savannah, GA, Sarah Sheftall and Abraham de Lyon gave birth to Isaac de Lyon.

1787: In Ichenchausen, Babette and Gerson Gerstel gave birth to Rafael Gerstle, the husband of Esther Gutmann with whom he had thirteen children.

1797(16thof Shevat, 5557): Rachel Judah the daughter of Baruch Juda and wife of Manuel Josephson, the “sutler” who had supplied the Continental Army during the American Revolution and who “was given the honor of extending the congratulations of four Jewish communities to George Washington on his assumption of the presidency in 1790” whom she had married in 1759 passed away today in Philadelphia, the city to which her husband had moved the family from New York during the Revolution.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/josephson-manuel

1798(26thof Shevat, 5558): Johann Jacob Rabe, who translated both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds into German passed away today.

1800: David Barnard married Rebecca Davids at Portsea, Hampshire, UK.

1804: German philosopher Immanuel Kant passed away. Like many other philosophers of the Enlightenment Kant had less than positive things to say about the Jews. While this should not be the full measure of the man he did “note in a lecture on practical philosophy, ‘Every coward is a liar; Jews for example, not only in business, but also in common life.’"  In “German Idealism and the Jew, Michael Mack, a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, argues there is a deep affinity between modern anti-Semitism and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, perhaps the greatest thinker to emerge from the Enlightenment.”  According to Mack, “for Kant, motives could only be good if they were not aimed at any material benefit. He saw Judaism as an inherently materialist religion, based upon a quid pro quo between God and His chosen people. In order to fully define the formal structures of his philosophy (autonomy, reason, morality and freedom), Kant almost unconsciously fantasized about the Jews as it’s opposite. He posited Judaism as an abstract principle that does nothing else but, paradoxically, desire the consumption of material goods.”

1806: Phillip Jacobs married Rosetta Hyams today at the Great Synagogue.

1808: Birthdate of French native Emily Ascoli, the wife of Abraham Israel Brandon and mother of Joshua and Emanuel Brandon.

1809: Birthdate of Charles Darwin, the naturalist who developed The Theory of Evolution.  For the most part Jewish leaders have been able to harmonize Darwin with the Bible. One of the exceptions is Rabbi Moshe Feinstein who opposed the theory of evolution and issued rulings forbidding the reading of text on evolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_evolution#Jewish_views_in_reaction_to_Darwin

1809: Birthdate of Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States. Jews made up a comparatively miniscule part of the American population during the Age of Lincoln.  When Lincoln was born there were approximately seven million people living the United States of whom approximately 2,000 were Jewish. By 1850, when Lincoln’s political career was extremely active, there were approximately 50,000 Jews living among a population of over 23 million Americans.  In Illinois, the Jewish population could not have numbered much more than 200, most of whom lived in Illinois.  By the time Lincoln was elected President, there were approximately 150,000 Jews living among 31,000,000 Americans.  Of the 1,700,000 people living in “the Land of Lincoln,” approximately 1,500 were Jewish.  Given these comparatively miniscule numbers, there was a surprising close connection between Lincoln and the Jewish people on both a personal and communal basis. At the personal level, Abraham Jonas of Quincy, Illinois, the brother of Joseph Jonas, the first Jewish settler of Cincinnati was one of Lincoln’s closest friends and earliest supporters.  According to the City of Quincy Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, Jonas arrived in Quincy I838 and was the town’s first Jewish citizen. The friendship between Jonas and Lincoln began that same year and was to last for the next quarter of a century.  Their personal bond was cemented by a politics when the two served together in the Illinois legislature during the 1840’s. Jonas and Lincoln were early members of the Republican Party and Jonas “handled arrangements for his friend’s arrival for the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate in Quincy.”  Jonas and his law partner, Henry Asbury, may have been the first two to “float” Lincoln’s name as Presidential candidate.  When Horace Greely, the powerful New York newspaper publisher spoke in Quincy in December of 1858, the two proposed that the eastern powerbroker might want to consider Lincoln as candidate for the top spot on the Republican ticket in 1860.  Jonas did go to the Republican convention in 1860 where “he worked the floor to help secure the nomination” for his long time personal and political friend. Louis Naphtali Dembitz a twenty-eight year old lawyer, civic leader and prominent member of the Louisville, KY. Jewish community was one of the three delegates who placed Lincoln’s name in nomination at the Republican Convention held in Chicago. Dembitz was the uncle of Louis Dembitz Brandeis who was four at the time of the convention and who would become the first Jewish Justice to sit on the Supreme Court.   Abraham Kohn, City Clerk of Chicago, was another Jew who was an early supporter of Lincoln and who worked at the Republican Convention to secure his nomination.  After Lincoln’s nomination, Kohn gave him a flag that included the following verse from the Book of Joshua, “Be strong and of good courage; be not affrighted, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” Other early, ardent supporters of Lincoln included the philanthropist Moses Dropsie, founder of Dropsie College and Sigmund Kaufman a German-Jewish newspaper publisher in New York “who worked furiously and successfully to deliver the German immigrant vote to Lincoln.”  Kaufman also served as one of the electors for the State of New York and as such helped turn Lincoln’s popular vote lead into an Electoral College victory.  In 1863, following the Battle of Chancellorsville, Lincoln visited the hospital bed of the mortally wounded hero Lt. Col Leopold Newman, and personally presented him with his commission of appointment as a brigadier general in the Union Army. At the communal level, Lincoln was the first President to make it possible for Rabbis to serve as military chaplains. He signed the 1862 Act of Congress which changed the law that had previously barred all but Christian clergymen from being chaplains. Lincoln showed his support for Jews in the face of European anti-Semitism.  He appointed a Jew to serve as Counsel in Zurich as a way of letting the Swiss know that the United States government would not tolerate discrimination against American Jews doing business in Switzerland and that the United States Government did not look favorably on the discriminatory treatment of Swiss citizens who were Jewish. But Lincoln’s most famous moment in dealing with the Jews came when he countermanded Grant’s infamous Order #11. The vast majority of Jews were loyal supporters of the Union even in those dark days when the Copperheads and their allies called upon Lincoln to “let our wayward sisters depart in peace.”  Of course, Lincoln came to be viewed as an American Moses who led the African-American Slaves to freedom. Ironically, Lincoln was killed during Pesach, the Jewish holiday of freedom that provided so much of the liberation motif for the work of the Great Emancipator.

1815: Birthdate of Hermann Ottomar Friedrich Goedsche the anti-Semitic author who wrote under the pseudonym Sir. John Retcliffe.

1818: Bernardo O'Higgins signs the Independence of Chile near Concepción. According to the Virtual Jewis Library“The Inquisition was abolished with the establishment of Chilean independence in 1818. Many Jewish citizens or descendants of Converso families were involved in the country's struggle for independence, including General Jose Miguel Carrera, who traced his lineage back to Diego Garcia de Caceres. Carrera was nominated to be the first president of Chile, although Manuel Blanco Encalada actually became the Chilean leader. Diego Portales, father of the 1833 Chilean constitution, also claimed descent from Caceres. Many non-Jewish leaders of the revolution had close ties with Jewish individuals. The first president of the Republic of Chile, Bernard O'Higgins, spent time in the home of Juan Albano Peyreyra, possibly of Jewish ancestry.”

1821: Raphael Picard married Rose Bumsell in Strasbourg today.

1821: In Demmesldorf, Germany, Deborah Cohen and Solomon Stix gave birth to Louis Stix who married Yetta Stix in Cincinnati, OH after which they had ten children before he finally passed away in NYC.

1824: Birthdate of Czech native Gustav Freund, the husband of Rosa Fruend

1826: Birthdate of German Chemist Moritz Traube whose work was sought after by many leading scientists of the time and whose marriage to Bertha Moll in 1855 produced chemist Wilhelm Traube and mineralogist Hermann Traube.

1827(15thof Shevat, 5587): Tu B’Shevat

1828: Birthdate of Nottinghamsire native Nahum Salaman, the husband of Amelia Bertram with whom he had six children.

1829: Birthdate of Leonce Cohen, the Parisian musician who received the "Prix de Rome," in 1851 “and became soon afterward one of the violinists at the Thétre Italien at Paris.”

1837(8thof Adar I, 5597): Fifty-year old Karl Ludwig Börne the German author and political philosopher who had changed his name from Lion Baruch when he became a Lutheran, passed away today.

1839: Birthdate of Leopold Loeb who would pass away in Morgan City, LA in 1921.

1842: Birthdate of Henri Jean Baptiste Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu author Les Juifs et l'Antisémitisme; Israël chez les Nationswhich was translated as Israel Among the Nations: A study of the Jews and Antisemitism by Frances Hellman and published by Putnam andL’Antisémitisme in 1897.

1845: Julia Isaacs and Amsterdam native Joseph Myers and gave birth to Sarah Myers.

1849: An article published in Wetumpka Daily Standard was critical of Judge Solomon Heydefeldt's plan to put an end to "unlimited slave immigration" in Alabama.  Heydefeldt was no abolitionist. He was afraid that "the state would become impoverished through the uncontrolled 'dumping' of slaves in Alabama."  His critic claimed that the Judge's plan would cause the price of slaves to soar and would deprive "the poor who hoped ... to become slave owners of any expectation of economic advancement.

1849: One day after she had passed away, 80 year old Elizabeth Solomons , the wife of David Solomons was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery

1852: Austen Henry Layard, the archeologist who excavated Nimrud and Niniveh as described in Discoveries at Nineveh began serving as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for the first time.

1853: Birthdate of Alois Eisler, the husband of Emilie Eisler.

1855: Birthdate of Yankev P. Adler, a native of the Russian Empire who, as Jacob Adler would gain fame as an actor and a star of the Yiddish Theatre in Odessa, London and New York City.

1855: Michigan State University was established. According to recent figures, MSU has 3,000 Jewish undergrads out of a total of 36,000 students and 500 Jewish grad students out of a total of 10,000 graduate students.  MSU offers approximately 25 Jewish Studies courses as well as a Major in Jewish Studies. The university offers a study program in Israel and is home to a Hillel chapter.

1860(19thof Shevat, 5620): Seventy-one-year-old Isaac Baer Levinsohn, the Russian leader of the Haskalah whose seminal work was Bet Yehuda published in 1837, passed away today.

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Levinzon_Yitshak_Ber

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Levinsohn,+Isaac+Baer,+1788-1860

1862: After having been arrested and imprisoned at Warsaw  in November, 1861 for activities construed supportive of the Polish Revolution, Talmudist Marcus Jastrow was released because he was a Prussian after which he was deported.

1863: Birthdate of Gatchell Isaacs, the native of Poland brought to London in his infancy who became the rabbi of the Hackney and East London Synagogue in 1890 while also serving as the Chaplain of the Hackney Company of the Jewish Lads’ Brigade and as a teacher for twenty-one years at his alma mater, The Jews’ Free School.

1864: During the Civil War, "the Confederate Congress voted in secret to create "bodies for the capture destruction of the enemies' property."  Officially known as the Bureau of Special and Secret Service, the unit was funded by the Department of State which was headed by Judah P. Benjamin who now "took on the most dangerous assignment Jefferson Davis had given him, that of spymaster."

1865: In Cassel Germany, Edward and Hanna (Speigelberg) Wise gave birth to Columbia trained attorney Edmond E. Wise, the general counsel of R.H. Macy and Company and leader of the Jewish Community was can be seen by his support of several organizations including the Y.M.H.A. , United Hebrew Charities and the Educational Alliance who was the husband of Irene Kohns.

1870: Women gained the right to vote in Utah Territory. At this time, the Watters family, Ichel and his new bride Augusta were active members of the community.  According to one account, “Augusta thrived on the challenge of frontier life, becoming a hardy pioneer and eventually a mainstay of the Salt Lake City Jewish Community.

1873(15thof Shevat, 5633): Tu B’Shevat

1873: Birthdate of Yale, B.C. native and McGill trained physician Sidney Solomon Oppenheimer who settled in Spokane, WA where he was a member of B’nai B’rith.

1874: The Young Ladies’ Charitable Union is scheduled to host a fund raiser at the Lyceum Theatre for the Home for Aged Hebrews.

1876: In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Herman and Emilie (Gross) Kornfeld gave birth to University of Cincinnati and HUC graduate the husband of Josephine Blumenthal who went from teaching at McGill University to a long-time rabbinic career that began with his service at Congregation in Pine Bluff, AR and that included service as minister plenipotentiary to Persia during the Presidency of Warren Harding.

1877: It was reported today that the Ottoman government “will not press its condition regarding the treatment of the Jews of Serbia.”  [Editor’s note: This has little to do with the Jews and everything to do with the Great Powers jockeying for control over the Ottoman Empire.  In an attempt to discredit the Constantinople Conference at which the great powers began slicing up the European portions of the empire, the Turks announced the adoption of a constitution that included a declaration of equal rights for all religious minorities in the Islamic Empire.  This brief statement, which proved to be true, was the Porte’s way of saying that the Christians of Serbia would not have to grant equal rights to the Jews which the Sultan hoped would be a way of guaranteeing Serbian loyalty.]

1879: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Carrie Davidson, “a founder of the National Women’s League of the United Synagogue of America,” “the editor for 24 years of The Women’s League Outlook” and the wife of “Dr. Israel Davidson, the Professor of Medieval Hebrew Literature at JTS” with whom she raised two daughter.

1880(30th of Shevat, 5640): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1882: It was reported today that the Times of London has published an article written by a mysterious Russian woman known as “O.K.” in tone that offers an apology for the treatment of the Jews living in Russia. The veracity of this author is questionable since she also extols the virtues of Siberia which she described as a land of promise which will soon be over-run by Russian emigrants seeking to live there.

1883: Birthdate of Ludwig Stössel, the German actor who returned to his native Austria when Hitler came to power and after the Anschluss was imprisoned before finally being able to escape to London before settling in Hollywood where he re-kindled his career. 

1883: The United States State Department sought Adolphus Simeon Solomons’ advice and assistance regarding the distribution of charity funds to Americans in Ottoman Palestine. Solomons was as a Sephardic Jew born in New York in 1826 who moved to Washington, DC where he made several influential friends and was important enough to have been offered the position of Governor of the District of Columbia by President U.S. Grant.  Solomons did not accept the offer.

1884(16th of Shevat,5664): German author and religious reformer Aaron Bernstein, the nephew of Edward Bernstein passed away

1884: Birthdate of Max Beckmann, German-born post-modernist painter.

https://www.moma.org/artists/429

1884: In Ohio, Lazard Kahn and his wife “Coralie Alice Lemann of Donaldsonville, LA” gave birth to Bertrand B Kahn who became a vice president in the Estate Stove Company which had been founded by his father and who was the brother of Milton, Lucian and Jerome Kahn. (As reported by Jim Blount)

https://sites.google.com/a/lanepl.org/jbcols/2000/december

1885: Birthdate of Philadelphia, PA native and West Point graduate Samuel Edelman who was an active member of the Alliance Israelite Unverselle.

1885: In Eisenheim, Bavaria, Karoline and Leopold (Lehmann) Schloss gave birth to Emil Schloss.

1885: Birthdate of vicious anti-Semite Julius Streicher, the Nazi leader who created such publications as Der Strumer

1886: Ha-Yom, the first Hebrew daily newspaper was published in St. Petersburg.

1886: Birthdate of Russian native Temple University Professor of English Literature Dr. Hayim Fineman who at the age of one came to the United States where he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, married “former Queena Pollock, with whom he had three sons – Daniel, David and Gabriel – and became an active leader in the Zionist movement as can be seen by his role in founding American Paole Zion and writing What is Paole Zionism?

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/fineman-hayyim

1886: Birthdate of Yampol native Solomon Pincasovich, the product of the Slobodka Yeshivan and the Odessa Conservatoire who became the cantor of the New Synagogue in Manchester, UK in 1921 and a lecturer at Jews College in 1947.

1886: Birthdate of Louis C. Wallach, the New York native who boxed under the name Leach Cross and was known as “The Fighting Dentist” due to the dental degree he earned from New York University.

1890: A summary of the activities of the United Hebrew Charities for the month of January published today described the aid given to 963 families containing 4.4042 members for the month.

1890: “Among the East Side Hebrew Poor” published today described a meeting at Temple Beth-El attended by a large number of young Jews as well as prominent leaders including Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler and Mark Ash of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association where “plans were formulated “to create an organization to aid the Jews living “on the east side between 42nd and 86thStreets and from Fifth Avenue to the River.”

1890: The Independent Order of the Free Sons of Judah was organized today with headquarters in New York City.

1890: It was reported today that Rudolph Grossman, the assistant Rabbi at Temple Beth El has been elected president of newly formed organization designed to bring aid to the poor Jews of the East Side from their wealthier coreligionists.  Charles S. August has been elected Secretary.

1891: In Albany, NY, Hyman and Lillian (Gallup) Boostein gave birth to Albany Law School trained attorney and husband of Edith Friedman who rose to become a New York State Supreme Court Judge.

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/05/09/archives/isadore-bookstein-exstate-justice-82.html

 

1892: As New York public health officials start to deal with an outbreak of typhus it was reported that some of the first victims were fifty-seven Jewish men, women and children who had been “driven out of Russia” who finally made their way to Marseilles where they board the SS Massilia.  They arrived in New York after twenty-nine days at sea.  These public health officials connect the outbreak of typhus with conditions aboard the ship and debilitated conditions of the immigrant passengers.

1892: In San Francisco, Joseph and Lisa (Jocheles) Rabinowitz gave birth to the Hastings College of Law trained attorney Leo J. Rabinowitz who was the “first campaign director of the Jewish National Welfare Fund of San Francisco and a member of the Z.O.A.

1893: It was reported today that at the University of Pennsylvania, Professor Jastrow has begun teaching a special course in Hebrew designed primarily for (Protestant) clergyman.  (Editor’s note: Professor Jastrow is Morris Jastrow, Jr., who the librarian-in-chief at the school and the son of Marcus Jastrow, the rabbi at Philadelphia’s Rodeph Shalom.)

1893: “Priests and Pigeons” published today described a humorous episode during a Sunday school lesson being taught to youngsters about Haggai and Zachariah.

 1893: “Interesting News From Other Schools And Colleges” published today described newly created Harvard Semitic Museum which included Hebrew “rolls of the law and rolls of the prophets” as well as “some translation of the Hebrew Bible into Arabic.

1893: The committee formed by the Central Conference of American Rabbis “to arrange the seconding part of the Union Prayer book containing the services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur” met for the first time today in Chicago.

1894: Sixty-four-year-old musical leader and reputed anti-Semite Hans von Bulow passed away today

1894: “Ingersoll Praised and Censured” published today summarized the disagreement that Rabbi Joseph Silverman has with agnostic Robert Ingersoll over the latter’s views on Moses. Silverman does not blame Ingersoll for his mischaracterization of the Jewish sage because “The spirit of the Hebrew Scriptures can never be translated.  A man, to read the Bible rightly must hot only understand the language in which it was written, but he must know the customs and traits of the people.”

1895: The Purim Association will sponsor a performance of Verdi’s “Falstaff” at the Metropolitan Opera House. The associated has been sponsored an event like this each at Purim time since 1868.  Since 1874 each of these events has raised on the average of $15,000 in net proceeds which go to a variety of charities including Mt. Sinai Hospital, the Montefiore Home and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. 

1895: The district of B’nai B’rth that includes the states of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia opened its annual convention in Atlanta, GA today.

1896: Herzl writes a "Literary Testament".

1897: During today’s dedication of the new building belong to the Hebrew Technical Institute; Joseph B. Bloomingdale presented the key to the building to James H. Hoffman, President of the Institute.

1897: In the course of his talk at the dedication exercise of the Hebrew Technical Institute, Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt explained that he had a duty to see to it that Herr Alwardt, the German anti-Semite could speak publicly and that he was fully protected by the police.  To that end, Roosevelt “selected a cordon of forty officers to preserve the peace, and they were all Hebrews, and what is more, they did preserve the peace.” (Editor’s Note: This year, an episode of “Blue Bloods” a television show featuring Tom Sellick as the NYC Police Commissioner drew on this event to resolve part of it plot line.)

1897: Birthdate of Louis "Lepke" Buchalter. Known as "Czar Lepke," Buchalter was a product of the Brooklyn underworld.  During the 1920's he formed the notorious gang called "Murder Incorporated."  The gang specialized in the protection racket.  They began with furriers and leather goods and eventually branched out into the entire garment industry.  During the 1930's, Murder Incorporated was being a small fortune by the movie studios in Hollywood.  Lepke's two decade long reign of terror came to an end when Thomas Dewey went after a variety of gangsters during the late 1930's and 1940's.  Lepke was convicted of murder and electrocuted in March, 1944.  Yes, there were other Jewish gangsters.  But they were a small part of the Jewish population and their criminal activities were never a source of pride.

1897: It was reported today that Secretary Edward T. Devine has said that “The Department of Charities finds no material increase of destitution this year…except among the” Jews because so many of them worked in the garment making industry which is in a slump.  The Department sends all of the “destitute” Jews to the United Hebrew Charities which takes care of them.  (These comments came during a debate about the advisability of providing free food to the poor, something Devine and others opposed)

1897: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil of Temple Emanu-El delivered the opening prayer at today’s dedication of the new building that will be part of the Hebrew Technical Institute on Stuyvesant Street.

1898: Today, Edgard Demange, one of the lawyers who had represented in Alfred Dreyfus in his trials, testified at trial of Emil Zola, stating that the law had been violated in 1894, but that without political will, light could not be shed on the Dreyfus Affair.

1898: Birthdate of Russian native Beryl David Cohon who in 1906 came to the United States where he graduated from the University of Illionis, was ordained at Hebrew Union College and went on to be the founding rabbi of Temple Sinai in Brookline, MA and serve on the faculty of Tufts University.

https://www.sinaibrookline.org/about-temple-sinai/our-staff/prior-rabbis/rabbi-cohon/

1898: Birthdate of Springfield, MA native and insurance agent Charles Sidney Albert who served as city councilman.

1898: Professor C.H. Toy delivered the second in a series of lectures on “The Dawn of Literature” entitled “The Dawn of Literature in Babylonia and Egypt” which included numerous comparisons between these two cultures and the literature created by the Jews that is preserved in the Bible.

1899: Among the bills introduced in the New York State Legislature seeking tax exemptions was one brought forward by Mr. Sanders, “exempting the real estate now owned or which may hereafter be acquired by the Beth Israel Hospital Association in the City of New York”

1900: Founding of the Sabbath Observance Association Synagogue at 70th and Central Park West whose members include Mark Blumenthal, Leonard Lewisohn, Moses Ottinger, and Leon Huhner.

1901: Herzl meets Lady Battersea, Rothschild's cousin in the apartment of Israel Zangwill.

1901: Haim and Mazal Tov Isaacs gave birth to Irving H. Isaacs, the husband of Anne Isaacs with whom he had two children.

1902: Thirty-one-year-old Max Sol Mandlell, the Russian born son of Getchel and Deborah Mandell who was the Columbia educated Instructor of Russian Language and Literature at Yale University and who was also active in the New Haven Jewish community as can be seen by his long term service as the secretary of the “Jewish Charity Society of New Haven” married Dora Rubenstein today.

1903(15thof Shevat, 5663): Tu B’Shevat

1903: The American Jewish Historical Society held its eleventh annual meeting in Carnegie Hall today during which “members presented papers on phases of the history of the Americas in which Jews had played a part” and then held the election officers.

1904: Birthdate of Polish native Morris Pizer who in 1921 came to the United States where he where he eventually became President of the United Furniture Workers of America. (Not to be confused with Morris J. Pizer)

https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/digital/collection/labor/id/1966/

1904: In Philadelphia, Joseph and Leah Alpert gave birth to Rose Alpert Rothenberg.

1905: “Alternative to Zionism” published today challenged Israel Zangwill’s Zionist vision and suggested that the large Jewish population settling in Brownsville was an example of a better way.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1905/02/12/101702469.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1906: Birthdate of Brest-Litvosk native and NYU graduate Frank Leff, the “director of special projects for the American Jewish Committee” and the husband of Johanna Leff with whom he had two children – Bernard and Naomi.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/11/30/89979923.pdf

1906: Today “a massacre of the Jews was reported to have taken place at Kalarashi, Bessarabia.”

1906: Algernon Lee wrote from New York challenging Lewis Nixon’s plea to “Give the Czar a chance” citing all of the Czar’s missed opportunity to improve conditions for his subjects including his failure “to protect the poor Jews…in his empire in the pursuit of their peaceful vocations.”

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C01E2D9103EE733A25757C1A9649C946797D6CF

1907: Following a banquet given in his honor yesterday evening by the Federation of American Zionist, Dr. Shmaryahu Lewin is scheduled to leave for Europe today.

1908: Birthdate Mikos Sarkany who won Gold Medals for Hungary in Water Polo at the 1932 and 1936 Olympics.

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

1909: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded. Julius Rosenthal, Lillian Wald, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsh, Stephen Wise and Henry Moskowitz a Jewish physician, and civil rights activist, were among the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Jewish attorney Jack Greenberg played a prominent role in one of the most famous moments in the history of the N.A.A.C.P. He was Assistant Counsel from 1949 to 1961 for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and then, from 1961 to 1984, he succeeded Thurgood Marshall as Director Counsel. Greenberg was one of the attorneys who argued Brown v. Board of Education before the United States Supreme Court as co-counsel for the plaintiffs with Thurgood Marshall.

1910(3rdof Adar I, 5670): Parashat Terumah

1910: “A Study of the Jews” published today described the plant of The Walter Scott Publishing to put on sale this spring The Jews: A study of Race and Environment by Dr. Maurice Fishberg  “which is described as a comprehensive study of the anthropological, demographic, pathological and sociological characteristics of the Jews.”

1911: “A Study of the Jewish Race” published today examines the contention of New York physician Maurice Fishberg that Jews “are essentially in no way different from other people except in so far as their religious practices and social environment” which often are a result of the persecutions they have suffered.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1911/02/12/104819996.html?pageNumber=23

1912: Arrangements were made today by the family of Washington Seligman to move his body from the Hotel Grand where he had shot himself to Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue.

1912(24thof Shevat, 5672): Louis Heilprin, the Hungarian born historian and encyclopedia editor who was a follower of Lajos Kossuth passed away.  He was part of an intellectual family including his brother Angelo, his grandfather Pinchas and his father Michael who was an editor for the American Cyclopedia and a contributor to The Nation.

1913: Mrs. J.B. Malkes is charge of preparing the program for today’s “regular monthly meeting of the Baron Hirsch Women’s Club” at the Auditorium Hotel.

1914: “The Squam Man” a silent cowboy film produced by Jesse Lasky was released in the United States by the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation today.

1915: In Ottawa, Ontario, “Russian Jewish immigrants “Dora (née Grinovsky) and Daniel Green, a shoemaker” gave birth to Lyon “Chaim” Himan Green better known as actor Loren Greene, whose most famous role was that Ben “Pa” Cartwright on Bonanza.  (Editor’s note: Considering the fact that Little Joe was also played by a Jewish actor, half of America’s favorite cowboy family were MOT- “The Ponderosa” as western homeland for the Jews.)

1915: Joseph Zimmerman was award the Pell Gold Medal for the student who ranks highest in all the studies of the year and the Prager Memorial Prize for the student who ranks highest in the senior year at today’s commencement exercise for the College of the City of New York today.

1915: “The American Jewish Relief Committee for the Sufferers from the War, of which Louis Marshall is President and Felix M. Warburg is Treasurer, announced” tonight “the appropriation of $200,000 for the relief of Jewish war suffers” which “will be divided equally between Russian and German Poland.

1915: A list of contributors to the American Jewish Relief Committee published today included the Jewish Charities of Cleveland, Ohio, Calgary J.R.C., Lafayette Indiana Orthodox Jews, and the Young Russian Friends Association.

1916: In Norfolk, VA, the building housing Oham Shalom Synagogue which had been built fifteen years ago at a cost of $70,000 “was destroyed by fire caused by defective insulation.”

1916: “According to a statement issued” today “one out of every 321 Jews in New York City contributes to the Educational Alliance” of which Justice Samuel Greenbaum currently serves as President

1916: Birthdate of Dutch born actor Max Geldray.  Born in Holland and living in France and touring under such names as "Mac Geldray and his Mouth-Accordion Band", Van Gelder fled to England during the early days of WWII and was injured participating in the Normandy landings in 1944. Tragically, his sister died in a concentration camp during the war. After the war Geldray continued his career as a jazz harmonica player. He was part of the original cast of the 1950's radio show The Goon Show sharing the stage with Peter Sellers.  He stayed on the show for its entire run of nine years. Afterwards, he retired to California, playing at gigs in Reno and Los Angeles, later volunteering at the Betty Ford Center and similar institutions.  He passed away in 2004. 

1917: “Charities Uniting Jews” published today described an address by Jacob H. Schiff given to “members of the Hebrew Free Loan Society” in which “he praised the idea of federating Jewish charities and philanthropy” say “it would become a power force in unifying Jewry.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1917/02/12/118134313.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1917: At today’s meeting of the National Workmen’s Committee on Jewish Rights the delegates “decided to continue present methods” to provide relief for “Jewish sufferers in the European war zone” and “adopted a resolution declaring it to be the duty of Socialist parties in all neutral and belligerent countries to begin agitation for immediate peace.”

1918: Following the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, the French issued a statement today expressing their support for the creation “of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine.’

1918: In New York City, Belle (née Rosenfeld) and Benjamin Schwinger, a garment manufacturer, gave birth to Nobel Prize winning American theoretical physicist Julian Seymour Schwinger

http://www.nobel-winners.com/Physics/julian_seymour_schwinger.html

1918: In Manhattan, Harry and Sarah Schwartz Lefrak gave birth to Samuel Jayson LeFrak, the chairman of LeFrak Organization who had followed in the family footsteps while raising four children – Denis, Richard, Francine and Jaqueline – with his wife, the former Ethel Stone. (As reported by Alan Oser)

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/17/nyregion/samuel-j-lefrak-master-of-mass-housing-dies-at-85.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

1919: In Newark, NJ, at today’s session of the 27th annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society, Dr. Cyrus Adler read “a statement from John Leavitt, the Director of the Office of War Records” which showed that one hundred thousand Jews took part in the World War “and of this this number forty percent were volunteers.

1919: Funeral services were held in Chicago today for Alexander Newman, the husband of Eva Newman and the father of Julius, Sol, Maurice and Emanuel Newman

1920: Birthdate of the University of Pennsylvania and University Chicago alum and WW II veteran Irving “Bud” Latz 2nd, the President of Sci-Agra, Inc. in Ft. Wayne, IN and member of Achudth Vesholom Congregation who raised two children – Gil and Sara – with his wife Janet H. Lantz.

1920: Birthdate of Abraham Shadrinsky, who gained famed as record producer Robert “Bob” Shad who worked with such jazz greats as Charlie Parker, Billy Eckstein and Dinah Washington.

1920: A performance of Massenet’s “Herodiade” an opera depicting the Herod dynasty which had first been performed at Hammerstein’s in Manhattan opened the Chicago Opera Association’s season tonight.

1921: Birthdate of fencing champion Albert Axelrod.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/05/sports/albert-axelrod-83-a-champion-in-fencing.html

1921(4thof Adar I, 5681): Parashat Teruman

1921: Congregation Shaaray Tefila continued to celebrate the 75th anniversary of its incorporation for a second day.

1921: Birthdate of Joshua Eilberg, the native of Philadelphia and Wharton graduate who served in the House of Representatives for twelve years.

1921: Birthdate of fencing champion Albert Axelrod.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/05/sports/albert-axelrod-83-a-champion-in-fencing.html

1922: Achille Ratti is formally installed as Pope Pius XI. Early in his papacy, Pius did sign concordats with various fascist governments.  But he must have had a change of heart.  By the time he died he spoken out against fascism and racism and called for measures to protect Jews.

1923: Birthdate of Romanian native Hyman “Hy” Weiss who came to the United States as an infant, served in the Army Air Force during WW II and became a leading record producer.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1547655/Hyman-Weiss.html

1923: Twenty-five year old Gene Barry (born Eugene Klass) married Betty Claire Kalb

1924: George Gershwin's ''Rhapsody in Blue'' received its premiere in the concert, An Experiment in Modern Music, which was held today, in Aeolian Hall, New York, by Whiteman and his band with Gershwin playing the piano 

1924: George Kaufman's "Beggar on Horseback" premiered in New York City.

1924: The Eveready Hour was the first commercially sponsored variety program in the history of broadcasting which featured repeated appearances by conductor Nathanial Shilkret on WEAF Radio in New York.

1925: Birthdate of Rosalyn “Dolly” Saget the wife of supermarket executive Benjamin Sage and the mother of comedic actor Robert Lane “Bob” Saget.

1925:” The Estonian government passed a law pertaining to the cultural autonomy of minority peoples. This was a logical step forward in the national policies of the Estonian Republic. The Jewish community quickly prepared its application for cultural autonomy. Statistics on Jewish citizens were compiled. They totaled 3,045, fulfilling the minimum requirement of 3000 for cultural autonomy. In June 1926 the Jewish Cultural Council was elected and Jewish cultural autonomy was declared. The administrative organ of this autonomy was the Board of Jewish Culture, headed by Hirsch Aisenstadt until it was disbanded in 1940.”

1925: After arriving in New York yesterday, Dr. Chaim Weizmann reports on the vibrant condition of the economy in Palestine and of “the numerous business opportunities of which Americans may take advantage.”  Weizmann said that while in the United States he will be seeking a loan of $2,000,000 at seven per cent interest designed to pay for development in Tel Aviv and four large near-by settlements.  The government in Palestine had already given its approval for Weizmann to try and raise the funds.

1926: “The Man Without Sleep” a silent film written by Max Glass was released in Germany today.

1926(28thof Shevat, 5686): Fifty-six year old René Worms, a scion of the distinguished French family whose accomplishments including the establishment of the"Revue Internationale de Sociologie”,  the "Bibliothèque Sociologique Internationale," the Institut International de Sociologie and the Société de Sociologie de Paris which earned him being named a chevalier of the Legion of Honor, passed away today.

1927: Birthdate of Bucharest native Henry Herscovi who competed as a sports shooter for the Israeli Olympic Teams in 1968 and 1972.

1928: “Table of 1470 B.C. Is Found in Palestine” published today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1928/02/12/issue.html

1928: S. Herbert Gold and Mrs. Jacob Cohen welcome the three hundred delegates at the Young People’s League of the United States of American annual convention today where resolutions were adopted “urging synagogues to give young Jews a greater voice in the affairs of heir congregations.”

1929: “The Christian and the Moslem communities of Palestine were urged to lend their best cooperation to the efforts of the Jewish people in the rebuilding of the Holy Land by John Haynes Homes, pastor of the New York Community church, was the guest of honor at a reception given to him today by the municipality of Tel Aviv at City Hall.

 1929: Birthdate of Gyorgy Braun, the native of Mateszalka, Hungary, who survived the Holocaust and made a new life for himself in Los Angeles as George Brown

 1930: Birthdate of Arlen Specter, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania.  During the twentieth century, most Jewish office holders were Democrats.  Specter was unusual because he rose to prominence as a Republican.  Today, there are a record number of Jews serving in the U.S. Senate.  For most Americans, Jewish public officials are such an accepted fact of life that both Senators from California are Jewish.  And places like Minnesota, hardly a state with a large bloc of Jewish voters, elect Jews to Congress (As reported by Peter Jackson)

http://www.timesofisrael.com/former-pennsylvania-senator-arlen-specter-dies-at-82/

1931: One thousand students participated in a Palestine festival today which “was staged by the League of the Jewish Youth at the Kaufman Auditorium at the Y.M.H.A. on east 92nd Street.

1932: Birthdate of economist and author Julian Simon.

1932: Birthdate of pianist Jerome Lowenthal.

1933: “Organization of a Youth Zionist Federation in the United States and the stimulation of Palestine studies in Jewish schools and educational institutions were advocated by speakers at a two-day conference to discuss problems of Jewish youth which began this morning at the Young Men's Hebrew Association, Ninety-Second Street and Lexington Avenue

1933(16thShevat, 5693): Attorney, bibliophile and “art connoisseur” Benjamin Alexander passed away today in Philadelphia.

1934: Publication of a review of Hours of Decision by Oswald Spengler, the historian and author of The Decline of the West who on his mother’s side was a descendant of “a Jewish woman named Bräunchen Moses, the daughter of Abraham and Riele Moses who was baptized shortly before her marriage.

http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,746957,00.html

1935: The first Palestine-owned ships of modern times will start service here today, restoring to the Jewish people a profession in which they have had little part since the ancient Phoenicians.  Two new ships Mount Zion and Tel Aviv sail between Palestine, Constananza and Trieste.  While the ships are of “British naval design” they will have Jewish skippers and crews.

1936: Birthdate of American actor Paul Shenar described as being of Turkish and Jewish ancestry. Count this as a maybe.

1936(19th of Shevat): Yiddish historian and journalist Peter Wiernik passed away

http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2016/06/perets-vyernik-peter-wiernik.html

1936: Birthdate of Binyamin Fuad Ben-Eliezer, a native of Iraq who made Aliyah in 1950.  He served in the IDF from 1954 through 1984 and then entered into a successful political career that included service as the Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister.

1937: U.S. Premiere of “On the Avenue,” with a story and songs by Irving Berlin and Samuel Pokrass, co-starring the Ritz Brothers.

1937: Wilhelm Zoellner resigned as head of the Confessing Church “after the Gestapo had denied him the right to visit some imprisoned pastors.”

1938(11thof Adar I, 5698): Parashat Tetzaveh

1938: Rabbi William F. Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon “Great Jews of Today” at Temple Israel.

1938: Rabbi Louis I Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon “The Religion of Abraham Lincoln” today at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1938: Rabbi Nathan Perilman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “What Makes a Thing Jewish?” today at Temple Emanu-El

1938: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to give a sermon today on “Lincoln and God” at the Central Synagogue.

1938: During the Spanish Civil War, The Botwin Company, a Jewish unit of the Polish Dombrowski Brigade went into action in the Sierra Quemeda near Belal Alcazar.

1938: Hitler met with Chancellor Schuschinigg of Austria, claiming that the acts of Austria were treasonous. Hitler put forth extreme written demands designed to make way for Nazism in Austria. Hitler threatened to end a civil relationship between their two countries.

1938: In Rumania, Jews did not have to prove their citizenship today as originally ordered by the government because the Juridical Committee ruled that the decree calling into question “the citizenship of Rumania’s 750,000 Jews” was unconstitutional “because it singled out one class of citizens, namely the Jews, for special treatment by forcing them and only them to prove citizenship.” (Editor’s Note – this is one more example of the anti-Semitism that was prevalent in Europe in the inter-war years which helps to explain why the Germans were so successful in their implementation of the Final Solution.)

1938: In Elizabeth, NJ, homemaker Esther (née Rosenfeld) and dentist Ralph Sussman gave birth to Judith Sussman who gained fame as author Judy Blume. “Her most famous book, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; focused on an 11-year-old girl being brought up by Jewish and non-Jewish parents, and the difficulties she faced in trying to decide which religion to follow.” http://www.judyblume.com/

1939: Robert Briscoe, a member of the Irish Parliament delivered an address at Temple Rodeph Sholem tonight in which he expressed his support for “Palestine as a homeland for the Jewish people.”

1939: Birthdate of Leon Richard Kass the Chicago born son of “Yiddish speaking, secular, socialist” Jewish immigrants whose exciting life has included everything from Civil Rights Summer with his wife Amy Apfel to serving as chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics during the George Bush’s first term in the White House.

http://www.aei.org/scholar/leon-r-kass/

1940: The British War Cabinet discussed the 1939 White Paper to limit Jewish land purchase in Palestine.  Despite a protest from Churchill, the land limitation regulations would be put into force.

 1940: The Nazis began the first mass deportation of Germans Jews to Poland.

1940: Among those attending the American Jewish Congress Conference which is scheduled to meet today for the second and final time is Rabbi M.L. Perlzweig, “the head of the North Western London Reform Synagogue.

1941: The Nazis established the Jewish Council for Amsterdam under Abraham Asscher, prominent Amsterdam businessman and David Cohen, a professor of ancient history at the Municipal University of Amsterdam.

1941: In Amsterdam, German soldiers, assisted by Dutch police, encircled the old Jewish neighborhood and cordoned it off from the rest of the city by putting up barbed wire, opening bridges and putting in police checkpoints which meant that this neighborhood was now forbidden for non-Jews effectively making it a Ghetto.

1941: Occupation Police arrested the "Jewish Foursome"1942(25th of Shevat, 5702): The Nazis rounded up and murdered 3,000 Jews in the Ukrainian town of Brailov. The Jewish community in the Shtetel of Brailov can be traced back at least to the start of the 17thcentury. After the war Brailov was the subject of a 52-minute documentary called “Judenfrei: A Shtetl Without Jews.”

1942: At Kibbutz Mishmar HaSharon, Esther (née Godin) and Yisrael Mendel Brog gave birth to Ehud Brog, the eldest of their four sons who gained fame as Ehud Barak, the Chief of Staff of the IDF who would later serve as Prime Minister of Israel.

1942(25th of Shevat, 5702): Avraham Stern was killed after being captured by British authorities in Tel Aviv.  Stern was the leader of Lechi a Hebrew acronym for Lohamei Cherut Israel, "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel", לח"י - לוחמי חירות ישראל) also known as the Stern Gang.  The Polish born Stern had become progressively more violent as he moved from the Haganah, to the Irgun, to his own Stern Gang.  Stern reportedly approached the German and Italian regimes offering to swap helping them in defeating the British for the creation of a Jewish state.  Needless to say, the leaders of the Yishuv disowned Stern and his gang, labeling them as terrorists operating in a way unacceptable to the Jewish community.

1942: Six months after having been released in the United Kingdom, “Pimpernel Smith” directed and produced by Leslie Howard (born Leslie Howard Steiner), who also starred in this “updated” version of portrayal in “The Scarlet Pimpernel” and was filmed by cinematographer Mutz Greenbaum was released in the United States today.

1943: Aizik Feder smuggled a letter out of Drancy, France, to his wife. "Tomorrow I am leaving. . . Courage! Courage! Courage!" The next day he is one of 1,000 Jews sent to Auschwitz. He and 311 others were tattooed with a number. The rest were killed. Only 20 of the 311 would survive the war.

1943: “Journey into Fear” a spy film with a script co-authored by Ben Hecht and edited by Mark Robson was released in the United States today.

1943 As documented by his secretaries, Heinrich Himmler visited Sobibor today.

1944: Incendiary bombs that exploded simultaneously in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv tonight damaged immigration offices in all three cities.  The bombings were thought to be the work of those who sought to destroy the buildings where the anti-Jewish immigration policies are given practical application.  “Responsible Jewish” leaders expressed their disapproval of the “criminal methods of fighting the immigration issue.”

1945: Today, Albert Maltz wrote an article for the New Massescalling for more intellectual freedom in the Communist Party in which he said, "It has been my conclusion for some time that much of the left-wing artistic activity - both creative and critical - has been restricted, narrowed, tuned away from life, sometimes made sterile - because the atmosphere and thinking of the literary left-wing had been based upon a shallow approach... I have come to believe that the accepted understanding of art as a weapon is not a useful guide, but a straitjacket. I have felt this in my own works and viewed it in the works or others. In order to write at all, it has long since become necessary for me repudiate it and abandon it."

1945: A second funeral service was scheduled to be held this afternoon at 2 o’clock for 98-year-old, the veteran of the U.S. Navy who is “said to have been the last survivor of the eight thousand Jewish soldiers who fought on the Union side during the Civil War.

1945: The Jewish War Veterans are scheduled to hold a funeral at three o’clock for U.S. Navy Civil War veteran Daniel Harris at the Union Temple in Brooklyn followed by burial at Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn.

1946: Today, Rabbi Baruch Korff announced, “the formation of a Political Action Committee for Palestine to contribute to the goal of Zionism by enlisting the aid of American political leaders and to engage the interest of those at the helm of world leadership.”

1947(22nd of Shevat, 5707): German born social psychologist, Dr. Kurt Lewin, a believer in Gestalt psychology, and a veteran of the Kaiser’s Army who came to United States in 1933 and became a U.S. citizen in 1940 passed away today

1947(22nd of Shevat, 5707): Eighty-one-year-old Moses Gomberg the born son of Maryam-Ethel Reznikova and Hershko (Hirsh) Gomberg who was a professor of Chemistry at his alma mater, the University of Michigan, and who is considered to be “the father of radical chemistry.”

http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/gomberg-moses.pdf

1948: At Lake Success, NY, “The Palestine Commission reached agreement today on "all major points" of its special report to the Security Council calling for an international armed force to enable it to implement the partition of the Holy Land.”

1949(13thof Shevat, 5709): Parashat Beshalach

1949: “The Quiet One,” with an “original screen play by Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb and Sidney Meyers; directed by Sidney Meyers and produced by Janice Loeb” opened today “at the Little Carnegie” in New York.

1949: An unidentified aircraft bombed Jerusalem.  Based on various sources the plane might have been Egyptian or British.\=

1949: In Berlin, Litzi Friedman and Georg Honigmann, the chief editor of the Berliner Zeitung gave birth to German author and dramatist Barbara Honigmann.

http://spartacus-educational.com/Litzi_Friedmann.htm

1950: Albert Einstein warned against the building of the hydrogen bomb.

 1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that 20 persons were injured in the course of a Communist demonstration held in Tel Aviv by the Israel-USSR Friendship League. Skirmishes broke out, outside the previously bombed Soviet Legation, between Communists and Israelis outraged by the recent vicious anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli Soviet campaign. The Soviet Ambassador, Mr. Pavel Yershov, received Mr. S. Mikunis and Dr. Moshe Sneh, in the presence of reporters, an unusual diplomatic occurrence. Israeli police arrested 27 persons in connection with the bombing of the Soviet Legation. Moscow radio accused Israeli police of a "clear connivance" in the bombing.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that in his address to UN officers, Syrian Colonel Ghassan Shabib, a senior Israeli-Syrian Mixed Armistice Commission delegate had declared, "This country has no room for both peoples. There should be either Jews or Arabs."

1954(9thof Adar I, 5714): Fifty-eight-year-old David Abelevich Kaufman the Soviet documentary director known as Dziga Vertov whose brother Mikhail, and Boris and wife Elzaveta Svilova were also film makers, passed away today in Moscow.

1955(20thof Shevat, 5715): Parashat Yitro

1955(20thof Shevat, 5715): Seventy-four-year-old German dramatist Julius Dab, a cofounder of the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden who escaped to the United States in 1939 passed away today in Roslyn Heights, NY.

https://www.lbi.org/digibaeck/results/?qtype=pid&term=431122

1956(30thof Shevat, 5716): Forty-six-year-old German born Israeli journalist Ezriel Carlebach died of a heart attack. There is no way that this blog can do just to the fascinating life of this man, whom if you did not know he was real, would swear that Ian Fleming or David Baldacci, had created for one of their novels.

1958: Funeral services are scheduled to be held at noon today for Hyman Bookinder, the husband of Rose Bookbinder and father of Matthew, Louis, Charles, William, George and Sidney Bookbinder, the latter of whom was a member of the Free Dental Clinic and the Sidney Friedman Association.

1959: The Prime Minster officially opened the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, “an outdoor performance venue in Melbourne” the construction of which was “inspired by businessman and philanthropist Sidney Myer.”

1963(18thof Shevat, 5723): Eighty-three-year-old Rebecca Jacobson, the daughter of Abraham Moses Jacobson and Sara Leah Jacobson passed away today.

1964: The Beatles performed at a sold-out concert in Carnegie Hall arranged by impresario Sid Bernstein who repeated the same success later with the Rolling Stones.

1964: A funeral service for fifty-year old Arnold Manoff, he author and scriptwriter who was a victim of the HUAC blacklist is scheduled to take place at Riverside Memorial Chapel where his two sons Thomas and Michael; his two daughters Dinah Beth Manoff and Mrs. Eva Russo; his mother Mrs. Gussie Manoff; and his sisters Mrs. Sophie Parsons and Mrs. Flora Blum will say their final farewells.

1965: In the Rhawnhurst neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia, Ruben Amaro, Sr., “a Marrano Sephardic Mexican-Cuban and Judy Amaro-Perez (née Herman), the descendant of Russian Jews gave birth to baseball player and executive Ruben Amaro, Jr.

1966: Birthdate of Mario Javier Saban, the native of Buenos Aires who “who is descended from Spanish Jews who took refuge in the Ottoman Empire” and is the author of the best-selling Converted Jews.

http://www.mariosaban.com/

http://www.tarbutsefarad.com/index.php?lang=en

1969(24thof Shevat, 5729): Sixty-one-year-old James Joseph Packman, the native of Biala who came to the United States in 1910 and carved out a career as a “banker, journalist and publicist passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9D06E1D6153DE134BC4B52DFB4668382679EDE

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_15314.html

1969: In Brooklyn, public school teachers Charlotte and Abraham Aronofsky, who are Conservative Jews of Ukrainian Jewish descent gave birth to film director Darren Aronofsky

1970(6thof Adar I, 5730): Sixty-eight-year-old “novelist and screenwriter” Samuel Guy Endore, born Samuel Goldstein, passed away today.

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt2p30043h/

1971(17th of Shevat, 5731): Seventy-year-old Nelson Glueck, American Jewish archaeologist. Director of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem between 1932 and 1947, he explored and dated over 1,000 ancient sites in Palestine and the Near East. One of his popular works was Rivers in the Desert passed away today.

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0160/ms0160.html

https://www.google.com/search?ei=2eX1XJnkFoOIsQWXmZi4Aw&q=nelson+glueck&oq=Nelson+Glu&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0l7j0i22i30l3.2501948.2505639..2508466...0.0..0.123.984.6j4....2..0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0i273j0i131i273j0i131j0i67j0i3.IVHF5lNs9yM

1971: Birthdate of Antwerp native Nathan Kahan middle distance runner who represented Belgium in the 2000 Olympics and later became a sport psychologist.

1973(10th of Adar I, 5733): British composer Benjamin Frankel passed away at the age of 67.  Born to Polish parents who had moved to England,  the first major work to bring Frankel to wider public attention was the Violin Concerto dedicated " In memory of the six million'", a reference to the Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/frankel/

1974:In New York, Merryl Shaffir and Holocaust survivor Nat Shaffir gave birth  University of Maryland graduate Ari David Shaffir “an American comedian, actor, podcaster, writer, and producer” who produces and hosts the Skeptic Tank podcast.

1977(24thof Shevat, 5737): Parashat Yitro

1977(24thof Shevat, 5737): Seventy-eight-year-old 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” passed away today.

https://prabook.com/web/nathan.cayton/931886

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1977/02/15/judge-nathan-cayton-dies-at-78-headed-citys-court-of-appeals/c2c96bb5-aa4d-4e13-bc0f-d23c2606cc4e/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f2a6c994bbcf

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the US Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, called on Israel to cease all settlement activities in the administered areas and dismantle the existing ones in the Rafiah salient.

1979(15thof Shevat, 5739): Tu B’Shevat

1980(25th of Shevat, 5740):Muriel Rukeyser, poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism, passed away. “Her poem To be a Jew in the Twentieth Century (1944), on the theme of Judaism as a gift, was adopted by the American Reform and Reconstructionist movements for their prayer books, something Rukeyser said ‘astonished’ her, as she had remained distant from Judaism throughout her early life.”

1982: “One from the Heart” a musical based on a story by Armyan Bernstein who co-authored the screenplay and featuring Allen Garfield was released today in the United States.

1982: U.S. premiere of “Making Love,”  “one of the earliest films to deal with homosexuality” directed by Arthur Hiller, co-produced by Daniel Melnick with a story by A. Scott Berg.

1982: “Quest for First” a film adaptation of the 1911 Belgian novel co-starring Ron Perlman was released in the United States today.

1982: “Policemen burst into the apartment of refusenik Mikhail Nekrasov during a lesson. They confiscated Hebrew textbooks, dictionaries, and cassettes and warned students to stop attending Hebrew classes and seminars. Nekrasov was told that he would lose his Moscow residence permit if he did not stop teaching Hebrew.”

1986: After spending eight years in Soviet prisons and labor camps, human rights activist Anatoly Scharansky was released. The amnesty deal was arranged by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan at a summit meeting three months earlier. Scharansky was imprisoned for his campaign to win the right for Russian Jews, officially forbidden to practice Judaism, to emigrate from the USSR. Convicted of treason and agitation, Soviet authorities also labeled him an American spy. After his release, he immigrated to Israel, where he was given a hero's welcome. Later, as a member of Israel's parliament, he was an outspoken defender of Russian Jews.

1989(7thof Adar I, 5749): Ninety-three year old Esther Untermann, a graduate of Panzer College in East Orange, NJ who in 1944 became “Judge of the Newark Second and Third Criminal Courts” following the death of her husband Judge William Untermann whom she followed in that position and who was so involved civic activity that she was referred to as “Newark’s original organization woman” and as “First Lady of Essex” passed away today after which she was “buried alongside her husband at the King Solomon Memorial Park in Clifton.”

1989: The Solomon Mikhoels Cultural Center, which is based at the Moscow Jewish Musical Chamber Theater, was dedicated today.

1990(17thof Shevat, 5750): Eighty-nine year old Nat Homan “one of the younger brothers of Hall of Fame coach and player Nat Holman who played for NYU and helped the school with the AAU championship passed away today.

1990: Vanities on the Bonfire published today described the fall from financial grace of Peter Cohen, Chairman of Shearson Lehman Hutton.

http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,969389,00.html

1990: In “As Jerusalem Labors to Settle Soviet Jews, Native Israelis Slip Quietly Away,” published today Joel Brinkley describes Israel’s attempts to deal with the challenge of Yoradim.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/11/world/as-jerusalem-labors-to-settle-soviet-jews-native-israelis-slip-quietly-away.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

1991: In the early morning hours Iraq carried out its 13th Scud attack. The Scud was hit by the Patriot over a populated section of Tel Aviv and flaming missile parts slammed into the city. At least seven people were lightly injured. The Army reported extensive damage to houses and businesses. Rescue workers, firemen and ambulance crews rushed to the scene and set up barricades to keep curious neighbors away from the damaged area. The light injuries were typical of those sustained by hundreds of Israelis in three weeks of Scud missile attacks by Iraq. Most people have been hurt by shrapnel, flying glass, falling furniture or shock. One man was killed when his house collapsed during an early Scud attack, and three elderly Israelis died of heart failure during another assault

1991: The first Lincoln Prize, funded by Lewis Lehrman, was awarded today to “film-maker Ken Burns for his Civil War Series on PBS” that was narrated by Shelby Foote.  (Lehrman and Foote were Jewish; Burns was not)

1991: The Knesset passed a law whereby a Knesset member who changed political parties while still able to serve and vote in the Knesset itself, could not be made a Minister or a deputy minister and could not be promised a seat in the next Knesset.

1993: U.S. premiere of “Groundhog Day,” the classic comedy directed by Harold Ramis who also co-authored the script.

1994(1stof Adar, 5754): Parashat Terumah; Shabbat Shekalim; Rosh Chodesh Adar

1995(12th of Adar I, 5755): Ninety-eight-year-old basketball legend Nat Holman passed away today in the Bronx. (As reported by Sam Goldpaper)

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/13/obituaries/nat-holman-is-dead-at-98-led-ccny-champions.html

http://digital-archives.ccny.cuny.edu/exhibits/holman/intro.html

1996(22nd of Shevat, 5756): Eighty-three year old  Austrian opera singer Désirée Louise Anna Ernestine "Dési" von Halban the daughter of Josef von Halban and Selma von Halban passed away today in the Netherlands.

1998: Yehuda Lev writes about “The Truth About the Media and Jews.”

http://www.jewishjournal.com/articles/item/the_truth_about_the_media_and_jews_19980213

1999: Eight months after opening in the United States, “My Giant” a comedy starring Billy Crystal who also served as producer and wrote the script along with David Seltzer was released in the United States today.

2000(6thof Adar I, 5760): Parashat Terumah

2000: “Just after headlines here pronounced an easing of this week's heightened violence in southern Lebanon, Shiite Muslim guerrillas killed another Israeli soldier today, and Israeli warplanes responded swiftly with air strikes at suspected guerrilla targets.”

2001: “In a housewarming present for Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon, Palestinian gunmen fired tonight toward the Israeli neighborhood of Gilo, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, for the first time in more than a month.”

2002(30thof Shevat, 5762): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2002(30thof Shevat, 5672): One hundred eleven year old Theresa Bernstein, the Krakow native who became a leading American artist passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/16/arts/theresa-bernstein-an-ash-can-school-artist-dies-at-111.html

http://forward.com/articles/189491/why-theresa-bernstein-was-the-jewish-artist-of-the/

2004: Mattel announced the split of Barbie and Ken. Barbie and Ken were named for the children of Jewish businesswoman Ruth Handler, the guiding light behind Mattel who gave the world these iconic toys.

2005: In “A View of Democracy, Forged in Totalitarian Prison” published today, Roger Cohen reviewed The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror by Nathan Sharansky,

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/12/books/a-view-of-democracy-forged-in-totalitarian-prisons.html?searchResultPosition=9

2006: Professional Indian-Jewish cricketer played for Saurashtra in their match against Maharashtra

2006: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lovers& amp; Players by Jackie Collins (Jewish father, Anglican mother)

2007: Bar-Ilan University is resisting pressure to fire history professor Ariel Toaff for writing a book arguing that there is a factual basis to some of the blood libels against the Jews in Europe in the Middle Ages, university president Moshe Kaveh's media consultant said today.

2008: The 12thNew York Sephardic Jewish Festival continues with showings “Italian Jewish History and Identity,” two programs of documentaries, television shorts and fiction films exploring little-known aspects of Italian Jewish history and identity presented by Centro Primo Levi

2008:James L. Kugel, a professor of Hebrew at Harvard University from 1982 to 2003, discusses How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now at the D.C. Jewish Community Center.

2008: The social component of the Oscar award season kicked off for Beaufort with a screening and reception sponsored by the Israeli consulate and the entertainment division of the Jewish Federation.

2008: The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission voted this afternoon to designate as a landmark what is believed to be the oldest structure in Queens built as a synagogue. Estée Lauder once worshiped there, and Madonna once lived at a former yeshiva nearby. The synagogue, Congregation Tifereth Israel, at 109-18 54th Avenue in Corona, was built in 1911, when only 20,000 or so of New York’s 1.5 million Jews lived in Queens, according to a report by Kathryn E. Horak, a researcher at the commission. Designed by Crescent L. Varrone, the two-story, wood-frame synagogue combined Gothic and Moorish design with Judaic ornament: pointed-arched windows, a roundel with a Star of David in colored glass, and a gabled parapet. The original wood stoop and railing have been replaced with a brick porch with an iron railing, and the wood clapboard siding has been covered with stucco. The congregation, established in 1906 or 1907, primarily served Jews who had moved to Queens from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and its design mimicked that of synagogues in the neighborhood, which had been shoehorned into narrow tenement lots, similar in scale and material to neighboring tenements and commercial buildings, and featured symmetrical tripartite facades, with a central entrance and corner towers. According to Ms. Horak, there were two Jewish neighborhoods in Corona in the early part of the 20th century: an older and poorer one along Corona Avenue, where Jews managed shirtwaist factories, and a newer and more prosperous one along Northern Boulevard. Josephine Esther Mentzer, later known as Estée Lauder, the cosmetics pioneer who died in 2004 at age 97, was a member of Congregation Tifereth Israel as a young woman. An affiliated yeshiva, on 53rd Avenue, closed in the 1970s and was converted into a residence and music studio; Madonna lived there from 1979 to 1980. The synagogue continued to be used by a dwindling number of congregants until the 1990s, but fell into a state of disrepair, although a small community of Bukharan Jews from the former Soviet Union began meeting there in the mid-1990s. In 2002, the synagogue was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Estée Lauder once worshiped at Tifereth Israel and Madonna once lived at a former yeshiva nearby.

2009: The American Friends of Tel Aviv University present a lecture by Professor Asher Susser, one of Israel's foremost policy analysts and a director of Tel Aviv University's Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies entitled "After the Vote: What's Next for Israel?"

2009: In Australia, a program sponsored by the Arts Centre to mark the 50th anniversary of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl began today.

2009: Eric Weissberg joined the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College orchestra and chorus, along with the Riverside Inspirational Choir and NYC Labor Choir, in honoring Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday at the Riverside Church in New York City. Under the direction of Maurice Peress, they performed Earl Robinson's "The Lonesome Train: A Music Legend for Actors, Folk Singers, Choirs, and Orchestra" in which Weissberg was the banjo player

2009: By a voice vote, the New York State Senate confirmed the appointment of Jonathan Lippman as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals.

2009: Career U.S. diplomat Maclom Toon who served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/world/europe/malcolm-toon-dead-us-ambassador-to-soviet-union.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

 

2009:One Hundred Years Ago today, WEB Dubois, Julius Rosenthal, Lillian Wald, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, Stephen Wise and Henry Malkewitz formed the NAACP

http://israeljewishnews.blogspot.com/2009/02/in-1909-web-dubois-julius-rosenthal.html

2010: The Winter Olympics are scheduled to open in Vancouver, Canada. Israel will field a team of three in Vancouver: Mykhaylo Renzyhn, an alpine skier originally from Latvia, and the brother-sister duo Alexandra and Roman Zaretsky, born in Belarus, who compete in ice dancing. Chicago native Ben Agosto, a 2006 Olympic silver medalist, is returning to compete in the ice-dancing pairs. Steve Mesler, a bobsledder from Buffalo, N.Y., is back for his third Olympics.  Laura Spector, 22, had qualified for the U.S. Olympic biathlon team that will be competing this month in Vancouver.

2010: Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim an exhibition featuring the work of Tel Aviv native Dror Benshtrit is scheduled to open at the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

2010: The Israel Defense Forces thwarted an attempted stabbing attack by a Palestinian in Hebron today.

2010: IDF soldiers opened artillery and gun fire on a group of four Palestinians rigging explosives near the Gaza border.

2010: Anders Hogstrom was arrested today in Stockholm for allegedly ordering the theft of the metal sign reading “Arbeit macht frei” from the front gate at Auschwitz.  He was reportedly acting as angent for an unnamed British Nazi sympathizer who wanted to own the sign.

2010(1 Adar, 5770):  Rosh Chodesh Adar

2010(1 Adar, 5770): Seventy-one year old Allan Kornblum, who helped steer the F.B.I. into the post-J. Edgar Hoover era by drafting guidelines for its surveillance operations in the 1970s, and whose testimony helped convict the murderer of a black man in a celebrated civil rights case revived nearly 40 years after the event, died today in Gainesville, Fla. (As reported by Patricia Sullivan)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/14/AR2010021403994.html

2010: The Art Market Monitor reported that The Jewish Museum in New York went shopping in London last week, where it bought a 1913 painting by Vuillard at Christie’s. The museum paid $464,430 for the painting, well above its $288,554 high estimate. The money was provided by a patron who wishes to remain anonymous.

2011: The Matchmaker, “enchanting coming-of-age drama that tells the story of a relationship between an Israeli teen and a Holocaust survivor who makes ends meet by brokering marriages and has been nominated for 7 Israeli Academy Awards, including Best Film, is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: “The Yankles” and “Army of Crime” are scheduled to be shown at the 21st Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2011: Egypt's ruling military reassured its international allies today that there would be no break in its peace deal with Israel following the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak

2011(8thof Adar I, 5771): Ninety-six-year Sofia Cosma the concert pianist who survived the Gulag, passed away today.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/22/local/la-me-sofia-cosma-20110222

http://www.suitcasefullofchocolate.com/wordpress/sofia-cosma/

2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “All The Time In The World: New and Selected Stories” by E. L. Doctorow.

2012: “Ahead of Time” and “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” are scheduled to be shown at the Athens Jewish Film Festival in Athens, GA.

2012: As we celebrate the 203rd anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, Edmon Rodman, has suggested that we take some time to remember Alfred W. Stern a Jewish clothing manufacturing executive who was “one of the greatest private collectors of works about Abraham Lincoln. (As reported by Edmon J. Rodman for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/02/15/2742924/collecting-lincoln-the-making-of-a-national-treasure

2012:A man was killed and three others were injured in an attack by the Israeli Air Force on tunnels and a weapons depot in the Gaza Strip today.

2012:The Israel Air Force may stop the production of the Iron Dome and David Sling missile interception systems in 2012 as a result of insufficient funds, a military budget breakdown revealed today.

2013: In Philadelphia, PA, the NFL held a memorial tribute honoring the life of Steve Sabol Z”L and his contributions professional football through “NFL Films” which he founded with his father Ed.

2013: A multi week-course entitled “The Supreme Court in the Age of Holmes and Brandeis” is scheduled to begin this afternoon. How the scion of a prominent New England family and Kentucky-born son of Jewish immigrants came to make common bond on the High Court should make for a fascinating trip through the legal and social history of the United States.

2013: “The Final Journey of King Herod the Great” is scheduled to open today at the Israel Museum. (As reported by Jessica Steinberg)

2013: Prisoner X,” who hanged himself in an Israeli jail in 2010, was an Australian citizen who worked for the Mossad but apparently committed a heinous crime, perhaps treason, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported today.

2013: Emergency services were in Jerusalem were placed on high alert today due to intelligence reports of a terror threat to the capital.

2013: Merrick Garland assumed the office of Chief Judge of United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Cirucit.

2013: Journalist and author Joshua “Lehrer publicly apologized for his plagiarism and fabrications in a speech before the Knight Foundation” today

2014: The Center For Jewish History is scheduled to present “Threshold to the Sacred: The Ark Door of Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue.”

2014: “Zaytoun” and “Aftermath” are scheduled to be shown at the 14th Annual Jewish Film Festival at the David Posnack Jewish Community Center

2014: “The Eleventh Day – The Survivors of Munich 1972” – a documentary in which the seven Israeli Olympians who survived the massacre tell their own story – is scheduled to be shown at San Diego’s Jewish Film Festival.

2014: “Some of France’s most esteemed culinary artists, including the head chef at the official residence of the French president, are scheduled to join the kitchens of some of Israel’s most popular restaurants, from Haifa to Beersheva, for a week of special menus and fusion cuisine.”

2014: One hundred fifth anniversary of the founding the NAACP, America’s leading Civil Rights organization whose founding 6 members included Dr. Henry Moskowitz

2014:’Israeli pairs skaters Evgeni Krasnopolsky and Andrea Davidovich finished the free skate finals in 15th place in the Sochi Winter Olympics today.”

2014(12thof Adar I, 5774): Ninety-one year old comedian and early giant of live nighttime television Sid Caesar passed away today.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/sid-caesar-comic-genius-of-1950s-television-dies-at-91/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/13/arts/television/sid-caesar-comic-who-blazed-tv-trail-dies-at-91.html?hp&_r=0

2014(12thof Adar I 5774): Eighty-four year old New York real estate developer William Zeckendor, Jr. passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/nyregion/william-zeckendorf-jr-luxury-developer-dies-at-84.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&_r=0

2015: In Skokie, Illinois, Lyric Opera Orchestra is scheduled to perform chamber music by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, composer of The Passenger at Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center

2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host the Commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz which was re-scheduled from January 27.

2015: The Legacy Council at the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host The History of Matchmaking in the Jewish Community with Dr. Ruth Westheimer

Hosted by the Legacy Council at the Center for Jewish History
The History of Matchmaking in the Jewish Community with Dr. Ruth Westheimer

Hosted by the Legacy Council at the Center for Jewish History
The History of Matchmaking in the Jewish Community” with Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

2015(23rd of Shevat, 5775): Seventy-year-old Harvey J. Goldschmid who was appointed to the Securities and Exchange Commission by President Bush in 2002 passed away today. (As reported by Julie Creswell)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/business/harvey-goldschmid-74-ally-of-ordinary-shareholders.html?rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article

2015(23rd of Shevat, 5775): Ninety-one-year-old nuclear physicist Ernest Sternglass passed away today. (As reported by Kenneth Chang)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/21/science/ernest-sternglass-physicist-and-nuclear-critic-dies-at-91.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2015: The Skirball Center is scheduled to host a Night of Israeli Cinema.

http://emanuelskirballnyc.org/events/israeli-cinema/

2015: Observance of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, the 16th President of the United States who is the subject Lincoln and the Jews: A History by Jonathan Sarna and Benjamin Shapell published this year which should be as informative and interesting as Sarna’s previous Civil War efforts Jews and the Civil War and When Grant Expelled the Jews.

2016: Today the New York Historical Society announced today that Eric Foner’s Gateway to Freedom: The History of the Underground Railroad has received The American History Book Prize.

2016: “Flory’s Flame,” a “documentary about the life and music of renowned 90-year old Sephardic composer and performer Flory Jagoda” and “Peggy Guggenheim” a documentary about the famous art patron are scheduled to be shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2016: Anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. Below is a potpourri of articles about Lincoln and the Jewish people.  Of course, Lincoln’s greatness transcends all of this.  The totality of the man was certainly greater than the sum of all of his parts.

http://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2015/04/the-unusual-relationship-between-abraham-lincoln-and-the-jews/

http://www.jhsgw.org/exhibitions/online/lincolns-city/exhibits/show/mr-lincolns-city/essays/holzer

http://forward.com/culture/217863/abraham-lincolns-greatest-gift-to-the-jews/

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/190291/rediscovering-lincolns-jewish-connections

2017(16thof Shevat, 5777): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of Rabbi Sholom Mordechai Schwadron, the son of Rabbi Moshe Schwadron, the father of Isaac Schwadron, the rabbi of Khotymyr  and the grandfather of  Rabbi Sholom Schwadron, “the Maggid of Jerusalem.

2017: In Amherst, MA, the Yiddish Book Center is scheduled to host a screening of “The Venice, Ghetto, 500 Years of Life,” a film that “tells the story of the oldest ghetto in Europe (which marks its 500th anniversary this year) and of Venice’s Jewish community, seen through the eyes of a Jewish teenager from New York visiting family in the city.”

2017: “After 11 scoreless games Mike Brown was released from his position with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

2017: “The Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, together with the London Partnership Minyan are” scheduled to present “a shiur by Rav Rahel Berkovits on ‘Women Rabbis and the Nature of Halakha.’”

2017: “Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945” – a traveling exhibition of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to open today at UNC Asheville.

https://www.ushmm.org/online/calendar/eventDetails.php?event=TEPERSHOMONC0217

2017: “Scots Jews: Photographs by Judah Passow” is scheduled to come to an end at the Jewish Museum in London today.

2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Genius of Judaism by Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Attack by Loïc Dauvillier, The Arab of the Future by Riad Sattouf, Rolling Blackouts by Sarah Glidden and Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street by Sheelah Kolhatkar that provides a detailed account on which examines the career of hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to co-host the Interfaith Formal at Trinity College this evening.

2018: “Alouette” and “Maydeleh and the Prisoner” are scheduled to be shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival as a part of the “Joyce Forum – A Day of Short Films.”

2018: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host Dr. Avivah Zornberg lecturing on “Narratives of Redemption: Trauma and Healing.”

2018: Today, “the Trump administration denied Prime Minister Netanyahu’s claim that the US and Israel were discussing proposals for Israel to annex West Bank Settlements.” (As reported by Eric Cortellessa)

2018: Celebrate the 209th Anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln by reading Lincoln and the Jews by Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell.

2019: The Center For Jewish History and the American Jewish Historical Society are scheduled to present a with Adina Hoffman, author of Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures and Columbia University Professor Phillip Lopate

https://programs.cjh.org/event/ben-hecht-2019-02-12?bblinkid=139699335&bbemailid=12040402&bbejrid=931106066

2019: The Mandel Public Library of West Palm Beach, FL is scheduled to host “How Did American Act? Heroism on the Home Front” which includes a look at home some women sounded “the alarm about the plight of Europe’s Jews”

https://www.ushmm.org/online-calendar/event/seuswomenactpp0219

2019: As we celebrate the 210thanniversary of Abraham Lincoln, whom some compared with Moses because of their roles in freeing slaves we might do well to remember the words and life of a man who lived a life that would have made the Biblical prophets proud. http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln2.asp

2020: In Danvers, MA, the Davenport Yacht Club is scheduled to host the Combined Jewish Philanthropies’ Conversation for Action.

2020: In Boston, the first of a two-part learning for young adults is scheduled to explore the “two hallmarks of Shabbat – hospitality and challah.”

2020: In Los Altos Hills, CA, Congregation Beth Am is scheduled to host a “briefing by HIAS Senior Vice President Raphael Marcus on the current situation in Central and Latin America.”

2020: In Berkley, CA, Chochmat HaLev is scheduled to host “Elijah the Prophet: The Man Who Never Died, “the first in a “workshop series led by Daniel Matt on the significance of the prophet.”

2020: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the penultimate screening of “The Unorthodox.”

2020: Catchers and Pitchers for Theo Epstein’s Chicago Cubs are scheduled to report today marking the start of Spring Training.

2020: Observance of Lincoln’s birthday which could lead to reading Lincoln and the Jews by Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell or The Elected and the Chosenby Denis Brian.

https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Jews-Jonathan-D-Sarna/dp/1250059534

2021(30th of Shevat, 7801): Rosh Chodesh Adar; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

2021: The American Jewish Historical Society, for which Mitchell Levin is an “official content provider, is scheduled to present “Sexing American Jewish History” during which participants are scheduled answer the questions “What differences have Jews and Judaism made in the history of American sexuality?” and “How has sexuality shaped the history of American Jews and Judaism?”

2021: Congregation Beth Elohim is scheduled to present online “Potential and Peril: Attempting to Live a Life of Jewish Values with Ruth Messinger, the “social justice consultant, educator and former CEO of American Jewish World Service (AJWS) who is the scholar-in-residence.

2021: Birthday of Abraham Lincoln who counted among his friends and supporters attorney Abraham Jonas of Quincey, Illinois, publisher Sigmund Kaufman and chiropodist Dr. Isachar Zacharie and who struck a blow for full religious liberty when he made it possible for Jewish clergy to serve as Chaplains in the U.S. Army.

 

 

This Day, February 13, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 13

515 BCE (3rd of Adar, 3245): Completion of the construction of the Second Temple at Jerusalem.

996: Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim who “ordered…Jews to wear wooden calves around their necks” began his reign today.

1130: The Papacy of Honorius II came to an end. Honorius took no action that directly affected the Jewish people.  However, he did take an active role in the affairs of Eretz Israel as the ultimate leader of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Crusader-established entity that the Christians used to control the homeland of the Jews.

1195: This day marked the Speyer (German) ritual-murder libel.  Although there was no proof of any wrongdoing, the Rabbi's daughter was dismembered and her body was hung in the market place for a few days. The rabbi, along with many others, was killed and their houses burned.

1349: Jews were expelled from Burgsordf, Switzerland.

1349: During the Black Plague, the newly chosen Town Council of Strasbourg, gave orders to arrest all the Jews in the city so that they could be put to death.

1469: Birthdate of Elia Levita, early Hebrew grammarian and Yiddish author.

1633: Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome so he can stand trial before the Inquisition for heresy. According to at least one source this episode highlighted a basic difference between Judaism and the Roman Catholic Church “There is no scientific fact regarding the natural world that in itself stands against any of the principles of Judaism.” (As reported by JewishHistory.org)

1681: In England, “the Old Artillery Ground,” the future site of the Sandys Row Synagogue, “was granted in perpetuity to George Bradbury and Edward Noell for £5,700, with licence to build new houses on the same.”

1689: William and Mary are proclaimed joint sovereigns of Great Britain following the Glorious Revolution. By now, Jews had officially returned to Great Britain. According to some sources, Jewish financiers provided support for the cause that brought the new monarchs to the throne.  Eleven years after they began their reign, the Act for Suppressing Blasphemy which made practicing Judaism legal, was enacted.  King William would knight Solomon de Medina making him the first Jewish peer of the realm.

1728: Cotton Mather passed away.  Like many Puritans, he saw his people as the modern day Israelites.  For more on this see Cotton Mather and the Jews by Lee Friedman and “The Three Jewish Children At Berlin: Cotton Mather’s Obsession” by Linda Munk

http://books.google.com/books?id=QAWVuPvM--IC&pg=PA271&lpg=PA271&dq=cotton+mather+and+the+jews&source=bl&ots=UyPv3InBaS&sig=eVfcZa4o6rVcVr3RYEMZBVRKJqw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pL0ZUY_bKaTC2QXNyIHICw&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAw

1767(14th of Adar I, 5527): Purim Katan

1770: Joseph Abrahams, the son of Abraham Abrahams of Aldgate, was admitted as a solicitor in Chancery today.

1776: A decree was issued forcing Jews who had moved out of the Ghetto of Frankfort to return

1781(18th of Shevat, 5561): Mrs. Fanny Judah who had married Berlah Judah in Montreal, passed away today.

1783: Birthdate of Bina Levi, the daughter of German native Benedict Levi and husband of Abraham Faist Rosenheim with whom she had three children.

1794: Dr. Levi Meyers of Georgetown, SC married Francis Minis, “second daughter of the late Philip Minis” in Savannah, Ga.

1794: Rebeka Heiman and Chaim Guggenheimer gave birth to Sibila Guggenheimer.

1798:In Germany, Madel Dreifuss and Maier Ottenheimer gave birth to Voegele Ottenheimer, the wife of Abraham Moses Faist Rosenheim with whom she had four children.

1810: Birthdate of Naphtali Frankfurter, the native of Oberdorf who was the rabbi at the Reform temple in Hamburg and who was a member of the Hamburg Parliament.

1815: One day after he passed away, Barnet Franks, the husband of the former Jane Jacobs, was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”

1815: Birthday of critic and anthologist Rufus Wilmot Griswold whose marriage to South Carolina Jewess Charlotte Myers in 1845 was either unusual or scandalous depending on which version one chooses to believe.  In a day before the term “cougar” was in use, the 33 anthologist’s marriage to the 42 year well-to-do matron raised eyebrows.

1824(14th of Adar I, 5584): Purim Katan

1824: The will of Samuel Simons, a Jew living in Charleston, SC, was "proved today."  He left most of his estate "to relatives and institutions in London."  The one exception was “a bequest to his 'House Keeper Maria Chapman, a free woman of Colour" in the amount of "fourteen hundred dollars, two Negroes...with the issue and increase of the females and also two bedsteads bedding and chairs."  According to Sarna and Mendelssohn, a bequest of this size and nature would indicate that she was his mistress and not just a servant.

1824: In London, Mr. and Mrs. Zakok Aaron Jessel, gave birth to Sir George Jessel an influential jurist who was the first Jew to serve as the Master of Rolls, the most senior judge in England and Wales with the exception of the Lord Chief Justice

1829: Birthdate of Edmund Burke Wood the Canadian lawyer who made a famous summation after presiding over the case of Kieva Barsky, one of a large group of Jewish refugees who had settled in Winnipeg in 1881 and 1882 after fleeing persecution in Russia. Barsky had been the victim of a vicious anti-Semitic attack while working on the Canadian Pacific Railway, narrowly escaping death when a certain Charles Wicks attacked him with an iron bar. Wood spoke of the contribution of the Jewish people to human history and said that it “...was wholly out of keeping with Canadian justice and surely not in keeping with the asylum that should be offered to persecuted Jewry” that this sort of act should be tolerated.

1832: Birthdate of Bavaria native Joseph Houseman, the Grand Rapids, Michigan business and member of the B’nai B’rith

1833(24th of Shevat): Rabbi Ezekeiel Feivel be Ze’ev Wolf, the Maggid of Vilno author of Musar Haskel passed away

1841: Birthdate of Heinemann Vogelstein a German rabbi who was a leader of the Reform Movement and the father of Hermann, Ludwig and Theodor Vogelstein and of Julie Braun-Vogelstein.

1841: In London, Rebecca Crawcour and Aaron Hart gave birth to Amelia Hart.

1842: At Budapest, “the son of the secretary of the Jewish congregation” and his wife gave birth to German actor Ludwig Barnay.

1846: In New York City, Rachel Seixas Nathan and Montague M. Hendricks where were married in 1836 gave birth to Agnes Henricks, the wife of Aaron Wolff and the mother of Lillian Henricks Wolff.

1847: Sharon Turner the English historian and friend of Isaac D’Israeli passed away today.  It was Turner who provided the advice to the Anglo-Jewish intellectual that led to the baptism of his children including the future Earl of Beaconsfield.

1847(27th of Shevat, 5607): Parashat Mishaptim; Shabbat Shekalim

1847(27th of Shevat): Rabbi Zundel, author of Kenan Rananim passed away

1847: In Germany, Aron and Ella Jaffe gave birth to Abraham Nathan Jaffa, the “husband of Lea Helene Jafffa.”

1849: Birthdate of Elizabeth Helena De Jongh, the wife of Amsterdam native Edward Dentz.

1849: Birthdate of Lord Randolph Churchill, the father of Sir Winston Churchill.  Unlike many of his class, according to the great historian Martin Gilbert, Churchill “was noted for his friendship with individual Jews.” Lord Randolph had so many Jewish friends that he was the butt of jokes at his clubs. Of course, the Jews with whom Churchill associated were men of his economic and social class such as the Rothschilds and Sir Ernest Cassel, a close personal friend of the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward). According to Gilbert who was Sir Winston’s official biographer, the younger Churchill’s Jewish friendships were originally an attempt to show support for his father and gain the paternal approval he so longed for.

1850: In what is now the Czech Republic, Theresia Ester Ullman and Rabbi Benjamin Ullman gave birth to Hermann Ullmann, the husband of Bertha Ullmann.

1851: Charles VI “an 1843 French grand opera in five acts with music composed by Fromental Halevy” was performed for the first time in German in Hamburg.

1854(15th of Shevat, 5614): Tu B’Shevat

1854(15th of Shevat, 5614: Ninety-three-year-old Philadelphia native Leah Nathan Hart, the wife of Jacob Naphtali Hart and mother of Zipporah Hart passed away today in New York City.

1855: Birthdate of Russian native Isaac Schwayder, the husband of Rachel Leah Kobey Shwayder with whom he had nine children including Jesse Shwayder, the founder of Samonsite.

1859: In London, Bertha Salomons and Lionel Benjamin Cohen gave birth to Florence Justina Cohen, the husband of Abraham de Mattos Mocatta and mother of Effie and Edgar Mocatta.

1860: Birthdate of German native Pauline Kern.

1860(20th of Shevat, 5620): Seventy-one-year-old Isaac Baer Levinsohn “a notable Russian-Hebrew scholar, satirist, writer and Haskalah leader who was called ‘the Russian Mendelssohn’” passed away today.

1862: Birthdate of musician Karel Weis who composed “The Polish Jew.”

1864: Union General Benjamin Butler responded to a second letter from N.S. Isaacs in which he had complained about the General’s negative characterization of Jews, stating that they were smuggling supplies to Confederates in Louisiana and then describing them in classic anti-Semitic terms. In defending himself, the General wrote, “I admit that my experience with men of the Jewish faith or nation has been an unfortunate one. Living in an inland town in Massachusetts before the war, I had met but few…”

1865: Chaim (Henry) Abrams married Sophia Joel in Edinburgh, Scotland today.

1865: Private Abraham Greenawalkt, Company G, 104th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, U.S. Army was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his courageous service at the Battle of Franklin in November of 1864.

1866(28th of Shevat, 5626): Sophie Tobias, the sixth and youngest daughter of Isabella Cowen and Isaac Tobias passed away today in Charleston, S.C.

1866: Birthdate of Lev Isaakovich Schwarzmann, the Russian born philosopher who gained fame as Lev Isaakovich Shestov.  He was forced to flee after the October Revolution and found refuge in France where he died in 1938.

1870: In a town near Wilno, Anna and Maciej Godowsky, gave birth to pianist and composer Leopold Godowsky “who first played in public at the age of nine, made his first tour of the United States, where eventually settled, in 1884 and was the husband of Frieda Saxe.

https://www.naxos.com/person/Leopold_Godowsky_26067/26067.htm

1870: Birthdate of Memphis native Martin Isaacs, the Lake Forest U. trained attorney whose practice in Chicago included representing the Employing Tailors Association and who served as a Master in Chancery of the Superior Court of Cook County.

1871: In Kovno, Lazar Stein and Rosalia Leinson gave birth to illustrator Modest Stein who after a short stay in Paris came to the United States in 1888, married Marcia Mishkin and worked for numerous publications including the New York Press, New York Herald, Philadelphia North American and the New York World.

1871: In Omaha, Nebraska, Leah and Edward Rosewater gave birth to Victor S. Rosewater who followed in his father’s footsteps as editor and publisher of the Omaha Bee and a leader in Republican Party politics.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10B11F7395A11728DDDAA0994DF405B8088F1D3

1874: It was reported today that Glad Tidings, a Jewish journal is being printed every Friday in Calcutta using “the Arabic language and Hebrews characters.”

1875(7th of Adar I, 5635): Rabbi Zacharias Frankel passed away.  The scion of a rabbinic family from Prague, Frankel “was the founder, in Germany, of Historical Judaism, the forerunner of Conservative Judaism in America. A member of the first generation of modern rabbis, Frankel fashioned a multifaceted career as pulpit rabbi, spokesman for political emancipation, critic of radical religious reform, editor, head of the first modern rabbinical seminary, and historian of Jewish law.”

1876: An article published today tracing the history of cremation from ancient times to the present reported that “the early Christians followed the custom of the Jews, which was bury, not to burn the dead.  The Rabbis gave the text, ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return’ as a reason for burial and refused to burn the deceased members of the community.”  The great historian Tacitus was apparently well acquainted with Jews and their customs since he noted that among the Jews, “it is their practice – ‘corpora condere quam cremare’---‘to bury rather than to burn.’ (Tacitus, History, Volume 5)

1876: In a testament to futility, it was reported today that Abraham Joseph Levy who is currently in Cincinnati, Ohio working to convert Jews to Christianity visited approximately 600 hundred Jewish families in 1875 and succeeded in converting one family of six to Christianity.

1876: Martha May Cohen and Louis Samuel Cohen gave birth to Stanley Samuel Gilbert Cohen

1879: Birthdate of Ernest Albert Rosehnheim the native of Liverpool who gained fame as Ernest Rose, the race car driver who rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel while serving in the British Expeditionary Force during WW I.

1880: 1st of Adar, 5640): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1880: The funeral of Asher Bijur, a prominent New York tobacco merchant and leader of the Jewish community is scheduled to take place at his home on West 53rd Street followed by burial at Cypress Hill.

1881: The synagogue in Neustettin burned down today, a few days after Ernst Henrici had delivered an “anti-Semitic diatribe.” While the Jews thought it was anti-Semitic inspired arson the authorities thought differently, and five members of the Jewish community convicted on charges of arson so they could get the insurance money.  The verdict was overturned on appeal.

1881(14th of Adar): Rabbi Gershon Tanhum of Minsk author of Elano d’Hayei passed away

1881: Rabbi E.B.M. Browne of Atlanta, GA, delivered a lecture at the Central Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City on the subject of “The Talmud” during which he explained the origins and history of this compendium of Jewish law while dispelling many of the myths surrounding it.  Browne wore many hats and served several pulpits.  Browne was the founder and editor of The Jewish South, “a weekly edited first in Atlanta and later in New Orleans” which he described as “the only Jewish Journal this side of the Mason and Dixon Line.”

1882: It was reported today that the annual masquerade ball of the Purim Association will taking place on the evening of March 2nd.

1882 In London, Anglo-Jewish author Benjamin Farjeon and his wife Maggie who was not Jewish gave birth to award-winning author Eleanor Farjeon.

1883: Seventy-nine-year-old composer Richard Wagner passed away.

http://www.aish.com/jw/s/Wagners-Anti-Semitism.html

http://forward.com/articles/193474/why-jews-stood-up-for-richard-wagner/?p=all

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Wagner.html

1884(17th of Shevat, 5644): Seventy-one year old Aaron David Bernstein “a German Jewish author, reformer and scientist” whose “translation of the “Song of Songs” and “his publication of Young Germany established his reputation among the literary critics of Berlin.”

1884: In Wolverhampton, Amelia Cohen and Jonas Hart gave birth to Sheba Henrietta Hart.

1885: In the UK, the Mersey Tunnel, which was built under the leadership of Samuel Isaac, opened today.

1885(28th of Shevat, 5645): Seligman Solomon passed away.

1887: Birthdate of Guy Zinn, the native of Holbrook, West Virginia who played for all three “major leagues” – American, National and Federal – from 1911 until 1915.

1887: In New York, “Emanuel and Cecelia (Balenburg) Manheimer gave birth to the Columbia PhD and “sanitation expert” Wallace Aaron Manheimer the husband of Mildred Morrison who served as the Superintendent of the Bronx YMHA and the Hebrew National Orphan Home while writing “3 act plays” and articles on sanitation.

1887: Rabbi Alexander Kohut of Ahawath Chesed left for Baltimore this afternoon where he is scheduled to marry Rebekah Bettleheim.

1889: Birthdate of Leontine Schlesinger, the Austrian born actress and director the world would know as Leontine Sagan.

1890: The Russian Jews, who arrived in New York yesterday from Hamburg on board the SS Rugia, will probably be placed in quarantine at a building on Clinton Street which the Board of Health uses for emergency purposes.  The Jews are suspected of having contracted typhus fever which has an incubation period of from 18 to 21 days.

1890: It was reported today that the brass band from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum under the direction of Mr. Wiegand will perform “Philadelphia March” in its premiere performance at the upcoming reception hosted by the Seligman Solomon Society.

1891: The will of Philadelphian Ellen M. Philips who had passed away on February 2 was admitted to probate today.

1892(15th of Shevat, 5652): Tu B’Shevat

1892: American Socialist leader Julius Gerber married Lena Sacht today in New York.

1893: Charles Frohman’s comedic performers are appearing at the Standard Theatre in New York in “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”

1893: The committee formed by the Central Conference of American Rabbis “to arrange the seconding part of the Union Prayer book containing the services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur” met for the second time today in Chicago.

1894: The Independent Western Star Order whose members included N.T. Brenner, Eugene Weinberger and Sam Cohen was organized today in Chicago, Illinois.

1894: Birthdate of Mir, Russia native and alum of the School of Military Engineering in Odessa,Henry J Harkavv, the Fordham trained attorney and a leader of the Bikur Cholim Convalescent Home who was the husband of “the former Fannie Gotlieb.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/05/archives/henry-j-harkavy.html

1895: The Hebrew Institute hosted a meeting where the issues of tenement house improvements and “the single tax” were discussed.

1895: It was reported today that an autopsy will need to be held to determine the cause of death for Mrs. Hannah Steinberger whose friends claim she took he own life.  They blamed her action on the cumulative mistreatment of her by her husband who was arrested last October for assaulting his wife.

1895: In Atlanta, GA, a grand ball will be held this evening in Concordia Hall, for the delegates attending the district convention of B’nai Brith. (Editor’s Note – The Concordia Association was formed by Hungarian and German Jews in 1867 and was the site of Atlanta’s first Jewish wedding.  The Association morphed into the Standard Club in the 1900’s)

1897: It was reported that Theodore Roosevelt, President of the Board of Police Commissioners delivered the main address at the dedication Hebrew Technical Institute’s new facility which had been held on Lincoln’s Birthday even though the building was actually ready for use on January 4.  Other speakers included Max Lowenthal who “delivered an address for the alumni of the institute and …Professor Morris Loeb, Chairman of the Instruction Committee.”

1897: Dr. E.G. Hirsch of Chicago conducted Shabbat morning services today at Temple Beth-El in New York; the congregation served by Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler.

1898: “The Dawn of Literature” published today summarized the views of Harvard Professor C.H.Toy’s regarding the relationship between Egyptian and Babylonian literature and Hebrew literature. He contends that the account of the flood was “engraved on clay tables about 2000 B.C,, long before the Hebraic account was written and…the Biblical account was founded on the Babylonian.”  He also said that he Jews took the stories of Ruth, Jonah and Esther from the literature of the Egyptians.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0019_0_19475.html

1899: The Union of Judæo-German Congregations which had been founded in 1869 was officially incorporated today.

1900(14th of Adar I, 5660): Purim Katan

1900: The auditorium of the Educational Alliance’s building was the site of “a gathering of the Federation of East Side Boys’ Clubs” where Professor Felix Adler was among those who gave “their respective views of reform in municipal affairs.

1901: In Vienna, Sophie and Robert Lazarsfeld gave birth to sociologist Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, the founder of Columbia University's Bureau for Applied Social Research.

1901:  Constantin C. Arion, who had said that his “Government would grant rights to the Jews in accordance with the peace treat” and that the Government “would completely abolish Article 7 of the Rumanian Constitution” which states that “Jews in Rumania are aliens and that naturalization is only possible for them individually” completed his service as Minister of Religion and Public Instruction today. (Editor’s Note – Going back to the Congress of Berlin, Rumanian government were always promising to emancipate the Jews living in the country and always failing to do so.)

1902: Birthdate of Louis R. Oshins who “was City College of New York (CCNY) first team captain when the school resumed football in 1922 and later became head coach at Brooklyn College where his most famous player was Allie Sherman, future coach of the New York Giants.

1903: It was reported today, the new officers of the American Jewish Historical Society are President, Dr. Cyrus Adler; Vice Presidents, Simeon W. Rosendale, Professor J. H. Hallander,, Rabbi Bernhard Felsenthal and Professor Charles Gross; Corresponding Secretary, Max J. Kohler; Recording Secretary, Dr. Herbert Friedenwald;; Treasurer, J.H. Gotteheil; and Curator Leon Huhner.

1904(27th of Shevat, 5664): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1904: It was reported today that at the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Hebrew Technical Institute, a bronze table was unveiled honoring the memory of James H. Hoffman, “the first president of the institute who served from 1883 to 1900.

1905(8th of Adar, 5565): “Simon Sobel, who last January complied with an old Jewish custom in which his wife received a divorce in accordance with rabbinical tenets as laid down in Deuteronomy XXV, 3-11, died at his home” in Newark, NJ, after having been stricken with paralysis.

1906: Another Jewish massacre was reported to have taken place in Bessarabia.

1907: Daniel B. Freedman sold Isaac Blum a “four story dwelling on 261 West 54th Street.”

1908: “Starling allegations of the Czar’s complicity in the pogroms, which in the last two or three years have led to the massacring of hundreds of Jews in various parts of Russia have reached the German Jewish Relief League.”

1909: In Newcastle, New South Wales, “Sir Samuel Cohen and his wife Elma (née Hart)” gave birth to Major General Paul Alfred Cullen, who served with distinction during WW II in both North Africa and the Pacific campaigns against Japan.

http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/cullen-paul-alfred-20603

1910(4th of Adar): Rabbi Eliezer Gordon, founder of the Yeshiva in Telz Lithuania passed away today.

1911: Despite his continued involvement with Friede Kunke, “at the urging of his family” novelist Bruno Alfred Döblin “was reluctantly engaged” to his future wife Erna Reiss.

1912: “W. Seligman Kills Himself In A Hotel” published today described the events surrounding the suicide of Washington Seligman, the son of banker James Seligman, who had made an unsuccessful attempt to take his life in May of 1903 by slashing his throat with a razor.

1913: Birthdate of Brooklynite Devery Freeman, the writer and U.S Navy veteran who helped to establish the Writers Guild Of Ameirca.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E6D7173FF937A25753C1A9639C8B63

1913: The Council of Jewish Women in Los Angeles, California opened a day nursery for children of working mothers of all nationalities.

1913: “The Other” a cinema version of a play of the same name directed by Max Mack and produced by Jules Greenbaum was released today in Germany.

1913(6th of Adar): Author Yehiel Michael Pines passed away

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0016_0_15791.html

http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/ruzhany/ruz077.html

1914: Sixty-year-old Alphonse Bertillon who testified as a “handwriting expert” which he was not that “Alfred Dreyfus had written the incriminating document (known as the "bordereau") which resulted in condemning an innocent man to a disgraceful discharge and life sentence at the French penal colony of Devil’s Island passed away today.

1914(17th of Shevat, 5674): Ninety-six-year-old Judith Simcha da silva Solis, the Wilmington, Delaware born daughter of Charity Hays and Jacob da silva Solis and the husband of Myer David Cohen with whom she had eight children, passed away today in Philadelphia.

1915(29th of Shevat, 5675): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1915: It was reported today that a group of porters and drivers, many of whom were Jews were forced to leave the fortress at Przemysl and sought refuge in the Russian lines where they said the garrison’s only meat ration was horseflesh

1915: U.S. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniel today wrote to Herman Bernstein, editor of The Day, that he had discussed the request of the Jewish Relief Committee with President Wilson and that he would be willing to naval vessels, (in this case the U.S.S. North Carolina and the U.S.S. Scorpion, carry “food and medicines for the sick and starving in the Holy Land” as long as the quantities were limited to the space available and the supplies were loaded without delaying the sailing of the vessels.

1915: It was reported today that “the Committee on Unemployment among Jewish Girls of which Mrs. Alexander Kohurt is Chairman has arranged with the War Relief Committee to sell milk at a cent a glass to the 600 girls in the 7 workrooms that to the generosity of Mrs. Charles Oppenheim who has made up the deficit in the cost of the milk.

1916: “Julius Kahn, the Republican Congressman from California” told a meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association that 50,000 Jews were fighting in the British Army, 175,000 Jews in the German Army and 350,000 Jews in the Russian Army and that “the Jew has always fought well for whatever country he might living in and for his God” which gave him good reason that Jews would serve in the Army being expanded to meet the possible threat of involvement in the war now raging in Europe.

1916: As Americans debated whether nor to take part in the World War, “Isaac Siegel, the Republican Congressman for the Twentieth District of New York said that the country was passing through a critical period, that it was time to adopt a policy that meant something and that the home industries and American lives on the high seas must be protected.”

1916: Three days after he had passed away, eighty-two-year-old Francis Samuel, the Philadelphia born son of Sarah Samuel and the husband of Beatrice Julia Samuel was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1916: In Nuremberg, Marianne Rath and Julius Heydecker gave birth to Joe J. Heydecker who secretly made a photographic record of the Warsaw Ghetto which provided a vivid picture of the Nazi atrocities.

1916: As of today, the fund of the Jewish Relief Committee of which Felix M. Warburg is the treasurer has collected $2,763,764.14 which means it has almost reached its goal of three million dollars.

1916: As part of Justice Samuel Greenbaum’s appeal to New Yorkers to support the Educational Alliance, the public was invited “to visit the alliance at 137 East Broadway and see what is being done to make the young people good Americans and place them under good influences” while keeping them off of the streets.

1917: In Hudson, NY, Russian Jewish refugees Isaac and Ella Miler Slutzky gave birth to Orville Andrew Slutzky “who with his brother founded the Hunter Mountain ski resort in upstate New York, known in the 1960s for its celebrity clientele and in the 1970s.” (Paul Vitello)

1918:  The Kaiser told “a War Council…that there was a world-wide conspiracy against Germany, the participants in which included…’international Jewry’…He made no mention of the fact that as many as ten thousand Jews…had already been killed fighting in the ranks of the German Army..”

1918: Birthdate of Wisconsin native Lewis B. “Lew” Hamity, the University of Chicago and Chicago Bears running back who “served in the U.S. Armed Services during World War II and then became a salesman for Phil Maid Lingerie. He later bought Mapes and Sprowl Steel, serving first as president, then as chairman.”

1919: German lawyer and politician Eugene Schiffer began serving as the Minister of Finance today.

1920: “The Jewish Chronicle” published an article taking exception to Winston Churchill’s characterization of a Jewish relationship to Bolshevism in an article he had published in the “Illustrated Sunday Herald.” 

1921: Today marked the end of the three-day celebration marking the incorporation of Congregation Shaaray Tefila.

1922(15th of Shevat, 5682): Tu B’Shevat

1922: “Fruits from Palestine will be eaten today by New York Jews as part of…the New Year of the Trees, a Palestinian festival Spring” which is like the American Arbor Day.

1923: Birthdate of Yifrah Neaman, the Lebanese born British violinist.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/jan/08/guardianobituaries1

1924: Nineteen year old Liba Zibranitska, whom District James A. Lowell had ruled could enter the United States because she and her siblings had been the victims of anti-Semitic violence and persecution in the United States is scheduled to leave Boston today to join a sister in western New York.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1924/02/13/301957802.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1925(19th of Shevat, 5685): Samuel Goldstein, the President of the Jew Home for Convalescents, the First Deputy Grand Master of B’rith Abraham and the former President of the United Rumanian Jews of America passed away today at his home on Fort Washington Avenue.

1926: “ ‘Reminiscences of My Father’ was the topic chosen by Maxa Nordau, daughter of the late philosopher, author and Zionist, Max Nordau for her first lecture” tonight at the Town Hall in New York City.

1927: When he was installed today as the “spiritual leader of the Congregation Talmud Torah of Flatbush,” Rabbi Isadore Goldman delivered “his inaugural sermon” in which he “criticized Fundamentalists and Moderates alike.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1927/02/14/98412696.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1928: Birthdate of Bronx native Gerald Fried, “the son of Ukrainian and Polish Jewish immigrants whose high school friends included filmmaker Stanley Kurbrick and who, after mastering the Oboe became the composer of music for films and television.

http://www.mmmrecordings.com/Composers/Fried/fried.html

1928: After an absence of six months, former State Senator Nathan Straus delivered an address tonight a meeting of the United Palestine Appeal at Temple B’nai Israel of Washington where he drew “a comparison between the national ideals of the Polish, Irish and Jewish peoples.

1929: “John Haynes Holmes, the pastor of the New York Community Church, the guest of honor at reception given to him” today “by the municipality of Tel Aviv” urged the Christian and Moslem communities of Palestine “to lend their best cooperation to the efforts of the Jewish people in the rebuilding of the Holy Land.

1930(15th of Shevat, 5690): First Tu B’Shevat of the Great Depression

1931: “A huge flood…burst” the “Zero Canal” devastating the first power plant “to create electricity for the entire north of Palestine.” (As reported by Aviva and Shmuel Bar-Am)

1931: In the wake of a British white paper aimed at limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine, today Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald wrote the famous “Macdonald Letter” to Chiam Weizmann. The limitation on immigration had been brought on by violent Arab riots in 1929.

1932: “A Tremendously Rich Man” a comedy directed by Steve Sekely and produced by Joe Pasternak was released in Germany today.

1932: Today, after 139 performances at the Shubert Theatre in New York, the final curtain came down on “Everybody’s Welcome,” a musical coming with “lyrics by Irving Kahal and music Sammy Fain.”

1933: “A resolution, calling for the establishment of a permanent commission on education and youth organization of the Zionist Organization of America to formulate an educational program of study and activity, conceived in the light of Palestine development for the guidance of schools, clubs, community centers and adult groups, was adopted today at the closing session of the Zionist Organization, at the Young Men's Hebrew Association, Ninety-second Street and Lexington Avenue.”

1934: In Great Neck, NY Fannie Blanche Segal (née Bodkin) and George Segal, Sr., a malt and hop agent gave birth to actor and some-time banjo player George Segal.

1935:”The plan to protect the dietary laws by affixing metal bands to the legs of approved poultry was declared a success” today “at a meeting of the Kashruth Association of Greater New York” which was being held at the Hotel Pennsylvania.

1936: Today, “Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the national chairman of the United Palestine Appeal announced” today “the formation of a physicians committee to raise funds for the settlement in Palestine of a maximum number of Jews of Germany and other countries.”

1936: Approximately 2,000 people attended an anniversary party in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria which was a “celebration of Mrs. Felix Warburg’s sixtieth birthday anniversary” and a tribute “to her dynamic leadership in Jewish philanthropy”

1936: According to the annual report issued today by Gabriel Davidson, the general manager of the Jewish Agricultural Society, “Jewish farmers in the United States have weather the economic difficulties of the last few years and are no making steady progress in agriculture.”

1937: George Backer, the chairman of the Greater New York campaign announced today that “the city’s quota in the $4,650,000 national drive of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, now under way, has been set at $1,860,000” which “will be used for the aid of persecuted European Jews, chiefly in Poland and Germany.”

1937: While various branches of Christianity tried to decide how to deal with the Nazis, “The Minister of Church Affairs” told a group of churchmen, that “Christianity is not dependent upon the Apostle's Creed .... [but] is represented by the Party .... the German people are now called ... by the Führer to a real Christianity .... The Führer is the herald of a new revelation.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that two Arab brothers were shot and killed by Arab terrorists near Nablus. The Haifa-Kantara-Cairo train was delayed by sabotage attributed to Arabs taking part in the uprising.

1938: Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana delivered a speech to two thousand members of the Brooklyn Conference of the United Palestine Appeal at the Hotel St. George which was broadcast over Station WHEN in which he declared “that anti-Semitic regimes like those in German and Rumania were inimical not only to Jews but to Christians” and “that the United States, by virtue of a resolution passed by Congress in 1922 in support of the Balfour Declaration should ‘exert its influence in favor of allowing maximum Jewish immigration into Palestine.’”

1938: “A nationwide investigation of the status of all foreign immigrants living in Mexico” which is really aimed at Jews who have settled in the country since the 1920’s “has been ordered by the Secretary of the Interior according to an official state made by the President today.”

1938: It was announced today that author I.J. Singer will be the speaker at the upcoming tea sponsored by The Women’s American Ort which is part of its effort “to increase membership and facilitate its work in the rehabilitation of the Jews of Eastern and Central Europe.

1938: While an official communique published to said that “Cino Olivetti had resigned the vice presidency of the Corporation of Textile Products, the presidency of the Italian Cotton Institute and the commissionership of the National Fascist Corporation of Cotton Industrialists “ “for personal reasons” this action was seen as “the first move toward outing Jews from prominent positions in Italian life.”

 1939:  Gone with the Winddirector George Cukor was fired by Producer David O. Selznick. Selznick objected to the slow pace of filming, and star Clark Gable had personal conflicts with Cukor. Cukor was replaced the next day with Victor Fleming, who won that year's Academy Award for Best Director for the film. If you have trouble going to sleep, instead of counting sheep, try counting the Jews involved in the making of “Gone With the Wind.”

1939: In “German: Reactions to Hitler” Time magazine reported that Every time Fiihrer Adolf Hitler gets ready to make a speech the world gets scared. Every time he gets through making a speech the world is relieved that he has not immediately plunged it into war. Much the same sense of relief was evident last week after the Dictator finished his annual Reichstag address. Because he announced no troop movements, made no mention of forthcoming invasions and delivered his address in rather more subdued tones than usual, many correspondents, editorial writers, even statesmen called the speech "mild." Those who took the trouble to wade through the long, formless address, however, discovered that it was actually one of the most sensational and threatening talks ever made by the head of a State. Excerpts:

> "Surely no one can seriously assume that, as in the case of Germany, a mass of 80,000,000 intelligent persons, can be permanently condemned as pariahs or be forced to remain passive forever by having some ridiculous legal title [to colonies], based solely on former acts of force, held up before them."

> "In time of crisis one single energetic man outweighs ten feeble intellectuals."

> "Europe cannot settle down until the Jewish question is cleared up."

> "If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then 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."

> "We shall protect the German clergy in their capacities as God's ministers, but we shall destroy clergy who are enemies of the German Reich."

> "Let us thank Almighty God that He has granted to our generation and to us the great blessing of experiencing this period of history and this hour."

Remarks like these gave Neville Chamberlain "the impression that it was not the speech of a man who was preparing to throw Europe into another crisis." Not a few other popular spokesmen on both sides of the Atlantic failed to share this view. Said Commentator Dorothy Thompson of the New York Herald Tribune: "Hitler never delivered a more ominous speech or one more cunningly calculated to befuddle his opponents and create dissension in democracies. The speech boils down to a declaration of intention to reapportion the distribution of the world's wealth among nations." James G. McDonald, chairman of President Roosevelt's Committee for Refugees, thought the speech was a threat to peace, that it heralded the Nazis' use of the Jews for expansion purposes. Osservatore Romano, semi-official organ of the Roman Catholic Church, challenging the Fiihrer's statement that no religious persecution exists in Germany, declared that "liberty has lost all meaning in the ecclesiastical and religious fields in the Third Reich."

1939: “The German Government’s proposals toward helping the orderly emigration of refuges from the Reich were submitted today to the delegates of thirty-two counties” which some think “foreshadows a checking, if not a reversing of the increasingly ruthless pressure applied to Jews…in the past six years.”

1940:Captain Paul Cohen, commanding B Company of the 2/2nd Battalion, 16th Brigade arrived in North Africa.

1941: Nazi leaders attacked the Dutch Jewish Council.

1942(25th of Shevat, 5702): In the Minsk Ghetto, Germans killed the leaders of the Jews deported from Hamburg.

1943: The father of Henri Krasucki, Izaak Krasucki who had been arrested on charges of sabotage was deported from Drancy today and sent to Birkenau “where he was gassed upon his arrival.”

1943: Twelve young Jews who had escaped from the Bialystok ghetto deportations attacked a German police unit at Lobpowy Most.

1943: Jews in Salonica were prohibited from walking on the street at night, nor using any telephone, private or public.

1943: Pianist Władysław Szpilman was able to escape from the Warsaw Ghetto.

1944: Birthdate of Sheldon Silver the graduate of Rabbi Jacob Joseph High School and Yeshiva University who began serving as Speaker of the New York State Assembly in 1994.

1944:  Birthdate of sometime politician and disreputable television host, Jerry Springer

1945(30th of Shevat, 5705): Henrietta Szold, American-Jewish women's leader and the founder of Hadassah, who had been seriously ill in Hadassah University Hospital on Mount Scopus since December, died today at the age of 84.

http://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/13/1945/henrietta-szold

1945: On the day before the night bombing of Dresden, Victor Klemper assisted in delivering notices of deportation to some of the last remaining members of the Jewish community in Dresden. Fearful that he too would soon be sent to his death he used the confusion created by Allied bombings that night to remove his yellow star, join a refugee column, and escape into American-controlled territory.”

1945(30th of Shevat, 5705): Russian born Jake Cohen, the founder (in 1917), owner and publisher of the Memphis Labor Review passed away today in Memphis, TN.

https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/memphis-labor-review/

1945: During World War II, the Red Army takes Budapest, Hungary from Wehrmacht forces. Reportedly 100,000 Jews were still alive when the Soviets freed the city from Nazi control. 

1945: In Marylebone, London, Gertie (née Steinberg), and Arthur Schama gave birth to historian Simon Schama.

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/arise-sir-simon-schama-jewish-historian-honoured-at-buckingham-palace/

1946: Birthdate of Richard Blumenthal, an American lawyer and Democratic politician who has served Attorney General of Connecticut.

1947(23rd of Shevat, 5707): Fifty-eight-year-old Baltimore native C. Irving Latz, “the president of the Wolf-Dessauer Department Store in Fort Wayne, Indiana, passed away today.

https://www.jani.org/images/docs/G._Irving_Latz.pdf

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1947/02/14/88755652.pdf

1948: “Security measures around the Eden Hotel, in the heart of the Jewish area in Jerusalem were tightened for the protection of thirty Americans who arrived today on behalf of the United Jewish Appeal in the United States.”

1949: “Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion served notice on the United Nations Palestine Conciliation Commission tonight that Israel would oppose the internationalization of Jerusalem.”

1950: Dr. Serge Koussevitzky, the 75-year-old conduct emeritus conduct of the Boston Symphony arrived in Israel where he will be giving 16 concerts between now and March 27.

1952: Frederick Loeser and Company, the major Brooklyn department store founded by Frederick Loeser in 1860 went bankrupt and effectively closed its doors today.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,822175,00.html

1952: Birthdate Irene Dische, an American writer born and raised in New York's Washington Heights district. Her parents were Viennese Jews, and the neighborhood was home to so many German Jews that it was known as "the Fourth Reich." That German Jews would refer to their new surroundings in this way explains, in part, Dische's unusual world view, which sees isolated individuals living in a shadow realm of confounded cultural identities. Her works include Strange Traffic and The Empress of Weehawken.

1952(17th of Shevat, 5712): Seventy-one-year-old German born musicologist Alfred Einstein, the second cousin of Albert Einstein and one of a long list of intellectuals who fled Hitler’s Germany and made their home in the world of American Academia passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1952/02/17/84239988.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1954: Birthdate of sportscaster Howard “Howie” Rose the “voice” of the Mets and the Islanders.

1955(21st of Shevat, 5715): Seventy-two-year-old Hungarian born actor Szoke (ZK) Szakall who came to America when the Nazis came to power and gained fame as character actor in films as varied as “Casablanca” and the screwball comedy “Ball of Fire” passed away today.

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/168558%7C137391/S-Z-Sakall/

https://cladriteradio.com/remembering-s-z-sakall-on-his-135th-birthday/

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=qghjXPP7KZTmjwSp6IrABg&q=s.z.+sakall&oq=S.Z.&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0l9.1094.3981..6960...0.0..0.89.277.4......0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0i131j0i3.np6P6uhlCAM

1955 Israel acquired four of the seven Dead Sea scrolls. Between 1947 and 1956 thousands of fragments of biblical and early Jewish documents were discovered in eleven caves near the site of Khirbet Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea. These important texts have revolutionized our understanding of the way the Bible was transmitted, and have illuminated the general cultural and religious background of ancient Palestine.

1955: NBC broadcast the first episode of “Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion” produced by Herschel “Harry” Saltzman.

1955: “The Big Combo” film noire written by Philip Yordan was released today in the United States.

1958: Funeral service as scheduled to be held at “Riverside” this morning for Cornelia (Gypsy) Meyerson, the daughter of Kohlman and Janet Meyerson Z”L.

1959: Mattel began selling the Barbie doll.  Ruth Handler, President of Mattel, was the major force behind the creation and marketing of this American cultural icon.

1960(15th of Shevat, 5720): Tu B’Shevat celebrated for the last time during the Presidency of Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower.

1964:  Birthdate of Harvard and Oxford trained legal expert and author Jeffrey Rosen, whose works include Conversations with RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law, William Howard Taft: The American Presidents Series: The 27th President, 1909-1913 and Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet.

1965: The United States Figure Skating Championships, in which Taffy Pergament placed seventh, came to an end today.

1965: The Italian government prevented a private theatre in Rome from staging a production of Rolf Hochhuth’s play “The Deputy” which deals with Pope Pius XII’s response to the murder of the Jews.

1967(3rd of Adar I, 5727): Eighty-six-year-old Rabbi Lipman Levine, the Russian born son of Liebe and Eliyahu Leib Levine and “retired spiritual leader of Congregation Agudath Achim Anshe New Lots who “had been a rabbi for forty-two years” and who was the husband “of the former Frayde Syma Grudo with he had two daughters and seven sons – Herman, Sol, Samuel, Jack, Abraham and Zush, passed away today in Brooklyn.

1969: Joseph Rosenstock closed out his 8-year career at the Met today when he conducted “Die Meistersinger.

1972(28th of Shevat, 5732): Eighty-five-year-old Ann McCreary, the daughter of Alfred S. and Jennie Brandeis of Louisville and the wife of William Harold McCreary with whom she had two sons – Alfred and William – passed away today in Louisiville.

1975(2nd of Adar, 5735): Seventy-seven-year-old silent screen actress Dagmar Godowsky passed away on the 105thanniversary of the birth of her father Leopold Godowsky.

1975: CBS broadcast the first screening of “Queen of the Stardust Ballroom” with a script by Jerome Kass.

1978(6th of Adar, 5738): Sixty-eighty-year-old Boston native Benjamin Alexander, the Harvard trained physician who specialized in hematology and was a member of the faculty at Cornell passed away today.

1979(16th of Shevat, 5739): Eighty-three-year-old Sir Israel Brodie, the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth passed away today.

http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brodie-sir-israel-9586

https://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/457418/jewish/Chief-Rabbi-Israel-Brodie.htm

1983: “Merline” a musical written by Richard Levinson, with music by Elmer Bernstein and lyrics by Don Black opened today on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger Theatre.

1987: “84 Charring Cross Road” produced by Mel Brooks was released in the United States today

1991(29th of Shevat, 5751): Bernard Sauer Yiddish actor suffers a fatal heart attack at the age of 67. “He appeared on Broadway in 1966 in "Let's Sing Yiddish," starring Ben Bonus. He also performed in "Light, Lively and Yiddish" and in "Sing Israel Sing." He was also part of a Yiddish repertory company that performed in 1971 at the Anderson Theater in Manhattan. He was the president of the Hebrew Actors Union for the last five years and a board member of the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance. He was born in Buenos Aires and attended drama school there. His first theatrical appearance was in 1945 in Joseph Buloff's "Yoshke, the Musician."”

1994 (2nd of Adar, 5754):Noam Cohen, age 28, a member of the General Security Service, was shot and killed in an ambush on his car. Two of his colleagues who were also in the vehicle suffered moderate injuries. HAMAS claimed responsibility for the attack.

1994: The New York Times announces the reissuing of two classics: the intriguing, elegantly narrated Freud’s Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi in which the author, a historian, analyzes Sigmund Freud's book Moses and Monotheism, arguing that despite its unorthodox approach, the work can still be read as a celebration of Judaism and , in paperback, A History of the Jews in Americaby Howard M. Sachar

1996(22nd of Shevat, 5756):  Actor Martin Balsam passed away at the age of 76.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/14/nyregion/martin-balsam-is-dead-at-76-ubiquitous-character-actor.html

1997:  In what some might see as Jewish musical chairs Janet Yellin was confirmed to replace Joseph Stiglitz as Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.

1998: “Sphere” a sci-fi thriller directed and produced Barry Levinson, starring Dustin Hoffman and Live Schreiber, with music by Elliot Goldenthal whose father is Jewish and filmed by cinematographer Adam Greenberg was released in the United States today.

2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Empires of the Sand The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789-1923 by Efraim Karsh and Inari Karsh and The Mysteries Within: A Surgeon Reflects on Medical Myths by Sherwin B. Nuland.

2001: Michael Jay Solomon began serving a three year term as Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Team Communications Group, Inc.

2002(1st of Adar, 5762): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2002: “Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, has accepted responsibility for the attempt last month to smuggle Iranian weapons for use against Israel, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told Congress today.”

2002: “In response to the firing this week of two new types of rockets from the Gaza strip into southern Israel,” today “Israeli troops in armored vehicles raided” Beit Hanuan, Beit Lahiya and Deir al Balach.

2003(10th of Adar I, 5763): Ninety-five Pulitzer prize winning historian James Thomas Flexner passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/nyregion/james-thomas-flexner-washington-biographer-95-dies.html

http://www.librarything.com/author/flexnerjamesthomas&all=1

2003(10th of Adar I, 5763): Walt Whitman Rostow, U.S. economist, and one of the famous Rostow brothers who served as foreign policy advisors to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, passed away. (As reported by Todd S. Purdum)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/15/obituaries/15ROST.html?pagewanted=all

2004: Grace Brothers stores were rebranded as Myer. Myer, the largest department store chain in Australia, was started by Sidney Myer a Russian Jew who came to Melbourne in 1899.

2005: A revival production of Arthur Laurents’ “Hallelujah Baby” is scheduled to come to a close at the Arena Theatre.

 2005: The Chicago Tribunereported that the descendants of the Frieder Brothers and those saved from the Holocaust through their efforts related the stories of survival during a public program at the Plum Street Temple in downtown Cincinnati. The Frieder Brothers were Cincinnati Jews who ran a family-owned cigar factory in the Philippines where they helped Jews from Hitler's Germany and Austria take refuge.  They enlisted the help of the first Philippine President Manuel Quezon and the U.S. High Commissioner of the Philippines Paul McNutt in their efforts to save thousands of Jews.  Quezon and McNutt were also being honored for their efforts.  Details of this self-less act of courage can be in found in Ephraim's Escape to Manila: From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror, a book that chronicles their rescue efforts. The Frieder family was very modest.  My sister, Judy Levin Rosenstein (of blessed memory) went to college with Judy Frieder where they began a life-long friendship.  “Frieder” nor any of her family members ever mentioned this episode. 

 2005:  The Chicago Tribune reviewed The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life by Tom Reiss, a biography of Lev Nussimbaum, one of those fascinating, colorful characters who populate the periphery of history.

 2005:  The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Right Turns: Unconventional Lessons From a Controversial Life by Michael Medved and My Guardian Angel by Sylvie Weil.  Written for children, this historical novel describes the events that surrounded the arrival of the Crusaders at the town of Troyes, France in 1096.  The tale is told through the eyes of a twelve year old girl named Elvina who is the granddaughter Rashi.  We all know about Rashi's daughters and grandsons.  Here is a chance to learn about his granddaughter and the fate of the Jews of France and Germany during the time of the First Crusade.

2006(15th of Shevat, 5766): Tu B’Shvat

2006: “The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.”

2006: Naomi Blumenthal, a Likud MK, was convicted of bribery and obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 8 months in prison, a ten-month suspended sentence and was fined 75,000 shekels.

2007: Stephen Allen Schwarzman, the CEO of the Blackstone celebrated his 60th birthday a day ahead of time with at the Armory on Park Avenue with a guest that included everybody from Mayor Michael Bloomberg to real estate mogul and future President of the United States, Donald Trump.

2007: Gabi Ashkenazi became the Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. Born in Hagor in 1954, he joined the army in 1972 as a member of the famous Golani Brigade and saw his first combat in the Sinai during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

2007: “In the Loop” published today described the comings and goings in the federal government including the hiring of Dan Shapiro by Timmons and Company.

2007: Richard Pearlstone, a member of the prominent philanthropic Meyerhoff family, has been nominated to a possible eight-year term as chair of the Jewish Agency's board of governors, beginning in June. The Meyerhoff family of Baltimore donates millions of dollars a year to various charitable institutions in the U.S. and Israel. Pearlstone himself is affiliated with dozens of institutions and is former national chair of the UJA. He is also former chair of the Agency's budget and finance committee. The Meyerhoff family-owned Monumental Life Insurance Company was bought by the AEGON, a Dutch insurance conglomerate. 

2008: The 12th New York Sephardic Jewish Festival continues with showings of “The Last Jews of Libya,” the U.S. Premiere “Leaving Paradise: The Jews of Jamaica,“ the New York premiere of “Ladino – Five Hundred Years Young,” and the North American premiere of “Goodbye Mothers” (Adieu Mères).

2008: Israeli author Amos Oz and former U.S. vice president Al Gore are among the recipients of this year's Dan David Prize for influential scientific, technological, cultural or social achievements, the prize administrators announced in Tel Aviv.

2008: In a dinner speech given at a meeting of members of France’s Jewish community President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that beginning next fall, every fifth grader will have to learn the life story of one of the 11,000 French children killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust

2009: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was released from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center today, a week after surgery to remove a tumor on her pancreas, the court announced.

2009:IAF aircraft struck in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis this afternoon after two Kassam rockets were earlier fired at southern Israel.

2009: Amy Siegel won first place at the third annual Manischewitz Cook-Off with her Marvelous Mediterranean Sliders. At the Third Annual Simply Manischewitz Cook-Off six finalists, amateur cooks whose recipes were selected from among thousands of submissions whipped up their easy-to-make dishes at the Marriot Marquis in New York as they competed for the $25,000 grand prize

2010: The JCC On the Palisades is scheduled to host an evening with Nachum Heiman, recipient of the 2009 Israel Prize for Music.

2010: Dan Naturman, Tommy Savitt, Gregg Rogell, Sunda Croonquist and Joe Marks are scheduled to appear in The Raging Jews of Comedy at the Historic Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.

2010: "Zubin and I" is scheduled to broadcast this evening, as part of the Cultural Heroes series. “Zubin” is Zubin Mehta. “I” is producer Uri Sivan. It is Israeli. But it is not about war, or Yiddishkeit or any of the other mundane items that seem to grab the headlines and mistakenly define what it means to be Jewish.

2010: In an article describing how people coped with the record snowstorms in the Washington metropolitan area entitled “Churches, worshipers also feel storms'” Michelle Boorstein writes about Tamara Miller, 62, who was expecting to go to synagogue on Wednesday, the third anniversary of her father's death, to say the mandatory annual prayer for the dead. Miller knew the synagogue would have the quorum of 10 Jews required under Jewish law for certain obligations, including the reciting of the mourner's prayer. When she saw the blizzard, however, she thought of the 1990s TV show "Northern Exposure," about a Jewish doctor living in Alaska, and the episode in which residents of the mostly American-Indian community scatter across a vast area to help him get the quota -- called a "minyan" -- so he could pray for his dead uncle. Miller, who has lived in her Northwest Washington neighborhood for a couple years, sent a plea via the listserv of her 300-unit condo building. Within minutes, she had a few replies. One was from a neighbor who was in Philadelphia, saying he was also in mourning and offering to recite the prayer on her behalf at a synagogue there. By sundown, she had 11 people in her living room-- the 10 required Jews and one non-Jewish neighbor with a cheesecake. "Perhaps our paths will never cross again. Maybe, just maybe, we shared a moment of faith on the worst blizzard in a hundred years," Miller, a rabbi and spiritual counselor, wrote in a letter of thanks. "The act of giving is an act of faith."

2010: A bomb that was detonated this evening in a crowded café in Pune, India, killed nine people and injured 57 was likely meant for the nearby Chabad House, Indian authorities said. The bakery is located several dozen yards from the city's Chabad house. Pune is 125 miles southeast of Mumbai, where in November 2008 a major terrorist attack in the city at several sites simultaneously, including the Chabad house, killed 179 people, with them six Jewish victims at the Jewish center.

2010(29th of Shevat, 5770): Robert J. Myers, an actuary who helped to create the Social Security program and to set America’s official retirement age at 65, died today at his home in Silver Spring, MD at the age of 97. (As reported by Mary Williams Walsh)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/business/26myers.html

 2011:  Among the films scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival are “Jewish Soldiers in Blue & Gray,” “Winston Churchill: Walking With Destiny” and “100 Voices: A Journey Home.”

2011: “Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story” is one of several movies scheduled to shown today at the 21st Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including J.D. Salinger: A Life by Kenneth Slawenski and In the Valley of the Shadow: On the Foundations of Religious Belief by James L. Kugel.

2011: Ninety-year old “Raymond D’Addario, an Army photographer whose images of Hitler’s top henchmen during the Nuremberg war crimes trials put their faces before the world as it became increasingly aware of Nazi atrocities passed way today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/us/17daddario.html?_r=0

.2011: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet unanimously approved the appointment of Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz as the Israel Defense Forces' 20th chief of staff.

2011(9th of Adar I, 5771): General Al Ungerleider passed away today at the age of 89

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/a-local-life-al-ungerleider-89-old-soldier-recalled-nightmare-mission/2011/03/07/ABNdjBS_story.html

2011(9th of Adar I, 5771): Alan F. Segal “a leading scholar known for his comparative studies of how religions view the afterlife” who had retired as the Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies at Barnard College in December of 2012, passed away today at the age of 65.

2011(9th of Adar I, 5771): Irving Schlossenberg, the oldest living Marine Corps combat correspondent at the time of his death, and a newspaper photographer who once goaded President Franklin Roosevelt at a baseball Opening Day, died today at 92 in Overland Park, Kansas. Schlossenberg rejected his initial 4F classification, underwent foot surgery, and made it into the Marines as a combat correspondent in World War II. He took part in five major campaigns, four of which were first wave landings, was awarded four bronze stars and became a Master Sergeant. Schlossenberg never received some of the medals he earned for his service, including a Presidential Unit Citation presented to his division for operations in the Battle of Tarawa in November 1943. Last November, his son and nephew obtained the medals, which were delivered two days before Schlossenberg's death. Prior to the war, he was a photographer at the Washington Post. On Opening Day of the 1940 baseball season, Schlossenberg convinced FDR to throw out the Opening Pitch a second time, so he could get a better shot. The resulting wild pitch smashed Schlossenberg’s camera. Schlossenberg was born in Baltimore and raised in Washington. He became a copy boy at the Washington Post and then a photographer. After the war he sold Encyclopedia Britannica and eventually became executive assistant to the company president. He was a founder of Temple Kol Ami in Prairie Village, Kansas.

2011(9th of Adar I, 5771): Herschel W. Leibowitz, a Penn State University psychologist who was among the first scientists to explore how the mind can misinterpret what the eye sees at night, a phenomenon that contributes to traffic accidents passed away today in State College, PA at the age of 85 (As reported by Benedict Carey)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/health/17leibowitz.html

2011: In “Jews in U.S. Are Wary In Happiness For Egypt” Laurie Goodstein described the mixed feelings that American Jewish leaders have concerning the current political upheaval in the Land of the Pharaoh

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/us/14react.html

2012: Nathan Englander, author “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” a work of fiction that reportedly has nothing to do with the life of one of the Holocaust’s most famous victims, is scheduled to appear at the Historic 6th& Synagogue in Washington, DC.

2012(20th of Shevat, 5772): Ninety-four-year-old “Lillian Bassman, a magazine art director and fashion photographer who achieved renown in the 1940s and ’50s with high-contrast, dreamy portraits of sylphlike models, then re-emerged in the ’90s as a fine-art photographer after a cache of lost negatives resurfaced” passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/arts/design/lillian-bassman-fashion-and-fine-art-photographer-dies-at-94.html?pagewanted=all

2012: “The Cantor’s Son” is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival in Atlanta, GA

2012: At 34 Ben Yehuda, David Kilimnick’s Off the Wall Comedy Club is scheduled to host Open Women’s Open Mic Night

2012: People of faith throughout the world have been asked to recite psalms and prayers for the recovery of Yisrael be Chana Tzirel

2012: The wife of an Israeli diplomat was moderately wounded today when a car bomb exploded outside of Israel's embassy in the Indian capital of New Delhi.

2013: Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present: “It's a Thin Line: The Eruv and Jewish Community in New York and Beyond.”

2013: American Jewish Historical Society to present “The Sixties and Jewish Celebrity”

2013: Leon Wieseltier, noted writer and literary editor of The New Republic, is one of five recipients of the 2013 Dan David Prize, the foundation committee announced.

2013: The exposure in the Australian media this week of alleged former Mossad agent Ben Zygier, who reportedly committed suicide in Ramle’s Ayalon Prison two years ago, could have very dramatic repercussions for ongoing Mossad operations, Israeli media reported tonight.

2013: Today Israel’s state prosecution asked the Jerusalem District Court to sentence a man dubbed the “Jewish terrorist” to two back-to-back life sentences plus 70 years’ imprisonment for his crime of double murder, saying society should  take away Jacob (Jack) Tytell’s freedom “until the end of his days.”

Tytell, an American-born Israeli Jew who was convicted in January of murdering two Palestinians and wounding two Israelis in a series of violent acts, “trampled, in his actions, every possible value human society is founded upon,” prosecutor Sagi Ofir explained during the sentencing hearing

2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Loyalty Betrayed: Jewish Chaplains in the German Army during the First World War” during which Peter Applebaum will discuss the role of the 30 Jewish chaplains who ministered to the 100,000 Jewish soldiers fighting for the Kaiser.

2014: The Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “Hard Talks: Is Psychoanalysis a Hoax?” moderated by author and communications scholar Liel Leibovitz, featuring Daphne Merkin, a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and Tablet Magazine and Ben Kafka, Associate Professor of Media Theory and History at New York University.

2014: In “Anchorman” published today Rob Lowe reviewed Mad As Hell by Dave Itzkoff.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/books/review/mad-as-hell-by-dave-itzkoff.html

2014:  In “Israel: Life on the Kibbutz – Past, Present & Future,” Ido Rakovsky is scheduled to talk about his life on Kibbutz Ein Hashoftet” at the JCC of Northern Virginia.

2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Unresolved History: Jews and Lithuanians after the Holocaust,” a roundtable discussion about the challenges facing Litvaks in the 21stcentury.

2014: The IDF fired on two Palestinians who had entered a restricted zone near the Gaza border and attempted to sabotage the Israeli security fence, killing one and injuring the other. (As reported by Adiv Sterman)

2014: “A technical problem caused the credit card payment system in Israel to fail this morning for five hours, with hundreds of companies and stores reporting that they were unable to accept credit payments, and tens of thousands of Israelis affected. “ (As reported by Stuart Winer)

2014: “Prospect of Spanish Citizenship Appeals to Descendants of Jews Expelled in 1942

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/world/europe/interest-in-israel-as-spain-weighs-citizenship-for-sephardic-jews.html?ref=world&_r=0

2015: “For Richer For Poorer: Weddings Unveiled,” an exhibition that tells “story of Jewish weddings in Britain” is scheduled to open at the Jewish Museum of London.

2015: “A federal prosecutor in Argentina today revived the explosive accusations leveled by Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor whose mysterious death has gripped the country, by seeking to charge President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with shielding Iranians from responsibility over a 1994 bombing” attack on a Jewish community center.

2015: “Anti-Semitic and racial slurs and swastikas were spray-painted on several homes tonight in Madison, Wisconsin.

2015: In preparation for Valentine’s Day, the Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host “Shidduch Friday Night” with the disclaimer that they “do not guarantee that you will find your future spouse.

2016(4th of Adar I, 5776): Parashat Terumah;

2016(4th of Adar I, 5776): Eighty-year-old Avigdor Ben-Gal, the native of Poland whose outstanding military career shown brightest when he defended the Golan against great odds in the Yom Kippur War.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/yom-kippur-war-hero-avigdor-ben-gal-dies-at-80/

2016(4th of Adar I, 5776): Eighty-six-year-old who led ABC Carpet, the family business found by his grandfather Samuel to new heights passed away today. (As reported by Michael Corkery)

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/17/business/jerome-weinrib-abc-carpets-old-school-proprietor-dies-at-86.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2016: “French-Israeli singer Yael Naim was declared France’s singer of the year today in the 31st Victoires de la Musique, the country’s equivalent of the Grammys.”

2016: “Mountain,” a film depicting the life of “a religious Jewish woman living with her family in the Jewish cemetery on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives” and “The Last Cyclist” a film “about a childless Jewish couple who a adopt an Aryan baby girl prior to WW II” are scheduled to be shown today at the 26th annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

“Junction 48,” an “Israeli drama film directed by Udi Aloni, co-written by Oren Moverman and the film's star Tamer Nafar was released today in of all places Berlin.

2016: Moshe Vardi, an Israeli professor teaching at Rice University “told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science” that “robots could take over most human jobs within the next thirty years” and “that the society’s major challenge in the coming decades will be to find meaning in a mostly automated life.”

2016: The Debut Album Release show for “Till the Sun Comes” by Shira Averbuch is scheduled to take place this evening at Rockwood Music Hall. http://www.shiraaverbuch.com/

2017(17th of Shevat, 5777): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of Haim Palachi, the chief rabbi of Smyrna who authored texts in Ladino and Hebrew which helped to earn him the designation of Hakham Bashi and Gazon

2017: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host an evening with Jill Kargman as she wittily examines life in New York as seen by a native who has hit big in the world of television comedy.

2017: David Shulkin completed his service as Under Secretary of the Veterans Affairs for Health.

2017: Steve Mnuchin was confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury by a vote of 53–47 today.

2017: In honor of “the publication of Singing God’s Words: The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism, the first in-depth study of the meaning and experience of chanting Torah among contemporary American Jews, the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present a discussion led by Rabbi Jeffrey A. Summit who will described “how this ritual is shaped by such forces as digital technology, feminism and contemporary views of spirituality.”

2017: “The Radical Jew” is scheduled to be shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Fest.

http://www.noamosband.com/the-radical-jew.html

2018: The Yeshiva University Museum is schedule to host a live performance by Elad Kabilio and an ensemble of musicians from MusicTalks who will help attendees to “experience the music of Naomi Shemer, the “First Lady” of Israeli song and poetry.”

2018: Chicago Sinai Congregation is scheduled to host a screening of “Rosenwald” this evening followed by a panel discussion.

2018: “Police officials informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thia evening they are recommending he be indicted for bribery and breach of trust in both of the corruption investigations against him.” (As reported by Raoul Wootliff)

2018: “American snowboarder Arielle Gold earned a bronze medal in the women’s halfpipe contest at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang” today.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a “dine and discuss with Nechama Goldman Barash” where attendees will examine “the Halachic Legal Structure which uses the Binary of Male/Female to Develop Traditional Roles in Jewish Society.”

2018: Einstein’s Bros. celebration of National Bagel Day which had included a week-long free bagel with purchase for all Shmear Society loyalty club members is scheduled to come to an end today.

https://www.kxly.com/news/einstein-bros-celebrates-national-bagel-day-with-week-long-freebie/698144034

2018: In New Orleans, Mardi Gras. For more see The Crescent City Jewish News, the Jewish voice in Cajun Country https://www.crescentcityjewishnews.com/mardi-gras-with-a-jewish-slant/ and https://www.myjewishlearning.com/southern-and-jewish/is-mardi-gras-more-jewish-than-you-think/

(Editor’s Note: This marks the 55thanniversary of my first Mardi Gras – truly memorable event in my Jewish History)

2019: As part of its “Who We Are” film series, the Streicker Center is scheduled to host a screening of “Life According to Sam” that tells the story of Sam Berns.

2019: The Breman Museum is scheduled to host its next Historic Jewish Atlanta Tour with a one-of-a-kind trolley tour of the Jewish connection to Atlanta’s Civil Rights Movement” which will allow attendees to “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: “The Center for Traditional Music and Dance, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Sholem Aleichem Cultural Center are scheduled to present “Andy Statman and Zev Feldman: Klezmer Pioneers Reunited!” – a “special program reunites the legendary klezmer duo of Andy Statman (clarinet/mandolin) and Walter Zev Feldman (tsimbl/hammered dulcimer) for the first time in 35 years!”

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 Manchester.

2019: The JCC of Metro Detroit is scheduled to host a lecture by Martin Jacobs on “Sephardi Perspectives on the Medieval Muslim World: Benjamin of Tudela and His "Book of Travels"

2020: In Walnut Creek, CA, the Del Valle Theatre is scheduled to host the opening night of “My Son the Waiter,” a “Jewish comedy written by and starring Brad Zimmerman.

2020: In Newton, MA, the JCC Greater Boston Reimer Goldstein is scheduled to host the final screening of “Incitement,” the “psychological thriller that follows Yigal Amir in the year leading up to his assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.”

2020: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the final two screenings of “The Unorthodox.”

2020: In Roslyn Heights, NY, the Temple Beth Sholom Sisterhood is scheduled to host a screening of “The Spy Behind Home Plate.”

2020: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host Phoenix Chamber Ensemble and Tesla Quartet performing a concert celebrating Beethoven’s 250thbirthday.

2020: At the UC Berkeley School of Law, “Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt” is scheduled to discuss Antisemitism: Here and Now, “her 2019 book on understanding anti-Semitism.”

2021: The virtual exhibition “A Tourist in Your Own Home” curated by artist Shasha Dothan that incorporates the work of six artists who are immigrants to the United States is scheduled to open today.

2021: The B’nai Jeshurun Men’s Club Virtual Comedy night, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Food Bank” is scheduled to begin this evening at 7:30 with proceeds going to benefit several food banks included the Cleveland Kosher Food Pantry.

2021: In honor of Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month (JDAIM), TBZ’s Inclusion Committee is scheduled to host Christopher Willard, Psy.D., a dynamic national leader in education and therapy in the field of mindfulness and positive psychology who will share insights and tools for managing the feelings of anxiety, loneliness, depression and fear that many of us are experiencing.

2021: UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host a screening of “Why the Jews?” “a daring and important exploration of the reasons for exceptional Jewish achievement in the arts and sciences” that includes “fascinating insights from the late Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Shimon Peres, Howard Jacobson, Dr Ruth, Noam Chomsky and many more.”

2021: Because of Shabbat, the “several hundred thousand Israeli children who went back to school for the first time in over a month on February 11, despite the mixed feelings of some parents and experts, will not be in school today.

2021(1stof Adar, 7801): Parashat Mishpatim; Rosh Chodesh Adar; Shabbat Shekalim

 

 

This Day, February 14, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 14

842:  Charles the Bald and Louis the German swear the Oaths of Strasbourg in the French and German languages. The two monarchs were grandsons of Charlemagne making them cousins. Charles, like the other Carolingian monarchs he refused to enforce the anti-Jewish decrees promulgated by the Church. This was a matter of economic reality; not an example of philo-Jewishness.

1014: Henry II who was already King of Germany and King of Italy was crowned as Emperor of the Holy Roman Emperor.  The first serious persecution of the Jew in Germany began at the start of the 11th century under the reign of Henry.  Among other things, Henry issued a decree expelling the Jews from Mayence because they refused to be baptized.  Some of Henry’s enmity towards the Jews may be traced back to the conversion of Wecelinus, the chaplain to Duke Conrad to Judaism.  Conrad was a relative of Henry’s and Christian nobility did not take kindly to such changes.  The poet Simon ben Isaac and Gershom ben Judah both composed dirges to mark this sad turn of events.

1076: Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor.  This dispute between Pope and Royal Ruler was one of many struggles that ranged between Princes of the Church and Temporal Princes for political power.  This one did not involve the Jews but it did affect them.  For his time, Henry treated his Jewish subjects well.  He challenged the anti-Semitism of the many church officials by claiming his Jewish subjects as “belonging to our Chamber.”  In other words, they came under his jurisdiction and protection.  Seeing the economic benefit of allowing the Jews to play an active role in his realm, Henry exempted the Jews from “custom duties in imperial towns and they enjoyed trade and travel privileges throughout his empire.”  History may remember the penitent Henry shivering in the snows outside the Papal Palace.  For the Jews, he is was a bright beacon in world growing ever darker under the menace of crusader mobs.

1130: “The Jewish Cardinal” Pietro Pierleone was elected Pope under the name of Anacletus II.  The Church counts him as one of the anti-popes. According to at least one source, Anacletus II was a member of one of the most powerful and wealthiest senatorial families in Rome.  At the same time, the family was reported to have Jewish roots and had supposedly amassed its fortune through money lending. Apparently the Church’s difficulty in knowing how to deal with Jewish converts was not just a 20th century phenomenon. 

 1349: In Strasbourg, a riot ensued in the town after corn prices fell. The Jews were accused (despite the protests of the city council) of a conspiracy. The entire Jewish population (2000) were dragged to the cemetery and burned to death. Only those who accepted Christianity were allowed to live. A new council was elected which voted that Jews could not return for 100 years and their property and possessions were divided among the burghers. Twenty years later, the Jews were readmitted.

1546: Three days before his death, Martin Luther preached his final sermon. “The subject of his final sermon…is ‘obdurate Jews’ and the urgency of expelling them all from German lands. According to Martin Luther, ‘we want to practice Christian love toward them and pray that they convert, [but they are] our public enemies ... and if they could kill us all, they would gladly do so. And so often they do.’ Thus the expulsion or even killing of Jews can be viewed by Christians as form of self-defense. This is exactly the excuse given by anti-Semites in Europe for centuries to come…”

1556: Thomas Cranmer who named Archbishop of Canterbury by Henry VIII was condemned as a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church.  Whatever his difference with Rome, Cranmer took a pretty traditional view of things when it came to Jews. Citing St. Augustine, Cranmer declared that even if “Jews…do good works” like clothing the naked, feeding the poor and performing “other good works of mercy” they will be lost because they do not believe in Jesus.

1623: Moshe Zacut who is buried in the Portuguese cemetery in Altona and who may have been the father of Rabbi Moshe Zacut known as the “Remez” passed away today.

1667: The end of the practice known as “Black Monday.” Prior to this date, the Jews of Rome had been subjected to a humiliating medieval practice of running a race in the Roman carnivals, scantily clad, amid insults and blows. This practice of "Black Monday" named for the day of the week during the Carnival Season on which it took place was not practiced after 1667.

1670: Leopold I ordered Jews to be expelled from Vienna within a few months. Although Leopold was reluctant to lose the large amount of taxes (50,000 Florins) paid by the Jews, he was persuaded to do so by his wife Margaret, the daughter of the Phillip IV Spanish Regent, and a strong follower of the Jesuits Margaret blamed the death of her firstborn on the tolerance shown to the Jews.

1674: Barbados passed a law granting the Jewish community the permission they requested. In the 1660's the Jewish community of Barbados became established and of considerable importance. The Jewish community, however, had a decided disadvantage in that their testimony was not admissible in court cases due to their refusal to take an oath on a Christian Bible. In October 1669 the Jewish community presented the king a petition requesting permission to take be able to take oaths on the Five Books of Moses, the Jewish Bible’

1685(10th of Adar): Rabbi Joseph Chajes of Lemberg, author Ben Porot Yosef passed away today.

1722: Fifty-eight year old Frankfurt am Main native Johann Jakob Schudt a gentile who wrote ‘a preface to Grünhut's edition of David Ḳimḥi's Commentary on the Psalms in 1712 and published the Purim play of the Frankfurt and Prague Jews with a High German translation 1716” but who also published Judæus Christicida, in which he attempted “to prove that Jews deserved corporal as well as spiritual punishment for the crucifixion” and Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten  which “is full of prejudice, and repeats many of the fables and ridiculous items published by Johann Andreas Eisenmenger; but  also contains details of contemporary Jewish life, a source for the history of the Jews, particularly those of Frankfurt” passed away today.

1727: Benedict XIII issued Emanavit nuper, a Papal Bull, dealing with “the necessary conditions for imposing Baptism on a Jew.”

1743: Henry Pelham, a member of the Whigs, became British Prime Minister. In 1753 Pelham “brought in the Jew Bill of 1753, which allowed Jews to become naturalized by application to Parliament.” The House of Lords approved the bill.  But the Tories in the House of Commons tried to defeat it claiming it was “an abandonment of Christianity.” However, Pelham and the Whigs prevailed and the bill passed and then was approved by the crown.

1766: Birthdate of economist Thomas Malthus whose theories were examined by Gertrude Himmelfarb in The Idea of Poverty. (She was Jewish, he was not)

1772: A day after he passed away on Shabbat, Isaac Isaac ben Moshe Shneour was buried today at the Alderney Road Jewish Cemetery in the United Kingdom.

1784: In London Benvenida de Isaac Solis, the daughter of Isaac Henriques Henriques Valentine and Simha Mandil and her husband Solomon da Silva Solis gave birth to Daniel da Silva Solis, the husband of Sarah Norris with whom he had five children.

1808: In Germany, Sara Aub and Alexander Mack gave birth to Wolfgang Mack, the husband of Louise Geldersheimer and father of Adolph Mack.

1816: Nathan Emanuel, the son of Michael Nathan Emanuel married Sarah Gomez today.

1827: Bluma Jacobs and Joseph Levy gave birth to Israel Levy, the husband of Elizabeth Harris, Adelaide Levy, Sara Ellis and Esther Levy.

1827: Abraham Levy married Louisa Judah today at the Great Synagogue.

1833(25th of Shevat, 5593): Sixty-one-year-old Fanny (Frumet) Judah, the daughter of Samuel Judah passed away today.

1833: In Middlesex, Hannah Levy and Michael Emanuel gave birth to Lionel Emanuel.

1833: Birthdate of Warsaw native Henry (Hayyim Gershon) Vidaver, the prominent rabbi, publisher, Hebraist and orator who passed away in San Francisco, CA in 1882. “In 1859, Vidaver immigrated to the United States, and became the rabbi of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia. In 1861 he resigned his position and moved to Germany then returned to the U.S. in 1865 to become rabbi of United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis, Missouri where he withdrew his support for the Confederacy and wrote in praise of Abraham Lincoln. In 1867, he assumed the pulpit of the B'nai Jeshurun in New York and from 1874 until his death in 1882 served as rabbi of Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco. Vidaver and Jacob Levinski co-authored the first abridged Hebrew Bible, which was published in 1869. He also commonly published poems in Hebrew about Jerusalem and other Jewish issues in Hebrew newspapers, such as Havatzelet.

http://www.jmaw.org/vidaver-jewish-san-francisco/

1836: In London, Isabella and Simcha Cohen gave birth to Catherine Cohen.

1843(14thof Adar I, 5603): Purim Katan

1846: Today, Irish nationalist put forth his views that the government did not understand millions of people in Ireland would not have anything because of the “Potato Famine” to the victims of  which Baron Lionel de Rothschild and his family gave so much aid a newspaper in Dublin wrote that he had “...contributed during the Irish famine of 1847 ... a sum far beyond the joint contributions of the Devonshires, and Herefords, Lansdownes, Fitzwilliams and Herberts, who annually drew so many times that amount from their Irish estates.”

1849: George Judah Cohen, the English born son of Sierlah Levy and Barnett Cohen Married Rosetta “Rose” Solomon in Maitland, NSW, Austrialia

1858(30thof Shevat, 5618): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1858(30thof Shevat, 5618): Fifty-seven-year-old Julia Levy, the Amsterdam born daughter of Rachel Cornelia Bernard and Abraham Levy who were married in Holland and the wife Henry Solomon with whom she had four children – Rachel, Simo, Louis and Isaac – passed away today in Atlanta, GA.

1858: Four days after he had passed away, John Hart, the son of Naphtali and Sarah Cohen and father of Miriam Hart was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1859: Oregon admitted as the 33rd U.S. state. By the time Oregon joined the Union, Portland already boasted an active Jewish community which “launched its first congregation” in 1858.  Despite their comparatively small numbers, several Jews have held public office in Oregon including Senators Joseph Simon and Richard L. Neuberger and Governors Julius L. Meier and Neil Goldschmidt. (Senator Neuberger’s wife who was also a Senator from Oregon was not Jewish; hence she is not listed.)

1860: In Breslau, Mathilde (née Kassel) Schiffer and Bernhard Schiffer gave birth to Eugen Schiffer, the lawyer and political whose career in public service ran from the days of the Kaiser to the Weimar Republic.

1860(21stof Shevat, 5620): Sixty-four-year-old Rachel Nunez Cardozo, the daughter of Isaac Nunez Cardozo, the London born New York merchant who was part of a company of Jews who fought to defend Charleston during the American Revolution who married Joseph Phillips in 1839 after having been married to Simon Caufman passed away today in New York City.

1861: During the session of the New York State Legislature, Mr. Woodruff introduced a bill today to appropriate $35,000 out of the State Treasury to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New-York City, for a building, as soon as $20,000 has been expended by the Trustees.

1862(14th of Adar I, 5622): Purim Katan

1862: Philadelphian Abraham Hart was promoted to the rank of Captain in Company I of the Seventy-Third Regiment.

1864: Birthdate of Israel Zangwill. Zangwill is a name known to few today, but in his time he was an intellectual power.  Zangwill was born in London and achieved fame by writing a number of novels many on Jewish themes including Children of the Ghetto, Ghetto Tragedies and The King of Schnorrers.  Zangwill first met with Herzl in 1896 and attended the First (and all successive) Zionist Congress. He supported Herzl's Uganda plan and following its rejection, led the Territorialists out of the Zionist organization in 1905. He established the Jewish Territorialists Organization (ITO) whose object was to acquire a Jewish homeland wherever possible. Following the securing of the Balfour declaration, the ITO fell into decline and by 1925 it was officially dissolved. Zangwill supported Zionist efforts in Eretz Israel calling for a radical approach both as regards the demand for the early establishment of a Jewish State and the solution of the Arab question. He passed away in 1926

1864: In Kalwarya, Russia, Tanhum and Rachel Deborah (Alterman) Schulman gave birth to Samuel Schulman who served as the spiritual leader of Montana’s first synagogue, Temple Emanuel before eventually moving to New York where he succeeded Kaufman Kohler as head of Temple Beth-El and then served as the rabbi for Temple Emanu-El when it absorbed his former congregation.

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0090/ms0090.html

1865: Twenty-two-year-old Bavarian immigrant Abraham Abraham and Joseph Wechlser  “opened a 25-foot-wide dry goods store” known s Wechlser and Abraham today which would become Abraham and Strauss, a commercial enterprise that would “pass into mercantile history” 130 years later in April of 1995.

1865: Birthdate of Russian native and CCNY graduate Samuel Schulman who was ordained by the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin and whose career stretched from rural Helena, Montanan to Temple Emanu-El in New York City.

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0090/ms0090.html

1869: In Augsburg, Bavaria, Pauline Hirschfeld, the daughter of Simon and Rachel Ausch and her husband Dr. Jacob Jacques Heinrich Hirschfeld, the son of Marie and Emanuel Isak Hirschfeld gave birth to Leo Hirschfeld who became known as Leo Feld, whose second wife was Maria Magdalena Feld.

1869: Birthdate of Boston native Rebecca Kantorowicz Aronson, the husband of Max H. Aronson and mother of Henry, Miriam, Leopold, Sidney, Dorothy, Ruth, Juliette, Lillian and Alberta Aronson

1871: During the Franco-Prussian Adolphe Crémieux, a leading member of the French Jewish community, along with several of his parliamentary colleagues, resigned their positions in the government France

1872: In Bucharest, members of the diplomatic corps, united in demanding that Prince Charles von Hohenzollern who is King Carol I of Romania, provide protection for his Jewish subjects.  [The issue of Romania’s Jews would plague European affairs up to WW I.]

1877: In Berlin, gynecologist Leopold Landau and Johanna Jacoby, a member of the famous Jewish banking Jacoby family gave birth to Edmund Georg Hermann Landau the famed mathematician.

1878: Mrs. Hyam Benjamin hosted a musical evening in a Mayfair (London) drawing room.

1879(21stof Shevat, 5639): Seventy-seven-year-old French journalist Samuel Ustazade Silvestre de Sacy and member of the Académie française passed away today.

1880: After having been hospitalized in Odeass during a concert tour of Russia, Lublin born Jewish violinist Henryk Wieniawski was taken into the home Nadezhda von Meck who “provided him with medical attention” which was not enough to prevent his untimely death a month later in Moscow.

1881: Birthdate of German psychologist Otto Selz.  Selz’s works were suppressed by the Nazis.  According to some, Selz was a major influence on his students including Sir Karl Raimund Popper who was one of the major figures in the world of 20th century philosophy.

1881: The New York Times features a review of “Hours with the Bible: From Creation to the Patriarchs by Dr. Cunningham Geikie.

1881: It was reported today that an altercation had taken place during a Paris musical between Gaetan de Monticlin, a socially prominent Frenchman and Arthur Meyer owner of Le Gaulois. According to de Monticlin, he had been mocked in an article published in Meyer’s newspaper.  Meyer was a Catholic who was the grandson of a rabbi and who would support those who did not believe in the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus.

1882: In Moscow, Moses and Bertha (Abramovitz) Macht gave birth to Johns Hopkins trained physician, Hamilton College trained attorney and University of Maryland trained pharmacologist David Israel Macht who in addition to performing his professional duties served as President of Congregation Mishkon Israel.

https://medicalarchives.jhmi.edu:8443/papers/macht.html

1882: In New York City, Morris Spiegel and Justine Spiegel, the daughter of Rosina and Arnold Blum, Jr. gave birth to Flora Spiegel.

1882: In Krakow Nachman Freudman and Salomea Eisenbach gave birth to Solomon Isaac Freudman who gained fame as pianist and composer Ignaz Friedman who spent much of his career in Copenhagen before escaping to Australia where a concert tour provided with a refuge in which he remained until his death in 1948.

https://www.naxos.com/person/Ignaz_Friedman_2338/2338.htm

1882: Dr. John Lord delivered a lecture on “Moses” this morning at Chickering Hall to a “fashionable and cultured” audience. Lord told his audience that the moral code of Moses “is of the most importance, and rests on the fundamental principles of morality, and has been generally accepted as the basis of moral obligation.  The primary principle of this code is the sin of idolatry and the recognition of the one God who created and rules the world.”

1887: Alexander Kohut, the rabbi of Congregation Ahawath Chesed married Rebekah Bettleheim in Baltimore, MD. She was the daughter of Rabbi Albert Bettelheim.  Her marriage not only made her a wife it made her an instant wife since Kohut was a widower who had 8 children, six of whom were under the age of 13.

1891: It was reported today that the late Ellen M. Phillips has bequeathed $113,000 to various charities most of which were Jewish.  The bequests ranged from $1,000 to $15,000 “including $5,000 to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.  Ms. Phillips lived in Philadelphia, PA

1891(6thof Adar I, 5651): Parashat Terumah

1891(6thof Adar I, 5651): Thirty-two-year-old Arthur Lewis Raphael, the son of Henrietta and Henry Lewis Raphael and the husband of Marianna Floretta Raphael passed away today.

1892: It was reported today that a Conference of the Russian-American Hebrew Agricultural Fund Association will take place this week in New York City.

1892: As New York City deals with its latest outbreak of typhus the President of the Board of health said that to have all of the Russian-Jewish passengers who arrived on the SS Masilia  placed in quarantine on North Brother Island.  An undetermined number of the passengers have shown symptoms and this is a way of preventing the spread.  (Please note – the Jewish passengers were not singled out.  The source was thought to lie in Russia, and it so happened that all of the Russian passengers were Jewish)

1893: The committee formed by the Central Conference of American Rabbis “to arrange the seconding part of the Union Prayer book containing the services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur” met for the last time today in Chicago

1894: Birthdate of Benjamin Kubelsky, better known as Jack Benny. The cry of Rochester saying, "Mr. Benny, Mr. Benny" in that gravely desperate tone was a signature of Jack Benny's humor in movies, radio and television.  Benny loved to clown around with the violin and he created the self-portrait of a "miser."  In one of his most routines, Benny is being held up at gunpoint.  When the robber says "Your money or life" Benny pauses and using his great sense of comedic timing ponders his response.  When the frustrated thief repeats his demand, Benny responds, "Wait a minute, I am trying to make my mind."  (It is a lot funnier when you heart it or see it.)  I must confess I am a fan of Jack Benny’s, but I do not think I have been too lavish in my praise.  Benny passed away at the age of eighty in 1974

1895: Birthdate of philosopher and sociologist Max Horkheimer

1895: In New York City, Isaac Newton and Greta (Loeb) Seligman gave birth to Margaret Seligman who gained fame as Margaret Lewisohn after she married Sam A. Lewisohn in 1918.

1895: It was reported today that lawyer and economist Simon Sterne expressed his opposition to the Single Tax Plan and in favor of tenement improvement programs in New York City.

1895: Three days after she had passed away Isabella Lawrence, the wife of John Lawrence with whom she had had six children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1896 Theodor Herzl published "Der Judenstaat" which outlined his vision for a Jewish State.  For a complete copy of the text in English

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/herzl2.html

1897: Grand Master M. L. Sexias presided over the opening of the annual convention of District Grand Lodge, No.1, Independent Order Free Sons of Israel which is being held at the Lexington Opera House.

1898: “Hebrew Charities Building Bill” published today described that the purposes of legislation that would incorporate The Hebrew Charities Building in New York to allow for the erection, establishment and maintenance of a building in which Jewish charitable organizations could have their headquarters. It would also allow for the building to house a public library “with a special department in Judaica.”

1899: Samuel I. Hyman the founder of S.I. Hyman and Brothers and a founder of the Central Jewish Institute today married Tillie Endel who had been serving as the secretary of the Madison Avenue Synagogue Sisterhood but who would now assume the role of mother to their daughter Norma and son George.

1899: One after she had passed a way, forty-seven-year-old Sarah Florence Sheftall Creamer, the daughter of Emanuel and Jane L. Theiss Sheftall, part of the famed Sheftall clan that traced its roots back to colonial America and the wife of James Evan Creamer was buied today in the Laurel Grove Cemetery North in Savannah, GA.

1900: Maurice Untermyer, the younger brother of Samuel Untermeyer sold the four lots, 100,11 by 100, at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and One Hundred and Ninth Street near the northeast corner of Central Park.

1901(25thof Shevat, 5661): Grodno native Heinrich Schapiro who served “as a military surgeon during the Turko-Russia War and whose career was so distinguished that “he was appointed private-docent of medicine in the imperial clinical institution for physicians in St. Petersburg, passed away today.

1902: Herzl and Joseph Cowen arrive in Constantinople with hopes of starting negotiations to further the project of creating a Jewish homeland in Ottoman controlled in Palestine.

1902(7thof Adar, 5662): Twenty-five-year-old Daniela Guttenberg, the first wife of Cleveland “clothing manufacturer, real estate executive and civic leader John Anisfield and mother of Edith Karolyn passed away today.

1902: Birthdate of Alexander Abusch, the German journalist and communist politician who survived the Holocaust and returned to work in the government of East (Communist) Germany.

1903: US Department of Commerce & Labor established. Oscar Straus was appointed Secretary of Commerce and Labor in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt and he served in the position until 1909.  Straus was the first Jew to serve as a cabinet secretary.

1904: In South Carolina, Rabbi J. J. Simenhoff officiated at the wedding of Morris Finger to Sarah Plesskin.

1904(28thof Shevat, 5664): Seventy-five-year-old George Lewis Lyon, the founder and the editor of The Jewish World, passed away today.

1905: It was reported today in his speech on “The Needs of Harlem Jewry” Daniel P. Hays of the Mount Sinai Lodge of the B’nai B’rith said that “what we need is schools where instruction in Judaism can be given, where children can be made acquainted with the noble lives of the men and women in Israel” because “a good Jew is necessarily a good citizen because the teachings of Judaism are founded upon morality and righteousness.”

1906: Israel Ziony, the Political Editor of the Jewish American wrote a that criticized Louis Nixon, the Tammany Hall leader, for trusting the promises of the Russians and Czar Nicholas II citing the orders that “were given to massacre Jews all over South Russia and the failure to honor the commitments to open up Manchuria which led to traders from the United States being driven out of the area.

1907(30thof Shevat 5667): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1907: New York State Supreme Court Justice Samuel Greenbaum signed an order today” directing the officers of the American Ice Company to permit the Attorney General or his representative to examine the company’s books, contracts, stock lists, correspondence files and other papers or show cause why they should not do so.”

1908: It was reported today that ‘the Czar’s sympathy with the Russian pogrom leaders was recently set forth by one of the Russians correspondents of the London Times in a dispatch summing up the anti-Jewish outrages in southern Russia” that included the Czar’s positive reaction to the Black Hundreds.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1908/02/14/104848799.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1909: “Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of the Free Synagogue spoke” tonight “in the Calvary Methodist Church, Seventh Avenue and 129th Street, under the auspices of the Peace Society, of which Andrew Carnegie is President” and said that the United States “should have no time or inclination for war, and that it had no enemy other than one she might herself create.”

1910: Herbert Samuel completed his first term of service as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the cabinet of Prime Minister Asquith. (Samuel was Jewish; Asquith wasn’t)

1910: Herbert Samuel succeeded Sydney Buxton as Postmaster General in H.H. Asquith’s cabinet.  This would be the first of two times that Samuel would serve in this position.

1911: Birthdate of St. Joseph, MO native and Yale alum Samuel who moved to Chicago in 1936 after graduating from Harvard Law, joining the firm known as Jenner and Block developing an expertise in anti-trust and securities litigation.

1911(16th of Shevat): Rabbi Shalom Mordecai, author of Da’at ha-Torah, passed away

1911: In Czernowitz, Ukraine, Rabbi Avraham Mamrostein, the son of Rivka and Yehuda Leib Marmorstein and his wife Antonia Toba Marmosrstein gave birth to Bruno Marmorstein three years before his sister Ruth Joseph was born in Chicago in February of 1914.

1912: Arizona is admitted to the Union becoming the 48th and last contiguous state to become on the United States. Jews had been a part of the Arizona landscape from its earliest territorial days.  According to Pioneer Jews, Nathan Benjamin Appel, a native of Hochstadt Germany, was an early pioneer of the Arizona Territory serving as a delegated to the First Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1863 as well as the Tucson chief of Police from 1883 to 1884.  According to the 1880 census, there were approximately 316 Jews living in such places as Tucson, Phoenix and Tombstone. William Zeckendorf and Zadock Staab opened a Tucson based mercantile operation in May of 1878.  The business had its ups and downs, finally failing in 1883 as a result of market fluctuations and competition from less expensive goods being brought in by the railroads.  As can be seen from the successful career of Michael Wormser, a native of Lorraine who settled in Arizona, Jews engaged in agriculture as well as mercantile pursuits.  By the time he died in 1898, his “agricultural kingdom” was worth $250,000, a considerable sum in those days. Samuel Barth was another of the colorful Jews who helped to settle Arizona.  He worked as a miner, pony express rider and sutler.  While trading with the Indians, he claims to have signed a treaty that “granted him title to nearly all of the northern Arizona Territory, including the Grand Canyon.”  Barth, and his brothers Nathan and Morris, founded St. Johns where they damned parts of the Little Colorado River so that they could farm and raise livestock. Jews were not averse to risk when it came to gunfighting as can be seen by the career of Louis Ezekiels who served as the Deputy Sheriff of Pima County and Jim Levy, the Irish born gambler and gunfighter, who ironically was shot by an angry gang who caught him when he “was not packing.” These early Jews worked hard to mainitain their Jewish identity.  “Anna and I.E. Solomon, who found Solomonville in Arizona’s southeastern corner, refused to let their daughter Lillie marry a non-Jewish lawyer with whom she had fallen in love. Mother Solomon stepped in, put an end to the relationship and arranged for Lillian to marry a “Hebrew haberdasher from Globe. Anna Solomon is prime example of the Jewish matriarchs he stood shoulder to shoulder with their husbands in establishing successful business enterprises while striving to maintain Jewish heritage and identity in the inhospitable desert of the Southwest. Two of early Arizona’s most famous Jewish citizens were Josephine Sarah Marcus who was the paramour of Wyatt Earp (because of Earp, is buried in a Jewish cemetery) and Mike Goldwater, the merchant king whose family, in later generations would give up the faith of their fathers as can be seen by the career of Barry Goldwater.    

1913: Birthdate of Melvin Allen Israel, the native of Birmingham, Alabama who gained fame as Mel Allen, the mellow-toned sportscaster who was the voice of the New York Yankees

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/17/sports/mel-allen-is-dead-at-83-golden-voice-of-yankees.html

1913(7thof Adar I, 5673): Twenty-seven Rabbi David Carlebach passed away at Halberstadt.

1913(7thof Adar I, 5673): Financier F.L. Siegel passed away today in Denver, Colorado.

1914(18thof Shevat, 5674): Parashat Yitro for the last time before the start of WW I, an event from which a raft of calamities for the Jewish people too numerous to mention.

1915(30thof Shevat, 5675): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1915: While speaking today at Temple Bethel on “The Danger of Nationalism to the Jewish Religion Dr. Samuel Shulman said that his nationality is American, his religion is Jewish and he takes issue with those that the only “remedy for the process of disintegration” among the Jewish people is by returning to Palestine in an act of “re-nationalization.”

1915: “A mass meeting will be held at Congregation Shearith Bnai Israel this afternoon under the auspices of the Young Israel of Harlem to help raise funds for Jews suffering because of the war.”

1915: “Dr. J.L. Magnes, Chairman of the Jewish National Fund Bureau of the America and Louis D. Brandeis, Chairman of the Provisional Executive Committee for the General Zionist Affairs issued a statement today explaining the situation brought about by the proposed forced auctioning off at this trime of the Jewish Institute of Technology at Haifa.”

1915: According to figures compiled by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America there are officially 143,000 Jewish communicants in the United States but that number, in keeping with Jewish custom is really only the number of heads of households and “that the total number connected with Jewish congregations is 700,000.” (Editor’s note: This figure is strange since it is estimated by some that by the start of WW I, two million Jews had come to the United States from Eastern Europe.)

1915: The correspondent for The London Daily Mail who was traveling from the front lines to Warsaw had to “bump” his “way through an endless convoy of Jews where huddled in wagons with all their furniture and worldly belongings” which “was the result of a stern order which had been issued requiring the Jews to move to a distance fifty miles from the front” because of doubts about their loyalty.

1915: It was reported today that “the Bund, the Committee of Lithuanian, Polish and Russian Jews living abroad has published an appeal to the civilized world in regard to the treatment of the Jews by the Russian government” which “begins by saying that, in spite of statements made to the contrary, the legal situation of the Jews in Russia is unchanged; they are still confined to the Ghetto and subject to all the same disabilities as before the war.”

1915: “Outlook Good For Jews” published today provided the views of banker and philanthropist Adolph Lewisohn on a post war peace conference for which “all the great Jewish organizations of American need to get together now and work out a plan for Jewish representation at the time of peace negotiations” because he believes that the United States government “will take a special interest in the question of equal rights for all Jews” regardless of where they live.

1915: Herman Bernstein, editor of The Day, announced today that a limited amount of space will be made available aboard the Vulcan to carry supplies to the suffering people living in the Holy Land.

1915: “To Take Aid To Palestine” published today described plans approved by Secretary of the Navy Daniels to ship supplies from the Jewish Relief Society for the starving residents of that region aboard the United States collier Vulcan which will be sailing to the eastern Mediterranean with coal for armored cruisers North Carolina and Tennessee.

1915 Congregation Shearith Israel abolishes family pews from its synagogue.

1915: Jules Hurert, who authored Sarah Bernhardt, a biography of the famous Jewish performer passed away.

1916: A telegram sent today from American Embassy at London to the U.S. State Department stated that the British had turned down the request to allow the shipment of whole wheat to be used for the making of unleavened bread for the upcoming holiday of Passover by Jewish agencies in the United States through neutral Holland to Jews in Germany and Austria and countries occupied by their armies because “it appears that the supply of flour at present in German is amply sufficient to furnish pure flour when required for special purposes.”

1916: It was reported today that 150,000 Jews were fighting in the British Army, 175,000 Jews were fighting in the German Army and 350,000 Jews were fighting in the Russian Army which led Republican Congressman Julius Kahn to express his belief that American Jews would rally to serve in the U.S. military as training ramped up in anticipation of possible entry into the World War.

1917: Julius Kahn, the Republican Congressman from California and a member of the House Committee on Military Affairs has expressed his confidence in his co-religionists

1917(22ndof Shevat, 5677): Lt. Henry Bloom, a solicitor who had attended Liverpool University and was the son of Isadore Bloom was killed today while serving with the Yorkshire Regiment.

1917: After Germany and the United States broke diplomatic relations German economist Moritz Julius Bonn who had been lecturing at various U.S. universities including the University of California, the University of Wisconsin and Cornell University today boarded a Danish passenger bound for Copenhagen from whence he take a ferry to Germany.


1917: Birthdate of Herbert A Hauptman, a mathematician who shared the 1985 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with the chemist Jerome Karle for their development of revolutionary methods for determining the structure of molecules vital to life. (As reported by William Grimes)

1918: Birthdate of Yosef A.A. (Alfredo Antonio) Ben-Jochannan an Ethiopian born American historian. “According to his own biographical sketches, Ben-Jochannan was born to a black Puerto Rican Jewish mother and an Ethiopian Jewish father who were both black.”  “Ben-Jochannan, also known as ‘Dr. Ben’, is the author of numerous books, primarily on ancient Nile Valley civilizations and their impact on Western cultures. Dr. Ben-Jochannan claims to be fluent in ‘over a half dozen languages.’ In his writings, he states that the original Jews were Black Africans from Ethiopia, while the ‘white Jews’ later adopted the Jewish faith and its customs.

1918: It was reported today that Herbert Samuel, a Jewish leader of the Liberal Party criticized the current government’s policies on a number of issues ranging from finance where there has been a forty percent increase in expenditures to the production of beer which missed the production goal by over five and half million barrels or one third of the amount promised.

1919(14th of Adar I, 5679): Purim Katan

1919: Over three hundred delegates from ten mid-western states are expected to attend the Zionist Convention that is scheduled to begin today.

1920(25thof Shevat, 5680): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1920: It was learned today when the trials of radicals” most of whom were represented by attorney Rose Weiss, were resumed today that “red population” which had reached 515 had “dwindled  to about 100.”

1921: In New York City, the American Jewish Relief Committee met and decided to raise fourteen million dollars this year to provide relief for “Jewish war sufferers.”

1922: Birthdate of Jerome “Jerry” Fleishman who played college ball for NYU before turning pro and playing for several teams including the Philadelphia Warriors.

1922: Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent“abruptly” ended publication of article on the “Jewish Problem” that included portions of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

1922: Birthdate of New York native Jerome “Jerry” Fleishman the Erasmus Hall graduate who played guard and forward for NYU before turning pro and continuing his career with Philadelphia Sphas and the Philadelphia Warriors.

1924: In the Bronx, Dr. Benjamin Pressman, a dentist and his wife “Lena Rifkin Pressman gave birth to Gabriel Pressman who gained fame as journalist Gabe Pressman who went from print to television.” (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/nyregion/gabe-pressman-wnbc-dead.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1923: According to a reported in an Arab language newspaper published in Jerusalem, “Henry Ford will visit Palestine in the near future.”

1923: Sir Herbert Samuel, the British High Commissioner told a delegation of Jews who protesting against “the profanation of the Sabbath, that in Palestine, “there would be no Blue Laws.”

1924: The first part of “Die Nielungen” a two-part silent film directed by Fritz Lang, the son of Jewish mother who converted to Catholicism and raised her son in that religion was released in Germany today.

1925(20thof Shevat, 5685): Parashat Yitro

1925(20th of Shevat, 5685): Sixty-seven-year-old New York born and M.I.T. trained architect Arnold William Brunner who “designed several notable buildings including the building for Congregation Sheartih Israel on Central Park West, Temple Israel on Lenox Avenue and the Students’ Hall at Barnard College in Manhattan.

1925: According to a report made public today, “in the last four years $7,204,439 has been spent by the Palestine Foundation Fund of constructive enterprises in rebuilding the Jewish homeland in Palestine” and “of this amount, 60 per cent., or over $4,320,000, was subscribed by American Jews.”

1926: Rabbi Nathan Krass is scheduled to speak this morning on “The Jewish Conception of Heaven and Hell” at Temple Emanu-El.

1926: Arshag Mahdesian, an expert on Armenia wrote today challenging William E. “Pussyfoot” Johnson’s description of Turkey in which he described “the Jews” as “aliens who live on the bounty of the Turks

1926: Movie mogul William Fox today “gave $250,000 to the United Jewish Campaign” today “and accepted its New York Chairmanship.

1926: This evening at the Hotel Astor, a banquet was held in honor of Chaim Nachman Bialik, “the poet laureate of the Jewish people who arrived from Palestine last week” where it was announced that Harlem-Yorkville Section has contributed $75,000 to the Unite Palestine Appeal which has a goal of raising five million dollars.

1926: Dr. Nathan Krass officiated at the debate today between the Emanu-El League of Temple Emanu-El and the Junior League of Temple Beth-El.

1926: Dr. Stephen S. Wise is scheduled to speak this morning on “Are Jews United or Divided” at the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall.

1926: English-born American Rabbi “Lewis Browne’s history of the Jews, which the Macmillan company brought last Spring under the title Stranger than Fictionis to be published in England by Jonathan Cape Ltd under the title of The Story of the Jews

1927: Birthdate of Jerry Wolman, the native of Shenandoah, PA who owned both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Philadelphia Flyers.

http://www.jewishexponent.com/jerry-wolman-86-former-eagles-owner

1927: Mortimer L. Schiff appeared on the cover of Time Magazine. Schiff, the only son of Jacob Schiff, was a partner in Kuhn, Loeb and active leader of the Boy Scouts of America.

1928: In his comparison of the national aspirations of the Poles, Irish and Jews published today former New York State Senator Nathan Starust noted that “For several hundred years, a comparatively short time as compared with the annals of Jewry, the Poles dreamed of the re-establishment of a united Poland” – a dream which has now been realized. “For an even shorter time, the Irish people have been pleading for a government and political entity of their own” and today Ireland is an Irish State.”  Only the Jews, the people who have been waiting the longest, still have had not had their dream realized.

1929: “Nathan Straus received a cablegram today from Meir Dizengoff, Mayor of Tel Aviv and Chaim Nachmann Bialik, the famous Hebrew poet both of whom had participated in the dedication of the Nathan and Lina Straus Health and Welfare Center in Jerusalem at which John Hyanes Holmes of the Community Church of New York was one of the principal speakers.  “Following elated words regarding your high aspirations and great enterprise for the benefit of your national and the land of your forefathers in the presence of your envoy, Mr. Holmes and representatives of all creeds, the assembly expresses feeling of veneration and great love to the great man and Jew, Nathan Straus, and sends you and your wife blessings and wishes for a long and happy life.”

1929: In the Bronx, Jean (née Kress) and Harry Morozoff, an electrical engineer, gave birth to Victor Morozoff who gained fame as actor Victor “Vic” Morrow whom many remember for his portrayal of Sgt. Sanders in the WW II based television series “Combat!”

1929: It was alleged, but never proven, that the trigger men at today’s St. Valentine’s Day Massacre were supplied by the Jewish dominated “Purple Gang.”

1930: In NYC, Maurice Finkelstein, the Syracuse, NY born son of Simon and Hannah Finkelstein and his wife Naomi Finkelstein gave birth to James Finkelstein.

1931(27thof Shevat, 5691): Parashat Misphatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1931: “Fifty Million Frenchmen,” the film version of the Broadway musical produced and released by Warner Brothers with a script co-written by Al Boasberg was released in the United States todayl

1934: Sixty-nine-year-old “French poet, writer” and convert to Catholicism, Marc-André Raffalovich and the brother of financier and economist Arthur Raffalovich, passed away today.

1934: Birthdate of Harriet Gasway Z”L

1935(11th of Adar I, 5695): Eighty-four-year-old Joseph Simon, the first Jewish U.S. Senator elected from Oregon, passed away.

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=S000422

1936(21stof Shevat, 5696): Seventy-three-year-old Nathan Pinanski, the Vilna born son of Moses Pananski and the Boston philanthropist who was the founder and president of both “Congregation Adath Jeshurun in Roxbury” and “the People’s Free Loan Society, a non-sectarian charitable organization” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1936/02/16/294268392.pdf

1936: According to figures published today there 216 Jewish farm families in 1900 and now there are “about 100,000” while in the same period of time “total acreage owned by Jewish farmers” has from 12,019 acres to “more than 1,500,000 acres.”

1936: In Richmond, VA, “celebration of the 95th anniversary of the founding of Congregation Beth Ahaba which was founded at time when “there were 100 Jews in Richmond’s Population of 3,900.

1936: It was reported today “the American Jewish physicians’ committee has just contributed $25,000 toward fulfillment of a pledge of $65,000” which will go to “a fund that will build a medical center in Palestine sponsored by Hadassah.

1937(3rdof Adar, 5697): Fifty-four-year-old Russian born Brooklynite Louis Singer the Jewish philanthropist who was, among other things, “founder and president of the Home of Old Israel” in Manhattan, a director of the Israel Zion Hospital and President of the Mount Lebanon Cemetery” and the father of four children – Ruth, Jack, Abraham, and Bernard -- passed a way today in Miami.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/02/16/94338047.pdf

1937: The New York Times featured a review of Palestine at the Crossroadsby Ladislas Farago based on the journalist visit to Palestine in 1936.

1937: Today’s “Latest Books Received” list published today included Major Noah: American-Jewish Pioneer by Isaac Goldberg and a pamphlet entitled “Judah Philip Benjamin” which is part of a biographical study of Confederate leaders.

1937: “The economic and cultural distress of Jews in Poland and Germany was described” this “afternoon at a conference of representatives of 530 orthodox, conservative and reform synagogues and congregations at the Hotel Astor” where “those present pledged themselves to support the 1937 campaign of the United Palestine Appeal for $4,500,000 for the settle in Palestine of Jews from Germany, Poland and other European countries.”

1937: “Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Bavaria delivers a sermon in Munich in which he explains how the signing of the Concordat between the Vatican and Nazi Germany substantially increased Hitler's prestige around the world.”

1938: “Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels’s newspaper, the Angriff today urged the Nazi regime to speed up the temp of ‘liquidating’ Jews in Germany’s economic life,” saying “that it is about time for a further decisive step to force Jewish businessmen to sell out.”

1938: The Palestine Post quoted the text of Colonel R. Meinertzhagen's letter to The Times of London in which he wrote that both the former British Prime Minister Lloyd George and Mr. Balfour envisaged the whole of Palestine as a future Jewish sovereign state. In Meinertzhagen's view the partition recommended by the Lord Peel Committee only complicated the issue, insofar as it had crystallized Arab opposition. The colonel called for continued Jewish determination to achieve this goal, not only for the Jews, but also in a direct British interest. 

1939: It was reported today that “I.J. Singer’s new novel East of Eden” which “like its predecessor The Brothers Ashkenazi deals with the teeming world of Polish Jews” will be published by Knopf next month.

1940: National Commander Edgar Burman and Judge Mark Sullivan gave the main addresses this evening at the installation ceremonies for Hoboken Post No. 55 of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States

1941: It was announced today that “Lieutenant Raphael de Sola, one of the yachtsmen who participated in the Dunkirk rescue operations, has been appointed Commander of Ship of the Royal Navy.” (JTA)

1941: Birthdate of Tomas Abraham who was transported from Prague to Terezin in 1941 and then to Auschwitz in 1944 where the three-year-old was murdered.

1941: In Amsterdam Hendrik Koot a member of the pro-Nazi NSB movement died of the wounds he sustained when and he his fellow thugs in the WA attacked the Jews who, much to their surprise, fought back.  (The Jewish “victory” would be short-lived and in the next few days over four hundred Jews would die)

1942:  Birthdate of millionaire businessman and Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.

1942(27th of Shevat): Yiddish poet Menachem Bareisha passed away

1943: In “Visitor from Shangri-La” published today Theodore Strauss described the visit of veteran British actor H.B. Warner to New York where, among other things he his promoting “Hitler’s Children” an anti-Nazi film that has broken all records at the theatres in which it has been shown.  Warner said that he is using the personal appearance tour to promote his own ant-fascist views.

1943: The Soviets drove the Nazis out of Rostov-on-Don. While the city was under German control thousands of Jews were murdered including 13,000 on August 11, 1942. Immediately after the liberation, the Jews were allowed to use the former Soldier’s Synagogue with Shaia-Meier Aronovich serving as rabbi starting in 1944.  In the postwar years, the community suffered as Stalin adopted increasingly anti-Semitic policies.

1943: Birthdate of Aaron Russo, the Brooklyn native who went from working in the family undergarment business, to nightclub operator, to movie producer and director before becoming a political activist who ran for Governor of Nevada and became active in “libertarian” groups.

1944:The national board of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, yesterday cabled $100,000 to Hadassah's founder, Miss Henrietta Szold, head of the youth immigration bureau of the Jewish Agency for Palestine in Jerusalem, as its part of an international celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Youth Aliyah (immigration) movement.

1944: Birthdate of Carl Bernstein, one of the two journalists who broke the Watergate Scandal.

1945: In Detroit, former Michigan State University and Canadian Football League wide receiver and running back Abe Eliowitz married Sarah Lachman today.

1945: Birthdate of Stuart Sorrell, the London born son an electronics salesman, the Cambridge and Harvard trained advertising mogul who married Christina Falcone after divorcing Sandra Finestone with whom he had three children.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/business/martin-sorrell-s4-wpp-advertising.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Business

1945: Henrietta Szold, of blessed memory, was buried today at 3 pm on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.  Among the attendees were representatives of the 12,000 Jewish refugees whom she helped to rescue through Youth Aliyah.  As a sign of mourning all Jewish institutions flew their flags at half-mast and all of the Jewish newspapers were published with black borders on their front page. (As reported by JTA)

1945: President Franklin Roosevelt met with Ibn Saud where they discussed the future of the Jews and settlement in Palestine.  Churchill received a full report of the meeting, but the report was kept secret from the rest of the world.  Among other things Ibn Saud expressed his total opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine and said that Holocaust survivors should be returned to their countries of origin.  FDR expressed his essential agreement with the King’s position.

1946: “Gilda,” a film noir directed by Charles Vidor with script doctored by Ben Hecht and featuring Ludwig Donath was released in the United States today

1947: Foreign Minster Bevin “announced that he was referring the entire Palestine imbroglio to the United Nations.”

1947: In Philadelphia, Arline and Joseph Schwarzman, the owner of a dry-goods store in Philadelphia gave birth to Stephen Allen Schwarzman, the chairman and CEO of Blackstone Group, the global private equity firm.

1948: Birthdate of Slovakia native and Israeli trained “autoimmunity researcher” Yehuda Shoenfeld.

http://www.waidid.org/uploads/board/cv/CV-Shoenfeld_884023.pdf

1948: “The young Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin who was among those Churchill asked to scrutinize the text of volume one of his memoirs” sent the former Prime Minister a proposal about changes in content with a reminder that “You did, I recollect, order me to quite candid.” Berlin praised Churchill’s handling of the “tremendous story of the Rise of Hitler.”

1948: Archbishop Conrad Gröber who opposed the Nazis passed away.

1949: Russian-born English chemist and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, 74, was elected first president of the newly restored modern state of Israel.

1949: “The Clay Pigeon” directed by Richard Fleischer, with a screenplay by Carl Foreman was released in the United States today.

1949: In Lakewood, NJ, the former Joan Hyman and “Preston Robert Tisch, a film and television executive who also served as the United States Postmaster General” gave birth Steven Elliot Tisch who is most famous for serving as a senior executive with the Super Bowl winning New York Giants who beat the Patriots owned by co-religionist Bob Kraft.

1949 (Tu B’Shevat, 5709): The Knesset opened its first session.  Political democracy has been part of the Jewish state since before its official founding.  The Knesset is a unicameral legislature that many critics agree is quite unwieldy.  The political party system is based on proportional representation which leads to coalition governments.  Israel's critics like to forget that about ten percent of the members of the Knesset are Arabs.  During the days of the Cold War, Israel's detractors liked to point out that members of the Communist Party were elected to the Knesset.  What they forget to mention that Israel, unlike the Arab states, held free elections so of course it was the only country in the Middle East to have elected Communist officials.  It was the only country in the Middle East to have democratically elected officials of any kind.  Also, with approximately ten per cent of its members being Arabs, the Knesset also boasts the largest number of democratically elected Arab legislators in the Middle East.

1950: Birthdate of Berkley native Joel Selvin the San Francisco music critic and journalist who wrote a biography about Bert Berns, the Bronx born son of Russian Orthodox Jews.

1951: The door was opened for the elections for the second knesset when the government resigned today after the Knesset had rejected the Minister of Education and Culture's proposals on the registration of schoolchildren

1951: In Dublin, Elaine and Reuben Shatter gave birth to Irish political leader Alan Joseph Shatter

1952: Premiere of Le Plaisir, also known by its English title House of Pleasure, a French comedy-drama anthology film directed by Max Ophüls

1952: The Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America established the Lena and Henry J Perahia Scholarship Foundation Award as a permanent endowment

1952(18thof Shevat, 5712): Eighty-five-year-old Indianapolis, Indiana native Louis Paul Dessar, the CCNY and National Academy of Designed trained internationally acclaimed artist passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1952/02/16/93560540.pdf

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

1952: Comedian Joey Adams marries gossip columnist Cindy Heller

1954: In “Sharp Eyes for the Multiple Things” published today, William Barrett reviews The Hedgehog and The Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History by Isaiah Berlin.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/29/specials/berlin-hedgehog.html

1955: The cover of Time features Carl Jung, the one-time follower of Freud who split with his master and reportedly enjoyed an “unconventional” relationship with one of his Jewish patients.

1956(2ndof Adar, 5716): Sixty-five-year-old Ernest M. Ach, the son of hat maker Samuel Ach and Esther Kahn Ach, the husband Pauline W. Ach and the father of David, Roger and S. Laurence Ach passed away today.

1958: In a move to counter the newly created UAR which joined Egypt and Syria, Jordan and Iraq formed a union which created “a unified military command.” (Editor’s note – any move that created unified military commands among the Arab states posed an additional threat to Israel.  At the same time, it should be noted that much of jockeying and hostility in the Arab world came from Arab fears of the fellows and had nothing to do with Israel.)

1959(6thof Adar I, 5719): Parashat Teruman

1959(6thof Adar I, 5719): Eighty-year-old Simon Ackerman the tailor born in Lithuania and the founder of Chester Barrie, Ltd who was the husband of May Ackerman and the father of Estelle, Dorothy, Helen, Raymond and Myron Ackerman passed away today

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/02/15/83669598.pdf

1961: Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, accused the government of Morocco of bias against Jews and appealed to the Human Rights Commission of the United States to urge the Moroccan Government to stop what it termed “repressive action” including police brutality.

1962: Philanthropist Nehemiah M. Cohn, founder of the Giant Grocery Chain in Washington, D.C. stated that “Giving to those less fortunate than we are...brings us contentment and true happiness. The Talmud says that a man’s greatness is measured not by how much money he can acquire, but rather how much he can part with. Cohen’s view of philanthropy is carried on through the Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation. http://www.nncf.net/

1964(29thof Tevet, 5724): Fifty-three-year-old Soviet photographer Semyon Fridlyand passed away today.

https://www.moma.org/interactives/objectphoto/artists/24450.html

1967(4th of Adar I, 5727): Francis Benedict Hyam Goldsmith, a British Conservative Member of Parliament and luxury hotel tycoon in France and the United Kingdom, passed away. “Born Franck Adolphe Benedict Goldschmidt in 1878 in Frankfurt, Germany, he was the son of Adolphe Benedict Hayum Goldschmidt, who permanently moved to London in 1895, already a multi-millionaire, and Alice Emma Moses Merton (1835-98), daughter of Joseph Benjamin Moses aka Moses Merton. Benedict Hyum Goldshmidt who was a millionaire in his own right, moved to London in 1895. Goldsmith’s “grandfather was Benedict Hayum Salomon Goldschmidt, a banker and consul to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, founder of the B.H. Goldschmidt Bank.” He grew up on his family's 2,500 acre country estate in Suffolk. Educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, he gained an honours degree in law and was called to Bar by the Inner Temple in 1902. In 1903 he was elected to Westminster City Council, remaining a member for four years. In 1904 he was elected a member of London County Council representing St Pancras South with W.H.H. Gastrell as municipal reformers, having defeated both George Bernard Shaw and Sir William Geary, who were standing as Progressives. From 1904 to 1910 Goldsmith was active on many committees showing great interest in education and special schooling, becoming whip of the Municipal Reform Party. He was also involved in many Jewish charities, assisting in the organizations involved in the emigration of Jews from the Russian Empire and became a member of the emigration committee of the Jewish Board of Guardians. In 1910 Goldsmith was elected Conservative M.P. for Stowmarket, close to his family home of Cavenham Park. Although remaining an M.P. until 1918, his political career was ended by anti-German hysteria during World War I. During the war he served in Gallipoli and Palestine with the Suffolk Yeomanry. After the war Goldsmith moved to France where he set up a hotel business. He married Marcelle Moullier in June 1929. Goldsmith eventually built up a portfolio of 48 hotels including the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo, the Carlton in Cannes and the Lotti in Paris. He was director of the Savoy Hotel company for many years and one of the founders of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. He was Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur.”

1968(15thof Shevat, 5728): Tu B’Shevat

1968: Footballer Mordechai "Motaleh" Spiegler led Israel to victory over Switzerland today at Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv.

1969(26thof Shevat, 5729): Eighty-year-old Russian born Joseph “Joe” Magidsohnn, the All-American halfback for the University of Michigan who “was the first Jewish athlete to letter at the Ann Arbor school passed away today.

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

1970(8thof Adar I, 5730): Seventy-three-year-old Dora Polsky Antin, the widow of former State Senator Benjamin Antin and “a borough chairman of the United Palestine Appeal” passed away today.

1971: After 1,597 performances the original New York production of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” co-starring Bob Balaban as “Linus” closed today.

1971(19thof Shevat, 5731): Eighty-two-year-old Berlin born, American architect and city planner Dr. Paul Zucker passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/16/archives/dr-paul-zucher-is-dead-at-82-many-years-at-cooper-union-architect.html

1972(29thof Shevat, 5732): Eighty-two-year-old Israel Moses Sieff who “was created a life peer as Baron Seif” the British Zionist and Chairman of the Board of Marks and Spencer passed away today.

http://thepeerage.com/p19183.htm#i191830

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/sieff-israel-moses-baron

1973: U.S. premiere of “The World’s Greatest Athlete” with music by Marvin Hamlisch.

1974: Vitaly Rubin, Vladimir Galatzky. David Azbel and Ida Nudel continued their hunger strike today,

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that hundreds of Lebanese men, women and children in southern Lebanon demonstrated in an open space at the "Good Fence," an open Israeli-Lebanese crossing point, demanding that Syrian army leave the Lebanese territory.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli officials in Washington noted that US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's hardening stance and his assertion that the settlements in the occupied areas "should not exist" was a deliberate shift of US policy, arrived at only after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visited Washington and influenced US President Jimmy Carter in this direction.

1979: A revival of the musical “Whoopee!” which had starred Eddie Cantor in the original production and with lyrics by Gus Kahn opened at the ANTA playhouse.

1980(27th of Shevat, 5740): Seventy-six-year-old Austria born, American architect Victor David Gruen passed away today.

http://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/136/

https://qz.com/454214/the-father-of-the-american-shopping-mall-hated-cars-and-suburban-sprawl/

1982(21stof Shevat, 5742): Seventy-seven-year-old William Lee Wilder “the Austrian-born American screenwriter, film producer and director who was the older brother of Oscar winner William “Billy” Wilder.

1983: Manchem Begin replaced Ariel Sharon as Minister of Defense.

1983: Soviet anti-Zionist trials continue today with Simon Shnirman as the defendant.

1985: The U.S. Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism announced their decision to begin accepting women as rabbis.

1986: Six people were wounded during the bombing of a bus in Jerusalem.

1988(26th of Shevat, 5748): Composer Frederick Lowe passed away.  The Austrian native teamed with Alan Jay Lerner to create a number of hit musicals including “Brigadoon,” “Paint Your Wagon” and most famous of all, “My Fair Lady.” (As reported by Stephen Holden)

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/15/obituaries/frederick-loewe-dies-at-86-wrote-my-fair-lady-score.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/15/obituaries/frederick-loewe-dies-at-86-wrote-my-fair-lady-score.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

1989 ( 9th of Adar I): Ninety-one year Rabbi Sheldon Haas Blank, a professor of Bible who was a faculty member at the Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion for more than 60 years, passed away at Jewish Hospital in Cincinnatihttp://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/16/obituaries/sheldon-h-blank-91-a-professor-of-bible.html?_r=0

1989:In “Fossil Findings Fan Debate on Human Origins” published today, John Noble Wilford reported that “new fossil discoveries” in caves in Israel “and genetic evidence have fueled a resounding debate among anthropologists over the timing and circumstances of the last major event in human physical evolution, the emergence of the anatomically modern Homo sapiens.

1991(30thof Shevat, 5751): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1991:Today, a victim of last Saturday's missile attack on a Tel Aviv suburb -- military censors do not permit publication of his name -- held a prayer service in the yard of his damaged house. He and several friends prayed and danced with Torah scrolls as a bulldozer sat poised to push the building down. As soon as they finished singing Hatikvah, the national anthem, the bulldozer driver raised his shovel, pushed forward and leveled the remains of the house.

1992:The McCrory Corporation, the financially troubled parent of a chain of five-and-dime variety stores, said today that it would miss a debt payment and hinted that it might file for bankruptcy court protection.McCrory is part of the Riklis Family Corporation, a privately held concern headed by Meshulam Riklis, an Istanbul native who came to America from Tel Aviv in 1947. Other Riklis holdings have included the Samsonite Corporation, Elizabeth Arden, the Culligan International Company, Martha White Foods Inc. and Botany 500.

1993: Paul Rudnick’s “Jeffrey” which no major New York Theatre would touch because “it was a comedy about AIDS” completed a successful two month run at “the tiny WPA Theatre” after which it would moved to the Minetta Lane Theater.

1995(14thof Adar I, 5755): Purim Katan

1996(24th of Shevat, 5756): Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, daughter of Mordechai Kaplan and the first bat mitzvah ever, passed away at the age of 86.

1997: “British singer-songwriter, guitarist, record producer and film score composer Mark Knopfler, the son of a Hungarian Jewish immigrant father married British actress and writer Kitty Aldridge with whom he had two daughters.

1997: Eve Ensler, the daughter of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, who “identifies as a Nichiren Buddhist” established the first V-Day that demands “that violence against women and girls must end.”

1999: Bruce Fleisher won the American Express Invitational with a three round score of 203.

1999: The New York Times book section featured a review Why Not Me? The Inside Story of the Making and Unmaking of the Franken Presidency by Al Franken.

2000: “A target date for a framework agreement on a permanent peace between Israelis and Palestinians slipped by here today as contacts between the two sides remained frozen, with no signs that the impasse might be broken.”

2001(21stof Shevat, 5761): Eighty-four-year-old Maurice Levitas (Moishe ben Hillel) the Dublin born academic and activist who served with the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War passed away today. His daughter Ruth Levitas is the author of The Concept of Utopia and his brother Max was took part in the “Battle of Cable Street.”

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/mar/07/guardianobituaries1

2002: Palestinian terrorists destroyed an Israeli tank tonight, by “planting a mine that punched through the tank's belly, killing at least three soldiers and lightly wounding a fourth”

2003: University of California outfielder Brian Horowitz was responsible for a record-breaking RBI’s in today’s game. (Editor’s note – Brian Horowitz, the Golden Bear’s outfielder is not to be confused with Professor Brian Horowitz, the distinguished author and member of the Tulane University faculty)

2003: “Daredevil” a film based on characters created by Stan Lee and co-produced by Avi Arad was released in the United States today.

2003: “The Hours” a movie version of the novel of the same name produced by Scott Rudin with music Philip Glass was released in the United Kingdom today.

2004: On his 61st birthday, Aaron “Russo gave his full endorsement to the Free State Project, saying in his letter, ‘I encourage my fellow Libertarians and all freedom-loving Americans to consider joining the Free State Project.’”

2005:Effi Eitam was suspended from the party chairmanship by the National Religious Party's internal court, after he left the government against the center decision. The suspension caused Eitiam and Yitzhak Levi to leave the party.

2005(5thof Adar I, 5765): Seventy-nine-year-old Henry Wolf passed away. (As reported by Steven Heller – note that the Times originally and incorrectly reported that he was 80)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/business/media/16wolf.html

2005: The Taipei Times features an article in which Taiwan’s only rabbi, Ephraim Einhorn, recounts the history of Taiwan’s small Jewish community that has existed since the 1950’s and its links to the Holocaust.

2006: Indian Jewish cricketer Bensiyon Sonavkar played for Saurashtra in the match again Maharashtra .

2006(16th of Shevat, 5766): Eighty three year old Shoshana Damari, whose unique throaty voice and larger-than-life performances embodied the Hebrew revival myth, passed away today after a short bout with pneumonia. (As reported by Steven Erlanger)

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E7DF133EF936A25751C0A9609C8B63

2007: Haaretz featured an article on the state of the Jewish community entitled “Las Vegas: Lots of Jews, not much Judaism.”  According to a comprehensive study released recently by Dr. Ira Sheskin, of the University of Miami, Las Vegas is now home to the country's 23rd-largest Jewish community. His research found that the Jews of Las Vegas are less observant and less connected to Judaism than the vast majority of U.S. Jews. Only 50 percent report attending a Passover Seder, only 14 percent report belonging to a synagogue and only a minority light Shabbat or Hanukkah candles or keep kosher.The one category where the Jews of Las Vegas do excel is intermarriage, with 48 percent of all currently married Jewish respondent/spouse couples being mixed.  On the positive side, La Vegas does not lack for wealthy Jews willing to support Jewish causes.  After all, Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas, one of the richest men in the country, underwrote Sheskin's study and is a major philanthropist in the Jewish arena.

2007:Gabi Ashkenazi received the rank of Lieutenant General and was appointed Chief of the General Staff.

2008: The 12thNew York Sephardic Jewish Festival comes to an end with a showing of “Nuba of Gold and Light.”

2008: In The Financial Express, an article entitled “Guitar in Tow, Rabbi Set to Spread Jewish Traditions in Poland,” describes the work of Rabbi Tanya Segal.

2009: Ninety-year-old publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Jr. the only child of Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Wolf passed away today. (As reported by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/books/16knopf.html?_r=0

2009: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a one-of-a-kind, award-winning exhibit of hundreds of pieces of World War II era mail and documents related to the Nazi’s attempted extermination of Jews and others will be publicly displayed at Coe College in the Perrine Gallery of Stewart Memorial Library.  The collection is owned by the Deerfield, Illinois-based Florence and Laurence Spungen Family Foundation, which acquired the extraordinary items to preserve and offer them for public use at Holocaust and genocide educational venues around the world.  According to a press release, “The insured value of the collection is $1 million, but the educational value to future generations is incalculable,” said Daniel Spungen, a member of the board of the Spungen Family Foundation. “One of the most heartbreaking artifacts and historical evidence of Nazi desecration is a torn fragment of a hand-written Hebrew parchment from a Bible scroll (Tanakh).  A German soldier used the holy scripture to wrap a parcel he mailed from Russia to Austria in 1942,” explained Spungen.  “The sacred parchment was pillaged from a Russian synagogue.  Ironically, the portion that was used as wrapping paper has passages from the first book of Samuel about the story of David and Goliath.” George J. Kramer, chairman of the New York-based Philatelic Foundation, described the scroll fragment as “one of the most important items of Judaic postal history.” This is only the third public exhibition since the acquisition of the historic items from a private collector was formally announced by the Spungen charitable foundation last September.  Steve Feller, past President of Temple Judah, a Coe professor of physics and co-author of the book, “Silent Witness: Civilian Camp Money of World War II,” will present an educational program about Holocaust-related money in conjunction with the exhibit of the collection. The postal artifacts in the collection are evidence of the torments, ravages and terror of war and genocide in Europe from 1933 to 1945.  They also show that many prisoners never lost hope, and the human spirit survived.  “We will be giving educational institutions and museums around the world the opportunity to use the exhibit materials for displays, lectures and research,” said Florence Spungen, Founder of the Foundation.  “This is a permanent educational tool for all generations to document this important period of time that cannot be forgotten.” The Holocaust exhibit was acquired intact from noted researcher, writer and collector, Ken Lawrence, of Bellefonte, Pa., a former vice president of the American Philatelic Society, who began assembling the material in 1978. Including items contributed by Spungen, the foundation now will be the guardian of the more than 250 envelopes, post cards, letters, and specially-designated postage stamps used exclusively by concentration camp inmates, Jewish ghetto residents and prisoners of war.  In addition, the collection includes counterfeit Bank of England paper money created by slave laborers during “Operation Bernhard,” the Nazis’ failed plot to undermine England’s economy and the subject of the recent motion picture, "The Counterfeiters."Frequently exhibited by Lawrence, the display won awards and medals at stamp shows including an international exhibition in Washington, D.C. in 2006. “The scroll page that was used for mailing a parcel is the most viscerally disturbing item.  Some scholars have told me it is among the most important surviving evidence of Nazi desecration,” said Lawrence.  “Chronic, flagrant desecration exemplified by violating that sacred scripture imbued the cultured German nation and historically honor-bound German army with an inhuman attitude toward Jews that made the Holocaust both possible, and given the opportunity, inevitable.” Some of the ghetto and concentration camp letters have coded or hidden messages about the plight of the senders.  Research about the postal materials has led to discovery of a previously unreported undercover address in Lisbon, Portugal, used by Jewish resistance fighters, and the location of two camps in Romania for slave laborers and political detainees. In addition to the Bible scroll fragment used to wrapping a package, the collection includes:

·         Rare examples of mail sent to prisoners and mail sent between inmates at different camps;

·         A card sent by an inmate at Dachau soon after it opened in 1933 is the earliest known prisoner mail from any Nazi concentration camp;

·         An October 3, 1943 letter to his parents in Rzeszów, Poland from Eduard Pys, a 21-year-old who arrived on the first transport at the Auschwitz concentration camp in May of 1940.

·         The only known surviving piece of mail sent by Rabbi Leo Baeck, the leader of German Jewry (Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden), while he was confined to the Theresienstadt ghetto.

·         A postal checking account receipt imprinted with a crude anti-Semitic caricature denoting payment for a subscription to a Nazi propaganda newspaper, Der Stűrmer;

·         Mail secretly carried by children through the sewers of Warsaw during the 1944 uprising.

·         Mail clandestinely carried from Nazi-occupied Poland to the exhibit Polish Navy headquarters in London and to a Jewish resistance leader in Switzerland; and,

·         A December 1945 postal card addressed to Dr. Eugen von Haagen, a Nazi war criminal on trial after the war at Nuremberg, that is the only recorded example of the censor mark of the International Military Tribunal.

Arrangements are being worked out for the entire collection to be housed at the new facilities of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center that will open in April in Skokie, Ill. “We are genuinely excited about the prospect of being the central repository for this remarkable collection,” said Richard Hirschhaut, Executive Director of the museum.  The Florence and Laurence Spungen Family Foundation was established in 2006 to support charitable and educational causes.  Many of the historic artifacts now can be viewed online at the foundation’s Web site, www.SpungenFoundation.org.

2009: In Baltimore, Theatre Hopkins’ production of Lisa Kron’s innovative comedy “Well”,appears at JHU’s Swirnow Theatre on the Homewood campus.

2010(30 Shevat, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Capitalism and the Jews byJerry Z. Muller and the recently released paperback edition of We Can Have Peace In the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work by Jimmy Carter.

2010: Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said todat that the Chabad house in Pune had been under surveillance by David Headley, an American of Pakistani descent in prison in Chicago for allegedly scouting out targets for the Mumbai attack. Pune was the sight of a bombing on Saturday night..

2010: A third of the children in Israel live below the poverty line, according to data published by the National Insurance Institute today.

2010: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Military, Admiral Michael G. Mullen, is scheduled to arrive in Israel today as part of a tour of the region. Admiral Mullen will be hosted by IDF Chief of the General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, who will hold a festive dinner in his honor later tonight.

2010: The Counter-Terrorism Bureau of the National Security Council published a travel warning advising Israeli citizens against visiting Sinai during Pessah.

2011: “Hidden Children,” a movie “based on true events” that tells “the gripping story of two young Jewish brothers sheltered by a devout Catholic woman in Nazi occupied France, setting the stage for a political and legal battle that made headlines across the country” is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: A documentary entitled “Over 90 and Loving It” is scheduled to be shown at the 21stAnnual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2011: The official transition ceremony between 19th General Gabi Ashkenazi the Israel Defense Forces' 19th chief of staff and Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz, the Israel Defense Forces' 20th chief of staff is scheduled to be held this morning at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem. The farewell ceremony for Ashkenazi is scheduled to be held at Tel Aviv University.

2011: A former Hungarian military officer has been charged with war crimes in the 1942 slaughter of 1,200 civilians in Serbia, prosecutors said today. The charges against Sandor Kepiro, 96, stem from his alleged participation in a raid by Hungarian forces on the northern Serbian town of Novi Sad in January 1942 that left more than 1,200 civilians dead, the Budapest Investigating Prosecutor's Office said.

2012: “Mahler on the Couch” is scheduled to be shown at the Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival in Palm Beach, FL.

2012: Shachiv Shnaan, an Israeli-Druze political leader “returned to the Knesset today as a replacement for Matan Vilani.

2012: “Restoration” is scheduled to be shown at The Yeshiva University Ring Family Israel Film Festival in NYC.

2012: Likud Party officials said today that it expects to hold its first party convention in over a decade on March 22nd.

2012: Congress is set to significantly increase funding for Israeli missile defense to more than make up for White House cuts to the program, Capitol Hill sources told The Jerusalem Post today. 

2013: In London, The Wiener Library is scheduled to host a presentation entitled “A Personal Story of the Holocaust” by Agnes Grunwald Spier who “was a baby when she and her mother were saved from deportation to Auschwitz by an unknown official.”  She is the author of The Other Schindlers’

2013: In honor of Valentine’s Day, UK Jewish Film is scheduled to sponsor a screening of “Paris Manhattan.”

2013: Businessman and former Ambassador to Finland Earl “Mack testified in front of the House Committee on Ways and Means Hearing on Tax Reform and Charitable Deductions in support of charitable deductions.”

2013: “It was announced that Martin Mann had been developing an untitled thriller film with another screenwriter for over a year, for Legendary Pictures.”

2013(4thof Adar, 5773): Eighty-one-year-old legal scholar Ronald Dworkin passed away today (As reported by Adam Liptak)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/us/ronald-dworkin-legal-philosopher-dies-at-81.html?hp

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/law-obituaries/9873847/Professor-Ronald-Dworkin.html

 

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/ronald-dworkin-dies-at-81-1.503643

2013: Eighty-nine-year-old Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey announced today that he will not seek a sixth term.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/nyregion/lautenberg-says-he-will-step-down.html?hp

2014: “Focus on the Family Weekend” sponsored by Frum Divorce is scheduled to open at White Plains, NY.

2014: “Commie Camp” is scheduled to be shown at the Jewish Film Festival in San Diego, CA.

2014: The Jewish Museum is scheduled to offer guided tours of “Art Spiegelman’s Co-Mix: A Retrospective” which celebrates the career of one of the most influential living comic artists, best known for Maus, his Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel about his parents' survival of the Holocaust

2014: Friends and family prepare to celebrate the 80th birthday of Harriet Gasway, wife of Bill Gasway, and a pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community.

2014: In today’s edition of Yedioth Ahronoth, Cameron Kerry, Secretary of State John Kerry’s Jewish brother recalled relatives who died in the Holocaust and labeled as “vile” recent personal attacks on the US secretary of state.

2014: Alexei Bychenko made took part in the final round of competition in the men’s figure skating at Sochi. (As reported by Yoel Goldman)

2014: After an Israeli passenger found a grenade safety catch aboard his plane at Ben Gurion Airport, all of the passengers aboard a Ukrainian International Airlines plane were evacuated along with their own baggage.  (As reported by Tova Dvorin)

2014: Residents of southern Israel were subject to two separate rocket attacks this evening.

2014: As the world prepares to celebrate St. Valentine’s Day, consider the following for the Jewish twist on a holiday connected with the three “c’s” – Cupid, Chocolate and Carats (as in diamonds)

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/162315/aphrodisiacs-valentines-day

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/About_Holidays/Non-Jewish_Holidays/Valentines_Day.shtml

http://www.aish.com/ci/s/A_Jewish_Valentines_Day.html

2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a piano recital by Ran Zemach.

2015: As of today, a total of at least thirty homes in Madison, Wisconsin have been spray-painted with “anti-Semitic and racial slurs and swastikas” including a property that belonged “to Jim Stein, the president of the Jewish Federation of Madison, Wisconsin.”

2015(25thof Shevat, 5775): Shabbat Shekalim

2015: Following Shabbat, three people were shot tonight at a Copenhagen Synagogue.

2015(25thof Shevat, 5775): Eighty-seven-year-old poet Philip Levine passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/arts/philip-levine-former-us-poet-laureate-who-won-pulitzer-dies-at-87.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2016: Benjamin Taylor author of Proust is scheduled to lecture on this topic at the 91nd St. Y.

2016: Today, the Boston Globe reported that “Eric Silverman and Gail Dines” “two Jewish professors at Wheelock College” have filed complaints with the USEEOC alleging discrimination based on religion.

https://www.jta.org/2016/02/15/united-states/2-jewish-profs-sue-boston-area-college-claiming-anti-semitic-discrimination

2016:Masterpieces & Curiosities: Alfred Stieglitz’s The Steerage is scheduled to close at the Jewish Museum.

http://thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/masterpieces-curiosities-alfred-stieglitzs-the-steerage

2016: “Remember” and “Sabena Hijacking: My Version” are scheduled to shown on the last day of the 26th annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2016: The New York Times features books by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Man Without a Shadow by Joyce Carol Oates and Jakob’s Colors by Lindsay Hawdon

 2016: Valentine’s Day – Yes, with all of the problems in the world there are those who seriously debate whether Jews are violating their religion if they participate in this debate!

http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/02/11/20-inspiring-jewish-valentines-day-quotes/#

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/valentines-day-and-judaism/2/#

2016: The funeral for General Avigdor Ben-Gal whose bravery and leadership in facing the Syrians during the Yom Kippur was a key to victory is scheduled to take place this afternoon at the Kiryat Shaul Military Cemetery in Tel Aviv.

2016: In the United Kingdom, The Guardian reported today that ‘Warsaw’s nationalist has moved to strip” “Jan Tomasz Gross, a Polish-born Princeton University History” and “a leading Jewish Holocaust scholar” of the Order of the Merit of the Republic Poland “for asserting Poland was in part responsible for Nazi war crimes against its Jewish population during World War II.”

2017(18thof Shevat, 5777): Yahrzeit of 36 year old Judith Resnik, who died along with her six fellow crew members when the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated.

2017: “Fanny’s Journey” and “Fever at Dawn are scheduled to be shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2017: Rabbi Barry Schwartz is scheduled to “present an in-depth profile” of the story of “Adam and Eve” as part of the “The Bible: The Greatest Stories Ever Told” at the Streicker Center.

2017: The world premiere of “pieces by Israeli composers Dina Pruzhansky and Moshe Kroll is scheduled to take place as Symphony Space in NYC.

2017: David Shulkin began serving as the 9th United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

2018: In Charlottesville, the Brody Center at the University of Virginia is scheduled to host “Bagels On the Lawn.”

2018: “White House officials insisted today that the recommendation of bribery and fraud charges against Prime Minister Netanyahu would have ‘no impact on the time or content’ of a peace plan,” but President Trump has not rallied publicly to the Israeli leader’s defense and veterans of Middle East diplomacy said his troubles could pose an unpredictable new obstacle to Mr. Trump’s peacemaking efforts.” (As reported by Mark Landler)

2018: Dr. Avivah Zornberg is scheduled to lead “Miriam and Moses: Sing now! To God” in which she examines how “the tale of Moses’ sister offers an intimate glimpse in the tension” that exists between siblings.

2018: “Future 38” and “Julian Schnabel: A Private Portrait” are scheduled to be shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2018: “Romance and Reason” in which “The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in partnership with the National Library of Israel will explore these shared ideas and transmutations of imagery as expressed through Islamic manuscripts from the 11th through 18th centuries, a particularly rich and fertile period for these works” is scheduled to open today.

2019: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to host “Music in our Time 2019 during which “the combined choirs of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and the Jewish Theological Seminary present an array of exciting Jewish choral music from noted composers of the 20th century (including some important birthday anniversaries) and their 21st-century colleagues.”

2019: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a “Diane and Discuss Valentine’s Day special….with Gila Fine” who will discuss “Talmudic Heroines: The Tragedy of Heturta, the Madonna who Became a Whore.”

2019: “Archivist for YIVO and a klezmer musician, French violonist Eleonore Biezunski who has been exploring Yiddish traditions of old and new for quite some time now” is scheduled to perform “Yiddish Love Songs from the Ruth Rubin Collection” at The Town and Village Synagogue in Social Hall.

2019: As we observe the first anniversary of the massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, we remember the seventeen victims including the five Jewish victims, Alyssa Alhadeff, 14, Jaime Guttenberg, 14, Meadow Pollock, 18, and Alex Schachter, 14, as well as geography teacher Scott Beigel, 35.”  (Editor’s note:  Unlike when they talk about things like Nobel Prize winners or Supreme Court Justices, nobody is talking about the disproportionate number Jews whose lives were cut short by the blast of bullets from a gun.)

https://atlantajewishtimes.timesofisrael.com/5-of-17-killed-in-parkland-were-jewish/

2019: Observance of Valentine’s Day which some might say is the non-Jewish version of Tu B’Av which this year is observed on August 15.

2019: The observance of Valentine’s Day is a special day of love for Sue and Ronald Reider, pillars of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community as they celebrate the birthday of their granddaughter Maya Rose.

2019: The friends and family, including many in the Cedar Rapids Jewish community are posed to celebrate today the 85th anniversary of the birth of Harriet Gasway.

2020: As people prepare to share flowers and candy on St. Valentine’s Day, Jews also remember the massacre on St. Valentine’s Day, 1439.

https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Horrific-Valentines-Day-Massacre-of-Jews.html

2020: In Cambridge, MA, Club Passim is scheduled to host a “special Valentine’s Day concert” featuring Cambridge-based folk music duo Sophie Michaux and Adam Jacob Simon (Sophie et Adam)” as they “share folk tunes from England, Romania, Argentina and the U.S., as well as Yiddish songs and originals by Adam Simon.”

2020: In Israel, The Jerusalem Theatre is offering a special “couple’s coupon” in honor of Valentine’s Day for the shows “Rega, Rega – the songs of Sasha Argov” and “Mania – A legend in her lifetime”.

2020: In Cedar Rapids, members of the Jewish community are scheduled to celebrate birthdays and/or the anniversary of birthdate including Maya Rose, the granddaughter of Sue and Ron Reider and Harriet Gasway.

2020: On the second anniversary of the tragedy, we would like to remember all 17 victims of the tragic Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, including the four Jewish students and one Jewish teacher.
May their memories be a blessing.
Jamie Guttenberg
Alyssa Alhadeff
Meadow Pollack
Alex Schachter
Scott Biegel, Geography teacher

2021: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Send For Me, a novel by Lauren Fox, City Of A Thousand Gates by Rebecca Sacks and the recently published paperback edition of Boys and Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent and Navigating the New Masculinity by Peggy Orenstein.

2021: In London, at Highgate Synagogue Rabbi Liss is scheduled to continue the Sunday Morning Discussion with a concluding session on the current topic “Following Lord Sumption’s Comments – are some lives less valuable than others?”

2021: At the London School of Jewish Studies Rabbi Dr Raphael Zarum is scheduled to be giving a Persia & Purim tour of the British Museum today in which attendees will meet Achashverosh and see his palaces.”

2021: Jewish musical sensations - Cantor Magda Fishman of B’nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton and Cantor Randy Herman of Chizuk Amuno in Baltimore – are scheduled to come together for an incredible evening featuring the most popular love songs of our time as part of “Jew, Blues and Love Songs.”

2021: As it gets ready for Purim today marks the deadline for making arrangements to send a mishloach manot with Tifereth Israel in Columbus, OH.

2021: Temple Emanu-El (Haverhill) is scheduled to host online “A Conversation with Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy” the authors of Never Alone: Prison, Politics and My People.

2021: On the third anniversary of the tragic Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, which some political leaders deny happened, we would like to remember all 17 victims of this murderous event’including the four Jewish students and one Jewish teacher.
May their memories be a blessing.
Jamie Guttenberg
Alyssa Alhadeff
Meadow Pollack
Alex Schachter
Scott Biegel, Geography teacher

 

 

 

 

This Day, February 15, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 15

399 BCE: The philosopher Socrates is sentenced to death. Socrates was not Jewish and he did not know about what were the “Israelites” of his day.  However, Socrates would be one of those Greek philosophers whose teachings would challenge and influence Jewish thinkers and philosophers.  For example, Aristobulus, a second century Jewish teacher asserted that the Greek philosophers, including Socrates were influenced by the teachings of Moses.  In 1045, Ibn-Gebriol wrote a work on moral philosophy that included sayings from traditional sources such as the TaNaCh and the Talmud, but also contained his quotations from what he described as “the divine Socrates” and Socrates most famous disciple, Plato.

1113: Pope Paschal II recognizes the Knights of Hospitaller as a separate and independent monastic order to provide safety to the Crusaders and pilgrims. After the Moslems drove the Crusaders out of the Holy Land, the knights relocated to Rhodes and finally to Malta where they carried on their battle with the forces of Islam. During the 16th century, under the guise of fighting for Christ, the Knights of Malta turned to what many called piracy, capturing vessels in the Mediterranean Sea and then holding the captives for ransom.  This trafficking in humans took an inordinate toll on Jews who were extremely vulnerable as they sailed for commercial reasons or to flee the effects of the Inquisition. The Jews that were not sold were kept as slaves and provided the nucleus of the Jewish population of Malta.

1493: While still at sea on the voyage returning to Spain, Columbus wrote a letter describing the accomplishment of his first trip to what he thought were islands at the edge of Asia, but which were really Hispaniola and Cuba.  The letter was addressed to Luis de Santángel a convserso (a Jew who had been baptized) who was the finance minister to the Spanish monarch.  He was one of those who championed Columbus’ voyage and actually contributed his funds to help pay for the voyage. 

1500: Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral who would be accompanied by Gaspar da Gama, a Polish born Jew whose slave name had been Yusuf ‘Adil before being forcibly converted to Christianity, was appointed Capitão-mor (literally Major-Captain, or commander-in-chief) of a fleet sailing for India

1559: Paul IV issued “Cum ex apostolatus officio” a Papal Bull that confirmed that only Catholics can be elected to the position of Pope. According to some, the Bull was aimed at keeping Cardinal Morone who was rumored to be a secret Protestant from being named Pope. But it may also have been aimed at preventing Marranos from serving as Pope.  Pope Alexander VI, (the first Borgia Pope) was reputed to be the descendant of Marranos.

1611: A hostile army that had entered Prague was defeated; a fact celebrated by three liturgical poems authored by Ephraim Solomon ben Aaron of Lencziza.

1641(5th of Adar, 5401): Sara Copia Sullam, the daughter of a prominent Venetian family passed away. She was a truly unique figure for her time since she was not only a prolific poetess but a religious philosopher who wrote” The Manifesto of Sara Copia Sulam” in which she refuted accusations that she had denied the immortality of the soul

1655: The twenty-three Sephardic Jews who arrived in the fall seeking sanctuary from the Inquisition are officially admitted into New Amsterdam over Governor Peter Stuyvesant's objections.

1694: Today, in Lubeck, Nathan Goldschmidt was accused of having received stolen goods. The trial dragged on for at least five years, and its result is not known. Goldschmidt was the son-in-law of a "Schutzjude” named Nathan Siemssens.  The charges against Goldschmidt may have stemmed from gentiles who were opposes to him being granted the same protected status enjoyed by his father-in-law.

1748: Birthdate of English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. According to Bhikhu C. Parekh, “what is surprisingly modern in the…philosopher’s attitude toward the Jews is that he did not consider them only as the mythical people of the Bible, as most thinkers of his age did, but dealt with this problem as the problem of a religious minority; as such, the Jews had to be tolerated in their religious practices…”  (For more see Jeremy Bentham: Critical Assessments by Parekh starting on page 323)

1758: Mustard makes its first appearance in what is now the United States, when German immigrants manufacture it in Philadelphia, PA.  [This was critical to Jews coming to America.  Can you imagine living in a country where you had to a corned beef on rye without mustard?]

1760: Birthdate of German native Rosine Wambacher, the wife of Abraham Hutzler and mother of Moses, David, Isaac and Eve Hutzler.

1764:  Founding of the city of St. Louis in what would later be the state of Missouri.  The first Jews settled in St. Louis until 1807. Jews worshipped together as a community for Rosh Hashanah, 1836.

1765(24th of Shevat): Rabbi Mordecai Brisk, author of Mayim Ammukim passed away.

1775: Pius VI was elected Pope. He was the author of “Editto sopra gli ebrei,” or "Edict over the Hebrew”

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Edict1775.html

1779: In Scotland, Jean Paton and Thomas Dobson, who in 1814 would publish the first Hebrew Bible printed in the United States at Philadelphia, gave birth to their first daughter Margaret.

1780: In Amsterdam, Moses Salomon Asser and his wife gave birth to “Dutch jurist Carel Asser.”

1781(20th of Shevat, 5541): Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German author and philosopher, passed away. Lessing was a friend of Moses Mendelssohn.  According to these two friends, the test of religion is its effect on conduct. This is the moral of Lessing's Nathan the Wise (''Nathan der Weise''), the hero of which is undoubtedly Mendelssohn. One direct result of this pragmatism was unexpected. Having been taught that there is absolutely no true religion, Mendelssohn's own descendants, along with a large number of other German Jews, had a philosophically acceptable rational for converting to Christianity.

1787(27thof Shevat, 5547): Twice married English born Myer Moses, the father of eight children, passed away today in Charleston, SC.

1796(6thof Adar I, 5556): New York merchant and veteran of the Revolutionary Army Samuel Myers Cohen, the son of Abraham Myers Cohen and husband of Belle Simon who served as President of Congregation Shearith Israel in 1773 passed away today in New York City.

1797: London native John Moss married Lancaster, PA native Rebecca Lyons today in Philadelphia, PA.

1797: In Philadelphia, Miriam Marks and Benjamin Abraham Nones gave birth to Joseph Nones, the husband of Eveline de Leon with whom he had six children.

1798: After the occupation of Rome by General Berthier the local republicans dethroned the Pope. The Jews removed their yellow badges. Two days later a tree of freedom was planted in front of the synagogue.

1800(20thof Shevat, 5660): Parashat Yitro

1803: In Amsterdam, Mozes Koopman Jacob-Hamburger and Sara Magnus (Nachman) Hannover-Jochem-Mozes gave birth to their third child “Jochem (Jochanan) Mozes.

1811: Isaac Drefyus, the Alsace born son of Jacob Dreyfus and the his wife Gertrude “Julie” Dreyfus gave birth to Charlotte Dreyfus

1815: Birthdate of Moses Löb Bloch, native of Bohemia who became a rabbi in Hungary serving as the Rabbinical Seminary of in Budapest.  He passed away in 1909.

1818: Joshua Jacobs married Dinah Cohen at the Great Synagogue today.

1825: Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, the Batavian (Dutch) Ambassador to France delivered a note to the French foreign minister on behalf of the Jews of Germany passed away today.

1827: Birthdate of Bavarian native Emanuel Lehman, who came to the United States with his brothers Henry and Mayer.  The three of them settled in Montgomery, Alabama where they prospered as cotton brokers and general commission merchants.  Mr. Lehman moved to New York in 1856 where he established a branch of Lehman Brothers which became one of the leading financial firms in the United States.  In 1859, he married Pauline Sondheim with whom he had four children before she passed away in 1871.

1830: Beila and John Hart gave birth to Miriam Hart.

1839: Birthdate of Catholic theologian August Rohling whose Der Talmudjude“became a standard work for anti-Semitic authors and journalists” which really became a political force in 1883 with The Tiszaeszlár Affair, a blood libel centered in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

1846: In London, Samuel (Isaac) Henry Gluckstein and Hannah Coenradd Gluckstein gave birth to Julie Gluckestein who after marrying Abraham Abrahams became known as Julia Abrahams.

1846: In London, Samuel and Hannah Gluckstein gave birth to Helena Gluckstein, the twin sister of Julie Gluckstein.

1847:  Birthdate of Austrian composer, Robert Fuchs.  Fuchs was not Jewish.  But one of his most famous pupils was. From 1892 until 1900, Fuchs was a mentor and teacher for Franz Schreker one of the leading opera composers of his generation with works such as Der Ferne Klang, Die Gezeichneten, Der Schatzgräber, and Irrelohe. Schreker was born 1874 and died in 1934. His life and works were part of an exhibition mounted at the Jewish Museum in Vienna in 2005.

1848: In Jerusalem, Eliezer and Cadun (Abulafia) Behar gave birth to Sephardi educator Nissim Abraham Behar who married Martha Cahen in 1888 and his first wife, Melanie Rosenstraus has passed away in 1870 while he was founding Alliance Israélite Universelle schools in Aleppo, Syria; Samakoff, Bulgaria; Constantinople, Turkey; and Jerusalem after which he settled in New York and served as the director of the National Liberal Immigration League.

1850: In Hamburg, Emma Simon and Louis Bernheim gave birth to historian Ernst Bernheim.

1852(25thof Shevat, 5612): Joseph Saphir, the father of Elisabeth, Rosalia, Marie and Markus Saphir, passed away into in the Central Bohemian Region.

1853: Birthdate of “Hamburg native Alfred Beit who made his fortune in the gold and diamond fields of South Africa and whose philanthropies included the creation of what is now the “Beit Professor of History of the British Commonwealth” at Oxford passed away today.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/5088230

1853: Birthdate of Abraham Marcus Pjurko, the native of Lomaza “who devoted himself to modern Hebrew Literature” and with his Chaim, published eleven stories just for children in 1893.

1856: In New Orleans, David and Theresa Kaufman Simon gave birth to Bertha Simon, who became Bertha Simon Dreyfus when she married Isaac Dreyfus with whom she raised five children in Pine Bluff, AR.

1856: In Baltimore, MD Jacob Hecht and Amelia Rosewald gave birth to Rosa Hecht who married Moses Goldenberg and as Rosa Goldenberg served as Director of the Hebrew Ladies’ Sewing Society, the Vice President of the Hebrew Orphans’ Aid Society and principal of the Free Sabbath School.

1857: In Buffalo, NY, Rachel Lobenthal and Rachel Erlanger gave birth to Columbia Law School graduate, who practiced law for more than twenty years while lecture on real estate law and equity” at his alma mater and who was surprise a nominee in 1903 for the position of Sheriff per the instruction of Tammany Hall leader Charles F. Murphy.

1857: In New York, a Jewish jewelry store owner named Ronsenbaum made bail today after being charged in a plot to defraud Samuel Goldbery.  He had previously been arrested on charges of "shyterism" for his part in defrauding an an unnamed woman out of an unspecified amount of money.

1858(1stof Adar, 5618): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1858(1stof Adar, 5618): Seventy-two-year-old Hyam Solomon the Philadelphia born businessman who spent much of his life trying to have the United States government reimburse his father for the money owned to his father, Chaim Solomon for helping to finance the cause of the American Revolution passed away today in New York City.

1865: Isaac Myers who rose to the rank of Corporal began his service in company G of the 74thRegiment today.

1866: One day after she had passed away, Sarah Simeon, the daughter of Woolf and Hannah Rees, the wife Peter Simeon and the mother of James, Michael and David Simeon was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.

1869: Two days after he had passed away, 56-year-old John Jacobs, the son of Aaron Jacobs and Leah Solomon, the husband of Rose Jacobs and the father of Julia Jacobs was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1870: Founding of Mikveh Yisrael home of the first Jewish agricultural school in Palestine.  The Hebrew name Mikveh Yisrael means Hope of Israel. It was one of the earliest attempts to connect a return to Promised Land with the literal re-building of the land through the agrarian life.  As we will see, this became a dominant theme personified by the Kibbutz Movement.  Mikveh Yisrael was established by a French educator named Charles Netter.  The settlement was inland near the Mediterranean town of Jaffa.  It would provide employment for many settlers in the days of the First Alyiah, which started during the 1880's.  The famous meeting between Theodore Herzl and Kaiser William II took place at the gates of Mikveh Yisrael in 1898.  In 1939, some of the graduates of Mikveh Yisrael founded a Moshav form of collective farming community) north of Tel Aviv, which they called Kfar Netter in honor Charles Netter.

1872: “Rabbi Aarons, from Jerusalem, an octogenarian” who is “said to be the oldest Rabbi in the United States met with Assistant District Sullivan for a second time to discuss his “request to carry his case before the Grand Jury for their investigation” that might lead to silencing or punishing those who have libeled him – a request which Mr. Sullivan finally granted.

1874: It was reported today that Prime Minister William Gladstone claimed that the Jews of London had met a couple of days ago and had decided to support his government in the upcoming election.  This stands in sharp contrast to claims by others that the Jews have not done this because they have a tendency to avoid participation in party politics.

1875: Birthdate of Romania native Samuel Chilick

1875(10th of Adar I, 5635): Eliakim Carmoly passed away at Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany. Born in 1802, at Soultz-Haut-Rhin, France, Carmoly’s “real name was Goschel David Behr (or Baer); the name Carmoly, borne by his family in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was adopted by him when quite young. He studied Hebrew and Talmud at Colmar; and, because both French and German were spoken in his native town, he became proficient in those languages. Carmoly went to Paris, and there assiduously studied the old Hebrew manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale, where he was employed. Several articles published by him on various subjects in scientific papers made him known; and on the establishment of a Jewish consistory in Belgium, he was appointed rabbi at Brussels in 1832. In this position Carmoly rendered many services to the newly founded congregation, chiefly in providing schools for the poor. Seven years later, having provoked great opposition by his new scheme of reforms, Carmoly resigned the rabbinate and retired to Frankfort, where he devoted himself wholly to Jewish literature and to the collection of Hebrew books and manuscripts, in which he was passionately interested.”

1875: It was reported today that there are 250 Jews on the Managing Committee responsible for the upcoming Purim Association ball.

1876: Birthdate of Traenheim native Isaïe Schwartz who served as rabbi at Marseilles, Bayonne and Bordeaux and as “a chaplain at the American Army based at Bordeaux” during WW I before being elected Grand Rabbi of France in 1939.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1939/03/09/91554646.pdf

1876: In Russia, a law enacted today, special regulations were formulated concerning the service of Jews in the Czar’s army.

1876(20thof Shevat, 5636): Seventy-six-year-old Henry Etting, the Baltimore born son of Reuben and Frances Gratz Etting who began his career with U.S. Navy in 1818, served “at New York in the office of purser and fiscal agent for the U.S. Navy Department” during the Civil War and was placed on the retired list with the rank of Commodore passed away today.  (The Jewish Encyclopedia as July 10 but the picture of his tombstone shows February 15.)

1877: In Berlin, David and Bertha (Sanger) Zielonka gave birth to Martin Zielonka who came to the United States in 1880 after which he graduated from the University of Cincinnati, ordained as a Reform Rabbi at Hebrew Union College and eventually served as the rabbi at Waco’s Temple Rodef Sholom and El Paso’s Temple Mt. Sinai.

1877: In New York, the Ladies’ Bikur Cholim Society is scheduled to host a fundraiser today at Ferrero’s Assembly Rooms to provide support for the School of Industry

1878: In Americus, GA, Henriette Cohen and Meyer Benjamin Foster gave birth to Solomon Fost,r the graduate of the University of Cincinnati and Hebrew Union College who became the Associate Rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Newark, NJ.

1878: In Zbąszyń, Nowy Tomyśl County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, Poland, Jacobi Bornstein, the son of Aron and Sara Bornstein and his wife Thelka Bornstein gave birth to Alfred Bornstein

1879: It was reported today that the Young Men’s Hebrew Union has recently acquired a gymnasium and bowling alley.  The organization is in its 3rdyear and now has 300 members.

1879(22nd of Shevat, 5639): Joseph A. Engelhart, passed away today in Raleigh, NC. A native of Mississippi, he was elected to serve as North Carolina’s Secretary of State in 1876 when he ran on the ticket with Governor Zebulon Baird Vance. Engelhart actually ran ahead of the ticket. He leaves behind a large family that will benefit from $50,000 in life insurance.

1880: In Paducah, KY, Isaac Wolfe and Amanda (Uri) Bernheim gave birth to Johns Hopkins Medical School trained surgeon, Dr. Bertram M. Bernheim, the husband of Hilda Hess Marcus with whom he had three children – Minda, Isaac Wolfe II and Bertram, Jr. – who was promoted decorated and promoted to the rank of Major for his “work done with combat troops during the fighting around Chateau Theirry” and the Argonne during WW I and “who did pioneering work in blood transfusion and vascular surgery” while serving as “an early advocate of patients’ rights and of group medical practices” and helping the Baltimore City Fire Department to establish a public ambulance service.

https://medicalarchives.jhmi.edu:8443/papers/bernheim.html

1881: In Lithuania, David Shubert and Gittel Helvich Shubert gave birth to Dora Shubert Wolf.

1881: Birthdate of Russian born Englishman Abraham Joseph Hyman, the Titanic survivor and husband of Esther Levy with whom he had five children – Julius, Ann, Lilian, Morris and Ena.

1881: In an attempt to provide information about Jewish practices regarding sacramental wine P.J. Joachimsen wrote from his home on East 69th Street that “the great majority of conforming Jews in this city use wine made from raisins at the Passover Feast.  Of course, the raisins are fresh. Such raisin-wine is used in all conforming synagogues for the sanctification of Shabbat and holy days, i.e. for Kiddush and also for services at circumcisions and weddings.  Some, but not many, people use imported wine --- Italian, Hungarian or German --- which is certified as ‘Perach’ or ‘Kosher Wine.’”

1882: In Philadelphia, Mayor Samuel George King presided over a public meeting in his office this afternoon that was attended by Christians and Jews who were making plans on how to provide for the impending influx of Jews from Russia. According to Moses Dropsie, at least 100,000 Russian Jews have lost all of their possessions and were candidates for immigration to the United States.  So far, 2000 have arrived in New York and a total of 10,000 are expected.  Philadelphia has agreed to provide support for 10% of the group.  Those attending the meeting plan on petitioning the federal government to exert pressure on the Russians to put an end to the persecution of its Jewish citizens.

1882: While defending his government’s foreign policy in the House of Commons this afternoon Sir Charles Dilke, the Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs said that Great Britain would not be intervening with the Russian government on behalf of its Jewish subjects.  “All the precedents showed that English interference in the internal affairs of a foreign country would meet with a rebuff and do more harm than good.”

1882: In Obeliai, Lithuania, Rabbi Bunim Tzemach and Malka Silver gave birth to Rabbi Eliezer Silver, the President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis who worked to provide aid for European Jews suffering during World War I and who worked to save thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/eliezer-silver

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/02/09/79933172.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

https://web.archive.org/web/20051203005136/http:/www.cincypost.com/living/1999/silver051199.html

1883: Founding of Congregation Oheb Sholom in Goldsboro, NC which holds services on Friday evening and Saturday morning, operates a religious school, owns a cemetery and whose members included Henry Weil, S.S. Spier, Joseph Isaac, Joseph Schwab, Edward Lehman and Samuel Cohn.

1885(30thof Shevat, 5645): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1885: In Vilna, Golda and Simon Berkman, “a horse trader” gave birth to Hyman Berkman, the husband of Sarah Gelman and son-in-law of Abram Gelman who in 1906 came to New York “where he worked in a butcher shop” before eventually settling in Canton, OH where he was a horse trader, “fruit huckster” and a partner in “the firm of Rudner Iron and Steel” while belonging to “Congregation Sherah Torah and B’rith Sholom.”

1885: Fifty-three German born, American violinist and conductor Leopold Damrosch whose father was Jewish and whose mother was Lutheran and who “was baptized a Lutheran when marrying his wife Helene von Heimberg, passed away today.

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Damrosch-Leopold.htm

1886: Three days after she had passed away Julia Hart, the daughter of Joseph and Hannah Levy, the wife of Lewis Hart and the mother of Sarah, Elizabeth and Fanny Hart was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1887: Annie Nathan became Annie Nathan Meyer when she married her second cousin Dr. Alfred Meyer.

1890: In Amsterdam, Sientje and Mozes Gans gave birth to Isaac Gans, the husband of Rachel Roet and the father of Louis and Mozes H. Gans. (Not to be confused with the American civic leader and philanthropist who had been living in Washington since 1882)

1891: The New York Times reported on a gift worth $3,400,000 given by Baron Maurice de Hirsch “to ameliorate” the conditions of recent immigrants from Russia and Romania.

1891: Representatives of Jewish organizations from throughout the United States met in Philadelphia, PA today where they formed the Jewish Alliance of America.  The goal of the Alliance is to alleviate the suffering among Russian Jews by helping them to establish and maintain “farm colonies” in the American West.

1891: Rabbis Gottheil, Silverman and Kohut officiated at the service held this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El in memory of the late Lazarus Rosenfeld.

1892: Nine new cases of typhus were found by New York City Health department doctors today all which involved recently arrived Jewish immigrants from Russia.  Among the victims was 12 year old Abraham Mermer who was sent from his home on Essex Street to North Brother Island where joined his parents and other family members who were already under quarantine.

1893: It was reported today the Mrs. Falk is the Chairman of the Committee on Arrangements for the upcoming concert that will raise funds for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian and Orphan Asylum.

1894: Birthdate of Bialystok native Samuel Francis Cohn who in 1898 came to the United States where he earned an LLB at Columbia, served in the U.S. Army during WW I and was a member of the faculty of Washington State University in Pullman, Washington.

1894: Birthdate of 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.

1895: In Jerusalem, Solomon and Sarah (Saphir) Steinberg gave birth Art Institute of Chicago trained painter and illustrator Nathaniel P. Steinberg who “painted a portrait of Theodor Herzl for the Chicago Public Schools” and “made all of the illustrations for the first Jewish historical book of Illinois which was published in 1924.”

https://americanart.si.edu/artist/nathaniel-p-steinberg-4619

1895: Rose Dintenfass, the wife of Alexander Dintenfass and the mother of Joseph and Jenny Dintenfass was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1896(1stof Adar, 5656): Parashat Terumah; Rosh Chodesh Adar; Shabbat Shekalim

1896: Birthdate of Russia native Harry Cooper, the career army officer and WW II veteran.

1896: Twenty-nine-year-old “music publisher and composer” Charles Kissel Harris, the Poughkeepsie, NY born son of Jacob and Rachel Harris, whose early hits included “Since Maggie Learned to Skate” and “After the Ball” married Cora Lehrberg today in Chicago, Illinois.

1896: Police had to be called to 112 Clinton to restore order after fights broke among members of a Jewish society that used the building “as a synagogue on Saturday nights.”

1897: It was reported today that Mayor William Lafayette Strong, the last Mayor of New York elected prior to its consolidation told a meeting of the Free Sons of Israel that “During my term of office I had had many applications for aid, but I don’t think one single application came from a Hebrew.  The Jews take care of their own.  They are taught to be self-supporting.  Speaking as a gentile, I will say that you manage your charities better than we do.”

1897: It was reported today that an unnamed teacher on New York’s Lower East Side told her students that “If you grow up to be good Jews you will be good American citizens.  If you are not good American citizens, you will not be good Jews.”  (This is an example of the binding of the Jews with the American Dream that has helped to differentiate the Jewish experience in the United States from other Diaspora Communities)

1897:  The new officers of District Grand Lodge No. 1, Independent Order Free Sons of Israel are: Grand Master – Ralph Rosenberg; First Deputy – M. Samuel Stern; Second Deputy – Julius Hass; Grand Secretary – J. H. Goldman.  Two of the committee chairmen were appointed – Isaac Engel and Isaac Niner.

1897: Birthdate of Gerrit Kleerekoper, the coach of the Dutch Ladies’ Gymnastics Team who would be killed by the Nazis at Sobibor.

1897: Emanuel Lehman, one of the original Lehman brothers, celebrated his 70thbirthday today. During his birthday celebration this evening, he was presented with loving cup honoring him for all of his support of the Hebrew and Benevolent and Orphan Asylum.

1897: “Every charitable association” in New York City “in which Emanuel Lehman is interested received a handsome check from him” today “with an explanatory note that it was a …present” marking his birthday.

1898: Baron Ludwig Von Erlanger, head of the Frankfurt branch of the banking house of Erlanger and Sons passed away.  Erlanger's father, Raphael Erlanger was Jewish, but he converted to Christianity at his wife's behest prior to the birth of his sons Ludwig and Baron Emil B. Von Erlanger. The surviving son will now head the banking house which also has major offices in London and Paris. While neither of the Erlanger sons were raised as Jews, critics would describe them as such when it fit their needs.  1898(23rd of Shevat, 5658: The USS Maineexplodes and sinks in Havana harbor in Cuba, killing more than 260 including 15 Jewish serving on board the battleship. This event leads the United States to declare war on Spain.

1898: In Albany, New York state senator Cantor introduced a bill that would exempt “the real estate of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association from taxation, assessment and water rates.”

1898: The Purim Ball will be held tonight at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.  This year’s tickets cost more than in the past because a banquet has been added to the event.  M.H. Moses, Simon Schafer, Henry Rick, Sol B. Solomon, Jules S. Bache, J.S. Isaacs and Narry are the members of the Purim Association responsible for the event. (Purim actually will not be celebrated until March 8)

1898: The New York state senate is expected to pass a bill introduced by Senator Cantor allowing for the incorporation of “The Hebrew Charities Building” in New York City.

1899: In Brooklyn, “Jewish immigrants Julius and Sarah (née Kasindorf) Josephson” gave birth to journalist and author Matthew Josephson whose works included a biography about Emile Zola, the Frenchman who defended Dreyfus.

http://drs.library.yale.edu/HLTransformer/HLTransServlet?stylename=yul.ead2002.xhtml.xsl&pid=beinecke:joseph&clear-stylesheet-cache=yes

1899: In Litchfield, MN, Danish-Americans Hands and Christin (Holm) Sondergaard gave birth to actress Edith Holm Sondergaard whose career suffered irreparable harm when her husband, the American-Jewish screenwriter and film director was blacklisted as “one of the Hollywood Ten,” but who did not turn her back on him or sacrifice their marriage to satisfy the Right Wing Red Hunters.

1899: In Fort Smith, Ark, Founding of the Progress Club whose members include Samuel Herman, Morris Levy, Herman Apple, Ben Wolf, Solomon Kohn and L.M. Holberg.

1899: In New York City “Samuel Sachar, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, and Sarah Abramowitz, a native of Jerusalem” gave birth historian Abram Leon Sachar, the founding President of Brandeis University who was a descendant of Gedaliah ibn Yahya ben Joseph, the 16th century Italian Talmudist.

https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/25/obituaries/dr-abram-l-sachar-historian-and-1st-brandeis-u-president-94.html

1900: Herzl is received by Austrian Prime Minister Ernest von Koerber. Herzl writes a memorandum about the Jewish Colonial Bank. The subscriptions to the Bank are prohibited in Austria and Herzl wants to prevent that little people will lose their money.

1901: The Purim Association, which had “distributed over $135,000 in money, food, and clothing during the past year” held its charity ball tonight at the Metropolitan Opera House and raised an additional $15,000 for its relief fund.

1902: At a meeting of the Rabbinical Association at Sinai Temple today a committee” “composed of Prof. Gabriel Bamberger, Mrs. Marion Craig Wentworth, and E. P. Rosenthal” “from the Industrial Art League endeavored to interest the members in a proposition to establish a guild in connection with the Jewish Training School on the west side.

1903: Herzl sends a new proposal to the Sultan: Colonization in the Sanjak of Acre in return for a guaranteed annual payment of 100.000 Turkish pounds. In a move that would place him at odds with the “Territorialists” Herzl is already thinking about Jewish colonization in Africa but is willing to make this one last attempt to deal with the rulers of the Ottoman Empire.

1904: Elizabeth Bonnell, a prominent South Carolina society matron who generously helped a poor Jewish family during the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1858 passed away.

1904: It was reported today that Simon Wolf, the author The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen, The Biography of M.M. Noah and The Biography of Commodore U.P.Levy, has been chosen to as the head of B’nai B’rith, replacing the late Leo N. Levi whose funeral took place yesterday.

1905: René Worms was “created a chevalier of the Legion of Honor.”

1905: Birthdate of Buffalo, NY native Hyman Arluck who gained fame as composer Harold Arlen who won an Oscar in 1940 for writing the score for “The Wizard of Oz.”

http://www.haroldarlen.com/bio-3.html

1906(20th of Shevat): Rabbi David Solomon Slouschz passed away

1906: In “Giving the Czar A Chance” published today Israel Ziony, the Political Editor of the Jewish American criticized Louis Nixon, the Tammany Hall leader, for trusting the promises of the Russians and Czar Nicholas II citing the orders that “were given to massacre Jews all over South Russia and the failure to honor the commitments to open up Manchuria which led to traders from the United States being driven out of the area.

1906:  The British Labour Party organized.  The Labour Party’s membership was an eclectic amalgam.  As one would expect, it included a large bloc of trade unionists.  But it is also attracted a cross section of intellectuals and professionals who saw the party as a vehicle that would help reform English society and its political system.  Jewish involvement reflected this membership spectrum.  For example, one of its early leaders was Manny Shinwell, a member of the trade union councils in Glasgow.  On the other hand, Leslie Haden Haden-Guest, 1st Baron Haden-Guest, veteran of the Boer War, author and solicitor was the first Jew to stand for Commons as a Labour Party Candidate.

1907(1stof Adar, 5667): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1907: Builder Julius Weinstein reportedly has sold a building on the Northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 123rd Street.

1908(13thof Adar I, 5668): Parashat Tetzaveh

1908: In Odessa, the governor announced, “that in the future the wives of Hebrews who have emigrated to America may obtain foreign passports upon presentations of an authentic letter from their husbands inviting them join them” which is a “most welcome decision to Jewish women who up” until now “have not been permitted to emigrate without” their husbands giving authorization “in person.”

1909(24th of Shevat, 5669): Boston native Benjamin Cohen, the business manager for the Boston Courier, a newspaper founded in 1842 passed away today in his hometown.

1910: “The loft building boom was given new stimulus” today by the announcement that Samuel K. Jacobs…has sold a plot on West Twenty-second Street” which adjoins a plot recently purchased by Mayer S. Auberach.

1911: President Taft “to-day had an extended conference with a number of prominent Jews on the subject of Russia's refusal to recognize passports issued to Jewish travelers wishing to visit Russia” after which “The President entertained the delegation at luncheon.”

1912: A benefit that had already been planned to be held this evening in honor of the thirty year career of New York for “impresario” Theodore David “Ted” Marks, the grandson of New Orleans merchant and philanthropist Isadore Newman is still scheduled to be held tonight at Cohan’s Theatre despite the fact that he had passed away earlier this week.

1912(27thof Shevat, 5672): Isaac Ciener, who had applied for at least two patents with U.S. Patent Office passed away today in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1913(8thof Adar I, 5673): Parashat Tetzaveh

1913: In Chicago, at the Haymarket Yiddish thespians Bernard Young and Clara Young appeared in the matinee and evening performance of “My Wife’s Husband.”

1913: It was reported today that “the Russian cabinet has resolved that unlike all of Russian and Finns, Jews” will not be allowed to vote in Finland

1913: It was reported today that a cable has been received from London stating that “Professor Boris Shatz, the head of the Bezalel Textile School of Jerusalem has postponed the exhibition of the produce of his school” which had been scheduled to take place in October in the United States.

1913: In Prague, Mr. and Mrs. Hugo Bergman gave birth to “psychoanalyst, author and educator” Martin Shlomo Bergman (As reported by Margalit Fox)

1913: Twenty-year-old Abiel Kiviat who had won a Silver Medal at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm “set a 10 lap-track indoor mile record in New York.” (As reported by Bob Wechsler)

1914: This afternoon, Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson told those attending “the 25thannual meeting of H.I.A.S. that the standards of living in this country were higher today than ever before” and therefore immigration from countries where living conditions were not so good” should be limited which led Jacob H. Schiff to express his opposition to the suggestion saying that “every immigrant who came to the United States with strong hands and an honest purposed was bound to succeed and become an asset to the nation.”

1914: One day after he passed away, the funeral of 53-year-old Gerson Rosenzweig, the native of Bialystok who 1888 came to the United States where he “published and edited the Hebrew weekly Halbii,” translated the “Star-Spangled Banner into Hebrew” and developed a reputation as a humorist that earned him the sobriquet the “Hebrew Mark Twain” is scheduled to be held today at his own on Madison at noon today.

1915(1stof Adar, 5675): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1915: In “Danger to Jewish Religion” published today, Dr. Samuel Schulman was quoted as having told congregants at Temple Beth-el that in nationality he was an American, in religion he was a Jew and that “it was the duty of the Jews to teach not nationalism but internationalism.

1915: “Germans My Sell Jewish Institute” published today described the negativereaction of Jewish leaders in the United States to reports that “the German Hilfsverein of Berlin (a Jewish aide society)intends to force the sale of the property of the Jewish Institute of Technology at Haifa and to exclude from the division of the receipts contributors and creditors of the institute” such as those in the Russia, Great Britain and France “who are prevented by the war from being represented in the liquidation.”

1915: The House of Representatives voted in favor of a bill introduced by Congressman A. Mitchell Palmer and supported by the National Child Labor Committee whose first chairman was Felix Adler and whose leading members included Lillian Wald that “would end child labor in most American mines and factories. (Editor’s Note – The bill died in the Senate, but it was one of the many examples of where Jews were driven by the “social justice message” of the Prophets to improve the lives of the weakest in the society.  There is a certain irony to Palmer’s championing this measure.  He is the same A. Mitchell Palmer who as Attorney General led the “red hunt” after World War One which had a negative impact on so many Jews some of whom were Communists and/or Socialists.)

1916: A U.S. Navy collier is scheduled to set sail from Philadelphia today filled with supplies collected by the American Jewish Relief Committee for those suffering in Palestine.

1917(23rdof Shevat, 5677): Eighty-year-old Abraham Abelson, the Polish born husband of Rachel Abelson who served as the rabbi of “the Merthyr Tydfil Congregation for over 30 years” passed away today.

http://www.cemeteryscribes.com/getperson.php?personID=I4607&tree=Cemeteries

https://www.geni.com/people/Rabbi-Abraham-Abelson/6000000041032435945

1917: Birthdate of George Forman, “a longtime comptroller of the American Civil Liberties Union who brought fiscal discipline to a ramshackle organization near bankruptcy in the late 1970's and later helped it develop into a powerful civil liberties conglomerate.” (As reported by Lily Koppel)

1918: In an interview given today at Berlin today, “Talat Pasha, the grand vizier of Turkey expressed the home that the Ottoman Government” would “maintain its sovereignty in Palestine” despite the current “British occupation” of the area.

1918: Today, Major Lionel de Rothschild lent Gunnersbury Lodge, the resident of the late Leopold de Rothschild, to the government so that it can “be used as a hospital for wounded soldiers.”

1918: In New York City, Rose (née Goldberg) and stockbroker Harry Arbus gave birth to Allan Franklin Arbus, the photographer turned actor best known for his role as the psychiatrist on M*A*S*H.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/allan-arbus-photographer-who-went-on-to-become-an-actor-best-known-on-television-in-mash-8598026.html

1919(15thof Adar I, 5679): Parashat Tetzaveh

1919: It was reported today that “word has been received hat Michael Aronson, a student at Hebrew Union College who enlisted immediately after the war began and “who was blinded while serving in the army while serving overseas” “has been cited for the D.S.C.” (Distinguished Service Cross)

1919: “Special services” are scheduled to be held in Orthodox synagogues for the delegates attending the Zionist Convention in Chicago which began yesterday.

1919: Two months after it first appeared in New York, as of today the rest of the country could see “The Heart of Humanity” a silent war propaganda film produced by Carl Laemmle, co-starring Eric Von Stroheim

1919: Joseph Josephson, a Lithuanian born Jew who served with the Anzacs on the Western Front was discharged today.

1920: Birthdate of New York native Harold Michelson “the illustrator and storyboard artist” who with his wife Lillian formed a formidable behind the camera Hollywood power couple immortalized in the biopic “Harold and Lillian.”

1921(7thof Adar I, 5681): Sixty-nine-year-old Bohemian born Adolph Greenhut who “became a naturalize citizen in 1874” and whose marriage to Eva Greenhut produced one son – Herman – passed away today in Pensacola, FL where he served as Mayor from 1913 to 1915.

1921: In Vienna, Nathan Piernikatz who “operated a clothing business” and his wife gave birth to Arthur Piernkatz who made Aliyah after the Anschluss and gained fame as Asher Ben-Natan “the Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Defense” and Israel’s first Ambassador to Germany.

1921: Elka Lerner, a cousin of Joseph Barondess, gave birth to a baby aboard the SS Chicago two days before it arrived in New York Harbor.

1922: As sign of erosion for support of the Balfour Declaration, “Sir William Joynson-Hicks, a
Conservative Member of Parliament, asked the Prime Minister David Lloyd George, to explain the reason why the Government has promised the Jewish people a national home ‘in a country which is already the national home of the Arabs.’”

1922: Birthdate of Herman Kahn “one of the preeminent futurists” who “predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power.”

1922: In Merv, Turkmenistan, Gevork Alikhanov who was an Armenian and Ruth Bonner who was Jewish gave birth to Elena Georgievna Bonner, the Soviet dissident and human-rights campaigner who endured banishment and exile along with her husband, the dissident nuclear physicist Andrei D. Sakharov.  As reported by Alessandra Stanley and Michael Schwiritz)

1923: Ted “Kid” Lewis (born Gershon Mendeloff) was defeated in a bout at the Royal Albert Hall which cost him British Middleweight title and European Middleweight title.

1923: In Manhattan, Helen Sachs Straus and Nathan Straus Jr. who became director of the United States Housing Authority under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and a New York State senator, gave birth to Ronald Peter Straus “who took over WMCA in New York in the late 1950s and turned it into one of the nation’s most innovative radio stations, broadcasting what are regarded as the first radio editorials and political endorsements and helping to popularize rock ’n’ roll.” (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/peter-strauss-populist-wmca-radio-host-nyc-fixture-dead-89-article-1.1132553

1924: “Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber Hails Hitler as Intelligent and Sympathetic Leader”

1924: Birthdate of Newark, NJ, native Jerome “Jerry” Yellin, the P-51 fighter pilot who flew the last combat mission of WW II.

http://captainjerryyellin.com/

1925: “The Salvation Hunters,” a silent film directed, produced and written by Josef von Sternberg.

1925: In Cologne, Germany, Marcus and Eleanora (Cohn) Prawer gave birth to Siegbert Salomon Prawer whose family fled from Nazi Germany to England where he eventually became Taylor Professor of the German Language and Literature at the University of Oxford.

http://www.mod-langs.ox.ac.uk/files/prawer_obit.pdf

1926: Carlos Israels, Alvin Grauer and Fred Behrens were reported to be members of the Temple Emanu-El League debating team of Temple Emanuel and Edward Levine, David Stein and Milton Levine were reported to be members of the Junior League debating team of Temple Beth-El.

1926: Birthdate of Richard Adolf Bloch who started “the H and R Block tax preparation and personal finance company with his older brother Henry in 1955.”

1926: “Partners Again,” an “ethnic Jewish humor film based on the 1922 Broadway play” produced by Samuel Goldwyn was released today in the United States.

1927: In case of Jew versus Jew bantamweight Herman “Kid” Silvers defeated Milton Cohen at the 102nd Engineers Armory in New York.

1927: In Chicago, Illinois, “Ellen (née Blecher) and Cyril Raymond Korman, a salesman” gave birth to Harvey Herschel Korman the comic actor who gained fame as the second banana on “The Carol Burnett Show.”

1928: Birthdate of Harold Arnold Ackerman, the New Jersey native who served as a federal judge for three decades.

1929: In New York City, Jewish immigrants Julius and Rhea Schlesinger gave birth to James Schlesinger “who became a Lutheran as an adult” according to some to advance his academic career at a time when being Jewish was a limiting factor and served as Secretary of Defense and the first Secretary of Energy. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/us/politics/james-r-schlesinger-cold-war-hard-liner-dies-at-85.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&_r=0

1931: Birthdate of Maxine Frank Singer, a leading biochemistry researcher and advocate of science education.

1931(28thof Shevat, 5691): Sixty-five-year-old New York actor and playwright Louis Mann, the son of Daniel and Carolina Mann, the husband of “actress and playwright Clara Lipman” who had begun his career “on the stage began at the age of three” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/02/16/102215589.pdf

1931: In London Elizabeth (née Grew) and Edward Max Blume gave birth to Patricia Claire Blume who gained fame as actress Claire Bloom.

1931: “Two orthodox synagogues, The Hebrew Orthodox Benevolent Association and The Young Men’s Hebrew Association, merged to become Congregation Beth Jacob. Under the leadership of Rabbi Louis Feigonz'l, the members raised funds to build a new synagogue on the site of the old Hebrew Orthodox Benevolent Association. In the 1970s the congregation joined the Conservative Movement in an attempt to attract more members. Today the congregation is small, but still active in the Galveston Community.”

1932: Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, was nominated by President Hoover today to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

1932: George Burns and Gracie Allen debuted as regulars on "Guy Lombardo Show”, a hit radio shoe. He was Jewish. She was not.

1932: At Lake Placid, the ceremonies marking the end of the Winter Olympics in which speed skater Irving Jaffee had won two gold medals took place today.

1934: The Conte Di Savoia was scheduled to set sail from New York bound for Palestine on what was billed as the “Purim Cruise.

1935: In Brooklyn Mae and Samuel Warhaftig gave birth to Susan Warhaftig who gained fame as journalist and author Susan Brownmiller.

http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00352

http://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/15/1935/this-week-in-history-against-our-will-author-susan-brownmiller-is-born

1935: “A committee created by the U.S. Congress to investigate the distribution of Nazi propaganda in America found that Nazis are targeting millions of Americans of German heritage with pro-Nazi teachings.”

1936(22ndof Shevat, 5695): Parashat Yitro

1936(22ndof Shevat, 5695): Forty-four-year-old multi-talented musical impresario Charles David Isaacson, the son of violinist Mark N. Isaacson and nephew of Barney Isaacson, the court violinist to Queen Victoria passed away today at Bellevue Hospital.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9E00E4D7103BE23AA15755C1A9649C946794D6CF

 1936: “Rabbi Israel Mattuck of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London” is scheduled to “preach today at Temple Emanu-El…on the topic of ‘The Present Crisis in Civilization’”.

1936: Dr. Stephen S. Wise, made public a report today showing that $47,888,125 “has been spent in Palestine” from funds collected by the United Palestine Appeal of which he is chairman.

1936: In Poznan, Poland, the “members of the Jewish community protested to the Ministry of Cults and Education that the prohibition against slaughtering animals “which have not been first stunned” “would deprive Jews of meat because it would ban kosher slaughtering which allow stunning before killing.”

1937: It was reported today Emil Ludwig has soured on writing biographies since the Nazis came to power because they “have burned his books, murdered his friends” and “used their power against the Jews not in the manner of “attacking moving fishes” but rather “letting the water out of the basin until the fishes slowly die in the sand.”

1938: The Austrian government declared a general amnesty for Nazis.

1938: It was reported today that among the foreigners who have decided to stay in China despite the invasion by Japan is “a Canadian Episcopal mission established in a synagogue” established “2,000 years ago by a tribe of Jews who settled” in Kaifeng. (Editor’s note – this item is included as a testament to the antiquity of the Jewish settlement in East Asia.)

1939: Lillian Hellman's "Little Foxes" premiered in New York City.

1939: “Bela Imredy, the father of the anti-Jewish bill intended to exclude Jews and those Christians with Jewish parentage from the Hungarian civil service and liberal professional while radically curtailing their position in trade and industry resigned as Premier today” because “he was compelled to admit.. that he was of Jewish descent” since “his mother’s grandfather was born a Jew.”

1940(6thof Adar I, 5700): Fifty-eight-year-old German mathematician Otto Toeplitz who was dismissed from the faculty of Bonn University in 1935 and who emigrated to Palestine in 1939 where he worked at Hebrew University succumbed to tuberculosis today.

1941(18thof Shevat, 5701): Parashat Yitro

1941(18thof Shevat, 5701): Eighty-five Moravian born Austrian musicologist Guido Adler the son of Franciska and Dr. Joachim Adler passed away today in Vienna.

http://hmfa.libs.uga.edu/hmfa/view?docId=ead/ms769-ead.xml

1941: In France, the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (Children’s Aid Society) installed a medical post and obtained permission to take numerous children away from Gurs concentration camp, who would be housed in private homes throughout France.

1942: In the most crushing blow to date suffered by the British in the Far East Singapore, which had a Jewish population of approximately 1,500 peoplem, fell to the Japanese today.

1943(10th of Adar I, 5703): Four hundred fifty of the Jews remaining in the ghetto at Drohobych were taken out of the ghetto to Bronica Forest where they were murdered.

1943: Rutka Laskier, a fourteen-year-old living in Bedzin, Poland writes in her diary: “Monday I haven’t written in while and there was nothing to write about. Maybe just the fact that the Germans have retreated from the Eastern front, which may signal the nearing of the end of the war… I'm only afraid that we, the Jews, will be finished before ...But how shrewd am I, I have written already so much about the war and nothing about myself. Janek hasn't been seen since Wednesday. I must admit that I miss him, I mean, not him but his forehead. He has a wonderful white forehead ... I'm curious if Jumek is still in love with Tusia. Actually, he's a good guy. I like him, but not in the same way I like Mietek. With Mulek you can talk and forget about the sex difference, and I like that very much. When you talk to Janek, he is always very polite, reserved, just waiting for the moment he can help me with something and in that way, show me his superiority. Oh, him and his superiority! I can't stand it, that's why I liked Lolek. Actually, I still like him, but I haven't seen him in a while. I plan to go to Lolek in order to get the book "P.P." I heard it's great. It would be a great opportunity also to talk with Tuska about Rozka. I hate those two; I hate Rozka even more than Tuska. I had an argument with Tuska but it was for her own good. I saw how jealous she was (though at that time I didn't understand that). She was afraid to leave me alone in the room with Janek. I made a scene and we fell out. She was basically very pleased with it. And one more thing: I have decided to let Janek kiss me. Eventually, someone will kiss me for the first time, so let it be Janek. I do like him.” In August, the Laskiers were sent to Auschwitz, where Rutka and her mother, grandmother and brother were all killed.

1943: Today Timemagazine reported that “The late, great prestidigitator Harry Houdini, famed foe of phony mediums, and his wife Beatrice agreed before his death to try to get in touch with each other afterwards. Gravely ill last week in Hollywood, his widow announced that she had not only given up trying but had her doubts about the existence of a hereafter. She had held séances every year for ten years, unsuccessfully. "Ten years," observed patient Mrs. Houdini last week, "is long enough to wait for any man."

1944(21stof Shevat, 5704): Fifty-nine-year-old Russian born Nathan Feinerman, who in 1906 came to the United States where he became President of the Workmen’s Circle in 1926 and married Ida Joffe Feinerman passed away today while serving as the “executive secretary of the Yiddish Scientific Insitute.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1944/02/16/96569395.pdf

https://www.jta.org/1944/02/16/archive/nathan-feinerman-executive-secretary-of-jewish-scientific-institute-dead

1944: Churchill invites Chaim Weismann to dine with him.  After the dinner Weizmann reassured his Zionist colleagues that the Prime Minister still had a positive view of the formation of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine after the war ended.

1945: Launch of the HMS Sanguine, the British submarine which was sold to the Israeli Navy in 1958 and later renamed “Rahav.”

1946(14thof Adar I, 5706): Purim Katan

1946: Six months after opening in the United Kingdom, “The Seventh Veil” a “melodrama” with music by Benjamin Frankel was released in the United States today.

1946: Thirteen months after being liberated at Auschwitz followed by an unsuccessful effort to find surviving family members in Poland, Tzipora Shapiro wrote her cousin Rhuze living in Poland, “At long last, I’m hurry to send you a living word from a dead world.” (As reported by Yardena Schwartz)

1946: Birthdate of American actress Marisa Berenson.

1947: Dr. Alfred Meyer and his wife, Annie Nathan Meyer, will celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary this afternoon at a reception in the Women's Faculty Club of Columbia University.

1948: Birthdate of Art Spiegelman.  The Swedish born cartoonist is best known for Maus: A Survivor's Tale and Maus: from Mauschwitz to the Catskills.  He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

1949: Birthdate of Cincinnati, Ohio and Haverford College educated film critic Harlan Marshall Jacobson.

https://talkcinema.com/harlan-jacobson

https://www.wbgo.org/post/film-critic-harlan-jacobson-tiff-2018#stream/0

1950: Prime Minister Tawfiq told Ezekiel Shemtob that he would allow the Jews to leave Iraq.  He agreed to issue them "laissez-passers" and "full Iraqi passports."

1951: The government led by Prime Minister Ben Gurion resigned “after the Knesset had rejected David Remez’s proposals on the registration of school children” triggering elections that would be held in July.

1951: In Middlesex, England John Benjamin Frankenberg, an obstetrician who father had emigrated to the East End to escape from the Russian Pogrom and Mieke van Tricht, a Dutch Protestant who had been a POW in WW II gave birth to Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg who gained fame as actress Jane Seymour.

1952(19thof Shevat, 5712): Fifty-three-year-old Rabbi Solomon Barsel, the Jersualem born son of Goldie and Pincus Barsel and the husband of Rae Shapiro Shelow who resigned “from the puilpit of Congregation B’Nai Jershurum in Philadelphia in 1949, passed away today, after which he was buried in Roosevelt Memorial Park in Trevose, PA.

1952: “Le Plaisir” a comedy directed by Max Ophüls was released today in Paris.

1956(3rdof Adar, 5715):Tsivye (Sime Tsivie) Zabludofskaya (Hillman) passed away today in Leningrad.

1957(14thof Adar I, 5715): Purim Katan

1958: Birthdate of Sir Michael Lawrence Davis, the native of South Africa and alum of Theodor Herzl School in Port Elizabeth who went from a successful business career  to serving as CEO of the British Conservative Party while raising three children – Sarah, Ronit and Eitan – with his wife Barbara.

http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/former-jlc-chair-sir-mick-davis-made-conservative-party-ceo/

1960: David Susskind produced Shaw’s “Don Juan in Hell” as the Play of the Week.

1960: In “Top Hand With A Rhyme,” published today Joe Hyams describes the talents of Sylvia Fine, the wife of Danny Kaye.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/peter-strauss-populist-wmca-radio-host-nyc-fixture-dead-89-article-1.1132553

1962(11thof Adar I, 5722): Seventy-two year old Russian-born American character actor Vladimir Sokoloff two whose most memorable roles were in “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Magnificent Seven” passed away today.

1964(2ndof Adar, 5724): Parashat Terumah

1964(2ndof Adar, 5724): Seventy-three-year-old Rabbi Abraham I. Kalmanowitz, president and dean of the Mirrer Yeshiva Central Institute,” and husband of Minna Kalmanowitz with whom he had six children – Moses, Israel, Bezale, Rachel, Dvora and Meta – passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/02/17/archives/rabbi-abraham-kalmanowitz-led-seminary-across-russia.html?searchResultPosition=1

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kalmanowitz-abraham

1965: In London, world premiere “Lord Jim” directed, produced and written by Richards Brooks and co-starring Eli Wallach.

1966: Gertrude Luckner a Christian social worker who ended up in Rabensbruck for aiding Jewish families “was recognized as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem.”

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/luckner.asp

1967: ITV broadcast the first episode of “At Last the 1948 Show” co-created by Marty Feldman who also starred in the political satire.

1967:President Lyndon B. Johnson met briefly with his friend Jim Novy, a member of the Agudas Achim Congregation of Austin, Texas, and an important leader in the local Jewish community whose relationship with the President dates back at least as far as LBJ’s time as head of the National Youth Administration in Texas.

1968: A group of 26 Jewish lawyers, doctors and scientists in Vilnius (Vilna) addressed a letter to the Central Committee of Lithuania’s Communist Party describing the widespread discrimination against the Jewish people and demanding the right to immigrate to Israel.

1969: Columbia trained physicist Harold Brown completed his service as 8th United States Secretary of the Air Force.

1971:  Birthdate of comic Alex Borstein.  Born Alexandra Borstein, this descendant of Sephardic Jews is best known for her work on “MADtv.”

1972(30thof Shevat, 5732): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1974: “Ulysses in Nighttown” which had opened Off-Broadway in 1958 with Zero Mostel in the lead role opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden starring Obe Award winner Mostel.

1975(3rdof Adar I, 5735): Salvator Cicurel an Egyptian Olympic fencer who competed in the individual and team épée and team foil events at the 1928 Summer Olympics passed away. Born in 1893, he was part of a prominent Egyptian Jewish family that owned The Cicurel stores which were Egypt's largest and most fashionable department store chain.

1976(14thof Adar I, 5736): Purim Katan

1976: Seventy-seven Maria Corda, the former wife of Alexander Korda with whom she enjoyed a professional and personal relationship and whom she saved from Hungarian fascists passed away today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIgGKCCPZFI

1977(27th of Shevat, 5737): Seventy-three-year-old Hungarian born American abstract painter Victor Candell passed away today.

https://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/c/candell_v.htm

http://www.blueheronfa.com/wordpress/?p=452

https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-victor-candell-12351

1978: “Coming Home” critically acclaimed and financially successful Viet Nam themed film produced by Jerome Hellman and filmed by cinematographer Haskell Wexler was released in the United States today.

1980: Saturn 3” a sci-fi film directed and produced by Stanley Donen, starring Kirk Douglas and Harvey Keitel and with music by Elmer Bernstein was released in the United States today.

1981(11th of Adar I, 5741): American journalist and writer Isaac Don Levine passed away. Born in Mozyr, Russia, in 1892, “Levine came to the United States in 1911. He finished high school in Missouri and found work with The Kansas City Starand later The New York Herald Tribune, for which he covered the Revolution of 1917. He would return to Russia to cover the Civil War for The Chicago Daily News in the early 1920s.” Levine was a columnist for the Hearst papers during the late 1920s and 1930s. “He edited the anti-communist magazine Plain Talk from 1946 till 1950, but did not join The Freeman, opting for a stint with Radio Free Europe in West Germany instead. In the spring of 1939, Levine collaborated with the Soviet intelligence agency defector, Walter Krivitsky, for a series of articles in the Saturday Evening Post, exposing the horrors of Joseph Stalin's "workers' paradise." In November of that same year, the series was collected into a book entitled In Stalin's Secret Service. Levine's role in the writing was not revealed at the time. In the meantime, Levine arranged a meeting in September 1939 between American Communist Party defector Whittaker Chambers and President Franklin Roosevelt's security chief, Adolf Berle, at which Chambers revealed, with Levine present, a massive spying operation reaching even into the White House that involved, among others, Alger Hiss in the State Department and, according to Levine, Harry Dexter White in the Treasury Department. Levine also provided testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee in the case against Hiss. Levine wrote the screenplay for the biographical movie “Jack London” (1943) and also appeared as himself as one of the witnesses to the John Reed era in ‘Reds’ (1981). He makes a brief appearance in Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007) as a friend of Einstein, but they fell out over their political differences

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/17/obituaries/isaac-don-levine-89-foe-of-soviet.html

1981(11th of Adar I, 5741): Mike Bloomfield, guitarist with Paul Butterfield Blues Bandpassed away at the age of 37.

http://www.mikebloomfieldamericanmusic.com/nbio3.htm

https://bolesblogs.com/2010/08/30/the-madding-end-of-mad-mike-bloomfield/

1981(11thof Adar I, 5741): Eighty-two-year-old Dezső Ernster the son of a cantor and a leading Hungarian opera singer who survived Bergen Belsen to continue a career that took him to the leading opera houses of Europe and the United States including the Met where he “sang leading bass roles from 1946 to 1963” passed aay today.

1983 (2nd of Adar, 5743): Dr. Eugene Hevesi, who had served as foreign affairs secretary for the American Jewish Committee, died of lung cancer to at Long Island Jewish Hospital at the age of 87.  He was born in Budapest, the son of Simon Hevesi, Chief Rabbi of Budapest, and came to the United States in 1937 as an economic attaché in the Hungarian Embassy. He resigned in protest over the passage of an anti-Semitic law in Hungary and served with the American Jewish Committee for 23 years. For 20 years, Dr. Hevesi was also the United Nations representative for six Jewish nongovernmental organizations, including the Joint Distribution Committee and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. He received a Doctor of Laws degree in Hungary and an advanced degree in economics from the Consular Academy of Vienna. In the 1960's, he served as a liaison official between several American Jewish organizations and the Vatican. He is the father of Assemblyman Alan G. Hevesi.

1984: “Beyond the Walls” a Hebrew language film “directed by Uri Barbash and written by his brother Benny Barbash and Eran Preis which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film” was released in Israel today.

1985(24thof Shevat, 5745): Seventy-six-year-old award winning scriptwriter and playwright Leonard Spigelgass, the brother-in-law of photographer Sanford Roth and the brother Beulah Roth, a “speechwriter for FDR and Adlai Stevenson” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/16/arts/leonard-spigelgass-a-writer-for-broadway-and-hollywood.html

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1985-02-17-8501060212-story.html

1985: U.S. premiere of “Beyond the Walls,” a 1948 Israeli film that “was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

1987: In “Israel’s Pioneers Return On Film,” published todayThomas Friedman describes the filming of “Dreamers,” a film about the Dreamers Commune set in the 1920’s that captures “the moment when the idealism of the first Jewish settlers who came to this land from Eastern Europe to build a utopian society met the realities of the harsh Palestinian landscape and the Arab people who were already inhabiting it.”

1988(27th of Shevat, 5748): Richard Feynman, Nobel-Prize winning nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan project passed away at the age of 69.  Being Jewish presented a problem for Feynman when he was pursuing his academic career.  He was probably rejected by Columbia because of the New York’s school’s Jewish quota. He was admitted to MIT where he had a stellar undergraduate career. After graduating from MIT, Feynman applied to the doctorate program at Princeton. Harry Smythe, who oversaw the program at Princeton, was concerned about Feynman’s religious background. “Is Feynman Jewish? We have no definite rule against Jews but have to keep their proportion in our department reasonably small because of the difficulty of placing them.”  Despite the prejudice, Feynman was admitted and performed brilliantly.

1989:  The Soviet Union announced that its last troops had left Afghanistan, ending the ten-year Soviet military operations in that mountainous Moslem nation.  From the Jewish perspective, the Soviet invasion and subsequent defeat influenced Jewish history in terms of the law of unexpected consequences.  The Soviet debacle in Afghanistan hastened the downfall of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party.  This opened the door to a massive movement of Jews from the Soviet republics to Israel.  It also provided an opportunity for the rebirth of Jewish culture and the observance of the Jewish religion in the Soviet republics.  The foreign fighters who came to the aid of the Moslems in Afghanistan would become a cadre for groups of anti-Western and anti-Semitic terrorist groups that would ultimately pose an even graver, at one level, threat to the West, to the Jewish People and to Israel, than had been seen even in the darkest days of the Cold War.

1990: In Germany, premiere of “The Handmaid’s Tale” with a screenplay by Harold Pinter and featuring Blanche Baker as “Ofglen.”

1991(1stof Adar 5751): Rosh Chodeh Adar

1992(11th of Adar I, 5752): William Schuman, a composer whose distinctly American style won two Pulitzer Prizes and guided him as the founding president of Lincoln Center and the president of the Juilliard School, passed away today in Manhattan at the age of 81. (As reported by Bruce Lambert)

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/16/nyregion/william-schuman-is-dead-at-81-noted-composer-headed-juilliard.html

1995(15thof Adar I, 5755): Ninety-year-old Baron Jules de Koenigwarter, the former husband Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild, who served as a Colonel with the Free French and held several diplomatic posts after the war, passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/arts/music/19sing.html?pagewanted=all

1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Founding Myth of Israel:Nationalism, Socialism, and the Making of the Jewish Stateby Zeev Sternhell and Stalking Elijah: Adventures With Today's Jewish Mystical Masters by Rodger Kamenetz

2000: “Seeking to secure the rights of the Roman Catholic Church in a future Palestinian state, the Vatican signed an agreement today with the Palestine Liberation Organization that would protect freedom of religion and the legal status of Christian churches”

2000: Michiko Kakutani provided an in-depth review of City of God by E.L. Doctorow.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/2000/02/15/821683.html?pageNumber=78

2001: “Ambassador Leaves Israel for Homeland Posting” published today provides a background on the life and care of Emanuel Zisman

http://sofiaecho.com/2001/02/15/628153_ambassador-leaves-israel-for-homeland-posting

2002(3rdof Adar, 5762): “The leader of an elite commando unit was killed today by a falling wall as his troops demolished” the home of Palestinian terrorist living on the West Bank.

2002: Tonight, Israeli warplanes struck at the offices of the so-called Palestinian security forces in retaliation for the destruction of an Israeli tank that took the lives of three members of the I.D.F.

2003(13thof Adar I, 5763): Parashat Tetzaveh

2003: “The Vatican will open secret archives today in an effort to allay accusations that Pope Pius XII, whom the Vatican wants to make a saint, did not do enough to save Jews from the Holocaust.”

2004: Various editions of the secular pressfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including, An Almost Perfect Moment by Binnie Kirshenbaum, Ten Thousand Lovers by Edeet Ravel, My Life in Comedy, With Love and Laughter by Sid Caesar with Eddy Friedfeld, The Eve of Destruction: The Untold Story of the Yom Kippur War By Howard Blum, War Paint: Madame Helena Rubinstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden, Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry by Lindy Woodhead and Language Visible:Unraveling the AlphabetFrom A to Z by David Sacks, a history of the alphabet from ancient times.  Writing as we know it dates from approximately 2000 BCE, the same time when the Jews first appear on the world scene.  Is it a coincidence that the "People of the Book" appear at the same time as the alphabet does?  As we have said, studying Jewish History means studying the history of the world.

2005: In “True to Her Orthodox Beliefs, if Not to Her Roots” published today, Sarah Bronson examines the life and career of Rachel Factor.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/theater/newsandfeatures/true-to-her-orthodox-beliefs-if-not-to-her-roots.html?searchResultPosition=1

http://rachel-factor.com/

2005: Last time that Stan Lee’s Sunday Comics, that included “Stan’s Soapbox” was updated.

2006: “Foundation for Jewish Youth Gets Founder’s $500 Million” published today described how “the Jim Joseph Foundation is poised to become one of the biggest Jewish philanthropies in the country with the addition of more than $500 million in assets, all directed toward Jewish education and youth programs.

2007: In “Anne Frank’s doomed American dream” published today, The Times of Londonreported on newly discovered letters that reveal the increasingly desperate efforts by Anne Frank’s father to get his family out of Nazi-occupied Amsterdam before they were forced into hiding in the attic where the teenage girl wrote her famous diary.

2007(27th of Shevat, 5767): Robert Adler, 93, who helped invent the device that created a nation of sedentary television viewers forever flummoxed by the question, "Where's the remote?" died, of heart failure in Boise, Idaho, according to Zenith, his longtime employer. Dr. Adler, a Viennese-born physicist with more than 180 U.S. patents in his name, the most famous of which was for the wireless remote control for televisions.

2007: In Mannheim, Germany, Ernst Zündel was convicted of “incitement for Holocaust Denial” and “sentenced to the maximum term of five years in prison.

2008: Eli Alexander Sherman the newborn son of Rabbis Aaron Sherman and Stephanie Alexander attends his first Shabbat service at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. At 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 21- and one-half inches in length he is the smallest as well as the newest member of the Jewish community.  Calendars are circled for the Bar Mitzvah in 2021.

2008: The Jerusalem Post online reported that more than 50 Hezbollah terror cells believed to be spread across the globe could be activated and used to strike at Israeli or Jewish targets in retaliation for the assassination of Hezbollah arch-terrorist and operations officer Imad Mughniyeh in Syria, a senior defense official said; this despite disclaimers from the Israelis that did not commit the act

2008: “The Other Boleyn Girl” starring Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn is screened for the first time at the Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival)

2009:Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain (JGSGB) Manchester meets at the Manchester Jewish Museum

2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britainby Michael Korda, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land:A Plan That Will Workby Jimmy Carter and recently released paperback editions of The Spare Wife by Alex Witchel and The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace by Aaron David Miller.

2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Levittown by David Kushner and How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer.

2009:A one-of-a-kind, award-winning exhibit of hundreds of pieces of World War II era mail and documents related to the Nazis' attempted extermination of Jews and others will be publicly displayed at Temple Judah. Many of the historic artifacts now can be viewed online at the foundation's Web site, http://www.SpungenFoundation.org.

2009: Opening day of “The Expanse of Russia in Israel,” an international conference sponsored by Tulane University’s Jewish Studies Program under the Chairmanship of Dr. Brian Horowitz. “

.http://www.tulane.edu/~jwst/WebsiteFiles/downloads/conference_schedule_02152009.pdf

2010 (1 Adar, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Adar.

2010: In Israel, observance of Family Day.

2010: Israeli archaeologists said today that they have discovered an unusually shaped 1,400-year-old wine press that was exceptionally large and advanced for its time. The octagonal press measures 21 feet by 54 feet (6.5 by 16.5 meters) and was discovered in southern Israel, about 40 kilometers south of both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv

2010: The bomb attack on a restaurant in Pune, India, not far from a Chabad Jewish center, was not directed at the Chabad house, an Israeli security official said today

2010: The first issue of The Jewish Review of Books is scheduled to begin arriving in mailboxes across the United States marking the launch of “a quarterly magazine devoted Jewish literary and political affairs.

2010: The Josephine F. and H. Max Ammerman Study Retreat at the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center in Reisterstown, Maryland featuring a program entitled “The Rise and Fall of Ancient Israel: From the Exodus through the Babylonian Exile in Light of New Archaeological Discoveries” is scheduled to come to an end.

2010: Israeli pianist Roman Rabinovich and the Jupiter musicians are scheduled to perform Dvorak’s “Dumky” Trio and a Haydn Piano Trio in New York City.

2010: According to reports published today, “a painting by Adolf Hitler, which may have hung in Sigmund Freud's office, will be put up for auction in Britain next month.

2011(11thof Adar I, 5771): Dr. Charles Epstein, a UC San Francisco medical geneticist who studied Down syndrome and pioneered genetic counseling for families with affected children, but whose career was temporarily interrupted by a vicious 1993 attack by the notorious Unabomber, passed away today at his home in Tiburon, CA at the age of 77. (As reported by Thomas H. Maugh II, in the LA Times)

2011: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to offer a program entitled “Purim Class” that is a “journey behind the mask of joyous fun and games of Purim” that explores “the complex story and meaning behind this perplexing Jewish holiday.”

2011: Jeffrey Tambor began playing the role of “Georges” in the Broadway revival of “La Cage aux Folles.”

2011: Harvey Fierstein began playing “Albin/Zara” in the Broadway revival of “La Cage aux Folles today.

2011: An American Synagogue, a documentary that tells “the remarkable story of the building of Frank Lloyd Wright's Temple Beth Sholom in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania and “100 Voices: A Journey Home” a documentary that “chronicles a musical voyage to the birthplace of songful prayer known as chazzanut” are scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: Israeli embassies throughout the world have received several suspected terror threats, the Israel Foreign Ministry said in a statement today. The threats against the embassies are allegedly from Hezbollah to avenge the murder of Imad Mughniyah on the third anniversary of his death

2011: Gerda Weissmann Klein was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States

2012(22ndof Shevat, 5772): Ninety-five-year-old Zelda Kaplan passed away (As reported by Ruth La Ferla)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/nyregion/zelda-kaplan-fixture-of-new-york-fashion-scene-dies-at-95.html?_r=0

2012: “Making Trouble: Three Generations of Funny Jewish Women” is scheduled to be shown at the Leventhal-Sidman JCC in Newton MA.

2012: “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to be shown at Anshei Emuna Congregation in Delray Beach, FL.

2012: “For My Father” is scheduled to be shown at The Yeshiva University Ring Family Israel Film Festival 

2012: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to celebrate “President’s Day with a noontime program about Isachar Zacharie, a chiropodist whom President Abraham Lincoln trusted not only with his feet but with a peace mission to the Confederacy.

2012: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that Iran is destabilizing the world and urged the international community to condemn its terror acts against Israeli targets. As reported by Barak Ravid)

2012: Southern farming regions bordering Gaza were targeted by Palestinian rocket fire tonight.

2013: Shaare Tefila in Olney, MD is scheduled to host Shabbat Alive!, an “instrumental Friday night service.”

2013: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to be the site for a special concert “The Big Members of the Violin Family” featuring Inbal Megiddo on cello and Paul Altromari on double bass.

2013: At the Weiner Library in London, Dr. Susan Cohen of the University of Southampton is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Rescue the Perishing: Eleanor Rathbone and the Refugees” which traces the British MP’s effort to rescues Jews from Eastern Europe.

2013: Clarinet and tenor saxophonist Anat Cohen, along with her brothers - trumpeter Avishai and soprano saxophonist Yuval are scheduled to perform tonight at Carnegie Hall.

2013: A synagogue in Siberia was among the buildings damaged when “a meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over central Russia” today. (As reported by Anne Cohen)

2013: Jonathan David Leibowitz resigned as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission effective as of today.

2013: A highly unusual maiden Knesset speech delivered by Yesh Atid legislator Dr. Ruth Calderon has become something of a YouTube sensation, garnering over 80,000 views as of this afternoon — compared, for instance, to fewer than 4,000 views for the maiden speech delivered by her party leader, political sensation Yair Lapid, the day before.

2013: Bulgarian security forces today raided the temporary residences of a visiting Hamas delegation in Sofia, and then expelled the officials from the country, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported.

2014: “Closing Night” and “Bethlehem,” winner of Israel’s best-picture award are scheduled to be shown at the Jewish Film Festival in San Diego, CA

2014: Today “The World Jewish Congress accused Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government of trying to “falsify” history, adding its voice to concerns about Holocaust commemorations this year.”

2014: In Tel Aviv, three Israelis were arrested in connection with the stabbing of asylum seekers this evening.

2014(15thof Adar I,  5774): Eight-nine year old former hospital administrator Rosalyn “Dolly” Saget, the widow of supermarket executive Benjamin Saget and the mother of comedian Bob Saget passed away today

2015: The New York Times features reviews by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The B Side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and the Rebirth of the Great American Song by Ben Yagoda and Believer: My Forty Years in Politics by David Axelrod.

2015: “The Max Steinberg Memorial Scholarship Endowment Fund which was established by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in partnership with the fallen soldier’s parents, Stuart and Evelyn, and his siblings, Paige and Jake…is set to be launched today in New York by American Associates of the Ben-Gurion University.”

2015: The Times of Israel hosted its inaugural Gala in New York tonight “mixed tributes to some of Israel’s fallen wit accolades for some of Israel’s pioneers.”

2015: Deb Mrowka is scheduled to address those attending the Anne Frank: A History for Today exhibit at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.

2015: In Olney, MD, the Shaare Telia Men’s Club and Sisterhood are scheduled to square off in the “It’s Academic” Trivia Game Competitio.

2015(26thof Shevat, 5775): “Copenhagen Jewish community guard Dan Uzan was murdered early this morning following an attack on synagogue where a bat mitzvah celebration was taking place.

2015: Final performance of “Life Sucks” written and directed Aaron Posner is scheduled to take place at Theatre J in Washington, DC

2015: The Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism is scheduled to host a screening of “Shoah” followed by a panel discussion.

2015: The first annual Times of Israel Gala is scheduled to take place at the Waldorf Astoria.

2015: “Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz – the man the prime minister didn’t want at the army’s helm – is scheduled to complete a four-year term of service as the IDF’s top commander today, having shepherded the army through the Arab uprisings, the rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the cyclonic civil war in Syria, and the ever-deteriorating security situation along Israel’s border lands.” (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)

2015: “German Jews at the Eastern Front in WW I: Modernism Meets Tradition” a “must see” exhibition at the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to come to a close today

2015: Danish police confirmed early this morning that one man was killed after a gunman shot him in the head outside a Copenhagen synagogue and that the shooter also injured two policemen in the arm and leg.

2016: The National Park Service announced today that Philanthropist “David Rubenstein, who has already donated tens of millions of dollars to refurbish the Washington Monument and other icons, is giving $18 million to fix up the Lincoln Memorial.”

2016: Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is scheduled to begin serving a 19-month sentence at Lod’s Ma’asiyahu Prison today after having been convicted of accepting bribes while serving as May of Jerusalem.

2016: Depending upon a meeting with its staff, The Nazareth Mediterranean Cuisine, a Columbus, Ohio restaurant owned by Israeli Hany Baransi which was the scene of a terrorist attack on Thursday, is scheduled to re-open today.

2016: While speaking in Tel Aviv tonight, Samantha Powers, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations “accused the world body of harboring a bias against Israel.”

2016:President’s Day, officially the third Monday of February, celebrates all U.S. presidents. For more about Jews and American Presidents see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/presquote.html  and http://www.jewishpost.com/archives/news/united-states-presidents-and-the-jews-from-george-washington-to-george-bush-1.html

2017: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to have his first summit meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington, DC.

2017: Curator Bonni-Dara Michaels is scheduled to conduct a tour of Yeshiva University Museum’s newest exhibition “Uncommon Threads” which features garments, textiles and jewelry spanning three centuries. including “a gold bracelet that belonged to the wife of the Hatam Sofer, a 19th-century Ottoman velvet bridal dress and the groom’s tallit katan, an embroidered Italian Torah binder from 1602, and an early Ashkenazic wimpel dated 1643.”

2017: “Kapo in Jerusalem” and “Rabin In His Own Words” are scheduled to be shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2017: In Cedar Rapids, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss Esther: Royal Beauty by Angela Hunt.

2017: “US President Donald Trump bucked America’s longstanding commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today, standing alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference in the White House.” (As reported by Raphael Ahren and Eric Cortellessa)

2018: “The Central Conference of American Rabbis” announced today the appointment of “Rabbi Hara Person as its first female chief executive” succeeding Rabbi Steven Fox “who is retiring in June” of this year.

2018: Dr. Avivah Zornberg is scheduled to lecture on “Moses Veiled and Unveiled” at the Streicker Center.

2018: “Frtiz Lang” is scheduled to be shown for the first time in San Diego at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2018: “Hours after being pink-slipped from ‘Transparent’ Jeffrey Tambor today expressed his disappointment of how Amazon had handled the false accusations” of sexual harassment.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/jeffrey-tambor-lashes-out-at-jill-soloway-“flawed”-amazon-investigation-after-'transparent'-exit/ar-BBJbXEg?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

2018: The American Jewish Historical Society and the Leo Baeck Institute are scheduled to present Marion Kreith speaking on “Cuba’s Forgotten Jewels: A Haven in Havana.”

2018: In Facebook posting today, “Abbie Youkilis, the aunt of Jamie Guttenberg” who was murdered yesterday at Parkland High School said she “doesn’t want prayer,” called guns “a national disease and demanded change.” (As reported by Ben Sales)

2018: “Ben-Gurion: Epilogue” a documentary created by Yael Perlov and Yariv Mozer” is scheduled to be shown at Baruch College.

2018(30th of Shevat, 5778): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2019: Rachel Feinstein, “a comedian whose material draws from her Jewish upbringing” is scheduled to appear at the Punch Line Comedy Club in San Francisco.”

2019: “American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in cooperation with The Maryland/Israel Development Center and The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington” are scheduled to host“From the Desert for the World: Israel’s Water Innovations”with Prof. Noam Weisbrod, Director, Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research.

2019: The Red Sea jazz festival is scheduled to continue for a second day at Eilat.

2019: Today,Marc Stein, “an American sports reporter for The New York Times, covering the National Basketball Association (NBA) nationally” who had “previously worked for ESPN” “was named the 2019 winner of the Curt Gowdy Media Award for print media by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.”

2019: Starting at 9:00 A.M, visitors in Jerusalem can vist “Flashes of Memory – Photography During the Holocaust” at Yad Vashem.

https://www.itraveljerusalem.com/evt/flashes-of-memory-exhibition-at-yad-vashem/

2020: Temple Israel of Boston is scheduled to host a “Tu Bishvat Seder and Havdalah” this evening.

2020: The San Mateo, CA, Public Library is scheduled to host a “Violins of Hope concert with four violinists playing restored string instruments that were played during the Holocaust” with styles that “include klezmer by Cookie Segelstein, Turkish, South Indian and Americana.”

2020: In Walnut Creek, CA, Congregation B’nai Tikvah is scheduled to host “Exploring Jewish South America,” an evening that includes tasting South American wines while listening to the personal stories of Rabbi Roberto Graetz and Ariel Goldstein.

2020(20th of Shevat, 5780): Parashat Yitro.

2021: The Standwithus New England Anti-Semitism Training Series is scheduled to present online “From France to the Holy Land: The Story of a Hidden Child of the Holocaust” during which Michal Engel who “was born in Paris in 1940” and after having been hidden during the Holocaust won a competition at the age of 13 won a competition whose prize was a trip to Israel which led to her making Aliyah.

2021: Cleveland chef Douglas Katz is scheduled to lead “Appreciative Cooking,” a Jewish Federation of Cleveland virtual event this evening.

2021: As part of the “This Is What Jewish Looks Like” series, the Streciker Center is scheduled to host a presentation by Senior Jewish educator in the Chaplain’s office at Yale University, Rabbi Goldstein-Stoll.   

2021: “A spring semester version of the L.E.V. Campus Fellowship for Jewish college-age students living in the greater Cleveland area while studying remotely or affiliated with Cleveland Hillel or Hillel at Kent State campuses” is scheduled to begin today.

2021: The Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest in San Francisco, the Office of Cultural Affairs, Consulate General of Israel in New York and Ellen Lippman & Steve Rosenberg are scheduled to support today’s White Bird presentation of “Homework.”

2021: Hundreds more athletes from Istanbul and Paris are expected to arrive in Israel today “in order to participate in the Grand Slam Judo competition taking place in Tel Aviv” at the same that that “Israelis are unable to return home due to coronavirus restrictions on air travel…” (As reported by Itay Blumenthal and Itamar Eichner)

2021: In the United States Presidents’ Day which might be observed by reading some or all of The Elected and the Chosen by Denis Brian.

 

 

This Day, February 16, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 16

600: Pope Gregory the Great decrees that the phrase "God bless You" is an appropriate response to a sneeze. Gregory's policy in regard to the Jews is expressed in the following sentence, which was adopted by later popes as a fixed introductory formula to bulls in favor of the Jews: "Just as no freedom may be granted to the Jews in their communities to exceed the limits legally set for them, so they should in no way suffer through a violation of their rights" (As reported by the Jewish Encyclopedia)

1086: In response to a solar eclipse, citizens of Sicily burn torches and lamps during normal daylight hours. Jews would have been among those burning these lights. They had been living in Sicily since the end of the Great Revolt in 70 when they came to the island as slaves.  Jews lived at Palermo, Syracuse and Catania.  The community would survive until they were expelled as part of the Spanish Inquisition.

1249: Louis IX of France, also known as St. Louis, dispatched Andrew of Longjumeau as his ambassador to meet with Mongol Khagan of the Mongol Empire. Louis was in Egypt engaged in the first of his two Crusades aimed at regaining the Holy Land from the “Islamic infidels.”  Andrew’s mission was part of an attempt to forge an alliance with the Mongols against the Moslems.  Louis had financed his first crusade (known to history as The Seventh Crusade) in part by expelling all of the Jews engaged in usury and confiscating their property. Further acts of his pre-Crusade piety included the burning of some 12,000 manuscript copies of the Talmud and other Jewish books and an expansion of the Inquisition.  The alliance with the Mongols failed to materialize and the crusade was a total failure.

1267: “Alfonso the Wise and Afonso III signed the Treaty of Badajoz, a pact of friendship and mutual assistance” which “established the border between Castile and Portugal to the latter's disadvantage.”

1349: The Jews were expelled from Burgsdorf Switzerland

1525: During the Great Peasants Revolt which will test the skills “Shtadlan: Josel (Yosel) of Rosheim, “25 villagers belonging to the city of Memingen rebelled” demanding an improvement in their economic conditions and change in the political environment that controlled their lives.

1565(15th of Adar): In Mantua, Italy first printing of Menorat ha-Ma’or by Rabbi Isaac Aboab

1570: The Jews miraculously escaped the impact a violent earthquake in Italy.

1594: Astronomer Tycho Brahe arranged for The Maharal (Judah Lowe, the Chief Rabbi of Prague) to meet with Emperor Rudolph II.

1616: Elias Felice Montalto passed away.  Montalto had converted to Christianity but later returned to Judaism.  A physician and author who had lived in Venice, Montalto was living in Paris and serving as the private physician to Queen Maria de Medici at the time of his death.  The queen had him embalmed and sent to the Jewish cemetery at Ouderkerk near Amsterdam.

1761: Birthdate of German native Handel bat Gumbert, the wife of Joseph ben Ephriam Zimmern and the mother of Rosina and Moses Zimmern

1762: Sarah and Moses Franks gave birth to Rachel Franks, the wife Polish born, Philadelphia businessman and American patriot Chaim Solomon and the mother of Ezekiel, Sallie, Deborah and Chaim Moses Solomon.

1780: Acher Ascher Lion ou Loew and Gitlé Loëw gave birth to Benjamin Wolf Loew.

1786: In Savannah, GA, Sarah de la Motta and Levi Sheftall, of the noted Sheftall clan gave birth to Emanuel Sheftalll, the father of Solomon, Rebecca, Emanuel and Elizabeth Sheftall.

1794: In Maryland, Rachel Gratz, and York, PA native Solomon Etting gave birth to Fanny Etting, an early member of one Maryland’s most important Jewish families.

1799(11thof Adar I, 5559): Parashat Tetzaveh

1799: French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte occupied the Egyptian town of El Arresh after an eight-day siege. The French Army then began a march towards Khan Younis and Gaza.

1803: Moses Lazarus married Judith Magnus today at the Great Synagogue.

1803: Forty-two-year-old merchant Benjamin S. Judah, the son of Samuel Judah was married today to Eliza Israel.

1804: The “child” of Michael Oppenheim and Kitty Joseph was buried today.

1811: In New York City, Sarah Seixas and Isaac Mendes Seixas Nathan who were married in 1808 in NYC gave birth to Jonathan Nathan, the husband of Rebecca Moses with whom he had seven children.

1825(28thof Shevat,5585): Seventy-two-year-old Brandy Lazarus, the daughter of Sampson Lazarus and wife of Joshua Isaacs passed away today in New York City.

1828(1stof Adar, 5588): Parashat Mishpatim; Rosh Chodesh Adar; Shabbat Shekalim

1829: Henrietta Samuel and Solomon Benedict de Worms who “owned large plantations in Ceylon and was made a hereditary baron of the Austrian Empire by Franz Joseph I gave birth to George de Worms, 2nd Baron de Worms the English official and banker whose sibling included Anthony Mayer de Worms, Ellen Henreitta de Worms and Henry de Worms.

1837: Birthdate of Asher Asher the native of Glasgow who was the first Jew in Scotland to become a Doctor of Medicine and the author of The Jewish Rite of Circumcision.

1837(11thof Adar I, 5597): Seventy-year-old Cary J. Judah, the New York City born son of Samuel Judah passed away today in New York.

1840: Birthdate of Gotha native, Frederike Bognar who became a successful German singer and actress.

1842: Judah Cohen married Caroline Davis today at the New Synagogue.

1842: Isaac Somers married Hannah Marks today at the New Synagogue.

1844: One day after he had passed away, 22-year-old Henry Marks was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1845: Birthdate of explorer George Kennan who spent two years working in Russia which gave credibility to his comments in 1893 that the Russians were indeed issuing edits aimed to punish the Jews which were forcing them to leave and come to the United States.

1848: Joseph Solomon married Caroline Kesner today at the Great Synagogue.

1854: L'étoile du nord (The North Star) an opéra comique in three acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer was performed at the Salle Favart by the company of the Opéra-Comique, Paris, for the first time today. Meyerbeer whose birth named Jacbo Liebmann Beer, was the son of the German-Jewish financier Jacob Judah Herz Beer and Amalia Liebmann Meyer Wulff

1855: Today, in The Israelite, H.A. Kusel of Milwaukee, WI, advertised for “a gentleman who is capable of acting as Chazan, Schochet and teacher” and who has the certificates to verify these skills.

1855(28th of Shevat): Jacob Raphael Furstenthal passed away in Breslau.  Born at Glogau in 1781, he is known for his German translations of and Hebrew commentaries to the Moreh Nebukim of Moses Maimonides and the Ḥobot ha-Lebabot of Baḥya ibn Paḳuda,

1857: "Strange Piece of Rascality and Shysterism" published today reported on an apparent attempt to defraud Samuel Goldberry who had been arrested on a charge of petty larceny last March and who was still waiting to stand trial.  According to the article "Heitman, a Jew," a police officer named Frank White, a man named Piser, a Jew named Rosenbaum and a Jew named Rosenberg, conspired to con Goldberry out of $165.00.  [Interestingly, the author only the Jews were identified by religion.]

1857: The National Deaf-Mute College (later renamed Gallaudet University) is established in Washington, DC, becoming the first school for the advanced education of the deaf. In the course of fulfilling its educational mission Gallaudet has created a selected bibliography styled, “Deaf Persons in the Holocaust.”

1858: In Richmond, VA, Solomon H. Myers and his wife gave birth to track star Laurence Eugene “Lon” Myers.

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

1860: In Yancyville, NC, Bavarian born Lazarus and Susannah Fels gave birth to Samuel Fels, the Philadelphia businessman and philanthropist and  the brother of Joseph Fels whose company produced Fels-Naptha.

http://www.caswellmessenger.com/arts_and_entertainment/article_f3ebefe2-0580-11e9-8f52-7704219b35bb.html

1861(6thof Adar, 5621): Parashat Teruman

1861: As Jews observed Shabbat, President-elect Lincoln continued his train trip to Washington, stopping in a New York town today where he met and kissed Grace Bedell, a young girl who had written to the presidential candidate suggesting that he grow a beard.”

1864: After enlisting in 1861, Captain Morris Kayser completed his service with Company A of the Ninety-First Regiment.

1866: In New York City, Henry and Natalie (Wittkowsky) Mannes gave birth to violinist and conductor David Mannes, the husband of Clara Mannes and son-in-law of Leopold Damrosch, who helped to “found the Colored Music Settlement School” and the Mannes Music School

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/04/25/83683650.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

 

1868: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 twin daughters – Valentina and Julia.

1869: Birthdate of Julius Tandler native of Moravia who became a physician and political leader in Vienna.

1870: The Jews of Sweden were emancipated.

1871: The Executive Committee of the Hebrew Charity Fair presented Emanual B. Hart with an engraved silver dinner service tonight in recognition of the services he has rendered in making the latest fund raiser a successful event.  Mr. S.L. Cohen made the presentation speech and Mr. Hart responded with the appropriate words and toasts.

1872: It was reported today that of the 73 private charitable institutions in New York City controlled by religious denominations that received state aide in 1870, two of them were controlled by Jewish organizations.  They received $11, 453.72 out of a total allocation of $688,048.86. No final figures were available for 1871.

1872: “An Oriental Seeks Justice” published today described the legal difficulties of Rabbi Aarons, an octogenarian from Jerusalem who while preaching in a small uptown New York City synagogue “denounced certain wind-dealers who” he claims “pretended to sell wine especially prepared for Jewish religious observances” when it was in fact prepared by non-Jews which meant that it was ritually unfit.

1872: It was reported today that Mr. Rosenfeldt had committed suicide in Kingston, Jamaica. Mr. Rosenfeldt had converted to Christianity from Judaism.  Many of the Jews in Kingston thought that Rosenfeldt had changed his mind.  But in a suicide note written to the Bishop the deceased said he had killed himself because “others were conspiring against” and he wanted to leave part of his estate to those working to convert Jews. [Editor’s note – I can find no further reference to Mr. Rosenfeldt or his family who was living in Germany at the time of his death.]

1877: In Poland, Jacob and Sarah Markowski gave birth to self-taught Talmudist and history student Nisson Markel, the husband of Rose Scharjowicz who went from being a Polish importer and exporter of chemical products to serving as a Rabbi Brith Shalom a Buffalo, NY, congregation after WW I.

1879: It was reported today that out of the 40,000 people living in Krakow, 12,000 of them are Jews most of whom are “Orthodox or Rabbinical.

1880: David Harfeld, the brother of Rabbi Eugene Harfeld failed to return the furnished room he was renting with his wife, the former Julia Harlan.  This desertion would lead to charges of bigamy in case that would be heard nine years later.

1880: Telegrams were received in Cleveland, Ohio from Evansville, Indiana, inquiring about the whereabouts of Bethold Landua, the Secretary of Kescher Sher Bassel. Landau, who has not been heard from in two weeks, has possession of nearly $40,000 of the society’s money.  The society is holding its annual national convention in Evansville.

1881: Birthdate of Hans Meiser, the pro-Nazi Nuremberg native who served as Bishop of the Bavarian Evangelical-Lutheran Church.  In 1938 he imposed the following loyalty oath: I swear to God the Almighty and All-knowing: I will be loyal and obedient to the Führer of the Reich and Volk, Adolf Hitler, I will obey the laws, and I will conscientiously fulfill all my official duties, so help me God."

1882: According to the Times of London, the British Foreign Office is about to issue a report based on information provided by its consular officials describing attacks on the Jews living in Russia.  While there are no proven “cases of the violation of women” there is clear evidence of “other serious outrages.” If the authorities had used the proper amount of force, “the outrages” might have been confined to a more limited area.  For obvious reason, the Jews still living in Russia have been reluctant to provide information to the British officials. [Editor’s Note – Use the term “outrages” to describe a Pogrom must be a classic example of the English penchant for understatement.]

1882: German immigrants Marcus and Hannah (Itzig) Cronbach gave birth to Abraham Cronbach, the graduate of HUC and the University of Cincinnati who combined his pulpit activities with deeply held pacifist beliefs.

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0009/ms0009.html

1885(1stof Adar, 5645): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1885: Birthdate of 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.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/02/11/105178222.pdf

1886: In Hartford, CT, Jacob Wetheim and his wife, the former Hannah Frank of Hoboken NJ gave birth to investment bank Maurice Wertheim, founder of Wethheim and Co and the husband of Alma Morgenthau with whom he had three daughters, including the award-winning historian and author Barbara W. Tuchman.

https://www.nypl.org/blog/2010/06/18/maurice-wertheim

http://brookhavensouthhaven.org/history/Wertheim/WertheimDegasToMatisse.htm

1890: The 23-piece Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band played at this evening’s concert sponsored by the Seligman Solomon Society.

1890(26thof Shevat, 5650): Fifty-eight-year-old Philadelphia Myer Asch, the son of Clarissa and Joseph M. Asch who reached the rank of Colonel while serving with the Union Army during the Civil War and pursued a career in dentistry after the war passed away today in New York.

1890(26thof Shevat, 5650): Isaac Jacob, a Jewish peddler, ambushed Herman Rogozinski, a Washington Market poultry carrier and shot him with a 38 caliber “Blue Jacket” pistol fatally wounding him when the bullet struck Herman in the breast. He then committed suicide after a failed attempt to kill Mrs. Rogozinksi.

1890: “The Jew Question in France” published today described the attempts of the Boulangists to revive interest in the movement by exploiting “discontent in financial and social circles with” successful Jewish banks in general and the Rothschilds in particular. (The Boulangists were a right-wing militarist movement named for General Boulanger and was an example of the social unrest in the Third Republic that produced, among other things, the Dreyfus Affair)

1891: In “Rogachev, Russia, Louis and Rose Goedelberg Cohen gave birth to bacteriologist Dr. Barnett Cohen who served as an “associate professor of physiological chemistry at John Hopkins University School Medicine”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1952/10/25/83801189.pdf

1891: It was reported today that Lewis May and Jesse Seligman spoke at the memorial service held to honor the memory of Lazarus Rosenfeld.  They recounted “his efforts in the founding of Mount Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the Home for the Aged, the Montefiore Home and Temple Emanu-El.”

1891: It was reported today that the newly elected officers of the Jewish Alliance of America are: President – Simon Wolf of Philadelphia; Vice Presidents – Dr. H.W. Schneeberg of Baltimore, Dr. Charles D. Spivak of Philadelphia and Ferdinand Levy of New York; Secretary – Barnard Harris of Philadelphia; Treasurer – Simon Wolf of Washington, D.C. The goal of the alliance is to help teach the newly arriving immigrants from Russia “habits of self-support” with an emphasis on farming.

1892: As the outbreak of typhus fever continues to spread, The Health Department is scheduled to accept the offer of the Immigration Commissioners to use Ward’s Island as a quarantine site for those found to be suffering from typhus. The fever seems to be most prevalent among recently arriving immigrants including a large number of Jews from Russia.

1892: The Second Conference of the Russian American Hebrew Agricultural Fund Association will meet this evening at the Hebrew Institute on East Broadway.

1892: Birthdate of Rochester, NY, native David Hochstein, the distinguished violinist and soloist with the Rochester Orchestra who sailed to France as a lieutenant with the AEF where he performed his last concert at Nancy before being killed during the fighting at the Argonne Forest in 1918.

1892: It was reported today that all of the 84 people quarantined on North Brother Island because of typhus fever are Jewish immigrants from Russia who arrived aboard the SS Massilia.

1893(OS): “Glouskine a clever young Jew who served in the Russian army with distinction, rising to be an under officer” and who “then became the manager of important iron works in the village of Kamieny” was ordered today “ to get out within eight days together with his family” as part of the forced Russian expulsion of Jews in Poland.

1895: The Jewish Lads’ Brigade, (which would eventually become the Jewish Lads’ and Girls’ Brigade) “the United Kingdom’s old Jewish youth movement,was founded, after a lecture by Colonel Albert Goldsmid before the Maccabaeans, at a meeting held at the Jews' Free School in the East End of London today, when the first company of boys was enrolled” and who would being there first weekly drills six weeks from this date.

1896: “Synagogue Members In A Fight” published today described fight that broke between supporters of Solomon Bentowski and Heyman Solomon during the business meeting of synagogue that met at 112 Clinton Street in New York. The police were called but no arrests were made.

1897: Three days after head passed away, 35-year-old Myer Hecht was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1897: The third monthly conference of representatives of New York City charities including N.S. Rosenau of the United Hebrew Charities is scheduled to take place today.

1897: In Philadelphia, PA, “Rabbi Nathan I. and Mollie (Sattenstein) Brennder gave birth to Temple University and Dropsie College alum Jay Gerson Breener, the Jewish Institute of Religion trained Rabbi whose career took him from being the Superintendent of Ahavath Israel Religious School in Philadelphia to sering as the leader of Temple Beth Mordecai in Perth Amboy, NJ.

1897: Three days after he passed away, 28-year-old Arthur Lionel Falk, the Manchester born son of Sarah and Philip Falk, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1898: It was reported that Judge Meyer S. Isaacs will speak at the next meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.

1899(6thof Adar I, 5659): Track-star Laurence “Lon” Myers passed away today on his 41stbirthday

http://www.usatf.org/HallOfFame/TF/showBio.asp?HOFIDs=118

http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/JSH/JSH1975/JSH0202/jsh0202b.pdf

1899: French President Félix Faure dies in office.  Faure was the “addressee” of one of the most famous letters in Jewish History. On January 13, 1898 The French newspaper L’Aurore published a letter written by Emile Zola entitled J’accuse addressed to Faure.  The letter exposed the conspiracy known as the Dreyfus Affair.

1901(27thof Shevat, 5661): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1902: In a letter to the Sultan, Herzl summarizes his negotiations. The Sultan's decision is unfavorable.

1903:  Birthdate of Liverpool native Louis Pollock whose family moved to the United States in 1916 where he eventually developed a career as screenwriter – a career that was ended when he was put on the Blacklist because the Witch Hunters confused him with another writer, Louis Pollack.  (What a difference an “a” makes.)

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8f76fxq/entire_text/

1904: Birthdate of George Kennan, the American diplomat best known as the author of the policy of containment which blocked Soviet imperialism in Europe and eventually led to his downfall but who, unbeknownst to his many admirers was writing in his diaries that Jews were “among the inferior races” whose ability “to breed copiously” threatened “our modern civilization.”

1905: It was reported today that “State Librarian Melvil Dewey was rebuked by the Board of Regents for the publication by the Lake Placid Club, in which he is interested, of circulars containing matter considered to be a reflection upon Jewish citizens” while at the same time he was admonished by the Regents that his continued responsibility for the circulation of such literature would be incompatible with his position as State Librarian.

1906(21stof Shevat, 5666): Carl Joubert, the author whose works included Aspects of the Jewish Question, Spiritual Forces in Judaism and Tyranny of Faith passed away today in London.

1907: “The Siegel Cooper Company announced today the apportionment in its annual distribution of $10,000 to local charitable institutions, in accordance with the vote of its customers” which meant “the Hebrew Orphan Asylum received the largest amount, $500, and the Salvation Army, having received the next greatest number of votes, got $250.”

1908: Ukrainian born New York Socialist and state legislature, Abraham Isaac “Abe” Shiplacoff, the son of Naphthalia Hertz Shiplacoff and Chana Tshipliacov and Yetta Ettle Itta “Henrietta” Shilpacoff gave birth to Lydia “Libby” Aaron Greene, he wife of Matthew Greene.

1909: Joseph Chabot, “a Spanish rabbi from Syria” officiated at the wedding of Sameal Hanania whose family were Sephardim from Constantinople and Rosa Penso whose family came from Turkey to the United States ten years ago

1910: Colonel Claude Reignier Conder passed away. During his service with the Corps of Engineers, he took part in a survey of Western Palestine from 1872 to 1874 along with Lieutenant Horatio Kitchener, the future British military leader known as Lord Kitchener.  He also served two tours with the Palestine Exploration Fund Among his literary accounts of his work were TentWork in Palestine, Memories” The Survey of Western and Eastern Palestine, and The City of Jerusalem.

1911: “On the ground that Russia has violated the treaty concluded with the United States on Dec. 18, 1832, because of discrimination against American citizens of the Jewish faith, Representative Parsons of New York and Louis Marshall of New York City to-day urged the House Foreign Affairs Committee to report favorably the Parsons resolution for the abrogation of that treaty.”

1912: A Turkish Jew, G. Valensin Bey, who was a member of the municipal council of Alexandria, was appointed Commander of the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus by the King of Italy

1912(28thof Shevat, 5672): Eighty-five-year-old theatrical manager and writer Albert L Parkes passed away in New York City.

1912: Six days after he had passed away “British banker, Liberal Member of Parliament and philanthropist, 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, brother of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid” was buried today at the “Balls Pond Jewish Cemetery.”

1913: “After an interregnum of eighteen months and a spirited contest between candidates, Dr. Joseph H. Hertz of New York was to-day elected Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Empire at a meeting of the Electoral College, presided over by Lord Rothschild, President of the United Synagogue.”

1913(9thof Adar I, 5673): Organist Samuel L. Hermann passed away today in Philadelphia, PA.

1913: In Rozwadow, Poland, Sara Jitka Birnbaum and Mamci Springer gave birth to Abraham Chaim Springer.

1913(9th of Adar I, 5673): Sig Livingstone, a banker from Tamaqua, PA passed away today in Havana, Cuba.

1914: It was reported today that the Young Women’s Hebrew Association must raise another $45,000 to pay off the debt created when it built a new facility at 110thStreet and Fifth Avenue which provided accommodations for 150 young Jewish girls.

1915(2nd of Adar, 5675): French composer Emil Waldteufel passed away.

1915: The American Jewish Relief Committee issued a plea to every Jew in New York asking that they send at least one dollar to the office of Treasurer Felix Warburg so that the committee could take advantage of the offer of U.S Navy to ship 900 tons of food supplies “for the suffering and starving population of Palestine.”

1915: Birthdate of Leah Ray Hubbard, the Norfolk, VA born singer who became Leah Ray Hubbard Werblin when she met MCA executive and future owner of the New York Jets “Sonny” Werblin.

1915: “Order Jews to Rear” published today described the forced deportation of Jews from a large part of Poland by the Russian government.

1915: Jacob N. Chester took issue with claims by Russia that Jews were being forcibly being deported from Zyrardow because “of the discovery of a concrete base for heavy guns” at M. M. Dietrich’s factory where only Jews were employed before the war because “as a matter of fact not a single Jew was ever employed in this factory” which employed 20,000 Polish and German workers.

1916: Thanks to the efforts of Albert Lucas, representing the Central Relief Committee of New York the U.S. Collier Sterling is scheduled to leave today carrying “a cargo of medicine and matzos” to Palestine.

1916: Mayer Sulzberger, who had been “elected a member of the Philadelphia Board of City Trusts in January” of this year was “award an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by Temple University” today.

1917: One day after he had passed away, 80 year old Rabbi Abraham Abelson, “the husband of Rachel Abelson” with whom he had had eleven children including Rabbi Joshua Abelson was buried today at the “Merthyr Tydfil Jewish Cemetery.”

1917: After 425 years, dedication of the first synagogue to open in Madrid. We all know about 1492 when the Jews were expelled.  Now we know a little about their official readmission.

1917: While speaking tonight at Temple Israel in Harlem on “the possibility of the United States entering the war” Rabbi M.H. Harris said that Jews have “mixed sympathies” because they believed the Allied cause deserves the endorsement of America” but are bothered by the long history of Russian oppression of the Jews while feeling tied to Germany because of its place in the development of “modern Judaism.”

1918: Lithuania proclaimed its independence from Germany.  Lithuania would have to fight both the Germans and the Soviets for its right to be independent.  According to one source, at least 3,000 Jews fought in the armies defending Lithuanian independence.  This active role brought Jews and their institution a certain amount of early recognition in the early days of Lithuanian independence.  This acceptance would recede during the thirties.  Following the outbreak of World War II, over 90 per cent of the Jewish community would perish at the hands of the Soviets and the Nazis.

1919:  Louis Lipsky, Rabbi Ephraim, Judge Hugo Pam and Myer Arbrams are among some of the speakers scheduled to address the delegates attending the Zionist Convention in Chicago.

1920: In Brooklyn, “Isaac Sackler and the former Sophie Ziesel, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who ran a grocery store” gave birth to Raymond Raphael Sackler “whose family made a fortune from OxyContin.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/business/raymond-sackler-dead-of-purdue-pharma.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1920: Today, following her divorce from vaudeville actor Lou Leslie, Belle Baker, the famous “torch singer, vaudevillian and movie actress, married her second husband, Maurice Abrahams, with whom she had one son Herbert Joseph Baker, before Abrahams died in 1931.

1921: Today, Sir Alfred Mond, who has just returned to London from Jerusalem gave “an encouraging account of the reconstruction of Palestine” in which he said that “a very fine class of young Jews from the Ukraine and Galicia” have been coming to Palestine.

1922: As England prepares for the Marriage of Princess Mary, one gift which will “give her great pleasure is a portrait of Viscount Lascelles now being paitned by Solomon J. Solomon, R.A.” the brother of another Jewish painter, Lilly Delissa.

1923: “In Częstochowa in southern Poland to Perec Willenberg and his wife Maniefa (née Popow)” gave birth to Samuel Willenberg, the Jewish veteran of the Polish Army who escaped from Treblinka during the uprising, settled in Israel in 1950 where he worked as a surveyor, created sculpture and wrote Revolt in Treblinka while living long enough to become at his death the last survivor of that death camp which had claimed the lives of his two sisters. (Telegraph News)

1924: A bazaar sponsored by the People’s Relief “Ort” of America which will raise funds for Jews of Central and Eastern Europe is scheduled to open at the Grand Central Palace.

1925: Dr. Chaim Weizman, the President of the World Zionist Organization, was greeted with a standing ovation tonight when he delivered his first public address at meeting in Carnegie Hall which was the kick for the one million dollar fund raising driving of the Palestine Foundation Fund.

1926: In London, “Winifred Henrietta (née Regensburg) and Bernard Edward Schlesinger, a physician” gave birth to director John Schlesinger who won the Oscar for Best Director for his work on “Midnight Cowboy” which won the 1969 Oscar for Best Picture.

1926: In Frankfurt, Edith and Otto Frank gave birth to their first daughter Margot, the older sister of diarist Anne Frank

1927: In Suffolk, England, Louisa Ann (née Butler) and Henry William Melton Brown gave birth to British actress June Muriel Brown.

1928: It was reported today that Senator William H. King of Utah has “stressed the duty of the Jews to rebuild their homeland and expressed his sympathy with the Zionist cause” while “upbraiding certain Jews” who he called “assimilationists” for their opposition to Zionism.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1928/02/16/91475358.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1929(6thof Adar I, 5689): Parashat Terumah

1929: Rabbi Nathan Krass of Temple Emanu-El and Dr. S.M. Rubinow, the executive director of the ZOA were among the speakers at tonight meeting of the United Palestine Appeal in Mt. Vernon where it was announced that $20,000 of the $50,000 quota for the New York campaign has already been raised.

1930: On New York’s Lower East Side, Rabbi Yitzchak Mattisyahu Weinberg and his wife Hinda gave birth to Yisrael Noah Weinberg the Rosh Yeshiva at Aish HaTorah.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/834580/jewish/The-Rosh-Yeshivah-and-the-Shliach.htm

1931: On day after he had passed away and one day before his funeral, the family of veteran performer of Louis Mann announced the list of honorary pallbearers which included “Mayor James J. Walker, former New York Governor and Presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith, Lt. Gov. Herbert Lehman and entertainers Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and George Jessel.

1932(8th of Adar I, 5692): Sir Edgar Speyer, 1st Baronet an American-born financier and philanthropist who became a British subject in 1892 and was chairman of Speyer Brothers, the British branch of his family's international finance house, and a partner in the German and American branches passed away today. He was stripped of his honors as a British citizen following a smear campaign that accused him of being pro-German during World War I.

1932: Birthdate of Romanian born and Holocaust survivor Israeli novelist Aharon Appelfeld. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/appelfeld.html

1932: Birthday of Harry Goz who played Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” on Broadway in 1966 and 1967.

1932: In the Bronx homemaker Sarah Greenberg and Samuel Greenberg, “a carpenter who worked as the foreman of shop in Queens that made upscale furniture” gave birth to Arnold Greenberg, the founder of the law firm of Greenberg and Tuchman who was the owner of the Completer Traveler, a truly unique bookstore.

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=1

1932: The New York Times said of Benjamin Cardozo's appointment to the Supreme Court that "seldom, if ever, in the history of the Court has an appointment been so universally commended"

1932: It was reported today that before nominating Justice Cardoza, President Hoover “conferred with Senator Watson of Indiana, the Republican floor leader in the Senate who predicted a unanimous confirmation” Senator Borah of Idaho responded by saying that if there were two Virginians on the court and John Marshall was a candidate for the vacancy, I don’t think there would be any hesitation to confirm him.”

1932: It was reported today that when objection was raised to the nomination of Justice Cardoza because he would make the third New Yorker on the High Court (the other two being Justices Hughes and Stone)

1934: Sixty-five-year-old Charles Pearce Coady, a Democrat who served as a Congressman from Maryland’s Third District and was one of the opening speakers at the 13thannual convention of the Order of Brith Shalom in Baltimore passed away today.

1934: The Austrian Civil War, also known as the February Uprising which had begun on February 12 came to an end today. When the dust settled, the Socialists were in disarray and/or in exile while the right combined to form what their enemies called Austrofascism which did not share the anti-Semitism of German fascism.

1934: “The Lost Patrol” a talkie version of the British silent film with music by Max Steiner was released in the United States today.

1934: “The Knife of the Party” a comedy starring Shemp Howard and filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg was released in the United States today.

1935: Birthdate of Barbara Myerhoff, acclaimed anthropologist and documentary filmmaker.

1935: Birthdate of Gilbert de Botton, the financier who invented the open architecture model of asset management. A native of Alexandria Egypt, he was a descendant of a distinguished Sephardic family whose ancestors included Abraham de Boton.  His mother was Yolande Harmer, a Zionist who was imprisoned by the Egyptians on charges of spying for Israel. (As reported by The Telegraph)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1368137/Gilbert-de-Botton.html

1936: In St. Louis, celebration of the 60th anniversary of the birth of Zionist leader Gustave Kalusner.

http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,811931,00.html

1936: In honor of her 75th birthday, Henrietta Szold, American Zionist leader will be honored today by the Jews of Palestine with the title of “freewoman” which makes her an honorary citizen of Tel Aviv The title is the feminine form of “freeman” that has been confirmed on such leaders as the Earl of Balfour and former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George.  The Jewish community is also collecting funds for a social welfare project to be named for Miss Szold.

1936: It was reported today that “Chancellor Hitler’s power and popularity are unchallenged at present and the Germans are becoming so used to National Socialism and all it implies that, according to the latest witticism, this year’s party congress will be held not under slogans like ‘Triumph of Will,’ or ‘Victory of Faith,’ but ‘Force of Habit.’”

1936: Birthdate of Jerusalem native Eliahu Inbal the Israeli conductor.

1936: In Beirut, Lebanon, Shneor Cheshin, who would become a Justice on the Israeli Supreme court and Ruth Chehsin, “the founding president of the Jerusalem gave birth to Michael Cheshin who served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Israel from 1992 to 2006.

1936: It was reported today that “during 1935 more than 61,000 Jews entered Palestine” and that “if normal conditions should prevail the Jewish National Home could receive at least another 500,000 Jews within the next ten years.”

1936: “Charging that Great Britain is failing to carry out the spirit of the Balfour Declaration creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Rabbi Meyer Berlin, its honorary world president, told the opening session of the Mizrachi Zionist Organization of America today that appeals would be taken to the League of Nations, the United States and to the ‘cultural world’ to show the injustice being done to Jews.”

1936: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today at Riverside Chape for forty-four year old Charles David Isaacson, the “writer on music, director of thousands of free concerts in the metropolitan New York Area, former opera impresario and radio director” who died yesterday in Bellevue Hospital.

1937: In Bucharest, in another example of nationalist lawyers keeping Jewish lawyers from entering the Palace of Justice, “Jewish lawyers attending Court 8 in the course of their duties were seized by nationalist colleagues and violently ejected” today.

1938(14thof Adar I, 5698) Purim Katan

1938(14thof Adar I, 5698): Thirty-one-year-old Lev Lvovich Sedov, the son of Leon Trotsky, died under mysterious circumstances today in Paris.

http://spartacus-educational.com/Lev_Sedov.htm

1938: “Benito Mussolini issues an official declaration that there is no ‘Jewish Problem’ in Italy and the Fascist government isn't considering any special anti-Semitic measures. This will change in July, 1938, when Jews are stripped of their Italian citizenship and banned from many professions.”

1938: I.J. Singer, the author, is scheduled to address a membership tea being held by the Women’s American Ort as part of their drive to increase membership to better aid the suffering Jews of Central and Eastern Europe.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that two Jews were wounded when Arabs fired at a Jewish bus which was on its way to the Kastel quarries. Over a dozen of shooting incidents and attempts to sever communications were reported from all over the country.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that the total number of Jewish immigrants in 1937 was 12,475, compared to 31,671 a year earlier. Of these, 3,648 immigrants came from Poland, 3,601 from Germany and the rest from other countries. This painful and unjustified reduction was directly attributed to the new British and Palestine governments' immigration policy.

1938: Abraham Pais was awarded two Bachelor of Science degrees in physics and mathematics, with minors in chemistry and astronomy. [Pais was the Dutch born Physicist who survived the Holocaust and came to America to pursue his career. The Abraham Pais Prize for the History of Physics attests to the esteem in which he was held by his colleagues.]

1939: In London, “the British suggestions for a substitute for the independent state demanded by the Arab’s was presented at today’s meeting between the British and Arab delegates at the Palestine conference.”

1940(7thof Adar I, 5700): Sixty-three-year-old University of Pennsylvania trained attorney and confirmed bachelor Isaac Hassler, the Philadelphia born member of a family that reaches back to colonial times who “was a former President of Young Men’s Hebrew Association and of the board of trustees of Congregation Rodelph” died today leaving his four siblings – Harry, Eugene, Victor and Essie – to mourn his passing.

1940: The Foreign Minister of Rumania met with Ben Horin, a member of the World Executive Committee of the New Zionist Organization for over an hour and with the Rumanian ambassador to Washington who is currently in Bucharest, but with will leaving with Mr. Horin tomorrow for a trip back to the capital city of the United States.

1941: “Faced with the ever-increasing problem of assisting European Jews both in their native countries and in transit to freedom via far-flung routes along which many have been stranded, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee held an extraordinary meeting at the Hotel Astor today that will serve as a springboard for its 1941 campaign.”

1942: Columbia Professors, Joseph P. Chamberlain, Leo Wollman and Jerome Wollman, Dr. Jacob Robinson and Dr. Nahum Goldman are among those scheduled to attend a dinner tonight at the Columbia Faculty marking the “first anniversary of the founding of the Institute of Jewish Affairs” which “has been function in the field of research with respect to developments in Europe with a view to establishing Jewish rights when world peace comes.”

1943: Seventy-four-year-old Russian born Socialist and University of Berne trained physician Dr. Sergious Ingerman who joined Eugene V. Debs and Morris Hillquit in forming the Socialist Party of America, suffered a stroke tonight that would eventually prove fatal.

1943: The White Rose, an anti-Nazi group posted a sign in Munich, Germany, reading “Out with Hitler!  Long live freedom!”  The members of White Rose were not Jewish, but they were a courageous group that did what it could to oppose Hitler.  Many of its members were caught and beheaded, a favorite form of death among the Nazis.

1944(22nd of Shevat, 5704): Rabbi Gabriel Shusterman, author of Ben Moshe Yedaber passed away

1944(22nd of Shevat, 5704): Danish writer and director Henri Nathansen passed away. Born in 1868, he gave up his legal career to become an author and theatrical director. His Jewish background provided a major theme for some of his efforts.  “His best-known work, ‘Inside the Walls,’ premiered in 1912 and centers around a wealthy, loving, but conservative Jewish family whose only daughter breaks away from tradition by attending lectures at the university and secretly becoming engaged to her teacher, a gentile.”  His 1932 novel Mendel Philipsen and Son, features “a Jewish woman who falls in love with a gentile painter but instead enters into a loveless marriage with her Jewish cousin…” In 1929, he wrote a biography of fellow Danish Jew, Georg Brandes. In October 1943, when the Nazis attempted to round up the Danish Jews, Nathansen fled to Sweden just four months before his death.

1944: “Passage to Marseille” an off-beat war movie directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal B. Wallis, featuring George Tobias, Vladimir Sokoloff and Peter Lorre and with music by Max Steiner was released today in the United States.

1945: “The premiere performance of” “Concerto for Trombone” by Nathaniel Shilkret with the famed Tommy Dorsey as the soloist “was broadcast over WNYC” today.

1946(15thof Adar I, 5706): Parashat Tetzaveh

1946: “Hechalutz” which means “the worker” a “Palestinian folk opera in Hebrew, with music and book by Jacob Weinberg was performed tonight at Carnegie Hall during the sixth Festival of Jewish Arts sponsored by the Manhattan, Brooklyn and Bronx Zionist Clubs.

1947: Famed violinist Isaac Stern joins Jack Benny in a laughed filled appearance on the Jack Benny Program.

1947: Two months after premiering in New York City“The Bishop’s Wife” a romantic comedy directed by Henry Koster, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, with a script co-authored by Bill Wilder was released in the rest of the United States.

1947: Morton Gould's 3rd Symphony premiered.  In 1995 Gould won the Pulitzer Prize for “Stringfellow.”

1948: The Arabs began their first organized attack, on Tirat Tzvi.  Tirat Tzvi (Zevi's Castle) was a Kibbutz founded in 1937 near the Jordanian border. It was named in memory of Rabbi Zevi Hirsh Klaischer who urged his fellow Jews to form a national movement following the failed revolutions of 1848 in Europe.  In 1862, he published a book combining the themes of agriculture and spiritual re-awakening in what was then called Palestine.  He had hoped to move to Mikveh Israel but at the age of eighty felt himself too old and he died in Germany, one of the first religious champions of what was to become the Zionist dream.  The attack in 1948 took place between the vote to partition Palestine and the actual British departure from the Mandate Territory.  In other words, Arab military forces were on the attack determined to wipe out as many of the Jewish kibbutzim as possible thus destroying the Jewish state before it was even born.  The attack on Tirat Tzvi failed thanks to the bravery of the outnumbered defenders.

1948: The U.N. Palestine Commission which “was never permitted by the Arabs or the British to go to Palestine to implement the” U.N.’s resolution partitioning Palestine “reported to the Security Council” today that “Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberation effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein.”

1948: Two months after its premiere in New York City, “The Bishops Wife” the movie version of Robert Nathan’s novel by the same name directed by Henry Koster and produced by Samuel Goldwyn was released in the rest of the United States today.

1949: In Manhattan, Seymour and Anne Kornblum gave birth to Allan Mark Kornblum “whose love for poetry and printing led him to start Coffee House Press, an independent publisher widely respected for finding and nurturing new authors.” (As reported by William Yardley)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/business/media/allan-kornblum-independent-publisher-dies-at-65-.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

1950: “If I Knew You Were Coming’ I’d’ve Baked a Cake” a popular song written by Al Hoffman was recorded today by Coral Records.

1951: “Vengeance Valley” the movie version of the cowboy novel by the same name with a screenplay by Irving Ravetch (the son of a New Jersey rabbi) was release in the United States today.

1952: Thirty-one-year-old “Henry Laskau won the one-mile walk at the AAU indoor track championships in New York City. (As reported by Bob Wechsler)

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that from the establishment of the state in May 1948 to the end of 1952, 707,576 immigrants arrived, including 124,225 from Iraq, 121,536 from Romania, 106,727 from Poland, 62,565 from North Africa and 48,447 from Yemen and Aden. The immigrants hailed from 69 countries.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had sent anti-typhoid vaccine to flood victims in Holland.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that forty prominent American senators prepared a program of action to stop the excesses of the anti-Semitic propagandists in the Soviet Union and its satellite nations.

1954(13thof Adar I, 5714): Fifty-six-year-old Harry Passon the brother of Herman and Nathan Passon who in 1918, “along with Eddie Gottlieb and Hughie Black organized a basketball team in Philadelphia that would come to be known as the “SPHAS” and who had one daughter with his wife Bessie Greenbaum passed away today.

http://probasketballencyclopedia.com/player/harry-passon/

https://sabr.org/research/harry-passon-philadelphia-baseball-entrepreneur

1959(8thof Adar I, 5719): Eighty-year-old Henry Abraham Boehm, the Austrian born son of Abraham and Ida Boehm, husband of Minnie Boehm and father of George Boehm.

1961: In London, world premiere of “Jungle Fighters” produced by Michael Balcon, with a screenplay by Wolf Mankowitz, music by Stanley Black and starring Laurence Harvey

1963:The first of the articles that, in expanded form, would become Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt's most controversial work, was published in The New Yorker

https://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/16/1963/hannah-arendt

1964: Larry Blyden began playing the role of “Doc” in the Broadway production of “Foxy.”

1965: “After six previews, the Broadway production” of the musical “Baker Street” with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by Jerry Bock, directed by Hal Prince and co-starring Martin Gabel “opened at The Broadway Theatre where it ran for nine months.

1966: Twelve days after premiering, “The Ugly Dachshund” a Disney comedy starring Suzanne Pleshette was released in the rest of the United States today.

1967(6thof Adar I, 5727): Seventy-three-year-old Vilna native and “descendant of the Vilna Gaon” Rabbi Berl Aronovitz, “the author of books on Hebrew grammar and the Bible” and husband “of the former Rose Zuckerman” with whom he had two children – Evelyn Silver and Dr. Milton Aron, the direcot of the JNF of America – who served as dean of the Hebrew Theological College of Chicago for twenty-five years, passed away today in Miami Beach, FL.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/02/18/89660112.html?pageNumber=29

1967: The original West End production of “Fiddler on the Roof” opened on at Her Majesty's Theatre and played for 2,030 performances. It starred Chaim Topol, as Tevye and Miriam Karlin as Golde.

1968(17thof Shevat, 5728): Seventy-five-year-old Isaac Hamlin, the Russian born founder of “Histadrut, the Israeli Labor Federation” passed away today at his home in Tel Aviv.

1968: The Court of Appeals of the first Appellate District of Ohio affirmed the conviction of KKK leader Clarence Brandenburg who had threatened to take revenge “Niggers and Jews” for having violated Ohio’s criminal syndicalism statue paving the way for an ultimate hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court.

1972(1stof Adar, 5732): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1972(1stof Adar, 5732: Sixty-two-year-old Austrian native Mac Kinsbrunner, the son of Nettie and David Kinsbuner and husband of Florence Kinsbruner who was a star athlete at St. John’s Universirty passed away today in New York

http://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/18/archives/mac-kinsbruner-star-athlete-at-st-johns-in-1930s-dead.html

1973(14thof Adar I, 5733): In the first year of President Nixon’s second term, Jews observe Purim Katan.

1974: “In the United States, Barbra Streisand’s album ‘The Way We Were’ debuted at number 97 on the Billboard 200 chart for the week ending” today/

1974(24th of Shevat, 5734): Ninety-one-year-old Harvard educated philosopher Horace M. Kallen of the seven children of Rabbi Jacob David Kallen and Esther Rebecca Glazier all of whom came to the United States where he became the first Jewish professor at Princeton and leader in the American Jewish Community while raising his children Harriet and David with his wife, “the former Rachel Oatman Van Arsdale, passed away today

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kallen-horace-meyer

http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=1278441

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0001/ms0001.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/17/archives/dr-horace-kallen-philosopher-dies.html

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/422

1977: “The Princess Who Is Everywhere” published today provides a sketch of Diane von Furstenberg who has expanded from fashion guru to author.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9E0CE1DA163EE23BA15755C1A9649C946690D6CF

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that two persons were killed and 46 injured when an Arab threw a bomb at a bus passing through Rehov Tzefania in Jerusalem.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that in Washington the US Administration threatened to withdraw its request for the sale of advanced F-15 and F-16 fighter planes to Israel if Congress blocked the sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia and F-5Es to Egypt.

1985: The founding of Hezbollah, another Arab/Moslem terror group dedicated, in part, to the destruction of the state of Israel. 

1986(7thof Adar I. 5746): Seventy-six-year-old character actor Howard Da Silva whose work in Hollywood was temporarily interrupted because he was named to the Hollywood Blacklist passed away today.

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

1987: In Atlanta, GA, Sydney, Australia native Heather Fenton and Richard Ossoff, the owner of Strafford Publications gave to Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service graduate Thomas Jonathan Ossoff, the husband of Alisha Kramer, who, when he was elected to the Senate in 2021 became “the first Jewish senator from Georgia, the first senator born in the 1980s, and, at 33, the youngest member of the chamber” who was “also is the first Democrat elected to a full six-year term in the Senate from Georgia since 2003.

1987:Following the refusenik protests, Iosif Begun's release from prison was announced today, by Georgy Arbatov, a member of the Central Committee, in a Face the Nation interview on CBS.”

1987: The Demjanjuk trial opened in Jerusalem. Ivan Demjanjuk, a former Ukrainian SS volunteer, was accused of overseeing the gas chambers in Treblinka. His cruelty had earned him the name "Ivan the Terrible." Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel in 1986, was found guilty and condemned to death. The verdict was appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court. After 3 years of deliberation, they ruled that there wasn't enough sufficient proof that Demjanjuk and Ivan the Terrible were one and the same person. This was mainly due to the lack of first-person witnesses and the length of time that had elapsed made definite identification impossible. In September 1993 he was released and returned to the United States.  He was later stripped of his citizenship for falsifying his documents when he entered the United States.

1988: Refuseniks met with the British Foreign Minister today.

1989: Mordecai and Donna Haim gave birth to Danielle Haim of the three sisters whom made up “the all-female Jewish pop-rock group HAIM” which was nominated in 2015 “for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.” (As reported by Jordyn Rosenzwig)

1989: Publication of “Jews and Geniuses” by Robert Craft.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1989/02/16/jews-and-geniuses/

1989: Larry Bloch opened “Eco-Saloon,” in a former Chinese-food warehouse just south of the Holland Tunnel some of the profits which were used to fund a not-for-profit Center for Social and Environmental Justice.

1990: Elyakim Rubenstein, the Cabinet secretary, called Ariel Sharon here at his ranch today, just to be sure he was serious about his intention to resign.

1991: After 73 performances the curtain came down on the “Off-Broadway” production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Assassins.”

1991: At Shabbat synagogue services, congregants were mindful of the deaths of Iraqi civilians, but they were also reminded that Israel had been subjected to indiscriminate Iraqi missile attacks for more than a month and that fighting was the price of peace. Worshippers at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan expressed regret over the killing of Iraqi civilians and said they were disturbed by the television images of broken bodies. But most said their support for the war was undimmed. "War is a terrible thing," said Billy Sussis. But he added that the deaths of the civilians had not shaken his support for the allied effort. "If you're going to fight a war, terrible things like this are going to happen." Rabbi Helene Ferris, however, expressed hope that the incident would "wake up the world's conscience" and disrupt wide impressions of a bloodless conflict. "War is about killing," she declared. "It's about mothers bleeding, fathers bleeding. If we lose sight of that, we may stop trying to find a better way." At the Forest Hills Jewish Center in Queens, Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik, just back from a visit to Israel, gave his congregation graphic impressions of life in a war zone: an old woman standing beside the ruins of her home in Tel Aviv, an infant in a gas-mask crib, wailing sirens in the night, the sight of his own parents donning gas masks and the vibration of windows as the missiles exploded nearby. "It's not just that the air raids are terrifying, though certainly they are," Rabbi Skolnik said. "It's more that the entire rhythm of the country has been thrown out of kilter."

1992: An Israeli helicopter strike killed the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Abbas al-Musawi.  According to western officials, al-Musawi was responsible for numerous terrorist attacks including the 1983 terror attack in Beirut that killed 300 U.S. and French soldiers.  Musawi may be dead, but Hezbollah and its murderous ways live on.

1995(17thof Adar I, 5755): Eighty-six-year-old Omaha, Nebraska native Elmer Greenberg an all-star offensive lineman for the University of Nebraska passed away today.

http://dataomaha.com/huskers/player/4131/elmer-greenberg

1996: Youssef Majed al-Molqi who had been sentenced to 30 years for murdering 69-year-old wheelchair bound Leon Klinghoffer “left the Rebibbia prison in Rome today, on a 12-day furlough and fled to Spain.

1997: The first Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy opens in New York City leadingto the founding of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance

1997: The New York Times includes a review of The Boy Who Went Away, “Eli Gottlieb’s touching coming-of-age novel…”

1998: The funeral of Abraham Bloch, a graduate of Yeshiva Yitzchak Elchanan who served as the Rabbi of Congregation Petach Tikvah, is scheduled to take place in Brooklyn, NY today.

1998(20th of Shevat, 5758):  Martha Gellhorn, whose father was Jewish, passed away at the age of 89.  Gellhorn gained fame for her reporting during the Spanish Civil War and as one of the many wives of Ernest Hemingway.

1999 (30thof Shevat, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1999: Today, the police “questioned for 11 hours Avigdor Ben Gal, a former army general who testified in an unsuccessful libel trial Ariel Sharon had brought against Ha’aretz.

1999: The United States Third Court of Appeals ruled on the constitutionality of holiday displays in ACLU versus Schundler.

2000: In an address before the Knesset, German President Johannes Rau asked forgiveness for Germany’s murderous treatment of Europe’s Jews during World War II.

2000: U.S. premiere of “Hanging Up” written by Delia Ephron and Nora Ephron, who also co-produced the comedy which co-starred Lisa Kudrow and Walter Matthau “in his final film appearance.

2001: “Sweet November” produced by Elliot Kastner and Erwin Stoff and featuring Jason Isaacs and Michael Rosenbaum was released in the United States today.

2002(4thof Adar, 5762): Three teenagers from Ginot Shomron – Rachel Thaler, Keren Shatsky and Nehemia Amar – were murdered by terrorist from the PFLP in front of a pizza parlor at the Karnei Shomron Mall on a Saturday night.

2002: “The Vatican announced today that it would partly open its prewar archives next year, but would not make available documents on Pius XII's controversial World War II pontificate for at least three more years” leading to expressions of “considerable disappointment by “Jewish leaders and scholars..”

2003: Haifa native Uri Lupolianski began serving as Mayor of Jerusalem.

2003: “The Unsettlers” published today provides one version of life for Jews living near Nablus.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/the-unsettlers.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

2004: As part of its celebration of Black History, tonight Showtime broadcast “Crown Heights,” “a drama set during the 1991 racial unrest in Crown Heights, Brooklyn” that “follows the friendship of two teenagers, a former gang member named T. J. (DeQuan Henderson) and a Hasidic Jew named Yudi (Jeremy Blackman), who in the wake of the violence form a bicultural rap group, Project Cure.”

2005: By a vote of 59 to 40 with 5 abstentions, the Knesset “finalized and approved” Sharon’s plan for withdrawal from Gaza after having rejected “a proposed amendment to submit the plan to a referendum.”

2005: Allen Weinstein began serving as Archivist of the United States.

2006(18thof Shevat, 5766): Seventy-four-year old Brooklyn born and Cornell and Columbia trained historian Paul Avrich, the son “Yiddish theatre actress Rose (Zapol) Avrich” and “dress manufacturer Murray Avrich” and the husband of Ina Avrich with whom he had two daughters – Jane and Karen – passed away today

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/apr/10/guardianobituaries.obituaries

2006: Britain's most senior Jewish leader has condemned the Church of England for voting this month to review its investments in companies whose products are used by Israel in the occupied territories. Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said the Anglican vote on whether to pull money from "companies profiting from the illegal occupation" was ill-judged and would inflame relations between the two religions.

2006: A revival of Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” opened at the Cort Theatre

2007: Sheik Raed Salah, the head of the Islamic Movement’s northern branch gave a sermon in Jerusalem’s Wadi Joz neighborhood in which he “urged supporters to start a third intifada in order to save Al-Aksa Mosque, free Jerusalem and end the end occupation.”  Salah, who denies any Jewish historical claim to Jerusalem or the existence of a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount included these words, “We are not those who ate bread dipped in children’s blood.”  (The Blood Libel is alive and well.)

2007: The Sabbath Queen gets a royal welcome at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa as Rick Recht returns with “Shabbat Alive” Part II.

 2007(28th of Shevat, 5767): Mordkhe Schaechter, a leading Yiddish linguist who spent a lifetime studying, standardizing and teaching the language passed away at the age of 79. As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/16/obituaries/16schaechter.html

2008: The Jerusalem Cinematheque features a showing of the internationally acclaimed “The Band’s Visit” 

2008:Owing to high U.S. digital sales, "New Soul", a song by the French-Israeli R&B/soul singer Yael Naïm, debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 for the chart week starting today at No. 9, becoming Naïm's first U.S. top ten single, and making her the first Israeli solo artist to ever have a top ten hit in the United States.

2009: In New Orleans, “The Expanse of Russia in Israel,” an international conference sponsored by Tulane University’s Jewish Studies Program under the Chairmanship of Dr. Brian Horowitz, enters its second day.  “The conference is devoted to a long-awaited investigation of Zionism and the influence of secular Russian culture on Israeli life.”

2009:France's top judicial body formally recognized the nation's role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps during the Holocaust - but effectively ruled out any more reparations for the deportees or their families.

2009:  Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer made famous in Roman Polanski's 2002 film The Pianist for sheltering two Jews who escaped from the Nazis during the Holocaust has been posthumously recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial.

 2010: Yeshiva University Museum, Center for Jewish History, University of Pennsylvania in cooperation with Centro Primo Levi are scheduled to present “Between Sacred and Profane: Jews and the Modern City: Three Snapshots” part of “a series of talks by fellows at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (U of Penn) who are engaged in a critical analysis of the notions of the "secular" and "religious" as they affect all aspects of Jewish life over the past three centuries.

2010: Israel will erect a memorial commemorating the Red Army’s crucial role in the victory over the Nazis, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at a photo opportunity before their meeting today.

2010: Four hundred cadets graduated from the IDF Infantry Officers Training Course today and will be awarded the rank of second lieutenant. 7% of them are young women, 25% are religious, 5% are from kibbutzim, 61% are from cities. For the first time, three of the infantry officer graduates are women who completed the grueling combat course. The highest number of awards for excellence went to the Golani Brigade.

2011: “Jewish Life in Mr. Lincoln’s City,” a lecture by Laura Cohen Apelbaum the Executive Director of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, is scheduled to take place at Adas Israel in Washington, D.C.

2011: “Precious Life,” an “acclaimed documentary that explores the paradoxes of a Palestinian infant being treated for a rare immune disorder at an Israeli hospital” during a period when the IDF was fighting to halt rocket attacks from Gaza, is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: The Jewish community of Tunisia filed an official complaint with Tunisian Interior Minister Fahrat Rajhi after several of its members were harassed by protesters outside a synagogue in the capital, Tunis.

2011: Human rights lawyers are attempting to challenge a government decision designating the planned city of Harish as a haredi-only town.

2011: The Iron Dome missile intercept system will be declared operational within a number of weeks, after the Israel Air Force – who will be responsible for operating the system – conducted successful test-runs for the first time yesterday and today.

2011(11th of Adar I, 5771): Len Lesser, a veteran character actor best known for his recurring role in the 1990s as Uncle Leo on the hit NBC-TV comedy "Seinfeld," passed away today at the age of 88 8n Burbank, CA ( As reported by Bruce Weber)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/arts/television/18lesser.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Len+Lesser&st=nyt

2011: Today in celebration of Black History month Knicks legend and Assistant General Manager Allan Houston received the 2011 Martin Luther King Jr. Award in front of players and fans at Madison Square Garden. Mr. Houston received the award from Ido Aharoni, Acting Consul General of Israel in New York, in honor of his efforts in spreading compassion and uniting communities of all backgrounds. The Martin Luther King Jr. Award has been presented by the Consulate General of Israel in New York for the past 20 years to individuals and organizations promoting ethnic and cultural understanding. This annual tribute to the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. honors the dream of peaceful coexistence between people of diverse religions, cultures, and ethnicities. To commemorate this great visionary, each year the State of Israel, together with the Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, honor those whose work keeps alive Dr. King’s legacy of hope and peace.

2012: “Ahead of Time: The Extraordinary Journey of Ruth Gruber” is scheduled to be shown at the Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale in New York.

2012: Yasmin Levy is scheduled to weave her Ladino musical magic at Pace University’s Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts

2012: Mossad chief Tamir Pardo visited New Delhi just days before an attack on Israeli officials in the Indian capital this week, Indian media reported today, highlighting the extent to which Israeli intelligence was in the dark regarding possibility of a terror attack taking place in the country.

2012: Today, the Foreign Ministry issued a travel warning for Israelis in Thailand. The warning said that in the wake of the attacks on Israelis in India and Georgia earlier this week, Israelis should “act with caution” when traveling in Thailand. Similar warnings were released Thursday for travelers to Italy, Norway, and Taiwan. 

2012(23rdof Shevat, 5772): At the age of 101, Ethel Stark who in 1940 established the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra, the first all-female Canadian symphony orchestra which first performed “on the top of Mont Royal” and was “the first Canadian orchestra to play at Carnegie Hall” passed away today.

http://www.jewishpubliclibrary.org/blog/?p=1630

2012: Yair Lapid warned today that Israel might "bring on its own demise" and demanded a change in the system of government.

2013: Cirque du Purim, the YLD”s annual Purim Party is scheduled to take place in Irvine, CA this evening.

2013: “Off White Lies” is scheduled to be shown at the Denver Jewish Film Festival

2013: The IDF evacuated seven Syrian nationals injured in Syria's civil war to the Ziv Medical Center in Safed today.

2013: The incarceration of “Prisoner X”, the high-security prisoner who committed suicide in Ayalon Prison in 2010, was made necessary by Israel’s “unique” security situation, Vice Premier and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said today

2013: The Justice Ministry is mulling the release of the file concerning the death of Ben Zygier, who committed suicide in prison two years ago, Israeli media reported tonight.

2014: B’nai B’rith Unit # 182 is scheduled to continue a 35-year-long tradition this morning, bringing music and Mardi Gras throws to patients at Touro Infirmary and the residents of Malta Park assisted living facility.

2014: Merna Lyn, author of The Ten Second Diet is scheduled to speak at Congregation Beth Israel in Metairie. LA (As reported by Alan Samson in the Crescent City Jewish News)

2014: In White Plains, NY, “Focus on the Family” sponsored by Frum Divorce is scheduled to come to an end.

2014: The 24thannual Jewish Film Festival in San Diego is scheduled to come to a close.

2014: “Ruth Gruber: Photojournalist,” an exhibition that “celebrates the remarkable life of this photojournalist” is scheduled to open at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.

2014: “Israeli rights groups asked the High Court of Justice today to overturn a law that bans Israelis from calling for a boycott of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.”

2014: A memorial service is scheduled to be held today for “Mary Gordon, devoted wife of author Max Shulman for 24 years who passed away at the age of 95 on January 22, 2014.

2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Mad As Hell: The Making of “Network” and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies by Dave Itzkoff, Arik: The Life of Ariel Sharon by David Landau, Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence by Shai Held and Our Mathematical Universe by Max Tegmark, the son of Professor Harold S. Shapiro.

2014: “After blast ripped through tourist bus – killing four – Israeli rescue forces lined up along border crossing in bid to aid rescue operations, transfer wounded to Israeli hospitals – but Egypt refused.” (As reported by Roi Kais)

2015: Ukrainian born Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman is scheduled to perform with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players.

2015(27thof Shevat, 5775): Sixty-eight-year-old singer Lesley Gore (Lesley Sue Goldstein) passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/arts/music/lesley-gore-teenage-voice-of-heartbreak-dies-at-68.html?_r=0

2015(27thof Shevat, 5775): Fifty-four-year-old Pensioner Affairs Minster Uri Orbach passed away today.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-jewish-home-minister-uri-orbach-dies-at-54/

2015: “French prosecutors said” today “they had taken five teenagers into custody suspected of vandalizing hundreds of Jewish graves” “at the Jewish cemetery of Sarre-Union in northeastern France.”

2015: At the Jewish Museum Of London is scheduled to host a talk by curator Elizabeth Selby on the exhibition “For Richer For Poorer: Weddings Unveiled.”

2015: “Tens of thousands of Danes gathered for a torch-lit vigil in central Copenhagen” this evening “to commemorate the victims of two weekend shootings that have shocked the nation and heightened fears of a new surge in anti-Semitic violence.”

2015: Bar-Illan Professor Tova Cohen is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “How Has the Changing Role of Women In Israel Affected Jewish Orthodox Society?” was FIU.

2016” The American Jewish Historical Society and the American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to host a screening of “Flory’s Flame” – a “one-hour documentary about the life and music of renowned 90-year-old Sephardic composer and performer Flory Jagoda.


2016: The Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center, America-Israel Cultural Foundation and Golden Land Concerts & Connections are scheduled to present a concert by Israeli singer/song writer Noa (Achinoam Nini) and her “longtime collaborator/virtuoso guitarist Gil Dor.

2017: The Oxford JSOC hosted its “Pub Crawl” which began at the Turf Tavern.

2017: “Beer Sheva” hosted “Besiktas of Turkey in a first-leg match in the Eruopa League’s Round of 32.”

2017: Following yesterday’s declaration by the President “that he was ‘looking at two-state and one-state’ formulas for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” today “Israelis and Palestinians were feverishly debating what might come next” especially since they were “still confused about American policy after Mr. Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, reasserted that the administration “absolutely” supported two states.” (As reported by Isabel Kershner)

2017: “Winter weather swept across” Israel today “ as a storm system” that has been “lashing” Israel for the last two days, “reached its peak, dumping snow on northern Israel and freezing rain in Jerusalem.”

2017: David Friedman, President Trump’s nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Israel is scheduled to apologize for “derogatory remarks he made about liberal Jews” including calling them “worse than Kapos” during his confirmation hearings today. (Editor’s note – apparently his mornings prayers do not begin with injunction “I hereby accept upon myself the positive commandment to love my fellow Jew.)

2017: Professor Steve Feller is scheduled to lead the Coe College Thursday Forum in “The Conflicted Jewish World of Chaim Potok” – an examination of the conflicts within Judaism mirrored in the author’s novels.

2017:  The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host Rina Wolfson speaking on “From the Family to the House of Learning” in which she examines “how Biblical and Rabbinic texts deal with a student's shift from the family home to the house of learning.”

2017: “The Wounded Land” and “The Mezuzah” are scheduled to be shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2017: Former NBA player Amar'e Stoudemire whom Israel’s Interior Ministry is working with to help him gain citizenship today played for Hapoel Jerusalem in a game against Maccabi Tel Aviv in Jerusalem.

2017: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to present “Astrologers, Spies, Merchants and Travelers” which examines the “crucial roles” the Jews played “in Italian courtly life.”

2018: Following Shabbat Dinner, the Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to elections for President and Vice President to serve during Trinity Term.

2018: “Mathew Shear starred opposite Zosia Mamet in the 2017 Tirbeca Film Festival feature, ‘The Boy Downsatirs” which was released in the United States by FilmRise.

2018(1st of Adar, 5778): Rosh Chodesh Adar – Second Day

2018: With more than 1,000 mourners including Gov. Rick Scott packed into Temple K’ol Tikvah, Andrew Pollack looked down at the plain pine coffin of his 18-year-old daughter, Meadow, one of the first victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre to be buried and then told the crowd, “I am very angry and upset about what transpired.” (As reported by Terry Spencer)

2018: The funeral for Alyssa Alhadeff, one of those gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School was held today.

2019: Kulanu is scheduled to host its “25thanniversary celebration in Washington, DC” this evening at  “Ohen Shalom, the National Synagogue.”

2019: On the first day of the Jewish Film Institute’s WinterFest 2019 “Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People,” “A Fortunate Man,” “Working Woman” and “Untogether” are scheduled to be shown at the Alamo Draft House.

2019: Paris born author Alain Finkielkraut, the son of an Auschwitz survivor “was verbally assaulted on the street by a group of yellow vest protesters in Paris when they chanced on him in Boulevard du Montparnasse” following which “a 36-year-old French convert to Islam was indicted after saying that Finkelkraut was "going to die".

2019: In Marion, IA, the Artisan’s Sanctuary is scheduled to host a reception and book signing for Barbara Feller, the author of Road to Waubeek: Discovering Jay G. Sigmnund

2019: The Red Sea Jazz Festival is scheduled to come to an end today at Eilat.

2019: In Tiburon, CA, Congregation Kol Shofar is scheduled to host “Jewish Ecstatic Dancing.”

2019(11th of Adar I, 5779): Parashat Tetzaveh

2020: “Shakespeare Trial: The Shylock Appeal,” “a mock trial based on “The Merchant of Venice” argued by UC law deans Erwin Chemerinsky (Berkeley) and Song Richardson (Irvine)” is scheduled to take place at mid-day in Berkley, CA.

2020: Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik is scheduled to lecture on “Abraham Lincoln, The Bible & Leadership” during which he “will speak on the ideals, concepts, and qualities of leadership as can be learned from Biblical personalities in difficult and trying times as well as America’s president Abraham Lincoln who led the United States through the American Civil War, its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional and political crises. Through his unique leadership abilities, and despite fierce opposition, Lincoln preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the government and modernized the economy.”

2020: In Scottsdale, AZ, Congregation Beth Tefillah in partnership with the Aleph Society, is scheduled to host the first day of the Soul Conference whose speakers includes Rabbis Simon Jacobson, Arthur Kurzwell and Pinchas  Allouche.

2020: The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County, NJ, is scheduled to host a talk on India native Gila Rosenblatt on the “Jews of Cochin.”

2020: In Atlanta, the Breman Museum’s seventh annual Molly Blank Concert Series is scheduled to begin this evening with “Let’s Fall In Love,” “featuring the Joe Alterman Trio with Special Guest Lena Seikaly.”

2020: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Kaddish.Com, a novel by Nathan Englander.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/books/review/nathan-englander-kaddish-com.html

2021: The Tikvah Online Academy is scheduled to host the first session “The Artist in Modern Jewish Literature.”

2021: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present “Jewish Life in Late Antiquity: From Colonia Agrippina to Augusta Raurice” with Dr. Thomas Otten and Dr. Werner Eck, who had been the Professor of Ancient History at the University of Cologne for almost thirty years.

2021: The Schusterman Center for Israel Studies is scheduled to present online “Rethinking Blackness in Israel.”

2021: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host a conversation with Bill Gates, author of How to Avoid a Climate Disasterand The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah.

2021: The Jewish Community Center of the North Shore is scheduled to host online “An Evening with Bari Weiss” the award-winning journalist and author of How to Fight Ant-Semitism.

2021: Mardi Gras won’t be the same this year since the parades have been canceled due to the Pandemic, we could spend some time looking at the Jewish connection to this “Catholic” celebration including Lewis J. Salomon serving, in 1872, as the first King of the Krewe of Rex,

 

This Day, February 17, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 17

1411: Musa Celebi became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire which turned out well for a portion of the Jewish population because during his reign the small Jewish community of Manisa grew in size and wealth after it had been conquered by the Ottomans.

1525(24th of Adar): Rabbi Isaac Eizik Margoliot author of Seder Gitten ve-Halizahpassed away.

1537: “Pope Paul III” issued “a call for a general council to deal with the Reformation.” This is the same pontiff who issued “Licet Judaei” a bull that spoke against the blood libel.

1609: Fifty-nine-year-old Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany who “enacted an edict of tolerance for Jews and who issued an invitation to Jewish merchants asking them to settle in Livorno and Pisa passed away today.

1634: After a year’s imprisonment in the Tower of London, the Puritan leader who was an outspoken opponent of re-admitting Jews to England, “was sentenced today to be imprisoned during life, to be fined £5,000, to be expelled from Lincoln's Inn, to be deprived of his degree by the university of Oxford, and to lose both his ears in the pillory” for his attacks on dramatic performances and King Charles I.

1697: Today, Gideon Sampson’s father, Rowland Gideon, “a West India merchant” and “a freeman of the city of London” was admitted to “the court of Painter Stainers’ Company,” “an organization of painters of metals and wood is known to have existed as early as 1283.”

1732: Birthdate of English dramatist Richard Cumberland who “The Jew” a comedy about a Jewish moneylender that was first produced at London’s Drury Lane Theatre in May of 1794.  Unlike earlier English portrayals of Jewish moneylenders, in this case, Sheva the moneylender is the benevolent hero.

1736: In Buchau, Katherine and Samuel Wallersteiner gave birth to Hirsch Naphtali Wallersteiner, the husband of Judith Essinger with whom he had four children.

1745: Sara Pereyre and Aaron Nones, the Bordeaux born son of Judica and Raphael Nones gave birth to Aaron Nones, the brother of Benjamin Nones.

1764(14thof Adar I, 5524): Purim Katan

1772:  First partition of Poland by Russia, Prussia and Austria.  The multi-parted partition of Poland would mean the demise of the Polish nation until after World War I.  Much to the disappointment of the Russians, they acquired a large Jewish population as a result of the partition; a Jewish population that the Russians did not want.

1774: In Darmstadt, Germany Biene and Mordachai Salomon Reiss gave birth to Nathan Reiss, the husband of Guthel Gottlieb with whom he had eleven children.

1776(27thof Shevat, 5536): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1776(27thof Shevat, 5536): The first volume of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was published today.

From the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives, and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation which was exercised by the arms of the legions against a race of fanatics whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but of human kind.

 - Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776)

 1785: Birthdate of Nachman Kohen Krochmal, the native of Brody who interrupted his studies to become a businessman who wrote Moreh Nebuke ha-Zeman

1791: Birthdate of Lutgeneder, Germany native Johanna Schonholz, the wife of Lehmann Leffman Kohlberg with whom she had seven children.

1798(1stof Adar, 5558): Parashat Terumah, Rosh Chodesh Adar; Shabbat Shekalim

1801: An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives. Thomas Jefferson was the first President to appoint a Jew to a Federal post. In 1801 he named Reuben Etting of Baltimore as U.S. Marshall for Maryland.  More importantly from a Jewish perspective was the fact that Jefferson was a strong defender of the concept of separation of church and state.

1809: Miami University is chartered by the State of Ohio. According to recent figures a thousand of the school’s 15,000 undergrads are Jewish and 100 of its 1,000 grad students are Jewish.  The school offers approximately 20 Jewish Studies courses and a Major in Jewish Studies. The school hosts a robust Hillel Chapter offering a wide variety of programs including a weekly Friday night Shabbat services and dinner.

1817(1stof Adar, 5577): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1817(1stof Adar, 5777): Twenty-five-year-old Myer Jacobs, the Philadelphia born of Moses Jacobs married Rebecca Lazarus today.

1819: Birthdate of historian Philip Jaffe who overcame German anti-Semitism to “one of the most important medievalists of the 19th century.”

1826: One day after he had passed away, 86 year old Michael Davis was buried today at the “Canterbury Jewish Cemetery.”

1828: Moshe Simeon ben Joseph married Bluma bat Jacob today at the Western Synagogue

1829: Middlesex natives Hannah Levy and Michael Emanuel gave birth to Alfred Emanuel.

1829: In Paris James Mayer de Rothschild and Betty Salomon von Rothschild gave birth to their second son Gustave Samuel de Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild, the “consul-general for Austria-Hungary, director of the Chemin de Fer du Nord and the Paris-Lyons and Mediterranean Railway; member of the board of directors of the Rothschild Hospital and Hospice and president of the Jewish Consistory of Paris

1830: Israel Phillips married Maria Sampson today at the Western Synagogue.

1830: David D. Cohen married Mary Hart, “the eldest daughter of Nathan Hart” in Charleston, SC, today.

1830: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 gave birth to Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto, II.

1840: Frederick David Goldsmid, the fifth born child of Baron Isaac-Lyon Goldsmid and the former Caroline Samuel, the daughter of Philip Samuel gave birth to their second child Walter Henry.

1844(27thof Shevat, 5604): Parsahat Misphatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1844: In Alexandria, Egypt, Isacco Saul Sonnino and Georgiana Sophia Arnaud Sonnino gave birth to Giorgio Sonnino, the husband of Elena Sonnino and the father of Margherita Sonnino and Giorgina Sonnino

1846: Birthdate of Bestland, VA native Solomon W. Fleishman, the operator of mercantile businesses in Danville and Richmond who passed away in December of 1916 leaving large bequests to several organizations including Hebrew Union College, the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Society, the Home for Confederate Women and the Hebrew Home for Aged and Infirm.

1846: In Finsbury, London natives Rachel Levy and Samuel Samson Genese gave birth to Abraham Samuel Genese.

1847: In Frankfurt, Charlotte Rothschild and Anselm von Rothschild the manager of “the family-owned S M von Rothschild bank” in Vienna gave birth to their “eighth and youngest child” Alice Charlotte von Rothschild

1847: Israel Coleman married Julia Cohen at the Great Synagogue today.

1850: Yehuda ben Aharon married Ryna bat Mikal at the Great Synagogue today.

1852(27th of Shevat, 5612): Five days before his 40th birthday, Hebrew Poet Micha Joseph Levenson passed away.

1852: Two days after he had passed away, Joseph Safir, the father of Elisabeth, Roaslia, Marie and Markus Saphir was buried today in the Central Bohemian Region of what became the Czech Repubic.

1853: Three days after she had passed away, Adelaide Elkin, the daughter of Samuel and Jane Stiebel and the wife of Isaac Benjamin Elkin was buried today at the “Balls Pond Jewish Cemetery.”

1853: A Hungarian tailor makes an unsuccessful attempt on the life of Emperor Franz Josef.  Jews are erroneously thought to have colluded with Italian dissidents in the attempt.

1856(11thof Adar I, 5616): “English tenor and composer John Braham” who received his earliest musical training in the Great Synagogue where his father Abraham was a chorister” and who “in 181t collaborated with Isaac Nathan on a work called ‘Hebrew Melodies” for which Lord Byron wrote the text” passed away today.

1856: Heinrich Heine passed away. The famed poet was born to a Jewish family but converted to Christianity in 1825 seeing it as the only way to fully enter German and European society. Reportedly Heine saw his conversion as matter of practical convenience saying that “As Henry IV said, 'Paris is worth a mass'; I say, 'Berlin is worth the sermon.'"  Heine remained ambivalent about his decision for the rest of his life.  When the Nazis decided to burn books by Jewish authors, they included the works of Heine. Heine has prophetically written, “Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people."

1857: Abel Dreyfous, an immigrant from Belfort Alsace and Caroline Kaufman Dreyfous, a native of Bavaria gave birth to Felix Jonathan Dreyfous in New Orleans “at the corner of Florida Walk (then Marigny Canal) and Elysian Fields Street where” they “for a time attempted to operate a soap factory under unfavorable circumstatnces

1858: In Baltimore, MD, Israel Cohen, the son of Benjamin I. and Kitty Cohen and his wife Cecilia Eliza Cohen gave birth to Eleanor Septima Cohen whose interest  in both Jewish and non-sectarian charities can be seen her endowment  scholarships in the Medical Department of the University of Maryland and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as well as her membership in the “Associated Jewish charities to which she was a liberal contributor, the Municipal Art Society of Baltimore, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Maryland Historical Society, the Zionist Organization of America and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.” (As reported by the Maryland Historical Society)

1863: Birthdate of British political leader David Lloyd George. Lloyd George was the Prime Minster of Great Britain during the last half of World War I.  His resolve helped to bring victory to the Allies. For Jews, Lloyd George will be remembered as the Prime Minister whose government issued the famous Balfour Declaration.  Unlike some of his wartime contemporaries, Lloyd George remained a loyal supporter to both the letter and the spirit of the Balfour Declaration after the Great War when it was no longer fashionable to keep the promises made to the Jewish people.

1865: In “Melsungen, Hessen, Germany,” Leiser and Tels Delza Speyer gave birth “Isak Isaac Itzig Speier,” the “husband of Flora Speier” and the father of Leo Speyer.

1866: A correspondent for the New York Times arrived in Kai-fun-fee, the capital of Honan where he has gone in search of the remnants of an ancient community of Chinese Jews.

1866: In New York City Jacob Strauss and Betty Danenbaum gave birth to Carrie Strauss, who as Carrie Taubenhaus, the wife of Rabbi Godfrey Taubenhaus, who served as a trustee of the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Hebrew Educational Society and was the “first president of Brooklyn Section of the Council of Jewish Women.”

1870: In Milwaukee, WI, Temple Emanu-E which had been formed in 1869 was formally incorporated, making I the city’s second oldest congregation.  E.M.V. Brown was the first Rabbi to serve the congregation.

1871(26thof Shevat, 5631): Sixty-four-year-old Eleazer (Eugene) Moss, the son of John Moss and Rebecca Lyons and husband of Mary Levy passed away today in Philadelpha.

1871: The victorious Prussian Army parades though Paris after the end of the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. Jews fought in the armies of the victorious Prussians and the vanquished French.  More importantly, the humiliating defeat in 1871 led to World War I which in turn led to World War II and the Shoah. 

1872: In Salisbury, MD, Simon Ulman, the Myersdale, PA born son of Joseph and Sarah Ullman and his wife Caroline Ulman gave birth to Joseph Ulman

1872: It was reported today that of the $528,742.47 that New York City gave to sectarian charitable institutions in 1869 and 1870, Hebrew institutions received $14,404.49 as compared to the $412,082.56 that went to Roman Catholic Intuitions.

1873: In Baltimore, MD, Moses and Rose (Levi) Moses gave birth John Hopkins grad and University of Maryland trained attorney Jacob M. Moses, the husband of Hortense E. Guggenheimer who was General counsel of the Sun Life Insurance Company and active in the Jewish community as can by his serving as vice president of the American Jewish Congress and honorary president of the Baltimore District of the ZOA.

1874(30thof Shevat, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1874(30thof Shevat, 5634): Eighty-six-year-old Georgetown, SC native Divinah Cohen, the wife of Philadelphia native Isaac Minis and the mother of France Minis passed away today.

1874:  Benjamin Disraeli finished serving as leader of the Loyal Opposition as he prepared to assume the role of Prime Minister following the conclusion of the General Election in which the Conservative Party won a majority of seats in the House of Commons.

1875: Twenty-one-year-old Sophie Seligman became Sophie Walter when she married Moritz Walter today.

1875: The Israelite General Benevolent Society gave its 9th annual ball at the Turn Hall tonight.  The affair was a fundraiser to raise money for destitute and poor Jewish families.

1876: Birthdate of New York City native and CCNY graduate Rabbi Moses Beckhardt, a forty-year veteran teacher in NY Public School System, a “chaplain at the Jewish Protectotry at Hawthorne, NY” and assistant superintendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum who was “connected with Beth Israel Congregation of Kingsburg for fifteen years.

1877(4thof Adar, 5637): Fifty-six-year-old German-born Austrian writer Salomon Hermann Mosenthal known for his “opera libretti” passed away today.

1877: In Hungary, Max and Regina Goldstein Englander to Henry Englander who came to the United States in 1879, graduated from the University of Cincinnati and HUC in 1901 who served as rabbi at several congregations staring with Ahavath Sholom Temple in Ligonier, Indiana before pursuing a career in Judaic academia.

1878: In Remiremont, Vosage, Albert Weth, “a draper” and his wife Sophia gave birth to “writer and critic” Leon Werth, the overage opponent of war who served as a volunteer on the Western Front in the French Army and with his wife Suzanne risked his life as member of the Resistance by turning their apartment into a safe house for everything from fellow Jews on the run to downed Allied pilots while raising his son Claude who would become a doctor.

1878: “Daniel – The Third Ruler in the Kingdom” published today discusses why Daniel who interpreted the inscription for the Babylonian king was referred to as the “third ruler” when Joseph who interpreted the dream for the Pharaoh was referred to as the “second ruler.”

1878: It was reported today that after four years, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of New York City has 900 members.

1878: It was reported today that the Gemeindebund ("Union of Judæo-German Congregations") has been reorganized to better protect the Jewish communities in Germany

1878: It was reported today that more than one third of the Jews living in Amsterdam are paupers.  These 13,000 individuals are supported by the Jewish community and the government.  The Congregational Council spent 130,214 florins in 1877 to support a variety of community officials and institutions including a Chief Rabbi, Chief Cantor, free religious schools for 1,800 boys and 600 girls, a rabbinical college, an orphan asylum and a hospital and lunatic asylum “considered the best in the country.”

1879:  In the United States Circuit Court, Judge Wallace and the jury began hearing the case brought by M.L. Hiller, who identified himself as “a Prussian and a Jew” who had become a Universalist, against the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Company of Nebraska for breach of contract.

1879: Birthdate of Rostov, Russia native Samuel J. Kasindorf who in 1888 arrived in NYC where he became a businessman and served as one of the directors of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association Borough Park starting in 1920.

1880: “Historic Balds,” a comic look at the lack of hair among men through the ages printed today, not that based on the story of Elisha “baldness seems to have been considered a disgrace in remote ages…”  On the other hand, the stories of Samson and Absalom would indicate that flowing locks are not a guarantee of good fortune or divine approval.

1880: After having been charged with arson, Jacob Naftal, a Jewish clothing merchant, went on trial today for his role in starting a fire at Red Bank, NY which destroyed 9 buildings.  The 9 buildings, which included a store owned by the defendant, were in the town’s business district. The trial is expected to last for several days.

1880: “In Kharkoff, Russia, Mordecai and Rebecca (Rubenstein) Edelhertz gave birth to Bernard Edelhertz who in 1893 was brought to the United States where he graduated from NYU Law School, severed as “assistant to the attorney general of the United States” for five years, “purchased controlling interest of the American Hebrew Magazine and served as an executive with both Cyclopedia Juaica and the Independent American Jewish Public Company while raising two daughters with his wife, the former Clara Greenberg.

1881:  Rabbi E.M. Meyer Rafael of Brooklyn provided his version of the conflict between Raphael Joseffy and Matthew Arbuckle who were supposed to be participating in an upcoming concert to provide funds for his Brooklyn synagogue. According to Meyer, Arbuckle, one of the leading coronet players had agreed to charge a reduced price for his performance and the Joseffy, one of the leading pianists, had agreed to play for free.  However, when Joseffy’s secretary found out the Arbuckle was performing, the secretary said Joseffy would not perform if a coronet was being played.  Joseffy expressed no opinion about Arbuckle.  The objection would have been the same if it had been another coronet player. The dispute could derail this benefit event.

1881: Seventy-four-year-old German historian Theodor Hirsch who converted to Christianity was the cousin of historian Siegfried Hirsh, passed away today.

1882:  The description of the conditions of the Jews in Kiev and its surrounding area provided by Russian speaking Protestant Englishman who had visited the area were published today. According to him the homes of the Jews had been “completely wrecked…with the…doors and windows…torn from their hinges.  At least 2,000 Jews – men, women and children – were left with nothing but the clothes on their backs. During one 48-hour period of carnage, “numerous defenseless young women were completely at the mercy of the mob…” The authorities did nothing to prevent the violence and expressed sympathy for the attackers. When some of the attackers were put on trial, “the government prosecutor expressed sympathy with the motives” of the attackers. The light sentences showed that the populace supported the attacks and the violence. In some of the small towns outside of Kiev, the soldiers who were ordered to protect the Jews actually joined the rioters.

1882: Hamilton Disston wrote a letter from Jacksonville, FL to Mayor King of Philadelphia offering a free 40-acre tract of land owned by Okeechobee Land and Improvement Company of Florida to each of the 50 Jewish families fleeing Russian persecution that are on a boat bound for the City of Brotherly Love.

1882: It was reported today that at Kiev, Odessa, Elizabethgrad and other Russian cities “more than 250 women were outraged by Jewbaiters during the disturbances [“Outraged” is a euphemism for rape and “disturbances is a euphemism for Pogrom.]

1882: It was reported today that petroleum was poured on a Jew’s head in Odessa and that he was then set on fire.

1882: It was reported that at Kiev, General Dreutlen refused to protect the Jews because it was not worth risking the lives of his soldiers to do so.

1882: It was reported today that F.D. Moccatta has contributed £ 1,000 to the relief fund for the Jews of Russia.  He has also to contribute 1 per cent of any sum collected within the next two years in an amount not to exceed £ 1,000,000. [F.D. Moccatta is Frederick David Mocatta]

1883: Birthdate of Anna Schmetterling, a native of Austria-Hungary, who became Anna Aberbach when she married Adolf Aberbach both of whom were passengers on the ill-fates S.S St. Louis.

1885: In Hungary, Isaac and Hannah (Rocker) Brav gave birth to Columbia, JTS and Hebrew Union College educated Rabbi Louis Brav, the husband of Viola Brav who was the Rabbi at Temple Sinai in Lake Charles, LA and a Professor of Romance Languages at Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin.

1887: In Hungary, Max and Regina (Goldstein) Englander gave birth to University of Cincinnati graduate and Hebrew Union College Rabbi Henry Englander, the husband of Esther Straus, who joined the faculty of his rabbinic alma mater in 1910 as a Professor of Medieval Exegetical Literature and Registrar.

1888:  Birthdate of Otto Stern, 1943 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.

1889: Birthdate of Canadian native mezzo-soprano Irene Pavloska

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/02/14/107174368.pdf

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/irene-pavloska-emc/

1889: In “Kertch (Crimea) Russia,” “Boris M. and Maria (Zengin) Piastro: gave birth to gold medal winning violinist Josef Borissoff, the husband of Anna T. Berezowskaya.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/11/03/87427489.html?pageNumber=21

1890: It was reported that the funds raised by the concert and reception hosted by the Seligman Solomon Society would go to the Seligman Solomon Prize Fund for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.  The society which is was founded three years ago is made up of those who had lived at the asylum and the late Seligman Solomon was one of its leading patrons. 

1890: United States Commissioner John A. Shields continued to hear testimony regarding the Sixth National Bank case, which if true, would mean that Siegmund T. Meyer and his sons Philip and Arthur, “raided” the financial institution.

1890(27thof Shevat, 5650): Herman Frohman a wealthy New York butcher, the husband of Mary Frohman and the father of Henrietta Frohman, Lena Frohman Vollman, Fannie Frohman Adler, Bertha Frohman and Rebecca Frohman passed away today.

1890: The Hebrew Home for the Aged and Infirm of Richmond, VA led by President Henry S. Hutzler, Vice President Philip Whitlock and Secretary and Treasurer Isaac Held was incorporated today.

1891: In Winnsboro, SC, Rabbi David Levy of Charleston officiated at the wedding Sam Nathan from Denver, CO and Etta L. Wolfe,” the daughter of Saling and Sarah Wolfe”

1891: Birthdate of Abraham Fraenkel, the Munich native and “fervent Zionist” who became the first Dean of Mathematics at Hebrew University.

1891(9th of Adar I, 5651): In Leadville, CO, Abe Oliner passed away just two months short of his sixth birthday.  Abe came to Leadville in 1885 with his father Isaac, age 30, mother Gilla, age 25, brother Jacob, age 4 and sister Fannie, age 2.

1891: Birthdate of German born Israeli mathematician Abraham Halevi Fraenkel.

1894(18th of Adar I, 5654): Sixty-three-year-old Albert S. Rosenbaum, a retired tobacco merchant and hotel proprietor passed away today in New York.  A native of Cassel, Germany he came to the United States when he was 18 and settled in California where he made his fortune investing in San Francisco real estate.  He moved to New York to better manage his tobacco interest.

1894: Birthdate of Minsk native Sidney Davidson the founder of “Davidson Brothers” a New York “underwear company, a founder, in 1939 “of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York” and the husband of “the former Sarah Machilis” with whom he had two children – Jean and Morton. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/08/10/101560339.pdf

1895: “Heine’s Pension” published today described Heinrich Heine’s life in France beginning with “his exile in Paris in 1831.” (Heine was the German literary figure who converted, a decision that he later came to regret but never rectified.)

1895: In St. Louis, Russian, Austrian, Polish, Hungarian and Scandinavian Jews who had become naturalized citizens of the United States form the Progressive Order of the West, a fraternal and benevolent organization. The Progressive Order's objectives were to familiarize members with the laws, customs, and institutions of this country; to create a fund to be used for charitable purposes, and to provide for the payment of death benefits to the families of members. In 1898, 7 lodges were in existence in St. Louis and steps were being taken to extend the order to other cities.

1895: It is reported today that the Government in Germany has taken the side of the striking tailors and seamstresses. (Considering the reactionary nature of the German ruling class this would seem rather strange except that the owners are described as being “mostly Jews.”)

1895: “Are Sisters of Mercy” published today described the Temple Emanu-El Sisterhood as one of “the pioneer of all Jewish sisterhoods: and “one of the most excellent institutions among…Hebrew charities.”

1896: It was reported today that Baron von Leonrod, the Bavarian Minister of Justice has said that it would be impossible to refund the 80,000 marks that Louis Stern of New York had left as bail even though he had received a pardon from the Prince Regent.

1896: In Paris, “playwright Pierre Verber and novelist Catherine Agadjanian” gave birth to journalist and screenwriter Pierre-Gilles Veber, the father of Francis Veber.

1896(3rdof Adar I, 5656): Sixty-four French author Aristide Félix Cohen passed away today.

1896: Under the will of the late Adolphe de Rothschild, with today’s date, he “bequeathed to the Institution for Sick Foreign Jews in Frankfort, founded in memory of his daughter, Georgine Sara, 2,000,000 marks and to the orthodox Jewish Congregation in Frankfort 200,000 marks, in trust, to distribute to the income among poor Jews of good character, on the anniversaries of his death and that of his wife.

1897: It was reported today that Professor Felix Adler is one of the speakers scheduled to address the upcoming conference on improving housing conditions in New York City.

1897: “Large Gift to Orphans” published today described the offer of Emanuel Lehman to provide “$100,00 for the endowment of an industrial and provident fund for the benefit of graduates” who have been under the care of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society.

1897: As Emanuel Lehman celebrated his 70th birthday it was reported today that “every charitable association” in New York City “in which Lehman is interested received a handsome check from him…with an explanatory note that it was a birthday present.

1897: Two day after she had passed away, 86-year-old Maria Jacobs, the daughter of David Nathan and Sarah Isaacs and the wife of Aaron Jacobs was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1897: “Work of the United Hebrew Charities” published today showed that during January 114 people had received money to be used for transportation to other parts of the United States or Europe. During January, the UHC provided 53 free burials and provided medical assistance to 394 people including medicine and visits to the doctor.  Finally the UHC provided clothing, shoes, furniture, lodgings, meals and cash to 5,422 applicants.

1898: Judge Meyer S. Isaacs will deliver a lecture entitled “The Old Guard” tonight at Temple Israel sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.

1900(18thof Adar I, 5660) Parashat Ki Tisa

1902: The U.S. Senate voted to ratify the purchase by the United States from Denmark of the Danish West Indies, now the U.S. Virgin Islands where Jews had first settled in 1655 and which is the home to Congregation Beracha Veshalom Vegmiluth Hasadim as well as the milieu for Alice Hoffman’s novel The Marriage of Opposites.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/virgin-islands-virtual-jewish-history-tour

1903: Herzl meets Dr. Abdullah Djevdet Bey whose poetry he reviewed in the Neue Freie Presse. Djevdet offers his help in gaining support for the Zionists in Turkey. Leopold Greenberg reports from Egypt that it will be impossible to obtain a Charter that will support Jewish colonization.

1904: In Akron, Ohio, 22 year old Bert A. Polsky, the son of Abram and Mollie Polsky who worked at A.Polsky, the family owned business married Hazel Steiner who would become a charter member and president of the Women’s Auxiliary Board of the Akron City Hospital.

1904:  Birthdate of political scientist and historian Hans J. Morgenthau.  Born and educated in Germany, Morgenthau came to the United States in the 1930’s.  He gained fame as director of the Center for the Study of American Foreign and Military Policy while teaching at the University of Chicago.  Morgenthau was a realist and opposed the Vietnam War “because the risks of military participation outweighed any benefits.”  He was a leader in the fight to improve the conditions of Soviet Jewry and he spoke out against the PLO as a terrorist organization.  He passed away in 1980.

1905: Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, the brother of Emperor Alexander III and the nephew of Emperor Nicholas II who while serving as Governor General of Moscow oversaw “the expulsion of 20,000 Jews from Moscow” was assassinated today in Moscow.

1906: Carl Stettauer, “who represented the United States and Great Britain in the general distribution of the Jewish Relief Fund in Russia” met with a New York Times reporter today at the Waldorf-Astoria where he described his visit to Russia during which two million dollars, half of which had been raised in the United states was spent on relieving the suffering of the Jewish population.

1907: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Irving Philip Kartell the St. John’s University-trained lawyer, “an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York from 1947 to 1953” and the Justice of the State of Supreme Court in Brooklyn who “ruled in favor of women bus drivers in a landmark discrimination case while raising two children –James and Karren – with his wife, the former Leonore Sweedler.”

1908: “Immigrant Children Unite” published today described how “nearly fifty little immigrant children who are now on parole at the Hebrew Sheltering House for Immigrants have become so attached to each other since their arrive in the United States, a few weeks ago, that they have pledged themselves to keep in communication with each other after they have left the Sheltering House for various cities in the Middle West.”

1909: “Oddest and Oldest of Weddings Here” published today described the wedding of two Sephardic Jews, Samuel Hanania and Rosa Penso based on the information supplied to reporters by Ephraim, a Sephardic Jew from Turkey “who used be an official interpreter at Ellis Island.”

1910:  In New York City, Minerva Norma (née Sugarman) Goldsmith and Israel Simon Goldsmith gave birth to Max Goldsmith who gained fame as American cinema actor Marc Lawrence who was a friend and acting contemporary of John Garfield.  Like Garfield, Lawrence ran into trouble during the McCarthy Period.  Unlike Garfield, Lawrence survived professionally and personally.  He passed away in 2005.

1911: Birthdate of Oskar Koplowitz, a native of Silesia, who as Oskar Seidlin became a noted American “literary scholar, poet and” an author of detective novels and books for children.

1912(29thof Shevat, 5672): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1912: As Jews observe Shabbat, Colonel Roosevelt, who had enjoyed support among the Jewish population and who had appointed the first Jew to serve in the Cabinet is, today, as promised, contemplating a run for the Presidency after having been out of office for four years.

1913: The Armory Show opens in New York City, displaying works of artists who are to become some of the most influential painters of the early 20th century. William Zorach, Max Weber, Elie Nadelman, Maurice Becket and Abraham Walkowitz were among the Jewish artists invited to display their work.

1913: U.S. premiere of “The Miracle,” a British silent, color film based on the play by Max Reinhardt.

1914:   “In a 142 page decision, the Georgia Supreme court denied Leo Frank a new trial” by dismissing allegations of juror bias and the influence of spectators on the verdict of the trial court.

1915: “Plea to New York Jews” published today described willingness of the U.S. Navy to ship “flour, sugar, rice and matzoth for Passover” aboard one of its vessels provided the Jewish community can raise the funds for the supplies which will unloaded at Jaffa.

1915: In Rhodes Island, at Brown University, several faculty members took part in a discussion following a lecture on Zionism delivered by Professor Richard Gottheil of Columbia University.

1915: In Chicago, Pia “Fannie” Brin and Solomon Brin gave birth to “Herb Brin, pugnacious journalist, editor, poet and dogged campaigner for liberal and Jewish causes.”

http://www.davidbrin.com/herbbrin/obituary.html

1915: Reverend Thomas Kelly Cheyne, the former Oriel Professor of Interpretation of the Scriptures at Oxford and who was one of the first “English scholars” to apply “the methods of Higher Criticism” to the study of the Old Testament – a methodology that had already become popular among some German-Jewish scholars – passed away today. Cheyne was the author of Job and Solomon: The Wisdom of the Old Testament, The Prophecies of Isaiah in two volumes and work on the prophet of Jeremiah.

1916: “Robinson Crusoe, Jr” a musical co-authored by Sigmund Romberg, co-starring Al Jolson and produced by Lee and Jacob Schubert opened at the Winter Garden Theatre.

1916: “A committee of those who have been active in Jewish relief work in New York City” headed by Leo Kamaiky and Mrs. Samuel Elkeles “called upon President Wilson” today “and thanked him for hiving set aside January 27 by proclamation as a day when all could contribute to relieve the destitute Jews in the war zone” who reportedly to number at least nine million souls.

1917: Rabbi Marius Ranson is scheduled to lead services today at Temple Israel of Harlem.

1917: Dr. Samuel Schulman is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at Temple Beth-El on Fifth Avenue.

1917: “The Women’s Proclamation Committee, the national women’s organization for Jewish relief” today “sent to the Joint Distribution Committee for Jewish War Relief a check for $3,000, its monthly contribution to the great 1917 fund being raised here for destitute Jews in the warring countries.”

1917: At Temple Emanu-El, Dr. Silverman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Sacredness of Life: Thou Shalt Not Murder” at Saturday morning services.

1917: “A young girl refugee” who “is a native Mihailovo Poland, a village about forty miles from the German border” “who after three months efforts succeeded in getting out Poland” and escaping to the United States made a statement from her uncle’s home on Seventh Avenue that “The Jews in that part of Russian Poland which is now occupied by Germans thought, before the war that the Russians were hard taskmasters.  Now, they go down on their knees every night and pray for the return of the Russians; they do so covertly, though for if they were caught, they would be beaten or imprisoned.”

1917: General James Rowan O’Beirne, the Civil War and Medal of Honor winner who served as Superintended of Immigration in the 1890’s who opposed Jess Seilgman’s efforts to gain admittance to the United States for the 86 Jewish passengers aboard the SS Marsala passed away.

1918: Jacob H. Schiff, head of the special committee of the American Jewish Relief Committee that arranged the plan whereby the workers of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union will forego the holiday on Washington's Birthday and give their day's earnings to the Jewish war sufferers announced that almost no factory organized by the ILGU would be open and that many owners would be paying time and half or double time.

1918: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise announced that the Palestine Restoration Fund now totals more than $800,000 of which $250,000 was collected in New York.

1918:  Saul J. Cohen, editor The Maccabean, the official Zionist journal received a cable from Israel Zangwill, founder of the Jewish Territorial Organization, saying that he has altered his position following the issuance of the Balfour Declaration and “now looks toward Palestine as the land of the Jews.”

1918: Morris Rothenberg, Chairman of the Zionist Committee of New York presided over a meeting of Zionists at the Casino Theatre who had gathered to honor the memory of Dr. Jechiel Tchlenow who died last month in London. 

1919: Norman Hapgood, President of the League of Nations Association, Judge Julian W. Mack, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, Max Pam and Dr. Benzion Mossinson are the guests of honor at a kosher banquet scheduled to be held this evening at the Morrison Hotel as part of the Zionist Convention being held in Chicago.

1919(17thof Adar I, 5679): Seventy-two-year-old Bohemia born American photo-chemist Louis Edward Levy, “a pioneer in the engraving industry” and “inventor of a process of photo-chemical engraving which has enabled newspapers to print half-tone pictures directly from the stereotype plate who “was a founder and president of the Association for Relief and Protection of Jewish Immigrants” and the author of the pamphlet “The Russian Jewish Refugees in America” passed away today.

1920: Birthdate of Bella Levy, of blessed memory, a pillar of the Little Rock Jewish Community and the wife of Manford Levy.

1921: Herah Lerner, his wife Elka and their daughter who had been born two days ago while aboard a ship bringing these Jews to the United States arrived in New York.

1921: After having been informed by the New York World that “the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which he has been reprinting with anti-Semitic commentary in his own newspaper the Dearborn Independent, are a forgery” Ford said he did not care replying "The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. Indeed, they do."

1922: In Chile, Mary Grisel Lehmann (née Bissett) and Andrew William Lehmann, a mining engineer, gave birth to Professor Andrew George Lehmann

1922: Two days after he had passed away, 67-year-old Abraham Shapiro, the husband of the former Sarah Jacobs with who he had had eight children, was buried today at the “East Ham Cemetery.”

1924: A bazaar sponsored by the People’s Relief “Ort” of America which will raise funds for Jews of Central and Eastern Europe continued for a second day at the Grand Central Palace.

1925: In York, PA, Dorothy and Joseph Rosenmiller gave birth to Joseph Lewis Rosenmiller, Jr. “who earned a fortune building a chain of radio stations and then donated tens of millions to promote causes that he felt traditional philanthropies largely ignored, like voting rights and the empowerment of domestic workers…” (As reported by Leslie Kaufman)

1925, Florence Prag Kahn won a special election, becoming the fifth woman and first Jewish woman to serve in the United States Congress.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/17/1925/florence-prag-kahn

1925: Birthdate of Libby Drescher Isaacs (Leiba bat Shmuel) who was buried in Durham, NC when she passed away in 1982.

1925: Harold Ross and Jane Grant found The New Yorker magazine. Numerous Jewish writers and artists have contributed to the sophisticated journal.  These include two cartoonists – Jules Feifer and Roz Chast as well as such authors as Dorothy Park and S.J. Pearlman.

1926: In Brooklyn, “Joseph and Sarah Postel, who ran an egg and dairy products store” gave birth to Miriam Postel the future wife of diamond cutter Max Weinstein with whom she had two sons – movie-men Harvey and Bob Weinstein.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/movies/miriam-weinstein-died-miramax.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

1927: David T. WIlentz, the Attorney General of New Jersey who prosecuted Bruno Hauptmann and his wife gave birth to Robert Wilentz, the longest serving Chief Just of the New Jersey Supreme Court.

1928: Birthdate of Bronx native Erwin “E.M.” Nathanson the author and novelist best known for writing The Dirty Dozen which provided the inspiration for one of the most famous WW II movies.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/em-nathanson-dead-dirty-dozen-881401

1929:  In New York, Benjamin Max and Mollie (Friedman) Potok gave birth to Chaim Potok, a graduate of Yeshiva University, who was ordained as a Conservative Rabbi after studying at The Jewish Theological Society.  He earned a PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. He decided to become a writer after reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited in 1945. He was fourteen years old, and all he had read were magazines and pulp fiction. He wanted to read a serious adult book, and he chose Brideshead Revisited at random from the public library. He later said about reading it, "I found myself inside a world the merest existence of which I had known nothing about. I lived more deeply inside the world in that book than I lived inside my own world."   Potok’s work draws on his own life’s experiences – Judaism (The Chosen, The Promise,) and a stint as an Army Chaplain serving in the Far East (The Book of Lights) – as well as the conflicts he faced including becoming an artist despite family and cultural opposition (My Name Is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev).  His success stems from many factors.  One is that he opened doors to worlds that people did not know existed i.e. Chasidic Judaism and the Orient.  The second is that he dealt with larger issues such as how a minority culture copes with a majority culture, how to temper brilliance with humanity,  and the challenge of effective parenting in changing world, to name but a few. 

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/chaim-potok

http://potok.lasierra.edu/Potok.biographical.html

1929: In Tocopilla, Chile, Jaime Jodorowsky Groismann, “ a merchant” and reportedly an abusive husband and his wife Sara gave birth to filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160409080232/http://filmmakermagazine.com/72541-10-lessons-on-filmmaking-from-director-alejandro-jodorowsky/

1930: “The Vagabond King,” a musical operetta, produced by Adolph Zukor, written by Herman J. Mankiewicz and co-starring Lillian Roth was released in the United States today.

1930: Herman Bernstein was appointed the U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Albania today.

1930: “Sol M Strock, the newly elected chairman of the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Board of Director told the annual meeting of the Seminary’s Philadelphia branch” about a soon to be launch $5,000,000 endowment fund campaign. (As reported by JTA)

1931(30thof Shevat, 5691): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1931: Masonic services are scheduled to be held this afternoon by the St. Cecile Lodge at the Plaza Funeral Home for 65-year-old comedian Louis Mann who passed away on February 15, 1931.

1932: Irving Berlin and Moss Hart’s musical "Face the Music" premiered in New York.

1932: Senator Norris, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee appointed Senators Robinson, Schall and Ashurst to a subcommittee to hear people “who have protested the appointment of Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo to the Supreme Court.

1933: German author and socialist Oskar Graf, the husband of Mirjam Sachs and brother-in-law of Jewish journalist Manford George traveled to Vienna ostensibly to deliver a lecture but actuality to begin a self-imposed exile.

1933: The first edition of Newsweek makes its appearance. In 1961, America’s “perennially #2 newsweekly” will be purchased by Katherine Graham’s Washington Post Co.

1934(2ndof Adar, 5694): Parashat Terumah

1934: “Deficit In Exports Shocks the Nazis” published today described how the Nazis are blaming the first drop in exports in January, which is the first drop in four years” on the anti-German boycott organized by the Jews instead of looking at their own economic policies and the changing economic conditions brought on by the continuing worldwide depression.

1935(14th of Adar I, 5695): Purim Katan

1936: “A vigorous attack on anti-Semitism was made today by Premier Koscialkowski in a speech to the Sejm introducing the budget” today in Warsaw.

1936: S. N. (Samuel] Nathaniel) Behrman's "End of Summer" premiered in New York.

1937: Bronislaw Huberman, the violinist and founder of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, received a rousing tribute at a concert here tonight with the Concertgebouw, under the auspices of the Society for Art for All.

1938: In New York, Evelyn D. and Jacob Levi gave birth to artist Josef Lev 

http://www.wrgallery.com/josef_levi.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Levi#mediaviewer/File:Josef-Levi-Self-Portrait-2011.jpg

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Austria had capitulated to the German ultimatum and appointed pro-Nazis to the cabinet, marking the effective end of the country's independence.

1938(16thof Adar I, 5698): Sixty-seven year old Joseph B. David, the Louisville born “son of Theobold and Adelaide (Strauss) David” and husband of Emma Siesel who practiced law in Chicago where he was a Special Assistant City Attorney before serving several terms as on the Superior Court of Cook County, first as a judge and then as Chief Justice.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that there was a major, festive ceremony when the District Commissioner, Mr. Keith Roach, opened Kalia, the first hotel and health resort on the Dead Sea, with the keys handed to him by Major T.C. Tuloch, Chairman of the Kalia Health Resort Company.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Mohammed el-Rab, a Palestinian Arab, was executed at the Acre prison, one week after his arrest and an immediate Military Court trial, for possession of a loaded automatic gun and ammunition.

1938(16thof Adar I, 5698): David I Aaron passed away today after which he was buried at Beth Hamedrash Hagodol-Beth Jacob Cemetery in McKees Rocks, PA.

1938: In Vienna, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency issued a “reassuring” statement “to the effect that the change in government would not alter Dr. Schuschnigg’s toward the Jews” – statement which must have helped quell the fears in Austria “that Jewish alarm may start a flight of capital.”

1939: U.S. premiere of “The Three Musketeers,” a musical comedy co-starring the Ritz Brothers as “the Three Lackeys,” Joseph Schildkraut as “King Louis XIII” and Binnie Barnes (whose father was JewishP as “Milady De Winter.”

1939: U.S. premiere of “Gunga Din,” a film set in the days of the Raj starring Sam Jaffe as “Gunga Din” with a score by Alfred Newman.

1940: “Castle on the Hudson” a movie set in Sing Sing Prison directed and produced by Anatole Litvak and starring John Garfield was released today in the United States.

1940: Birthdate of Dennis Gamsy a South African cricketer who played in two Tests in 1970.

1941(20thof Shevat, 5701): Sixty-eight-year-old Oscar J. Greenwald, the Philadelphia born son of Ben Greenwald and the former Julia Gimbel and the grandson of Adam Gimbel, the founder of Gimbel’s who was a vice presient and director of Gimbel Brothers department store as well as a director of the First Wisconsin National Bank was found dead in his bed today at his country home near Milwaukee, WI.

1942: It was reported from Quisling’s Norway “that religious circles were concerned by the increase of anti-Jewish agitation” and that “it was expected that when the new ‘social rationing system’ is introduced the Jews would be put into a special category and forbidden to buy certain foodstuffs.”

1943(10th of Adar II, 5703): Fifty-three-year-old Victor Atler, the Jewish socialist who was a leader of the Bund was executed today on charges of spying for Hitler.  The execution was carried out with Stalin’s approval.

1943: Dutch churches protested against Seyss-Inquart’s persecution of Jews. The Austrian born Seyss-Inquartbecame Reich Commissioner of the Netherlands in May, 1940.The Dutch churches were protesting against "the forced sterilization of Jewish partners in mixed-marriages.  For once, the Germans relented and ended this one form of inhumanity. At the end of the war Seyss-Inquart was arrested and charged with war crimes in Nuremberg. At his trial it was pointed out that of the 140,000 Dutch Jews, only 8,000 survived in hiding and only 5,450 came home from camps in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Seyss-Inquart was found guilty and hanged on October 16, 1946.

1944: Fifty-eight-year-old Franz Kaufman the German jurist who was baptized as a child but treated as Jew under Nazi racial laws and who worked with an underground group that aided Jews during the Holocaust was murdered at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.

1944: U.S. premiere of “Phantom Lady” a film noir directed by Robert Siodmak.

1945: U.S. premiere of “Objective Burma” a war movie set in the jungles of southeast Asia produced by Jerry Wald, with music by Franz Waxman, featuring George Tobias as “Cpl. Gabby Gordon)

1945: Nicholas George Winton, the Englishman who organized “the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport” “was promoted to war substantive flying officer” in the RAF.  Winton, who was later knighted, was not Jewish.  He was a decent human being who, unlike so many others, did the right thing during “the long, dark European Night.”

1946: Birthdate of Steve Grossman the Treasurer and Receiver-General of Massachusetts and   the former President of Grossman Marketing Group, a family-owned marketing company based in Somerville, Massachusetts. From 1992 to 1997, he was the chair of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and from 1997 to 1999 he was the chair of the Democratic National Committee. Grossman received his Bachelor's from Princeton University, and his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He is married to Barbara Wallace Grossman, a Professor of Theater at Tufts University, and they have three children.

1947: “Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein, the adviser on Jewish affairs to General Joseph T. McNarney in Germany and to General Mark Clark in Austria, said today that he had made a personal appeal to British officials to expedite the movement of Jewish displace persons to Palestine.

1947: “The deportation ship Empire Rival left Haifa this morning carrying 800 would-be Jewish immigrants to Palestine to internment camps in Cyprus which Jews in Palestine staged “a one-hour strike” in protest to this latest deportation.

1948: In the aftermath of today's coup in which the ruler of Yemen was assassinated, "the Jews were accused of murdering two young Muslim girls and throwing their bodies down a well."  This Arab-world version of the blood libel led to the leaders of Yemen's Jewish community being beaten and imprisoned while a mob looted and robbed those living in the Jewish Quarter.

1949: Chaim Weizmann was sworn in as the first president of Israel. The election took place in Jerusalem, a city that had been under siege by the Arabs and almost lost to the invading enemy.  The election of a President of the state of Israel was one of the first items of business for the Knesset which was holding its first meeting in Jerusalem.  Weizmann was elected by a vote of 83 to 15.  In Israel, the President is a figurehead.  The Prime Minister holds the political power.  The election of Weizmann was recognition for his long, untiring decades of service to the Zionist cause. One of his proudest accomplishments was getting the British Government of adopt the Balfour Declaration which gave international recognition and approval to the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.  The President of Israel is called "Nasi" a term which means ruler or prince.  In the early centuries of the Diaspora it had been a honorific title applied to the heads of various Talmudic academies and Jewish communities. To give you some idea of the esteem in which Weitzman was held, he was the first person to be called a Nasi in almost 1500 years.

1949: “Caught” a “film noir” directed by Max Ophüls, with a screenplay by Arthur Laurents was released in the United States today.

1950: “When Willie Comes Marching Home” a comedy “based on the 1945 short story When Leo Comes Marching Home by Sy Gomberg” and with music by Alfred Newman was released in the United States today.

1951(11thof Adar I, 5711): Parashat Tetzaveh

1951(11thof Adar I, 5711): Sixty-five-year-old Pressburg born Austria-American movie producer Arnold Pressburger passed away today in Hamburg.

1951: “I'd Climb the Highest Mountain” a movie version of the novel with the same name with a score by Sol Kaplan was released in the United States today.

1952: Dolph Schayes took the floor tonight in the first of what would be a record 706 games played without a miss.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that in a statement read to the Knesset, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion stressed that the recent bombing of the Soviet Legation in Tel Aviv was no justification for a rupture of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. The Soviet action was the culmination of "a campaign of defamatory propaganda against the State of Israel, the Zionist Movement and World Jewry which had been proceeding for a long time." Holland agreed to represent Israeli interests in Moscow.

1957: The Suez Canal re-opens marking the end of the Suez Crisis that had started in October of 1956.

1957(16thof Adar I, 5717): Eighty-one year old Edward Mose “Max” Baker, the Erie, PA born son of “Isaac and Bertha (Einhorn) Baker” and graduate of the University of Chicago who did not become a rabbi despite being the nephew of Rabbi Emil Hirsch, but instead took over his brother-in-law’s brokerage  when he passed away in Cleveland where he served as vice president of the Stock Exchange, co-founded the Federation of Jewish Charities and a leader of the Republican Party.

https://case.edu/ech/articles/b/baker-edward-mose-max

 1958: The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CNC) which was co-founded by Sydney Silverman held its “first public meeting at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, UK.”

1958: Time published “Historical Notes: Diary of Anne Frank – The End”

The diary of 15-year-old Anne Frank ended abruptly when the Nazis broke into her family's hiding place in Amsterdam. What happened next? Of the last days of one of the world's best-known modern heroines, little was known except that she had died, like millions of other Jews, in a German concentration camp. To fill out the chronicle of her short life, West German Publisher S. Fischer last year assigned Author Ernst Schnabel to search the German and Dutch archives and interview survivors of the camps who might have known her. In Paris Le Figaro Littéraire printed excerpts from Schnabel's findings, to be published as a book in the U.S. this fall. Anne, her sister Margot, and her father and mother were first taken to Westerbork prison in The Netherlands, then shipped by cattle car to Auschwitz. Recalls a woman fellow prisoner: "The doors of the cars were opened violently, and the first thing we saw at Auschwitz was the garish light of the searchlights trained on the cars . . . The voice of a loudspeaker dominated all others; it bellowed: 'Women to the left, men to the right!' I saw them go away: Mr. Van Daan, Mr. Dussel, Peter, Mr. Frank." The men never saw the women again. The women were told that trucks were ready to take the small children and the sick to the prison. But those who fought their way into the trucks never reached the camp; they vanished from-the face of the earth. At Auschwitz, Anne's long hair was clipped and her eyes seemed to grow larger and larger as she grew thinner. Her gaiety disappeared but not her indomitable spirit. The women were divided into groups of five and, though the youngest of her group, Anne became its leader, partly because she was efficient at scrounging necessities. When during cold weather she and the others were reduced to sackcloth smocks, Anne found somewhere a supply of men's long underwear. She even magically produced a cup of coffee for an exhausted prisoner. Most of the adults tried to armor themselves against reality: "Who bothered to look at the flames billowing up from the crematory? When, suddenly, an order came to barricade the neighboring block, who was disturbed? We well knew that they were being readied for the gas chamber, but we were too well-trained to worry about it. We no longer heard anything, saw anything." But Anne Frank did, right up to the end. Said a survivor: "I can still see her standing by the door, watching a group of naked young gypsy girls being shoved along to the crematory. Anne watched them, weeping. And she also wept when we filed past Hungarian children waiting, twelve hours naked under the rain, for their turn to enter the gas chamber. Anne cried: 'Look at their eyes!' She wept when most of us had no tears left." On Oct. 30, 1944, there was a selection of the youngest and strongest to be sent to the concentration camp at Belsen. Single file, the undressed women were ordered into a hall where, seated behind the glare of a searchlight, a doctor chose this one for Belsen, that one for the gas chamber. "Anne's face remained unchanged, even in the cruel light of the projector. She took Margot's arm and they came forward. I can see them now, stripped naked. Anne turned her serene face toward us; then they were led away. It was impossible to see what happened behind the light, and Mrs. Frank cried: 'The children! My God! My God!'" In the hell of Belsen, Anne and Margot Frank lasted scarcely five months. They both became ill. Margot was in a coma for several days and was found, fallen from her bunk, dead. Anne was so sick that no one told her of Margot's fate. Says a fellow prisoner who watched: "Several days later she died peacefully, in the certitude that death was not a calamity.

1959: Birthdate of Arhey Deir, the Moroccan born Israeli political leader of Shas.1961: Premier in Italy of “Esther and the King” a Biblical epic film based on the Book of Esther, starring Joan Collins whose father was Jewish in the title role.

1962(13th of Adar I, 5722):  Eighty-five-year-old Berlin born conductor Bruno Walter whose home has been America since 1939 “when the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall and a National Broadcasting Company studio became his workshops” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/02/18/113414871.pdf

1963: The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan which is credited with sparking the modern feminist movement was published today.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/17/1963/betty-friedan

1965(15thof Adar I, 5725): Eighty-six New York native “Paul Joseph Sachs, the first associate director of the Fogg Museum and a Harvard professor” and husband of Meta Pollak with whom he had three daughters – “Elizabeth Pollock Weiss, Cecilia Robinson and Marjorie Pickhardt Wilson --     passed away today.

http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~art00010

1965: Birthdate of actor Michael Benjamin Bay who “was raised Jewish” by his adoptive parents.

1966: “The instrumental of the first version of the “Good Vibrations” was recorded today by the Beach Boys, whose drummer was Hal Blaine, the son of Meyer Belsky and the former Rose Silverman.

1969(29th of Shevat, 5729): Levi Eshkol, third Prime Minister of Israel, died suddenly.  In one of the great ironies of history, it was the mild-mannered Eshkol and not any of his more flamboyant contemporaries who led the Israeli government during the June, 1967 War that resulted in the re-unification of Jerusalem.https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/eshkol.html

http://research.haifa.ac.il/~eshkol/

1969: Golda Meir sworn in as Israel's 1st female prime minister. Goldie Mabovitch (who later Hebraized her name to Golda Meir) was a Russian immigrant living in Milwaukee.  In 1918 she wanted to join the Jewish Legion, a British unit organized to fight the Turks in World War I.  Mrs. Meir made Aliyah and eventually became a major political figure in the Zionist Community and later in the state of Israel.  Her description of being in Moscow for Simchat Torah after the creation of the state of Israel is a moving story.  She served as Foreign Minister and following the death of Levi Eshkol became Prime Minister.  She led the country through the trying days of the Yom Kippur War and its aftermath.  By the time Anwar Sadat made his memorable trip to Israel, Mrs. Meir was no longer in the government.  When the two adversaries met she is reported to have said, "Long after we have forgiven you for killing our sons, we will be working to forgive you for turning our sons into killers."  This modern Devorah took no pleasure in being involved in so many military adventures.

1970(11th of Adar I, 5730): Shmuel Yosef or S.Y. Agnon (Hebrew: שמואל יוסף עגנון; born Shmuel Yosef Czaczkes) passed away.  Agnon was the first Hebrew author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.  He won the prize in 1966. Since this is beyond my area of expertise, included find this canned summary. “Shmuel Yosef Agnon was born in Galicia in 1888. He immigrated to Jaffa in 1908, but spent 1913 through 1924 in Germany. In 1924 he returned to Jerusalem, where he lived until his death in 1970. A prolific novelist and short-story writer from an early age, Agnon received numerous literary awards, including the Israel Prize on two occasions. Called "a man of unquestionable genius" and "one of the great storytellers of our time," S.Y. Agnon is among the most effusively praised and widely translated Hebrew authors. His unique style and language have influenced the writing of subsequent generations of Hebrew authors. Much of his writing attempts to recapture the lives and traditions of a former time, but his stories are never a simple act of preservation. Agnon's tales deal with the most important psychological and philosophical problems of his generation. "Via realistic and surrealistic modes," writes the New York Times, "Agnon has transmuted in his many words the tensions inherent in modern man's loss of innocence, and his spiritual turmoil when removed from home, homeland and faith." An observant Jew throughout most of his life, he was able to capture "the hopelessness and spiritual desolation" of a world standing on the threshold of a new age. Extolled for his "peculiar tenderness and beauty," for his "comic mastery" and for the "richness and depth" of his writing, it is S.Y. Agnon's contribution to the renewal of the language that has been seminal for all subsequent Hebrew writing.” Some of his works that have been translated into English includeA Book That Was Los : And Other Stories.; A dwelling place of my people : sixteen stories of the Chassidim; A Guest for the Night; Gollancz, A Simple Story; Agnon's Aleph Bet Poems; The Bridal Canopy;Days of Awe : A Treasury of Jewish Wisdom for Reflection, Repentance, and Renewal on the High Holy Days;In the Heart of the Seas : A Story of a Journey to the Land of Israel.; Present at Sinai : The Giving of the Law : Commentaries Selected by S.Y. Agnon; Shira; Twenty-one stories.

1970: One Jordanian and two Iraqis were arrested today when they tried to hijack an El Al plane at the Munich Airport.

1972: President Richard Nixon begins his historic trip to China.  This major diplomatic breakthrough was orchestrated by White House advisor Henry Kissinger who would become the first Jewish Secretary of State.

1974: It was reported today that 35,000 Jews were permitted to emigrate to Israel in 1973 and 32,000 in 1972.

1976: The Second World Conference of Jewish Communities on Soviet Jewry opened today in Brussels despite protests from the Soviet Union to the Belgian Government.

1977: In “Imperial Germany’s Jewish Banker” published today A.J.P.Taylor reviewed Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire by Fritz Stern

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1977/feb/17/imperial-germanys-jewish-banker/?pagination=false

1977: In New York City, the first Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy comes to a close. The two day meeting led to the founding of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance

1978(10thof Adar I, 5738): Eighty-four year old Sadye “Sadie” Feinberg Cohen, the daughter of Barnett and Dora Kriss Feinberg and the wife of Samuel Cohen passed away today after which she was buried in the Acacia Cemetery in Ozone Park.

1979(20thof Shevat, 5739): Seventy-two year old lyricist Al Stillman (born Albert Silverman) who wrote such hits as “Home for the Holidays” and “Chances Are” passed away today.

http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C282?exhibitId=282

1981: In “Yiddish Book Collection Grows in New England,” Michael Knight described the work of the Yiddish Book Exchange.

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/17/arts/yiddish-book-collection-grows-in-new-england.html?pagewanted=print

1981: In Los Angeles, Dennis Levitt, the news director for the Pacifica Radio and Jane Gordon gave birth to Joseph Gordon-Levitt an American actor best known for his role as Tommy Solomon on “3rd Rock from the Sun.”

1982(24th of Shevat, 5742): Lee [Israel] Strasberg, father of method acting passed away at the age of 80.  Strasberg also enjoyed a career as an actor with one of his most roles coming at the end of his life when he played the “Meyer Lansky” figure in The Godfather Part II.

1983: “Local Hero” a British comedy with music by Mark Knopfler was released today in the United Kingdom.

1984: “The Right Stuff” the movie version of the book by the same name directed by Philip Kaufman who also wrote the screenplay and produced by Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff was released throughout the United States after a limited release three months earlier.

1984: In Holland, PA, Mark and Harriet Levin gave birth to Michael Levin who as a 22 year old member of the IDF’s Paratroopers Brigade “was killed in action in the Second Lebanon War, during the first round of fighting in the Lebanese town of Ayta ash-Shab.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301539.html

1985: Martin Eli Segal “served as the General Chairman of the “Night of 100 Stars II, the first AIDS benefit held by the Actors’ Fund of American.

1985: David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” was performed for the final time during its initial Broadway run.

1987: In “Warsaw Journal: An Album of the Doomed” published today, Michael T. Kaufman examined the “art of Auschwitz.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/18/world/warsaw-journal-an-album-of-hte-doomed-the-art-of-auschwitz.html

1987: Aulcie Perry Jr., a former basketball player who had become an Israeli citizen and was hailed as a sports champion in Israel, went on trial today on charges of conspiracy to import heroin, importation of heroin and possession of heroin with intent to distribute. The 6-foot-10-inch Perry, who holds a dual citizenship, joined the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team in Israel in 1977 and helped bring it a European Cup championship that year and in 1979. He remained on the team until 1984. Perry's cousin, Kenneth Johnson, 29, who was charged with Perry, pleaded guilty earlier this month and is awaiting sentencing.

1988: The United States announced that it is planning to change ambassadors to Israel next summer. According to State Department officials, William A. Brown, currently ambassador to Thailand, will replace Thomas R. Pickering, who has served in Tel Aviv since 1985. Mr. Pickering is scheduled to return to Washington to become Under Secretary of State for management. The State Department also plans to replace Morris Draper, the Consul General in Jerusalem, with Philip C. Wilcox Jr., a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State who deals with Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. The Consul General in Jerusalem has something approaching ambassadorial status. He reports directly to the State Department, not to the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv, a situation that reflects Washington's refusal to recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem.

1988: A dozen Israeli playwrights, poets and other intellectuals made an urgent appeal to the Government tonight to ''talk peace with the Palestinians.'' Amos Oz, the Israeli novelist, started and ended his address to the group with the words, ''What was, will not be again.'' Seventy New York writers, artists and performers sent a telegram expressing their support to the Israeli Playwrights' Association, a gesture welcomed by Israelis here who feel support from abroad can put effective pressure on the Government. Among the signers were Erica Jong, Allen Ginsburg, Grace Paley, Gloria Steinem, E. L. Doctorow, Arthur Miller, Norman Mailer and Susan Sontag.

1988: The violence in the occupied territories continued today, as Israeli soldiers shot and killed one Palestinian and wounded at least three others while dispersing riots in the West Bank village of Shuyukh, near Hebron, an army spokesman said. ''The army was trying to clear a roadblock, when they were attacked with rocks, stones and bottles,'' the spokesman said. ''They were in a life-threatening situation, so the commander and one officer shot at the legs of the protesters.''

''Sometimes you don't get exactly where you aim,'' he said. ''They were aiming at the legs.''

1993: “Belushi Is No Stranger To a Bar Owner’s Role Despite the Movie Image” published today described how Judd Hirsch was replaced during the Broadway run of “Conversations With My Father,” a play that “presents the saga of a first generation of American Jews who came of age in the Depression and were assimilated at a high price during and after World War II.”

1994 (6th of Adar, 5754): Yuval Golan who was stabbed on December 29, 1993 by a terrorist near Adarim in the Hebron area he died of his wounds.

1996: In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, world champion Garry Kasparov beats the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match. Kasparov’s mother is Armenian and his father is Jewish.

1998(21stof Shevat, 5758): Eighty-nine-year-old Pauline Endler Loeb passed away today after which she was interred at the Jewish Cemetery in Morgan City, LA.

1998(21st of Shevat, 5658): Seventy-eight year old Atlantic City, NJ and WW II Bob Merill the composer and lyricist who work includes “Hannah…1939” a musical about a Jewess “in Prague on the eve of WWII” passed away today.

https://web.archive.org/web/20121226090809/http://www.thebobmerrill.com/

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/02/theater/review-theater-a-jew-confronts-a-nazi-in-a-prewar-musical.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-bob-merrill-1145818.html

1999(1stof Adar, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Adar is observed for the last time in the 20thcentury.

1999(1stof Adar, 5759): Sixty-nine-year-old actress Shirley Stoler, the Brooklyn born daughter of “Russian Jewism immigrant owners of a used furniture store who appeared on Broadway, in films and on day-time soaps passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/28/nyregion/shirley-stoler-69-actress-hailed-for-her-role-in-seven-beauties.html

2000: “Daring single-handedly to alter a calendar that is as politically sensitive as everything else here, Interior Minister Natan Sharansky decreed today that ''summertime'' will be longer this year by 34 days.”

2001: At the Library of Congress of an exhibition entitled “Herblock’s History: Political Cartoons from the Crash to the Millennium” which presents works by cartoonist Herb Block, who chronicled the nation’s political history and caricatured twelve American presidents from Herbert Hoover to Bill Clinton comes to an end.

2002: “A suicide bomber detonated an explosive packed with shrapnel among the diners in the outdoor food court of a West Bank settlement tonight, killing himself and two Israelis and injuring 30 others, at least six of them seriously.”

2003(15th of Adar I, 5763): Seventy-eight-year-old art dealer Felix Landau passed away today (As reported by Eric Pace)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/us/felix-landau-78-gallery-owner-with-an-eye-for-influential-art.html

2004: Daniel Hendler, was named best actor at the 54th Berlin International Film Festival for his role in “Lost Embrace,” a film about a young Argentine Jew, directed by Daniel Burman.

2005: Today, in the wake of the bankruptcy of Sunbeam Products, Ron Perelman filed a lawsuit against Morgan Stanley, claiming that Morgan had defrauded him by knowingly misleading him about the financial condition of Sunbeam Products.  The Sunbeam acquisition was only one in a long series of such deals in which this Jewish philanthropist and businessman had engaged in over the past four decades starting with the purchase of Esslinger Brewery in 1961. He and his father bought the company for “$800,000, then sold it three years later for a $1 million profit.” 

2006: Thousands of mourners gathered at the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv this morning to pay their final respects to ShoshannaDamari, who lay in state on the stage until the memorial service began shortly before noon.  During the memorial service President Moshe Katsav said "One can say of her that she was the voice of Israel," he said. "We have lost her, but not her songs

2006: Israel's hopes for an Olympic medal took a blow when ice dancer Galit Chait fell during the compulsory program of the Pairs Ice Dancing competition.

2006: In “Early Simon, Dressed by Mizrahi” published today Ben Brantley reviewed a “torturous new revival of Neil Simon’s ‘Barefoot in the Park.’”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/theater/reviews/17park.html?_r=0

2007: Shabbat Shekalim – The Sabbath of the Shekel.

2007: Ninety-six year old Maurice Papon, the Vichy official convicted of “complicity in Nazi crimes against humanity” died today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/world/europe/18papon.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

2007: Celebration of Fred Rodgers birthday: a brand plucked from the flames of the Holocaust and pillar of the Jewish community.

2008: Final performance of “Fabrik: The Legend of M. Rabinowitz” at the Urban Stages Theatre in Manhattan.  This adult puppet show traces the life of Moritz Rabinowitz, a Polish Jew sent to Norway by his family to escape pre-World War II pogroms, who became a successful businessman before ending up at Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin.

2008: The Sunday Los Angeles Times book section featured reviews of The Bad Wife Handbook by Jewish poet Rachel Zucker and The Life of the Skies by Jonathan Rosen

2008: An exhibition entitled “Sosúa: A Refuge for Jews in the Dominican Republic” opens at The Museum of Jewish Heritage.

2008: An exhibition entitled “To return to the land…” Paul Goldman’s Photographs of the Birth of Israel opens at The Museum of Jewish Heritage.Hungarian-born photojournalist Paul Goldman fled to the British Mandate of  Palestine in 1940, where he chronicled the events leading up to the foundation of the State of Israel.

2009: In Manhattan’s East Village, the fourth and final part of a four part series The Comedy and Kabbalah of Relationships featuring Rabbi YY Jacobson

2009: At New York University, Professor Yoram Peri, head of the Chaim Herzog Institute for Media, Politics and Society at Tel Aviv University delivers a public lecture entitled "New Leadership in Israel and the Peace Process"

2010: The CJH is scheduled to co-sponsor “Music in the Age of the Wittgensteins,” featuring a performance by the Phoenix Chamber Ensemble.

2010: In Arkansas, Bella Levy, wife of Manford Levy, celebrates her 90thbirthday.  Bella is an Ashes Chayel in the truest sense of the word.  All who know are blessed by the experience.

2010:The heads of various medical associations held an emergency meeting today, and the president of the Israel Medical Association(  IMA) Dr. Leonid Eidelman, said the organization would not hesitate to carry out its threat to strike if necessary, in its escalating battle with Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman should its Scientific Council be transferred to the ministry.

2010:According to JTA, “lawyers for the estate Adrian Jacobs added J.K. Rowling's name to a lawsuit it filed in the High Court of England last June -- some 12 years after Jacobs died penniless in Nightingale House, a home for elderly Jews in south London. Adrian Jacobs, an art collector, lawyer and accountant who made millions on the stock market before going bust, wrote a children’s book in 1987 titled The Adventures of Willy the Wizard: No. 1 Livid Land.” The suit claims that Rowling plagiarized ideas for her fourth book, the best-selling “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (2000), from "Willy the Wizard No. 1."

2011: A job fair, held in conjunction with the Orthodox Union Job Board, is scheduled to take place at Sasson v’ Simcha Hall located in Brooklyn.

2011:Gainsbourg, “the boldly imaginative and wildly entertaining biopic of Jewish French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, one of the most iconic and diversely talented music artists of the 20th Century” is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman attempted to dispel rumors that relations between him and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had soured, saying on today that "our relations are intact.""I spoke to the prime minister," after vetoing Uzi Arad, Netanyahu's choice for ambassador to London, Lieberman said. "We'll keep working together."

2011: A Lebanese military court convicted a man of spying for Israel and sentenced him to death late today. Amin al-Baba was found guilty of giving Israeli intelligence agents information in return for money. He was also found guilty of entering an enemy state.  Al-Baba, who was sentenced late today, had been spying for Israel from 1997 until his 2009 arrest. The new sentence brings the number of people sentenced to death for spying for Israel to nine.

2011: “A Night of Outrageous Comedy” with Julie Goldman is scheduled for tonight at the Washington DCJCC.

2011: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman attempted to dispel rumors that relations between him and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had soured, saying on Thursday that "our relations are intact.""I spoke to the prime minister," after vetoing Uzi Arad, Netanyahu's choice for ambassador to London, Lieberman said. "We'll keep working together."

2011: Israel Defense Forces soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians near the Gaza Strip border zone today, said Palestinian medics who recovered the bodies. An IDF spokesperson confirmed that the troops had opened fire after observeing the Palestinians approaching the security fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip attempting to plant explosives. A spokesman for the armed wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine - a small group that only rarely carries out attacks - sent a text message to reporters identifying one of the men as a member of the group “killed during a mission carried out by our military wing."

2011: The Washington Post featured a review of Heart of the City: Nine Stories of Love and Serendipity on the Streets of New York by Ariel Sabar, the son Yona Sabar, a Kurdish Jewish scholar, linguist and researcher.

2011: Last Damage, the fifth crime novel by Sophie Hannah, the daughter of Norman and Adele Geras was published today.

http://www.sophiehannah.com/

2012(24thof Shevat, 5772): Seventy-seven year old “Peter Novick, a history professor at the University of Chicago who stirred controversy in 1999 with a book contending that the legacy of the Holocaust had come to unduly dominate American Jewish identity” passed away today (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/us/peter-novick-wrote-divisive-holocaust-book-dies-at-77.html?_r=1&hpw

2012: Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein is scheduled to deliver a Friday night talk entitled “True Love..How to Find It and Keep It” at the Magen David Sephardic Congregation in Rockville, MD.

2012: Following Carlebach Services and dinner, Dr. Jerry Muller, Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History,Catholic University of America, Washington DC is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Capitalism and the Jews” as part of the Scholar-In-Residence Weekend at Tifereth Israel in Washington, DC.

2012: Opening session of LimmudLA

2012: Tali Yehoshua-Koren, the wife of the Defense Ministry's representative to India who was moderately injured in the attack on Israel’s embassy in New Delhi gave a testimony to police, which may change previously held assumptions about the attack and its perpetrator, the Times of India reported today. Yehoshua-Koren gave the testimony in hospital before returning to Israel in an air ambulance. She told police that the bomb exploded a full 30 to 40 seconds after it was attached to her car, and that the perpetrator was dressed in black, and riding a black motorcycle.

2012: Palestinian terrorists fired an RPG at IDF forces stationed near the Gaza border fence today, according to the IDF Spokesman's Office.

2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Four New Messages by Joshua Cohen and the recently released paperback editions of In Our Prime: The Fascinating History and Promising Future of Middle Age by Patricia Cohen

2013: Professor Brian Horowitz is scheduled to deliver the opening remarks of two day conference at Tulane University – “Jewish Secular Utopias and Distopias in Central and Eastern Europe”2013: The Toronto Jewish Film Society is scheduled to present “The Barber of Stamford Hill” and “The 10th Man” at the Miles Nadel JCC.

2013: “Six Million and One” is among the movies scheduled to be shown at the final night of the 17th Denver Jewish Film Festival.

2013: In “Online Battle Over Sacred Scrolls, Real-World Consequences” published in print today, John Leland describes the efforts of Raphael Haim Gold”s less than honorable attempts “to advance his father’s views about the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/nyregion/online-battle-over-ancient-scrolls-spawns-real-world-consequences.html?pagewanted=print

2013(7thof Adar, 5773): Seventy seven year old Israeli entertainer Shmuel "Shmulik" Kraus passed away.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-musician-shmulik-kraus-dies-at-77/

2013: A Knesset panel will launch an independent investigation into the jailing and suicide of Mossad agent Ben Zygier, following growing calls for an official accounting of the case, the committee said tonight.

2013: A delegation of Israeli security officials visited Cairo to discuss the security situation in the region with their Egyptian counterparts today, the second such trip in less than a week.

2014: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia Cultural Arts Department in Fairfax is scheduled to hold auditions for the one-act family theatre production of “Cinder-Rachella,” an original play with music that celebrates Israeli culture through the eyes of the iconic fairytale Princess

2014: “Broken Lines,” a film about “Jake, a working class Jewish boy…and his fiancée Zoe” is scheduled to be shown for the first time at as part of the UK Jewish Film Festival.

2014: Naftali Bennett reportedly told American Jewish leaders today that Israel wants more control over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a holy site that has long been a contentious point with the Muslim world.

2014: “The Knesset Law Committee voted to advance a bill today that would allow a much wider circle of state rabbis to conduct conversions.” (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur)

2014: “A lawyer for the elderly art collector whose $1.4 billion-worth of works were seized by German police two years ago said he is in negotiations with six claimants who are seeking items stolen from them or their families by the Nazis.” (As reported by Amanda Borshel-Dan)

2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to sponsor a lecture by Dr. Rakhmiel Peltz on “Planning for the Jewish Future: Standards for Yiddish in the 20thand 21st century.”

2015: Stuart Cohen of Bar-Ilan University is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Generals Wearing Yarmulkes. Does the Israel Defense Force Face a Threat of Dual Authority?” at FIU.

2015: Beth Goldman is scheduled to start her new position at NYLAG, who replaced Yisroel Schulman who had “stepped down amid a federal investigation in his alleged accounting irregularities.”

2016: Eight days before he would pass away, ninety year old Alfred E. Mann “abruptly stepped down as chairman” of MannKind Corporation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/business/alfred-e-mann-pioneer-in-medical-devices-dies-at-90.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

 

2016: Sayed Kashua is scheduled to discuss his new book Native: Dispatches from an Israeli-Palestinian Life at the 92nd Street Y.

2016: Bo’i Kalah: Here Comes the Bride an exhibition featuring “12 sensational bridal gowns reflecting Jewish cultural and family traditions from around the world” is scheduled to open at the Skirball Center.

2016: Bella Meyer is scheduled to speak on “Marc Chagall: Reflections of a Granddaughter” at the YIVO Institute for Jewish History.

2016: “Kurt Weill, the talented Jewish composer who was the most successful composer in Germany prior to his fleeing Nazi Germany, is scheduled to be the subject of a rare cabaret performance by singer Bremner Duthie and a jazz trio this evening at the Marigny Opera House in New Orleans, LA. (As reported by Alan Smason)

2017: At the University of Iowa, Hillel is scheduled to host its Shabbat Alumni Dinner for what some might call the Hebrew Hawkeyes.

2017: “The Women’s Balcony” and “Germans and Jews” are scheduled to be shown at the 27thAnnual  San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2017:  Limmud NY is scheduled to open today with a noontime lunch followed by programs on “A Brief History of Contemporary Jewish A Cappella, Niggun and Transformation and Jewish Moral Frameworks in a Multi-Cultural World

2017(21st of Shevat, 5777: Eighty-five year old Tulane drop-out Theodore Lowi the Cornell University Professor and ground-breaking political scientist and historian passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/us/theodore-lowi-dead.html?_r=0

2018: In London, “Rothschild and Sons” is scheduled to take place this evening.

https://mailchi.mp/jewishnews/audiences-are-singing-the-praises-of-rothschild-sons?e=025a365fe8

2018: The Jackson Hole Jewish Community is scheduled to host “Havd’Challah” where attendees bid farewell to Shabbat with “hot toddies and challah.”

2018: While defending his country’s new law about the Holocaust at the Munich Security Conference “Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said today that alongside Poles, Jews were also responsible for perpetrating the Holocaust.” (As reported by Tamar Pileggi)

https://www.timesofisrael.com/polish-prime-minister-says-jews-perpetrated-holocaust-too/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=f733cc8268-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-f733cc8268-53921877

 

2018: “Israeli figure skaters Alexei Bychenko and Daniel Samohin made an impressive showing at the Olympic finals today with the veteran Bychenko racking up a rare top 10 finish in a strong field.”

2018(2nd of Adar, 5778): Parashat Terumah

2019: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Wedding Guest by Jonathan Kellerman and the recently released paperback edition of Who We Are and How We Got Here” Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past by David Reich and We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled: Voices From Syriaby Wendy Pearlman.

2019: The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host a screening of “The Zookeeper’s Wife” followed by a discussion “led by Dr. Elliot Lefkovitz, faculty member, Spertus Institute and History Professor Emeritus, Loyola University.”

2019: In Amherst, MA, the Yiddish Book Center is scheduled to host a screening of “Stefan Zweig,” a biopic about “the year of exile in the life of…one of the most read German-language writers.”

2019: In San Francisco, WinterFest 2019, the Jewish Film Institute's weekend-long showcase of Jewish films from around the world is scheduled to come to an end.

2019: In Berkley, CA, the Ashkenaz Music and Dance Community Center is scheduled to host the Levoná Ensemble, a “Bay Area Band” that “blends Jewish Arabic and flamenco music.”

2019: In Bethesda, MD, the Bethesda Jewish Congregation is scheduled to host “An Evening of Ladino Music with Susan Gaeta and Gina Sobel,” a “concert featuring the music of Spanish Jews expelled from their homeland during the Spanish Inquisition” with proceeds of the benefit going to support “the Cuba America Jewish Mission programs in Cuba.”

2020: In Scottsdale, AZ, Congregation Beth Tefillah in partnership with the Aleph Society, is scheduled to host the final day of the Soul Conference whose speakers includes Rabbis Simon Jacobson, Arthur Kurzwell and Pinchas  Allouche.

2020: In Cincinnati, OH, the 2020 Jewish and Israeli Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Family in Transition,” a documentary ”about how the lives of a family in small-town Israel change completely after their father announces that he's transitioning to become a woman.”

2020: The Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “The Rabbi from Hezbollah” which “explores the incredible story of a Lebanese Muslim member of Hezbollah who transformed into an ultra-Orthodox Jew, living in Israel, and one of the country’s top international agents and spies.”

2020: On President's Day, The Breman Museum is scheduled to be open from 10 – 5 at a time when staff and visitor are thinking of the welcome letter from George Washington to the Hebrew Congregation of the City of Savannah” which is part of the Mickve Israel Records at The Georgia Historical Society” and which contains the bold statement where he declares “I rejoice that a spirit of liberality and philanthropy is much more prevalent than it formerly was among the enlightened nations of the earth; and that your brethren will benefit thereby in proportion as it shall become still more extensive”

2020: Roni Gal-Ed, “one of the world’s finest oboe players” is scheduled to play “two concerts with Jupiter at the Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church.

http://ronigaled.com/bio

2020: The full squad of Theo Epstein’s Chicago Cubs is scheduled to report for Spring training today.

2020:President’s Day, officially the third Monday of February, celebrates all U.S. presidents. For more about Jews and American Presidents see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/presquote.html  and http://www.jewishpost.com/archives/news/united-states-presidents-and-the-jews-from-george-washington-to-george-bush-1.html

2021: In Pepper Pike, OH, B’nai Jeshurun Congregation is scheduled to host the first session of “Purim Art with Marjorie Falk where attendees can learn about the art of “mask making.”

2021: The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to host Simon Goulden who will be continuing his exploration into the history of Anglo-Jewry as he looks at the period 1656-1870.

2021: The 21stannual Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin today.

2021: The Streicker Center is scheduled host a presentation by multi-talented Tiffany Haddish, the author of the New York Times bestseller The Last Black Unicorn.

2021: The National Museum of American Jewish History for which Mitchell Levin is an “official content provider” is scheduled to Christopher Silver, the Segal Family Assistant Professor in Jewish History and Culture at McGill University as he “discusses the prominent role of Jewish musicians in North Africa.”

2021: Award-winning filmmaker Aviva Kempner is scheduled to talk about her documentaries that depict underknown American Jewish heroes including Gertrude Berg, Moe Berg, Hank Greenberg and Julius Rosenwald “who fought against anti-Semitism, fascism, sexism and racism from the baseball stadium to Sears, to television and the movie screens.

2021: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present “The Persian Experience,” a disusion with Roya Hakakian, the author of Journey From the Land of No.

2021: The Combined Jewish Philanthropies and Temple Emanuel of Newton are scheduled to present online a discussion about President Joe Biden with Evan Osnos, the author of Joe Biden: The Life, the Rus and What Matters Now.

2021: Art/Break, a series of virtual studio visits organized by Asylum Arts and Meislin Projects is scheduled to host a visit with Israeli artist Eli Singalovski.

2021: The Jewish Community Library is scheduled to present Henry Michalski as he talks about his new book Torn Lilacs about his Polish parents’ tribulations during/after the Holocaust, subtitled “A True WWII Story of Love, Defiance and Hope.

2021: With almost 43% of its citizens having received at least one shot of the Pfizer vaccine, as of today Israel is still on target for relaxing some of the lockdown measures starting this Sunday.

 

 

 

This Day, February 18, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 18

654: “In Toledo Spain, Receswinth, King of the Visigoths, forced Judaizing Christians (converted Jews who still kept Jewish traditions) to swear loyalty to the Church or die” which meant “they were forced to spend Jewish and Christian holy days with the clergy, but were not forced to eat pork.”

1229: During the Sixth Crusade, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor signed a ten-year truce with al-Kamil, regaining Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem with neither military engagements nor support from the papacy. Prior to the Sixth Crusade, Pope Gregory III had used the Crusading Spirit to impose anti-Semitic legislation.  Frederick II was involved in a power struggle with the Papacy.  As part of that he struggle, he defied Rome and granted a charter of privileges to the Jews of Vienna in 1238.

1239: The ten year truce between Emperor Frederick II and the Sultan of Egypt came to an end.  During this period, 1236, the Emperor issued a decree refuting the accusations of ritual murder and providing for the protection of his Jewish subjects.

1488: The first printed eviction of tractate Gittin of the Babylonian Talmud was published in Soncino, Italy

1405: Tamerlane or Timur, the Mongol leader “under whose rule the Jewish people prospered” passed away today. (For more see Tamerlane and the Jews by Michael Shterenshis)

https://books.google.com/books?id=vJZm9amnoAoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

1474: According to bookplate, in Reggio de Calabria, Italy, Abraham ben Garton printed Rashi’s commentary on the Chumash.

1546: Martin Luther passed away.  Luther was a significant figure in the movement to reform Christianity.  He extended the hand of friendship to the Jews, thinking that he could win them over to his side with kindness.  When the Jews rejected his goal - conversion - Luther turned on them.  By 1544, he was publishing a pamphlet entitled "Concerning the Jews and Their Lies." Jews were characterized as “venomous, virulent, thieves, brigands and disgusting vermin."  According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, "'...Luther's ferocious castigation of the Jews provided fuel for anti-Semites and vicious force of that legacy was still evident in Nazi propaganda.'"

1564:Michelangelo passed away. Among his works were a statue of Moses that had horns and a statue of an uncircumcised David.

1574: An auto-de-fe took place in Mexico City; nearly 100 people were sentenced that day, including New Christians.

1577: The Jews of Safed requested assistance from the Sultan for persecution by local officials. In a letter to the local Ottoman officials, the Sultan told his people that the Jews, "have complained of wrong done to them." The Jews were forced to pay high taxes, transport dung on Saturdays, were levies tolls on the road to Damascus, and were beaten with a strip of metal. The Sultan ordered his people not to molest the Jews, to investigate and give back what the Jews are owed.

1653: After Cromwell’s government released him today, William Prynne returned to writing pamphlets on a variety of subjects including one call the “Short Demurrer” in which he expressed his opposition to Manasseh Ben Israel’s plea to Oliver Cromwell to overturn King Edward’s 13th century ban and allow the Jews to return to the British Isles.

1671: In Berkshire, England, Margaret and William Branson gave birth to Thomas I. Branson, the husband of Elizabeth Day with whom he had thirteen children.

1704: In London, Richea Asher and Moses Raphael Levy gave birth to Nathan Levy, the husband of Bila Levy and father of Rachel, Michel and Philadelphia Levy.

1723: In Prussia a revised form of the "Aeltesten-reglement" (Constitution of the Jewish Community) was issued.  The original document which was supposed to be read every in the synagogue was issued in March of 1722.

1732: In Rye, NY, Hetty Adolphus and Jacob Hays gave birth to David Barrack Hays, the husband of Esther Etting with whom he had eight children.

1751: German native Abraham Hutzler, the son of Moses Hutzler and the husband of Rosine Wambacher with whom he had four children – Moses, David, Isaac and Eve Hutzler.

1743: Premiere performance of Handel’s “Samson” at Covent Garden, an oratorio based on the life of the Biblical figure described in the Book of Judges.

1757: In Avignon, France, a local townsman walking through the ghetto on a dark night, stumbled and fell into a well near the synagogue. Fortunately, he was not hurt. The day was declared a local holiday for generations. The rationale was that had the townsman drowned so near the synagogue, the Jewish community would have been accused of complicity in his death. 

1758: David Franks was sent a note telling him owed £400 for insurance on goods being shipped from Liverpool to New York aboard “the ship Charming Rachel.”

1765: Hague native Frances Hart and Savannah, GA native Mordecai Sheftall gave birth to Elias Sheftall.

1768: In Germany, Jetle and Salomon Ottenheimer gave birth to Maier Ottenheimer, the husband of Madel Dreifuss with whom he had six children.

1772(14th of Adar I, 5532): Purim Katan

1785: Birthdate of Munster, Germany native Samson Nathan Eisendrath, the son of Nathan Baruch Eisendrath and the husband of Julia Isaack with whom he had 18 children.

1788: In Charleston, SC, Sarah de la Motta and Levi Sheftal gave birth to Perla Shetall, the wife of Isaac Russel with whom she had nine children.

1789: In Easton, PA, Esther Levy and Isaac Simons gave birth to Eleazer Simons.

1789(22nd of Shevat, 5549): New York native Jacob Rodriques Rivera, the son of Abraham Rodrigues River, the husband of Hannah Pimentel and “prominent Newport merchant, manufacturer and member of the United Company of Spermaceti Candlers” who “introduced sperm oil industry into the colonies” and “was the President of the Newport Jewish Congregation” passed away today.

1792: In Germany, Kehla and Feis Moses Fraenkel gave birth to Isaac Fraenkel the husband of Esther Feuchtwanger with whom he had five children.

1793: In Germany, Marget Isaac and Aron Abraham Arnold gave birth to Behle Arnold, the wife of Mendel Seligmann Dettelbacher and the mother of Seligman and Voegele Dettelbacher.

1794(18th of Adar): Rabbi Alexander Suskind of Horodno author of Yesod ve-Shoresh ha-Avodah passed away

1799: Bachu native Rebecka Obernauer and Wurtemberg native Ruppert Einstein gave birth to Hirsch Einstein the husbad of Babet Barbara Beer.

1804:  Ohio University founded in Athens, Ohio. Today approximately 10% of its 17,000 students are Jewish including Jacob Levin, a mensch and a scholar.  There is an on-campus Hillel Chapter at Ohio University.

1813: Emancipation of the Jews of Mecklenberg, Germany

1816: Birthdate of Maurice Block the Berlin born statistician and economist who moved to Paris in the 1840’s to work for the French ministry of agriculture.

1831: In Charleston, SC, Isabella Cowen and Isaac Tobias gave birth to Colleeton Harby Tobias.

1833: Birthdate of Warsaw native Henry (Hayyim Gerson) Vidaver who served as the Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis from 1865 through 1867.

1835: Benjamin Woolfe Franklin married Maria Levy today at the Great Synagogue.

1839: Birthdate of Zadoc Kahn, the Alsatian native who became Chief Rabbi of France.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10603.html

1839: Birthdate of Charles S. Baker who while serving as Congressman from New York in 1890 submitted a resolution “protesting…the enforcement by Russia of the edicts of 1882 against the Jews” and requesting the President to submit a protest to the Czar’s government.

1840: Sultan Abdul Mejid I issued a royal decree absolving the Jewish community on the island of Rhodes of charges “of having killed a gentile child” so that his blood could be used in baking matzoth. The day was celebrated as The Purim of Rhodes.  The Sultan was a reformer who was trying to make the Ottoman Empire a modern nation as can be seen by his attempts to replace the turban with the fez, introduce the use of banknotes and the issuing of a patent so that a telegraph system could be built in Turkey.

1844: In Lamar County, Alabama, Samuel Jefferson and Martha Louisa "Tarrant" Mordecai gave birth to their eldest child Nancy Priscilla “Nannie” Mordecai Cash the wife of Wesley Shepard Cash.

1846: Beginning of the Galician peasant revolt.  At this time Galicia was a province of the Austrian Empire.  The revolt was one of many that would sweep Europe during the late 1840’s. By 1851, once the revolts in Galicia had been suppressed, the Reform Constitution would be revoked and, among other things, Jews would lose their newly won right to purchase land in Galicia,

1848(14th of Adar I, 5608): Purim Katan

1848: In Pozsony, Gregor Steinbach and Therese Steinbach gave birth to Dr. Gustav “Itzig” Steinbach the father of Leonore Steinbach and father of Karl Steinbach and Theresa Risa Lohr.

1850: In Budapest, Karl Ullmann and his wife gave birth to Alexander de Erény Ullmann the political economist who served in the Hungarian Parliament from 1884 to 1892.  His father who was born in 1809 and passed away in 1880 founded the first Hungarian Insurance Company.  Alexander passed away in 1897.

1850: Birthdate of German native Isidor Georg Henschel who gained fame as Sir George Henschel “the British baritone, pianist, conductor and composer.

http://dictionary.sensagent.com/George%20Henschel/en-en/

1850 In New York Abigail Kursheedt (nee Judah) and Asher Kursheedt gave birth to Serena Kursheedt

1851(16thof Adar I, 5611): Forty-six-year-old Car Gustav Jacob Jacobi, “the first Jewish mathematician to be appointed professor at a German university” passed away today in Berlin

1852: According to reports published today, a juror named Shubal Hubbard claimed that Alexander Christallar, a witness for the defendant, had tried to engage him in inappropriate social contact during a break in the trial.  In his deposition, Hubbard claimed that Christallar was a Jew and that he was President of a Williamsburg Synagogue.  He also claimed that Christallar had invited him to a celebration at which Oysters would be served.

1853: August Belmont, the Jewish banker and Democratic political leader, and Caroline Slidell gave birth to August Belmont, Jr. who was raised as a Christian.

1856: Full civil rights are granted to Turkish Jews under the terms of the “Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856.”

1857: William Meir Barack married Fanny Abraham today in the United Kingdom

1858: Lord Palmerston who as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had come to the defense of David Pacifico which led him to make 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” completed his first term as Prime Minister today.

1859(14th of Adar I, 5619): Purim Katan

1859: Abraham Myers Cohen, the son of Solomon Myers Cohen passed away today.

1859(O.S): In Russia, Menachem-Nukhem Rabinovich, a “rich merchant” who lost it all and his wife Chaye-Esther gave birth to Solomon Rabinowitz who became famous under the penname of Sholem Aleichem.  Born in Russia, Sholem Aleichem first wrote in Hebrew and only later turned to writing in Yiddish.  He moved from Russia to Denmark, to Switzerland and ultimately moved to the United States at the outbreak of World War I.  Unfortunately, he only lived in America for two years and he passed away in 1916.  Known as the Yiddish Mark Twain, Sholem Aleichem is most famous for creating Tevya and all of the wonderful characters who lived with him in the shtetels of the Pale.  He used humor to portray both the joy and the suffering of his co-religionists.  He became famous among generations of Jews who had thought they had escaped from all of that "Yiddish stuff" and gentiles as well with the production of Fiddler on the Roof.  Some of his famous lines include: "In the mud, but not of the mud."  "When a Jew eats a chicken one of them was sick.""A bachelor is a man who comes to work each morning from a different direction.""Gossip is nature's telephone.""Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.""No matter how bad things get you got to go on living, even if it kills you.""The rich swell up with pride, the poor from hunger." Some of his works that have been translated into English include Tevye's Daughters, The Adventures of Menahem-Mendel, The Best of Sholom Aleichem and The Great Fair which is his autobiography.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/shalom-aleichem

1860: Birthdate of Bombay, India native Elia Hayeem Jospeh who was buried in Hong Kong’s Happy Valley Jewish Cemetery.

 1861: With the Italian unification almost complete, King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia assumes the title of King of Italy.  Jews were active participants in the fight to unify Italy and the newly unified Italian nation was certainly hospitable to its Jewish citizens.  Historian Elliot Rosenberg cites a quote from his fellow historian Howard Morely Sacher to capture what the new Italian nation meant to the Jewish people.  “In 1848, there had been no European country save Spain where the restrictions placed upon Jews were more galling and more humiliating than in Italy.  After 1860, there was no country on the continent of Europe where conditions were better for Jews.”

1863: Julius Sax married Rachel Abrahams today at the Albion Hotel in Aldersgate.

1865: Birthdate of Hungary native Solomon Ulmer who in 1874 came to the United States where he became a mortgage banker and Zionist living in Cleveland.

1866: Birthdate of Samuel Krauss, a professor at the Jewish Teachers' Seminary in Budapest and the Jewish Theological Seminary in Vienna who was a contributor to the Jewish Encyclopedia.

1866: Today, in Philadelphia, The Free Sons of Israel instituted two additional lodges – Manasseh Lodge 17 and Moses Lodge 18.

1868: Birthdate of Rockford, Illinois native Albert Henry Loeb, the husband of Anna Bohnen with whom he had four sons – Alan, Ernest, Thomas and Richard (of Leopold and Loeb fame) – and who practiced law in Chicago before becoming an executive with Sears, Roebuck and Company.

https://flps.newberry.org/article/5418474_11_1375/

1870: State Supreme Court Justice Cardozo denied a motion for an injunction in an action styled the Mayor of New York City vs. the Beach Pneumatic Transit Company.

1871: Rabbi Wise delivered the first in a series of lectures on the “Origin of Christianity” at Steinway Hall in New York City.  Reverend O.B. Frothingham introduced the Rabbi.

1872: In “Libau, Latvia, Chaim Nathan and Yetta (Nieburg) Aronstam gave birth Noah E. Aronstam, the Michigan College of Medicine trained doctor and professor of dermatology and urology who served as the associate editor of both the Indianapolis Medical Journal and the Jewish Tribune while finding time to write the Manual on Sexual and Venereal Diseases and The Jewish Dietary Laws from a Scientific Standpoint and marry the former Sarah D. Blumenthal in Detroit in 1899.

1873: Birthdate of Theodore Albert Peyser the native of Charleston, West Virginia who worked in Cincinnati before moving to New York where he was eventually elected to Congress from New York’s 17th Congressional District.

1873: Birthdate of Charleston, W.Va.., native Theodore A. Peyser, the Cincinnati based traveling salesman who settled in New York where he “represented New York’s 17th Congressional District.”

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000281

1874(1stof Adar, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1874: Birthdate of Junction City, Kansas native Saul Henry Ganz, the “president and Treasurer of D. Lisner and Company, wholesalers and importers of jewelry,” the husband of Ruth Ganz and the father of Paul and Victor Ganz.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1953/10/10/110067724.pdf

1874: Ida Morgenthau, the daughter of Lazarus Morgenthau married William J. Erich.

1874: Lazarus Morgenthau founded a society that would provide dowries for orphan Jewish girls.

1875: Max Eckmann, the Berlin born son of Ezekiel and Caroline (Lowenstein) Ekemann who in 1874 emigrated to the United States, where he became a manufacturer of novelties, helped organized the Independent Order of B’rith Abraham and served as a Republican in the New York State Assembly married Marie Slupecki today.

1876: In Slovakia, 37-year-old Herman Ehrenthal and Veron Ehrenthal gave birth do Roazlia Ehrenthal who became Rozalia Fleischmann.

1876: In Maryland, Circuit Court Judge Pinkney, ruled that the City of Baltimore did not have the right give public funds to a variety of charitable organizations including the Hebrew Hospital.

1876: Ferdinand Falk and Jeannette Levy Falk gave birth to Gustave Falk, the husband of Marguerite R. Falk.

1877(6th of Adar, 5637): Carolyn (Norris) Horowitz, the wife of Phineas Jonathan Horowitz, the native of Baltimore and graduate of Jefferson Medical College who rose through the ranks of the Navy to become Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, passed away today seven years before her husband retired.

1878: Birthdate of Baltimore native Sidney Lansburgh, “an official of American General Corp, the husband of Martha Epstein, “the daughter of Jacob Epstein” the founder of the Baltimore Bargain House and the father of Richard Landsburgh, who became President of Raleigh Stores, a high end, preppy clothing emporium.

1880: Mr. Moses Levinson of New Rochelle sued the New Haven Railroad today in United States Circuit Court for “exemplary damages.”  Levinson contended that he had been wrongfully put off one of the New Haven’s trains when the conductor claimed he had not paid for his ticket.  Levinson sought $5,000 in damages.  The jury awarded him $750.

1882: Birthdate of Frank Angone the native of New York who gained fame as featherweight Benny Yanger, nicknamed The Tipton Slasher.

1882(29thof Shevat, 5642): Parashat Mishpatim, Shabbat Shekalim

1882: “The Russian War on the Jews” published today described the renewed attacks to which the Jews of Kiev have been subjected and Count Totleben’s refusal to intervene without special instructions from the government at St. Petersburg.

1882: In Philadelphia, PA, the old passenger station belong to the Pennsylvania Railroad, has been configured to provide temporary accommodations for the Jewish refugees who will arrive in the city after having escaped from the recent round of pogroms in Russia.  A supply of food has been gathered for the refugees and Dr. Thomas G. Morton is the head of a group of doctors who will be available to take care of their medical needs.  In the meantime, an Employment Committee will make every effort to find jobs for the new arrivals.

1884: In Hampstead, Kingston, Jamaica natives Celia Morrice and Eugene Alberga gave birth to Ella Hortense Alberga.

1886: In Poland Yaakov and Pearl Predmesky gave birth to Louis Predmesky who came to New York City in 1922 where he served as a rabbi in the Bronx and was among those who marched in Washington in 1943 in a public demonstration demanding government action to “help save the Jews of Europe.

1886: Birthdate of Madison, SD, native Clare Stephen Jacobs who won a bronze medal for pole vaulting in the 1908 Summer Olympics.

1888(6thof Adar I, 5648): Seventy-two-year Lazar Zweifel a “prolific writer and one of the first to use Talmudic and idiomatic Hebrew for the modern poetry which he frequently composed, stanzas being interspersed throughout his works” passed away today.

1888: Birthdate of John U. “Jack” Zuta the Chicago gangster who had the unique distinction of working for both Al Capone and Bugs Moran and whose death unearthed records that helped put away several crooked politicians.

1887: In New York, the Hebrew Technical Institute moved from its location on Crosby Street to its new school building at 34 and 36 Stuyvesant Street. Founded in 1884, the school provides vocational training to young Jews most of whom are the children of recent immigrants.

1890: Birthdate of Jassy native Irving Haim, who relocated to Philadelphia.

1890: Ida Cohen (nee Kuhn) and Eduard Cohen gave birth to Albert Cohen.

1890:  In Moscow, according to the Gregorian calendar, Leonid Pasternak, a professor at the Moscow School of Paint, Sculpture and Architecture and concert pianist Rosa Kaufman gave birth to Boris Pasternak, the author of Doctor Zhivago

1890: Four days after he had passed away, 76-year-old Michael Angelo Rosselli, a native of Leghorn, Italy, the husband of Amina Rosselli and the father of James, Joseph, Jeanette and Ernest Rosseilli was buried today at the “Balls Pond Roach Jewish Cemetery.”

1891: Bernard and Ida (Levin) Appelbaum gave birth to Columbia University trained Civil Engineer Samuel Bernard Applebaum, the husband of Juliette Bursch and inventor of patented “Backwash Control.”

1891: Birthdate of Polish born Yiddish actor Ludwig Satz (Editor’s note- some sources show him being born on this date in 1895)

http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yt/lex/S/satz-ludwig.htm

1893: “Regulators in Louisiana” published today described “the existence of an oath-bound organization having for its object the banishment of Jewish merchants…and Negroes from Tangipahoa Parish.”  Among those threatened was David Stern, a leading merchant in Amity, LA.

1893: Seventy-year-old Gerson von Bleichröder the second generation German-Jewish banker who provided his services to Bismarck and Prussia passed away today.

1894: It was reported today that George Eliot had told American author Charles Godfrey Leland “that in order to write Daniel Deronda she had read through 200 books.” Leland wrote that he “longed to tell her that she had better have learned Yiddish and talked with 200 Jews and been taught, as Iwas by my friend Solomon the Sadducee, the art of distinguishing Fraulein Lowenthal of the Ashkenazim from Senorita Aguado of the Sephardim by the corners of their eyes.” (Daniel Deronda is the philo-Semitic novel written by Mary Anne Evans who used the penname George Eliot.  At the time of this entry, Leland was doing research on gypsies.)

1894: “All Fools’ Day” published claimed that 17th century antiquarian John Brand attributed the origin of April Fool’s Day to the Jews.  According to Brand, Noah sent the dove out of the ark before the waters had abated on a day which corresponds to April 1.  The celebration of fools on this date reminds of the original “fool’s errand” on which Noah sent the Dove.

1894: It was reported today that the late Albert S. Rosenbaum passed away as a result of heart disease which probably does not offer any comfort to the widow and five children who survived him.

1897: In Chicago, Il, Joseph and Ida (Rosin) Levin gave birth to University of Detroit Law School trained attorney, the husband of Rohda Katzin, the father of Charles, Joseph, Daniel and Mimi Levin and the chief Judge of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, President of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit and vice president and director of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds.

1897: In Paris, French author Emil Zola was attacked by a mob on his way home from the court where his case was being heard.  The police were forced to intervene to prevent a lynching.  The frustrated mob then “made a rush for the Jews threatening to throw them into the Seine.”

1900: “The 37thConvention of District No. 4 of the Independent Order of B’Nai B’rith opened today in San Francisco.

1901: Winston Churchill made his maiden speech in the House of Commons. At the time, Churchill was member of the Conservative Party serving as an MP for Oldham.  In 1904, the Conservatives at Oldham would tell Churchill that they could no longer support him.  This would force Churchill to seek a new constituency which would be Manchester North-West where a third of the voters were Jewish.  This change in political fortune would force Churchill to deal with Jewish political issues for the first, but not the last time, in his career.  For more on this topic, you should Sir Martin Gilbert’s highly readable Churchill and the Jews.

1902: The Arbitration Committee of the Thirty-six which was appointed by the National Civic Federation at its last convention whose members included Oscar Straus and Samuel Gompers held “its first regular meeting in the Mission Building.

1903(21stof Shevat, 5663): Seventy-four-year-old Moses Mielziner, the Prussian born American rabbi who had been President of the Hebrew Union College since 1900 passed away today and was succeeded by Gotthard Deutsch who filled the position of “acting President.”

1904(2ndof Adar. 5664): Seventy-nine-year-old composer and pianist Emanuel Abraham Aguilar, the husband of Sarah Aguilar and the brother of novelist Grace Aguilar passed away today in his native city of London.

http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php?topic=4174.0

1904: Four days after he had passed away, Barrow Emanuel, the son of Emanuel and Julia (Moss) Emanuel and the brother of Edward Emanuel was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1904: In Florence, Italy, Gilda Borghi and Mario Mordechai Pacifici who descended “from an ancient Sephardic and religious Jewish family of Spanish origin and of rabbinical tradition settled in Tuscany (first in Leghorn, then in Florence) in the 16th century gave birth to Riccardo Pacifici, an Italian rabbi who would be murdered at Auschwitz.

1904: Birthdate of Aubrey Louis Goodman who led Baylor to a SWC championship before leading the University of Chicago to a Big-Ten Championship giving him the unique distinction of being one of the few players to play a key role in winning two different major football championships.

1905: Birthdate of Jean S. Greene, the wife of Philp M. Greene who was buried in Durham, NC when she passed aay in 1992

1906: Dr. Thomas R. Slicer delivered the last of a series of lectures on “Fraternity” at the People’s Institute in Cooper Union, an organization that is unique because it membership includes Jews as well as “Catholic, Protestant, agnostics, atheists and Christian Scientists.”

1907: State Express 111 through State Express a cigarette brand created by London tobacco merchant Sir Albert Levy were all “registered under UK Registration No.290529” today.

1910: In Lithuania, Rabbi Moshe Yom Tov Wachtfogel gave birth to Nosson Meir Wachtfogel who became known as the Lakewood Mashgiach.

1911(20thof Shevat, 5671) Parashat Yitro

1911: Dr. Gerson B. Levi scheduled to deliver a sermon this morning a Congregation B’nai Sholom-Temple Israel in Chicago.

1911: Die geschiedene Frau (The Divorcée), “an operetta in three acts with a libretto by Victor Léon, was performed for the first time in Paris as La divorcée

1912: “Kadimo Hebrew School” was dedicated today in Baltimore, MD.

1913: During the Third Republic, when real power was held by the Prime Ministers, Raymond Poincaré becomes President of France. Along with General Pershing (commander of the AEF), Poincare opposed the Armistice contending that Allied armies needed to penetrate deeper into Germany lest the German people not realize that their army had been beaten.  Their view did not prevail.  The German Army marched back into Germany giving rise to the “stabbed in the back” myth that helped Hitler come to power.  During the 1920’s, Poincare intervened on behalf of the Jews of Poland when he convinced the Polish government to refrain from adopting legislation that would have discriminated against her Jewish citizens.

1913: Birthdate of Rabbi Leslie Hardman, “the young chaplain” who was with the British 11th Armoured Division when it liberate Bergen-Belsen.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/oct/13/secondworldwar-judaism

1913(11thof Adar I, 5673): Isaac Radinski, a Chicago merchant, passed away today.

1913: “The Prisoner of Zenda” the film version of the novel by the same name produced by Adolph Zukor was released in the United States today.

1914: Charles Edward Sebag-Montefiore and Muriel Alice Ruth de Pass gave birth to Denzil Charles Sebag-Montefiore

1914: In Philadelphia, PA, “Jacob Loeb Langsdorf and Louise Silberman Langsdorft” gave birth to Blanche Loeb Langsdorf who became Balance Loeb Sundheim when she married Harry G. Sundheim, Jr.

1915: As of today, the fund of the American Jewish Relief Committee for Sufferers from the War has collected $482, 952.13.

1915: The American cruiser Tennessee arrived in Alexandria carrying refugees “from the coast of Syria” and Palestine who were escaping from the Ottomans.

1915:  The Red Cross Fund which Jacob H. Schiff serves as treasurer increased its total by $1,112.80 bring the total collected to $460, 060.47.

1915: “The development of the educational and social life of Jewish young people and the improvement of the economic conditions through the operation of 200 schools under the auspices of the Alliance Israelite Universelle of Paris were partly described at a memorial meeting” tonight “the founder of the organization, Narcesse Leven.

1916(14thof Adar I, 5676): Purim Katan

1916(14thof Adar I, 5676): Morris Quasha, the son of Hyman Quasha and Sara Coburn passed away today after which he was buried at the Mount Zion Cemetery in Masepth, NY.

1916: Birthdate of Maria Victoria Bloch-Bauer, who as Maria Altmann gained fame for her “successful, five decades long fight to regain five Gustav Klimt paintings owned by her family that had been stolen by the Nazis during World War II.

1916: “The Joint Distribution Committee of the Jewish Relief Fund issued a report” today that showed that $2,900,000 has been sent to aid the Jews suffering in the war zones including $1,285,000 to Russia, $860,000 to Poland and Lithuania, $610,000 to Austria-Hungary and $142,000 in Palestine.

1917: Dr. Samuel Schulman is scheduled to speak on “The Problem of American Judaism” this morning at Temple Beth-El.

1917: At the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall, Rabbie Wise is scheduled to speak on “Does the Soul Survive?”

1917: Dr. Silverman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Martrydom of the Jews” this moring at Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue.

1917: It was reported today that the American Jewish Relief Committee had received the following contributions from local committees: $1,039, Baltimore; $1,000, Indiana of which $18 came from Wabash; $35, Champagne, Illinois.

1918: Twenty-five year old Aaron Maiberg, a native of Russia who emigrated to Canada in 1912 enlisted today and served with the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers which was part of “the Jewish Legion.:

1918: Morris Rothenberg, Chairman of the Zionist Committee of New York, presided over the memorial service held in honor of the late Jechiel Tchlenow, the Russian born doctor who passed away in London only months after having participated in the negotiations that produced the Balfour Declaration.

1919: Three days after he had passed away, 34 year old Mark Abrahams was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1919: In Chicago, on the final evening  of the Zionist Convention, Meyer Abrams is scheduled to chair a special session at the Hebrew Institute where all of the papers including The Jewish State,” “The Zion Commonwealth” and “The Jerusalem Printing Works” will be presented in the Hebrew language.

1920: The Jewish Court of Arbitration held its first session

1921: It was reported today that following complaints from local Jewish sources and Professor Simon Askenazy, the Polish Ambassador to Great Britain concerning the expulsion of Jewish refugees from Austria, the Council of the League of Nations will take up the issue at its next meeting on February 24.

1922(20thof Shevat, 5682) Parashat Yitro

1922: According to an announcement made today, “some of the most eminent Jews” in the United States will be attending the biennial convention of the Union of American Congregations and the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods which will be held in New York in January where “ways by which Judaism can be preserved in the United States will be discussed.”

1923: Birthdate of Robert (Bob) Sonné Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Physics at Boston University and cofounder of the BU Center for Philosophy & History of Science.

https://www.bu.edu/cphs/about/robert-cohen/

 1924: Birthdate of Canadian born actress Bessie Hope Wolfe Garber who “hosted the Canadian television show, At Home with Hope Garber.

1925: “Palestine Pianist Here” published today described the concert given by Arie Aeliah the “head of of the music school in Tel Aviv” who has come to the United States to report on the progress of the fulfillment of the  musical aspirations of the Jewish community in Palestine.

1926: It was reported today that the White Star Line has received a radio message from Captain Arthur Holme which said that the Homeric has left Constantinople and is on schedule for its arrival in Haifa.

1926: A Bill of particulars filed in he Brockton, MA, blasphemy case was characterized tonight as “exaggerated and ridiculous” by defendant Anthony Bimba, the editor of a Communist paper who has written “Here we are organizing among the Lithuanians among the Lithuanians, Poles among Poles, the Jews among the Jews and so on, to overthrow the capitalistic government by revolution in the same way they did in Russia…”

1927: Two days after he had passed away, 78 year old Jacob Press was buried today at the “Streatham Jewish Cemetery.”

1927: Birthdate of Michael “Mike” Harari, the sabra who became an officer in Mossad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/world/middleeast/michael-harari-israeli-agent-likened-to-james-bond-dies-at-87.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

 1927: The London Gazette reported from Whitehall that “Letters Patent have passed the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, granting the Dignity of a Baronet of the said United Kingdom to the undermentioned gentlemen and the heirs male of their respective lawfully begotten: Sir Joseph Duveen, of Millbank in the City of Westminster”

1928: “Orient,” a silent movie filmed by cinematographer Mutz Greenbaum was released today in Germany.

1929: First Academy Awards are announced. “Broadway Melody” produced by Irving Thalberg was named Best Picture for 1928 – 1929. “All Quiet on the Western Front” directed by Lewis Milestone was named Best Picture of 1929-1930.

1929: Israel Joseph Winkel, the husband of Phoebe Winkel and the father of Joseph, Solomon, Kate, Sarah and Leah Winkel was buried today at the “East Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1929: In Brooklyn, Lena and Max Weinrib gave birth to Jerome Weinrib, the retired chairman of ABC Carpet.

http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/news/local-obituaries/jerome-weinrib-abc-carpet-chairman-dies/PiZUMURMn5cDSFVpTAnQfP/

1930: Birthdate of St. Louis native James Leslie “Jimmy” Jacobs the multi-talented athlete who concentrated on handball and managing boxers – a passion which to him co-founding the production companies “The Greatest Fights of the Century” and “Big Fights, Inc.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/24/obituaries/jim-jacobs-tyson-s-co-manager-and-handball-titlist-dies-at-58.html

1930: Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart's "Simple Simon" premieres in New York

1931(1stof Adar, 5691): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1931:  Over 1,500 people attended funeral services for Louis Mann at Temple Emanu-El which were opened with a reading by Rabbi H.G. Enelow and included a eulogy delivered by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and a rendition of a Bach aria by violinist Mischa Elman.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/02/19/98323093.pdf

1931(1stof Adar, 5691): Fifty-year-old Russian born American actor Louis Wolheim who gave a memorable performance in “All Quiet on the Western Front” passed away today.

1931: King Levinsky fought a four-round exhibition with former Heavy Weight Champion Jack Dempsey. Levinsky the scion of a Jewish family from Chicago that had a fish business on Maxwell Street

1932:  Birthdate of Czech born film director Milos Forman.  Forman’s father was Jewish but his mother was not.  They died in the camps.

1932: O.R. Miller of Albany, “an official of the New York Civic League” was reported today to be one of those wishing to testify against the confirmation of Judge Benjamin N. Cardoza who has been nominated by President Hoover to serve as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1933: Marinus van der Lubbe, the man who will be accused of setting the Reichstag Fire, arrived in Berlin. There are those who contend the fire was really set by the Nazis.  Regardless, they used it as tool to consolidate their power weeks after Hitler became Chancellor.

1933: “The Mystery of the Wax Museum” a horror film directed by Michael Curtiz was released in the United States today.

1934(3rd of Adar, 5694): “Dr. Heinrich York Steiner, Hungarian Jewish writer, friend of Dr. Theodore Herzl” and one of the founders of the Zionist movement passed away today at the age of 75.  Dr. York-Steiner, who was born in Hungary, spent most of his life in Vienna.  Known as a novelist, critic and dramatist, he became friendly with Dr. Herzl as a young man and worked closely with him to form Zionist groups. He played an important part in the creation of the World Zionist Organization.”

1935: Nineteen days after premiere in New York City, “The Good Fairy,” a comedy directed by William Wyler and produced by Carl Laemmle, Jr. was released in the United States today.

1936: As a result of the assassination of Swiss Nazi leader Wilhelm Gustloff on February 4, today, “the Swiss Federal Council ordered…the immediate suppression of all central or regional German Nazi organizations in Switzerland.”

1936: New York Governor Herbert H. Lehman was among the speakers at tonight’s fellowship dinner sponsored by the National Committee for Religion and Welfare Recovery where he told attendees “that something seemed to be wrong with the social as well as the economic order of the nation” and “called upon Protestants, Catholics and Jews to join in a new spiritual awakening…”

1936: Invitations were sent today to forty national leaders asking them to attend a meeting in Cincinnati called by Felix Warburg where plans will be made for raising the three and a half million dollars that the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee has promised to provide assistance to refugees from Eastern and Central Europe.

1936: In a reorganization of the League of Nations High Commission for Refugees Coming From Germany, for now, Norman Bentwich, the director of the High Commission, a professor at the Hebrew University and former Attorney-General of Palestine will be responsible for providing economic assistance to the refugees.

1937: It was reported today that German born composer Walter Damrosch who would be classified as Jew if he had stayed in his homeland has expressed this opposition to a bill introduced by Congressman Samuel Dickstein, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, designed “to protect the artistic and earning opportunities in the United States for American actors, vocal musicians, operatic singers, solo dancers, solo instrumentalists and orchestral conductors.”

1937: The prosecution rested in the restaurant racket trial today that involved a payment of $21,000 to Dutch Shultz, the son. of “German-Jewish immigrants Herman and Emma Flegenheimer” who had named their son Arthur

1938: The Palestine Post reported that owing to German influence there had been in recent months a concentrated Italian drive against the appointment of Jews to leading positions in the economic and political life of the state.

1938: “The Baroness and the Butler” a romantic comedy featuring J. Edward Bromberg and Joseph Schildkraut was released in the United States today.

1938: “A Yank At Oxford” produced by Michael Balcon was released in the United States today.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that there were three successive Arab attacks on the Rana police post, near Acre. Some 150 Arab villagers in the Tulkarm area were arrested in connection with a number of recent railway sabotages.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that Maestro Toscanini had withdrawn from participating in the Nazi-dominated Salzburg Festival and announced his intention to come and conduct the Orchestra in Palestine.

1938(17th of Adar I, 5698): Seventy-three-year-old Vilna native “Joseph Polstein, a retired builder, a former president of Congregation Kehilath Jershurum in Manhattan and a director of Yeshiva College died today of pneumonia in his home” today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/02/19/98099682.pdf

1939(29th of Shevat, 5699): Parashat Mishpatim and Shabbat Shekalim

1939: Rabbi B. Benedict Glazer is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Brotherhood, Is It a Delusion?” at Temple Emanu-El today.

1939: The Central Synagogue in Manhattan is scheduled to hold its “annual Youth Service in honor of the eleventh annual convention of the New York State Federation of Young Folks’ Leagues” that will include a sermon by Saul B. Applebaum on “Youth’s Aged Problems.”

1939: In observance of “Brotherhood Sabbath,” Rev. C. Jeffares McCombe, pastor of the Methodist Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Common Task of Christian and Jew” at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1940: In Warsaw, two Jewish girls were raped by two German sergeants.

1941: United Sates Representative Martin L. Sweeney testified in Federal Court” today, in “his suit for $250,000 damages, based on allegations that he was libeled in” Drew Pearson’s Washington Merry-Go-Round Column that “he never at any time felt or manifested prejudice against Jews or other persons because of race or faith” and that he had not joined with the notorious Father Coughlin to oppose a nominee for a federal judgeship.

1941: The seizure in the port of Jaffa over the week-end of a motor launch transporting nearly a ton of opium and hashish valued at fifty thousand pounds” is believed today by authorities “to have broken up a gigantic plot.”

1942(1st of Adar, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1942 (1st of Adar, 5702: Fifteen-year-old Eduard Bondy, the “son of Pavel and Franziska Bondy” died today in the Lodz Ghetto during the Holocaust.

1942: Birthdate of Maurice Lévy, the Moroccan born French businessman who became “chief executive officer of Publicus.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/publicis-extends-maurice-levys-term-as-ceo-1410852508

1943: A group of 1,220 Jewish refugees from Poland arrived in Israel from Tehran where they had found refuge in 1942

http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205872.pdf

1943: Joseph Goebbels gave his Total War speech which should have put an end to any later claims that the Allies were wrong in pursuing a policy of Unconditional Surrender when fighting the Axis.

1943(13thof Adar I, 5703): Seventy-four-year-old Dutch trade unionist Henri Polak who was President of the General Diamond Workers’ Union of the Netherlands died of pneumonia in Laren following which his wife Milly was shipped to Westerbrork where she died.

1943(13thof Adar I, 5703): Seventy-four-year-old Odessa born American Socialist Sergius Ingerman, a graduate of “the medical school at the University of Berne, co-founder of the Socialist Party of America with Eugene V. Debs and Morris Hilliquit and the husband of Dr. Anna Ingerman passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/02/19/85084470.pdf

1943: The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement.  The White Rose movement was an anti-Nazi movement inspired by German students.  It is important to remember that there were those in Germany who opposed Hitler and were willing to risk their lives to express that opposition. 

1944: Lightweight Al Davis scored his last victory over “a name fighter” today.

1945: The last of six convoys of deportees arrived at The Langenstein-Zwieberge, an under-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. 

1945: In “Alfred Einstein’s Study of Mozart” published today, Roger Session said of Mozart, His Character, His Work by Alfred Einstein that “a new book by Alfred Einstein is in itself an event of first rate importance in the world of musical scholarship” and that this “present volume on Mozart is not only an event but a predestined one.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1945/02/18/313647562.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1945(5thof Adar, 5705): Fifty-five-year-old Arne Laurin the graduate of the “Technical Academy of Prague,” the editor-in-chief of Prager Presse, a German language newspaper regarded as the mouthpiece of the Czech government who was forced to flee because of opposition to the Nazis and who “took charge of the index department of the Czechoslovak Information Service” after arriving in New York in 1939 with his wife “Olga Weiss Laurinova” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1945/02/19/84628244.pdf

1946: A clandestine radio transmitter known as the “Voice of Free Israel” that is reportedly operated by the Stern Gang was seized in Tel Aviv after “a house-to-house search by British Soldiers and police officers.”

1946(17thof Adar I, 5706): Eighty-one-year-old Siegfried Wachsmann, the  Glewitz Germany native and University of Berlin trained physician who in 1901 came to the United States where he served on the faculties of Fordham and Columbia universities and the Medical Director of the Montefiore Home and Hospital for Chronic Diseases on Gun Hill Road passed away today in Middleton, NY<

1946: Clemens August Galen was named as a Cardinal.  During World War II, while serving as the Bishop of Munster (Germany), he opposed the Nazis.

1947: Birthdate of Eliot Engel, Congressman representing New York’s 17th District.

1947: “A Flag is Born” was scheduled to open in Boston, MA.

1948: “Mr. Roberts” featuring Steven Hill, Larry Blyden and Sam Lembeck as “Sam Insigna” opened on Broadway today.

1949:Eamon de Valera resigns as Taoiseach (head of government) of Ireland. The controversial Irish leader was rumored to have been the illegitimate son of a Portuguese Jew, a rumor he vehemently denied. However, de Valera was not an anti-Semite as can be seen by his support in 1937 for a provision in the Irish Constitution that explicitly recognized the existence and rights of the Jewish community in Ireland.

1950(1stof Adar, 5710): Parashat Mishpatim; Rosh Chodesh Adar

1950(1stof Adar, 5710): Sixty-eight-year-old Lithuania native Charles Katz, “the President and a founder Polan, Ktz and Company, Inc. an umbrella manufacturer located in Baltimore and a leader of the Jewish community who served a director of the Associated Jewish Charities of Baltimore and a director of the United Synagogue of America while raising two daughters and on son, Lawrence with his wife “the former Fannie Elfant” passed away today.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Knesset approved, by 79 votes to 16, the government's statement on the ruptured relations with the Soviet Union. The resolution upheld the role the Soviet Union played in the establishment of Israel in 1948 but found no justification for the Soviet role in breaking off the diplomatic relations between the two countries now. Mass meetings in New York asked the Soviet Union to "Let My People Go!"

1953(3rd of Adar, 5713): Seventy-five-year-old Columbia University trained mining engineer Leon Gilbert Simon, “a special agent of the Equitable Life Assurance Society and the author of books on insurance and taxation passed away today while returning to his New York home after “delivering a series of lectures at Tulane University in New Orleans.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that in London the House of Commons backed the British government's decision to continue selling jet fighters to Arab nations to the exclusion of Israel.

1954: “The Long, Long Trailer” a comedy produced by Pandro S. Berman was released in the United States today.

1955: Pinchas Lavon’s resignation as Defense Minister is accepted.

1955: David Ben Gurion agrees to come out of retirement and serve as Defense Minister.  Four months later he will also agree to serve as Prime Minister.

1957(17th of Adar I, 5717): “Two civilians were killed by landmines, next to Nir Yitzhak, on the southern border of the Gaza Strip.”

1959(11th of Adar I, 5719): Fifty-three-year-old Viennese composer Erich Zeisl who came to New York via Paris after the Anschluss passed away today.

http://www.zeisl.com/

http://orelfoundation.org/index.php/composers/article/eric_zeisl/

1962: It was reported today that, on the eve of Brotherhood Week, Rabbi William Berkowitz had presented Congregation B’nai Jershurun’s award for being a champion of human rights to Reverend Ralph W. Sockman, the minister of emeritus of Christ Church (a Methodist Congregation)  who was hailed as “one of the leaders who has brought the spiritual dimension into the community, the nation and the world.”

1963 After premiering in London in January, “Summer Holiday” a musical with a score by Stanley Black was released in the rest of the UK today.

1963(24th of Shevat, 5723):Shlomo-Yisrael Ben-Meir began serving as serving as a Deputy Speaker and the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs

1965(15th of Adar I, 5725): Eight-six-year-old Paul Sachs, the Assistant Director of the Fogg Art Museum and founding member of The Museum of Modern Art who played a key role in making plans for protecting American art during WWII and retrieving art from war torn Europe as described in The Monument Men passed away today.

http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/09/portrait-of-the-artist-a.html

http://www.moma.org/learn/resources/archives/EAD/Sachsf

1966(28th of Shevat, 5726): Fifty-seven-year-old Robert Rossen, the director of the Oscar winning picture “All the King’s Men” passed away today.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USArossen.htm

1967(8th of Adar I, 5727): Sixty-two year old physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project and the father of the Atomic Bomb passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0422.html

1969: The PLO attacked El-Al plane in Zurich Switzerland.  Long before 9/11, the Israelis were forced to deal with a level of vicious terrorism aimed at strangling their avenues of commerce and tourist industry.  As a result of the PLO attacks, the Israelis were the first to put sky marshals on their flights and to do in depth pre-screening of all passengers.  And yes, the head of the PLO was Yassar Arafat, the "partner for peace." 

1969(30th of Shevat, 5729): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1969(30th of Shevat, 5729): Mieczyslaus Zagajski, a native of Poland who came to the United States during WWII after which he became an industrialist and “collector of Jewish ceremonial objects’ passed away today in Palm Beach, FL.

1969: BBC2 broadcast a dramatization of The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov

1970:  The Chicago Eight, including Abbe Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, were found not guilty of charges relating to the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention held in Chicago.

1971(24th of Shevat, 5731): Just seventeen days after celebrating his 50th birthday Brooklyn College graduate and Merchant Marine veteran Joseph Dames, an executive with the American Jewish Committee’s Appeal for Human Relations and the husband of Lucile Dames with whom he raised two daughter – Tamar and Lisa – passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/19/archives/joseph-dames-dies-jewish-appeal-aide.html

 1973: A headline in the New York Timesread "Half Baghdad's Jews Said to Apply to Leave; Property Seized."  "Half the members of the tiny Jewish community in Baghdad have applied for passports to leave Iraq in recent weeks in the face of a crackdown by Iraqi authorities, according to a first day account.

1973: In Montreal's Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, Naim Kattan, an Iraqi-born Jew spoke at a memorial and protest rally for nine more Jews who had been murdered in Baghdad.  (page 300 for the dead)

1974: Valery Panov was threatened with further punishment unless he left the Soviet Union “immediately without his wife.”

1976(17th of Adar I, 5736): Seventy-seven year old John Barsha, the native of Russia originally known as Abraham Barshofsky who played basketball and football for Syracuse University before turning pro while in law school passed away today.

1976: In Brussels, the Second World Conference of Jewish Communities on Soviet Jewry continued for a second day.

1980(1stof Adar, 5740): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1980(1stof Adar, 5740): Seventy-two-year-old Maxwell Goldstein, the son of Bessie and Louis Goldstein and the Johns Hopkins trained electrical engineer who was a leader in developing anti-submarine technology during WW II passed away today.

https://ethw.org/Maxwell_K._Goldstein

1980: In Moscow, Ilya Spektor, is a photographer and amateur violinist and Bella Spektor, a professor in a Soviet college of music gave birth to singer-songwriter and pianist Regina Spektor.

http://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/18/1980/this-week-in-history-singer-songwriter-regina-spektor-is-born

1981(14thof Adar I, 5741) Purim Katan

1981: Israel's 60,000 teachers, who earn an average of $110 a week, staged a one-day strike today to press for a wage increase promised by the Government. The Government's decision in principle last month to grant the raise brought the resignation of Finance Minister Yigal Hurvitz, which resulted in the Government coalition losing its majority in Parliament. Negotiations, however, have continued.

1982(25thof Shevat, 5742): Ninety-two-year-old multi-talented musician Nathaniel Shilkret passed away today.

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Shilkret-Nat.htm

http://www.collateralworks.com/linernotes/natshilkret.html

1983(5thof Adar, 5743): Eighty-two year old Leopold Godowsky, Jr. the American violinist who held to create Kodachrome passed away.

http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/233.html

1983: Two months after its release in Iceland, “The King of Comedy” co-starring Jerry Lewis, Tony Randall and Sandra Berhnhard was released in the United States today.

1983: For the final time Stage 23 at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles for the taping of an episode of “Taxi.”

1983: “Lovesick” a comedy featuring “the ghost of Dr. Sigmund Freud” with a cast that included Ron Silver, Alan King, Selma Diamond and Larry Rivers was released in the United States today.

1988(30th of Shevat, 5748): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1990: Dozens of supporters are planning to lie down across the road here in front of Ariel Sharon's northern Negev ranch this morning to stop him from driving to Jerusalem for the Cabinet meeting where he plans to resign. But as the former general sees it, by resigning as Industry and Trade Minister he is not leaving; he is simply opening a new front. And the goal of this new campaign, he said in an interview, is to be Israel's next prime minister replacing Yitzhak Shamir.

1992(14th of Adar I, 5752): Purim Katan

1994: “On Deadly Ground,” directed and produced by the film’s star Steven Seagal, the son of Russian Jewish father and featuring Irvin Kershner was released today in the United States.

1995: Actor Bodhi Elfman, the “only child of filmmaker Richard Elfman” got married today.

1997: Janet Yellen began serving as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton.

1997(11th of Adar I, 5757): Ninety-two-year-old Emily Hahn, the St. Louis born author best known for her writings about China passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/19/arts/emily-hahn-chronicler-of-her-own-exploits-dies-at-92.html

http://www.susanbkason.com/2015/04/05/emily-hahn/#.WKZpKluQx9A

1999(2ndof Adar, 5769): Ninety-two-year-old Paris born photographer Adnreas Feininger, the “eldest son Julia Berg, a German Jew” and painter Lyonel Feiningerg, who was best to many for his work in Life magazine passed away today. (As reported by Andy Grunberg)

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/20/arts/andreas-feininger-92-dies-portrayed-new-york-in-photos.html

1999(2nd of Adar, 5759): Comedic actor and director Noam Pitlik passed away.

2000: “The Whole Nine Yards” a really off-beat comedy featuring Kevin Pollak and with music by Randy Edelman was released today in the United States.

2001: The New York Times published an op-ed essay explaining the pardon of Marc Rich which did not mention the donations of almost two million dollars that Denise Rich had made to the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton’s senatorial campaign or the Clinton Library.

2002(6th of Adar I, 5762):Ahuva Amergi (30), Maj. Mor Elraz (25), St.-Sgt. Amir Mansouri and unidentified woman were murdered today by members of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Brigade who opened fire on the car driven by the woman and then hit the two soldiers who came to her aid.

2003(16th of Adar I, 5763) Isser Harel, head of Mossad from 1952 until 1963 and was in charge of the operation that brought Eichmann to Israel to stand trial passed away today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/isser-harel

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

2004: “President Bush, helping to inaugurate a new American television network in the Middle East, said in an interview broadcast today that the United States would continue to press its plan for a Palestinian state and for democracy in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other Arab countries.”

2004: It was reported today that according to Rabbi Berel Karniol, the director of an agency In Monsey, NY that certifies kosher kitchen “some of the most observant Hasidic communities in the United States claim large followings of restaurant avoiders” and that these “Jews so punctilious in their observance of the food laws that even kosher restaurants get the thumbs down.”

2005(9th of Adar I, 5765): Lee Kahn passed away at the age of 101. She was one of the siblings of Helen Reichert, all of whom were centenarians.

2006(20th of Shevat, 5766): Parashat Yitro

2006: “A new Palestinian parliament dominated by the militant group Hamas was installed today, and immediately President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas lawmakers set out on a collision course over the need to honor existing agreements with Israel and conduct negotiations with it to achieve Palestinian statehood.”

2007: The 23rd International Book Fair opens in Jerusalem

2007: The Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of French Seduction: An American’s Encounter With France, Her Father, and the Holocaustby Eunice Lipton.

2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section “Poet’s Choice” by Robert Pinksy features a commentary on "The Amen Stone" and The Jewish Time Bomb" that appeared in Yehuda Amichai's last collection of poems, Open Closed Open.

2007: The Sunday Chicago Tribune book section included a review of Amanda Vaill's Somewhere, a biography of Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz who came to be known as Jerome Robbins the man who “conquered--and in many ways defined--both the musical and modern American ballet, a genius by nature…” 

2008: Three days after being released on the Continent "New Soul" a song by the French-Israeli R&B/soul singer Yael Naïm, was released today in the United Kingdom.

2008: In New York, Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Dror will perform his graduation Recital at Mannes Concert Hall.The program includes the favorites of all times- Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata and Chopin's 'Funeral March' Sonata.Drior Baitel performs his graduation recital at Mannes Concert Hall. 

2008: In the United States, FBI domestic terror squads remain on the alert for any threats against synagogues and other potential Jewish targets in the United States after the assassination of the top Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah and the movement's leader threatened to attack Israeli and Jewish institutions around the world.

2009: In, Manhattan’s East Village, the fourth and final part of a four part seriesThe Comedy and Kabbalah of Relationships featuring Rabbi YY Jacobson

2009: At New York University, Professor Yoram Peri, head of the Chaim Herzog Institute for Media, Politics and Society at Tel Aviv University delivers a public lecture entitled "New Leadership in Israel and the Peace Process"

2009: Today, the IDF announced that apples grown by Israeli farmers in the Golan Heights will be exported to Syria.

2009: The New York Times reported that the American Tennis Channel will not televise the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships this week to protest the United Arab Emirates' refusal to grant an entry visa to Israeli player Shahar Peer

2009: Holocaust survivors voiced criticism of Yad Vashem's announcement that it will bestow its highest honor on Wilm Hosenfeld, a Nazi officer who helped save a Polish Jew, whose story became the basis for the film The Pianist.

2010: The 92ndSt Y is scheduled to present another in the series Spiritual Journeys: Feminine Reflections on the Rhythms of Our Lives entitled “Adar: Increasing Joy” with   Rabbi Joyce Reinitz.

2010: Today, while the media is filled with stories about supposed Israeli responsibility for the death of Hamas leader in Dubai, Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer advanced to the semifinals of the Dubai Championship, after beating 10th seed Na Li in the quarterfinal match

2010: An IDF soldier was lightly wounded today by a bomb which exploded near a patrol unit on the security fence near the central Gaza Strip.

2010: Terrorists hurled a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli bus in Gush Etzion yesterday evening. There were no casualties, but the bus was damaged.

2010: The Washington Post features a review of Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time by Kristin Swenson in which the reviewer recommends “Robert Alter’s books…as well as the exhilarating Richard Elliot Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible?

2011: Einsatzgruppen The Death Brigades, the “harrowing two-part documentary meticulously details the Nazi killing squads charged with destroying entire Jewish populations in occupied Eastern Europe during WWII” is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: A Small Act is scheduled to be shown at the 21st Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2011: The Portland Jazz Festival is scheduled to start today. “This year's theme is 'Bridges and Boundaries', which refers to bridging the two minority communities of Jewish Americans and African Americans.”

2011: A German prosecutor said today that he has opened a murder investigation against a key witness in the trial of alleged Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk. The probe is based on evidence Alex Nagorny may have been involved in mass killings at the Nazis'

2011: Friends and family celebrate the birthday of Joel Barnum, an un-presupposing pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community.

2011: The United States used its veto this afternoon to block a Security Council resolution declaring Israel’s settlement construction in the West Bank illegal. (As reported by Neil MacFarquhar)

2011: In “Auschwitz Shifts From Memorializing to Teaching,” Michael Kimmelman described the changing role of the site of the worst of the Death Camps.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/arts/19auschwitz.html?pagewanted=all

2012: Shabbat Shekalim, 5772

2012: “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldbeerg is scheduled to be shown at Beth El Temple Center in Belmont, MA

2012: “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to be shown at Congregation Beth-El Jewish Film Festival in Fort Worth, TX!

2012: In Iowa City, Hillel is scheduled to present a concert by University of Iowa School of Music faculty members, Uriel Tsachor and Rachel Joselson.

2012: Palestinian terrorists in Gaza took advantage of stormy weather conditions to fire rockets towards large southern cities in Israel. A Grad-type rocket was launched in the direction of the Negev's largest city, Beersheba, today triggering air raid sirens.

2012: British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that Iran is clearly trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability, and if it succeeds it will set off a dangerous round of nuclear proliferation across the Middle East while the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Martin Dempsey said that an Israeli strike on Iran "wouldn’t achieve its long-term objectives" and would be "destabilizing."

2013: In London, Professor Neil Gregor is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Mockery as Politics: The Degenerate Art Exhibition, 1937” in which he examines how the Degenerate Art Exhibition of 1937 was used to prepare people intellectually for the Holocaust

2013: Hadassah’s National Center for Attorneys’ Councils and the Greater Washington Area Chapter Attorneys’ Council are scheduled to host a dinner honor those who are to be sworn into the U.S. Supreme Court

2013: At Tulane University, the second and final day of “Jewish Secular Utopias and Distopias in Central and Eastern Europe” co-sponsored by Dr. Brian Horowitz and Dr. Andrew Solin

2013: At Brandeis University, a two-day conference “Zionism in the Twenty-First Century” is scheduled to come to an end.

2013: “Religious Studies and Rabbinics” a conference designed to promote dialogue between the fields of religious studies and rabbinics is scheduled to open at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va.

2013: President Shimon Peres today announced that he will present his American counterpart with the Presidential Medal of Distinction during his March stay in Israel.

2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today sent Pope Benedict XVI a letter of appreciation on behalf of the State of Israel, a week after the pontiff announced his imminent resignation from office. Benedict said he would step down as head of the Catholic Church at the end of February.

2013(8thof Adar, 5773): Eighty-three year old legal scholar Alan F. Westin passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/alan-f-westin-scholar-who-defined-right-to-privacy-dies-at-83.html?hpw&amp;_r=0

2014: The Skirball Center is scheduled to present another in the series of lectures by Dr. Daniel Rynhold entitled “Rav Kook and the Heroism of the Holy.”

2014: “The Zigzag Kid” is scheduled to be shown at the David Posnack Jewish Community Center’s Jewish Film Festival.

2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “American Jerusalem: Jews and the Making of San Francisco.”

2014: Friends and family celebrate the natal day of Joel Barnum, one of those quite “pillars” of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community.

2014: “Hungarian rabbi said today he had uncovered 103 Torah scrolls stolen from Hungarian Jews during World War Two and stashed in a Russian library, adding he planned to restore and return them to the Jewish community.”

2014: “Two rockets fired from war-torn Syria struck the Golan Heights in northern Israel today, shortly after a secret visit to the area by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the army said.”   

2014: A three-day long on-line marathon brainstorming session sponsored by the Israeli government to Plan the Future of the Jewish People is scheduled to come to an end.

2015: In Buenos Aires, a group of prosecutors are scheduled to hold a march in memory of Alberto Nisamn the prosecutor who died “mysteriously” while “seeking to charge President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with shielding Iranians from responsibility over the 1994 bombing of Jewish community center.

2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present a performance of “"Don't Cry, We'll All Meet on the Other Side," explores the story of Jewish Life in Communist Romania in the aftermath of the Holocaust

2015: Cellist Elad Kabilio is scheduled to “a musical journey through Modeling the Synagogue – from Dura to Touro.”

2015: “Above and Beyond” is scheduled to be shown at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.

http://www.ojmche.org/experience/film-2015-02-18-above-and-beyond

 2016: In Jerusalem Ariel Ben Abraham is scheduled to discuss his book God’s Love, a book inspired in the Chassidic approach to God's love.

2016(9thof Adar I, 5776): Twenty-one yeaer old Tuvia Yanai Weissman, “an IDF soldier” was stabbed terrorists in a supermarket today.

2016: The Estonian Israeli Music Festival is scheduled to begin in Tel Aviv. 

2017(22ndof Shevat, 5777): Parashat Yitro

2017(22ndof Shevat, 5777): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/rabbi-menachem-mendel-of-kotzk

2017: “Wounded Land” and “Kapo in Jerusalem” are scheduled to be shown at the 27thAnnual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2017: As part of their visit to Israel, a group of players from the National Football League (NFL) are scheduled to play players from the Israeli Football Association in an exhibition game today.

2017: At the second day of Limmud NY, following a wide variety of Shabbat morning services, Efraim Chalamish is scheduled to lead a discussion on “The Chinese Revolution and the Jewish State in 2016” and “David Gedzelman is scheduled to lead a discussion on “Constructing a News Zionism for the 21st Century on Old Foundations: What Do Gordon, Kaplan and Buber Have to Teach Us?”

2017: This evening, in Jerusalem, Eliah Zabaly is scheduled to perform a “piano solo recital dedicated to Aldo Ciccolini” who passed away in 2015.

2017: As Shabbat came to an end, the lights came on at Turner Stadium as Hapoel Beer Sheva owned by Alona Barakat, “the only woman to own a professional soccer team in Israel,” prepared for another match

2018: Friends and family celebrate the natal day of Joel Barnum, a mesnsh in the truest sense of the word, a “great” grandfather and one of the few people who can put the mysteries of technology into understandable English.

2018: The University of Iowa Hillel is scheduled to an outing “at the boutique Southport Lanes bowling alley in Chicago.

2018(3rdof Adar, 5778): Eighty-five Brooklyn born Lee Harris Pomeroy, the quintessential New York architect passed away today. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/obituaries/lee-harris-pomeroy-85-dies-architect-revived-subway-stations.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2018: In New Orleans, The JCC Uptown Classic 5 K and Family Fun Run are scheduled to start at 8:30 at Audubon Park.

2018: “Russian Jews Part Two: 1918-1948,” “the second part of a documentary trilogy that charts the fascinating and complex history of the Jewish community in Russia throughout the centuries” is scheduled to be shown at Cineworld Didsbury in Manchester.

2018: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution by Marci Shore, The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World by Bart D. Ehrman and Baby Monkey, Private Eye by Brian Selznick and David Serlin

2019: Director Steve Spielberg’s family are scheduled to reopen “The Milky Way” the kosher restaurant that his mother Leah Adler who passed away in February of 2017, had operated for forty years.

2019: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Forgotten Soldier,” a documentary about Dutch businessman Sally Noach.

2019: In conjunction “Pioneers to the Present,” an exhibit about Jews in Richmond, the Richmond Museum of History is scheduled to host “Bubbe Reads” with “Jewish grandmothers reading stories for local youngsters.”

2019: In Rockville, MD, the Haberman Institute is scheduled to host Professor Paul Root Wolpe of Emory University as he discusses “Contemporary Ethical Challenges” including the “disproportionate Jewish representation in the field of ethics and the reason for this.”

2019: Presidents’ Day observed in the United States (Editor’s note- As Jews consider their unique experiences with the Chief Executive starting with George Washington and his letter to the community in Newport, RI and ending with Donald Trump, the first occupant of the White House to have a Jewish child and Jewish grandchildren, they might want to look at the recently published The Elected and the Chosen by Denis Brian.)

2019: Finally, today is that rarity - day in Cedar Rapids without a forecast of snow which must be a result of all the warmth generated by the celebration of Joel Barnum’s birthday.

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “The Photos” in which Adrienne Aurichio the wife of Award-winning Life magazine photographer Bill Eppridge shares the photographic record of the life of Barbra Streisand.

2020: The Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host the second and final screening of “City of Joel.”

2020: In Berkley, CA, the Bancroft Hotel is scheduled to host a talk by Rutgers Professor Yael Zerubavel “about nature, Israeli settlements, mythical stories, tourism and security concerns over the past century.”

2020: O Brookline, MA, the Kolbo Fine Judaica Gallery is scheduled to host National Jewish Book Award finalist Rabbi Laura Geller as she reads from her newest book Getting Good at Getting Older.

2020: The YIVO Institute is scheduled to present a lecture by Dr. Vladimir Levin on “Jewish Brcik and Mortar in the Russian Capital” in which he considers “the uneasy relationship between the architectural oeuvre of the Jewish community and the capital city of the Russian Empire.”

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host Rabbi David Wolpe as he lectures on “Chasidic Mystics:  Rabbi Nahman of Breslov and Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev.”

2021: In Palm Beach Garden, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host via zoom Herb Keinon lectuinr on “U.S.- Israel Ties Under Biden, Israel’s new accords with Bahrain and the Redrawing of the Middle East Map.”

2021: The Israel Office of Cultural Affairs is scheduled to host a discussion with Sigal Avin, Ayelet Zurer and Lihi Kornowski about the creation of “Losing Alice,” which has been named “Apple’s best drama series yet.”

2021: In honor of Black History Month, The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans is scheduled to host a presentation by Rabbi Rachel Mikva, author of Dangerous Religious Ideas, on “Jew and Race” during which she will explore biblical and rabbinical ides on this topic…”

2021: In Pepper Pike OH, Rabbi Josh Foster is scheduled to deliver the first in a series about “Synagogues Around the World.”

2021: “The Colors of Jews: Being a Minority in a Minority an event is co-sponsored by Temple Emanu El, The Temple-Tifereth Israel, and Edot: The Midwest Regional Jewish Diversity Collaborative is scheduled to take place this evening online via Zoom.

2021: The Malki Foundation and the Bushey United Synagogue are scheduled to host an evening, via Zoom with Baroness Ros Altman, talking about “What Might Bexit and COVID-19 mean for the Economy, Investments and Pensions?”

2021: In Palm Beach Garden Cantorial Soloist Abbie Strauss is scheduled to lead the morning minyan at Temple Judea.

2021: “Despite officials' warnings to the government that Iranian hackers will attempt to strike and poison Israel's water infrastructure, the country's water facilities are far from prepared for such a scenario, according to a report seen by Ynet.”

2021: New England Region of BBYO is scheduled to present online “Fighting Stigma with Effective Storystelling” with “comedian Pamela Rae Schuller” who help attendees to learn the tools to find and crafter their own stories.

https://pamelacomedy.com/about/

2021: Kung Pao Kosher Comedy’s Lisa Geduldig is scheduled to present “the latest edition of her monthly show, this one with stand-up comedians Jackie Hoffman, Elvira Kurt and Bernadette Luckett, plus Lisa’s 89-year-old mom in Florida.”

 

 


This Day, February 19, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 19

197: Emperor Septimius Severus defeated the usurper Clodius Albinus in the Battle of Lugdunum, Severus was trying to use syncretism to maintain imperial unity and authority.  Since Jews, as well as Christian, resisted this concept, the Emperor outlawed conversion to either of these religions. 

356: Following in the footsteps of his father Constantine the Great Constantius II closed all pagan temples. During his reign, he would also issue a series of edicts designed to limit the economic and social activities of Jews. All of this was part of the drive to make Christianity the state religion which would then serve as a unifying force for the empire that was past its zenith.

607: Boniface III is named Pope.  His papacy only lasted for nine months but during that time he “ensured that the title of ‘Universal Bishop’ belonged exclusively to the Bishop of Rome” thus ensuring the primacy of the Pope as head of the Catholic Church. The impact of this decision would indirectly affect the Jews for centuries to come as they were forced to deal with Church sponsored persecution and/or to seek Papal protection from a variety of murderous enemies.

842: The Medieval Iconoclastic Controversy ended, when a Council in Constantinople formally reinstated the veneration of images (icons) in the churches. This debate over icons is often considered the last event which led to the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches. This split continues to this day between the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox.  As those studying in Cedar Rapids now know, many of the things done to the Jews by Christians were by-products of these various squabbles between various Christian sects.

1090: In Speyer, Germany, Emperor Henry IV renewed to Rabbi Judah ben Kalonymus, the poet David ben Meshullam, and Rabbi Moses ben Yekuthiel the pledges granted six years earlier by Bishop Ruediger. In addition, the emperor guaranteed the Jews freedom of trade in his empire as well as his protection. Within six years Speyer became one of the first communities on the Rhine to be attacked. After the attacks Rabbi Moses took it upon himself to care for and protect the orphans created by this violence.

1229: During the Sixth Crusade: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor signed “a ten-year truce with al-Kamil, regaining Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem with neither military engagements nor support from the Pope Gregory IX.” The Sixth Crusade is remembered as one that did not result in the massive slaughter of Jews in Europe or Palestine. Gregory is remember as the Pope who created the dreaded institution known as the Inquisition. During his reign, Frederick “decided to combine the manufacturing of silk and the dying trades and to give them over to a number of Jewish families. For many years both of these industries were “almost the exclusive activities of Jews in Sicily, Naples, and other parts of Italy” which were part of the Holy Roman Empire.

1461: Birthdate of Cardinal Domenico Grimani who was a close enough friend of Rabbi Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno that he recommended him to those who were looking for a Hebrew teacher.

1539: The Jews of Tyrnau Hungary (then Trnava Czechoslovakia) who had “first been punished for alleged ritual murder” were expelled today.  In case you had not noticed, there seems to be an expulsion somewhere on almost every day of the year. 

1543: Paull III issued “Illius, quo pro dominici,” the Papal Bull that enable the Vatican to establish the House of Catechumens (Casa dei Catecumeni). The purpose of the house, supported by Jewish taxation was solely to convert Jews. Those sent there were subjected to 40 days of intense “instruction”. If after that time he still refused baptism he was allowed to return to his home – few did. Until it was abolished in 1810 around 2440 Jews were converted in Rome alone. Other houses were set up in various Italian cities. On this same day three Portuguese Marranos from Ferrara were burned in Rome's Campo dei Fiori.

1560: The third volume of the Zohar was printed for the first time in Mantua, Italy

1583(27thof Shevat): In Italy, Joseph Saralbo was burned at the stake at the command of Pope Gregory XIII. Saralbo was accused of returning to Judaism and of trying to convince other Marranos in Ferrara to join him. According to reports he proudly proclaimed that he had helped 800 Marranos return to Judaism.  He asked the Jews of Rome not to mourn for him stating “I am on my way to meet immortality.”

 1594: King Sigismund III ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is crowned King of Sweden. Under King Sigismund’s rule, conditions for Polish and Lithuanian Jews continued to deteriorate.  Such could not be said of his Swedish realm since there was no Jewish community in Sweden at this time.

1674:  England and the Netherlands sign the Peace of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War. A provision of the agreement transfers the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam to England, which renamed it New York.  If the war had turned out otherwise, comedians would have been talking about New Amsterdam Jews instead of New York Jews. Think of Seinfeld in Dutch.

1707(17thof Adar l, 5467): Jonah Abravanel, “a learned and highly respected” member of the Amsterdam Jewish community passed away. [Jonah Abravanel was a fairly a common name and this individual should not be confused with the16th century poet who was the son of the physician Joseph Abravanel, and a nephew of Manasseh ben Israel]

1732: In New Rochelle, NY, Dutch born Jechiel Hays and his wife gave birth to his sixth son David who was a grocery store owner, a veteran of the French and Indian Wars and the American Revolutionary War whose older brother Jacob was “a founder of the first Jewish cemetery in Chatham Square in Manhattan.

1732: In Cambridge, UK, Johanna Bentley and Dr. Denison Cumberland gave birth to dramatist Richard Cumberland, author of “The Jew of Magadore” and “The Jew,” “the first playing the English theatre to portray a Jewish moneylender as the hero of a stage production.” In 2012, the play was published as “Sheva, the Benevolent.”

1740(22nd of Shevat): Rabbi Jacob ben Benjamin Papiers of Frankfort author of Shev Ya’akov passed away.

1758: Birthdate of Austrian educator Peter Beer.

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Beer_Peter

1764: Savannah, GA native Isaac De Lyon and Rinah Tobias, who were married in Charleston, SC gave birth to Judith De Lyon, the wife of Moses Cohen and mother of Rinah and Bilah Cohen who later married Joseph Abrahams with whom she had one child – Rachel Abrahams.

1772: Birthdate of Moses Myers, the husband of Hannah Polock whom he married in Washington, D.C. in November of 1801.

1777: One day after he had passed away “Moses Myers ben JudahZL” was buried today at the “Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery.

1784: One day after he had passed away, “Zvi ben Judah Chait” was buried today at the “Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery.

1799(14thof Adar I, 5559): Purim Katan observed for the last time in the 18thcentury.

1810(15thof Adar I, 5570): David Friedrichsfeld, the native of Berlin who went to Amsterdam in 1781 to fight for the emancipation of the Jews and whose written works included a biography of fellow Hebraist Naphtali Hirz Wessely, passed away today.

1815: Yitzchak Alter and Feigele Lipschitz gave birth to Abraham Mordka Alter.

1816: Twenty-one-year-old Rachel Lopez, the Charleston SC born daughter of David Lopez married Jacob Cohen today.

1819: Under the influence of Rabbi Moses Münz, Rabbi Aron Chorin “recalled” Ḳin'at ha-Emet (Zeal for Truth), a paper written on April 7, 1818, and published in the collection Nogah ha-Ẓedeḳ (Light of Righteousness),” in which “he declared himself in favor of reforms, such as German prayers, the use of the organ, and other liturgical modifications. The principal prayers, the Shema', and the eighteen benedictions, however, should be said in Hebrew, he declared, as this language keeps alive the belief in the restoration of Israel. He also pleaded for opening the temple for daily service.” A year later he would publish Dabar be-'Itto (A Word in Its Time), in which he reaffirmed the views expressed in Ḳin'at ha-Emet, and pleaded strongly for the right of Reform.

1822: In the U.K., Helena Moses and Moses Levy gave birth to Lionel Lawson.

1823: In Rotterdam, Sara Lit and Harry De Groot gave birth to Salomon De Groot.

1825: Birthdate of Abraham Pereira Mendes, the native of Kingston, Jamaica who was trained in London by Rabbi David Meldola and Rabbi D.A. de Sola and who led several Sephardic congregations in the United Kingdom and the United States.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A03E1D71731E033A25756C0A9629C94629ED7CF

1834: Jacob David Davis married Dinah Alexander at the Great Synagogue today.

1835: Birthdate of Austrian Rabbi Moritz Güdemann who passed away in 1918.

1836: One day afer he had passed away. “Faulkland Jones, the son of Alexander and Janes Jones” was buried today at the “Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.” 

1837: Seventy-three-year-old Dutch born Asser Prins, the husband of Amelia Prins with whom he had five children was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”

1838(24thof Shebat, 5598): Matilda de Mitz the wife of Levy Salomons and daughter-in-law of Solomon Salmons and the mother of three sons and three daughters passed away today.

1839: Birthdate of Esther Levy, the wife of Abraham Hoffnung and the mother of Caroline Hoffnung.

1843: A committee of representatives, including eight from the Great Synagogue, met under the chairmanship of Isaac Cohen in the Vestry room in Duke's Place

1843: In Madrid, Salvatore Patti and Salvatore Patti gave birth to Adelina Patti, the 19th century opera star who was discovered by Jewish impresario Max Maretzek.

1848: Thirty-year old Emanuel Nunes Carvalho and Caroline A. Carvalho gave birth to Isaac Woolf Nunes Carvalho

1850: In Hamburg, Emma Simon and Louis Bernheim gave birth to German historian Ernst Bernheim who would lose his position when he fell afoul of the Nazi racial laws.

1854: In Charleston, SC, W.J. Jacobi, Esq., married Hester E. Hertz, “the eldest daughter of the late Jacob Hertz.”

1856: During the current session of the New York Legislature,today Mr. Brooks gave notice that he planned to introduce a bill "to increase the number of trustees of the Jews Hospital" in New York City.

1857: Moses Polydore Millaud, the French banker who owned La Presse“hosted a banquet for the Goncourt brothers, but later that year he was faced with financial difficulties and sold the newspaper to Felix Solar.”

1858: Birthdate of mechanical engineer Ernest D. Lowy, the native of London who married Henrietta Solomon, the daughter of Joseph Solomon in 1886 and whose activities in the Jewish community included serving as a Warden of the West London Synagogue and a member of the Jewish Board of Guardians.

1861: As part of his reforms, Czar Alexander II abolished serfdom. Although the Jews were not directly affected by the emancipation of the serfs, they benefited from other reforms initiated by Alexander II including putting an end to the drafting of Jews into the Russian Army and the opening of some educational institutions and occupations to the Jews of Russia.  This gave rise to the masklim movement in Russia.  Unfortunately, all of this came to an end when the Czar was assassinated in 1881 which led to Pogroms and reactionary regimes.

1863: “The Doom of Memphis” published today described the desperate economic conditions in Memphis including the fact that many of the city’s prominent businessman have joined the retreating Rebel Army and their homes have been occupied by “military Generals or Hebrews, who have turned them into Sutlers' establishments.

1863: After graduating from Albany Medical College Herman Bendell rejoined the Union Army today “as a surgeon with the 86th New York Volunteer Infantry.”

1867: In New York City, Robert Weeks Nathan and Anne Augusta Florance gave birth Annie Nathan who married Dr. Alfred Meyer and gained fame as Annie Nathan Meyer, a founder of Bernard College and American author whose works included Women’s Work in America and Helen Brent, M.D.

1869: Birthdate of Pollnoi, Germany, native Ludwig Beer who was buried in Hong Kong’s Happy Valley Jewish Cemetery.

1870: In Brooklyn, Congregation Beth Elohim which had been conducted services in “the traditional manner” adopted a moderate reform ritual in its worship.

1871: “Abraham’s Sacrifice” which was published today included a description of Rembrandt’s relationship with the local Jewish population including the fact that after the death of his wife, the Dutch painter “retired to an old house on the Rue des Juifs in Amsterdam.”

1871:In Portsmouth, England, Kate Emanuel and Philip Magnus gave birth to Lucy Amy Magnus.

1875(14thof Adar I, 5635): Purim Katan

1875: In Portland, OR approval of ordinance 1602 which extended the limit on permission for interments at the “Hebrew Cemetery” which was an exemption from Ordinance 934 which prohibited interments within the city limits.

1876: Australian native Martha May Cohen and Louis Samuel Cohen gave birth Rex David Cohen

1877: Birthdate Moritz Kahn who in 1942 was transported from Darmstadt to Terezin where he was murdered.

1879: Birthdate of Philadelphia native, Walter Abraham Kohn, the University of Pennsylvania trained electrical engineer who was an “officer of the Alliance Israelite Universelle.”

1881: Seventeen-year-old Marion Calisch, the Hebrew teacher at Professor Felix Adler’s Kindergarten at 45th and Broadway disappeared today.

1882: President Isaac Marx addressed the opening session of annual convention of the Grand Lodge of the order Kesher Shel Barzel, District Number 1. During his speech, Marx expressed remorse at the recent death of President Garfield and concern for the plight of the Jews of Russia.  Marks praised the work of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society in aiding the Russian Jews. He suggested that the Order should emulate the action of the Free Sons of Israel and make a generous contribution to HIAS.

1882: It was reported today that in the upcoming session of Parliament, the Opposition plans to pepper Prime Minister Gladstone with “taunts and jibes” over his denunciation of the Bulgarian atrocities while remaining silent about the Russian persecution of the Jews.  The difference they claim has nothing to do with the Jews and everything to do with the fact the Turks are weak and the Russians are strong.

1882: In London, the Lord Mayor’s relief fund to aid the Jews of Russia has reached £50,000.

1882: Reverend Jacob Freshman addressed a large gathering this afternoon at Cooper Union on the subject of “Hebrew and Christian Unity.”  Freshman, the son of a rabbi, had converted to Christianity.  The meeting was part of a movement “looking toward the converting and Christianizing of the Jews.”

1882: In St. Petersburg, Count Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev, the Russian Minster of the Interior told a Rabbi that the government would neither encourage nor oppose the emigration of the Jews.[This statement does not conform with reality.  The Russian government was committed to the one-third, one-third, one-third policy: One third of the Jews would convert; one-third would emigrate; one-third would die.]

1883: Birthdate of Kiev native Abraham Lassen who in 1899 came to the United Sates where he earned a master’s degree from Northwestern and a Doctorate from JTS who was a founder of Congregation B’nai Zion in Chicago which he served as rabbi for twenty-one years while raising his son Ben with his wife Anna.

1885: In Budapest, Emil Oppenheim, the Pest, Hungary, born son of Hermina and J. Samuel Oppenheim and his wife Anna Oppenheim gave birth to Margit Oppenheim, the sister of Maria Oppenheim.

1886: In Polonoya, Ukraine, Rhoda and Nathan Isaac Sharfman gave birth to Harvard trained lawyer Isaiah Leo Sharfman, the husband of Minnie Shikes whose varied career included serving as a professor of law and Science at the Imperial Pei-Yang University in Tientsin, China and professor economics at the University of Michigan where he was active in the Menorah movement

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/sharfman-isaiah-leo

1887: Rabbi Alexander Kohut of Ahawath Chesed is scheduled to host a reception for members of his congregation at his home in Beekman Place

1887: In Poland, “Gedalie and Sarah (Block) Wohl gave birth Dr. Michael Gershon Wohl, the husband  of Rose B. Gillerson and the professor of pathology and hygiene at Temple Med School in Philadelphia who moved on to Creighton Medical College In Omaha, NE where he was on the faculty while serving at Methodist and Nicholas Senn Hospitals in Omaha.

1888: In Amsterdam, and Adriana Rosa Gustaaf Wertheim Enthoven gave birth to pianist Rosalie Marie Wertheim who gave “secret conferences in cellars” during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

1889: Three days she had passed away, 62-year-old Julia Angel, the daughter of Philip and Blumer Isaacs, the wife of Edward Angel with whom she had had six children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1892: Birthdate of Elinor Fatman Morgenthau, the wife of Secretary Treasury Henry Morgenthau and a friend and Hyde Park neighbor of Eleanor Roosevelt.

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/morgenthau-elinor

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&amp;GRid=12237013

1894: “Huxley on the Bible” published today provides a detailed review of Science and Hebrew Traditions, a collection by Thomas H. Huxley. (Huxley was a 19thcentury scientist who was an enthusiastic advocate of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution)

1894: The United Hebrew Charities was one of the recipients of money given to New York charities by the Distribution Committee of the Citizens’ Relief Committee when it met today in the office of J. Pierpont Morgan.

1896: Birthdate of Konigsberg, East Prussia native musical child prodigy Werner R. Heymann, the younger brother of poet Walther Heymann who continued his composing work during the Hitler by writing for Hollywood films which earned him four Oscar nominations in the 1940’s.

1896: Birthdate of Lodz native Benjamin Raczkowski Harris, the chemical engineer and WW I veteran who while attending the University of Chicago was elected to Sigma XI “on the nomination of the Department of Science for evidence of ability in research work in science.”

1897: Birthdate of silent screen star Alma Rubens. The San Francisco native’s mother was Irish Catholic and her father was Jewish.

1897(17thof Adar I, 5657): In New York, Simon Goldenberg, the husband of Mary Goldenberg and member of Temple Beth El who left an estate of $200,000 in real property and $100,000 in personal property passed away today.

1897: Mrs. Rolla Hewitt who has said that “she had a mission” which was to “convert every Jew” at Woodbine disappeared from her home at Sea Isle City, NJ.

1898: “It is said that the taking of testimony” in the trial of Emile Zola “will be concluded tonight.”  There are only five or six more witnesses to be heard.

1898(27thof Shevat, 5658): Five-year-old Tina Fein passed away at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

1898: Birthdate of “ophthalmologist and medical historian” Dr. Samuel L. Saltzman, the Keene, N.H. native and graduate of “Yale Sheffield Scientific School and then New York Medical College” who served the Israeli Army as volunteer during the War for Independence and was the husband of Rose Salzman with whom he had two children – Suzanne and Jonathan.

https://www.nytimes.com/1978/11/18/archives/dr-samuel-saltzman-eye-surgeon-historian.html

1898: “Grant Allen’s Book on God” published today provides a review of The Evolution of the Idea of God: An Inquiry Into the Origins of Religion by Grant Allen in which the author say, “The only people who ever invented or evolved a pure monotheism at first hand were the Jews.  It is the peculiar glory of Israel to have evolved God.  The mistake Jews make, is to believe that Abraham…was always a monotheist…and that monotheism was smitten out at a single blow by the genius of…Moses at the moment of the Hebrew exodus from Egypt.”

1899: It was reported today that in the past year the Gemilath Chasodim Committee lent $68,110 to 3,917 needy families comprised 19,000 individuals.  The American Hebrew described the committees practicing of providing small loans as “The Help that Helps.”

1899: The resignation of Morris I. Schamberg, D.D.S., MD who had enlisted in Company D of the 1st Pennsylvania on June 14, 1898 and who rose to the rank of 1st Lieutenant and Acting Surgeon for his work at the Military Hospital at Ponce and the U.S. Military Hospital at San Juan, was accepted today.

1899: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil delivered a sermon entitled “Was Christ a Christian?” today at Temple Emanu-El.

1900: “The 37thConvention of District No. 4 of the Independent Order of B’Nai B’rith continued for a second day in San Francisco.

1900: The former Jane Silver, the wife of Henry Woolf with whom she had had seven children was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1900: Birthdate of Morris Glassman, the native of Russia, who despite having never gone to college played two years for the Columbus Panhandles alternating between defensive lineman and offensive end.

1901(30thof Shevat, 5661): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1901: “A musicale” is scheduled to “be given by a section of the Women’s Philharmonic Society” which is part of “the efforts of the Educational Alliance…to inculcate a love of music of the higher order among the residents of the lower east side” many of whom are Jewish immigrants.

1902: Oscar S. Straus, Second Vice Chairman of Executive Committee of the National Civic Federation known as the Arbitration Committee of Thirty-Six hosted a dinner this evening following the committee’s first meeting following which Mr. Straus said he “was delighted with the results of the conference.”

1903: Birthdate of Louis Slobodkin, the sculptor and award-winning illustrator of children’s books who was the father of “pioneering ecologist” Lawrence Slobodkin.

1904:” Russia’s Exclusion of Jews” published today described how Congressman Goldfogle had been denied a visa to visit Russia by the Consul General at the Russian Embassy in Paris last summer because he was Jewish and only relented when he found out the Goldfogle was a Congressman.

1905: “Reign of Terror in Warsaw” published today provided a report on conditions in that Polish city from a manufacturer who had just come back to New York which described the Russian soldiers as acting like “wild beasts” and said that “a dangerous feature of the situation is the fanatical national spirt” exhibited by the Poles which have led to attacks on Germans, Jews and any hoses “that do not contain crucifixes.

1906: In Russia, the government “authorized” a meeting of the Jewish Congress to be held on March 5.

1906: “Another Anti-Jewish Riot” published today described an anti-Jewish riot which had begun on February 18 “in Vietka, a town of 6,000 inhabitants near Gomel” which has left a large part of the town “in flames.”

1907(4thof Shevat, 5667): Parashat Bo

1907(4thof Shevat, 5667): Sixty-one-year-old Democratic political leader Reuben Trier, “an ex-Assemblyman from Essex County and a member of the first Board of Works of Newark” who was a prominent member of “Jewish societies” and the father of “three daughters” passed away today.

1908: Despite his compliance with the demand by Henry W. Blumberg that Emanuel W. Krulewitch, a contractor and builder, “employ Jewish workmen on half the job” at St. Nicholas and Convent Avenues, the Carpenters’ and Joiners’ Union continue to interfere with his constrcution operation requiring police protection.

1909: Auguste Leon Luzatto Pasha, the director-general of the Banque d’Egypte, passed away.  Following his death, his heirs sold his home to the Curciel family – the Jewish family that owned Egypt’s largest department store chain.

1909: Birthdate of Enrico Donati the Italian economics student who became a leading surrealist painter.

https://www.artsy.net/artist/enrico-donati

1910(10thof Adar I, 5670): Parashat Tetzaveh

1910: It was reported today that “Jacob H. Schiff, who has been honored by the Japanese Government for his engineering of the Russian war loans” spoke at the dinner given by the Japan Society Society of New York “in honor of Ambassador Yasuya Uchida and his wife the Baroness.”

1911: One day after she had passed away Ryna Mary Genn was buried at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery” in Northern Island.

1912(1stof Adar I, 5672): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1912(1stof Adar I, 5672): In Joplin, MO, 69-year-old Albert Cahn who earned the rank of Captain while serving the Civil War passed away today.

1912: Birthdate of Saul Chaplin. Born Saul Kaplan in Brooklyn, Chaplin won four Oscars his work on the scores and orchestrations for An American in Paris (1951, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and West Side Story (1961).

1913: In Chicago, E.M. Newman is scheduled to deliver the first in a series of new “traveltalks” starting with Holland.

1914: Today, the “Black Hundreds continued their campaign again the Jews of Kiev in spite of the fact that the allegation of ritual murder against the Jewish tailor Pashkoff of Fastoff were disapproved” when “the Christian boy Taranthevitch who had been reported” was found alive.

1915: During World War I, The Battle of Gallipoli began as Allied forces attack the Turks. The Battle of Gallipoli took place on the Turkish Peninsula at the Dardanelles.  The idea was to break the stalemate on the Western Front and at the same time open the Dardanelles to Allied ships carrying supplies to the Russians.  If the attacks had been executed as planned, World War I might have ended in 1915 or 1916 which would have meant a lot less bloodshed, no Russian Revolution and no Versailles Treaty.  The Battle of Gallipoli saw the appearance of the Zion Mule Corps – the first all Jewish fighting unit to operate in World War I.  The Zion Mule Corps paved the way for the Jewish Legion in the British Army. The Zion Mule Corps was one of the progenitors of the modern I.D.F.

1915: Birthdate of New York City native Fred Freiberger the “television writer and producer” who spent two years in POW camp during WWII after having been shot down while serving with the Eighth Air Force.

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/mar/07/local/me-freiberger7

1915: It was reported today that there were more than 60, 000 pupils attending the schools operated by the Alliance Israelite Universelle in Palestine, Turkey, Algeria, Egypt and other parts of Asia Minor at an annual cost of $400,000.

1915: Among those listed today as contributors to the American Jewish Relief Committee for Sufferers from the War are the Jewish Federation of Ft. Wayne, Indiana, the Ladies’ Auxiliary Society of Harrisonburg, VA, Beth Israel Congregation of Clarksdale, MS and Temple Emanuel of San Francisco, CA.

1915: It was reported today that “Talaat Bey, Minister of Marine, Finance and Interior in the Turkish Cabinet and the leader of the Young Turks Party was a graduate of a school operated by the Alliance Israelite Universelle.

1916: William Phillips, the Third Assistant (US) Secretary of State wrote to Simon Wolf that in compliance with the wishes of President Wilson, the American government had requested permission from the British to ship Passover flour to those in territory occupied by the Germans and the Austrians, but the British had rejected the request saying that the Austrians and Germans had adequate supplies to meet the need.  (This was not anti-Semitism.  One of the few things the Allies had going for them at this point in WW I was the blockade of the Central Powers and they resisted any attempt to ship any kind of goods to the enemy.)

1916: A meeting held this afternoon at the Republican Club in New York, proponents of a constitutional amendment banning “the sale of intoxicating liquors” faced off against opponents of such a measure including Charles M. Bryan of Memphis who cited the Jews as an illustration of a “race which had indulged in the moderate use of liquors without its virility” saying “The Jewish people have been drinking liquor moderately since Pharaoh had them working on the pyramids” and “when you consider what the Jews have done I ask you if that is your idea of degeneration?”

1917: According to reports first published in Geneva, “the representatives of American Jewish societies who came to Germany to arrange an opening of communication between Polish Jews and relatives in America and for the sending of relief funds conferred with General von Ludendorff” who is called “the real boss” of Germany before the plans were finally approved.

1917: An interview was conducted today at Rotterdam with “a Pole who has just arrived from Warsaw” in which he said, “There is also a very strong propaganda in full swing against the Jews, and measure of an outrageously unlawful kind have been put in force against them” by their new German masters.

1917: According to reports from the Russkaya Volya now published by the London Mail, “the Minister of the Interior proposes to past into law by means of Paragraph 87 of the Constitution without parliamentary sanction a measure for the partial relief of Jewish disabilities” which “is intended to remove all restriction preventing Jews from entering freely into trade and commerce, contracting for building of railways and found new limited companies.”

1917: At Temple Emanu-El, Dr. Enelow is scheduled to deliver a talk on “The Jewish Element in the Teachings of Jesus” followed by the “Daily Noon Service.”

1918: In London, “celebration of the inauguration of the Palestine Workers’ Fund and the fiftieth anniversary of the birthday of David Jochelman, a proponent of the Territorialist point of view.

1918: Birthdate of Benjamin Miedzyrzecki, the Warsaw native who would survive the Warsaw Ghetto and after coming to the United States would change his name to Benjamin Meed. Meed would parlay eight dollars into a successful import-export business and become a leading advocate for Jewish Holocaust survivors before passing away at the age of 88 in 2006

https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hassenfeld-merrill-lloyd

1918: Twenty-nine-year-old Jacob Judah Ackerman, the Polish born son of Rose and Abraham Gershon Menacker, who was a leader in bringing Hebrew Education to Portland, ME and New Bedford, MA while being active in the Zionist movement and authoring literature for children married Channa Emma Ginsberg today.

1918: In Providence, R. I, toy manufacturer Harry Hassenfeld who with his brothers formed what became Hasbro Industries, the creator of the G.I.Joe action figure and homemaker Marion Frank Hassenfeld gave birth to University of Pennsylvania grad and husband of Sylvia Kay Merrill Lloyd Hassenfield who followed in his father to lead the toy manufacturing giant.

1919: “Get Home For Passover” published today reported that “instructions have been sent to all commanding officers in the United States informing them that furloughs are to be granted from noon April 14 to midnight April 16 in other that Jewish men may attended Passover services at their homes or in nearby towns.”

1920(30th of Shevat, 5680): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1920: Jews in London celebrated “the inauguration of the Palestine Worker’s Fund.

1921(11thof Adar I, 5681): Parashat Tetzaveh

1921: Rabbi Max Drob is scheduled to deliver the Anniversary Sermon during Shabbat services when the Washington Heights Congregation celebrates its tenth anniversary.

1921: “Citizenship Week” which The Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America created at the behest of Congressman Isaac Siegel came to an end today.

1921: In Minneapolis, MN, Abraham Levy and Rose Shapiro, “Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Russia” gave birth to birth to Leonard Bernard “Butch” Levy the who played college and pro-football, wrestled professionally and was active in the Jewish community

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

http://web.archive.org/web/20150726165642/http://m.startribune.com/obituaries/11600316.html

1922: Birthdate of Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a Roman Catholic who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Warsaw, battled both the Nazis and Communists, survived Auschwitz and was given honorary Israeli citizenship for his work to save Jews during World War II.” (As reported by Rick Lyman)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/world/europe/wladyslaw-bartoszewski-polish-auschwitz-survivor-who-fought-for-jews-dies-at-93.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1922:  Ed Wynn became the first talent to sign as a radio entertainer.  Born in 1886, Wynn started out as a haberdasher.  He starred in the Ziegfield Follies in 1915 and 1916.  He translated his success in vaudeville to radio and later to both movies and television.  In this way, he was part of a long line of Jewish comedians who made the same trek including George Burns, Jack Benny and Eddie Cantor.  Wynn was the father of character actor Kennan Wynn.  He passed away in 1966.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/actors/the-voices-behind-disneys-best-characters-through-history/ed-wynn-is-a-familiar-face-best-known-for-playing-laughing-uncle/

1923: Birthdate of Long Island City native Marshall Baer, the lyricist best known for his work on “Once Upon A Mattress.”

http://www.playbill.com/article/marshall-barer-75-once-upon-a-mattress-lyricist-dies-of-cancer-com-77139

1924: Birthdate of Ukrainian native and noted chess player David Bronstein.

https://en.chessbase.com/post/shattered-illusions-genna-sosonkos-the-rise-and-fall-of-david-bronstein

1925: In Germany, premiere of “Peter the Pirate,” a silent movie filmed by cinematographer Rudolph Mate and produced by Erich Pommer who although not Jewish fled Germany rather than live under the Nazis.

1927: Isadore “Izzy” Zarakov, a member of Zeta Beta Tau who lettered at Harvard in football, hockey and baseball “scored two goals” in a Harvard victory over arch-rival Yale in hockey. (As reported by Bob Wechsler)

1927(17th of Adar I, 5687): Georg (Morris Cohen) Brandes passed away at the age of 85.  Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1842, Brandes gained fame as a critic and literary historian.  Among those whose careers he affected were Henrik Ibsen and Friedrich Nietzsche.  Brandes was an outspoken critic of Herzl, but he switched to a pro-Zionist position with the issuing of the Balfour Declaration

1928 In St. Mortiz, the II Olympic Winter games during which speedskater Irving Jaffee “finished fourth in the 5000-meter skate” which was the best showing by American in the event to date, came to an end today.

1929: Colonel Frederick H. Kisch, chairman of the Zionist executive told those attending a luncheon hosted by real estate division of = the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies that “30,000 of the 150,000 Jews now living in Palestine depended on agriculture for a livelihood” and that there was positive signs for the establishment of a textile industry in Palestine.

1930: In Queens, Walter Martin Frankenheimer, a “stockbroker of German Jewish descent” and his wife Helen Mary Sheedy, an Irish Catholic gave birth to director John Frankenheimer who “was raised in his mother’s religion.”  (Editor’s note – good thing he was born in the U.S.  In Germany, the Nazis would have put him in a box car.)

1931: Birthdate of Dr. Meir Rosenne, the native of Jassy, Romania who immigrated to Palestine in 1944 and became one of Israel’s most distinguished jurists and scholars of international law.

1932: A subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to hold hearings today where those who opposed the nomination of Judge Cardoza to the Supreme Court, including O.R. Miller of Albany could testify.

1932: “An immediate favorable report on the nomination of Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was approved unanimously today by a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.”

1934: Birthdate of Michael Applebaum, the Newark born student of violinist of Efrem Zimbalist who reportedly had him change his name to Michael Tree, the name under which he founded the Guarneri String Quartet.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/02/obituaries/michael-tree-a-founder-of-the-guarneri-quartet-dies-at-84.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1934: The Menorah Writers and Artists Committee, “an organization of the women members of the Menorah Association” is scheduled to host a performance of “By Your Leave” at the Morosco Theatre” the proceeds of the ticket sales, under the supervision of Mrs. Jacob Eiseman “will go toward the cultural and education work of the association and the publication of the Menorah Journal” which is a “quarterly publication of the society.”

1935: Publication of “Brown Shirts in Zion” by Robert Gessner in The New Masses

http://www.unz.org/Pub/NewMasses-1935feb19-00011

1935:Clifford Odets'"Awake and Sing," premieres in New York City at the Belasco Theatre. The play explores the experiences of one Jewish family during the Great Depression. The original production starred Luther and Stella Adler. The play tells the story of the impoverished Berger family and their conflicts as the parents scheme to manipulate their children's relationships to their own ends, while their children strive for their own dreams.

1936: “When Knights Were Bold,” a musical comedy produced by Max Schach was released in the United Kingdom today.

1936: “Major General Sir Neill Malcom…the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Come From Germany…said tonight that he hoped to work ‘in perfect cooperation’ with Sir Herbert Samuel and his associates in their new drive to help the Jews in Germany.”

1936: A manifesto adopted “at Toronto by leading representatives of all Christian denominations in Canada” denounced “the Nazi Government’s treatment of Jews, ‘non-Aryan’ Christians and ‘various Gentiles’” and “urging Canada to provide a haven for a ‘reasonable number’ of ‘selected’ refugees from Germany if the flow of exiles from that country does not cease.”

1936: Before sailing for England, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, the son of the late President issued a statement declaring “that class hatred” had “caused the persecution of the Jews in Germany.”

1936: It was reported today “that in the future, refugee work would be conducted by an organization working under the plan recently proposed by a British delegation headed by Sir Herbert Samuel, whereby 100,000 Jews would be expatriated from Germany over for years at an estimated cost of fifteen million dollars…”

1937: During the Arab Uprising, violence comes to Tiberias a city known, until now, for peaceful relations between Arabs and Jews. After a week of an Arab boycott in Tiberias, Erev Shabbat, the Jews retaliated by boycotting Arab fish mongers.  Arab youths began pelting Jews walking in the town with oranges and then escalated to throwing stones.  As the Jews retreated to the town’s Jewish quarter, the clashes became more intense as Revisionists who were passing through town in two buses stopped to come to the aid of their co-religionists.  Arabs in the hills above Tiberias began firing shots into the town and at least one Jew was stabbed in the back while another had his head split open with a stone.  By the time the British intervened, thirty Jews and thirty Arabs were “slightly injured and two Jews were seriously hurt.”

1937: After premiering in the United Kingdom, “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 States.

1938(18thof Adar I, 5698): Parashat Ki Tisa

1938(18thof Adar I, 5698): Sixty-one-year-old Edmund Georg Hermann Landau a German Jewish mathematician who worked in the fields of number theory and complex analysis passed away.  Born in 1877, he married Marianne Ehrlich, the daughter of Nobel Prize winner Paul Ehrlich.

1938: In Brooklyn, Frances and Sam L. Rich gave birth to Judith Rich who married Charles S Harris and gained fame as psychologist Judith Rich Harris. (As reported by Katharine Q. Seelye)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/01/obituaries/judith-rich-harris-dies.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1939(30thof Shevat, 5699): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1939(30thof Shevat, 5699): Seventy-one-year-old Adolph Buchler, the Hungarian born and educated professor at the Rabbinical College in Vienna and the “principal of the Jews College in London since 1906” passed away tonight.

1939: The sixth annual observance of Brotherhood Week which is sponsored by the National Conference of Jews and Christians and which has been endorsed by President Roosevelt began today.

1940: General Sikorski, the Premier of the Polish Government in exile, “declared today that Poland” which is home to over two million Jews “was determined to live again as an independent state.”

1941: The Nazis raided Koco Amsterdam and seized 425 young Jews who were sent to Beuchenwald.  Koco was described as an isolated Jewish section in Amsterdam.  This roundup was part of a week of violence aimed against the 70,000 Jews of this Dutch city.  On February 9, Dutch Nazis sparked the first anti-Jewish riots in Amsterdam.  Although there was considerable damage and destruction, the Jews along with many of the Dutch countrymen fought back.  After the arrests on the 20th, tens of thousands of Dutch men and women went on strike in protest.  The stunned Nazi occupiers struck back brutally and crushed the strike.  However, this would not be the last time that the embattled people of Holland worked to protect their Jewish fellow countrymen.

1942(1st of Adar, 5702): In the Dvinsk Ghetto (Latvia), Chaya Mayerova was murdered for trading a bit of cloth with a non- Jew for a two-kilogram bag of flour. The entire Jewish population was gathered to witness the execution. There were over 11,000 Jews living in Divinsk when the war broke out.  By 1970 there were fewer than 2,000.  Divinsk should be remembered for more than this tragic entry.  It was the home to one of the sages of the 19th and early 20th century Rabbi Meir Simcha HaKohen.  Reb Meir was not just a Talmudist whose learning was so great that Chaim Nachmann Bialik called him “a walking encyclopedia.”  He was also a man of courage.  During World War I, Reb Meir refused to leave Divinsk even though it was in a combat zone.  If there were only nine Jews left in the town, he said he must remain so there would be a minyan.  Reb Meir supported Zionism but in 1906 he turned down an offer to be the Rabbi in Jerusalem.  The people of Divinsk convinced them that Divinsk needed him more than Jerusalem so he stayed with his kinsman.  It is important to remember the texture of the civilization that the Holocaust sought to destroy.  What was lost was so much more than a cold listing of numbers will ever convey.

1942: During WW II, the Japanese bombed the northern Australian city of Darwin making the threat of invasion of the island/continent very real

1943: Brotherhood Week which is sponsored by the National Conference of Jews and Christians and which has been endorsed by President Roosevelt with a statement that opened with the line “We are fighting for the right of men to live together as members of one family rather than as masters and slaves” began today.

1943: As Major General Henning von Tresckow contemplated when and where to assassinate Hitler, the German dictator “flew to his ‘field headquarters’ near Vinnitsa today.

1943: German tanks under Brigadier General Buelowius attacked the U.S. Army at the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia.  This little-known battle was the first contest between the German Army and the U.S. Army.  The Americans took a real beating and it took them months to recover.  There are those who think that World War II was a string of victories for the Americans.  Such was not the case.  The precarious nature of the war as well a streak of anti-Semitism helps to explain why Roosevelt did not “do more to help the Jews.”  This is not a defense of FDR; merely an attempt to provide historic context for his behavior.

1944: In Kensington, London, Rex Harrison and actress Lilli Palmer (Lilli Marie Peiser, the daughter Dr. Alfred Peiser, “a German-Jewish surgeon and Austrian Jewish actress Ross Lissman) gave birth playwright and novelist Carey Harrison.

1945: Edward "Eddie Jacobson" opened a menswear store in Kansas City, MO.

1945: Battle of Iwo Jima begins. There were approximately 1,500 Jewish Leathernecks among the 70,000 Marines who fought in this climactic battle of the war in the Pacific. On the 60th anniversary of the start of the battle Sam Bernstein, a 20-year-old (Jewish) Marine corporal at the time of the battle reminisced about the fight. “I thought it appropriate to spotlight some news and information about the Jews who fought and died in the five-week battle between 70,000 American Marines (1,500 of which were Jewish) and an unknown number of deeply entrenched Japanese defenders. “Bernstein chuckles when he remembers the Tootsie Rolls he put in his cartridge belt. I chose Tootsie Rolls because they wouldn't melt and they were just the size of a bullet. At the same time, I strapped on three or four bandoliers full of ammunition. Still, if the officers had known what I was doing, they probably would have shot me instead of the Japanese! He does not chuckle when he remembers the two men who were killed in his foxhole. Or the day he helped the Jewish chaplain bury some Marines.” The Jewish Chaplain was Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn, assigned to the Fifth Marine Division who was the first Jewish chaplain the Marine Corps ever appointed. Rabbi Gittelsohn was in the thick of the fray, ministering to Marines of all faiths in the combat zone.  His tireless efforts to comfort the wounded and encourage the fearful won him three service ribbons.  When the fighting was over, Rabbi Gittelsohn was asked to deliver the memorial sermon at a combined religious service dedicating the Marine Cemetery. Unfortunately, racial and religious prejudice led to problems with the ceremony. What happened next immortalized Rabbi Gittelsohn and his sermon forever. It was Division Chaplain Warren Cuthriell, a Protestant minister, who originally asked Rabbi Gittelsohn to deliver the memorial sermon.  Cuthriel wanted all the fallen Marines (black and white, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish) honored in a single, nondenominational ceremony.  However, according to Rabbi Gittelsohn's autobiography, the majority of Christian chaplains objected to having a rabbi preach over predominantly Christian graves The Catholic chaplains, in keeping with church doctrine opposed any form of joint religious service. To his credit, Cuthriell refused to alter his plans. Gittelsohn, on the other hand, wanted to save his friend Cuthriell further embarrassment and so decided it was best not to deliver his sermon.  Instead, three separate religious services were held.  At the Jewish service, to a congregation of 70 or so who attended, Rabbi Gittelsohn delivered the powerful eulogy he originally wrote for the combined service:

"Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors’ generations ago helped in her founding.  And other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores.  Here lie officers and men, Negroes and Whites, rich men and poor, together.  Here are Protestants, Catholics, and Jews together.  Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color.  Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed.

"Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudices. No hatred.  Theirs is the highest and purest democracy!  Whosoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother, or who thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and the bloody sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery.  To this then, as our solemn sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves:  To the right of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, of White men and Negroes alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them have here paid the price.
"We here solemnly swear this shall not be in vain.  Out of this and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come, we promise, the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere."

Among Gittelsohn's listeners were three Protestant chaplains so incensed by the prejudice voiced by their colleagues that they boycotted their own service to attend Gittelsohn's.  One of them borrowed the manuscript and, unknown to Gittelsohn, circulated several thousand copies to his regiment.  Some Marines enclosed the copies in letters to their families.  An avalanche of coverage resulted.  Time magazine published excerpts, which wire services spread even further.  The entire sermon was inserted into the Congressional Record, the Army released the eulogy for short-wave broadcast to American troops throughout the world and radio commentator Robert St. John read it on his program and on many succeeding Memorial Days. In 1995, in his last major public appearance before his death, Gittelsohn reread a portion of the eulogy at the 50th commemoration ceremony at the Iwo Jima statue in Washington, D.C.  In his autobiography, Gittelsohn reflected, I have often wondered whether anyone would ever have heard of my Iwo Jima sermon had it not been for the bigoted attempt to ban it.

1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Jewish Problems met with Chancellor Leopold Figl today in Vienna.

1947: “Wingate Is Honored By Palestine Jews” published today described how saplings were planted on the JNF land at the foot of Mt. Gilboa marking the start of a memorial forest named for the late Maj.Gen. Orde Charles Wingate who was supportive of the Zionist cause when stationed in Palestine during the 1930’s

1948: “Arthur Creech Jones, British Colonial Secretary, told the Palestine Commission today that Britain would be prepared to "discuss" the possibility of allowing the United Nations to import arms into the Holy Land for the equipment of militia.”

1949: U.S. premiere “The Clay Pigeon,” a film noir “directed by Richard Fleischer and written by Carl Foreman.”

1950(2ndof Adar, 5710): Fifty-three-year-old Galicia native Yoysef-Menakehm Holender (Tsuker) passed away today in France.

http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2015/12/yoysef-menakhem-holender-tsuker.html

1951: Birthdate of Chicago native Jerry Salz, “the art critic for New York Magazine who won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism” in 2018

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles invited Israel to join his new Middle Eastern Defense Organization. (Note: If this is the organization that would be known as CENTO, neither the United States nor Israel would ultimately join the organization.)

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Pravda, the official Communist party newspaper, charged that Israel was joining NATO and allowing the US to build military bases on its territory. (This was pure propaganda designed that was part of the shift in Stalin’s foreign policy.)

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that The State Comptroller's Report for 1951-1952, prepared under the supervision of the Comptroller, Dr. Siegfried Moses, marked a definite improvement of the Israeli Civil Service.

1953(4thof Adar, 5713): Seventy-nine-year-old Abraham Adelberg passed away today after which he was buried at the Mount Hebron Cemetery, in Flushing, NY.

1954: Today, author Judith Krantz “wore a headdress of white lilacs and hyacinths” when she married producer and screenwriter Steve Krantz with whom she had to sons – Tony and Nicholas. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/obituaries/12krantz.html

1954: “New Faces,” a 1954 American film adaptation of the musical revue New Faces of 1952, directed by Harry Haorner, co-written by Melvin Brooks and co-starring Robert Clary (Robert Max Widerman) was released in the United States today.

1956: The Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America dedicated a community center in New York, with impressive ceremonies. Speakers included Judge Jonah J. Goldstein and the late Judge Edgar J. Nathan, Jr. The Brotherhood Memorial Post presented the colors (flags).

1957: Recording today of “Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella” with music by Sammy Fain and lyrics co-authored by Irving Kahal.

1959: The United Kingdom grants Cyprus its independence. Jewish settlement in Cyprus dates back to Biblical times.  In the first century, the Jews of Cyprus rebelled against the Romans.  In modern times, Cyprus was the site for the camps housing Jews who tried to run the British blockade and enter Eretz Israel before 1948.  For more about the Jews of Cyprus, you might want to read Place of Refuge: A  History of the Jews in Cyprusby Stavros Panteli.

1960: In Bloomington, the dedicatory weekend for new Moses Montefiore began today.

1963: Following his conviction for the 1962 murders of two New York City police detectives, Jerry “the Jew” Rosenberg began serving his sentence today. By the time he died in 2009, he would have set a record for length of incarceration in the state of New York.

1963(25thof Shevat, 5723): One day after his 87th birthday, Gustave Falk, the son of Ferdinand and Jeanette Falk, the husband of Marguerite Falk and the brother of Arnold, Myron and Gertrude Falk, passed away today after which he was buried in Hebrew Rest Cemetery #2 in New Orleans, LA.

1964: In Brooklyn, Richard Brown Lethem and Jewish political activist Judith Frank Lethem gave birth to best-selling author and MacArthur Fellowship recipient Jonathan Lethem.

1964: Paul Simon wrote "The Sounds of Silence," the song which, in a year and a half, will catapult him and Art Garfunkel to stardom as Simon and Garfunkel.

1965: Seventy-four-year-old Captain Koreshige Inuzuka who was the head of the Japanese Imperial Navy's Advisory Bureau on Jewish Affairs from March 1939 until April 1942 and who established the Japan-Israel Association of which he was the President, in 1952, passed away today. (He was rather complex when it came to the Jews.  But in one of those great ironies of history, he was given a silver cigarette case by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis in the United States for his help in rescuing Jewish refugees from the Hitler’s Europe)

1966(29thof Shevat, 5726): Parasha  Mishpatim; Shabat Shekalim

1966(29thof Shevat, 5726):Seventy-seventy year old Yiddish poet and editorial staff member for the Jewish Forward Nachum Yud who was born in Russia in 1888 and to come the United States in 1916 passed away today

1967: An article published in the American Journal of Cardiology described an electronic device capable of recording arterial pulsations and the mechanical events of the heart without actually making contact with the chest wall.  This device was the product of combined efforts led by Dr. Aaron Valero who brought together the clinical medical staff at Rambam Hospital and the engineers at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.  Dr. Valero organized and put together teams from the two institutions, which he headed up. This unique cooperation led to the first product of the soon to be established Biomedical Engineering Department of The Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. It was an electronic device capable of recording arterial pulsations and the mechanical events of the heart without actually making contact with the chest wall.

1969(1stof Adar, 5729): Rosh Chodesh Adar is observed for the first time during the Presidency of Richard Nixon.

1970(13thof Adar I, 5730): Seventy-three-year-old Otto Heller, the Prague born British cinematographer passed away today.

1970(13thof Adar I, 5730): Fifty-four-year-old multi-talented actor Jules Munshin passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/20/archives/jules-munshin-comedy-actor-in-film-and-on-stage-dies-at-54-sailor.html?_r=0

1971: In Urbana, Illinois, astrophysicist Jacob Shaham and cytogeneticist Meira Diskin gave birth to violinist Gil Shaham who was the sister of pianist Orli Shaham.

1972(4thof Adar, 5732): Parashat Terummah

1972(4thof Adar, 5732): Fifty-one-year-old New York City native and professor of chemical engineering at CCNY, Dr. Stanley Katz, the husband of “the former Dr. Lillian Handman” with whom he raised two sons – Phillip and Andrew – and WW II Army veteran who “was known for original work in applying mathematical techniques such as probability methods to the solution of engineering problems” passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/21/archives/dr-stleykatz-a1viathematician-professor-of-engineering-ati-city.html?searchResultPosition=2

1972: Birthdate of Calgary native and great-grandson of Russian Jewish homesteader Ezra Isaac Levant, University of Alberta trained attorney turned controversial right-wing journalist and commentator whose law degree would seem to have stood him in good stead when you consider all of the litigation he has faced over the years.

1973(17th of Adar I, 5733): Hungarian born violin virtuoso Joseph Szigeti passed away at his home in Switzerland.

1973: “S'13, Unit 707, and Sayeret Tzanhanim commandos jointly raided guerrilla bases in Nahr al-Bared and Beddawi today in Operation Bardas 54–55 during which about 40 guerillas were killed and 60 wounded, and a Turkish military trainer was taken prisoner.

1975(8thof Adar, 5735): Sixty-six year old Ukrainian native Natan Zabre, a WW II veteran of the Red Army and Yiddish author passed away today in Kiev.

http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2016/06/natan-zabare.html

1976(18thof Adar I, 5736): Seventy-four-year-old seamstress Ruth Rosenfeld Taffel, the widow of Frank Taffel passed away today.

1976: In Brussels, The Second World Conference of Jewish Communities on Jewry which was attended by over 1,000 delegates from over 32 countries including Prime Minister Golda Meir came to an end.

1977(14th of Adar I, 5559): Purim Katan

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that, two Arab terrorists assassinated Youseff el-Sibaei, the editor of the semi-official Egyptian Al-Ahram newspaper at the Larnaca Hilton hotel, in Cyprus and took 11 Egyptian hostages to the local airport in an apparent reaction to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's peace initiative.

1978: One Arab died and another was injured by a terrorist bombing at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that US President Jimmy Carter defended his offer of jet fighters to "staunch, friendly Arab allies." In his comment, Defense Minister Ezer Weizman said that the worst effect of the aircraft sale proposed by the Carter administration was the fact that it put Israel together with Egypt and Saudi Arabia in a "package deal."

1980: “A chamber orchestra version” of “Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards, an orchestral piece composed in 1979 by Steve Reich” was performed today at Carnegie Hall.

1980(2ndof Adar, 5740): Nathan Yellin-Mor the Lehi leader who became a pacifist passed away.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0021_0_21240.html

1984: CBS began broadcasting a television miniseries based on Sidney Shelton’s Master of the Game starring Dyan Cannon (Samille Dian Friesen)

1985: The first episode of EastEnders, a British soap opera featuring “Clare Moody” was broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One

1986: Robert Badinter completed his service as French Minister of Justice began serving as President of the Constitutional Council of France.

1988(1st of Adar, 5748): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1988: A memorial service is scheduled to be held tonight at 8 P.M. at Beth Am, The People's Temple in Manhattan to honor Rabbi Israel Raphael Margolies, of blessed memory who passed away earlier this week at the age of 72.  Rabbi Margolies had served at Temple Emanu-el in Engelwood, N.J. at Beth Am, The People's Temple in Manhattan. He “frequently called for equality for minority group members and for women. He was a supporter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and once marched alongside him in a civil rights parade in Englewood.”

1989: After 99 performances the curtain came down on the off-Broadway production of Wendy Wasserstein’s “The Heidi Chronicles” at Playwrights Horizons.

1989: “The Twisted Road to Auschwitz” published today provided a review of Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?: The Final Solution in History by Arno J. Mayer.

1990: The Soviet Union, under heavy pressure from Arab countries, has rejected an appeal from the Bush Administration to allow direct flights for Soviet Jews from Moscow to Israel, Administration officials said today. American and Israeli officials said that in the absence of such flights, thousands of Soviet Jews were in effect trapped in the Soviet Union at a time of rising anti-Semitism.

1990(24thof Shevat, 5750): Fifty-nine-year-old Kenyon College graduate and producer Gabriel Katzka, the Brooklyn born son of attorney and Broadway show backer Emil Katzka passed away today.

1992(15thof Adar I, 5752): Eighty-five-year-old Valdimir Pozner, the Parisian born son of Russian Jewish parents living in exile who was writer and anti-Fascist who spent WW II in California passed away today.

https://www.ft.com/content/67eab48e-25b8-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c

1993(28thof Shevat, 5733): Eighty-three-year-old In Northwestern University undergrad David Lionel Bazel, the Superior, Wisconsin born son of “Lena (Krasnovsky) and Israel Bazelon, a general store proprietor” who began his legal career by reading law and eventually reaching the position of “Senior Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit” passed away today

1994 (8th of Adar, 5754): Zipora Sasson, five months pregnant, was killed on the trans-Samaria highway in an ambush by shots fired at her car. The terrorists were members of HAMAS.

1994(8thof Adar, 5754: Fifty-seven educator and MK Yitzhak Yitzhaky passed away today.

1995(19th of Adar I, 5755): Israeli Rabbi Shlomo Averbach passed away at the age of 84.

1995: Poet Kenneth Koch wins Bollingen Prize.

1997(12th of Adar I, 5757): Leo Rosten passed away at the age of 88.  Born in 1908, Rosten was an amazingly prolific writer on a variety of topics.  While best known for his writings on Jewish topics - The Joys of Yiddish, Treasury of Jewish Quotations and Hooray Yiddish - he also wrote such works as Religions In America and Captain Newman, M.D.  (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/20/books/leo-rosten-a-writer-who-helped-yiddish-make-its-way-into-english-is-dead-at-88.html?pagewanted=all&amp;src=pm

1999: Actor Dennis Franz receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1999: Today in an obituary in Aufbau, Anson Rabinbach “characterized George L. Mosses German Jews Beyond Judaism as his most personal book.

1999: In New York, the Museum of Jewish Heritage features an exhibit entitled “A Living Memorial to the Holocaust” featuring artifacts, documents, photographs, videos and film clips are included in exhibitions on the Holocaust and on Jewish life before and after World War II.

2000(13thof Adar I, 5760): Parashat Tetzaveh

2000(13thof Adar I, 5760): Eighty-nine-year-old Warsaw born British artist Josef Herman who left Poland in the 1930’s because of anti-Semitism who captured ordinary people on canvas in an extra-ordinary manner passed away.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/feb/22/guardianobituaries

2001(26th of Shevat, 5761): Eighty-seven-year-old director and producer Stanley Kramer passed away. (As reported by Rick Lyman)

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/21/movies/stanley-kramer-filmmaker-with-social-bent-dies-at-87.html?pagewanted=all&amp;src=pm

2002(7thof Adar, 5762): In what “was the most lethal attack on Israeli soldiers…in more than 16 months of fighting,” tonight Palestinian terrorists escaped after killed six Israeli soldiers.

2003: Iranian officials announced that they had released the five last remaining Jews imprisoned in the city of Shiraz. The men: Dani (Hamid) Tefillen; Asher Zadmehr; Naser Levy Hayim; Farhad Saleh and Ramin Farzam, where the last 5 out of 13 Jews on trial for spying for the "Zionist regime" and "world arrogance." Ten of the men were convicted and sentenced to prison. Since their sentencing in July 2001, five had already been quietly released.

2004: Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal was awarded an honorary knighthood in recognition of a "lifetime of service to humanity."

2005:  Fred Rodgers, who just celebrated his birthday on February 17, joined his sister Hilda for her 85th birthday.  Fred is a pillar of the Jewish community in Cedar Rapids.   He and his sister were two of those who were not lost in the European Holocaust, Baruch Ha'shem.

2006: The New York Times Book Section features a review of Barney Ross by Douglas Century. “

2007(1stof Adar, 5767): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2008: Veteran broadcast journalist Daniel Schorr discusses his new book, Come to Think of It: Notes on the Turn of the Millennium, at a luncheon event at the Woman's National Democratic Club in Washington, D.C.

2009: It was reported today that all ten members of Yisrael Chala's family had been flown from Yemen to Israel.  Two months earlier, two firebombs had been thrown into the courtyard of the family's home. 

2009:In New York City, the American Friends of Tel Aviv University and the Simon Wiesenthal Center co-host a lecture by Professor Dina Porat, head of the Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University entitled "Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism: Which is the chicken and which is the egg?"

2009:Israeli Andy Ram will be allowed to compete in a Dubai tennis tournament next week after the Arab country said today that it would permit the seventh-ranked doubles player to enter the country.

2009: In Manhattan, the exhibition of the Valmadonna Trust Library at Sotheby’s comes to an end.  “A Lifetime’s Collection of Texts in Hebrew, at Sotheby’s”  explains the significance of this collection and provides a useful description of the importance that the printed word plays for Jews and Judaism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/books/12hebr.html?pagewanted=all

2010: In Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chai presents "Kalabbat Shabbat" featuring Kobi Arieli.

2010: The opening of the opera "La Juive" (The Jewish Woman) at St. Petersburg's Mikhailovsky Theater was postponed from last night to tonight by a bomb threat that proved to be false, according to the ITAR-TASS news agency.

2010: Omri Caspi, the first Israeli to play in North America's National Basketball Association, will participate in a special Friday-evening service and Shabbat meal this evening with hundreds of members of the Los Angeles Jewish community, ahead of the Sacramento Kings' game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night.

2010: The Washington Post features a review of Making Toast: A Family Story by Roger Rosenblatt.

2011: The Matchmaker a coming-of-age drama directed by Avi Nesher that “tells the story of a relationship between an Israeli teen and a Holocaust survivor who makes ends meet by brokering marriages” is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: A documentary entitled Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Grayis scheduled to be shown at the 21st Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2011:President Shimon Peres called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today to discuss the failed United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlement building.

2011:The family of kidnapped Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit marked the 1,700th day of his captivity today along with hundreds of supporters in front of the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem.

2011: Canadian born professional tennis player Sharon Fichman was the runner-up in the Copa Colsanitas Tournament in Bogotá, Columbia.2011(15thof Adar I, 5771):Sanford C. Sigoloff, a Los Angeles-based turnaround expert nicknamed “Mr. Chapter 11,” who also did what he could for employees when they were fired, passed away today at the age of 80. (As reported by Mary Williams Walsh)http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/business/25sigoloff.html

2012(26th of Shevat, 5772): Ninety-year-old “Ruth Barcan Marcus, a philosopher esteemed for her advances in logic, a traditionally male-dominated subset of a traditionally male-dominated field” passed away today.  (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/us/ruth-barcan-marcus-philosopher-logician-dies-at-90.html

2012: The New York Times featured 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 and ‘Liebestod: Opera Buffa With Leib Goldkorn’ by Leslie Epstein.

2012: LimmudLA is scheduled to come to an end at Costa Mesa.

2012:The IDF is planning to deploy an Iron Dome battery in the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area for the first time as part of a drill simulating a missile attack, Ynet learned today. 

2012:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the 38th Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem today.

2012: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning for Dr. Ethel Stark, “the conductor of the first women's symphony orchestra of Montreal and the first woman to conduct at Carnegie Hall in New York” followed by burial at the Spanish &amp; Portuguese Congregation Cemetery.

2013: Kobi Kablek is scheduled to present “Failure and Memory: How the Rescue of Jews During the Holocaust is Depicted in Post-War German Film” at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC

2013: YIVO is scheduled to present “It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past” featuring author David Satter.

2013: In Iowa City, Iowa, the Bijou Theatre is scheduled to present “The Rabbi’s Cat,” a film that tells the tale of a talking cat owned by a rabbi.

2013: “Uproar Over Netanyahu’s Ice Cream Is Welcome in One Parlor” described how Prime Minister spent $2,700 on ice cream including his favorite, pistachio. (As reported by Isabel Kershner)

2014: “Putzel” is scheduled to be shown at the DPJCC's 14th Annual Jewish Film Festival

2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Light and Shadows: The Story of Iranian Jews.”

2014: Palestinian Arab teenagers hurled rocks at an Israeli car just outside the Samaria community of Eli this afternoon. While the victims of the attack are shaken, no one was hurt. (As reported by Tova Dvorin)

2014: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host Bob Budoff’s “Analysis of Current Developments in Israel and the Middle East.”

2014: After much disagreement among the coalition, The Knesset's Special Committee for the Equal Sharing of the Burden Bill, headed by Knesset Member Ayelet Shaked, convened this evening to vote on the most dramatic article in the much-debated bill, which concerns the imprisonment of haredim who dodge military or civil service (criminal sanctions). (As reported by Moran Azulay)

2015: Marvin Pinkert, Executive Director, Jewish Museum of Maryland is scheduled to deliver a lecture on the “Civil War in Maryland Through a Jewish Lens” at the Lilian &amp; Albert Small Jewish Museum in Washington, DC.

2015: Services are scheduled to be held at the Frank E. Campbell funeral home on Madison Avenue for “Singer-songwriter Lesley Gore, who topped the charts in 1963 at age 16 with her epic song of teenage angst, “It’s My Party,” and followed it up with the hits “Judy’s Turn to Cry,” and the feminist anthem “You Don’t Own Me.” (As reported by JTA and Times of Israel)

2015(30thof Shevat, 5775): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2016: Twenty-one-year-old Tuvia Yanai Weissman who was stabbed to death yesterday in a supermarket was buried today on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.  “A soldier in the Nachal infantry brigade, he is survived by his wife and 4-month-old daughter.”

2016(10thof Adar I, 5776): Eighty-three-year-old Tel Aviv born actor Yossi Graber passed away today in Tzrifin, Iisrael.

2016: An exhibition “WOMEN: New Portraits Annie Leibovit” is scheduled to come to a close in Zurich.

2016(10thof Adar I, 5776): Ninety-three-year-old Samuel Willenberg, the last survivor of the uprising at Treblinka passed away today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/12178158/Samuel-Willenberg-Holocaust-survivor-obituary.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35623492

2016: In Washington, DC, Temple Sinai is scheduled to host an evening of Jewish A Cappella with Six13.

http://www.templesinaidc.org/worship/music

2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of A Perfect Life by Eileen Pollack and The Year of Lear: Shakespeare In 1606 by James Shapiro as well as a list of “17 Great Books About American Presidents for President’s Day Weekend” that included Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow, Wilson by A. Scott Berg,No Ordinary Time. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin and Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson,” by Robert A. Caro.

2017: Ninety-three-year-old Russian mathematician and one-time dissident Igor Shafarevich whose writings such as “Russophobia” stamped him as an assignment passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/world/europe/igor-shafarevich-dead-dissident-mathematician.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017: At the Jewish Museum, final showing the exhibition “Scots Jews: Photographs by Judah Passow.”

https://jewishmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/scots-jews-photographs-by-judah-passow/

2017: “The one and only black tie, Oxford JSoc Ball” is scheduled to take place this evening at the Oxford Town Hall.

2017: “Zero Motivation” is scheduled to be shown on the final night of San Diego Jewish Film Festival.

2017: Zerach Greenfield is scheduled to lead a hands-on workshop on “The Making of Tefillin” this morning at Limmud NY

2017: In New York, the curtain is scheduled to come down on the final performance of “Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill: A Musical Voyage.”

2017: In Atlanta, GA, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host an afternoon with Benjamin Hirsch who will describe Kristallnacht as seen through the eyes of a six year old and then recount the travels with four of his siblings on a Kindertransport to France that ultimately led to his arrival in Atlanta.

2017: Avner Avraham, Exhibition Curator and former Mossad agent; Orit Shaham Gover, Chief Curator of Beit Hatfutsot—The Museum of the Jewish People, Tel Aviv; Ariel Efron, Media Creative Director, Gallagher and Associates; Ellen Rudolph, Executive Director, Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, Cleveland are scheduled to attend the opening of “Operation Finale” an exhibit at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center depicting the capture and trial of Adolf Eichman.

2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education is scheduled to celebrate President’s Day by admitting student’s and children at half price and “showing the hologram of Holocaust survivor and museum President Fritzie Fritzshall.

2018: The Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players which was bounded by Jens Nygaard who directed the Washington Heights YW-YMHA concerts for 25 years, and which includes violinist Itamar Zorman is scheduled to perform “Mostly Italian-Swiss Gems” today.

2018: In the United States celebration of President’s Day which Jews could observe by remembering their unique connection with the nation’s chief executives starting with George Washington and the Jews of Newport but also including but not limited to, Franklin Pierce who “signed an Act of Incorporation establishing Washington Hebrew Congregation”, Abraham Lincoln who made it possible for Rabbis to serve as chaplains in the U.S. Army for the first time, U.S. Grant who contributed to the building fund for Adas Israel and attended the congregation’s dedication, Teddy Roosevelt who appointed the first Jew to serve in the Cabinet, to Woodrow Wilson who appointed the first Jew to serve on the Supreme Court, to Herbert Hoover who appointed the second Jew to serve as an Associate Justice, to Donald Trump, the first President to have Jewish grandchildren (and this does not include FDT, HST and so many more)

2018: “Night of Heroes” is scheduled to take place in London.https://www.nightofheroes.co.uk/

2019: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Forgotten Soldier,” a documentary about Dutch businessman Sally Noach.

2019: In Stanford, CA, General Amos Yadlin, the Director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies is scheduled to discuss “Israel’s security challenges in 2019.”

2019: Laney College is scheduled to host a screening of “Marshall” a film about NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall teaming up with Sam Friedman to defend a black chauffeur in Connecticut from charges “of sexual assault and attempted murder” by a white, “wealthy socialite” in case tried against a background of racism and anti-semitism.

2019: The University of California Botanical Garden at Berkley is scheduled to host a lecture on Ethnobotanical Insights into Biblical Life and Languag

2019: The Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host Rabbi David Wolpe speaking about “Immigration” as part of the “Modern Matters: Ancient Jewish Wisdom Series.

2020: The JCCSF is scheduled to host a screening of “The City Without Jews,” a “1924 silent film, set in an Austrian city that enacts a law forcing Jews to leave” which is also a Violins of Hope event featuring an original live score by violinist Alicia Svigals and pianist Donald Sosin.”

2020: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the penultimate screening of “The Other Story.”

2020: The Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “My Name Is Sara” and “Gentlemen’s Agreement.”

2020: The 21st annual Sacramento Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin today.

2020: In Cincinnati, the 2020 Jewish and Israeli Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Working Woman.”

2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Taking On White Nationalist Violence”  Roberta Kaplan (lead counsel on the Supreme Court case that led to the legalization of same-sex marriage) and Karen Dunn (a former federal prosecutor in Virginia), the legal action — filed against a broad range of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and affiliated hate groups — expose the individuals and organizations driving the wave of white supremacist hate and dismantles the infrastructure at the center of their movement

2020: The Center For Jewish History is scheduled to present a discussion The Promised Land by Mary Antin “led by Lauren Gilbert, Senior Manager for Public Services at the Center for Jewish History.

2020: Seventy-fifth anniversary of the start of the Battle of Iowa Jima where 1,500 Jews were among the thousands of Marines of whom it was said, “Uncommon valor was a common virtue.”

2021: Temple Beth Israel of Waltham is scheduled to present online “Shabes In Upper Remety: TBI’s Hollender Memorial Tish” featuring “Hankus Netsky and members of the New England Conservatory’s Jewish Music Ensemble.”

2021: Kan Kol Hamusika is scheduled to broadcast, live, an “Excellence – Young Artists in Concerts” with Zarifa Alkhazova, Anastasia Dziadevych, Noa Kapelyushnik and Julia Gurvitch “playing pieces for violin and piano.

2021: In River Hills, WI, Dr. Gary P. Zola, the scholar-in-residence at Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun is scheduled to deliver Kabbalat Shabbat sermon on “Profiles in American Jewish Courage.”

2021: Kerem Shalom is scheduled to present “Shabbat Around the Table” with Cantor Rosalie Gerut, leading candle-lighting, singing, prayers, discussing the Torah parsha and remembering our loved ones with the Kaddish prayer.”

2021: In Pepper Pike, OH, B’nai Jeshurun Congregation is scheduled to host a noontime “Historical Introduction to the Laws of Purim with Rabbi Noah Bickart” followed later in the evening by an “ATID Masquerade Shabbat Dinner.

2021: The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin screenings online of “200 Meters” which tells the story of a Palestinian father journeying to reach his hospitalized son and “Antisemitism,” a film that traces “centuries of insidious hatred, this substantive inquest reveals the evolution of anti-Semitism in France.”

2021: While much of the U.S. copes with unusual amounts snow, Israelis appear to be poised to enjoy the layer of white stuff which yesterday fell unexpectedly in Jerusalem and its environs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Day, February 20, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 20

390: Emperors Valentinian II., Theodosius, and Arcadius issued a decree that thwarted the attempt of the association of "navicularii" (ship-and cargo-owners) of Constantinople to force the Jews and the Samaritans to join them and to share in the burdens of the society. They “decided that the communities of the Jews and the Samaritans could not legally be forced to join the navicularii, and that at most their wealthy members only could be taxed ("Codex Theodosianus," xiii. 5, 18). This decree was most important to the Jews, for many of them were ship-owners, and more than one-half of the shipping in Alexandria was controlled by Jews.” (As reported by the Jewish Encyclopedia)

1194: King Tancred of Sicily died effectively ending the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and bring it under the German Hohenstaufens. This would prove beneficial to the Jews because 15 years later, Emperor Frederick II would intervene on behalf of his Sicilian Jewish subjects to temporarily put an end to their persecutions by the Crusaders.

1422:  Pope Martin V (1417-31) issued a Bull reminding Christians that Christianity was derived from Judaism and warned the Friars not to incite against the Jews. The Bull was withdrawn the following year amidst allegations that the Jews of Rome attained the Bull by fraud.

1431: Pope Martin V, the author of Sicut Judaeis ("and thus to the Jews," passed away today.

1495: “The Jew Mekl, son of Jontoffa, gave a mortgage of 60 schock of Meissen thalers on his Jewish house at number 263, on the corner of what are today Solní Road and Sedláčková Road in Pilsen, to his stepmother Lea, giving her the right to live there before gentiles and Jews.

1547:  Edward VI of England crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey. Edward was the male heir sought by his father Henry VIII. Edward’s reign was short since he died at the age of 15.  Reportedly small numbers of Conversos made their way to the kingdom during his reign as they had during Henry VIII’s time and worshipped secretly in London and Bristol.

1662(1stof Adar, 5422): Shabbatai ben Meir HaKoehn, the Lithuanian-born Moravian rabbi whose works included Siftei Kohn or the Shakh, a commentary on the Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De'ah passed away today.

1667(26thof Shevat, 5427): Rabbi David ben Samuel Halevi passed away. Born in Cracow in 1586, he was known as TA"Z an acronym for his response Turei Zahav – Rows (or Rock) of Gold. During the Chmelnitsky Uprisings which resulted in the massacre of thousands of Jews he found refuge in the castle of Prince Radziwill in a narrow room at the top, near the clock – the symbol of the Polish eagle that could be seen for miles. A folktale says that when Chmelnitsky and his hooligans approached the town Olyka, the rabbi and a large number of Olyka Jews took refuge in the Prince's castle and prayed to God. They fought alongside the Prince's men against the cruel enemy. Two ancient huge cannons that were not even usable suddenly shot out by themselves and killed off many of the enemy. In any event, the fear of God befell the hooligans and the quickly retreated and ran away. In memory of this miracle, Rabbi David composed special penitential prayers for the 20th of Nisan, the day the miracle occurred. The descendants of Rabbi Ha-Levi were the Russian rabbinical family Paltrowitch. This family produced 33 rabbis over several generations. One of these rabbis, Simcha Paltrowitch (1843-1926) served the Pine street “shul” in Buffalo from 1890 to 1914.  His brother’s descendant is the producer-director Bruce Paltrow (Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere), the father of the actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

1751: Benedict XIV issued Elapso proxime Anno, a papal bull dealing with the issue of what the Church called “Jewish heretics.”

1767: In Germany, Dreile Schweizer and Philip Moses Faist Rosenheim gave birth to Simon Faist Rosenheim, the husband of Hannele Isaak and father of Mordochai, Hindle, Isaac and Abraham Simon.

1778: In Buchau, Helena Neuburger and Heinrich Maendle gave birth to Eleanor Maendle, the wife of Lazarus Heilbronner with whom she had eight children.

1790:  Austrian Emperor Joseph II passed away at the age of 49.  Joseph II actually reigned over the Holy Roman Empire which was "neither holy nor Roman."  For his time, he was a benign despot who sought to reform his empire.  Jews viewed him with mixed feelings.  On the one hand he abolished many of the archaic restrictions on Jewish social and commercial life.  He abolished laws pertaining to wearing the yellow badge and prohibiting Jews from practicing law and medicine.  At the same time, he called for an end to writing public documents and contracts in Yiddish or Hebrew and the abolition of certain aspects of self-governance in the Jewish community.  On the one hand even a reformer like Moses Mendelssohn was concerned about the impact of Joseph's plans on Jewish identity.  On the other hand, a century and a quarter later, Adolph Hitler expressed his disdain for this Austrian monarch.  I guess you will have to be the judge after you have had a chance to the history of Jews in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries.

1790: At Strasbourg, The Society of the Friends of the Constitution admitted its first Jewish member.

1792: “Jews who lived in the vicinity of Strasbourg were granted permission to enter the city to take an oath of allegiance.

1793: Birthdate of David Levy, the Philadelphia born son of Moses Nathan Levy who should not be confused with the David Levy who “served with Continental Army in Maryland, or any of the other Levy’s named David born during the late 18thcentury.

1793: Birthdate of German native Baruch Hofheimer, the husband of Ester Nathan and the father of Jacob Hofheimer.

1793(8thof Adar, 5553): Prudence Hays, the wife of Baruch Hays and the mother of John Jacob Hays passed away today in New York City.

1793: Pennsylvania native Maria and Moses Nathans gave birth to David Nathans, the husband of Rebecca Russell and father of Moses and Sarah Nathans.

1793: In Savannah, GA, Shankey Hart and Abraham Jacobs gave birth to Rachel Jacobs, the wife of Samuel A. Barnett.

1793: In Savanah, GA, Abraham Jacobs and his wife gave birth to Rachel Jacobs who married Samuel A. Barnett in 1822.

1796: In Savannah, GA, Sara De La Motta and Levi Sheftall gave birth to Abigail Minis Sheftall, the wife of Levy Hart and mother of Levi, Amanda and Eugenia Hart.

1798(4thof Adar): Following Napoleon’s conquest of Italy, the ghetto at Rome was abolished.  When the Pope regained power, the ghetto was re-established.  It would finally be abolished after the re-unification of Italy in 1870.

1804: At Hobart, Australia a penal colony was established which included 8 Jews among its prisoners.

1808: In Canada, the assembly resolved by a vote of 35 to 5 that "Ezekiel Hart, Esquire, professing the Jewish religion cannot take a seat, nor sit, nor vote, in this House.”

1812(7thof Adar I, 5572): Seventy-two-year-old Rabbi Moses Ben Abraham Frankel, the father of David Frankel passed away at Dessau.

1816(21stof Shevat, 5576): Polly Israel (Perla bat Kalonymous) the mother of Henrietta Israel passed away today.

1817: Abraham Quixano Henriques married Rebecca Aguillar at Bevis Marks Synagogue in London today.

1817: Birthdate of Aix-les-Bains native and University of Paris graduate Gustave Emanuel Bedarrides, the French magistrate who represented “the Jewish community of Marseilles in the central consistory of France.

1820: In Bavaria, Brendel Mayer and Baruch Benedig Bissinger gave birth Samuel Bissinger the husband of Sarah Ochs who was born exactly one year later and whom he married in Louisville, KY after which they had five children all of whom were born in Kentucky.

1821: Asher ben Israel married Breina bat Uri Feivel at the Western Synagogue today.

1821: In Bavaria, Nanette Wexler and Leser Lazarus Ochsenhorn gave birth to Sarah Ochs, the wife of Samuel Bissinger with whom she had five children.

1827: Sir Moses Montefiore and Lady Judith Montefiore began their first trip to Palestine (As reported by Jennifer Breger)

1829: In Florence, Italy, British Major-General Lord George Russell and Elizabeth Rawdon gave birth to Odo William Leopold Russell, the British diplomat who worked with Sir Moses Montefiore in an unsuccessful attempt to get the Pope to return Edgardo Mortara to his Jewish parents.

1830(27thof Shevat, 5590): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1832: A version of Robert le diable (Robert the Devil) an opera in five acts composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer was presented in London today at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane under the title “The Fiend-Finder.

1833: Blumah Jacobs and Joseph Levy gave birth to Elizabeth Levy.

1838: Ashe Davis married Frances Wolfe today at the Great Synagogue.

1839: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Poznanski officiated at the wedding of Lew Hertz and Esther Peixotto, the eldest daughter of the late Solomon C. Peixotto.

1844(30thof Shevat, 5604): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1844(30thof Shevat, 5604): Rebecca Lopez, the daughter of Aaron Lopez and the wife of Uriah Hendricks passed away today New York.

1845(13thof Adar I, 5606): Seventy-two-year-old Polish born author and poet Shalom Ben Jacob Cohen who was educated in Berlin and whose works in “Light of David,” an epic poem about the Israelite king and He Who Calls The Generations, “a history of the Jews from Maccabean times to the present.”

1848: Birthdate of an American native Frances Strauss, the wife of Gustave Strauss and the mother of Florence, Edwin and Lily Strauss.

1849: One day after he had passed away, 20 year old David Samuel was buried at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”

1849: Today, in Delaware, “the General Assembly appropriated one hundred dollars for a sword with suitable inscription for Brevet Captain C.P. Evans” who had served in Mexico with Lt. Jefferson Nones, the son of Capt. Henry B. Nones.

1852(30th of Shevat, 5612): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1854: Two days after he had passed away, “Eliezer b Moshe HaCohen” as buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1855: “The inauguration of the Touro Literary Institute took place this evening, at the rooms of the Institute at Number 448 Broome-street in New York City.”  Most of those attending the meeting were described as “intelligent” and of “Hebraic descent.”  Benjamin H. Myers, the president of the Association presided over the meeting.  Jonas B. Phillips and Rabbi R.J.M. Raphall addressed the meeting. In their speeches, the speakers traced the history of Jewish literature and literary societies from ancient Jerusalem, through Spain and London to modern times.

1857: It was reported today that the boot manufactures of Hopkinton, MA, have discovered, much to their consternation, that some of their workmen have been selling some of their footwear to "certain Jew peddlers and others" at a fraction of their cost.  The plan was to purchase the goods in one town and sell them in another, thus avoiding detection. [Please note, only the Jews are identified by their religion.  This was often in the case in newspapers and journals of the day including the New York Times.]

1858: Lord Derby formed a government in which Benjamin Disraeli would play an “outsized” role because he was a member of the House of Commons while Derby and most of his other cabinet members sat in the House of Lords.

1862: Philadelphian Jacob Jacobs began serving with Company K of the Eleventh Regiment

1863: Ha-Levanon, the first Hebrew language periodical in Palestine, was published today

1863: In Paris, impressionist painter Camille Pissarro and his wife Julie (née Vellay) gave birth to landscape painter, printmaker, wood engraver and designer and printer of fine books Lucien Pissarro who was fortunate to have settled in London and thus avoided the Holocaust which engulfed his native France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucien_Pissarro#/media/File:Manson-Lucien-Pissaro-Reading.jpg

1864: Ellen Terry, the British actress who gained fame for her portrayal of Portia in The Merchant of Venice marred George F. Watts, the artist who painted her portrait.

1865: Having reached the rank of Corporal, Jacob Jacobs completed his three year enlistment with the Union Army as a member of Company K of the Eleventh Regiment.

1870: Today, in Brooklynn “the members and ordinary worshippers of full and lawful aged belonging to” Temple Israel “met at their regular and stated place of worship at the southeast corner of Gallatin Place and Fulton Avenue, for the purposed of incorporating themselves as a religious society and for the election of trustees” who are Samuel Moses, Simon Manne, Samuel Koch, Jacob Ehrick, Adolph Fleischauer, Sameul Goodstein, Solomon Ascher, Herman Goetz and Mark Sighman.”

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(29thof Shevat, 5631): Selig Newman, the native Posen who became a rabbi in Plymouth, taught Hebrew at Oxford and founded the Society for the Cultivation of the Hebrew Language and Literature passed away today in New York where he had been living and teaching for approximately the last twenty years.

1872: According to reports published today, a dispute has arisen in New York over the ritual purity of wine being supplied to the Jewish community.  According to Rabbi Aronson, the wine being supplied to the local synagogues has not been prepared in accordance with Jewish law.  But the wine dealers say that their wine bears the seal and signature of Rabbi A.J. Ash of the Grand Beth Hamedrash of New York City proving that the wine is Kosher.  Rabbi Isaacs has also certified the wine as ritually fit.

1873: In Buffalo, NY, William D. Ellis and Bertha Strass gave birth David A. Ellis the Phi Beta Graduate of Harvard and Editor of the Harvard Law Review and husband of Amy Friedman who was a director of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, the Boston Branch of Alliance Israelite Universelle and several other Jewish and secular educational and charitable organizations in Boston.

1874: Birthdate of Samuel Earl “Ike” Samuels the native of Quincy, Illinois who played third base before the turn of the century.

1874: Benjamin Disraeli began serving his second and final term as Prime Minister of Great Britain. Disraeli was a leader of the Conservative Party.  But as can be seen by the reform legislation passed by his government these Conservatives have more in common with the liberal Democrats of the 21st century than they do with those on the American right who call themselves Conseratives.  “Disraeli's government introduced various reforms, including the Artisan's and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875, the Public Health Act 1875, the Sale of Food and Drugs Act (1875), and the Education Act (1876). His government also introduced a new Factory Act meant to protect workers, the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875 to allow peaceful picketing, and the Employers and Workmen Act (1875) to enable workers to sue employers in the civil courts if they broke legal contracts. As a result of these social reforms the Liberal-Labour MP Alexander Macdonald told his constituents in 1879, ‘The Conservative party have done more for the working classes in five years than the Liberals have in fifty.’”  When it came to foreign policy, Disraeli’s government supported the concept of Empire.  He engineered the first British acquisition of financial interest in the Suez Canal.  He understood the great issue of the time as being the management of the decline of the Ottoman Empire and showed his mastery of the diplomacy at the Congress of Berlin.

1875: Birthdate of Hyman Phillips, the native of Russia who moved to Massachusetts who served as officer for the Home for Jewish Children in Dorchester and as a board member of the Federation of Jewish Charities.

1876: Birthdate of Richard Beuthner who would die in Berlin at the age of 66.

1876: It was reported today that The Alliance Israélite Universelle, which is headquartered in Paris, is providing a variety of services to Jews throughout the world.  Among other things, the Alliance is providing care for a large number of Russian Jewish orphan, supporting an Agricultural School in Jaffa and operating a normal school for Jewish women from Asia Minor in Paris.  The Alliance is supporting numerous other schools throughout North Africa and western Asia, including ones at Aleppo, Baghdad and Constantinople.

1878: Leo XIII is elected Pope. “In reaction to the painful loss of the papacy’s temporal power…Leo XIII lashed out against modernity.”  “The Vatican increasingly viewed the Jews who were beneficiaries of the demise of the church’s temporal rule as part of the array of dangerous forced against it.  In 1880, apparently with the approval of Leo XIII, “Civilta Cattolica kicked off a decades-long campaign against the Jews accusing them of all the old sins and then many new ones such as being responsible for both capitalism and communism and of being disloyal to the countries in which they lived.’ (As reported in Antisemitismby Richard S. Levy)

1879: “The Jews Oath” was “abrogated” today in Dresden, Germany.

1879: Two days after he had passed away, Percy Maurice Raphael, the infant son of Charlotte and George Charles Raphael was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1880: In Prescott, AZ, the Pauline Markham troupe that included Josephine Sarah Marcus, the eccentric Jewess who became the lover and wife of Wyatt Earp completed their performances of HMS Penifore.

1880: “Oil in the World,” published today described the conditions of oil fields throughout Asia, Europe and the United States, the some of the fields in Eastern Galicia are controlled by Polish Jews. The Jews of Boryslaw are more interested in gaining the wax found in their fields because it is part of the highly profitable candle business.  Therefore, they have resisted spending the money necessary to develop the oil production in the area.

1880: In Raczki, Poland “Sundel and Rebecca (Chasan) Zackheim gave birth to Maurice H. Zackheim, the husband of Rea E. Kreinson and Detroit College of Medicine trained pharmacist who served as the President of the Talmud Torah in Detroit and the Chairman of the Board of Education of the United Hebrew Schools in Detroit.

1882: Birthdate of Polish -born “American sculptor, draughtsman and collector” Elie Nadelman.

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

1882: This morning, Philadelphia’s Mayor King received a telegram from J.M. Brown of Galveston Texas offering to provide one hundred acres of land in Motely County, Texas to any of the 50 Jewish families who are on their way to Philadelphia from Russia who are willing to settle in the Lone Star State. Motely County is one of those under populated expanses in the northwest part of the state.

1882: The Grand Lodge of the order Kesher Shel Barzel, District No. 1 continued with its annual convention at the Pythagoras Hall.

1883: In Schroda, Germany, “Alexander and Clara (Pheibig) Baum gave birth to Felix Baum the German trained physician specializing in internal medicine, WW I veteran of the German Army and husband of Lillie Hofheimer who in 1924 came to the United States where served as the Medical Director of the National Jewish Hospital in Denver, CO where he developed the “Baum Technik” which is “a serological method to determine active tuberculosis.”

1884: In Waco, TX, Samuel and Hannah Heller Sanger gave birth to Carrie Sanger who became Carrie Sanger Godshaw when she married Alfred  Tennyson Godshaw in 1907.

1885: Birthdate of New York City native Sydney Cohen, the theatre owner who in 1934 re-opened “the 125th Street Apollo Theatre with his partner Morris Sussman and “changed the format of the shows from burlesque to variety revues and redirected their marketing attention to the growing African-American community in Harlem.”

https://sydneyscohen.wordpress.com/2013/01/

https://sydneyscohen.wordpress.com/about/

https://www.apollotheater.org/about/history/

1886: “Undesirable Immigrants” published today described the condition of 300 Romanian Jews who were expelled from their native land and are now being held at Castle Garden.  While few of them had any money, most of them had tickets that would take them to American cities where they say that have friends who will assist them.

1886: Birthdate of Minnie K. Kooler Lapidus, the wife of Lithuania native and Omaha businessman Harry Lapidus, the president of the Omaha Fixture Supply Company and leader of the Jewish community who “was a member of the American Jewish National Council of Americanization and a member of the executive committee of the United Palestine Appeal and the mother of Estelle and Earl Lapidus

1886:  Birthdate of Béla Kun head of Hungarian Soviet Republic formed in 1919 in the aftermath of World War I.  Neither the Soviet nor Kun survived for very long.

1888: Henry de Worms, the Lord Pirbright, began serving as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in the government of Marquess of Salisburgy.

1888: Rabbi Joseph Silverman finished his service with Congregation B'nai Israel in Galveston, Texas, where he had been serving since July, 1885.  The Ohio born rabbi was on his way to a pulpit in New York City. 

1890(30thof Shevat, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1890: Two day after he had passed away, 83-year-old Edward Naphtali Hart was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1890; It was reported today that Mrs. Phillip J. Joachimsen is President of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York and C.W. Meyer is serving as Secretary.

1892: The Cunard Line Etruria was being held in quarantine because of the need to take extra precautions because there are Jews from Russia among the steerage passengers.

1893: Birthdate of playwright and librettist Russel Crouse whose interaction with Jews included collaborating with Rodgers and Hammerstein on the “Sound of Music” and making “a casual remark” which resulted in Arthur Laurents having to go before the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee “to account for his political views.”

1893: “Some New Publications” published today includes a review of Studies by a Recluse in Cloister, Town and Country in which Augustus Jesopp describes the history the Abbey at Bury St. Eduunds including a period in the Middle Ages during which Abbott Sampson drove out the Jews who had legitimately acquired much of the property following a period of gross mismanagement.

1893: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian and Orphan Asylum will give a concert at the Lenox Lyceum this evening under the sponsorship of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Society.

1894: It was reported today that Jesse Seligman, Nathan Straus and Perry Belmont were among those who attended the meeting of the Distribution Committee established by the Citizens’ Relief Committee.  The committee had been set up to deal with the suffering caused by the Depression that began in 1893.  Belmont was the son of August Belmont, Jr. the Jewish born financier.  Perry’s mother was not Jewish.

1895: Ferdinand Forzinetti, the commandant of the Cherche-Midi military prison, and one of the first to be convinced of Dreyfus's innocence was granted his retirement today while his most famous prisoner sailed to Guyana. Later, Alfred Dreyfus paid homage to his jailer who had dissuaded him from taking his own life and "who knew how to combine the strict duty of a soldier with the highest feelings of humanity."

1896: It was reported today that the last year’s charity ball sponsored by the Young Ladies and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home raised $10,088.12.

1896: It was reported today that among those who included on the lists as patrons for the upcoming charity ball sponsored by the Young Ladies and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home are Governor 

1897: In Leipzig, Marie Edith Fischer, a Lutheran and Rudolf Eisler a Jewish professor of philosophy gave birth to Gerhart Eisler.

http://spartacus-educational.com/Gerhart_Eisler.htm

1897: Rolla Hewitt, a woman of questionable sanity who felt it her duty to convert Jews to Christianity was assumed to be dead after having wandered off twenty-four hours ago.

1897: According to some sources, birthdate of boxer Danny Frush, the husband of Binnie Cohen Frush.

1897: “Insane on Religion” published today described the disappearance of Mrs. Rolla Hewitt who “a demented woman” who “wandered away from her home” “several days” after “a converted Jew preached” at her Church having declared that “she had a mission to perform and her objective” was to convert every Jew at the Baron Hirsch settlement in Woodbine, NJ.

1898: As the Dreyfus Case continued to embroil France a mob of three thousand Parisians “marched toward the Pantheon yelling ‘Down with Zola!’ and “Death to the Jews.’”

1898: Ludovic Trarieux, Emile Duclaux, Edouard Grimaux and Francis de Pressensé are among those who founded “The Ligue des Droits de l'Homme et du citoyen” [League for Human and Civic Rights] which was founded to defend Alfred Dreyfus who had been wrongly convicted of treason Ludovic Trarieux served as its first President,

1898: A mass meeting was held in New Jersey synagogue tonight to protest the statements by William J. Corssley, the Prosecutor in Mercer County, who while trying a case against a peddler, said “The god of the Jew is gold.  They are not fit to be citizens, as they only come here to hoard wealth, that they may go back to Jerusalem and spend it.

1898: In Port Huron, MN, founding of the Mount Sinai Society which “maintains a cemetery and dispenses charity” and whose members included Jacob Jacobi, Jacob Cohn, Leon Cohen, Benjamin Cohn, Adolph Kanter and Louis Levine.

1899: “Christ and His Religion” published today provides Rabbi Gustav Gottheil’s views on Jesus whom he does not believe would be comfortable with the practices and the preachings of today’s Christian churches.

1900: “The 37thConvention of District No. 4 of the Independent Order of B’Nai B’rith came to an end today in San Francisco.

1900: In Mulhouse, France, Constance Kenendel Lang and Baruch Kahn gave birth to Raphael Kahn

1901: “In Pärnu, Estonia, Beila-Rebecka Mendelowitsch and Leib Schmuilowsky gave birth to Leiser-Itze Schmuilowsky who gained fame as architect Louis Isadore Kahn.

https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/21829

1902: It was reported today that Oscar Straus was among the leaders from political parties who supported “the protest against any further delay in granting reciprocity to Cuba” and the “demand that the efforts of the President and the Secretary of War to save Cuba from ruin be supported by Congress.”

1903: Bruder Straubinger (Brother Straubinger), “an operetta in three acts composed by Edmund Eysler premiered in Vienna today.

1904(4thof Adar, 5664): Parashat Terumah

1904: “Legends of Israel” published today provided a review of Professor John Punnett Peters latest work Early Hebrew Story: A Study of the Origin, the Value and the Historical Background of the Legends which is part of a series of books by the archeologist that began with Hebrew Story, From Creation to the Exile

1905: Miss Annie Russell appeared to-night in the leading role of "Jinny, the Carrier," a four-act comedy by Israel Zangwill, which was presented for the first time before a packed house at the Park Theatre in Boston, MA.

1905: Two days after he had passed away, seventy-one-year-old Saul Henry Lorie was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery” by the side of his wife Dora with whom he had had three children – Augusta, Bertha and Rose Lorie.

1906: According to a summary of the forecast prepared by Broughton Brandenburg, the President of the National Institute of Immigration “there will be a heavy fall off in the” immigration of Gallician, Russian and Polish Jews because, among other things, he believes “that the bloody events in Russia have served to promote a new solidarity among the Jews and they will remain where they are, for a time at least, hoping for better things at home or the inauguration of a movement to found a new Hebrew nation in Palestine or some other land.”

1907: New York State Supreme Court Justice Samuel Greenbaum is scheduled to hear arguments on whether or no American Ice Company has to let the New York State Attorney General or his representatives examine all of the company’s records because some copies of company records have “mysteriously disappeared from the office of the Attorney General.”

1907(6th of Adar, 5667): French Chemist Henri Moissan passed away. Moissan isolated fluorine and won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1906

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

1908: Mrs. Samuel Greenbaum, the President, of The Jewish Working Girls Vacation Society, which “held its first opening at the Waldorf-Astoria this afternoon to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the founding of the society and the first anniversary of the organization of the Junior League, “read the annual report which showed that the society had provided vacations to 1,300 girls last year as against  200 in the first year of the Society’s existence.”

1909(29thof Shevat, 5669): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1910: In Seattle, WA, Congregation Bikur Cholom’s Fair and Bazaar, a benefit for the Temple’s Building Fund is scheduled to begin today.

1911: “Resolutions introduced to-day in the Assembly call upon Congress to compel the enforcement of the Russo-American treaty of 1832 in relation to passports in possession of Jews. Assemblymen Spielberg and Schlivek of New York presented the resolutions, which charge that the treaty has been repeatedly violated in such a manner as to discriminate against Jewish Americans in Russia.”

1912(2ndof Adar I, 5672): Eighty-three-year-old Jewish communal worker William Cobe passed away in Boston, MA.

1913: It was reported today that “an agent for the Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Company” has “testified that Wolf Golden, a fire insurance adjuster who has been charged with second degree arson, had given him the policy which it is asserted Isidor Stein obtained at Rubin’s request before he set fire to his place” during a trial in which Robert Elder, the former District Attorney for Kings County asked at least one prospective jurors “if he was prejudiced against Jews.”

1914: “The Burnett-Dillingham immigration bill which, with its provision barring illiterate immigrants, has passed the House of Representatives, was denounced as a confessed makeshift and the worst possible makeshift in regulating immigration, by Louis Marshall in an address before the University Forum of New York University this evening.”

1915: “Louis Marshall of New York, counsel for Leo M. Frank, now under sentence of death by State court in Georgia for the murder of a factory girl in Atlanta in 1913 today filed a brief in the Supreme court of the United States Support their appeal from the judgment of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia denying to Frank a writ of habeas corpus.”

1916(16thof Adar I, 5676): Eighty-five-year-old Rabbi Simon Bernstein passed away in Winthrop, Massachusetts.

1916: “A profile of Theda Bara (born Theodosia Burr Goodman) that appeared in the New York Times, reported that 500,000 fans followed Bara everywhere she went. She was said to have received over a thousand marriage proposals from adoring fans. Others named children after her. One critic called her "a clever actress with...a marvelously mobile and expressive face."’

https://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/20/1916/theda-bara

1916: The first session of the 24th annual meeting of the Jewish Historical Society was held at Dropsie College today where several papers were presented including “Some Pedagogical Aspects of American Jewish History” by Mabel Lyon and “The Question of the Kosher Meat Supply in New York City in 1813.”

1916: Today, Rabbi Joseph Karuskop, the founder and President of the National Farm School said "He who does not voluntarily do more than he is obliged to do will in time do less than he ought, and in the end will find himself unable to do what he must."

1916: “Hope For Jews In Russia” published today includes the prediction of Victor Bash, a professor at the University of Paris now teaching at Columbia that since “anti-Semitism was born in Germany and came from Germany to Russia” “a bill of complete Jewish emancipation, social as well as legal, is possible in Russia, more possible than in Germany, and more possible today than ever before.”

1917: The musical “Oh Boy” with the score composed by Jerome Kern, premiered in New York City.

1917: Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, is appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Germany. This will make him the eyes and ears and representative of the Vatican during the rise of Hitler.

1917: Birthdate of Douglas, AZ native Emanuel “Manny” Farber a painter whose spiky, impassioned film criticism waged war against sacred cows like Orson Welles and elevated American genre-movie directors like Howard Hawks and Sam Fuller to the Hollywood pantheon.

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/arts/design/19farber.html

1917: It was reported today now that the Germans are in control of Warsaw, “There is also a very strong propaganda in full swing again the Jews and measure of an outrageously unlawful kind have been put in for again them.” No passes are granted to the Jews and “no Jew is allowed to build a house and this in spite of the fact that there 350,000 Jews” among the one million inhabitants of Warsaw.

1918: In New York, Clara and Maxwell Cohn gave birth to Lenore Cohn. A niece of movie mogul Harry Cohn, she gained fame as Lee Annenberg, the wife of Walter Annenberg

1919: Victor Berger was convicted of having violated the Espionage Act of 1917 and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. “The trial was presided over by Judge Kenesaw Landis, who later became the first commissioner of Major League Baseball. His conviction was appealed, and ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court which found that Judge Landis had improperly presided over the case after the filing of an affidavit of prejudice.” Berge was Jewish and was the first member of the Socialist Party elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.  In the eyes of many, these were his real crimes.

1920(1st of Adar, 5680): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1920(1st of Adar, 5680): Pauline Einstein, the mother of the physicist Albert Einstein, passed away. Born in Cannstatt, Württemberg, in 1858, she “had an older sister, Fanny, and two older brothers, Jacob and Caesar. Her parents were Julius Doerzbacher, who had accepted the family name Koch in 1842, and Jette Bernheimer.”

1920: Birthdate of Tidor Rudas, the Budapest born impresario who spent 6 months in a concentration camp because his father was Jewish. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/arts/music/tibor-rudas-classical-music-impresario-dies-at-94.html?hpw&amp;rref=obituaries&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;version=HpHedThumbWell&amp;module=well-region&amp;region=bottom-well&amp;WT.nav=bottom-well&amp;_r=1

1921: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Congressman Isaac M. Siegel and Leon Sanders are scheduled to speak this afternoon at “the twelfth annual meeting of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America” in New York City.

1921(12thof Adar I, 5681): “On his way home after performing a marriage ceremony, Rabbi Baer Hailperin of the United Hebrew Congregation in Newark,” the husband of Sarah (Gutkin) Halperin and the father of Herman Hailperin was killed today “in an automobile accident.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1921/02/21/103548458.pdf

1922: Today, in New York, “five thousand volunteer workers, divided into 50 committees, started the work of raising $5,000,000 for the relief of Jewish war sufferers.”

1923: In a letter written today, Ronald Storrs, the former British military governor of Jerusalem, sought support for The Pro-Jerusalem Society, an non-denominational organization “which has been founded to preserve the antique beauty and character of Jerusalem.”

1924: Birthdate of Mordechai Ofer, the Krakow native who made Aliyah a year later and served in the Knesset from 1965 until his untimely death in 1971 at the age of 47.

1924: Birthdate of Columbus, Ohio, native Eugene Borowitz, the Ohio State University graduate who became one of the leading Rabbis and philosophers in the Reform movement and the founder of “Sh’ma, a Journal of Jewish Responsibility.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/us/rabbi-eugene-b-borowitz-reform-leader-dies-at-91.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1924: Birthdate of Gerson Goldhaber, the German born “American particle physicist and astrophysicist who was one of the discoverers of the J/ψ meson which confirmed the existence of the charm quark.”

1925: It was reported today that the British Colonial Office is asking for “£3, 116,700 for air use in Palestine” which is money outside of the request made by Air Secretary for military services.

1926: Chief Justice Walter I. McCoy in Equity Court ruled today that Mrs. Beta Isenberg, 80 years old, widow of Paul Isenberg, a citizen of Bremen and also of the Hawaiian Islands, is an American citizen because of the Hawaiian citizenship and is entitled to the return of $2,500,000 worth of property despite the protest of Howard Sutherland, Alien Property Custodian

1926: Plans for an upcoming goodwill dinner sponsored by the Greater New York Federation of Churches which will be attended by Jews and Christians were announced today including the fact that the meal be “strictly kosher.”

1926: In Marshalltown, Iowa, Louis Bucksbaum and the former Ida Gervich gave birth to Matthew Bucksbaum the co-founder of “a family shopping mall empire that helped transform the landscape of suburbia and the habits of American consumers.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)

1927: Birthdate of Roy Cohn the lawyer, who gained fame or infamy as the council for the (Joseph) McCarthy Committee.  McCarthy and Cohen took advantage of American fears of Communism to conduct a witch hunt that ruined reputations and lives without saving us from any Communist spies.  Publicly homophobic, Cohn's death from AIDs was the subject of an HBO movie.

1928: Leon Danley, the General Agent of the International Sleeping Car Company in the United States announced” today that “Americans traveling between Cairo and Jerusalem, can travel eastward in the Pullman cars as far as El Kantara” after which it will be necessary for them cross the Suez Canal by ferry so that they can “connected with the sleeping car train bound for Nazareth, Jaffa, Jerusalem “and other points in Palestine and that this service will continue until April 10 when the hot weather arrives.

1929: “The Night Belongs to Us” starring Otto Wallburg as “Vater Bang” was released in Germany today.

1930: Birthdate of New York native Sheldon Sacks, the Northwestern University and University of Chicago trained professor of English and Linguistics and author of Fiction and the Shape of Belief

1931: U.S. premiere of “The Night Belongs to US” a German film co-starring Otto Wahlberg who would be murdered at Auschwitz in 1944.

1932(13thof Adar I, 5692): Parashat Tetzveh

1932: While delivering a sermon today at Congregation Emanu-El dedicated to honoring George Washington, Rabbi Samuel Schulman “referred to a statement made in a treaty between the United States and Tripoli in 1796 and signed by Washington that stated, ‘the Government of the United States in not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.’”

1932: “Freaks,” a horror film co-produced by Harry Rapf and Irving Thalberg was released in the United States today.

1932: Plans were announced today for the upcoming bicentennial exercises to be held at Albany which including a speech by “Chief Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo of the Court of Appeals whom President Hoot has nominated for the United States Supreme Court.

1932: “Tribute to the memory of George Washington and especially to the first President’s work in establishing freedom in this country was paid” today “in synagogues throughout” New York City where “special Washington bicentennial services were held in addition to the regular” Shabbat services.

1932: In “Judge Cardozo’s Philosophy of the Law” published today, R. L. Duffus provides a snapshot of the Supreme Court nominee’s view of the world of jurisprudence.

1932: In the Bronx, Mae and Nathan Ader gave birth to Doctor Robert Ader, the Tulane University graduate and experimental psychologist who was among the first scientists to show how mental processes influence the body’s immune system; a finding that changed modern medicine. (As reported by Paul Vitello)

1933: Industrialists met at Goering's Reichstag President's Palace to show support of Hitler. Hitler promised to rid the world of Marxists and restore the Wehrmact (the Germany Army).  Hitler and his anti-Semitic policies enjoyed support from Germany’s business community from the outset.

1934: A measure was presented to the City Commission of Newark, NY by Mordecai Lipis , the President of the Newark Zionist District for its first reading today which “would prohibit the sale of both kosher and non-kosher meat in the same store unless signs at least four inches high on the windows proclaim that fact nor would any proprietor be permitted to display a six pointed star unless he handles kosher products exclusively.” (Talk about restraint of trade hiding under religious robes!)

1934: “Creation of a ‘true-Jewish state in Palestine’ was urged today in an article in Populo D’Italia, believed to have personally writer by Premier Mussolini” who owns the paper.

1936: “Things to Come” a sci-fi film produced by Alexander Korda was released today in the United Kingdom.

1936: Dr. Arnold Netter, “a noted physician” was elected President of the Alliance Israelite Universelle succeeding Professor Sylvain Levy who had passed away on October 31, 1935.

1936: The Rabbis Association of Poland sent a radiogram to the more important Jewish religious communities of the world request that they join the Jews in offering prayers for the preservation of Jewish ritual slaughter which is being outlawed by the government.

1936: Bronislaw Huberman, the Polish violinist and founder of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, announced today that “the first concert of the newly organized Palestine Symphony Orchestra will be broadcast to the United States from Tel Aviv late in October over the facilities of the National Broadcasting Company.”  He also said that “negotiations have been started for regular visits of the orchestra to Egypt and Greece” as well as a world tour that would include a visit to the United States.

1937(9thof Adar, 5697): Parashat Tetzaveh and Shabbat Zachor

1937: Tiberias, one of the towns of Palestine known for its friendly relations between Arabs and Jews, was the scene of disorder today. Thirty Jews, thirty Arabs and two British policemen were slightly injured and two Jews were seriously hurt before order was restored.

1937: Ten days after receiving his passport, 24-year-old Edward Isaac Lending sailed for Europe aboard the Ile de France on his was to fight as a member of the Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.

1937: “Polish Jews Face Dismal Future published today provides a snapshot of the anti-Semitism faced by Jews in inter-war Poland. (It is also worth the read to see how much misinformation the Literary Digest, the magazine that predicted FDR would lose to Alf Landon could provide about the origins of the Jews of Europe)

1938: Louis Lipsky, chairman of the administrative committee of the United Palestine Appeal presided over a meeting of Jewish leaders held under the auspices of the Zionist Organization of America at the Hotel Pennsylvania.  The Jewish leaders, including Dr. Bernard Joseph, legal adviser of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, expressed a desire for a peaceful solution to the problems separating Jews and Arabs in Palestine.

1938: Hitler addressed the Reichstag and served notice that the future of Austria and the Sudeten Germans were in the direct interest of Nazi Germany. The annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland would be two of the landmarks on the road to World War II and the Final Solution.

1938: Franz Josef Rarkowski is consecrated as espiscopus castrensis, bishop of the military chaplains in the German Army, by Papal Nuncio Cesare Orsenigo.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that one British officer was shot dead and two others wounded when their car was shot at in the vicinity of Haifa. British troops and police cordoned off the whole area and one Arab was shot dead when he tried to break through. A number of Arab suspects were arrested. There were many other cases of sniping at traffic and sabotage throughout the country.

1939: Twenty thousand Nazi supporters gather in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.  While there were only a limited number of such displays, the power of the isolationists led by Lindbergh and the America First movement provided a socially acceptable cover for anti-Semites and fascists.  FDR’s decisions about European Jewry were made against this hostile background.

1939: In an apparent attempt to strengthen the Axis Alliance, Mussolini shifts policy by banning Jews from his Fascist Party.  According to some, as many as 10,000 Jews had been members of the party.  Years later, Mussolini’s mistress would claim that Il Duce had claimed that he always had been an anti-Semite.

1940: “A concert was given tonight at the Royal Opera House in Cairo by the Palestine Orchestra” which is “composed entirely of Jewish refugees from Europe” the proceeds of which will go to “war sufferers and the victims of the Turkish earthquake.”  (Yes, in the era of the white paper, Jews were helping Muslims)

1941: The Nazis ordered Polish Jews barred from using public transportation

1941: Birthdate of New York City novelist Alan Furst whose one work of non-fiction was a biography of the creator of Mrs. Fields Cookies Company.

1941: Birthdate of Newark, NJ native Susan Yankowitz whose works included Silent Witness and “Night Sky,” a 1991 play about the struggles with aphasia.

1941: The first transport of Jews from Plotsk, Poland to be sent to a concentration departed. "We remember so that nobody will forget.  We remember lest anybody try and forget."

1942: In France, Jacques Bielinky described the responses of his non-Jewish fellow citizens to anti-Jewish policies, expressing contempt for their lack of making any attempt to prevent the dismissal of their Jewish colleague.  “They did not make the move; cowardice has become a civic virtue.”

1942:  Under the Vichy government, Leon Blum went on trial today.

1943(15thof Adar I, 5703): Parsashat Tetzaveh

1943(15thof Adar I, 5703): While serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force, Flying Officer William Kadison Komaiko, one of the two sons of Solomon Baruch (S.B.) Komaiko, was died today when he was shot down over Europe.

1943: Birthdate of English movie director Mike Leigh.

1943: “The Hard Way” a musical drama version of a story by Irwin Shaw, directed by Vincent Sherman, produced by Jerry Wald and with a screenplay by Daniel Fuchs and Peter Viertel was released today in the United States.

1943: Birthdate of Moshe Cotel, the Baltimore native who would become an acclaimed pianist and composer whose works were often infused with themes emanating from his deep Jewish roots. Cotel’s “Jewish reconnection” would lead him to the rabbinate. He would be ordained five years before his death in 2008 while he was serving as spiritual leader of Temple Beth El of Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn.

1944: Birthdate of Lewis “Lew” Michael Soloff, the native of Brooklyn who gained fame as an American jazz musician.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/arts/music/lew-soloff-trumpeter-for-blood-sweat-and-tears-dies-at-71.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1945: At Dovrat, “a kibbutz near Afula,” two refugees from Nazi Germany gave birth to decorated war hero Amram Mitzna, the MK who served as Mayor of Haifa and Yerhuam.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/oct/04/israel2

1945: Birthdate of Queen’s native Andrew Bergman who gained fame as a “screenwriter, movie director and novelist”

http://www.hollywood.com/celebrities/andrew-bergman-57284947/

1946: Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt “spoke before 2,000 people attending a rally at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel opening the 1946 campaign of the Women’s Division of the UJA of Greater New York” and told them that based on her recent visit to Europe that “the whole of Europe is hungry” and that even worse, “the whole of Europe is without any social structure.”

1946: Arthur Klein, who after serving in the 77th and 78th Congresses had opted not to run to serve in the 79th Congressman began serving in the 79th Congress after having won a special election to fill a seat left open by of the resignation of Samuel Dickstein.

1946: “The Mount Carmel radar station of the Royal Air Force, which has been instrumental in intercepting illegal immigration, was blown up today by a jarring explosion felt all over Haifa.”

1947: Birthdate of actor Peter Lawrence Strauss, the native of Croton-on-Hudson who won an Emmy for The Jericho Mile and was best known for the popular mini-series “Rich Man, Poor Man.”

1947: A female member of The Irgun Zvai Leumi telephoned newspapers correspondents stating the Irgun was responsible for cutting an oil pipeline in two places and attacking a Royal Air Force installation near Hadera.

1947: The British government announced that it would withdraw from India.  This decision signaled a change in the U.K.’s foreign policy.  Its willingness to give up the Palestine Mandate would be triggered in part by the realization that protecting the Suez Canal as the lifeline to an imperial possession was no longer a critical need.

1948(10thof Adar I, 5708): “Kibbutz member Naftali Friedlander was killed today when “a battalion of the Arab Liberation Army led by Muhammed Safa unsuccessfully attacked Kibbutz Tirat Zvi.

1949: “The Egyptian and Israeli armistice delegations, in a formal meeting today, approved the text of the compromise draft of Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, acting United Nations Mediator for Palestine, which will be submitted to the Egyptian Government tomorrow.”

1950(14thof Adar I, 5711): Purim Katan

1950: King Features Syndicate “launched” the daily version of the comic strip “Big Ben Bolt” co-created by Elliot Caplin.

1951: Rostam Bastuni, the first Israeli Arab to represent a Zionist party in the Knesset left Mapam and “set up the Left Faction with Adolf Berman and Moshe Sneh.

1951: Birthdate of Dr. Robert “Bob” Silber, a fine physician, a devoted husband and father, an ardent Hawkeye fan, a pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community and a real mensch, who is smart enough to have more questions than answers.

1951: In New York City, Eli Wilentz, the co-owner of the Eighth Street Bookshop and his wife gave birth Robert Sean Wilentz, “the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor of the American Revolutionary Era at Princeton University” and author whose works included “The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.”

1951: In Los Angles, Bernice Pearl Wolfe and her husband gave birth to Randy Craig Wolfe who gained famed as Randy California, one of the original members of “Spirit.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-randy-california-1283572.html

http://randycaliforniaandspirit.com/biography/

1952: The film The African Queen opened at the Capitol Theatre in New York City.  The African Queen marked the film debut of Theodore Bikel.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Washington Senator William Langer, a Republican, introduced a resolution asking Congress to investigate the plight of Arab refugees, a roadblock to the "stability and security" of the Middle East. (The Republican Party was not always friendly territory for supporters of the State of Israel.)

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Jewish Agency opened a hostel in Tel Aviv for skilled Western immigrants. 

1953: Birthdate of Philadelphia-born meteorologist Dave Schwartz, an early and long-time “host” on the Weather Channel.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/business/media/dave-schwartz-63-dies-was-weather-channel-meteorologist.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

1958: A UK production of “Where's Charley?” a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser “opened in the West End at the Palace Theatre where it ran for 404 performances.

1958(30thof Shevat, 5718): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1958(30thof Shevat, 5718): Sixty-nine-year-old Al Lichtman, who produced “The Young Lions” and whose career was such that he earned a “Star” on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

http://projects.latimes.com/hollywood/star-walk/al-lichtman/

1958(30thof Shevat, 5718): Ninety-four-year-old pianist and composer Isidor Philipp pass away today in Paris.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/02/21/83395510.pdf

1958: “Doctor Crippen Lives” featuring Inge Meyself “who was banned from performing 1935 until 1945 because her father, Julius Meysel, was Jewish” was released in Germany today.

1959: Birthdate of Brown University graduated and George Polk Award winner David Corn, the journalist best known for serving as a Chief of the Washington bureau for Mother Jones which has been his entrée to several cable news shows.

1959(12thof Adar I, 5719): Seventy-nine-year-old Herman Feldman, the husband of Olga Feldman, who “in 1898 with his partner Louis Kahn, founded” the firm of Kahn and Feldman which went from processing silk yarn to processing synthetic yarns, passed away today.

1959(12thof Adar I, 5719): Israeli poet Zalman Shneur, the native of Belarus who wpm the Bialik Pririze in 1951 and the Israel Prize in 1955 passed away today in New York City.http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=883&amp;dat=19590306&amp;id=VfBOAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=W0wDAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=3543,5060391

1960: Eighty-year-old “Monuments Man (a member of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of the Allie Armies) Sir Charles Leonard Woolley the non-Jewish British archaeologist remembered for having excavated Ur of the Chaldees, and for discovering the ancient Sumerian civilization passed away today.  Yes, these are the actual places which produced Abraham, Lot and Sarah.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonard-Woolley\

1960: In Bloomington, on Shabbat, the dedication of the new Moses Montefiore Temple continued.

1962:  Birthdate of Galveston, TX native Adam Schreiber who played Center for the University of Texas before spending 15 years in the National Football League.

1963: Opening performance of Rolf Hochhuth’s “The Deputy” which provides a controversial view of Pious XII’s behavior during the Holocaust.

1964(7thof Adar, 5724): Seventy-five-year-old Leipzig, Germany native NYU graduate David Geller who had joined the May Company Department Stores as corporate controller in 1923 passed away today in Cleveland, OH.

1965: Today, “This Diamond Ring” made it to “number on the Billboard Hot 100 making Gary Lewis an instant star.”

1965(18thof Adar I, 5725): Director and producer Michał Waszyński passed away.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/jewrnalism/item/he_managed_to_fool_the_world_micha_waszyski/

1967(10thof Adar I, 5727): Sixty-seven-year-old Pottsville, PA native and WW I Army Signal Corps veteran James E. Gellert, the former executive director of the Home for Aged Sons and Daughters of Israel and husband of “the former Sara Wallman” with whom he raised two daughters – Muriel and Judith – passed away today.

1967: “Oppenheimer, the 'Father of the Atomic Bomb,' Was a Bafflingly Complex Man” published just days after the death of the man who made the Manhattan Project such a success provided a lengthy look at his life and times.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/02/20/82594008.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1968(21stof Shevat, 5728): Sixty-three-year-old NYU trained attorned Arthur George Klein who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from New York from 1941 through 1965 passed away after which he was buried in the Mount Moriah Cemetery.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/arthur-george-klein

1971(25thof Shevat, 5731): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1971: “Follies” a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim began its pre-Broadway tryout at the Colonial Theatre in Boston.

1972(5th of Adar, 5732): Walter Winchell passed away at the age of 74.  According to some, Winchell was the creator of the modern newspaper gossip column.  Starting out with the New York Graphic and then the Daily Mirror in the nineteen twenties, Winchell's column was eventually syndicated in papers across the country.  At one time he had 30 million readers.  The column coupled with his radio show gave Winchell an amazing amount of power - sort of cross between Rush Limbaugh and Entertainment Tonight.  The right mention in a Winchell column could make you; the wrong mention or the lack of a mention could break you. How Jewish were Kun, Cohn and Winchell? Who really is a Jew in Jewish History? 

1972(5thof Adar, 5732): Seventy-three-year-old Harold W. Carmely, the native of Poland who came to the United States where he became a Zionist leader, Superintendent of the Daughters of the Israel Home and the husband of Esther T. Carmely passed away today.

1973(18th of Adar I, 5733): Joseph Szigeti Hungarian born US violinist, passed away at the age of 80.

1973: Seventy-eight-year-old of Dimitar Peshev, the Bulgarian leader who helped to prevent the deportation of Bulgaria's 48,000 Jews “for which he was named one of the "Righteous Among the Nations" passed away today.

1975(9thof Adar, 5735): Sixty-one-year-old Robert Strauss the actor who created the memorable character of “Animal” in “Stalag 17” as well as playing “second banana” to Sgt. Bilko in the Phil Silvers Show.

http://cscottrollins.blogspot.com/2013/11/robert-strauss-popular-1950s-character.html#!/2013/11/robert-strauss-popular-1950s-character.html

1976(19th of Adar I, 5736): French born human rights activist, Renee Cassin, passed away.  Jurist, combat veteran of World War I, member of the Resistance in WW II and leader of the French Jewish community, Cassin received the Nobel Prize Winner for Peace,

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1968/cassin-facts.html

http://www.renecassin.org/

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that in a chaotic gun battle at Larnaca, Cyprus, 38 Egyptian commandoes freed the 11 Egyptian hostages held aboard a Cypriot Airways DC-8 airliner and apprehended the two Arab terrorists who held them.

1978(13thof Adar I, 5738): Eighty-five-year-old “Indian civil servant and banker” Sir Abraham Jeremy Raisman passed away today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0017_0_16374.html

1981(16thof Adar I, 5741): Seventy-six year old “Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, a former senior fashion editor at Vogue magazine whose panache and sense of quality earned him the reputation of one of the fashion industry's great men of style” passed away today.  (As reported by Sheila Rule)

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/21/obituaries/nicolas-de-gunzburg-76-aformer-editor-of-vogue.html

1985(29thof Shevat, 5745): Seven-nine-year-old “Isaac Kashdan, an international grandmaster chess player and chess editor for The Times” passed away today.  (As reported by Michael Seiler)

http://articles.latimes.com/1985-02-22/local/me-614_1_grandmaster-chess-player

http://www.chessgames.com/player/isaac_kashdan.html

1986(11thof Adar I, 5746): Eighty-eight-year-old Cleveland native Albert “Bert” Schneider, the Montreal raised boxer who “won the gold med in the welterweight division” at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp as a member of the Canadian team passed away today.

1987: “Square Dance” a movie version of the film by the same name starring Winona Ryder (Winona Laura Horowtiz) was released in the United States today.

1989: Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl” was released to the public today.

1992: The clashes between Israelis and Iranian backed guerrillas in Lebanon culminated with an Israeli armored push today into the villages of Kafra and Yater, about a mile north of what Israel calls its security zone in southern Lebanon.

1992:  German premiere of the Israeli film “Cup Final.”

1995(20thof Adar I, 5755): Eighty-four-year-old Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Kol Torah Yeshiva in Jerusalem passed away today. Over a quarter of a million people attended his funeral.

1996(30th of Shevat, 5756):  Dr. Solomon Asch, leading Gestalt Psychologist and pioneer social psychologist passed away.

1998: St. Peter’s Church, Chapel and Cemetery Complex which was built in 1853 using the designs of architect Leopold Eidlitz “was add to the National Register of Historic Places.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Peter%27s_Church,_Chapel_and_Cemetery_Complex#/media/File:Buildingside.JPG

1998: “Dangerous Beauty,” a biopic directed by Marshall Herskovitz was released today in the United States.

1999(4th of Adar, 5759): Film critic Gene Siskel passed away.  As the article below indicates, he was not just a successful critic he was also, a committed Jew, a real `mensch'

People the world over have eulogized him as a master movie critic, a dedicated family man and a modest person whose fame didn't detract from his friendliness.A lesser-known but equally important side to Siskel reflected his Jewish upbringing and his continued dedication to Judaism and his community. Siskel, who died of cancer at age 53, was an active supporter of Israel and Jewish educational initiatives. He spent his early childhood in a historically Jewish neighborhood on Chicago's North Side. After his parents died when Siskel was very young, he and his siblings were raised by their mother's sister and her family in a north Chicago suburb. His aunt and uncle were founding members of Conservative Synagogue Beth El, where he celebrated his bar mitzvah and later became a member with his wife, Marlene. Their daughter celebrated her bat mitzvah at Beth El in January, the last time he was out in public. More than 1,200 people attended his funeral there on Monday, among them his film-critic partner and longtime friend Roger Ebert. Just days before he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, Siskel emceed at Chicago's community celebration of Israel's 50th anniversary. At the time he was suffering from migraine headaches due to his illness. “Gene was a revolutionary at his craft, known the world over, yet he never forgot where he came from," said Steven Nasatirof the Chicago area Jewish federation." In an era when public figures often have little to do with their community, Gene was a mensch, whose Judaism was paramount in his life and who was a very willing and active member of his community." Siskel's dedication to Israel was strongly influenced by a family trip there two years ago when his oldest daughter, Kate, was in eighth grade. Siskel's children attended Moadon Kol Chadash, a small, family-run Hebrew school whose first graduating class was taken to Israel. Believing that such a trip should be offered to a greater number of local Hebrew-school students, Siskel took the project under his wing. As a result a group of eighth-graders went to Israel last February, and a second, much larger group, went earlier this month. Siskel compiled a video chronicling Jewish stereotypes and anti-Semitism in Hollywood, which he used as an educational tool. Friends say Siskel expressed Judaism with modesty and little fanfare. "He was very low-key and never took himself too seriously," said his longtime friend Howard Caroll, a retired Illinois state senator, "but he was fervent about his Jewish beliefs." Beth El Rabbi Vernon Kurtz said in his eulogy Monday that just weeks ago, prior to their second daughter's bat mitzvah, Siskel and his wife told her that the two most important values in life were family and Judaism. "Judaism," Siskel said, "has taught me right from wrong,"

2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans by Eric A. Johnson and The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin; edited by Rolf Tiedemann; translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin.

2000(14thof Adar I, 5760): Purim Katan

2000(14thof Adar I, 5760): Eighty-six-year-old Elliot Caplin the comic strip writer who “co-created The Heart of Juliet Jones, Big Ben Bolt and Dr. Bobs” and who was the younger brother of Al Capp, the creator of Li’s Abner, passed away today.

2000: Bruce Lee Fleisher won the GTE Classic.

2001: The STS-98 Atlantis with Mark L. Polansky as pilot completed its mission which had begun on February 9, 2001.

2002: The Israeli Defense Ministry awarded Elbit Systems, the Haifa based electronics manufacturer founded in 1967, a ground-breaking tender to purchase new trainers for the air force

2003(18th of Adar I, 5763): Daniel Aaron, a refugee from Nazi Germany and an orphan who went on to become a founder of Comcast, the largest cable company in the country, died today in Philadelphia, where he lived. He was 77. The cause was Parkinson's disease, according to the company. In 1990, speaking at a dinner for his retirement as vice chairman of Comcast in Philadelphia, Mr. Aaron described himself as something like the conscience of the operation. He pictured the young company as a car, with Mr. Roberts, the chairman, behind the wheel, Julian A. Brodsky, the principal fund-raiser, stepping on the gas, and Mr. Aaron himself with a foot on the brake. In 1963, Mr. Aaron persuaded Ralph J. Roberts, a Philadelphia entrepreneur who had recently sold a men's wear business, to buy a small cable television system in Tupelo, Miss. As part of the deal, Mr. Aaron agreed to help run it, and over the next 30 years they built or acquired dozens of other cable systems around the country. Last fall, the company they started, Comcast, acquired AT and T Broadband to become the largest cable television service provider in the country

2004: In a scorching opinion, Judge Edward R. Korman of Federal District Court said that Swiss banks had been stonewalling in a landmark case concerning their conduct during the Nazi era and were perpetrating a ''big lie'' by continuing to deny wrongdoing in their handling of Holocaust victims' accounts over many decades.”

2004: According to British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, “Simon Wiesenthal, who spent much of his life in pursuit of Nazi war criminals, will be awarded an honorary knighthood at a ceremony in Vienna in the near future.”

2005: “Prime Minister Ariel Sharon won cabinet approval today for two sweeping plans intended to reshape Israel's relations with the Palestinians: the withdrawal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, and a revamped route for the separation barrier in the West Bank.”

2005: “Reliving the Holocaust in a Soldier’s Snapshots” published today

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/us/reliving-the-holocaust-in-a-soldiers-snapshots.html?searchResultPosition=3

2005: At the DCJCC, the final performance of Joyce Carol Oates’ The Tattooed Girl.

2005: “The Jew of Iowa Jima” was published today.

http://www.jewsingreen.com/2005/02/the-jews-of-iwo-jima/

2005:  The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Nice Big American Baby by Judy Budnitzan, the recently released paperback edition of Apprentice to the Flower Poet Z. by Debra Weinstein and
 essay by the recently deceased Susan Sontag entitled “Report on the Journey.”

2006(22ndof Shevat, 5766): Sixty-three-year-old Brandeis gradate Eli J. Segal the attorney and political activist who tasted defeat with George McGovern and victory with Bill Clinton while married to his college sweetheart Phyllis passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/22/us/eli-j-segal-63-clinton-aide-who-led-major-initiatives-dies.html

2006: Right-wing British historian David Irving was convicted in Austria on Monday of denying the Holocaust - a crime in this country once run by the Nazis - and was sentenced to three years in prison.  Irving, 67, who had pleaded guilty and insisted during his one-day trial that he had a change of heart and now acknowledged the Nazis' World War II slaughter of 6 million Jews, had faced up to 10 years behind bars for the offense. "The court did not consider the defendant to have genuinely changed his mind," presiding judge Peter Liebetreu told the court after pronouncing the sentence. "The regret he showed was considered to be mere lip service to the law."

2007: Former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak speaks at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2007(2ndof Adar I, 5767):  Eighty-five-year-old symphony conduct Siegfried Landau passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E7D9123EF932A15751C0A9619C8B63

2007: Jon Scheyer of the Duke Blue Devils “grabbed a career-high 12 rebounds against Pittsburgh.”

2007: “The Farnsworth Invention” a play by Aaron Sorkin that examines how David Sarnoff’s relationship to the “invention of television signal transmission” opened today at the La Jolla Playhouse.

2008: Jon Scheyer “scored 27 points at Miami, matching the most points by a player off the bench in Duke history.”

2008: Chelsea Football Club announced that Avraham Grant had received anti-Semitic death threats from unknown sources

2008: At the Jerusalem Cinematheque a showing of “Le Viel Homme et L’Enfant” ( הזקן והילד). Set in WW II France, the story revolves around the relationship between a young Jewish boy sent to hide with a rural family and the older man who is a WW I hero, a supporter of Petain and a vocal anti-Semite.

2008: The Washington Post reported on the results of a cancer study conducted by Itai Kloog, of the University of Haifa.  According to the study, “women who live in neighborhoods with large amounts of nighttime illumination are more likely to get breast cancer than those who live in areas where nocturnal darkness prevails, according to an unusual study that overlaid satellite images of Earth onto cancer registries

2008: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met in Jerusalem in an attempt to further latest round of peace talks which appear to be faltering.  These talks are an outgrowth of the negotiations held in Annapolis, MD in November of 2007.

 2009: The 24th Annual Jerusalem International Book Fair comes to an end.

2009: A barrage of 10 mortar shells was fired at Gaza Belt communities, in what military sources said might have been the first stage of an attempted two-part combined terrorist attack. The attack, which was preceded by a Grad missile attack on the Negev town of Netivot, was repulsed by IDF forces operating near the Kissufim Crossing, who returned fire.

2009: Posin's Made Its Name on Its Authentic Kosher, Crunchy Pickles and Sweet Treats published today described a landmark institution of the Washington, DC Jewish Community where I spent innumerable hours in my childhood waiting for the best tasting egg bagels and meat knishes in the world.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/19/AR2009021903131.html

2010: Singer, actress and playwright Rebecca Joy Fletcher is scheduled to perform her acclaimed one-woman show “Cities of Light” at Congregation Beth Emeth in Herndon, VA.

2010: “A Matter of Size” is scheduled to be shown on the opening night of The 12th Annual Northern New Jersey Israel Film Festival.

2010:  Birthday celebration of Dr. Bob Silber, a pillar of the Jewish community and a mensch in the truest sense of the word.

2011(16thof Adar I, 5771): Jay Landesman, a writer and editor whose journal Neurotica analyzed the anxieties of postwar America and whose Broadway musical, “The Nervous Set,” has been called the first (and only) Beat musical passed away today in London at the age of 91.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/arts/27landesman.html

2011: The 21stAnnual San Diego Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.

2011: Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams, a documentary based on the memoirs of Amos Oz, that “delves into the persona of one of Israel's greatest and most controversial authors and political commentators” is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: English author Ian McEwan is scheduled to be awarded the Jerusalem Prize, Israel's highest literary honor for foreign writers at the opening of the Jerusalem International Book Fair.

2011: The family and myriad friends of Dr. Bob Silber celebrate the 60thnatal day of this die-hard Hawkeye fan, ardent Zionist and all-around good-guy.

2011: The New York Times featured a profile of author Walter Isaacson who has been the chairman and chief executive of CNN and the editor of Timemagazine and the recently released paperback edition of Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, a “philosophical novel about love, Jewish cultural identity and academic infighting.”

2011:The Environment Ministry reported that the recent appearance of an extensive bout of haze has brought the concentration of dust in central Israel to a level four to 10 times more than the average rate as of today

2012:US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon's three-day trip to Israel brought on by rising tensions over the creation of an Iranian nuclear capability is scheduled to come to an end today.

2012: MesorahDC is scheduled to sponsor Café Nite at the Historic 6th& amp; I Synagogue in Washington, DC.

2012: As the United States celebrates Presidents’ Day,  the Jewish community may reflect on the unique interaction between it and various Chief Executives including: Washington’s letter to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island; Franklin Pierce’s appointment of the first Jew to serve as the U.S. Minister to a foreign country; Abraham Lincoln’s role in making it possible for Rabbis to serve as Chaplains in the U.S. Army and revoking Order #11; U.S. Grant’s attempt to appoint the first Jew to the Cabinet and his attendance at the dedication of Adas Israel; Teddy Roosevelt’s appointment of the first Jew serve in the Cabinet; William H. Taft’s at the first seder ever to be graced by a U.S. President; Woodrow Wilson’s appointment of the first Jew to serve on the Supreme Court; President Herbert Hoover’s appointment of the second Jew to serve on the Supreme Court; President Harry Truman’s role in the creation of the state of Israel; Lyndon Johnson’s role in saving Jews from the Holocaust, passing legislation that outlawed discrimination based on religion and support Israel during the 1967 War. (And this is a short list)

2012: If Cairo unilaterally decides to alter the peace treaty with Jerusalem, Israel will ask why sign agreements with other neighbors if these accords are not kept, Intelligence Agencies Minister Dan Meridor said today..

2012: US President Barack Obama will meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on March 5, the White House said today. Netanyahu will be in Washington to address the annual policy conference of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, which will be held on March 4-6.

2012: Ammunition Hill will not close after an emergency meeting this evening with representatives from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Defense Ministry, and the Finance Ministry,

2012: “Iran Raid Seen as a Huge Task for Israeli Jets” published today describes the great challenge that the IAF would face if it had to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/world/middleeast/iran-raid-seen-as-complex-task-for-israeli-military.html?hp

2013: My German Children,” which premiered at Jerusalem’s Jewish Film Festival in December, is scheduled to air for the first time on Israeli TV today as part of a Yes Doco series on children. (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)

2013: Happy Birthday Dr. Bob

2013: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a ”discussion on the groundbreaking anthology Choosing Yiddish: New Frontiers of Language and Culture, “featuring editors Lara Rabinovitch, Shiri Goren, Hannah S. Pressman, editors, along with Gennady Estraikh (NYU), Eddy Portnoy (Rutgers), Jennifer Young (NYU/YIVO), and many others.”

2013: Nigerian security forces this evening arrested three people belonging to an Iranian-linked terror cell that was reportedly planning to launch an attack against Israeli and American targets, Army Radio reported.

2013: Jonathan-Simon Sellem “officially declared his candidacy to become member of the Assembly of French Citizens Abroad, in the 8th district (including Israel, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, San Marino and the Vatican.

2013: It was reported today that “Supreme Court Deputy-President Rivlin joined the Hebrew University Faculty of Law.”

http://www.huji.ac.il/cgi-bin/dovrut/dovrut_search_eng.pl?mesge136136371405872560

2013: “Batwoman Kate Kane, the comic world’s first Jewish lesbian superhero” proposed marriage to Maggie Sawyer.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/20/2013/this-week-in-history-batwoman-proposes-marriage-to-maggie-sawyer

2014: Friends and family of Dr. Bob Silber, pillar of the Jewish committee, President of the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Committee and diehard Hawkeye celebrate his natal day.

2014: Hemi Rudner, “one of the finest musicians in the Israeli rock scent” who is the leader of “Eifo Hayeled” at CAFÉ WHA?

2014” The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “The Power of the Geniza.

2014: “Bethlehem.” winner of 6 Ophir Awards, is scheduled to be shown at the DPJCC's 14th Annual Jewish Film Festival

2014: “Bulgaria announced today that it has confirmed the existence of a third suspect in the 2012 bombing that killed five Israeli tourists and their tour bus driver in the city of Burgas.” (As reported by Spencer Ho)

2014: German police arrested three Auschwitz guards; names take from a list of thirty that had been turned over to authorities by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. (As reported by JTA)

2014: “The Israeli government and Jerusalem Municipality finalized plans for an initiative to invest NIS 22 million ($6.25 million) in movies and television series that film in the capital, Jerusalem City Hall announced today.” (As reported by Spencer Ho)

2014: “Finance Minister Yair Lapid praised a Knesset committee’s approval of a bill pushing for the enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men to the military, saying it was a resurgence of Zionism that fixed a major flaw in Israeli society.”(As reported by Israel Hayom and Times of Israel)

2015(1stof Adar, 5775): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2015: Jewish filmmaker Aviva Kempner, is scheduled to screen a clip of her work in progress focusing on the Rosenwald schools funded by Julius Rosenwald, Sears-Roebuck magnate as part of the Visionaries of Black Education program in Washington, DC.

2015: “Love, Marilyn” is scheduled to be shown in the last of the Women On Top film series at the 92nd Street Y.

2016(11thof Adar I, 5776): Shabbat Tetzaveh

2016: The University of Iowa Hillel is scheduled to host its annual fundraising concert this evening.

2016: An exhibition “WOMEN: New Portraits Annie Leibovitz” is scheduled to continue its ten city tour with an opening in Tokyo.

2016: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to present “the winter program of its Jews and Jazz Series” that will include a lecture by Tamar Barzel, author of New York Noise: Radical Jewish Music and the Downtown Scene. 

2017(24thof Shevat, 5777): Eighty-six-year-old award winning professor of physics and electrical engineering Mildred Dresselhuas passed away today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/mildred-dresselhaus-physicist-dubbed-queen-of-carbon-dies-at-86/2017/02/22/3355d3a2-f8a7-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html?utm_term=.a0ad22262b6c

http://news.mit.edu/2017/institute-professor-emerita-mildred-dresselhaus-dies-86-0221

2017: At least ten Jewish community centers” including those in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin; St. Paul; Houston; Buffalo, New York; Albuquerque, and Birmingham, Alabama “were targeted with bomb threats today – the fourth time in five weeks that JCCs across the United States have been targeted.” (JTA)

2017: “A bas-relief showing a menorah was displayed at a news conference” to where an announcement was made about “a joint exhibition by the Vatican Museums and Rome’s Jewish Museum”

2017: Two days after an Israeli done strike killed five ISIS terrorists who had been preparing to fire a rocket into Israel, “two rockets were fired into Israel from the Egyptian controlled Sinai Peninsula” this morning “outside of the city of Rafiah.”

2017: Ben Greenberg, the Director of Adult Engagement at Central Synagogue is scheduled to lecture on “Mourners Kaddish: The Untold Story” at Limmud, NY

2017: JW3, the Jewish Community Centre in London is scheduled to host a screening of “Aida’s Secrets.”

2017: Friends and family of Dr. Bob Silber, the chair of The Thaler Holocaust Memorial which “was established in 1995 by Dr. David and Joan Thaler to provide support for education about the Holocaust to residents and students at the local colleges in Linn County” are scheduled to celebrate his birthday today- just days after he took part in an amateur musical that raised thousands of dollars to fight the scourge of colon cancer.

2017: Posting of “Ten in the Twentieth: Baltimore Jews and Social Just 1940s”

http://jewishmuseummd.org/tag/rose-zetzer/

2017: In the United States, observance of President’s Day, a federal holiday that celebrates the lives of President Washington who set the tone of acceptance of Jews in American as equal citizens and President Lincoln who furthered the cause of Jews in American as could be seen by his rescission of General Order No.11 in 1862 and his signing legislation that made it possible for Jews to serve as Chaplains in the Union Army.

2018(5thof Adar, 5778): Eighty-nine-year-old George Kaufman, the third generation New York realtor who helped to revive New York as a television and movie production site passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/obituaries/george-s-kaufman-who-revived-astoria-studios-dies-at-89.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

 2018: “The mushrooming corruption scandal plaguing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel took a surprising new turn today, with an allegation that one of his closest advisers had sought to bribe a judge into dropping a criminal investigation involving the prime minister’s wife.” (As reported by David M. Halbfinger)

2018: In New York, “The Mineola Historical Museum and the Wood County Historical Commission are scheduled to celebrate Black History Month” today by hosting “a showing of an Aviva Kempner film "RosenWald" the remarkable story of a Jewish partnership with African American communities.”

2018: In Coralville, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to hosing a screening of “Bajel: The Hidden Jews of Ethiopia” by Irene Orleansky,

2018: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a lecture by Jan Gross on “Europe, the Holocaust, and the rise of the right.”

2018: In St. Louis, MO, the United Hebrew Congregation is scheduled to host “An Evening of Song and Spirit” with Abbie Strauss and Joe Buchanan.

2018: “Rabbi Mordechai Zeller, the Chaplain in Cambridge and former Rabbi in Maaleh Gilboa Yehisva is scheduled to lead a discussion on “Sacred Purim Theatre: Reclaiming the myth of Ishtar and Esther” at Oxford.

2018: Quintessential Hawkeye Hebrew Dr. Bob Silber is scheduled to celebrate his birthday as a Memphis transplant.

2018:  Friends and family of are scheduled to celebrate the natal day of Lance Anderson, an avid student and all-around good guy.

2019: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host a screening of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

2019: Jewish citizens, under the leadership of the JCRC of Greater Washington, are scheduled to meet with their legislators as part of Maryland Jewish Advocacy Day.

2019: At Adas Israel in Washington, DC, the Jewish Center is scheduled to host “Echoing the Maccabees: How Jewish soldiers Restored Synagogue after WWII.”

2019: In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host actor Roy Horovitz performing and sings “selected works by the late Israeli playwright,” Hanoch Levin.

2019: In London, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host a “tour led by Assistant Curator Jemima Jarman” during which attendees can “discover the behind-the-scenes story of Roman Vishnica and his extraordinary photographs.”

2019: On a day when the weather service is calling for yet another snowstorm, friends and families of Lance Anderson and Dr. Bob Silber bask in the warmth of their natal day celebration.

2019 The JCC of Metro Detroit is scheduled to host Maya Soifer of Rice University lecturing on “The Vanished Synagogues of Medieval Seville.”

2020: The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host “Chicago Fringe Opera’s premiere of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s Two Remain, a work based on the lives of Holocaust Survivors Gad Beck and Krystyna Zywulska and the haunting scar of what it means to be left behind.”

2020: San Francisco State is scheduled to host CCNY professor Mikhal as she discusses her new book, Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey.

2020: In San Francisco, the Red Poppy Art House is scheduled to host Beyond the Pale during which a Canadian band plays a concert of acoustic klezmer and Balkan music

2020: In Coralville, IA, “a chavurah of parents” is scheduled to meet for a Family Friday, which begins with a potluck vegetarian dinner complete with Mac and Cheese.

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Lunch and Learn during which “Martin Goodman, a professor of Jewish Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies and past President of the Oxford Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies discusses “Why did Titus Destroy the Temple?”

2020: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present “Live in Limbo: Jewish Refugees in Portugal, 1940-1954” during which “Historian Marion Kaplan explores the experience of refugees from Nazi Germany in Portugal, the port of last resort once Hitler invaded France.”

2020: The Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host the final screening of “Abe,” a film about a 12-year-old New Yorker, navigating “complicated identity isses that arise from having a Jewish-Israeli mother and a Muslim-Palestinian father.”

2020: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the final two screenings of “The Other Story.”

2020: In San Francisco, Congregation Sherith Israel is scheduled to host “A New Look at 1948” during which “Israeli historian Benny Morris talks about his new research on the first Arab-Israeli war.”
2020: In Jerusalem, Nocturno is scheduled to host Black Velvet, “one of the top Irish music bands” as it launches a new album.

2020: A break in the bleak Iowa winter coincides with today’s scheduled celebration of the natal days of Dr. Bob Silber and Lance Anderson.

2020: “The Jewish Book Council, The Jew­ish Museum, Tablet Magazine, and Lilith Magazine are scheduled to present “Unpacking the Book: Confronting Conformity,” with “authors Abby Chava Stein and Goldie Goldbloom in a conversation with Stephanie Butnick, of Tablet Magazine

2021(8th of Adar, 7801): Remember it is Shabbat Zachor; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

2021: On Shabbat Zachor we remember to celebrate the natal days of Lance Anderson and Dr. Bob Silber – meaning we read from two Torah scrolls as we celebrate the birth of two real stand-up guys.

2021: In River Hills, WI, following the CEEBJ Shabbat Morning Study Minyan, scholar-in-residence Dr. Gary P. Zola I scheduled to give a formal presentation on “Fascinating Documents from the American Jewish Archives.”

2021: The Highgate Synagogue is scheduled to host a pre-Purim Event with Adam Leigh. “What did the fisherman say to the magician?  Pick a cod, any cod.”

2021: In Florida, Temple Judea is scheduled to host an online Torah Study with Rabbi Yaron.

2021: Based on statements made yesterday by “Professor Benjamin Borwn of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an expert in Orthodox and Haredi Judaism” as Jews observe Shabbat “the relationship between Israel’s Haredi population and the rest of the country’s Jewish citizens is at a breaking point as a result of the coronavirus.”

 

This Day, February 21, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 21

362: Athanasius returns to Alexandria so he can lead the fight against various Christian heretics such as the Arians.  His negative views about the Jews were really part of his fight against Christian heretics. His “anti-Jewish rhetoric served to stigmatize Christians who resisted” the efforts of Athanasius “to reform the Alexandrian (local) practices of Lent and Easter along more international (catholic) lines.” For more on this view of his works and writings one should read “Jewish Flesh and Christian Spirit in Athanasius of Alexandria” by David Burke, Journal of Early Christian Studies - Volume 9, Number 4, Winter 2001, pp. 453-481

1513: The papacy of Julius II came to an end.  His greatest claim to fame was that he gave Michelangelo the paint brush for the Sistine Chapel.  Samuel Sarfatti, a Jewish physician, took care of the Pope’s health needs.  His papacy was a period of benign neglect for the Jews.  Julius was more interested in temporal pleasure than doctrine, so he pretty much left the Jews alone; not a bad deal considering what other Popes did to the Jews.

1519: Upon the death of Maximillian, the Jewish community at Regensburg numbering approximately 800 souls, (one of the oldest in Germany,) was expelled. The synagogue was destroyed and a chapel, built in its place. About 5,000 gravestones were taken from the Jewish cemetery and used for building the Christian house of worship.

1520: Birthdate of Moses Isserles, the Ashkenazic rabbi from Cracow best known for writing HaMapah (The Table Cloth) a “gloss” on The Shulchan Aruch (Set Table) of Joseph Karo.  Karo relied primarily on Sephardic sources. Isserles used Ashkenazic sources to create a tablecloth that would cover the set table thus making Caro’s work viable for the large number of Jews living in Northern and Eastern Europe.

1619(7th of Adar): Rabbi Ephraim Solomon ben Aaron of Luntshits, author of Keli Yakar passed away.

1629: Isaac Pallache, the Sephardic son of Joseph Pallache and nephew of Samuel Pallache “a Jewish-Moroccan merchant, diplomat and pirate who met stadholder Maurice of Nassau and the States-General in The Hague to negotiate an alliance of mutual assistance against Spain” registered as a student today at the University of Leiden.

1665: Emperor Maximilian II granted permission to Christophe Plantin, whose work included the Plantin Polyglot Bible the first four volumes of which were the “Old Testament” which contained two columns with the Hebrew original and the Latin translation, to print Hebrew books in Antwerp

1677(19thAdar I, 5437): Philosopher Baruch de Spinoza passed away. His philosophy and his life are too complex for this simple summary page. I did not understand why he was banned from the Jewish community when I first read about him as a Religious School student.  His philosophy baffled me when I first read it at Tulane.  Since I do not fake it, I suggest you begin your quest at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Spinoza.html. and go from there. Good luck.

1683: Birthdate of Johann Christoph Wolf, the “German Christian Hebraist” who created the 4 volume Biblotecha Hebrae published between 1715 and 1733 which among other things provided many Christians with their knowledge of the Talmud for more than 150 years.

1730: The papacy of Benedict XII came to an end. In 1727, he had issued Emanavit Numerthat laid down the conditions under which Jews could be forcibly baptized. Two years later, he issued Alias Emanarunt that “forbade the selling of goods by Jews.”  (For more see The Inquisition: A History by Michael C. Thomsett)

1743: George Frederic Handel's oratorio, "Samson" premiered in London.  The musical was based on the figure depicted in the Book of Judges and is another example of how Jewish culture enriched the culture of the Western World.

1769(14thof Adar I, 5529): Purim Katan

1769: As Jews observed a minor festival, Benjamin Franklin wrote to Lord Kames acknowledging receipt of his “excellent paper on the preferable use of oxen in agriculture.

1772(17thof Adar I. 5532): Amsterdam native Hannah Solomons, the wife of Prussian born Benjamin Sheftall, “one of the forty immigrants who arrived in Savannah in July of 1733,” who was the first author of the “Sheftall manuscript” and who “was known for his anti-slavery views, whom she married in Savannah, GA and with whom she had two sons, Levi and Solomon passed today in Savannah home to a large clan whose members included

1777(14thof Adar I, 5537): Purim Katan is observed for the last time with the Continental Congress meeting in Baltimore, where it has taken refuge due to the occupation in Philadelphia.

1810: David Davis married Elizabeth Benjamin at the Great Synagogue today.

1810: Birthdate of London native John Jonas, the son of Middlesex native Jacob Jonas and the husband of Sarah Ruben.

1816(22ndof Shevat, 5576): Seventy-three-year-old Abraham Alexander, Sr. the London born son of Judith and Rabbi Joseph Raphael Alexander and the husband of Ann Sarah Hugenin Irby, his second wife who was a convert and with whom he had two sons Moses and Abraham, Jr. who was  the Chazan of Congregation of Beth Elohim in Charleston and a Lieutenant in the Revolutionary Army passed away today in Charleston.

1816: One day after she had passed away, Polly Israel, the wife of Israel Israel and the mother of Henrietta and Harriet Israel was buried today in the UK.

1821: Birthdate of Elisabeth "Eliza, or Élisa" Rachel Félix better known only as Mademoiselle Rachel. She gained fame as an actress and as the mistress of the rich and famous including Napoleon III.

1832: Two days after he passed away, Philip Goodman, the father of Louis Goodman and the father-in-law of the former Julia Salamon was buried today in the UK.

1835: In Maracaibo, Venezuela, Abraham Benjamin Nones, the Philadelphia born son of Miriam Marks de Nones and Abraham Benjamin Nones, and his wife Maria del Rosario Martinez gave birth to Isabel Nones Martinez.

1838(26thof Shevat, 5598): Fifty-nine year old French linguist Atntoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, the son of Abraham Silvestre, a Jewish notary, and the father of journalist Ustazade Silvestre de Sacy passed away today in Paris.

1839: Birthdate of Vienna native and Austrian violinist Edouard Rappoldi, the husband of pianist Laura Kahrer who was a concert master in Rotterdam and a concert-master of the Dresden opera orchestra.

1841: In Rotterdam, Sara Wolf and Benjamin Phineas Moses Spiers gave birth to Lucas Moses Spiers.

1843: A committee of representatives, including eight from the Great Synagogue, met for the second time in two days under the chairmanship of Isaac Cohen in the Vestry room in Duke's Place

1848: Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto.  Marx was not Jewish but his father was.  This fact has not stopped a myriad of anti-Semites including Adolph Hitler from equating Judaism with Communism.

1849: Due to the civil rights granted under the Frankfurt Constitution which into effect today in Hamburg, forty-two year old lawyer Gabriel Riesser, the grandson of Rabbi Jakob Pinchas Katzenellenbogen and Rabbi Raphael Cohen was able to become a citizen of Hamburg where he was elected to the city’s parliament in 1859.

1851: In Aldgate, London, Isaac and Leah Isaacs gave birth to Barnet Isaacs who gained fame as diamond and gold mining entrepreneur Barney Barnato who claimed that his birthdate was July 5, the same as contemporary Cecil Rhodes.

1852: 1st of Adar, 5612): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1852: Pope Pius IX wrote to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, “insisting that he revoke the right of the Jews to live outside of the Ghetto.”

1852: In Baltimore, MD, Israel Cohen the son of Benjamin and Kitty Cohen and his wife Cecilia Eliza Cohen gave birth to Benjamin Isaac Cohen.

1852:Austen Henry Layard, the archeologist who excavated Nimrud and Niniveh as described in Discoveries at Nineveh completed his service as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

1856: A blood libel case occurred in Constantinople, with Jews being targeted with violence from Greeks, Armenians, and Turks. This occurred only three days after the Ottoman "reforms" which were to bring equality.

1857(27thof Shevat, 5617): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1860: In Esztergom, Hungary, Rosalie Wiess and Phillip Schwartz, a captain in the Hungarian Army gave birth to Julius Schwartz, the husband of Annette Hirschman, who served as a Lt. of Artillery in the Hungarian Army until 1880 and came to the United States where he served as Richmond County (NY_ Park Commission, worked as manager for the Equitable Life Insurance Society for Staten Island and President of the Staten Island Hebrew Benevolent Society and Free Loan Fund.

1860: An Imperial decree issued today granted the Jews of Lower Austria, Moravia, Silesia, Hungary, Voywodina, and the Banat, Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, and the Littoral Districts, the right of possessing real property. They cannot, however, exercise the rights of patronage, jurisdiction, or scholastic representation, attached to such possession.

1860: Uriah P. Levy was appointed Commodore and given command of the U.S. Navy’s Eastern Mediterranean fleet. A Jewish officer in the Navy at this time was rather unusual.  Levy dealt with his share of anti-Semitism during his career including a court-martial at the end of which he was fully exonerated. Levy waged a successful fight to end flogging as a form of punishment in the Navy.  He was an ardent admirer of Thomas Jefferson.  After Jefferson’s death, Levy bought Monticello and restored it to its former luster.  The restoration included reclaiming Jefferson’s library which numbered about 2500 volumes.  When Levy passed away in 1862, he left the estate to the people of the United States.  Levy was proud of his Jewish heritage.  He served as the first president of Washington Hebrew Congregation which is still one of the dominant Reform congregations in Washington, D.C. Forty-three years after President Monroe had made Levy a lieutenant, President Buchanan gave him command of the Mediterranean Squadron. With command came the Navy's highest rank: Commodore. The American fleet and frigates from Russia and Sardinia boomed out a thirteen-gun salute in the harbor at La Spezia as the pennant bearing a single star ran up the main mast of his flagship, USS Macedonian.

1861(11thof Adar, 5621): Ta’anit Esther

1861(11thof Adar, 5621): Hayyim Nissim Abulafia, a descendant of Hayyim Abulafia who “had come to Tiberias in the middle of the 18th century” who had served as chief rabbi of Jerusalem since the fall of 1854 following the death of Isaac Kobo, passed away today.

1863: The Illustrated London News published an article on the new Bayswater Synagogue for which the foundation stone had been laid in July of 1862 and which would be dedicated in July of 1863.

1863: Seventy-one year old Enrico Marconi, the non-Jewish Italian architect who designed the Great Synagogue in Lomza, Poland which “was built on the initiative of Rabbi Eliezer-Simcha Rabinowicz “and destroyed by the Nazis passed away today.

1864: In London Esther (nee Davis) and businessman William Miller gave birth to Leonard Miller, the solicitor turned author who legally changed his name to Leonard Merrick and whose works included Violet Moses“about a Jewish Financier and his troubled wife” which was a “satire of middle class London Jewry.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/sep/10/leonard-merrick-unloved-female-detective

https://books.google.com/books?id=jhcDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA478#v=onepage&q&f=false

1865: Cécile Anspach and Baron Gustave de Rothschild gave birth to Aline Caroline de Rothschild who became Lady Sassoon when he married Edward Sassoon in 1887. She passed away in 1909 having given birth to two children – Philip Albert Gustave David and Sybil Rachel Bettie Cecile.

1866: At Rotterdam Johanna Hijmans became Johanna Kann when she married 26 year old Maurice Kann.

1867: Ion Ghica who “was a valuable ally for Yiddish theater in Bucharest” and “on several occasions expressed his favorable view of the quality of acting, and even more of the technical aspects of the Yiddish theater” completed his second tour as Prime Minister of Romania today.

1867: Birthdate of banker and patron of the arts Otto Hermann Kahn. While his name is unknown today, in his time Otto Kahn was a major financial and cultural figure in the United States and Europe.   Kahn began his banking career in Germany.  But he reached greatness after moving to the United States in 1893 where he became a partner in the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company.  Described as Wall Street Wizard, he helped “reorganize the U.S. railroad system, finance the Allied effort in World War I and encourage banking reform after the 1929 stock market crash.”   He organized and bankrolled the Metropolitan Opera Company.  He also supported a whole slew of artists many of whom were unknown and struggling at the time. Among the many recipients of his support were Hart Crane, George Gershwin, Arturo Toscanni, Eugene O’ Neil, Paul Robeson, Isadora Duncan and Ezra Pound.  The eclectic Kahn was also a favorite of the inventor Thomas A. Edison who kept a picture of the banker-philanthropist on the wall of his New Jersey Home.  Kahn accomplished this and a lot more despite anti-Semitism and anti-German feelings in the United States.  He passed away in 1934. Here is something to think about.  If a man with a resume like Kahn can be so quickly forgotten, how many of today’s “important people” will be remembered fifty years from now?

1873: Two days after she had passed away, 36 year old Sarah Solomon, the daughter of Joseph and Susan Lyon, the daughter of Joseph and Susan Lyon and the wife of Solomon Lazarus Solomon with she had had nine children was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1874:  Benjamin Disraeli replaced William Gladstone as Prime Minister.  Disraeli was born Jewish, but his father had him baptized.  The conversion came over a dispute that the elder Disraeli had with the local synagogue.  Since he was not Jewish, Disraeli was not limited by English law in pursuing his political career.  At the same time, he was the target of anti-Semitic barbs and he was quite proud of his Jewish heritage.

1874: Ferdinand and Jeannette Levy Falk gave birth to New Orleanean Arnold Falk, the brother of Gustave, Myron and Gertrude Falk.

1875: “Poland Today” published today described conditions in the present day Russian province which has shrunk from 282,000 square miles to 48,863 square miles under the rule of the Czars.  While the majority of the population is Roman Catholic, “the money in Poland is chiefly in the hands of the Jews.”

1877: The 200thanniversary of the death of the great Dutch Jewish philosopher on the secular calendar was marked by the publishing of “Baruch Spinoza.”

1878: Hyman and Henrietta Braun Fineshirber gave birth University of Cincinnati graduate and HUC ordained Rabbi William Howard Fineshriber, Sr. the husband of Mae Cecile Wallerstein Fineshriber and the father of Bertha, Jacob and Aaron Fineshirber who served congregations in Davenport, IA, Memphis, TN and Philadelphia PA while also being a member of the American Council of Judaism and the Red Cross.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/fineshriber-william-howard

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0144/ms0144.html

1879: "The Reformer and Jewish Times; A Journal of Progress in Religion, Literature, Science, and Art" published its final edition today.  It first appeared in 1869 as “The Jewish Times: A Journal of Reform and Progress.”

1880: According to “The Elder Disraeli’s Tomb” published today, the tomb of Benjamin Disraeli, the grandfather of the Prime Minister which is located at the Spanish and Portuguese Cemetery in the Mile-end-road has been repaired.  The need to recut and repaint the tombstone should come as no surprise since the elder Disraeli was buried in 1816. No repairs have been made on the tombstone of the Prime Minister’s grandmother who was buried in the same cemetery.

1880: It was reported today the Jewish leaders in New York City have an issued an appeal to their co-religionists throughout the United States to make generous contributions to the Alliance Israelite Universelle, the Paris based charity that provides financial support and educational opportunities for Jews living under the Czar and the Ottoman Sultan.  It is suggested that leaders take advantage of the upcoming Purim festivities and address their congregations on the Sabbath of Remembrances on the need for providing financial support.

1881: Birthdate of Marc Boegner, the President of the Council of the Protestant Federation who risked his life by writing to Marshal Petain “protesting again the deportation of Jews and the inhuman manner in which orders for these deportations were being carried out.

1881: Birthdate of Rabbi Jonah Bondi Wise “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.”

1882: It was reported today that the reports of British Consular officials have “to a certain extent” exaggerated “the seriousness of the anti-Jewish riots in Russia” especially when it comes to “the reports of loss of life” and attacks on Jewish women.  Only about “100 Jews were shamefully” mistreated in Warsaw of whom only 10 or 12 have died because of their injuries. However, the reports of property destruction were not exaggerated.

1883(14th of Adar I, 5643): Purim Katan

1886: In Massachusetts, founding of the Lynn Hebrew Benevolent Society which meets the first Sunday of each month and is supported by an auxiliary society – the Ladies’ Hebrew Circle.

1888: Two days after he had passed away, Heiman Kohnstamm was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1889: Birthdate of Otto Wasserzug, the son of Berlin banker who gained fame as actor Otto Wallburg who would win an Iron Cross while serving on the Eastern Front in WW I which did save him from being murdered at Auschwitz in 1944.

1889: Birthdate of Moritz Neumann, one of the many Jewish men from Leinsteinach who served in the German Army during WW I.

1890(1stof Adar, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1890: Birthdate of New York City native and Columbia graduate, E. Knight Harris, the New York Law School trained attorney and member of the Queens Country Republican Committee who was the chairma of Sunday Services Committee of Temple Israel and the husband of “the former Nan Harris” with whom he raised a son, Arthur Harris.

1892: As New York City continued to deal with an outbreak of Typhus, the SS Etruriawhich had been “detained at Quarantine” because she had a large “number of Russian Jews among her steerage passengers” was allowed to dock today.  The Health Officer order the seventy Russian Jews to remained on board until “their baggage” had been “thoroughly fumigated.”

1892: “Non-Success of Russian Jews” published today which relied on information first published in the Pall Mall Gazette reported that Voskhod has examined the conditions “of Jews who left Russia during the persecutions of the last 18 months.”  According to this monthly Jewish publication, those who went to Palestine want to return to Russia because the agricultural settlements “have been failures.”  And things are so bad for those who went to United States, “that were a society formed…to pay” their expenses “two thirds would gladly avail themselves of its funds and return.” (This report may reflect the philosophic stance of Voshkod as much as it does the conditions of the people it described.

1891: In Pittsburgh, PA on Shabbat, the rabbi at Poale Zedeck Congregation on Grant Street was prevented from preaching his announced sermon by Rueben Miller, the Vice President of the synagogue who was to be the topic of the talk.

1892: “A Great Hebrew Hospital” published today provided a lengthy history of Mount Sinai Hospital which began as the Jewish Hospital.  In addition to all of its other accomplishments, it “was the first hospital in the city to admit women to membership on its house staff.”

1893: Mr. Weinstock wrote from Sacramento, CA to Pierre Botkine of Century Magazine asking  about the status of Jews in Russia “who enter the Greek Catholic Church.”  Specifically, he wanted to know if conversion brings “full civil and political rights.”

1894(15thof Adar 1, 5654): Fifty-one year old Bialystok born Khayim, who in 1860 moved to Jerusalem with his parents where “he became a pioneer of the Yiddish press in the land of Israel.”

http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2018/08/khayim-pres.html

1895: Birthdate of Szmul Zygielbojm (Zygelbojm or Zigelboim) “a Jewish-Polish socialist politician, leader of the Bund, and a member of the National Council of the Polish government in exile” who in 1943  “committed suicide to protest the indifference of the Allied governments in the face of the Holocaust.”

1895: Alfred Dreyfus was “removed from his prison and transferred to an icy cell in a naval cruiser” which would carry him imprisonment on Devil’s Island.

1896: Students' party at "Kadimah". The students give Herzl a great ovation.

1897: Birthdate of Meir Ya’ari, the native of Galicia who made Aliyah in 1920 where he helped to found Kibbutz Artzi before serving in as a member of Israel’s first Knesset.

1897: In correspondence bearing today's date, “leading members of the Jewish community in Tripoli sent a letter to the President of the Alliance that gave a grim picture of Jewish life in rural Tripolitania."  The Jews reported that they were living as “dhimmi.” An Arab mob had destroyed the synagogue in the village of Zliten and in another village the authorities refused to find those who had murdered one Jew and injured his companion.

1897: The Board of Trustees of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum is scheduled to meet today where they will take up Emanuel Lehman’s offer to provide $100,000 “for the endowment of an industrial and provident fund for the benefit of graduates of the asylum.”

1898: As the trial of Emile Zola, the publisher of the Aurore enters its final days it was reported today that “public feeling against the Jews is so overwhelming that” his conviction is a foregone conclusion.

1898: It was reported today that Jews in Trenton, NJ are are still upset with the anti-Semitic remarks of William J. Cossley, the Prosecutor in Mercer County. 

1899: It was reported today that “Max Regis, the former Mayor of Algiers” and “notorious Jew-baiter…has been sentenced…to three years’ imprisonment” and ordered “to pay a fine of 1,000 francs” for press offenses and glorify murder and pillage at meetings in Algiers and Paris.”  (These meetings were part of the anti-Dreyfus violence that swept France.)

1899: In Brooklyn,” Morris and Anna Krystal Gottschalk, Jewish immigrants from Poland” gave birth to their sixth child, historian Louis Reichenthal Gottschalk.

http://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/25/archives/louis-gottschalk-historian-76-french-revolution-expert-dies.html?_r=0

1900: Birthdate of Henry Cohen, the British physician and lecture who was honored as the 1st Baron Cohen of Birkenhead for his contributions in the field of medicine.

1901: “In Zurich, German-born physicist Albert Einstein became a citizen of Switzerland.”

1902(14thof Adar I, 5662): Purim Katan

1902: It was reported that “an Israelite, who is a candidate for admission to practice as an attorney and counselor in the courts of record” in the state of New York  has called “attention to the fact that the date set by the State Board of Law Examiners for a special examination of candidates, residents of the First and Second Departments, at the Court House of Appellate Division” in New York City “is April 22” which “is the Hebrew Passover” and has asked for help in having the date changed either to April 21s or April 15th.

1902(14thof Adar I, 5661): Louis Brenner, the daughter of Brooklyn real estate developer Levi Blumenau and the wife of “Brooklyn magistrate and Kings County Commissioner of Jurors” with whom she had six children – Arthur, Mortimer, Rose, Rica, Selma, and Caroline – passed away today.

1903(24thof Shevat, 5663): Parashat Mishpatim

1904: In Richmond, VA, Harry and Hortense Eichel Campbell gave birth to screenwriter Alan Campbell, the husband and colleague of Dorothy Parker.

1905: During the Russian Revolution of 1905 the Chief of Police for the district that included Bialystok was killed.  Attacks like this would become an excuse for the attacks against the Jews known as the Bialystok Pogrom that would take place in June of the following year.

1906: It was reported today that the International Free Scholarship Association which “assists poor and deserving student of all nationalities and creeds” including Jewish students” has hosted a Hindu Day at the Hotel Marie Antoinette in New York.

1907: “Gen. Kaulbars, the Governor General of Odessa, has at last been compelled to take action against the Union of True Russians, a reactionary organization, for the outrages upon Jews, although only to the extent of threatening the Union that its members will be punished if the armed attacks upon citizens are repeated.”

1907: “The Italian Government abandoned the idea of sending Prof. Luzzgatti, the former Minister of the Treasury, to St. Petersburg for the purpose of negotiating a new commercial treaty” because the Italians have received word that the professor would be persona non grata with the Russians due to the fact that he is Jewish.

1908: It was reported today that the Jewish Working Girls Vacation Society “supports two vacation houses, on at Bellport, Long Island and the other at Big Indian in the Catskills.

1909: “Joseph L. Buttenweiser, the ex-President of the Hebrew Technical Institute, Rabbi H. Pereira Mendes and Judge Otto A. Rosalsky” were among the speakers at the dedication of the First Hungarian Congregation Ohab Zedek which is led by Rabbi Phillip Klein.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1909/02/22/101816605.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1910: Samuel D. Warren, a former law partner of Louis D. Brandeis passed away today in Boston, MA

1911: It was reported today that objection was made to a resolution that had been introduced by Assemblymen Spielberg and Schlivek calling upon Congress to take action regarding the enforcement of the Russo-American Treaty of 1832 which includes issuing travel papers to American Jews going to Russia which means that the resolution will be tabled until next week when it will be brought up again for debate and a vote.

1912: Birthdate of Dr. Solomon Schonfeld, the British rabbi who saved thousands during the Holocausthttp://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

http://www.ajr.org.uk/index.cfm/section.journal/issue.Dec07/article=971

1913(14thof Adar I, 5673): Purim Katan

1913: It was reported today that “the Society of the Jewish Institute, which has been formed to establish a Jewish Educational Center in the neighborhood of lower Second Avenue” has made arrangement “for a lecture series by noted Jewish authorities” on the teachings the Hebrew prophets, the first of which will be given on February 23 “at 11o’clock at Kessler’s Second Avenue Theatre.”

1913: In London, “lecturing before the Camera Club on his travels in Egypt and Arabia, Julian Grande said to-night that he had succeeded in entering the shrine called Aaron's Tomb on the top of Mount Hot, which is jealously guarded by the Mohammedans, and in taking photographs of the interior, though he was covered by the rifle of an Arab fanatic.

1914: Dr. John Tatlock and Marjorie Tatlock gave birth to Dr. Jean Frances Tatlock whom some contend was the mistress of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Tatlock was a Communist and this relationship would be used against him when his security clearance was lifted after World War II.

1915: Dr. Cyrus Adler, President of Dropsie College, presided over the opening session of the 23rd annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society which is being held at the Hotel McAlpin in New York City.

1915: “At a meeting of the Jewish Community, or Kehillah, held today at the Educational Alliance a report was approved calling upon the American Jewish Committee to take the leadership in plans for meeting ‘the greatest crisis that has overtaken the Jews in centuries’” – a crisis that “has been brought about by the war” and the problems of which “must be solved by the 3,000,000 American Jews.”

1915: “Life and Times of the Famous Jewish Historian” published today provides a review of Josephusby Norman Bentwich published by the Jewish Publication Society.

1915: Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey and Attorney General Warren Grice left Atlanta for Washington today where they will file a brief with the Supreme Court in the case of Leo Frank, “asserting the right of every state of the union to make and enforce its own criminal laws, from interference or supervision by the Federal courts.

1915: William Vincent Byars of St. Louis read a paper on the part played by the Gratz brothers in the development of trade in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys at the morning session of the annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society.

1915: Leon Huchner presented a paper on the life of Daniel Gomez a merchant in colonial New York at the afternoon session of the annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society.

1915: Another 600 or 700 refugees, most of whom are Jewish, arrived in Egypt today “reporting that the situation in Syria is going from bad to worse.”

1916: C.H. Rubenstein wrote to Simon Wolf, the “Chairman of the Board of Delegates on Civil Rights of the Union American Hebrew Congregations describing the action he took with Rabbi Rosenau in opposing “a bill now before the General Assembly making the reading of the King James version of the Bible compulsory in the public schools of Maryland.

1916: During World War I, 1,400 German guns fired the open salvo in the Battle of Verdun. The bloodletting would last for ten months at a cost over half a million French casualties and four hundred thousand German casualties.  For the French, this pointless bloodletting would lead to a pacifism when facing the threat of Hitler.  Life in the trenches would lead to the creation of the Maginot Line which also helped to pave the way for France’s early collapse in World War II.  In other words, a fairly straight line can be drawn from a battle in 1916 and the rise of Vichy and French collaboration with the Nazis that led to the death of so many Jews. Additionally, the “hero” of Verdun was Marshall Petain, the same Marshall Petain who collaborated with the Nazis during WWII, shipping Jews to Drancy, the first stop on the way to Auschwitz.

1917: According to the Overseas News Agency, the $250,000 that the U.S. Ambassador has given to the Vienna Jewish Association which was collected by the American Jewish community “is destined for the relief of Galician Jews and Jewish refugees from the occupied territory of Galicia.”

1918(9thof Adar, 5678): Fifty-two-year-old author and linguist Hedwig Lachmann passed away. (As reported by Hanna Delf von Wolzogen)

1918:  During the fight to free Palestine from Turkish control, Australian units under the overall command of General Allenby drove the Turks from Jericho and reached the northern end of the Dead Sea. As a result of these victories, the British would become the mandatory power after the war and the Balfour Declaration would be worth the paper it was written on, for a little while at least.

1919:  As the right wing reasserts its authority in Germany, a German aristocrat named Count Anton Arco-Valley shot Jewish born Bavarian political leader Kurt Eisner in the back and killed him as he on his way to the Munich Parliament.

1919: In Hungary, “the prime minister ordered the arrest of over one hundred prominent Communists including Bela Kun” the son of “Samu Kohn, a lapsed Jewish village notary” and “Roza Golberger, a Jewish convert to Protestantism.”

1919: Samuel Hershel Sarove who served in the Army with his younger brother Isadore Sharove was discharged today.

1920(2ndof Adar, 5680): Parashat Terumah

1920: Birthdate of San Francisco Janet Loeb, who after marrying Dr. James L. Wolff became Janet L. Wolff, a leading advertising executive who played a dominate roll at J. Walter Thompson and whose iconic campaigns for such products as Irish Spring Soap and Datsun automobile led to her being inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame.

1921: Birthdate of Bronx native and son of Russian Jewish immigrants Albert “Albie” Axelrod the WW II U.S. Navy veteran and CCNY grad who became one of America’s leading fencers as can be seen by the bronze medal he won at the 1960 Olympics.

http://usfencinghalloffame.com/wp/axelrod-albert/

1921: The Daughters of Zion Hebrew Day Nursery are scheduled to hold a ball tonight which is a fund raiser of the school at 211 Varet Street that provides care about fifty children of working mothers.

1921 Dr. Maurice I Harris of Temple Israel delivered one in a series of four lectures on Modern Jewish History at the Teachers’ Institute of the Free Synagogue on West 68th Street this evening.

1922: Birthdate of DJ Murray “the K,” referred to as the Fifth Beatle.

1922: Birthdate of Zivi Zeitlin, the native of Dubrovna who was raised in Palestine and became “an internationally renowned violinist known for interpreting the work of contemporary composers.” Zeitlin was 11 years old when he won a scholarship to Julliard making him the youngest person to win such an honor from the famed music school.  In 1967, he became a professor at the Eastman School of Music.(As reported by Margalit Fox)

1922: “The Loves of Pharaoh” a “million-dollar epic” silent film directed by Ernst Lubitsch premiered in New York today.

1923: In “To Preserve Jerusalem” published today, Ronald Storrs, the first British military governor of Palestine called Americans to support the Pro-Jerusalem Society which was fighting to maintain the unique characteristics of the ancient city and avoid such vulgarizations as having “factory chimneys in the neighborhood of Solomon’s Temple or the Holy Sepulcher”

1924: It was reported today that “Palestine had cost the British Exchequer one million, four hundred thousand pounds in 1923-24, but it was estimated that the would only be one million pounds in 1924-25.

1925: In York, PA, Lewis and Nettie Wolfson Leibowitz gave birth to Herschel Weldon Leibowitz, “a Penn State University psychologist who was among the first scientists to explore how the mind can misinterpret what the eye sees at night, a phenomenon that contributes to traffic accidents.” (As reported by Benedict Carey)

1926: In London, “Israel Zangwill, speaking at a meeting of the Jewish Drama League” tonight “said that George Bernard Shaw had make the Jews his debtors because all his translators and agents were Jews.”

1926: “A contribution of $3,000 was announced” today “from national headquarters of the United Jewish Campaign which is endeavoring to raise $15,000,000 from American Jewry for their suffering coreligionist in foreign lands.”

1926: “Speakers at the third annual meeting of the National Council of the Palestine Foundation Fund at the Hotel Astor” today “declared that wealthy Jews have not done their share in the last year toward the support of the fund for the welfare of Jews in Palestine.”

1927: Dr. Israel Konovitz, the President of the Hebrew Principals’ Association and the father of Isidore Konvitz, a Columbia University graduate and instructor at the Hebrew University, is scheduled to set sail on the Mauretania as he makes his way to Palestine where he will study the education system.

1927: It was reported today that Otto Kahn, Maurice Wertheim and Edward L. Bernays are acting as committee to see what it would take to establish a permanent home for the Habima Players in Palestine.

1928: Seventeen-year-old Hunter College student Judith Wolfert, “the winner of the recent National Young Judaea Oratorical Contest” is scheduled to set sail today on the Mauretania bound for Palestine where she “expects to make a study of Palestine’s agriculture, industries and culture.”

1929: Sir Julien Cahn XI, a cricket team Sir Julien Cahn founded and captained for made its “first-class debut” in Jamaica.

1929: Sixty-nine year old Sir John Grenfell Maxwell, the British General who when putting together the forces for the Gallipoli landings selected Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson “to raise and command a Jewish military unit to fight against the Turks in the Middle East” passed away today.

1932(14th of Adar I, 5692): Purim Katan

1932(14th of Adar I 5692): Boris Schatz, founder of the Bezalel Art School passed away.

1932: The new home for Sephardi Temple Tifereth Israel located on Santa Barbara Avenue was dedicated today in Los Angeles.

1932: “According to announcement sent out by the Jewish National Fund of America” today, “an evergreen memorial of 500,000 pin and eucalyptus trees will be planted in Palestine as a living tribute of the Jews of America” to George Washington.

1932: It was reported today that “Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo of the Court of Appeals…who has been named a member of the United States Supreme Court” attended services at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, the only Jewish congregation active in New York during the Colonial and Revolutionary Period that celebrated the bicentennial of the birth of George Washington.

1932: The New York Times featured a review of The Tragedies of Progress by Italian Jewess Gina Lombroso who is described as a severe critic "of the trend in our technical civilization"

1933: In Tyron, NC, Mary Kate Waymon and John Divine Waymon gave birth to Eunice Kathleen Waymon who gained fame as singer-songwriter Kathleen Waymon whose repertoire included “Eretz Zavat Halav and who recorded “Strange Fruit,” a song written by Abel Meeropol which was inspired after he saw “a photograph of two young men being lynched.”

1933: Birthdate of New York native Robert “Bob” Rafelson, “the son of hat ribbon manufacturer” and nephew of screenwriter Samuel Raphaeslon, “the author of ‘The Jazz’” whose most famous work may have “Five Easy Pieces which directed, produced and also co-authored the script.

1934: The Los Angeles Times reported that “Samuel Untermyer, head of the New York-based Anti-Nazi League came” to the southern California metropolis “to speak about the dangers of Nazi Germany.]

1935: “When the Jewish-owned steamer Tel Aviv” docked today in Palestine for the first time, the first passenger to land was” Georg Martini the correspondent for The Völkischer Beobachter the official newspaper of the Nazi Party.

1936: In Warsaw, the Polish Senate debated a proposal for “a mass emigration of Jews from Poland” during which Senator Jausz Radzweill said that he felt “bound to say that Germany’s example may encourage anti-Semitic troubles everywhere.”

1936: “The National Democratic Party of Upper Silesia was ordered disbanded today on charges of conducting anti-Semitic agitation.”

1937: Today’s listing “Forthcoming Books” included The Dreyfus Case and Major Noah: American Jewish Pioneer.

1937: In Poland, citizens were informed by loud speakers, posters and leaflets of the “creation of the new government party Colonel Adam Koc, commander of the Pilsudski Legionnaires who said “we can never approve of violence and brutal anti-Semitic outrages which degrade our national dignity and honor… but we understand the instinct of legitimate defense of our people in their” move “toward economic independence.”

1938: Semyon Dimanstein who had at one time been head of Yevsektsiya, the Jewish section of the Soviet Communist party, was arrested by Stalin.  Within short order he would be condemned to death and executed.

 1938: The Palestine Post reported that British troops, assisted by police, inflicted heavy casualties on a gang of armed Arabs halfway between Rosh Pina and Safed and that there were about 500 suspected Arab terrorists interned at El Mizra camp.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that R.E. Alderson, R.A.F. Squadron Leader murdered by Arab terrorists near Atlit was buried with honors at Ramle.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that The Jewish Agency, The Marine Trust Ltd. and other Jewish organizations asked the government to speed up the development of the Tel Aviv port in order to stop congestion and allow normal passenger traffic. The basin had to be deepened, the quay space doubled and another lighter basin added to the existing facilities.

1939: In a further move to impoverish the Jews, the German government order them “to surrender all objects made from gold, silver, precious stones and pearls.” (Like Haman, Hitler knew that anti-Semitism was a profitable “business.”

1939: The Italian government continued its “campaign against the United States as a whole and Mr. Roosevelt in particular” by calling the President “an alarmist who is …yielding to pressure from Jews bent on crush the totalitarian States to avenge the persecution of their brethren in Germany and Italy…”

1939(2ndof Adar, 5699): Eighty-seven-year-old Jewish philanthropist Jacques Teitel who “for forty years filled an office” similar to that of a district attorney in the United States and who after being forced to leave Russia “went to Germany where he became president of the Union of Russian Jews in Germany” passed away today in Nice, France.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1939/02/22/96020335.pdf

1940: Oberfuerher Richard Gluecks informed Himmler that he had found a "suitable site" for a new "quarantine Camp" at Auschwitz.

1940: Czech architect Otto Eisler arrived in Norway after fleeing his homeland which had been taken over by the Nazis who had imprisoned and tortured him.

1941: “The Strawberry Blonde” featuring George Tobias with a script by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein was released in the United States today.

1942(4thof Adar, 5702): Parsahat Terumah

1942: It was announced today that “Rabi Jonah B. Wise of Central Synagogue has accepted the chairmanship of the war emergency campaign of the UJA in the New York metropolitan area” and that Governor Lehman, Judge Julian W. Mack, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Henry Ittleson have been named to serve as honorary officers.

1943: The Battle of Guadalcanal ended.  Former champion boxer, Barney Ross won a Silver Star the second highest medal given for battlefield gallantry for his heroics during this grinding eight month long battle.  Ross had enlisted at the age of 32 and fought in the first of the island hopping battles that would lead to victory over Japan in 1945.

1943: In Paterson, NJ. stationary store owner Morris Roses and his wife, the former Ceil Schwartz, both of whom escaped the Holocaust, gave birth to Dr. Allen Roses “a maverick researcher whose team of scientists identified two genes that put healthy people over 65 at higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/science/allen-roses-who-upset-common-wisdom-on-cause-of-alzheimers-dies-at-73.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1943: Dutch Roman Catholic bishops protested against persecution of Jews. This came as part of the response to Nazi recent roundups of Jews in Amsterdam. The "Righteous Gentiles" did make their attempts to help, but there were just too few of them.

1943: In Borough Park, Brooklyn, Abraham Geffen and Batya Volovskaya, the owner of “a clothing store called Chic Corsets by Geffen gave birth to David Lawrence Gefen, who founded “Asylum Records in 1970, Geffen Records in 1980, DGC Records in 1990, and DreamWorks SKG in 1994.”

1943: Sir Harold MacMichael, High Commissioner of the British Mandate of Palestine, broadcast a speech tonight on the eve of Red Army Day in which he “warmly praised the achievements of the Red Army.”

1944(27thof Shevat, 5704): Dov Lopatyn was killed by a landmine today.  While serving as the head of the Judenrat in Lachwa  he “refused the demand of the Einsatzgruppen that the Lakhva Ghetto inhabitants line up for deportation and led one of the first ghetto uprisings after which an untold number of the Jews escaped to the Pripet Marshes.  It was there the Lopatyn joined the partisans with whom he fought until his death.

1944: Birthdate of Dr. Sander L. Gilmnan, the New York native and Tulane University alum whose accomplishments include the founding of the Jewish Studies program at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

http://ila.emory.edu/home/people/faculty/gilman.html

http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Jew_s_Body.html?id=6sTjj5uiVegC

1945: It was understood today that the Vatican “has generally approved of the American interest in the Middle East if only as a counter poise to possible Russian influence” in the area” and that “it was recall that the Vatican was generally believed to have been lined up behind the status quo in Palestine, giving implicit approval to the policies of Dr. Chaim Weizmann.”

1946: British soldiers and policeman are searching for those who attacked the police headquarters tonight in Haifa and Tel Aviv.  The attackers in Tel Aviv were armed with machine guns and grenades and set-off at least 6 separate explosions.  The attacks followed searches of Jewish settlements by the police that resulted in the seizure of rifles and “a clandestine radio.”

1946: Congressman Augustus Bennett, a New York Republican, with the support of Congressman Thomas J. Lane, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced a resolution today in the House of Representative calling for a “Congressional investigation of the Palestine situation…The measure calls for a joint House-Senate committee to be sent to the Holy Land to investigate conditions there and report its findings to Congress.”

1946: Birthdate of Monice Lenore Belson, the sister of Jerry Beslon, who gained fame as screenwriter Monica Johnson.

1947: “Nora Prentis” a film noir directed by Vincent Sherman, with music by Franz Waxman and a screenplay by N. Richard Nash was released today in the United States.

1947: Edwin H. Land demonstrated the first instant developing camera in New York City. It took only sixty seconds to develop a black and white photograph.  Most of us know that such famous scientists as Einstein, Salk and Sabine were Jewish.  But how many knew that this famous college dropout was Jewish as well?  He is also given credit for creating improved lenses and sunglasses as well as providing research on new theories related to color perception.

1948(11thof Adar I, 5708): Parashat Tetzaveh

1948(11thof Adar I, 5708): Seventy-six German born journalist and university professor Gustav Mayer who moved to the Netherlands when the Nazis came to power before making his way to England in 1936 where he began working on a “history of the English Worker’s Movement” passed away today.

1948: Twenty-eight-year-old Alf James won the South African Welterweight Title.

1948: The Arab League voted to deny American oil companies pipeline rights in the Middle East until Washington altered its Palestine policy reinforcing efforts by Secretary of State George Marshall and others at the State Department to get President Truman to reconsider his support for the creation of a Jewish state.

1949: Today, President Truman told a delegation from American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, including Philip Slomovitz, the editor of the Detroit Jewish News  “that he was familiar with the background of the British administration in Palestine and that he had outlined his plan emigration of refugees to Ernest Bevin just before he was appointed foreign minister.

1949: “The United Palestine Appeal was directed today to implement immediately a decision of fifty-five members of its board of directors for the return of Henry Morgenthau Jr., former Secretary of the Treasury, and Henry Montor to the leadership of the 1949 United Jewish Appeal campaign for $250,000,000.

1950: “A major trade showing of imported giftwares made in handicraft shops in Israel” “sponsored by the Palestine Galleries for Arts and Crafts” continued for a second day the Pierre Hotel in New York City

1951(15thof Adar I, 5711): Sixty-nine-year-old Sara Samuel who served as “Headmistress of the girl’s department of the JFS” from 1938 “until her retirement in 1945” and was the Secretary of the Stamford Hill Ladies’ Guild at the New Synagogue for 15 years passed away today.

1955: David Ben-Gurion succeeded Pinhas Lavon as Defense Minister.

1955(29thof Shevat, 5715): Four months before the death of her husband, seventy-five-year-old Sadie (Brahm) Lefkowotiz, the mother of Lewis, Harry, Helen and David Lefkowitz, Jr, and the wife David Lefkowotiz, the Dallas rabbi who defied the KKK, passed away today with her memory living on with the creation of the Sadie and David Lefkowitz Collection of Judaica at the Perkins School of Theology.

1955(29thof Shevat, 5715): Seventy-six-year-old Dr. Alwin M. (Max) Pappenheimer the Columbia trained pathologist who was on the faculty at Columbia and who was the father of Dr. Anne P. Forbes, Dr. John R. Pappenheimer and Dr. Alwin M. Pappenheimer, Jr. of NYU who followed in his father’s footsteps, passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1955/02/22/96627378.pdf

1955: Dr. Edward Warner Brice, “the director of adult education of H.E.W. announced “today “that he is going to Israel in an effort to tap Israeli knowhow, developed in its successful aid program in Asia and Africa” to help improve the foreign assistance efforts of the United States. (As reported by JTA)

1956(9thof Adar I, 5716): Sixty-nine-year-old mobster and confederate of Al Capone Jake Guzik passed away on the South Side of Chicago.

1956(9th of Adar, 5716): Seventy-eight-year-old composer and conductor Edwin Franko Goldman, the Louisville, KY born son of David Henry and Selma Franko Goldman and founder of the Goldman Band of New York City, whose marching music made him the successor to John Phillip Sousa and who was the husband of Adelaide Goldman with whom he raised a daughter and a son Richard Franko Goldman who succeeded his father as conductor the Goldman Band, passed away today.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/edwin-franko-goldman-mn0001421180/biography

1958: Birthdate of exercise expert Jake Steinfeld (Body by Jake).

1958: Egypt and Syria having formed the United Arab Republic (UAL) elected the Egyptian dictator Gamiel Nasser as its new President.  Nasser was a Pan Arabist - yes they show up year in and year out - who was determined to destroy the state of Israel as his means of uniting the Arab World.  He failed on both counts.

1958: In Cambridge, MA, Elaine Salovey, a registered nurse, and Ronald Salovey, a physical chemist gave birth to their oldest child Peter Salovey, a descendant of the Soloveichik rabbinic family who became the 23 President of Yale University.

1959(13thof Adar I, 5719): Parashat Tetzaveh

1959(13thof Adar I, 5719): Seventy-five-year-old American anthropologist Paul Radin the Lodz born son Rabbi Adolph Moses Radin and the brother of “legal scholar Max Radin” passed away today.

https://www.academia.edu/262124/PAUL_RADIN_an_attempt_at_an_intellectual_biography

1960: ABC broadcast “Land,” an episode of “The Rebel” directed by Irvin Kirshner.

1960: In Bloomington, the weekend long ceremonies marking the dedication of the Moses Montefiore Temple came to a close.

1962: “Walk on the Wild Side” a movie version of a novel by the same name with “opening and closing sequences directed by Saul Bass” starring Laurence Harvey and with music by Elmer Bernstein was released in the United States today.

1962: In Brooklyn, Norma and Al Lerner gave birth to Randy Lerner the billionaire businessman who took over ownership of the Cleveland Browns when his father passed away.

1962: Birthdate of Eliezer Sandberg, the Haifa native who has served as a member of the Knesset and held at least two cabinet posts.

1966: Jan Peerce appeared in “Don Giovanni” today in what would be his “last complete stage performance at the Metropolitan Opera.”

1968: Birthdate of Daniel Jacob “Dan” Calichman the native of Huntington Station, NY who “played college soccer at Williams” before going on to a career as professional player and coach.

1968: “Bye Bye Braverman” an American comedy directed and produced by Sidney Lumet, starring George Segal and Joseph Wiseman, with music by Peter Matz and filmed cinematographer Boris Kaufman was released in the United States today.

1969(3rdof Adar, 5729): Two were killed and twenty more wounded in a terrorist bombing attack at a Jerusalem supermarket.

1969(3rd of Adar, 5729): Sixty-seven-year Itzik Manger passed away. Born in what is now the Ukraine in 1901, Manger lived in various European cities as he wrote plays and poems in Yiddish. Towards the end of his life, he made Aliyah and lived in Tel Aviv. Itzik's Midrash and Songs of the Megillah were two of his more famous works, both of which drew upon Biblical themes.

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Manger_Itsik

1970: A Swissair plane bound from Zurich to Tel Aviv explodes and crashes shortly after takeoff; all 47 people aboard are killed.

1970: An Austrian airliner carrying mail for Israel from Frankfurt, West Germany, to Vienna is damaged by an explosion in flight; no one is hurt.

1971(26thof Shevat, 5731): Eighty-five year old Madison, SD native Clare Stephen Jacobs who won the Bronze Medal for Pole Vaulting in the 1908 Summer Olympics passed away today.

1971: In “Seeing the Sinai” Douglas Greener described his tour of the Wilderness 4 years after the Six Day War.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FA0813F73B5F127A93C3AB1789D85F458785F9

1972: Today, “Mel Brooks appeared as the 2000 Year Old Man to help celebrated the 2000thepisode of the original quiz show Jeopardy!”

1973: Israeli fighter planes shot down a Libyan Airlines jet over the Sinai Desert, killing more than 100 people.

1974: Refusniks “Vitaly Rubin, Vladimir Galatzky and David Azbel completed a hunger strike” today.

1974: Israeli forces left the territory on the western side of the Suez Canal.  While the Yom Kippur War (October, 1973) began as a disaster for the Israelis, the military outcome was a triumph.  Troops under Sharon crossed the Suez Canal and put a stranglehold on the Egyptian Army.  The disengagement of 1974 led to the historic visit of Sadat and the peace treaty that followed.

1977: Birthdate of Birthdate of Jonathan Safran Foer an American author whose works include Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Eating Animals.

1977(4thof Adar, 5737): Sixty-two-year-old Boston native Avery Berlow Cohan, the graduate of Cornell who earned a Ph.D. at Columbia before serving as a teaching fellow at Harvard and a professor of finance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel for twenty years passed away tonight.

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Cohan%2C%20Avery%20B%2E%20%28Avery%20Berlow%29%2C%201914%2D

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that there were at least 2,000 guests at the colorful opening of the 29th Zionist Congress in Jerusalem.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Finance Minister Simha Ehrlich had set up a special police task force to study how to implement the Shimron Committee's recommendations on fighting the organized crime in Israel.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Egypt withdrew its diplomatic mission from Cyprus after its 15 commandos were killed and some 50 injured in fighting Cypriot soldiers and PLO terrorists in an attempt to free a plane at the Larnaca airport, in which two Arab terrorists were holding Arab and Egyptian hostages.

1980(4thof Adar, 5740): Attorney Joseph Jonah Cummins, “the son of an Orthodox Rabbi,” and husband of Laura Cummins, who for seventy years “founded or published Jewish newspapers in Detroit, Toledo, St. Louis and Los Angeles and who “was the first publisher to organize a boycott of Nazi products in the 1930's and later led national campaigns against the repression of Soviet Jews” passed away today afterhich he was buried in Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, CA.

https://jewishjournal.com/community/3960/

1982: A revival of “Little Me,” a musical written by Neil Simon, with music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh the cast of which included Bebe Neuwirth closed at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre.

1982: “After 1,604 performances and fourteen previews,” the curtain came down on the original Broadway production of “Ain’t Misbehavin’” a musical with a “book” co-authored by Murray Horwitz.

1982(28th of Shevat, 5742): Gershom Scholem passed away.  Born on December 5, 1897, Scholem, was a Jewish philosopher and historian who was raised in Germany. He is widely regarded as the modern founder of the scholarly study of Kabbalah, becoming the first Professor of Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Scholem is best known for his collection of lectures, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941) and for his biography Sabbatai Zevi, the Mystical Messiah (1973). His collected speeches and essays, published as On Kabbalah and its Symbolism(1965), helped to spread knowledge of Jewish mysticism among non-Jews. He was awarded the Israel Prize in 1958 and was elected president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1968.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/scholem.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2009/entries/scholem/

http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1967/remembering-the-scholems/

1983(8th of Adar, 5743): Eighty-nine year old Columbia University graduate  Louis Bernstein who was a teacher and principal in New York City for more than 50 years passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/24/obituaries/louis-bernstein.html

1983(8th of Adar, 5743): Murray Seasongood, who served as Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio from 1926 through 1930 passed away today at the age of 104.

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/23/obituaries/murray-seasongood-lawyer-ex-cincinnati-mayor-was-104.html

http://www.seasongoodfoundation.com/murray.html

1985(30thof Shevat, 5745): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1985(30thof Shevat, 5745): Sixty-nine-year-old Nathan Pritikin, inventor and diet guru took his own life today.

https://www.pritikin.com/home-the-basics/about-pritikin/38-nathan-pritikin.html

http://articles.latimes.com/1985-02-23/news/mn-1021_1_nathan-pritikin

1986(12thof Adar I, 5746): Eighty-one year old Louis H. Silberkleit, the co-founder of Archie Comics Inc who married Nicole Bernheim after his first wife Lillian Meisel, the mother of his son Michael died, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/25/obituaries/louis-silberkleit-co-founder-of-archie-comics-dies-at-81.html

1986: Leonard “Cohen appeared as villain Francois Zolan in the "French Twist" episode of the American television series Miami Vice originally broadcast today.”

1987: The Syrian army marched into Beirut.  This was part of Syria’s plan to rule “Greater Syria” a territory that would include Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.  At the behest of the United States, Israel blocked Syria’s plans to seize part of Jordan in the 1970’s.  As the bombing in Beirut this week reminds us, the Syrians still dominate the Lebanese political scene.

1988: In “Russia and the Jews: Photos of a Turbulent Past,” published today Chaim Potok used his critique of an exhibition at the Jewish Museum to provide a semi-sentimental journey through the world of Russian Jewry in the closing decades of the 19th century and the opening decades of the twentieth century.

1988: “In a letter appearing in today’s Sunday’s New York Times, poet Yehuda Amichai, journalist Amos Elon, and novelists Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua said Prime Minister Shamir “would like to maintain the status quo forever and continue to rule over 1.5 million Palestinians against their will.”

1991: Neil Simon's "Lost in Yonkers" premiered at Richard Rodgers Theater in New York City for the first of 780 performances.

1991: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher delivers the key note address at the retirement dinner honoring Sir Immanuel Jakobovits, Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth.

1992: “This Is My Life,” the movie version of the book by Meg Wolitzer, directed by Nora Ephron who co-wrote the script with her sister Delia Ephron was released today in the United States.

1992: Israeli forces withdrew from two villages in southern Lebanon today, ending a 24-hour thrust against Shiite Muslim guerrillas who had fired salvos of rockets into northern Israel. Hours after the withdrawal, the villages were again filled with gunmen from the pro-Iranian Party of God, and fresh barrages of rockets were fired at Israeli border villages.

1992(17th of Adar I, 5752): In Granot Haglil, five-year old Avia Elizad was killed by a Katyusha fired by Arabs in Lebanon as she ran to meet her father who was returning from work.  Her last words were “Daddy, Daddy!”

1992: A Palestinian fatally stabbed Russian émigré today in Kfar Sava, northeast of Tel Aviv. The assailant, from neighboring Kalkilya on the West Bank, stabbed the woman in the neck with a kitchen knife and wounded three other émigrés before being shot and subdued. Leaflets distributed in Gaza and signed by the Islamic Holy War movement took responsibility for the stabbing.

1992: Opening of “Lou Bernstein: Five Decades of Photographs” an exhibition of his works that covers 20 years of wandering New York from the 1940s to the 1960s.

1993: After a campaign sullied by charges of mischief and wrongdoing, Israeli rabbinical elders and political leaders chose Chief Rabbis today for the Ashkenazic and Sephardic branches of Judaism. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, 56, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, won the closely watched race to represent Ashkenazic JewsNS Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron, 52, of Haifa, won the Sephardic contest

1993(30thof Shevat, 5753): Sixty-eight-year-old cartoon pioneer Harvey Kurtzman passed away today. (As reported by Richard D. Lyons)

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/22/nyregion/harvey-kurtzman-68-cartoonist-who-helped-start-mad-magazine.html

http://www.harveykurtzman.com/

1994(10thof Adar, 5754): Ninety-three-year-old Mary Woodard Lasker, the widow of Albert Davis Lasker with whom she established the Lasker Foundation passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/23/obituaries/mary-w-lasker-philanthropist-for-medical-research-dies-at-93.html

1995(21stof Adar I, 5755): Eighty-six-year-old pathologist Alwin M. (Max) Pappenheimer passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/24/obituaries/alwin-m-pappenheimer-jr-86-shed-light-on-bacterial-toxins.html

1995:Leonard Hoffmann, Baron Hoffmann began serving “as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary” today.

1996(1st of Adar, 5756): Science fiction writer Horace Leonard Gold passed away at the age of 81.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1760058/Horace-L-Gold

19961st of Adar, 5756): Composer and former President of ASCAP Morton Gould passed away at the age of 82. (As reported by Bernard Holland)

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/22/nyregion/morton-gould-composer-and-conductor-dies-at-82.html

1997: Bob Rafelson turned sixty-four today, on the same day which Blood & Wine, the thriller he had directed was released in the United States.

1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Kissinger Transcripts:The Top Secret Talks With Beijing and Moscow,Edited by William Burr and Ex-FriendsFalling Out With Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailerby Norman Podhoretz

1999(5th of Adar, 5759): Gertrude Elion, winner of The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1988,passed away.For more about this fascinating woman in her own words see

 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1988/elion-autobio.html.

1999: At the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Family Heritage Week, with special activities, including creating family trees and special tours, goes on through Sunday. Exhibitions include ''Jewish Life a Century Ago,'' with memorabilia from Jewish rituals and celebrations in Europe in the early 1900's; ''War Against the Jews,'' detailing events from 1933 to 1945, and ''Jewish Renewal,'' focusing on life after the Holocaust comes to an end.

2000: Ninety-two-year-old General Kenneth D. Nichols who played a key role in the development of the Atomic Bomb during WW II and who was one of the driving forces behind removing J. Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance passed away.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/25/us/k-d-nichols-92-leader-in-early-atomic-age.html

2001:As the stench continues to rise from President Clinton’s last minute pardon of March Rich,“Ehud Olmert, the mayor of Jerusalem and one of many prominent Israeli supporters of Marc Rich's successful quest for a presidential pardon, said today that Mr. Rich gave $25,000 to his first mayoral campaign eight years ago.”

2002: The State Department declared that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was dead, a month after he'd been abducted by Islamic extremists in Pakistan.

2002(9thof Adar I, 5762): A Palestinian terrorist shot 22-year-old Minhal Dragma during the killing spree known as the Second Intifada. (Don’t you just love how the terrorists come up with  jazzy names for murder?)

2002: A videotape was released titled “The Slaughter of the Spy-Journalist, the Jew Daniel Pearl.” The video shows Pearl's mutilated body and lasts 3 minutes and 36 seconds.

2003: Rabbi Israel Kestenbaum, an ethics watchdog for a national pastors association and a chaplain of the year for his work at ground zero, assumed a different role today, that of defendant in a child pornography case” on the same day that “an assistant district attorney, Jennifer Steiner, said that computers at the rabbi's home in Highland Park, N.J., had been searched and that the police had found at least one image of child pornography and messages to another under-age girl.”

2004: Bassam al-Asker, one of the murdering terrorists who hijacked the Achille Lauro was erroneously reported to have died today.  (As of 2007, he was supposedly living in Lebanon having spent 14 years training terrorists in Iraq.)

2004(29thof Shevat, 5764): Eighty-four-year-old Milton “Milt” Rubenfeld who flew for the RAF and the USAAF in WW II before ‘becoming one of the five founding pilots of the IAF during Israel’s War of Independence” whose service was vital to the success of the Zionist cause passed away today in Florida.

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~sklausne/NWin04.pdf

2005: Today, Israel freed 500 Palestinian prisoners which was the latest good-will gesture intended to strengthen a truce that has largely seems to be holding up.

2005(12thof Adar I, 5765): Eighty-four-year-old Isabelle Charlotte Weinstein Goldenson, “the wife of American Broadcasting Company founder and chairman Leonard Goldenson, and a co-founder of the charity United Cerebral Palsy” passed away today.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-mar-01-me-goldenson1-story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/05/us/isabelle-goldenson-a-voice-for-people-with-cerebral-palsy-dies-at-84.html

2006: The Jewish author E. L. Doctorow was named the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. The winning work was The March (Random House), his best-selling novel about Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's devastating march through the Confederate South, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Doctorow, who also won the 1990 Pen/Faulkner Award for "Billy Bathgate," will receive a prize of $15,000 from the Washington-based organization, which is "committed to building audiences for exceptional literature and bringing writers together with their readers."

2006: Wafa Sultan, an American author and critic of Muslim society and Islam who trained as a psychiatrist in Syria took part in Al Jazeera's weekly 45-minute discussion program The Opposite Direction. Her comments, especially a pointed criticism that "no Jew has blown himself up in a German restaurant", brought her an invitation to Jerusalem by the American Jewish Congress.

2006(23rd of Shevat, 5766):  Abraham Lopez Cardozo passed away at the age of 91.  The New York cantor was known for his efforts to preserve the music of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews (As reported by Ari L. Goldman)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/arts/music/23cardozo.html

2007: Haaretz reported that only 19,264 people immigrated to Israel in 2006, down nine percent from 2005.

2007: Today,in an interview with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times,” on his 64thbirthday, movie mogul David “Geffen described Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton in unflattering terms saying, ‘Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling’ and that Hillary Clinton was "incredibly polarizing" while Bill Clinton was "reckless” thus casting doubt on those who say he has become a different person since leaving office

2008: In New York, Susannah Heschel presents a lecture entitled “Biblical Scholarship and the Rise of Racism.”

2009(27thof Shevat, 5769): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

2009(27thof Shevat, 5769): Ninety-four-year-old award winning movie director Stanley Donen, the Columbia, S.C. born son of Helen Cohen and dress store manager Mordecai Donen who couldn’t wait to leave his home town, in part because of the anti-Semitism and who gave us some of our greatest movies including “Singing in the Rain and “On the Town” passed away today.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/feb/24/stanley-donen-obituary

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/stanley-donen-director-of-iconic-movie-musicals-dies-at-94/ar-BBTYL2q?ocid=spartandhp

2009: Two and a half weeks after United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon discovered five rockets ready to be launched toward Israel, a Katyusha rocket slammed into the western Galilee near the town of Ma'alot this morning, lightly wounding three people.

2009: The 92ndStreet Y presents “It Started With a Dream: David Zippel—Lyrics He Wrote, Lyrics He Wishes He Wrote”during which the Jewish Tony Award-winner and multiple Oscar, Emmy and Grammy award nominee presents highlights from his own scores and shares his inspirations and personal favorites from the iconic Songbook canon.  

2009: The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus, who leads a small congregation in suburban Chicago, will become the second woman to head the rabbinical assembly of Judaism’s liberal Reform movement.

2010: Family, students and friends, including American historians Jonathan Sarna and Kimmy Caplan will gather at 7 p.m. at Jerusalem’s Yedidiya Synagogue for a memorial symposium marking the 40th anniversary of the death of Rabbi Geffen, who for 60 years was considered the dean of the Southern Orthodox rabbinate in the US.

2010: The Jewish Agency for Israel is scheduled to open its three-day long meeting today in Jerusalem.  The meeting had originally been scheduled to be held in St. Petersburg (Russia, not Florida.)

2010: The Israeli Ballet is scheduled to perform Don Quixote, at the Walt Whitman Theatre in Brooklyn, NY.

2010: A man hurled a suitcase containing a makeshift bomb at Cairo's main downtown synagogue in the early hours this morning, causing no injuries or damage, police said.

2010: The Washington Post featured a review of Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath Morris, a biography about the Hungarian born Jewish immigrant who changed the face of American journalism.

2011: The movies scheduled to be shown today at the Atlanta Jewish Film touch a wide range of Jewish emotions and themes since they include Diary of Anne Frank and American Tail, an animated film about “the immigrant adventure of Russian-Jewish mice that flee persecution in pursuit of the American dream.”

2011: Israeli pianist Idith Meshulam is scheduled to perform the second annual Music Of Now Marathon in New York City.

2011: Suez Canal officials said today that two Iranian naval vessels were expected to start their passage through the strategic waterway early tomorrow. If the ships make the passage, it would mark the first time in three decades that Iranian military ships have travelled the canal that links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

2012: Sue Eckstein is scheduled to discuss her latest novel “Interpreters” in London as part of Jewish Book Week.

2012: Pam Fox is scheduled to discuss “A Place to Call My Jewish Home: Memories of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue 1911-2011” in London as part of Jewish Book Week.

2012: Joshua Cohen, Ruth Franklin and Adam Kirsch are scheduled to participate in “In the Beginning Were Words: The Greatest Jewish Books” at the 92nd St Y in Manhattan

2012: IDF and Israel Police forces conducting anti-smuggling operations foiled a potential terrorist attack when they discovered a powerful explosive device being brought into the country.The authorities believe the intended target was IDF forces that patrol the southern border. (As reported by the Jerusalem Post Staff) 

2012: As tensions in Israel continue to rise due to threat of a nuclear Iran, the deputy head of the Islamic Republic's armed forces was quoted by a semi-official news agency as saying today that Iran would take preemptive action against its enemies if it felt its national interests were endangered "Our strategy now is that if we feel our enemies want to endanger Iran's national interests, and want to decide to do that, we will act without waiting for their actions," Mohammad Hejazi told Fars news agency.

2013: In London, The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide is scheduled to mark LGBT history month with a “screening two of the earliest sympathetic depictions of same-sex attraction in the history of cinema” which “were created in the German Weimar Republic.”

2013: The Center for Jewish History and Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present a concert, “The Best of the Classics.”

2013: In New York, Temple Shaaray Tefila is scheduled to host a Klezmer Jam.

2013(11thof Adar, 2013): Fast of Esther

2013: Three men were found guilty today of planning a “spectacular bombing campaign” in the UK, including an attack on a synagogue.

2013: Today President Shimon Peres exhorted the European Union and its member states to place Hezbollah on their terror lists, and warned Lebanon against initiating violence against Israel.

2014: Congregation Har Tzeon-Agudath Achim in Silver Spring, MD is scheduled to host “Rockin’ Moroccan Shabbat Dinner” this evening.

2014: “Hundreds of copies of The Diary of Anne Frank and related books were vandalized in libraries in Tokyo, news reports said today. Library officials notified police after some pages of at least 265 copies of the diary and books about Anne Frank were found to have been ripped out at 31 libraries since January.”

2014: When attempts to disperse Palestinians who were throwing stones at soldiers beyond the border fence, IDF soldiers opened live fire at "the lower extremities of the main instigators" in an attempt to disperse them.

2014: In Iowa City, Avremel and Chaya Blesofsky invite the community to attend the brit of their son.

2015: Yevgenia Pikovsky, Elyakum Salzman – violin; Dmitri Ratush, Vladislav Krasnov – viola; Felix Nemirovsky, Yaacov Kashin – cello; Uri Arbel - double bass and Marianna Sorkin – piano are scheduled to perform a program of Russian music at the Eden-Tamir Music Cener.

2015: Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the State Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio.

2015(2ndof Adar, 5775): Fifty-eight-year-old filmmaker Bruce Sinofsky passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/movies/bruce-sinofsky-documentary-filmmaker-dies-at-58.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2015: In Oslo, “hundreds of non-Jews including many Muslims” are scheduled “to encircle the synagogue as a gesture of outrage at the shooting at the Danish synagogue by a Muslim fanatic” who murdered 37-year-old Dan Uzin who was providing security during a bat mitzvah celebration. (JTA)

2016(12thof Adar I, 5776): Eighty-three-year-old attorney and conservationist Henry Diamond passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/science/allen-roses-who-upset-common-wisdom-on-cause-of-alzheimers-dies-at-73.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2016(12thof Adar I, 5776): Ninety-four-year-old Rabbi Yohanan Sofer passed away early this morning in Jerusalem.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/venerated-leader-of-the-erlau-hasidic-sect-dies-at-93/

2016: “Court Vacancy” published today described the confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo.

http://www.thegazette.com/subject/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/letter-follow-hoovers-lead-to-fill-court-vacancy-20160221

2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Yid by Paul Goldberg and West of Eden: An American Place by Jean Stein.

 2016: As part of the Breman Museum’s “Bearing Witness” series, Mariella Crea is scheduled to the story of her family who “rescued French Jews being transported to the concentration camps by train” and smuggling them “to safety in Switzerland.”

2016: The Jewish Genealogical Society of New York and the American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to sponsor Gene Milgrom’s discussion of her work “documenting an unbroken maternal lineage back to 1480 in Pre-Inquisition Spain and Portugal.”

2017: “Families waited in silent clusters in a century-old Jewish cemetery” in University City, MO where “they came with a single question: Was the grave of a loved one among the nearly 200 that had been vandalized here over the weekend?” (As reported by Monica Davey and Alan Blinder)

2017(25thof Shevat, 5777): Ninety-seven-year-old Leah Frances (Posner) Adler, the Cincinnati born daughter of Philip and Jennie Posner and longtime owner of The Milky Way kosher restaurant who happened to be the mother of filmmaker Steven Spielberg passed away today.

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/LATimes/obituary.aspx?page=lifestory&pid=184237455

https://variety.com/2017/film/obituaries-people-news/leah-adler-dead-dies-steven-spielberg-mother-1201993407/

2017(25thof Shevat, 5777): Ninety-five-year-old Kenneth Joseph “Ken” Arrow, the New York born son Romanian Jewish immigrants Harry and Lillian (Greenberg) Arrow and Nobel award winning economist passed away today.

https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Arrow.html

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1972/arrow/biographical/

2017: “President Trump called anti-Semitic violence “horrible” and vowed today to take steps to counter extremism in comments that followed criticism that the White House had not clearly denounced vandalism and threats targeting Jewish institutions. (As reported by Fred Barbash, Ben Guarino and Brian Murphy)

2017: As part of its celebration of Black History Month, in Atlanta, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host its “second annual Historic Jewish Atlanta Tour” devoted to the Civil Rights movement.

2017: ‘Der Golem” is scheduled to be shown at JW3, the Jewish Community Centre in London.

2017: Rabbi David Wolpe is scheduled to “present an in-depth profile” of the story of “King David” as part of the “The Bible: The Greatest Stories Ever Told” at the Streicker Center.

2017: Rachel Joselson and Rene Lecuona are scheduled to present “Songs from the Holocaust” at the Voxman Music Building in Iowa City.

http://www.thegazette.com/subject/life/arts/music/calling-from-the-darkness-music-written-by-holocaust-victims-recorded-in-new-album-20161223

2018: The Steicker Center is scheduled to host “Einstein’s Brain: A (Gray) Matter of Dispute where a panel including Dr. Amir Amedia, a brain scientist at Hebrew University “will explore questions such as How should we treat Einstein’s legacy in the 21st century? And How do we explain his genius and understand his enormous contributions?”

2018: In honor of Black History Month, The Literary Guild of St. Simons Island, Inc, The Coastal Georgia Historical Society,Temple Beth Tefilloh and the College of Coastal Georgia are scheduled to host  a screening of “Rosenwald, a documentary of how two men, Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington, in the early decades of the twentieth century, together helped finance and build 5,357 elementary schools for African American children throughout the segregated South.”

2018: At the University of Virginia, the Brody Center is scheduled to host “Bagels on the Lawn” followed in the evening by the “4thYear Seminar: Judaism and Post College Life.”

2018: Shlomo “Momo” Filber, “one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest and longest-serving aides appeared ready to incriminate him today after agreeing overnight to become a government witness, the latest twist in a spiraling graft scandal that seemed to dim Mr. Netanyahu’s legal and political chances of survival almost by the hour.” (As reported by Isabel Kershner and David M. Halbfinger)

2018: Today, “the Israeli army revealed that the Military Intelligence Unit 8200 foiled an Islamic State attempt to bomb a flight from Australia last August.” (As reported by Judah Ari Gross)

2019: In Lafayette, CA, Cantor Leigh Korn who got his musical start at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA is scheduled to be joined by “his cantorial friends from around the U.S.” for a “Cantors’ Concert” at Temple Isaiah.

2019: In San Francisco, “Jerusalem-based professor and political analyst Reuven Hazan” is scheduled to deliver a lecture “Making Sense of Israeli Politics” in which addresses the upcoming elections in Israel..

2019: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “a lecture on genealogy tools for those interested in researching Jewish community records and Jewish life in the Sephardi or Mizrahi Diaspora.”

2020: In Newton, MA, Temple Emanuel is scheduled to host a “Yiod’s roaring ‘20s Shabbat dinner” following Kabbalat Shabbat Services.

2020: The Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture is scheduled to host Kabbalat Shabbat service and dinner that includes the wit of comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi.

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host the traditional Friday Night Dinner followed by the “termly presidential elections.”

2020: Klezmatics co-founder and accordionist Lorin Sklamberg is scheduled to join Latvian singer Sasha Lurje and fiddler Craig Judelman for old folk ballads, Yiddish theater songs and more tonight at the Jefferson Center for the Arts.

2020: In San Francisco, the Contemporary Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “The Denim Sefer Torah Mantles at Sha’ar Zahav” during which Artist Avi Goldberg shares the story behind the unique Sha’ar Zahav Torah mantles that are included in the Levi Strauss exhibit.

2020: In Coralville, IA, “a chavurah of parents” is scheduled to meet for a Family Friday, which begins with a potluck vegetarian dinner complete with Mac and Cheese.

2021: The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Bugsy Siegel: The Dark of the American Dream by Michael Shnayerson and The Delivery by Peter Mendelsund.

2021: The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to launch a campaign “Inspiring Teachers, Changing Lives” which will feature “Tanya White, Rabbi Dr Raphael Zarum, Prof. Daniel Rynhold, S&P Senior Rabbi Dweck and many more.”

2021: The Friends of the Israel Philharmonic is scheduled to host Alex Ross as he shares insights from his newest book,Wagnerism, a biography of the composer whose works have never been played by the Israeli philharmonic

2021: The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County is scheduled to present via Zoom, Dr. Jay Levin speaking on “Relationships During the Covid-19 Pandemic.”

2021: Thanks to “a generous gift from the Goldring Family Foundation, The Center for Jewish-Multicultural Affairs (CJMA) and the New Orleans Public Library are able to present a discussion of Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario as part of the Yiddish Book Center’s national “Coming to America” Reading Groups for Public Libraries program.

2021: “After hundreds of volunteers too part yesterday in a cleanup operation of the Israeli shoreline,” investigations are scheduled to continue “to determine the cause of an oil spill that threatens beach and wildlife.”

 

 

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

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February 22

 1290 BCE:  The coronation of Ramses II, who, according to some, is the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Since the Bible does not mention the Pharaoh by name, Ramses is not the only candidate.  In addition to which, there is some debate among Egyptologist as to when Ramses actually came to power.  According to some, his reign began in 1297 BCE. 

1040: On the secular calendar birthdate of Rashi ישר, an acronym for Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac or Shlomo Yitzchaki.  Rashi was one of the greatest commentators on the TaNaCh and the Talmud. Rashi was born at Troyes, Champagne, northern France, in 1040 and died there in 1104 or 1105. He was reputedly descended from the Davidic line with lineage to the royal house of King David. He studied at Worms under Yaakov ben Yakar, and at Mainz under Isaac ben Judah. He returned to Troyes at age 25, probably serving as Rabbi and “religious judge.”  According to the Dictionary of Jewish Biography, as a judge and a rabbi, “he was unpaid…and he earned his living from the vineyards that he is reported to have owned.” [Editor’s note: Like Maimonides, Rashi followed the admonitions that he who makes a spade of the Torah shall perish and calling upon people to work for a living as well as studying Torah.]  About 1070 he founded a Yeshiva which attracted many disciples. According to tradition Rashi earned his living as a vintner and/or as a wine merchant. Although there are many legends about his travels, Rashi likely never went farther than from the Seine to the Rhine - the utmost limit of his travels was the Yeshivot of Lorraine. Rashi had no sons, only three daughters, Yocheved, Miriam and Rachel, all of whom married scholars. Yocheved married Meir ben Samuel, Miriam married Judah ben Nathan (see above), and Rachel married (and divorced) Eliezer ben Shemiah. Yocheved and Meir's four sons were the tosafists Shmuel (Rashbam), Yaakov (Rabbeinu Tam), Yitzchak (Ribbam), and the grammarian Shlomo; one of their daughters, Channah, wrote a responsum explaining the ritual and blessing for the Shabbat lights. Besides minor works, such as an edition of the Siddur (Prayer-Book), Rashi wrote two great commentaries on which his fame rests. These were the commentaries on the whole of the TaNaCh (Hebrew Bible) and on about thirty tractates of the Talmud. Rashi's works are so well respected that he is often cited simply as "the Commentator." His commentaries are of interest to secular scholars because he tended to translate unfamilar words into the spoken French of his day. As such, his commentaries offer an interesting insight into the vocabulary and pronunciation of Old French. The authors of the Dictionary of Jewish Biography and The New Encyclopedia of Judaism agree that “although Troyes (Rashi’s city of residence) was untouched by the First Crusade of 1096…the last years of his life were saddened by the devastation that the Crusaders brought to bear on “defenseless Jewish communities of the Rhineland” in general and “the disasters which had befallen his own colleagues.

 Commentary on the TaNaCh

Rashi's commentary on the TaNaCh is very thorough, and is used to understand both the plain meaning of the TaNaCh and the interpretation of the medieval rabbis. His commentary is often used in basic, intermediate, and advanced studies of the TaNaCh. There are a small number of commentaries that bear his name that were not authored by him, but by his students. Rashi's commentary on the Torah has become an indispensable part of the framework of Orthodox Judaism - tens of thousands, men and women alike, daily study "Chumash with Rashi" (Chumash = Pentateuch + corresponding portions from the Prophets) in reviewing the Parsha to be read on the next Shabbat. Rashi's explanation of Chumash, clarifies the "simple" meaning of the text so that a bright child of five could understand it. At the same time, it is the crucial foundation of some of the most profound legal analysis and mystical discourses that came after it. Since its publication, this commentary has been included as a standard in almost all Chumashim produced within the Orthodox community. Supercommentaries on this work include Gur Aryeh by Rabbi Judah Loew (Maharal), Sefer ha-Mizrachi by Rabbi Elijah Mizrachi (Re'em) and Yeri'ot Shlomo by Rabbi Solomon Luria (Maharshal). Almost all later commentaries will discuss Rashi either bringing His view as a support or debating it

Commentary of the Talmud

Rashi also wrote the first comprehensive commentary of the Talmud. His commentary attempts to provide a full explanation of the words, and of the logical structure of each Talmudic passage. Unlike other commentators, Rashi does not paraphrase or exclude any part of the text, but carefully elucidates the whole of the text. He also exerted a decisive influence on establishing the correct text of the Talmud. He compared different manuscripts and determined which readings should be preferred. His work became such a standard that it is included in all printed versions of the Talmud.Rashi's Talmud commentary is always situated towards the middle of the opened book display; i.e. on the side of the page closest to the binding. The semi-cursive font in which the commentaries are printed is often referred to as "Rashi script." This does not mean that Rashi himself used such a script, only that the printers standardly employ it for commentaries. Daniel Bomberg, a Christian printer from Venice, introduced "Rashi script" in his publication of Rashi's commentary on the Tanakh in 1517. Rashi's commentary, which covers almost all of the Babylonian Talmud, has been printed in every version of the Talmud since the first Italian printings. Rashi did not compose commentaries for every tractate of the Babylonian Talmud. Some of the printed commentaries which are attributed to him were composed by others, primarily his students. In some commentaries, the text indicates that Rashi died before completing the tractate, and that it was completed by a student. This is true of the tractate Makkot, the concluding portions of which were composed by his son-in-law Rabbi Judah ben Nathan and of Bava Batra finished (in a more detailed style) by his grandson, Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (also known as the Rashbam), one of the prominent contributors to the Tosafot.“Rashi’s responsa (replies to inquiries on matters of Jewish law) …are characterized by liberality and humility…He ruled that it is permissible to interrupt the grace after meals to fee ones animals, basing the decision other scriptural injunction for a man to feed his animals before himself.  On one occasion he told his questioner, ‘I was asked this question before but I realize that my answer then was wrong and I welcome the opportunity to correct my mistake.’”  There are places in his commentaries where admits that he does not understand the meaning.  “Of this I do not know.” 

Rashi in his own words:

“Any plan formulated in a hurry is foolish.”

“Be sure to ask your teacher his reasons and his sources.”

“Teachers learn from their student’s discussions.”

“A student of laws who does not understand their meaning or cannot explain their contradictions is just a basket full of books.”

“Do not rebuke your fellow man so as to shame him in public.”

“To obey out of love is better than to obey out of fear.”

“” All the 613 commandments are included in the Decalogue.”

1217(6thof Adar, 4977): Judah ben Samuel of Regensburg passed away. Born in 1140 in Speyer, he was also called He-Hasid or 'the Pious' in Hebrew and was the initiator of the Chassidei Ashkenaz, a movement of Jewish mysticism in Germany. “This movement is considered different from kabbalistic mysticism because it emphasizes specific prayer and moral conduct. Judah settled in Regensburg in 1195. He wrote Sefer Hasidim (Book of the Pious) and Sefer Hakavod (Book of Glory). The latter has been lost and is only known by quotations that other authors have made from it. His most prominent students were Elazar Rokeach and Moses ben Jacob of Coucy.

1288: Papacy of Nicholas IV began. Like many medieval popes, Nicholas IV displayed a mixed attitude toward the Jews. On the one hand, he issued various instructions (1288) to the inquisitors to proceed against *Conversos and he renewed earlier legislation concerning the Jews in Portugal, compelling them to wear a *badge. On the other hand, he specifically protected the Jews of Rome from being molested by Christians (January 1291). He wrote to Emperor Rudolph requesting the release of *Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg from prison. There is a belief that he enlisted the services of the Jewish physician and scholar Isaac b. Mordecai Maestro Gaio, who also attended Boniface VIII and who was the first of the Italian Jewish papal physicians. (As described in the Jewish Virtual Library)

1349: In Zurich, Switzerland, the town council tried to protect the Jews of the town, they were forced to give in to the mob, resulting in the murder of many of the Jewish inhabitants. The Jews were then forced to leave.

1455: Birthdate of Johann Von Reuchlin the German linguist who came to the defense of the Jews when Dominican Friars led by Johann Pfefferkorn sought imperial support to destroy a vast array of Jewish books.

1475: The first known Hebrew book, a copy of the TaNaCh, was printed in Italy.

1495: King Charles VIII of France enters Naples to claim the city's throne.  Following the expulsion from Spain, Jews had found refuge in Naples thanks to King Ferdinand of Naples.  When Ferdinand died his son Alfonso replaced him on the throne.  Charles deposed Alfonso.  During his short lived reign over the Italian city, the situation of the Jews worsened.  Fortunately, a mixed bag of political and religious leaders drove Charles back to France.  Unfortunately, the Jews of Naples would be expelled from their Italian haven in 1510.

1501: On this day and the following day, two tremendous auto-de-fe's took place in Toledo. A woman prophet and over 100 of her followers were burned. The woman envisioned those Jews who had previously died as martyrs were taken to heaven, and the Jewish Messiah was speedily going to return the Jews to the Promised Land.

1520: Birthdate of Moses Isserles, the Ashkenazic rabbi from Cracow best known for writing HaMapah (The Table Cloth) a “gloss” on The Shulchan Aruch (Set Table) of Joseph Karo.  Karo relied primarily on Sephardic sources. Isserles used Ashkenazic sources to create a table cloth that would cover the set table thus making Caro’s work viable for the large number of Jews living in Northern and Eastern Europe.

1530: Coronation in Italy of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor who provided Josel of Rosheim with “a charter or letter of protection from for the whole of German Jewry but who alos  “issued a proclamation again the Jews who had not been baptized” which may have applied to the Jews he ruled as King of Spain.

1590:  Archduke Maximilian granted the Jews of Mergentheim, Markelsheim, Igersheim and Unterbalbach the right to continue to bury their dead above the village of Unterbalbach for an annual payment of 16 Gulden to the Monastery of Mergentheim

1618(27th of Shevat): Rabbi Tanhum Ha-Kohen of Cracow passed away today.

1656: The Jews in New Amsterdam are granted, "A little hook of land situate [sic] outside of this city for a burial place." This cemetery land was located by the Bowery, near Oliver Street in what is now lower Manhattan. It would be another month before Jews were granted the right to own real estate.  Public Jewish worship would not be an accepted matter of fact until the turn of the century.  The establishment of a burial society and cemetery is a matter of major importance for any Jewish community.   It was sign of permanence and belonging.  Following the defeat of the Dutch by the English in 1664, New Amsterdam would become New York. 

1732: At Pope’s Creek in Westmorland County, VA, Augustine and Mary Ball Washington gave birth to George Washington. Several Jew’s served with Washington during the Revolutionary War.  When Washington was elected President, he sent amicable letters to different Jewish communities assuring them that Jews were welcome in the United States.  The tone set by Washington helped to make the American experience different for the Jews than anything they had known in their history. As he said in his famous letter written to the Jews of Newport, “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants--while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

1753: Birthdate of Boston native Rachel Andrews, the daughter of Abraham Andrews and the wife of Myer Moses with whom she had six children – Priscilla, Eleanor, Myer, Isaac, Esther and Bella – who later became Rachel Andrews Woolf when she married Solomon Woolf.

1755: Benedict XIV issued Beatus Andreas a Papal Bull that confirmed the blood libel as factual. ”The Bull reviewed the cases of ritual murder by Jews, which it explicitly upholds as a fact, and establishes the beatification but not the canonization of Andreas of Rinn and Simon of Trent”

1755: In New York, Sarah Nunes Navaro and Aaron Nunez Cardozo gave birth to Moses Nunez Cardozo, the husband of Gitlah Moses.

1757: In Charlestown, SC, Michael Lazarus and his wife gave birth to merchant  Marks Lazarus, the veteran of the veteran of the Revolutionary War and husband of Rachel Benjamin.

1775: The Jews were expelled from outskirts of Warsaw, Poland.

1781: During the American Revolution Isaac Franks, who had been serving as “forage-master” at West Point, was commissioned as an ensign in the 7thMassachusetts Regiment.  He served in that capacity until 1782 when he resigned due to health problems. 

1783: In Bonfeld, Germany, Schoenle Lazarus and Lazarus Ruben gave birth to Samuel Ottenheimer, the husband of Judith Jacobs and father of Jette Ottenheimer who later married Amalie Wimpfheimer with whom he had one son – Lazarus Ottenheimer.

1785: Philadelphia born Miriam Simon and German born Michael Gratz gave birth to Joseph Gratz sixteen years after they had been married in Lancaster, PA.

1788:  Birthdate of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who has nothing to positive to say about human existence.  For him, life is harsh and cruel.  If this is so obvious, Schopenhauer asks why there are any optimists in the world. Schopenhauer argues that ‘the aggressively optimistic philosophers of the Western World have fallen victim to a vulgar buoyancy which is rooted in the Jewish Tradition!”  In his most famous work The World as Will and Ideathe philosopher says Jewish traditional optimism reflects "a self-congratulatory human egoism, which is blind to all except our (own) all too frail human goals and aspirations."

1791: Lilie Marx and Samuel Strauss gave birth to Jitle Strauss.

1793: Birthdate of Isaak Markus Jost, the native of Bernburg who overcame poverty and the loss of his father while still a child to become one of the early creators of modern Jewish historical writing.

1800(27thof Shevat, 5560): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1812: Birthdate of Moses (Moyses) Baruch Auerbach who gained fame as poet and author Berthold Auerbach whose early efforts included a biography about Spinoza and a text entitled Judaism and Recent Literature.

1814: Birthdate of Bavaria native Dr. Sigismund Waterman who came to the United States in the 1830’s where he graduated from Yale and who was the father of Helena (Wolf) Waterman and the father of Dr. Moses W. Waterman.

1816: In St. Thomas, French native Jacob Baiz and Leah Baiz gave birth to Hannah Nanette Henriquez Moron, the wife of Jacob Henriquez Moron today.

1817: Birthdate of Berlin native Karl Wilhelm Borchardt, the Konigsberg educated mathematician who studied in Paris before becoming “privat-docent at the University of Berlin.”

1818: Birthdate of Copenhagen, Denmark native Amalia Monies, the wife of Stockholm native Charles Kann and the mother of Albert, Ellen, Jenny and Ellen Kann.

1818: Philadelphia native Benjamin Jonas Phillips and Abigail Seixas who had married in 1804 gave birth to Rebecca Phillips.

1819: The United States of America and Spain signed the Florida Purchase Treaty which gave the United States complete control over what is now the Sunshine State.  Within 2 years, records show that 30 to 40 Jews lived in northern Florida including Moses Levy a Moroccan born lumber dealer who built a Jewish colony in an area that is now home to the University of Florida.  Abraham Myers, a West Pointer who served during the Seminole Wars was one of the first Jews to live in south Florida.

1820: In New York, Phoebe Magnus and Abraham David Cohen gave birth to Elizabeth D. A. Cohen the Philadelphia College of Medicine trained physician and husband of Aaron Cohen, who was the first practicing female physician in Louisiana and who was buried in the Gates of Prayer Cemetery in New Orleans, the city in which she served as a doctor.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/cohen-elizabeth-da

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/elizabeth-d-a-magnus-cohen

1821: In Hamburg, Germany Dr. David Assing and Rosa Maria Assing gave birth to authoress Ludmilla Assing.

1828: The final letter of correspondence between Lazarus Jacob Riesser and his son Gabriel was written today.

1828: In Vilnius, Abraham Bar Lebensohn and his wife gave birth to the Hebrew poet Micah Joseph Lebensohn. His brother-in-law Joshua Steinberg who was an author in his own right and functionary in the Russian government translated some of his Hebrew works into German.

1837: Nathan Lewis married Harriette Moses at the Great Synagogue today.

1839: In Hamburg, Kalmar Calman and Betty Friedburg gave birth Adolf Calman who served as a rabbi at several New York congregations including Beth Israel Bikur Cholim and Etz Chaim of Yorkville.

1840: Birthdate of Smorgon, Belarus native Robert Brudno who moved to England in 1867 and then to Dublin, Ireland where he gained fame as Robert Bradlaw, the dentist known as the “prince of immigrants” who founded a “new chera kadisha and Cemetery Dolphin’s Barn” and a new synagogue after the Dublin Hebrew Congregation “had reportedly denied him membership.

1840:  Birthdate of August Bebel, a German social democrat and founder of the Social Democrat Party of Germany.  The non-Jewish Bebel was committed to the concept of the brotherhood of man and one of his famous statements was, "Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools."

1843: In Hamburg, Germany, Joseph Luebke and his wife gave birth to M.J. Luebek who after serving as rabbi “Congregation Bikur Cholim and Gates of Prayer, became the “Cantor and Lecturer at Shaare Zedek in Brooklyn, NY.

1847: In Germany, M.A. and Sophia Stern gave birth to Louis Stern.  After the family moved to Albany, Louis was sent to Petersburg, W. Va. “to learn the rudiments of merchandizing in the small store of any uncle after which he moved to New York where he and his brothers – Isaac, Bernard and Benjamin - opened the dry goods store that became known as Stern Brothers, that classier than Wanamakers and B. Altman’s but never quite reached the level of Lord and Taylor or Bonwit Teller.

1848: Beginning of the “The Third French Revolution” which replaced Citizen King Louis Philippe with the Second Republic.

1850: In Bavaria, Meier Rice and Fanny Sohn gave birth to Columbia trained attorney Isaac Leopold Rice, the husband of Julia Hynemann Barrnett, the Columbia lecturer and namesake for Rice Stadium who as a businessman played a key role in the development of submarines and was a famous chess player known as the inventor of the Rice Gambit.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/rice-isaac-leopold

1851: Birthdate date of Julius Harburger, the Tammany political leader who served as Coroner of New York County and Sheriff of New York County.

1852: Martin Beir, the secretary and treasurer of the Milton Clark Company, an insurance agency in Rochester, NY married 17 year old Clara Hirsch, the daughter of Wolf and Eva Hirsch. (Clara passed away at the age of 39 and Beir never remarried.  In 1898, he was chosen to head B’nai B’rith for the state of New York.

1852: Solomon Isaacs married Esther Hart today at the Great Synagouge.

1853: Founding of Eliot Seminary in St. Louis which would become Washington University. According to recently published figures Wash U has 2,000 Jewish undergraduates who are 33% of the student population. This helps to rank it as number 11 on a list of the 30 private schools Jews choose.

1854(24 Shevat, 5614): Austria Rabbi Abraham Neuda, the native of Moravia who was the son of Rabbi Aaron Neuda of Loštice, and the nephew of Rabbi Jacob Neuda of Lomnitz (Lomnice), Moravia and the husband of author Fanny Schmiedl passed away today.

1854: One day after he had passed away, 61 year old Abraham Harris was buried today a the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1855: The New York Times reported that a concert designed to raise funds for the Hebrew Benevolent Society is scheduled to be held at the Dodsworth Academy.

1855:  Pennsylvania State University is founded.  Today Penn State has approximately 4,000 Jewish undergraduate and graduate students out of a total student population of over 40,000.  The university offers approximately 45 Jewish Studies courses.  Penn State offers both a major and a minor in Jewish studies.

1856: The Republican Party holds its first national meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Early Jewish Republican supporters included Sabato Morais, Rabbi of Philadelphia’s Mikveh Israel Congregation; Moritz Pinner, a German born editor of an abolitionist paper who would fight in the Union Army during the Civil War; Louis Naphtali Dembitz, a Louisville lawyer whose nephew would become the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice.  Jews were drawn to the Republican Party because of its anti-Slavery stance.  Ironically, another group drawn to the Republican Party were members of the short-lived American Party, also called “The Know-Nothing” Party.  The Know-Nothings were natavist who were opposed to the swelling tide of immigration, a belief that included more than just a whiff of anti-Semitism.

1857: Birthdate German born physicist Heinrich Hertz. He was the first one to broadcast and receive radio waves.  The unit of measure “hertz” is named for him.  Hertz was born into a Jewish family that converted to Christianity.  The German Jewish community was devastated two times: first by conversions in the 19th century and then by the Final Solution in the 20th century.  One wonders how many of those who perished in the latter were from families who had participated in the former.

1859: Ephraim Alex, the Overseer of the Great Synagogue secured the adoption of the following resolutions designed to help “the strange and foreign poor”:

(1) That it is highly expedient that the relief of the strange poor be managed by a Board of Guardians constituted of delegates from the three City Uniting Congregations.

 (2) That the following gentlemen be appointed the delegates of this Board with power to meet the delegates appointed by the other two congregations and make such arrangements with them for one year as shall seem most desirable to affect the desired object, viz., Messrs. E. Alex, Samuel Moses, Lewis Jacobs, S. A. Jonas, Joseph Lazarus, Jacob Waley, M.A., and Lionel L. Cohen.

(3) That £220 be placed at the disposal of such Board of Guardians for one year to be paid in monthly instalments.

(4) That the Secretary of the Synagogue do attend the meetings of the Board of Guardians when requested and finish all information, books or documents bearing on the relief of the strange poor.

1860: The New York Times reported that “The community of Kingston, 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.”

1861: Bell and Daly announced the upcoming publication of The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, by Isaac Taylor

1861: According to reports sent from Paris today, the arrest of Jules Mires has threatened the stability of the Credit Mobilier.  It is expected that when word of his arrest reaches Constantinople, ruinous panic will set in since investors there hold a glut of paper tied to his financial activities.

1864: In Russia, Abraam Markovich Wilenkin and Rachel Wilenkin gave birth to lawyer and diplomat Gregory Wilinken who served as personal secretary to Count Witte, “the first Jewish member of the Russian diplomatic corps and the attaché at the Russian embassies in Washington and Tokyo who was the husband of Irma Sara Wilenkin.

Husband of Irma Sara Wilenkin

1865: The Richmond Examiner described the condition of Charleston, SC when it fell to Union forces under the command of General Sherman. According to the Examiner, all that the Yankees found was “the abandoned hull of Charleston” inhabited by “a few Jews” and “some telegraph operators.”

1868: In Amsterdam, Marianne Smit and diamond cutter Mozes Polake gave birth to Henri Polak the founder of the Dutch Social Democratic Workers’ Party and longtime President of the General Diamond Workers’ Union of the Netherlands who died of pneumonia before the Nazis could ship him to a concentration camp in 1943.

1868: Birthdate of Charles Pearce Coady, a Democrat who served as a Congressman from Maryland’s Third District and was one of the opening speakers at the 13th annual convention of the Order of Brith Shalom in Baltimore.

1868: In New York City, Elizabeth Fournier and Myron Baruch gave birth Emanuel Barcuh, the graduate of Columbia University who served as Professor Bacteriology and Pathology at the Flower Hospital and Medical College.

1869: In Kaiserslautern, thirty-five-year-old Abraham Weil, the German born son of Salomon Weil and Helena Lea Meyer married Berta Seligmann, a native of France

1871: Dr. Henry W. Schneeberger received his formal rabbinical ordination from Dr. Hildesheimer. In the document of ordination Dr. Hildesheimer testified to Henry’s high moral character and to his devotion to Judaism. He also wrote, “He is worthy to be crowned with the crown of Morenu Horav [Our Teacher, the Rabbi].” “Thus equipped with the rabbinic title and with the university degree, he lost no time and hurried home to try out for a rabbinical post. Only three weeks after his ordination in Berlin, he preached at the synagogue where he had delivered his very first sermon, at the Rodeph Shalom Synagogue on Clinton Street in New York City.” Rabbi Dr. Henry W) Schneeberger was the First American Born, University- Educated, Orthodox Ordained Rabbi in America (As reported by Dr. Yitzchok Levine).

1872: “Galicia’s Demands” published today described conditions in this portion of Austria that became part of the empire as a result of the partition of Poland.  According to the article, the Poles are in the majority.  However, the Germans and the Jews, who are in the minority “are far ahead of the Poles” “in money and intelligence.” Due to the electoral system, the Poles are the dominate force and the Germans and the Jews are underrepresented in the Diet.

1873: “Joseph Litten, the president of the Jewish community in Konigsberg” and his wife gave birth to professor and jurist Friedrich Julius Litten who became a Lutheran “in order to further his career” but who was also the father of Hans Litten, the lawyer who defended opponents  of the Nazis and died at Dachau.

1874: In Alytaus, Lithuania, “Jacob and Rebecca Fritz Chase” gave birth to Edward Max Chase,(Reb Azriel Mordecai son of Reb Yaakov) the Lewiston, ME educated president of E.M. Chase Company of Manchester where his civic activities included founding the “Chase Memorial and Manchester Hebrew Free Loan Association,” serving as “state treasurer of all drives for Jewish war sufferers and state chairman of the Jewish Welfare Board” while being married to Dora Samplin Chase with whom he had four children – Jasper, Eleanor, Helene and Clara Chase.

1876: In New York City, a Polish Jew was arraigned on charges of cruelty to animals.  According to the arresting officer, Siwaski roasted a rat after he had caught in a wire cage trap. 

1876:  Johns Hopkins University was founded in Baltimore, Maryland.  Today, the elite school has approximately 750 Jewish students out of a student population of 6,500.  The university offers 45 courses in Jewish Studies and a major in Jewish Studies.

1878: It was reported today that Rabbi Maruice Treichenberg, who had served as the spiritual leader for the Greene-Street Synagogue, has passed away in Denver, Colorado.

1880: In Mason, TN, “Michael and Bettie (Lyons) Cohn gave birth to Saidie Cohn the Little Rock High School and Stone’s Business College graduate who became married Ephriam Eichenabaum, becoming Sadie Cohen Eichenbaum, the mother of Charles and Howard Samuel Eichenbaum who was President of the Little Rock Section of the Council of Jewish Women and “one of the first four women to serve on the Board of Tempe B’nai Israel, Little Rock’s Reform congregation.

1880: In New York, a meeting is scheduled to be held this afternoon at the Sons of Israel Synagogue to evaluate charges by Jewish butchers that they are being forced to violate Halachah by the wholesalers who employ them.  According to the butchers, the wholesalers are having them keep meat for a period longer than that allowed by law and they are not allowed to warn their customers about this.  The wholesalers deny the allegations.

1880: Professor Felix Adler delivered a lecture today on the subject of “Catholicism and Liberty” in which he took issue with the view of Cardinal Manning. Speaking on behalf of the Church, Manning has taken issue with the concept of the equality of man and the theory that government’s authority is derived from the will of the people.

1881(23rdof Adar I, 5641): In Jersey, eighty-eight-year-old Mary Asher, the widow of Benjamin Asher and the mother of Asher Asher passed away today.

1882: The SS Illinois a ship carrying Jewish refugees from Russia is expected to arrive in Philadelphia, PA today.  The 50 Jewish families are escaping the violent attacks now going on the Czar’s domain.  A committee of prominent Christians including the Mayor and leading Jews has developed plans to care for the refugees including lodging, food and job placement.

1882: Philadelphia’s May King received an offer today from Calvin Jones of Charlotte, NC, offering 40 acres to each of the 50 Jewish refugee families. The land is located in Alexander and Wilkes counties and is described as well watered and suited for growing wheat, corn and tobacco.

1882: In London, Sir Alexander T. Galt, the Resident Minister in Great Britain of the Dominion of Canada, recommended that Russian Jews immigrate to Manitoba while he was attending a meeting of the Lord Mayor’s Jewish Fund Committee.

1883: In Vienna, Rabbi Rahmiel Eibshutz and his wife gave birth to Nathan Eibshutz, “a descendant of Baron Jonathan Eybes Eyeschutz, author and chief rabbi of Hamburg, Prague and Metz” who in the 1890’s came to the United States where he eventually became president of the Night and Day Press, a printing business, and married Monya W. Tepperman after the death of his first wife Celia Friedman and who was active in many Jewish organizations including the Central Jewish Institute, Temple Israel of Long Beach, Long Island and Israel Zion Hospital.

1884: In what was then part of the Kingdom of Hungary, “Mendel Gottesman and Sarah Fischgrund gave birth to David Samuel Gottesman who in 1885 came to the United States where he later went to work in his father’s paper-making business, organized the Central National Bank and contributed to numerous organizations including Yeshiva University.

1884:  Birthdate of boxing Hall of Famer Abraham “Abe” Attell.  Known as “The Little Hebrew,” Attell was Featherweight Champion from 1901 until 1912.  He gained additional notoriety and ignominy as one of the figures alleged to have fixed the 1919 World Series.  Supposedly Attell was the one who actually passed the ten thousand dollars to several White Sox players to guarantee that they would throw the Fall Classic.

1885: Jacob Henry Adler married Barbara Milhauser Adler today in New York after which they had nine children – Jesse, Abraham, Frances, Sara, Arthur, Estelle, Beatrice, Lillian and Herbert.

1885: In Munkacs which at the time part of the kingdom of Hungary Mendel Gottesman and Sarah Fishgrund gave birth to American businessman and philanthropist, the husband of Jeanne Regina Gottesman and father of patron of the arts Celeste Ruth Gottesman.

1886: In Kiev, peddler Isaac Saposnik and Shima Erevsky Saposnik gave birth to University of Wisconsin trained economist Dr. David J. Saposs, who held several government post, wrote both Left Wing Unionism and Communism in American Politics while raising two daughters with his wife Bertha Tigay Saposs

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/11/16/76907905.html?pageNumber=37

1887: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society opened a new facility “for infants and boys over six years old” at 11th Avenue between 150th and 151st Street in New York.

1887: Birthdate of Ksawery Tartakower, the native of Rostov-on-Don who gained famed as Polish and French chess grandmaster Savielly Tartakower.

1887: Henry M. Stanley who had been designated as the leader of the expedition charged with rescuing the apostate Jew Emin Pasha arrived at Zanzibar.

1889 In New York, Annie and Maurice Mordechai Mohrn gave birth to Jessie Mohr, who became Jessie Mohr Danz when she married John Danz and went on to Seattle where she served as an “officer of the Jewish Welfare Society” and the National Council of Women.

1889: In New York, Morris and Sara (Schnitman) Slotkin gave birth to University of Buffalo trained physician George E. Slotkin, the urologist who was Chief of the Venereal Disease Division of the Health Department in Buffalo, NY>

1890: Tonight’s celebration of Washington’s Birthday sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association which will take place at the Hebrew Free School Building will include a speech by Rabbi Rudolph Grossman.

1890:  Birthdate of Ukrainian born British pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch.

1890: Menachem Ussishkin one of the originators of BILU, founded the Odessa Committee. The Committee was dedicated to the practical exponent of the Hovevei Zion movement, in establishing agricultural settlements in Eretz-Israel. Ussishkin later served as President of the Jewish National Fund. He was one of the few early Zionist leaders who actually settled in Eretz-Israel.

1891(14thof Adar I, 5651): Purim Katan

1891: Two days after she had passed away, Rebecca Pollitzer, the Hackney, London born daughter of Michael Coleman and Harriett Phillips, the wife of Sigmund Pollitzer and the mother of Julia, Violetta, Frank and William Pollitzer was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1892: As New York City dealt with an outbreak of Tyhus that had been traced to recent arriving immigrants thirty-two-year-old Solomon Zabalzki and forty-two yeard old Rachel Hesselberg were among those who taken to North Brother Island where those thought to be infected were kept under quarantine.

1892: Sixty-year-old Esther Goodman, Robert Goodman and Sarah Goodman were rescued by firemen when a fire broke out this morning at their apartment in Brooklyn, NY,

1892: It was reported today that “the Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfort and Konigsberg Jewish Relief Committees” will be meeting “to consider the refusal of America to receive Russian Jewish immigrants brought by North German Lloyd steamers.”

1892: In Brest-Litvosk, bakery owners Shaina Wyshengrad and Bezalel Dobnievski gave birth to David Isaac Dobnievski who gained fame as David Dubuinksy  who began working the United States in 1911 as a cloak cutter and two decades later he had risen to the presidency of the International Ladies Garment Union which was a force for social and labor progress that helped end sweatshops and improve the lot of American workers

https://jwa.org/teach/livingthelegacy/biographies/dubinsky-david

1893” In Paris, the famous Alfred Dreyfus and Luciene Eugenie Hadamard gave birth to Jeanne Dreyfus, who became Jeanne Levy when she married Pierre-Paul Louis Levy with whom she had five children.

1893: Birthdate of “Polish born circus performer and vaudeville strongman” Siegmund Breitbart who was billed as “The Superman of the Ages” when he toured the United States in 1923.

http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/

1894: The 14th annual reception sponsored by the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society was held at the asylum’s facility on 151st Street.

1894: Two days after she had passed away, Caroline Magnus, the daughter of Joel Barnett and Sarah Moss and the wife of Jacob Magnus with whom she had had five children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1895(28thof Shevat, 5655): Sixty-seven-year-old Virginius Jenkins Tobias, the Savannah, GA born son of Isabella Bowen and Isaac Tobias who were wed in 1824 passed away tody.

1895: Captain Dreyfus began the journey that would take him to prison in French Guyana

1895: Birthdate of Newcastle, PA native and graduate of Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Alvan L. Barach, “a pioneer in respiratory therapy and developer of the first practical oxygen tent” who was the husband of “the former Frderica Pisek” with whom he had two sons, “Jeffrey and John Paul.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/14/archives/dr-alvan-barach-breathing-expert.html

1896: Birthdate of Ukraine native Joseph K. Alliger who in 1898 came to the United States where he became a “real-estate man and mortgage-investment” banker who was active in the UJA, JNF and HIAS while raising his “two son Martin and Howard” with “his wife, the former Gladys Scheirer.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1978/06/21/archives/obituary-3-no-title.html

1897: Amos J. Cummings will deliver a lecture today on “Horace Greeley” as part of the free lecture course offered at the Hebrew Institute.

1897: The Young Ladies and Gentlemen’s League will host a reception today in honor of George Washington’s Birthday at the Montefiore Home.

1897: The Jewish Alliance will host a reception today at Temple Emanu-El on 5thAvenue in honor George Washington’ Birthday.

1897: “Lehman Gift Accepted” published today provided details of the decision of the Board of Trustees of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society to accept the gift of $100,000 from Emanuel Lehmnan that will serve as an endowment for a fund that will benefit those who had been under the care of the society and were now out on their own.

1898: Seventy-seven-year-old Heungseon Daewongun, the Regent of Korea whom German Jewish businessman Ernst Jakob Oppert attempted to blackmail in an attempt to remove “Korean trading barriers” passed away today.

1898: The managers of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society will host their annual reception in honor of George Washington’s Birthday between 3 and 5 this afternoon.

1898: The Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home will host their fourth annual reception this afternoon in honor of George Washington’s Birthday.

1900: The honorary degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred today on Oscar S. Straus today during the exercises marking the dedication of the new law school at the University of Pennsylvania.

1901(3rdof Adar, 5661): Eighty-nine-year-old Virginia Russell, the daughter of Perla Sheftal and Isaac Russell who were married in 1808 in Savannah and the wife of Mordecai Sheftall) who should not be confused with Georgia merchant and Revolutionary War officer) with whom she had eight children passed away today in Savannah.

1901: On Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Leah (née Goldstein) and Mordecai Marcus gave birth to David Daniel “Mickey” Marcus the West Point graduate and attorney who was the first “Aluf” of the IDF and built the “secret” road to Jerusalem that meant that the ancient city of David would be part of the modern state of Israel.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120329132617/http://www.ajhs.org/scholarship/chapters/chapter.cfm?documentID=286

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

1901: Over the next three days, Herzl writes letters to Zionists in France, Italy, England and America for parliamentary intervention against immigration restrictions in Palestine. He considers transferring the center of his action to London but drops the plan because he does not want to separate from his parents.

1902: Herzl travels to Munich and meets the banker Reitlinger. Herzl proposes the Turkish suggestion of Jewish immigration to Asia Minor and Mesopotamia and the exploitation of mines. Reitlinger considers the matter too costly, risky and unsafe.

1902: Birthdate of Jacob Sack, the Pittsburgh native who played lineman for the Pitt Panthers before going to play professional ball for the nascent NFL.

1902: In Lodz, Poland, Morris and Freida (Alpert) Abbell gave birth to Maxell Abbell, who 1905 came to the United States where he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, earned an MBA from Northwestern and after a career in social work developed the a real estate empire that included the Abell Hotel Chain while serving as the president of the United Synagogue of American, the Vice President of the American Palestine Trading Corporation and raising a family of five children with his wife Fannie.

1903: Birthdate of Brooklyn native and Junior Lightweight boxer Joe Glick who twenty-three year career “included over two hundred bouts” two of which were fights for the Junior Lightweight Title which he lost.

BoxRec: Joe Glick

1903: Boutros Ghali writes the conditions for the Jewish settlement in Sinai.

1903: “The annual reception for all members of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society” is scheduled to be held this afternoon at the Orphan Asylum on Broadway.

1904: Dr. Joseph Silverman delivered an address this evening on “The Jew as a Patriot” at 147th meeting and “banquet of the New York Universalist Club at the St. Denis Hotel during which he said that “We are Jews only in our form of worship” but “we are Americans in thought and feeling.”

1905: It was reported today that leading Jews in Montreal have repudiated the utterances of Moses Vineberg, “said to be head of Russian revolutionary band in New York who is holding meetings with Russian Jews where he rejoices over the” recent assassination of Grand Duke Sergius.

1906: “The tenements at 27 and 29 Goerck Street” in New York have been sold by Hurwitz and Rabinowitz.

1907: In Manahattan, Anna Levit and Frank Bershard gave birth to Syracuse University graduate Sheldon Leonard Bershard who gained fame as actor, director and producer Sheldon Leonard.

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/13/movies/sheldon-leonard-film-actor-and-tv-producer-dies-at-89.html

1907: In Omaha, Nebraska, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Maisal gave birth to Zena Maisel who married Sidney E. Pollack and as Zena Maisel Pollack served as the administrative director of the Jewish Guild for the Blind.

1908(20thof Adar I, 5668): Parsahat Ki Tasa

1908: It was reported today, that while give a speech on “Co-Operation of Business Organization with Governmental Agencies for Promoting the Commerce of the Country” to a group of Boston businessmen, Oscar S. Straus, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor said “the power of the ‘big stick’ is needed because there are big abuses to be corrected and big lawbreakers to be checked.”

1909(1stof Adar I, 5669): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1909: In New York, “Joseph M. and Augusta Stadler Levin” gave birth to Plainfield, NJ raised and Rutgers Law School graduate Philip Jerome Levin, the “president and chief operating officer of the Madison Square Garden Corporation and husband of Janice Hoffman Levin, the daughter of Samuel and Rene Hoffman.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/04/archives/philip-levinhead-of-madison-squaregarden-diesi.html

1909(1stof Adar 1, 5669): Sixty-seven-year-old chess champion Eugene Delmar passed away today.

1910: Birthdate of Sophie Melvin, the native of the Ukraine who gained fame as social activist Sophie Gerson (As reported by Deborah Gerson and Tim Wheeler)

http://jwa.org/weremember/gerson-sophie

1911: In Cleveland, OH, Russian Jewish immigrants Mary Axelrod and Peter Axelrod, the founder of The Cleveland Dairy and the grand-nephew of Pavel Borisovich Axelrod, the founder of Pravda gave birth to Western Reserve University trained attorney and WW II Army veteran Max M. Axelrod, the founder of the Cleveland Concession Company and reform minded chairman of the Cleveland Boxing Commission whose activities in the Jewish community included founding Lake Forest Country because the other clubs did not manage Jews and the found of the Cleveland Jewish News.(Editor’s note—in the spirit of full disclosure, the on-line edition of the Cleveland Jewish News was one of the earliest to publish This Day…In Jewish History)

1911: Twenty-six year old Frank Rosenblatt, the Russian born son of Benjamin and Bessie (Reichberg) Rosenblatt and the holder of a Ph.D from Colubia married Katherine Golding today in New York City.

1912(4thof Adar, 5672): Seventy-four old Bertha Eppstein, the wife of Max Eppstein and the mother of Seraphine Eppstein Pisko, the secretary of National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives, passed away today in Denver, CO.

 

1913(8thof Adar I, 5673): Parashat Tetzaveh

1913: Dr. Gerson B. Levi is scheduled to officiate at Saturday morning services at B’nai Sholom-Temple Israel in Chicago.

1913: Rabbi Joseph Stoltz is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Washington and the Jews” this mornings at Isaiah Temple.

1913: Rabbi Abraham Hirshberg is scheduled to deliver a talk at this afternoon’s children service at the Chicago Hebrew Institute.

1913: Judge Huge Pam is scheduled to deliver a lecture this evening on “Municipal Government to the Welfare of the Nation and People” at the Chicago Hebrew Institute.

1913: It was reported today that “Samuel Littman, a sergeant of Company B, 47thRegiment of the New York National Guard has resigned” because he claimed that he was not promoted to lieutenant because he was Jewish – a charge that Governor Sulzer has asked to be thoroughly investigated.

1914(26thof Shevat, 5674): Fifty-year old Joseph Fles, the Virginia born son of Lazarus Fels and Sus an Freiberg and husband of Iowan Mollie Fels who was the owner of the soap manufacturing that bears his name and advocate of Henry George’s single tax philosophy passed away today in Philadelphia.

https://hsp.org/sites/default/files/legacy_files/migrated/findingaid1953fels.pdf

https://www.geni.com/people/Joseph-Fels/6000000002501814590

1914: Birthdate of Dr. Renato Dulbecco, the Italian born virologist who shared a Nobel Prize in 1975 for his role in drawing a link between genetic mutations and cancer. During World War II, Dulbecco served as a medical officer in the Italian Army. When the train taking him to the Russian front “stopped in Warsaw, he saw railway laborers wearing yellow stars. When he asked about them, he was told that the workers were Jews who would be killed when their work was done. He was horrified.” According to him seeing this was a life changing moment which may account for the fact that he deserted from the Italian Army and spent the rest of the war providing medical assistance to the resistance fighters in and around Torino.(As reported by Denise Gellene)

1915: The second day of the 23rd annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society will include another series of literary presentations and a business meeting that will include the election of officers.

1915: Birthdate of New York native Jules Munshin, “the song and dance man” whose credits including “Easter Parade” and “On the Town.”

1915: Georgia Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorse and State Attorney General Warren Grice are scheduled to file their brief in the U.S. Supreme that will deny a writ of Habeas Corpus in the case of Leo Frank who is scheduled to be hung after a trial held in the midst of an orgy of anti-Semitism.

1915: Eighteen-year-old Charles Pores won a weather-shortened version of the Brooklyn-to-Sea Gate Marathon.

1915: Following the failure of the Ottoman attack on Allied forces in Egypt, the Arabs have expressed their bitterness and “their determination not to fight in the future” on the side of the Turks.

1915: It was reported today that Djemal Pasha, the Ottoman Minister of Marine “clearly see the utter futility of further military operations against Egypt” and has gone north to Damascus” where he plans on resigning. (Reading this, one would not suspect that it will take the British another two years to finally get to Jerusalem and more than three years to finally complete their conquest of Palestine and Syria)

1916: Elinor “Ellie” Fatman the daughter of Morris and Settie Fatman who had been teaching at the Henry Street Settlement House since 1913 proposed to Henry Morgenthau, Jr. in Central Park.(As reported by Edna S. Friedberg)

1916: In Amsterdam, Levie Van Praag and Sabiena Cohen, both of whom were killed in Sobibor, gave birth Jacques Van Praag who was murdered at Birkenau.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&u=https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/194452/jacques-van-praag&prev=search

1916: In Washington, D.C., at today’s meeting of the Executive Committee of the American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers is scheduled to raise “the question of Jewish rights in the belligerent countries.

1916: Dr. Nathan Syrkin and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise addressed a convention chaired by Judge Sanders of the Jewish organizations of Manhattan held at Arlington Hall where plans were discussed for the upcoming Jewish conference to be held in Philadelphia in March.

1916:  After two years and four month serving in Constantinople, American Ambassador Henry Morgenthau arrived in New York aboard the steamship Frederick VIII to start a 60 day vacation.

1917(30th of Shevat, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1917: As of today, Frederic C. Penfield, the United States Ambassador to Austria-Hungary “has turned over $25,000 to the Vienna Jewish Association to be used for the relief of Jews in the occupied districts of Rumania and Serbia.

1918: In Dixon, CA, Otto Oscar Dannenberg and Iceophine Elsie Zimmerman Dannenberg gave birth to Mary Ottie Dannenberg, who became Mary Ottie Dannenberg Zacharia when she married Ellsworth Jack Zacharias 

1918: A report today from Zurich stated that Jewish deputies succeed in persuading the Austrian Government to abolish the prohibition against Yiddish correspondence.

1918: Colonel John Henry Patterson led the Jewish Legion, the unit he commanded on parade down Whitechapel Road.

1919(22ndof Adar I, 5679): Seventy-eight-year-old French neurologist Hippolyte Bernheim passed away today in Paris.

1920: The New Orleans Times-Picayune published an interview with Elizabeth D.A. Cohen, the first practicing female physician in Louisiana, her 100th birthday.

1921(14thof Adar I, 5681): Purim Katan observed for the first time under President Warren G. Harding.

1921: The Tikvath Israel Society hosted “junior activities” at the center on Sumner Avenue at the corner of Van Buren Street.

1922: William Weinstone completed a stint as the executive Secretary as the Communist Party of America which had begun in October of 1921 during which he used “he pseudonym G.Lewis.”

1922: In the South Bronx, Solomon and Lillian Baumol, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe gave birth to economist William J. Baumol. (As reported by Patricia Cohen)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/business/economy/william-baumol-dead-economist-coined-cost-disease.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1922: Birthdate of Sammy Hershkovitz, the Romanian born Jew who made Aliyah at the age of 2 and gained fame as Sammy Ofer, the Israeli international shipping magnate, philanthropist and art collector who headed a family ranked as the richest in Israel. (As reported by Isabel Kershner)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/world/middleeast/05ofer.html?_r=0

http://www.xtholdings.com/

1922 (24th of Shevat, 5682): Aaron David (A.D.) Gordon passed away. Gordon, a Hebrew writer and philosopher of the “religion of Labor,” was considered the ideological pillar of the kibbutz movement. Born in 1856 in Russia he only came to Eretz Israel at the age of 48. Neither his age nor health impeded his drive to work in agriculture. He helped found Kibbutz Degania in 1909. Gordon's philosophy included a call to a return to “Nature.” He believed that the self-improvement of each individual rather than external changes such as espoused by Marxism was the way to change Jewish destiny.

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

1923: “Earth Spirit” a silent film produced by Richard Oswald and written by Carl Mayer was released in Germany today.

1923: In Chicago, Max and Bertha Goldsmith gave birth real estate developer Bram Goldsmith who “served as the chief executive of National City Bank from 1975 to 1995.”

http://bhcourier.com/beverly-hills-resident-bram-goldsmith-chairman-emeritus-of-city-national-bank-dead-at-93/

1925: In Pittsburgh, PA, Harry and Ida Barch Stern, Jewish immigrants from Poland and Ukraine, gave birth to American poet Gerald Stern whose works have been published The Pineys, Leaving Another Kingdom, and Odd Mercyand who while married to Patricia Miller gave birth to a daughter Rachel, “a nutrition therapist” and David, “an architect.”

http://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt:US-PPiU-sc200704

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/books/review/gerald-stern-galaxy-love-poems.html?ref=headline&nl_art=&te=1&nl=book-review&emc=edit_bk_20170825

1925(28th of Shevat, 5685): Seventy-eight-year-old jeweler turned political leader Simeon Phillips, the son of Solomon and Caroline Phillips who served in the legislature and as Mayor of Dubbo and was the husband of Rosetta Phillips passed away today in his native New South Wales, Australia.

1925(28th of Shevat, 5685): Poet and author Mrs. Radcliffe N. Salomon (Nina David) passed away

1926:”In Washington, Pa, near Pittsburgh,” jewelry store owner Maurice York “and the former Jesse Sachs, an aunt of David O. Selznick gave birth to Alan David Yorkin who gained fame as director, producer and write Bud Yorkin who teamed up with Norm Lear to form Tandem Productions which gave us many cutting edge sit-coms including All in the Family, Maude and Sanford and Son.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/arts/television/bud-yorkin-writer-and-producer-of-all-in-the-family-dies-at-89.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article

1926: In Great Britain, a “well-known play producer” was reported to have “said he judged his play not by first-night receptions, but by the attitude of Saturday night audiences, which he estimated were nearly 75 per cent Jewish” and that “the Jewish population of London were keen dramatic critics” who “had been of tremendous service to the modern British drama.”

1926: Ross Sterling, the owner and publisher of the Houston Post Dispatch, who is not Jewish was reported today to have been donor of an unsolicited give of $5,000 gift to the United Jewish Campaign which is trying to raise fifteen million dollars to alleviate the suffering of Jews living “in foreign lands.”

1926: As of today the new officers of the National Council of the Palestine Foundation Fund were Samuel Untermyer, President; Morris Rothenberg, Chairman of the directors and Rabbi Aaron M. Ashinsky of Pittsburgh, Vice Chairman of the board.

1926: “The United Jewish Campaign received word” today at its headquarters in the Pershing Square building that a $50,000 quota for the $15,000,000 overseas chest had been accepted a committee of Jews from North Dakota. (That’s right – Jews in North Dakota!)

1926: Pledges totaling $300,000 for the relief of Jews in Poland were made” today “at a conference in the HIAS Building called by the Federation of Polish Jews in America” whose President, Benjamin Winter “blamed the policy of the Polish Government for the present distress among the Polish Jews.”

1927: Birthdate of Franz Reheinberger who would be executed at the age of 17 for his part in anti-Nazi activities.

1927: In what became a minor scandal, Ivor Montagu, the grandson Samuel Montagu, founder of the bank Samuel Montagu and Company and the son of Baron Louis Montagu, married “Eileen – A Jewish divorced mother of one who went by the nickname ‘Hell’” today.

1927: Birthdate of Inge Fisherova, who was deported from Prague in 1942 and was eventually murdered in Auschwitz.

1929: In New York City, “Rachel Gutman and real estate attorney Judah Wattenberg” gave birth to Rebecca Ann Wattenberg, the sister of Ben J. Wattenberg “aunt of journalist Daniel Wattenberg” who gained famed as actress Rebecca Schull, the wife of Gene Schull.

1930: U.S. premiere of “Slightly Scarlet,” a comedy direct by Edwin H. Knopf with a script co-authored by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

1930: In Vienna, “Salomon Mischel, a businessman, and Lola Lea (Schreck) Mischel, who ran the household gave birth to Walter Mishel, whose “family fled the Nazis in 1938” and settled in the United Sates, the ground-breaking psychologist. (As reported by Benedict Carey)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/obituaries/walter-mischel-dead.html

1931(5th of Adar): Poet and novelist Menahem Mendel Dolitzky passed away today.

1932: The United States marked the bicentennial of the birth of George Washington who Rabbi de Sola Pool of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue had “praised” as “a great liberator” and whom Rabbi Samuel Schulman while addressing his congregation had “referred to a statement made in a treaty between the United States and Tripoli in 1796 and signed by Washington that ‘the Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”

1932: “With Chief Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo of the Court of Appeals assured of confirmation as an associate jus of the United States” the Governor of New York “indicated tonight that he would promptly fill the vacancy on the State bench.”

1932: As America celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of George Washington members of the Jewish National Fund of American are scheduled to meet tonight at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York “to hear speakers pay tribute to Washington and to hear speakers discuss” plans for creating “an evergreen memorial of 500,000 pine and eucalyptus trees” which “will be planted in Palestine as a living tribute” by “the Jews of America to the first President.”

1932: In New York, Chief Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo is scheduled to speak on “Washington, the Constitution Builder” during the Bicentennial celebration at Chancellor’s Hall.

1933: Birthdate of Gideon Patt, a Sabra who served in the Nahal Brigade, earned a BA from NYU before pursuing a career in politics that included service in the Knesset and several cabinet posts.

1933: Adolf Hitler made his private para-military units, the SS and the SS, part of Germany’s police force.

1934: U.S premiere of “It Happened One Night” an all-time classic comedy written by Robert Riskin for which he won the Oscar and co-produced Harry Cohn

1934: During his eulogy today at the funeral of Rabbi Hyman Gerson Enelow in Chicago, David Philipson said, “If there was one trait that characterized Hymen G. Enelow above all other, it was his love of learning for its own sake.

http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0011/ms0011.html

1934: “The Jewish newspaper IF” published a photograph by Herbert Sonnenfeld of “a model portraying two different periods in Eretz Israel: a typical home in Tel Aviv in 1934, and ten years earlier.”

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/february/02.asp

1934: Bishop Hermann Wilhelm Berning of Osnabrück ordered all churches in his diocese to display the Nazi’s swastika flag on patriotic occasions alongside standard church flags.

1935: “The Whole Town’s Talk” a crime comedy  written by Jo Swerling and Robert Riskin and starring Edward G. Robinson was released in the United States today.

1935: “After Office Hours” directed by Robert Z. Leonard who co-produced the film with Bernard H. Hyman which was written by Herman J. Mankiewicz was released today in the United States.

1936(29thof Shevat, 5695): Parashat Mishpatim and Shabbat Shekalim

1936: “The third annual observance of Brotherhood Day” sponsored by the Conference of Jews and Christians began today.

1936: It was reported today that in Poland Senators “suggested that the government should communicate with international Zionist organizations and arrange an immigration quota for Poland” which would be a way of ridding the country of one million of its three and one half million Jews.

1936: This morning Arturo Toscanini accepted an invitation to conduct the opening concert of the newly organized Palestine Symphony Orchestra on next October 24 at Tel-Aviv.

1937(11thof Adar, 5697): Seventy-three-year-old Dr. Maxmillian Reiner, “a founder of the Czech-Jewish Movement” and an active member of “Sokol, the national gymnastic and educational organization” passed away today in Prague.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/02/24/99107164.pdf

1937(11thof Adar, 5697): Sixty-seven-year-old Astronomer J. Ernest G. Yalden who spent 25 years directing a “trade school funded by the Trustees of the Baron de Hirsch Fund passed away

1938: “After warning that he would be ‘tactless’ in his remarks, Stanley M. Isaacs, Borough President of Manhattan, told 1,750 teachers attending the 11thanniversary of the Jewish Teachers Association at the Hotel Commodore” today “that he could see no reason for the existence of their organization”

1939: As part of the annual observance of Brotherhood Week, “ceremonies honoring the memory of Roger Williams the founder of Rhode Island” and one of “the first to preach the gospel of tolerance in the New World” were held in front of his bust in the Hall of Fame on the campus of NYU by members of Zeta Beta Tau, which included an address by B. Leo Schwartz, a benediction by Rabbi Augustus Loeb and wreath laying by James R. Katzman.

1940: During the period known as “The Phony War” Jean Giraudoux, the Commissioner of Information warned the French people in a radio talk tonight that Germany does not ask for colonies in Asia and Africa because she wants to colonize her neighbors in Europe which means that if the Germans are victorious, France will share the fate of Poland.

1940: General Maxime Weygand, the head of French forces in the Near East, and General Sir Archibald P. Wavell, the head of French forces in the Near East, met in Palestine today to discuss how to coordinate efforts with the Turkish Government which is neutral in the war between the Allies and the Axis.

1940: It was reported today that “Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt has consented to head of special advisory committee for the youth Aliyah movement represented in the United States by Hadassah,” the women’s Zionist organization led by its President, Mrs. David de Sola Pool who has the support of Mrs. Herbert H. Lehman, Mrs. Roger W. Straus and Mrs. Felix M. Warburg in the formation of this committee.

1941(27thof Shevat, 5701): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1941: In Paris, Theodore Dannecker, the SS officer in charge of bringing the Final Solution to France reported approvingly that “The French inspectors formed and instructed in collaboration with our section for Jewish affairs today constitute an elite body as well as training cadres for Frenchmen to be drafted in the future to the anti-Jewish police.”  The “French inspectors” worked for the agency that “transferred” the over 20,000 Jewish businesses into the hands of Frenchmen sympathetic to the Third Reich.  “The anti-Jewish police” referred to the Frenchmen who would round up French Jews and ship them off to the death camps. 

1941: The Nazi SS began rounding up Jews of Amsterdam.

1941: Today’s New Yorker magazine called stockbroker and New York Stock Exchange Member James B. “Jimmie” Seligman “one of the wittiest men on the Floor.”

1942(5th of Adar, 5702): In Brazil, author Stefan Zwieg and his second wife Lotte (néeCharlotte Elisabeth Altmann) committed suicide together in Petrópolis using the barbiturate Verol. Filled with a sense of despair at the future of Europe and its culture, he wrote, "I think it better to conclude in good time and in erect bearing a life in which intellectual labor meant the purest joy and personal freedom the highest good on earth."

1942:Wanda Landowska performed Bach's Goldberg Variations at New York City's Town Hall. It was the first 20th-century performance of this work on the harpsichord. The Polish born Jewess who sought refuge from the Nazis first in France and then the United States is credited with reviving harpsichord music in the 20th century,

1942: U.S. premiere of “The Adventures of Martin Eden,” the cinema version of the novel Martin Eden produced by Samuel Bronston and B.P. Schulberg.

1942: Lord Moyne completed his service as Secretary State for the Colonies. Moyne was a close personal friend of Churchill, who as Deputy Resident Minister of State in Cairo took part in the interrogation of Joel Brand when a response was being crafted to Eichmann’s “Blood for Truck” proposal.  Moyne would be murdered by Lehi in 1944.

1943(17thof Adar 1, 5703): At Auschwitz, the Nazis murdered Communist Party member and anti-Fascist fighter Dagobert Biermann, the father of singer-song writer Karl Wolf Bierman.

1943: For the next six days, 10,000 more Jews were deported to Chelmno. All were gassed to death.

1943: “An agreement was signed between the special Nazi envoy sent to facilitate the deportations, Theodor Dannecker and the Bulgarian Commissar for Jewish Affairs, Alexander Belev for the deportation of 20,000 Jews (12,000 from Macedonia and Thrace and 8,000 – from the old territory of Bulgaria).”

1943: Bulgaria agreed to allow the Germans to deport 11,000 Jews. Horrible overcrowding conditions existed in the 20 trains that would transport them. Each day the trains stopped to dump the bodies of those who died during the journey.

1943: Italians countermanded German orders to deport French Jews. Three days later Ribbentrop complained to Mussolini that "Italian military circles. . . lacked a proper understanding of the Jewish question."

1943: “Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans and their friend Christoph Probst were found guilty of treason and condemned to death by head judge of the court Roland Freisler. They were beheaded by executioner Johann Reichhart in the Munich-Stadelheim prison only a few hours later at 17:00. The execution was supervised by Dr. Walter Roemer who was the enforcement chief of the Munich district court. Prison officials emphasized the courage with which she walked to her execution.” This trio was part of a small number of genuine anti-Nazi Germans who had worked to bring down the regime.

1943: “Allied military forces marched through the crowded streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa today as part of the celebrations of Red Army Day.” [The Red Army referred to is the Soviet Army which was doing the brunt of the fighting against the Germans.]

1943: Birthdate of Elliot Rabinowitz who gained fame as music manager and businessman Elliot Roberts who partnered with David Geffen to “create Asylum Records.”

1944: Professor Selig Brodestky, president of the Board of British Jews led a delegation that met with the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs with whom they discussed “the possibility of Britain establishing a War Refugee Board similar to that recently created by President Roosevelt.”

1944: Dr. Leonardo De Benedetti, Physician and Surgeon and Dr. Primo Levi, Chemist “left the concentration camp at Fossoli di Carpi with a convoy of 650 Jews of both sexes and all ages. They did not know that the trip would end four days later in Auschwitz.

1945(9th of Adar, 5705): Osip Maksimovich Brik “a Russian Avant Garde writer and literary critic, who was one of the most important members of the Russian formalist school, though he also identified himself as one of the Futurists,” passed away.

1945: In Boston, businessman Samuel Tannenbaum and the former Gertrude Leaman gave birth to Rena Meryl Tannenbaum who gained fame as publisher Rena Wolner.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/business/rena-wolner-head-of-3-book-publishers-dies-at-70.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1

1945(9thof Adar, 5705): Seventy-two-year-old engineer Abel Morris Bienenfeld, the San Francisco born son of Bertha Kunreuther and Elias Bienenfeld and the husband of Adelheid Bienenfeld who, before and during the Spanish-American War “engaged in the reconstruction of warships subsequently were used by Admiral Dewey at Manila” and who was engaged in the construction of railroads in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, passed away today.

1946: The Palmach attacked the Police Tegart fort at Shefa 'Amr with a 200-pound bomb; in the firefight that followed, the Palmach suffered casualties

1946: The British said today that three members of armed Jewish bands had been killed during the series of night attacks on Palestine mobile police camps in which dynamite charges damaged several buildings, vehicles and other facilities last night.

1947: Birthdate of Israeli man of letters Yehonatan Geffen, the native of Nhalal who is the nephew of Moshe Dayan and the father of Aviv, Shira and Natasha Geffen.

1948 As the conflict over the coming partition of Palestine grew, three car bombs arranged by Arab irregulars exploded on Ben Yehudah Street killing 52 Jewish civilians and leaving 123 injured. This was part of the war waged by the Arabs between the partition vote in November, 1947 and the end of the Mandate in 1948.  In the meantime, the international community did nothing then or later to enforce its decision to make Jerusalem a city to be governed by an international body.

1948: The Golani Brigade, one of Israeli’s most elite infantry brigades was formed. 

1949: “The executive committee of the United Palestine Appeal voted tonight, after five hours of debate, to set up a committee that is to meet in a few days with Henry Morgenthau Jr. in an effort to reach a settlement of the issue caused by the opposition of one element to the designation of Henry Montor as executive director of the 1949 United Jewish Appeal.”

1949: On the Isle of Rhodes, “an especially well-informed source declared tonight” that “the success or failure of the Egyptian-Israeli armistice negotiations hangs entirely on the fate of Beersheba

1950: “A major trade showing of imported gift wares made in handicraft shops in Israel” “sponsored by the Palestine Galleries for Arts and Crafts” continued for a third day the Pierre Hotel in New York City

1951: Birthdate of Ellen Greene, the Brooklyn born daughter of a guidance counselor and dentist who has enjoyed a multi-dimensional career performing in nightclubs, on Broadway, in films and television programs including Law and Order, The X Files and Miami Vice.

1952: “The Belle of New York” produced by Arthur Freed was released in the United States today.

1955: “State Department spokesman Robert McCloskey declined to comment today on Egyptian press reports that President Nasser…has threated a preventive war against Israel if Israel tested a nuclear weapon” on the same day that U.S. State Department officials greeted a delegation led by Anwar El Sadat, speaker of the Egyptian National Assembly at Dulles International Airport.  (As reported by JTA)

1958: Egypt and Syria announced that they were joining together in a new nation, The United Arab Republic.  The UAR was supposed to be the first step in the creation of giant Pan Arab Nation.  The Israelis were concerned because the two enemies now were going to have a one military command which made coordinated military actions against the Jewish state a potentially destructive reality.  The UAR would collapse three years later as the Syrians grew disgusted with the Egyptian attempts to dominate the relationship.  This would not be the first or last time that charismatic leader would try to form a Super Arab and/or Super Moslem state. 

1958: In East Meadow, New York, Leon Greenberg, “an executive for New York’s Century Theatres movie chain” and his wife Shirley gave birth to playwright Richard Greenberg who won the Tony Award in 2003 for “Take Me Out.”

1959(14thof Adar I, 5719): Purim Katan

1960: David Susskind produced “A Very Special Baby” this week’s “Play of the Week” co-starring Marion Winters as “Anna” and Larry Blyden as “Joey.”

1961: “Come Blow Your Horn” Neil Simon’s first play opened “on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

1964: Final performance of “The Passion of Josef D.” written by Paddy Chayefsky at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

1964(9thof Adar I, 5724): Ninety-year-old Samuel Earl “Ike” Samuels who played briefly for the St. Louis Browns before pursuing a career in dentistry and insurance sales passed away today in New York City.

1965(20th of Adar I, 5725): Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court Justice passed away.  Born in 1882, Frankfurter was involved in various liberal and unpopular causes including the defense of Sacco and Venzeti.  He was a professor at Harvard Law School.  Many of his students went to work in FDR’s new deal and they were known as “Frankfurters” (for their teacher not the hot dog).  When FDR appointed him to the bench, Frankfurter was the third Jew to serve on the High Court.

http://www.supremecourthistory.org/history-of-the-court/associate-justices/felix-frankfurter-1939-1962/

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

1966: “Promise Her Anything” directed by Arthur Hiller with a title song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David which had been released in the previous November in the United Kingdom was released today in the United States.

1968(23rdof Shevat, 5728): Sixty-two year old Hoboken, NJ, born and Columbia trained attorney Burton A Zorn, a labor lawyer, partner in the prestigious law firm of Proskauer, Rose, Goetz and Mendelsohn and “chairman of the American Jewish Committee’s civil rights section who raised two children – Stephen and Karen – with his wife Fay passed away today.

1969(4thof Adar, 5729): Parashat Terumah

1969(4thof Adar, 5729): Seventy-two-year-old WW I U.S. Navy veteran and NYU Law school grad, Benjamin Jacob Rabin, the U.S. Congressman and Justice of the New York Supreme Court who was the husband of Syd Sobel Rabin passed away today in Florida.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/benjamin-rabin

1970(16thof Adar I, 5730): Sixty-eight-year-old Vilna native and Brooklyn Law School graduate Charles Abrams who became a major force in the field of urban planning passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/23/archives/charles-abrams-worldwide-housing-expert-dies-lawyer-author-68.html

1971(27thof Shevat, 5731): Fifty-six-year-old New York native David “Dynamite Dave” Smulker the all-star Temple University fullback who as a member of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles played in the first televised professional game in 1939 passed away today.

1971: Birthdate of Arnon Grunberg, the Dutch born author of Blue Mondays which won the Dutch prize “for the best debut novel” and whose mother survived Auschwitz

http://www.arnongrunberg.com/

 1972: Paul Grüninger, the Swiss police official who save thousands of Jews following the Anschluss died in poverty today.

http://www.jfr.org/pages/rescuer-support/stories/switzerland-/-paul-gruninger

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/grueninger.asp

1973: In New York, premiere of “Charlotte’s Web” an animated feature film version of a children’s novel by the same time with music by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman and sons by Irwin Kostal.

1973: “Walking Tall,” a biopic with music by Walter Scharft and directed by Phil Karlson whose father was Jewish was released in the United States today.

1974: Today “Jewish activists Mark Abramovich and Yakov Schwartzman (Kishinev), Leonid Bendersky (Tiraspol) and Sender Levinson (Bendery) were arrested in Kishinev after staging a hunger strike near the Central Post Office.”

1975(11thof Adar I, 5735): Fifty-six-year-old Samuel Bihari, one of the four brothers who founded Modern Records and helped to create a “sanitized” form of rock and roll for the mass market of the 1950’s passed away today.

1977(4thof Adar, 5737): Sixty-two-year-old Avery Berlow, the Boston born holder of Columbia Ph.D. and author of eight books passed away today while serving as a “professor of finance at the University of North Carolina” in Chapel Hill, NC.

1981(18thof Adar I, 5741): Eighty-one-year-old Curtis Bernhardt who worked as movie director in Germany under the name of Kurt Bernhardt before fleeing Nazi Germany and pursuing his career in France, England and finally the United States, passed away today.

1981(18thof Adar I, 5741): Seventy-five-year-old Austrian born American historian Saul K. Padover whose works include biographies on Karl Marx, Joseph II of Austria, Louis XVI, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson passed away today.

1982: New York City Mayor Ed Koch announced his plans to run for governor of New York.  The campaign would be a failure. 

1982(29thof Shevat): Legendary DJ Murray "the K" Kaufman, called the 5thBeatle by some, passed away at the age of 60.

1984(19thof Adar I, 5744): Eighty-seven-year-old mathematician and WW II codebreaker Maxwell Herman Alexander “Max” Newman passed away today in Cambridge.

http://history.computer.org/pioneers/newman-mha.html

1985(1stof Adar, 5745): Rosh Chodesh

1985 (1st of Adar, 5745): Violinist Efrem A Zimbalist passed away at the age of 95..  Born in Russia, Zimbalist was one of long line of violin virtuosos that included Jascha Heifitz, Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern. Many of you may recognize this name with the word "Junior" after it.  Zimbalist’s son was a minor matinee idol in television and movies who was not Jewish. (As reported by Tim Page)

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/23/arts/efrem-zimbalist-violinist-dies-at-94.html?pagewanted=print

1986(13th of Adar I, 5746): Soviet Poet Boris Slutsky passed away.

1987(23rdof Shevat): David Susskind passed away at the age of 66. Susskind is best remembered for his pioneering role in late night television.  Susskind hosted a show called Open End, where guests from a variety of walks of life actually discussed issues of the day without a script and with civility. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/23/obituaries/david-susskind-talk-show-host-dies-at-66.html?pagewanted=print&amp;src=pm

1988: It was reported today that 28-year-old “Cheryl Bentov, the American-born wife of a former major in Israeli military intelligence” is “the mysterious blond woman who lured former Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu out of Britain in September 1986 to eventually face trial for espionage and treason in Jerusalem.”

1989: At a benefit for the Dance Library of Israel, an international dance library and archive in Tel Aviv, Marge Champion presented an award to Agnes de Mille. The presentation took place at a dinner that preceded a benefit performance of “Jerome Robbin’s Broadway.”

1989:Different Trains,” a three-movement piece for string quartet and tape written by Steve Reich in 1988 won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

1990: A funeral is scheduled to be held this evening in Manhattan for fifty-nine year old Kenyon College graduate and producer Gabriel Katzka, the Brooklyn born son of attorney and Broadway show backer Emil Katzka.

1991: "Underground," a new work by the Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol, directed by Adrian Hall, has its world premiere at the Yale Repertory Theater today, co-directed by Adrian Hall.

1991: “He Said, She Said,” a comedy directed by Marisa Silver was released in the United States today,

1992(18thof Adar I 5752): Avot Yeshurun, an Israeli poet who wove Arabic and Yiddish idiom into a unique and influential form of Hebrew verse, passed away today at the age of 88. No cause of death was given by his family, which announced his death. Born in Ukraine as Yehiel Perlmutter, Mr. Yeshurun made aliyah in 1925, worked as a laborer and began publishing poetry. His family perished in the Holocaust. After Israel was established in 1948, Mr. Yeshurun was one of its first literary figures to acknowledge the plight of the uprooted Palestinians. He saw the Palestinians and the Jews of Europe as having endured a common tragedy, and sought to fuse their experience in the language of his poetry. Although long ignored by the establishment, Mr. Yeshurun was highly regarded by younger poets. His stature was formally recognized a month ago when he was awarded the Israel Prize.

1992:  Barry Diller resigns as CEO of FOX Television Network.

1992: American diplomat Josiah W. Bennett who as a member of the Foreign Service headed the United States Information Service in Tel Aviv passed away.  (Bennett was not Jewish)

1993: Journalist Ken Auletta, the son of an Italian-American father and a Jewish-American mother, was among the first to popularize the idea of the so-called "information superhighway" with today’s New Yorker profile of Barry Diller, in which he described how Diller, the San Francisco born Jewish media mogul, used his Apple PowerBook to anticipate the advent of the Internet and our digital future.

1993: New York Judge Judith Kaye was nominated by then-governor Mario Cuomo to become the first female Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals.

1997(15thof Adar I, 5757): Parashat Tetzaveh

1997(15thof Adar I, 5757): Sixty-eight-year-old Albert Shanker the New York born, University Illinois trained math teacher who became an increasingly aggressive proponent for teachers and public education as he went from the Presidency of the United Federation of Teachers and to the leadership of the American Federation of Teachers.

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/24/nyregion/albert-shanker-68-combative-leader-who-transformed-teachers-union-dies.html

1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of Love Invents Us by Amy Bloom and Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist by Philip Furia.

1998(26th of Shevat, 5758): Distinguished Democratic politician and government official, Abraham Ribicoff was Governor of Connecticut, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under John Kennedy and U.S. Senator from 1963 until 1981 passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/23/nyregion/ribicoff-of-connecticut-dies-governor-and-senator-was-87.html?pagewanted=print&amp;src=pm

1999(6thof Adar, 5759): Nobel Prize winner Gertrude Elion passed away.

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/eli0bio-1

1999(6thof Adar, 5759): Nine days after his 81st birthday Wisconsin native Lewis B. “Lew” Hamity, the University of Chicago and Chicago Bears running back who “served in the U.S. Armed Services during World War II and then became a salesman for Phil Maid Lingerie before purchasing Mapes and Sprowl Steel, serving first as president, then as chairman” passed away today.

2000:The Jewish Museum San Francisco unveiled a design by the Berlin-based architect Daniel Libeskind who is best known creating the new Jewish Museum in Berlin.

2001: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Eva H. Meyer, the wife of Manfred Meyer and mother of David and Paulette Meyer whose support of Yeshiva University included providing funds for the publication of a biography about her father Rabbi Jacob Hoffman z’l that included a description of the development of the religious Zionist movement in pre-war Germany.

2002(20thof Adar I, 5762): A Fatah terrorist murdered 45-year-old Valery Ahmir “in a drive-by shooting.”

2002: Today, University of Toledo basketball and baseball player Murray Guttman “was inducted into the schools Varity ‘T’ Hall of Fame.”

https://utrockets.com/hof.aspx?hof=83

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=guttma001mur

2003(20thof Adar I, 5763): Ninety-year old Oscar winning screenwriter Daniel Taradash passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/obituaries/27TARA.html

2003: An International Conference hosted by the Dubnow Institute on “Transforming Religious and Ethnic Emblematics of Judaism and Jewishness” began today.

2004(30thof Shevat, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2004(30thof Shevat, 5764): Israel Ilan Avisidris, 41, of Jerusalem; Lior Azulai, 18, of Jerusalem; Yaffa Ben-Shimol, 57, of Jerusalem; Rahamim Doga, 38, of Mevasseret Zion; Yehuda Haim, 48, of Givat Ze'ev;Netanel Havshush, 20, of Jerusalem; Yuval Ozana, 32, of Jerusalem and Benaya Yehonatan Zuckerman, 18, of Jerusalem were murdered today and 60 other people were injured when an Arab terrorist blew up Egged bus #14 in Jerusalem during the Second Intifada.

2004: A suicide bomber attacked a bus in the center of Jerusalem, killing 8 people and wounding 70. The Palestinian terrorist group Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility.

2005(13thof Adar I, 5765): Ninety-six-year-old Trude Rittman, the German-Jewish American arranger of Broadway hits including Carousel and Sound of Music passed away today. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/mar/12/local/me-passings12.3

2005(13thAdar I, 5765): Ninety-four-year-old French film actress Simone Simon who was “the daughter of Henri Louis Firmin Champmoynat, a French Jewish engineer and airplane pilot in World War II, who died in a concentration camp” passed away today.

http://www.altfg.com/blog/actors/simone-simon/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4291269.stm

2006: The Liberal Party appointed Irwin Cotler Critic for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in the opposition shadow cabinet for the 39th Canadian Parliament. “Cotler's wife, Ariela, is a native of Jerusalem and worked as a legislative assistant to the Likud members of the Israeli Knesset from 1967 to 1979.”

2006: French President Jacques Chirac and his prime minister attended a synagogue memorial ceremony for a Jewish man who was kidnapped, tortured and killed.

2006(24thof Shevat, 5766): Hilde Palm (née Löwenstein) the daughter of German Jewish lawyer Eugene Lowenstein, who wrote under the pseudonym Hilde Domin creating such works as the poetry anthology “The Tree Blossoms Nevertheless” passed away today.

2006(24th of Shevat, 5766):Bernie Weisberg, former national director of Young Judea and the Labor Zionist Alliance, passed away at the age of 82 (As reported by Anthony Weiss)

http://forward.com/articles/1108/bernie-weisberg-labor-zionist/

2007: “Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert,” said “that the Iranians, though not where they wanted to be, were much farther down the path to learning how to make bomb-grade uranium than Israel was comfortable with” while dodging “questions concerning the point at which Israel might lean toward military action, a step American officials have said that they are trying to discourage

2008: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has established an unprecedented high-level government task force charged with fundamentally altering the Israel-Diaspora relationship.

2008: Israeli officials rejected Arab complaints that they are not committed to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.  Furthermore, these officials stated that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had responded positively to the Arab League initiative as a basis for negotiations. 

2008: Sarah Chayes, the daughter of Abram Chayes and award winning reported for National Public Radio “was a guest on PBS's Bill Moyers Journal” today.

2009: In a move intended to improve its relationship with the new wave of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union, the Hebrew Free Burial Association hosted a Russian-Jewish Community event. Established in 1888, HFBA is one of the oldest and largest free burial associations serving the New York Jewish Community.


2009:Agudas Achim conducts the first ever Early Passover Pallet Salein eastern Iowa making it possible for those living in the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids Corridor to buy unique “Kosher for Passover “items including Chocolate Seder Plates, at “discount prices.”

2009: The New York Times features a review of A Hidden Life:A Memoir of August 1969by Johanna Reiss who had won a Newberry Award a quarter of a century ago for The Upstairs Room, her story of survival as a ten-year-old hiding from the Nazis in occupied Holland.

2009: The now-daily rocket attacks by Gaza terrorists against southern Israel resumed today with the launch of a Kassam rocket at the Sha'ar HaNegev region and a mortar attack fired at IDF troops near the Kissufim Crossing

2009: Duke Blue Devil guard Jon Scheyer scored a then-career-high 30 points against Wake Forest

2009(28th of Shevat, 5769): Howard Zieff, the commercial director and ad photographer who stuffed an actor with spicy meatballs in a memorable Alka-Seltzer spot and used an American Indian in print ads to convince people “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s real Jewish Rye,” then went on to direct movie comedies, passed away today at the age of 81. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

2010: The Knesset "approved a law instructing the Israeli Government to protect the rights of Jewish refugees from Arab counties in all forthcoming peace negotiations; the first Israeli law to recognize Jews as coming to Israel not only to fulfill Zionist aspirations, but as refugees

2010:The Jewish Studies Program at Tulane University under the leadership of Dr. Brian Horowitz and the Center for Cultural Judaism are scheduled to present a program entitled “The Jewish Question as the Arab Question: The Lost Voice of Simon Rawidowicz” at Tulane’s Uptown Campus in New Orleans, LA.

2010:National police headquarters issued an order today to cease the delivery of mail throughout Israel following the discovery of what is believed to be a package bomb at a post office in Migdal Haemek

2010:Army Radio reported today that The Palestinian Authority handed a Kassam rocket made in a West Bank village to Israeli authorities last week. According to the report, PA security forces found the rocket ready to be launched towards central Israel.

2010:Israel's ice dancing team at the Winter Olympics finished in 10th place. Roman and Alexandra Zaretsky performed to music from "Schindler's List" in the free dance tonight at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, Canada. The brother-and-sister duo earned a score of 90.64 in the free dance, and a score of 180.26 over-all.

2010:Israeli archaeologists said today that they've discovered an unusually shaped 1,400-year-old wine press that was exceptionally large and advanced for its time. The octagonal press measures 21 feet by 54 feet (6.5 by 16.5 meters) and was discovered in southern Israel, about 40 kilometers south of both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

2010(8th of Adar, 5770):Rabbi Menachem Porush, a long-serving Knesset member and father of current Deputy Education Minister Meir Porush, died in Jerusalem today at the age of 94.

2010(8th of Adar, 5770):Steffi Sidney-Splaver, who began a career as an actress and then gave up acting to become a Hollywood writer, publicist and producer, passed away today at the age of 74.

2011:Member of Knesset Danny Danon. The Deputy Knesset Speaker, Chairman of the Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee and of World Likud is scheduled to give an address at The OU Israel Center in Jerusalem.

2011: The Round Up,a “drama that tackles the controversial subject of French collusion in the atrocities of the Holocaust” is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: At the Jerusalem International Book Fair, Galaade Editions and ITHl are scheduled to present: “Sisters, not enemies: Telling the story of Jews and Arabs in Israel in another voice.”

2011: Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is scheduled to perform at Carnegie Hall.

2011:Israel conducted a successful test of the Arrow 2 ballistic missile defense system off the coast of California early this morning, when it destroyed a target simulating an Iranian ballistic missile

2011: Rham Emanuel was elected Mayor of Chicago today, making him the first Jew to hold this position.

2011:Montreal's city council has condemned the boycott campaign against a local shoe store that sells footwear made in Israel. A council motion deploring the campaign, proposed and supported by Mayor Gerard Tremblay, passed today by a vote of 38 to 16.  (As reported by JTA)

2011(18th of Adar, 5771):George Einstein, a cousin, contemporary and occasional companion of Albert Einstein who was a successful inventor and businessman in his own right passed away at the age of 91.

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articles/sandestin-38619-dies-wednesday.html

2011: Sue Fishkoff described the role of the Jewish community in the conflict between Wisconsin’s Governor Walker and public sector employees.

2011:Nearly 100 orthodox North American rabbis signed a letter demanding of Interior Minister Eli Yishai to “rectify the injustice being done to our converts, ourselves and the Jewish people” and “insure that those individuals whom we convert will automatically be eligible for aliyah as they have been in the past.”

2011:In an effort to curb the trend of Orthodox converts from abroad not being recognized by Israel for citizenship, the Jewish Agency today appealed the Interior Ministry for a more dominant role in identifying established Diaspora communities as such.

2012: “Ahead of Time: The Extraordinary Journey of Ruth Gruber” is scheduled to be shown at Temple Beth Sholom Idelson Library in Sarasota, FL.

2012: In London, Chochana Boukhobza is scheduled to discuss “The Third Day” a novel about two cellists who travel to Jerusalem for a concert, as part of Jewish Book Week.

2012: In London, Rod Arad is scheduled to talk about his passion for marrying unconventional forms with unexpected functions and the sources of his unbridled creativity during Jewish Book Week.

2012: Publication of “The Jewish Community of Harbin, China”

http://audreyfm.wordpress.com/tag/prof-dan-ben-canaan/

2012:Iran may develop inter-continental missiles that can reach the east coast of the United States in two to three years, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said in a CNBC interview today

2012: Israel Beiteinu will propose an alternative to the Tal Law by which "everyone will serve the state," Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said today.

2012(29th of Shevat, 5772): Eighty-six year old Mark Shulman the husband of Margaret Shulman

2013: The Israeli Opera’s Meitar Opera Studio is scheduled to present The Operas of Donizetti at the Eden Tamir Music Center

2013: In Springfield, VA, Congregation Adat Reyim is scheduled to host a wine and cheese reception along with a Shabbat Folk Service “celebrating the anniversary of Debbie Friedman’s birth.”

2013: Palestinian protests in Jerusalem and the West Bank turned violent today, with demonstrators throwing stones at Israeli security forces at several locations.

2013: After nine seasons and 197 original episodes CBS broadcast the last episode of CSI:NY, a cerebral crime fighting program created by Carol Mendelsohn and  for which Jerry Bruckheimer served as executive producer.

2014: In Iowa City, Hillel under the leadership of Director Jerry Sorkin, is scheduled to host its annual fundraising concert featuring University of Iowa School of Music faculty members, Kenneth Tse (saxophone), Alan Huckleberry (piano), and Scott Conklin (violin), along with a quartet of School of Music graduate students.

2014: The DPJCC's 14th Annual Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to close with the showing of “Orchestra of Exiles”

2014: Friends and family of Cyndie Birchansky, whose accomplishments include three really neat children, look forward to celebrating her natal day.

2014: The Red Door is scheduled to host “Waiting Room” an evening curated by Leah Wolff and Guy Ben-Ari.

2014: The Jewish Agency will extend immediate emergency assistance to the Jewish community of Ukraine and will help secure Jewish institutions in the country, the Chairman of the Executive of The Jewish Agency for Israel Natan Sharansky announced today.

2015: The New York Times features books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lies, First Person by Gail Hareven, Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar, Lucky Alan and Other Stories by Jonathan Lethem, Mark Twain’s America by Harry L. Katz and Huck Finn’s America by Andrew Levy.

2015: In New Orleans, Rabbi Edward Paul Cohn is scheduled to officiate at the graveside services Martha Blackman who was the widow of Murray Blackman, of blessed memory, the longtime Rabbi at Temple Sinai.

2015: “Laureen Nussbaum, Anne Frank scholar and Holocaust survivor, is scheduled to speak on Holocaust history and the legacy of Anne Frank's work during this afternoon’s lecture at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.

2015: “Mexican-Jewish cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki accepted the Academy Award for “Birdman,” repeating his victory last year for “Gravity.”

2015: An exhibition “Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War and the Holocaust” is scheduled to open at the Illinois Holocaust Museum &amp; Education Center.

http://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org/pages/exhibitions/special-exhibitions/upcoming-special-exhibitions/

2015: “Ida,” a “Polish moved that traces the evolution of a young novitiate in Catholic convent, who, about to take her vows, learns that she is the daughter of Jewish parents killed in the Holocaust” won the Oscar for best foreign-language film. (As reported by JTA and Times of Israel)

2015: “The evening’s “In Memoriam” segment of the Oscars devoted to film industry notables who have passed away over the past year, included, among others, Israeli filmmaker Menachem Golan, director Mike Nichols, and legendary film actress Lauren Bacall.”

2015:Israel’s losing streak at the Oscars continued, as the short film “Aya,” cowritten and codirected by Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnun and starring Sarah Adler, failed to win for Best Short Film.

2015: As the world is scheduled to watch the Academy Award ceremonies tonight there are those who remember that Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky “claimed to have been the first to call the Academy Award Statuette ‘Oscar.’”

2015: Lewis Black is scheduled to appear at the Vonnegut Fundraiser in Indianapolis, Indiana

2015: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host a “1-hour workshop that will include a series of activities designed to get” people “thinking, taking and sharing ideas to help in planning for a new regional museum projected to open in 2020.

2015: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Barnes &amp; Noble is scheduled to host a book reading and signing featuring Boris Fishman, author of A Replacement Life.

2015: “Fragile” an exhibition by Tel Aviv native Tal Eshed is scheduled to open at the Klemens &amp; Tanja Grunert Gallery.

 2016: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to host “a new class exploring the Baqashot (‘Songs of Seeking’ in Edwin Seroussi’s wonderful translation), a musical tradition whose roots are in Andalusian Spain.”

2016: 284th anniversary of the birth of George Washington whose welcoming tone expressed to the Jews of the United States helped to make the American Jewish experience unique from its inception down to the 21stcentury. 

2017: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was warmly welcomed at Sydney today by his Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, with the Israeli leader promoting the two countries’ growing ties as Israel faces rising international criticism over its settlement policy in the West Bank.” (As reported by Jacqueline Williams and Gerry Mullany)

2017: Meir Weinstein, “founder and leader of the Jewish Defence League of Canada” filed a hate crime complaint “with Toronto police against a downtown mosque whose imam allegedly called for killing Jews.” (As reported by Ron Csillag)

2017: The Jewish Museum celebrated its annual Purim Ball today at the cavernous Park Avenue Armory, which was decorated with a ceiling-to-floor installation of multicolored streamers and shapes, eliciting oohs and ahhs from the more than 700 festive guests who included former Mayor Michael Bloomberg as they mingled with dancing giant anthropomorphic Purim Puppets on stilts. (As reported by Masha Leon)

2017: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host a focus group opened to the public to receive an exclusive sneak peek and provide feedback on stories and historic artifacts for the new Jewish museum being built in the Washington Metropolitan Area.

2017: As “the climate conversation heats up,” The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to present “An Evening With Al Gore.”

2017: The JDC Archives and The Center For Jewish History are scheduled to host “Town Fools, Beggars and Other Outcasts: Bringing the Margins to the Center in East European Jewish History” during Nata Meir will examine “Jewish social outcasts in prewar Eastern European history and offer insights into the changing mentalities of Jewish society.”

2018: The Steicker Center is scheduled to host “Love and Death in Italian Ghettos in the Time of the Plague” during which a panel of experts “using original documents from Italian archives…will explore the everyday lives of Roman, Mantuan, Venetian and Florentine Jews during exceptionally trying times, addressing how Europe’s Jewish communities coped with plagues and pestilence.

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

2018: JW3 is scheduled to host the first screening of “Shalom Bollywood: The Untold Story of Indian Cinema.”

2018: The New Orleans JCC is scheduled to host a screening of “The 90 Minutes War” as part of the Cathy and Morris Bart Jewish Cultural Arts Series.

2018: MusicTalks and Yeshiva University’s Center for Israel Studies are scheduled to present a celebration of “the music and life of Arik Einstein, “the voice of Israel” and a pioneer of Israeli rock music, through a live performance by Elad Kabilio and an ensemble of musicians from MusicTalks.”

2018: Two hundred eighty-sixth anniversary of the birth of George Washington who signed a treaty between the United States and Tripoli in 1796 that said “the Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion” which meant that “Washington did not intend to disparage the Christian religion” but “he did mean to say that no claim in the future would justified that Christianity was …the foundation of the Government of the United States.”

2019: More than 35,000 runners are scheduled to participate in events surround the Tel Aviv Marathon which starts at the Tel Aviv Convention Center and continues “to the boardwalk and along the Mediterranean shore.”

2019: In Coralville, IA, Congregation Agudas Achim is scheduled to host a “Sephardic Dinner and Musical Service.”

2019: At the UC Berkley School of Law, is scheduled to host “Judaism and the #MeToo Movement” in which “theologian, feminist and HUC professor Rachel Adler discusses reconciling Jewish law with gender justice.”

2019: In Cedar Rapids, the record snow finally is scheduled to start to finally start melting, friends and family of Shlomo Levi and Cyndie Birchansky bask in the warmth of their birthday celebrations.

2019: Anniversary of George Washington’s birthday which used to be the federal holiday Washington’s Birthday when Jews could remember the words of his letter to the Newport congregation which set the tone for what Lincoln called the “last best hope of man.”

https://www.tourosynagogue.org/history-learning/gw-letter

2020(27thof Shevat, 5780): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

2020(27thof Shevat, 5780):  Calendar Coincidence - on the civil calendar today marks the 980th anniversary of the birth of Rashi and the anniversary of the birth of George Washington whose welcoming attitude set the tone for the acceptance of Jews in the United States from its birth which have made the American - Jewish experience unique, at least through the first decade of the 21st century.

2020: In San Francisco, the Davies Symphony Hall is scheduled to be the venue for “Violins of Hope, “a S.F. Chamber Music performance of five pieces, three of which were written by prisoners at Terezin.

2020: The Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “The Art of Waiting.”

2020: The Nevada Democratic caucuses are scheduled to take place today with Bernie Sanders, who has been told this week that he is getting “help from the Russians” who are trying to interfere in the 2020 election process and who has no problem with this important electoral event being held on Shabbat, is the favorite to win at a least a plurality of the vote.

2021: The Highgate Synagogue is scheduled to host the of a five-part “Bar Mitzvah Programme” via Zoom.

2021: U.S. Secretary of the Treasuring Janet Yellin and Steve Ballmer are among those scheduled to discuss “the priorities that have the best chance at moving the country — and the world — forward” with the DealBook Team.

2021: The Kaufman Music Center is scheduled to present a concert with pianist Orli Shaham.

2021: As part of the “This Is What Jewish Looks Like” series, the Steicker Center is schedule to host a presentation online with Avishai Mekonen, “a photographer and filmmaker born into the Beta Israel community, who ”chronicled his journey from Ethiopia to Israel as part of Operation Moses and on to the United States in the documentary film 400 Miles to Freedom, which explores racism and diversity in the Jewish community in the United States, Israel and beyond.”

2021: The Jewish Community Center of Youngstown is scheduled to a meeting of the book club via Zoom where attendees will discuss A Bookshop in Berlin by Francoise Frenkel.

2021: The first online auction sponsored by The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth Count is scheduled to come to an end today.

2021: In addition to dealing with terrorists and the pandemic, Israelis must not face the threat that “the massive oil spill that polluted the majority of Israel’s beaches with enormous amounts of tar over the weekend has caused enormous damage to the country's marine life,” which  experts say will take decades to repair.

2021: JWA is scheduled to host via Zoom “Let’s Talk about the Jewish Teen Hookup Culture.”

2021: The Maine Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host the final screening “Rosenwald.”

 

 

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

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February 23

42(16th of Adar, 3892): King Agrippa I began the construction of a gate for the of Jerusalem (pg 128)

68(4th of Adar, 3828): During the Great Revolt, Vespasian occupied the city of Gadara as the legions made their slow, inexorable march to Jerusalem.

1422:  During the conflict between the Hussites and the Dominicans, Pope Martin V issued a Bull favorable to the Jews reminding Christians that their religion had been inherited from the Jews.  “The pope forbade the monks to preach against intercourse between Jews and Christians.”

1443: Birthdate of Matthias Corvinus who as King Matthias I “created the office of Jewish prefect in Hungary.

1447 Pope Eugenius IV passed away. In speaking about the Jews, Eugenius declared “We decree and order that from now on, and for all time, Christians shall not eat or drink with the Jews, nor admit them to feasts, nor cohabit with them, nor bathe with them. […]  They cannot live among Christians, but in a certain street, separated and segregated from Christians, and outside which they cannot under any pretext have houses.”

1455:  Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed from movable type.  This revolution in publishing was one of the most liberating events in Western history.  Some say that it really marked the beginning of the Modern Intellectual Era of Western Civilization.  Soon books would be printed Hebrew giving the People of the Book greater access to books thus further democratizing the concept of learning which is a cornerstone of Jewish civilization.  The chapter and verse system finally took hold in copies of the Torah (books not the Scroll itself) as a result of the printing revolution.

1484: Over this day and the next, 30 men and women were burned alive, as well as the bones of 40 others at the Inquisitional Tribunal of Ciudad Real.

1592: Emperor Rudolph II invited Rabbi Judah ben Bezalel Lowe, known as the Maharal of Prague to his castle.  The two men met for an hour and a half during with they “developed a mutual respect for each other. Rabbi Judah Lowe made use of his excellent connections with the Emperor, often intervening on behalf of his community when it was threatened by anti-Semitic attacks or oppression. (As reported by Chabad Knowledge Base)

1658: Jacob (John) Lumbrozo, the first doctor in Maryland was tried for having, "Denied Jesus of Nazareth…." Lumbrozo was convicted, sentenced to death, and was to have all his property confiscated by the government. He was later freed from these penalties. Lumbrozo was born in Portugal. He then moved to Holland and finally settled in Maryland in 1656.

1665: Emperor Maximilian II granted permission to Chrisophe Plantin to print Hebrew books in Antwerp

1685: Birthdate of composer George Frideric Handel.  In 1718, he wrote the oratorio “Esther” which was based on Racine’s 1689 tragic drama of the same name. Two of his other oratorios were “Deborah” based on the life of the Biblical Judge and “Athalia,” an operatic treatment of the life of the murderous Jewish Queen.

1744: In the ghetto of Frankfurt am Main, “Amschel Moses Rothschild and his wife Schönche Rothschild (née Lechnich) gave birth to Meyer Amschel Rothschild, the husband of Gutle Schnapper with whom he had ten children.

1723: Birthdate of Richard Price, the non-conformist minster who held the lectureship at Old Jewry, the Presbyterian meeting house built on the site of London’s original Jewish neighborhood.

1777: Birthdate of Leopold Bettelheim, the Hungarian physician who “was the recipient of a gold medal of honor from the emperor Franz I. for distinguished services to the royal family and to the nobility.”

1788: In Savannah, GA, Judith Polock and Philip Minis who were married at Newport, RI in 1774, gave birth to Abraham Minis.

1796(14thAdar I, 5556): Purim Katan observed for the last time during the presidency of George Washington.

1799(18thof Adar I, 5559) Parashat Ki Tisa

1807: The British Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of abolition of the slave trade. This victory was due in large measure to the decades’ long efforts of William Wilberforce. This is the same William Wilberforce who helped found Christ Church Ministries Jerusalem (CMJ) in England in 1809. Wilberforce and other leading evangelicals such as Lord Shaftesbury believed that the Jewish people had to be restored to their ancient land in order to pave the way for the return of Jesus. From the 1840s on the Society built in Jerusalem a School of Industry for training Jewish believers in basic trades, an Enquirers House, a Hebrew College, and a modern hospital for Jewish people as well as Christ Church.

1812: Birthdate of Fischel Arnheim the Baireuth lawyer and politician who “was elected by the cities of Hof and Münchberg to the Bavarian legislature.”

1812: One day after she had passed away, Deborah Levy, the wife of Abraham Levy, was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”

1812: In London, Elizabeth Gershon, the “daughter of Zipporah and Aaron Nathan Cohen” and her husband Samuel Gershon” gave birth to Rebecca Gershon.

1813: In Leipzig, Susanna Rosina and Johann Gottfried Delitzsch, “a peddler, craftsman and day laborer” gave birth to Lutheran theologian Franz Delitzsch who “wrote many commentaries on books of the Bible, Jewish antiquities, Biblical psychology, a history of Jewish poetry, and Christian apologetics.”

1815(13th of Adar): Patriot and founder of Aaronsburg, PA, Aaron Levy passed away.

1821: Birthdate of Joel Isaac Cohn, the husband of Edel Nathansen.

1823: In Piotrkow, Poland, Phineas Mendel Heilprin and his wife gave birth to Michael Heilprin the American author, philanthropist and champion of social justice.

1825: In what is now the Czech Republic, Markus and Elisabeth Sara Pick gave birth to Josef Pick, the husband of Eleanor Pick,

1825: In Baltimore, MD, Joseph Osterman married Rosanna Dyer whose older brother Major Leon Dyer would escort Santa Anna to Washington in 1836 and who as Rosanna Dyer Osterman would become “one of Texas’ earliest and most generous benefactors.”

1831: Lewis Cohen married Sophia Andrade at the Hambro Synagogue.

1831: Elias Simmons married Matilda Jones at the Great Synagogue.

1832(22nd of Adar I. 5592):Wolf Heidenheim, who was born at Heidenheim in 1757 and whose works included several editions of the Pentateuch, a Pesach Haggadah, and several siddurim passed away today at Rödelheim

1832: In Cracow, Isaac Halberstram, a wealthy merchant and his wife gave birth to Solomon Joachim Chayim Halberstam known as ShaZHaH.

1832: Birthdate of Hirsch Rabinowitz, the native of Kovno who founded a technical school for Jewish boys at Dvinsk and who became a leader of the Society for the Promotion of Culture Among the Jews of Russia after he moved to St. Petersburg.

1832: Yitzchak Alter and Feigele Lipschitz gave birth to their seventh child Ester Alter.

1834: Birthdate of Abraham Greenwalt, who won the Medal of Honor for his “bravery at the Battle of Frankilin (TN)’ during the Civil War

1835: La Juive (The Jewess) a grand opera in five acts composed by Fromental Halévy premiered today at the Opéra, Paris

1836: The Siege of the Alamo began at San Antonio, Texas.  Dr. Mark Levy, a Jewish physician was reportedly one of those manning the walls of the Texas mission facing the forces of Santa Anna.

1839(9thof Adar, 5599): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

1839(9thof Adar, 5599): Sixty-two-year-old Emanuel Abrahams, the New York city born son of Abraham Isaac Abrahams.

1839: In New York City “Michael and Sophia (nee Hart) Asher gave birth to Morris Asher, the resident of Philadelphia and member of Company of B of the 71st Regiment of Infantry, Pennsylvania Volunteers who fought with the Army of the Potomac in every battle until Gettysburg where his wounds were so severe that he was mustered out of service in 1864.

1846: In Poland, the National Government issued a proclamation “calling for the Jewish population to join the uprising and ensuring their full equality.”

1848: David Jacobs married Matilda Rebecca Jacobs today in the United Kingdom.

1848: John Quincy Adams, Sixth President of the United States passed away.  In what seems like a strange turn of events, President Adams expressed his support for a Jewish homeland in the land of Israel.  In a letter to Mordecai Manuel Noah, one of the most prominent Jews in pre-Civil War America, Adams wrote that he believed in the “rebuilding of Judea as an independent nation.”

1848: During the third French Revolution François Guizot, the reactionary Prime Minister opposed by Adolphe Cremieux was forced to resign and flee the country.

1848: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Jacob Levinson and Fannie D. Hirsch gave birth to their daughter Hannah who married Julius Newman and who as Hannah Newman was a “member of the Board for Jewish Friendless” and was a member of the committee that originated the first free kindergarten in Chicago.”

1851: Two days after she had passed away, Jane Hart, the wife of Henry Hart, was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”

1852: Birthdate of Nathan Frank, the native of Peoria, Illinois and leader of the Republican party who founded the St. Louis Star and served in the 51stCongress.

1853: In Philadelphia, a dinner was held at the Samson Street Hall to raise funds for Jewish charities.

1855: It was today reported that the concert designed to raise funds for the Hebrew Benevolent Societies scheduled for February 27 has been moved from Dodworth's Rooms to Niblo's Saloon because of the unusually high demand for tickets.

1855: Birthdate of Beilitz native Maurice Blumenfeld, who gained fame as American “philologist and Sanskrit Scholar” Maurice Bloomfield, the holder of a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins where he taught starting in 1881, who married Helen Scott after the death of his first wife Rosa Zeisler and who was “the brother of pianist Fannie Bloomfield Ziesler and the uncle of “linguist Leonard Bloomfield.”

https://www.jstor.org/stable/593142?seq=1

https://www.amazon.com/Maurice-Bloomfield/e/B00IVBU55K%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

1858: David Defries married Esther Moses today at the Great Synaogue.

1860(30th of Shevat, 5620): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1861(13thof Adar, 5621): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor; Erev Purim

1861: Birthdate of Emrich Ullmann the Austrian surgeon who was a pioneer in renal transplantation research.

1864: Philadelphian Solomon Altman began serving with Company K of the 159thRegiment.

1864: The United States Senate voted to confirm President Lincolns’ appointment of Rabbi Jacob Frankel to serve “as a Chaplain of United States Hospitals during the Civil War.”

1864: Michael Rosenbaum began serving with Company F of the 29th Regiment.

1865: Birthdate of pioneer baseball executive, Barney Dreyfuss, the owner of the Pittsburg Pirates and the “father” of the World Series.

1867: Birthdate of Isaac David Broydé, the native of Grodno, in what was then part of the Russian Empire who after being educated at the Sorbonne worked in France and the UK before coming to New York in 1900 where he “joined the editorial staff of the Jewish Encyclopedia.”

1868(30th of Shevat, 5628): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1870: Professor George Bartchelor delivered a talk on education reform to the New York Liberal Club.  Batchelor contended that when it came to language, Hebrew, along with Greek and Latin, were the foundation of liberal education.  But the public schools were teaching German, French and Spanish. [Considering who belong to the Liberal Club, one wonders what would have happened if a Hebrew teacher from the Lower East Side had shown up at its meeting.]

1871: The official position of the Jewish community in Ghent was regulated by two decrees one of which was issued today.

1872: Mortiz Ellinger ended his term as publisher of the Jewish Times today.

1873: “The State of the Jews in Persia” published today described the conditions of those living under the rule of the “sovereign in Tehran” who “treats the Moslems” with “greater forbearance than the Jews” because the latter “are not always ready to pay when the tax gatherer calls on them which leads to the Jew being beaten until he discharges his arrears – a fate they could escape “if they offered to embrace Mohammedanism.”

1874: It was reported today that there are only ten bakers in New York who manufacture the Passover Bread” (Matzos) and that they fill orders not only for those living in New York but for those “from Brooklyn Philadelphia and many cities outside of “New York State and that matzos are sold for “eleven cents a pound.”

1874: Birthdate of Slabetz, Bohemia, native Karl Schenk, who in 1893 came to the United States where “he organized the American Union Bank in 1917,” organized the Trade Bank and Trust Company five years later” while serving as a director for several organization including the Jewish Memorial Hospital while “two sons, Henry and Monroe” with his wife Sophie.

1874: It was reported that “some time ago” the Atlantic Monthly published an article “Our Israelitish Brethren” “which treats in a very pleasant way the religious observances of this wonderful people.

1875: Two days after she had pass away, Sarah Isaac, the wife of John Coleman Isaac, was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1878: “Celebrated Jews In Power” published today claims that the rise of Jewry in Europe has turned the fiction of “Coningsby” and the predictions of Sidonia into reality.  One of the proof points is the leading role that Benjamin Disraeli, the author of Coningsby, plays in British politics.

1879(30th of Shevat, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1879: Birthdate of Colonel Ernest Albert Rose who married Julia Eda Lewis at the Synagogue Princes Road in Liverpool in 1907.

1879: In Rochester, NY, today, founding of the Jewish Orphan Asylum Association of Western New York whose officers have included Abraham J. Katz, Leopold Keiser, I.H. Danzieger and Joseph Michaels.

1879: It was reported today that unnamed Jew had scored a coup during the sale of old military stores at Edinburgh Castle. He bought 600 rusty old helmets for 6 pence a pound.  After he cleaned them up, he discovered that they were made of “fine steel…adorned with Arabic inscriptions” showing that they were very old pieces of equipment. After selling a few of the helmets, an Armenian purchased the lot of them for 18 shillings per helmet. Realizing their error, the government bought the helmets from him for 2 of 3 English pounds per helmet.

1880: It was reported that in Germany, associations have been formed for the purpose of excluding Jews from serving in Parliament. In Breslau, one such group has announced that it will not support a Jew under any circumstances. [The rise of anti-Semitism paralleled the moves to emancipate German Jewry.]

1881: “At Oegeklooster, near Hartwerd, in the Province of Friesland, Netherlands, Titus Brandsma who died in 1920 and Tjitsje Postma who died in 1933 gave birth to Anno Sjoerd Brandsma, who gained famed as Titus Brandsma, a Carmelite priest arrested by German occupiers in Holland for speaking out against Nazism as a "lie" and "pagan."  Brandsma had been speaking out against the Nazis since the mid 1930’s.  After his arrest, he was shipped to Dachau in where he was the subject of medical experiments.  He died of a lethal injection in July of 1942. Brandsma was declared “Blessed” by Pope John Paul, II in 1985.  Since then, the promotion of his cause for sainthood has been in progress.

1882: The SS Illinois arrived at Philadelphia, PA at 3:20 pm carrying 325 men, women and children who were refugees from the anti-Semitic violence that had been taking place in the Russian Empire including Poland, Kiev and Odessa.  The refugees were greeted by members of the committee that has been preparing for their arrival. After being examined by Dr. T. J. Elleinger and his medical staff, the refugees were taken to the old Pennsylvania Railroad station which has been remodeled to meet their needs.  The refugees had harrowing tales of deprivation and violence to tell their American benefactors who included Jews and Christians.

1882: It was reported today that the Toronto Globe has received a cable from London describing a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Mansion House Fund for the Relief of Russo-Jewish Refugees presided over by Cardinal Manning.  With the support of Sir A.T. Galt a sub-committee was established to select sites for the establishment of agriculture settlements in Palestine the Canadian Northwest that could provide a viable new home for the persecuted Jews. The subcommittee has a budget of ten thousand pounds. [This outpouring of support for the Jews who were the victims of a series of Pogroms following the assassination of Alexander II is laudable.  Sensing that England could and New York City could inundated by a wave of refugees, plans were made to try and settle the Jews in the under-populated areas of Canada, the United States and Argentina]

1883: In Russia, Nathan and Shifka Grossberg gave birth to Zionist and NYU trained lawyer Abraham Goldberg, the husband of Sarah Dancis who was a vice president of the American Jewish Congress, a member of the executive committee of the World Jewish Congress and Chairman of the Jewish council of Russian War Relief.

1884(27thof Shevat, 5644): Parashat Mishpatim

1884(27thof Shevat, 5644): Amelia de Leon, the Philadelphia born daughter of Jacob de Leon who married Hyam in Charleston, SC passed away today. (some sources show 1879)

1884: Birthdate of Kazimierz Funk who gained fame as biochemist Casimir Funk who “while studying a deficiency disease known as beriberi at the Lister Institute in London, Funk found a substance which prevented the disease, and called it a "vitamin " although it was actually vitamin B,

1886: Lena Lillienthal married Meyer Goldberg. By August of the following year, the two would be embroiled in nasty divorce case in which she sought to end the marriage.

1887: Rachel Davies and South African native Joseph Lipkie gave birth to Ethel Lipkie.

1887: Walter Lohnstein, the six-week-old son of “Alfred and Bertha Lohnstein” was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1888(11thof Adar, 5648): Ta’anit Esther

1889: In Philadelphia, PA, Charles and Jennie (Bash) Weiman gave birth to journalist, playwright, and screen writer Rita Weiman whose play “The Stage Door” was the basis for the Jesse L Lasky film “After the Show” and who married advertising man Maurice Marks.

1890: The President and Managers of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York will hold a reception today between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. in honor of George Washington’s birthday.  (Washington was born on February 22 which in 1890 fell on Shabbat which accounts for the delay)

1890: English dramatist Leopold Davis Lewis passed away.  Born in 1828 and trained as a solicitor he began his dramatic career by translating Erckmann-Chatrian's “Le Juif Polonais,” (the Polish Jew) which he then produced as “The Bells.”

1890: It was reported today that among those charities received property tax exemptions were the Ladies’ Deborah Nursery and Child’s Protectory ($12,000) and the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews ($30,000).

1890: “Gladstone At Oxford” published today included comments by the English Prime Minister about the status of the Jews.  When asked if he thought “that there is any likelihood of an anti-Semitic agitation in England” Gladstone replied “I have not the least fear of an agitation in England against the Jews.  You might as well expect one against the law of gravity.”

1890: “Sir A Sassoon” published today relying on information that first appeared in The Spectator briefly described “this rise of this Jewish family in England” which “were till quite recently strictly Indian Jews” who were “almost natives in their manner of life.” (Sir A. Sassoon probably referred to Sir Albert Abdulah David Sassoon, the First Baronet)

1890: It was reported today that in the summer of 1875 a group of visitors from Massachusetts came to Lincoln’s Inn, London looking for Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate leader turned British Barrister.  They were surprised that Benjamin, who was Jewish “was engaged to appear against an influential firm of Jewish money lenders.”

1891: “A Row in the Synagogue” published today described the outbreak of fight at the Grant Street synagogue in Pittsburg, PA.  Ruben Miller bloodied the nose of Harris Bartniski during a meeting at which congregants were discussing a sermon by Rabbi Feinich in which he denounced Miller for renting his building “to a company of atheists.”

1893: New York State Jacob A. Cantor met with party leaders at the “Tammany Wigwam” to discuss pending legislation in Albany.

1894: In Tétouan, MoroccoRabbi Shlomo Aburbeh and Yocheved Khalfon gave birth to Amram Aburbeh the Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic congregation in Petah Tikva, Israel

1894: It was reported that among those who attended the 14thannual reception of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society included Mr. and Mrs. Selig Steinhardt, Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Seligman, Mr. and Mrs. Lyman Bloomingdale and the Honorable and Mrs. Joseph Blumenthal.

1895: It was reported today that English actor John Hare, who has played the lead in “The Old Jew” will be coming to New York City to perform in December.  Among the productions in which he is expected to appear is “The Old Jew.”

1896: It was reported today that the sale of tickets and boxes for the upcoming Purim Ball are “exceeding all expectations.”

1896: “Nordau Replied To” published today contained a detailed review of Regeneration: A Reply to Max Nordau with an Introduction by Nicholas Murray Butler.

1896: The Tootsie Roll is introduced by Leo Hirshfield. The soft chewy candy took its name from the nickname of Hirshfield’s daughter.  Hirshfield was from Austria.  However, the question as to whether he was or was not Jewish is still up for grabs.  Like the mystery of the Red Heifer, this one may not be answered until the coming of the Moshiach.

1896: Today, founding of the Alumni Associaton of the Schools of the Hebrew Sunday School Society of Philadelphia whose member s have included Eshter Levi, Louis Bloch and Julius Komerovski.

1896:Mihail Grigore Sturza, the voivode, (count or military governor) signed a document recognizing the Jewish community of Galatz, Romania.

1897: Two days after he had passed away, 41-year-old David John Davis, the son of Hyman and Isabella Davis, was buried today as the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1897: In Hampstead, London, American opera singer Francesca Halle and Joseph Gluckstein whose family founded J. Lyons and Co. gave birth to lawyer and Conservative politician Colonel Sir Louis Halle Gluckstein.

1897: Two days after she had passed away, Frances Phillips, the 18-year-old “daughter of Nathan and Esther Phillips” was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1898: In France Émile Zola was convicted following his trial for libel.  He received the maximum sentence – one year in jail and a fine of 3000 Frances. He had written “J'accuse” which was a letter accusing the French government of anti-Semitism and wrongfully placing Alfred Dreyfus in jail.

1898: As the Dreyfus Affair reached one of its climaxes, Paul Deroulede attempted to get the troops at Neuilly to take part in a coup d’état.

1898: Birthdate of Gershon George Cohen, the “Doctor of dental surgery” who had graduated from the College of Dental and Oral Surgery of New York

1899: In France, during President Félix Faure’s state funeral Paul Déroulède, Jules Guérin and the Ligue des Patriotes attempt a coup which resulted in their arrest.

1899: The Nineteenth Century Club heard Israel Zangwill and Hamlin Garland discuss "The Novel" in Delmonico's large ballroom tonight, and both authors agreed so well upon the functions of art in fiction that the men and women present had to forego the usual argumentative entertainment which they plan for these meetings by bringing together speakers of supposedly differing views

1899: In Chicago, Anita "Annie" Taurog (née Goldsmith) and Arthur Jack Taurog gave birth director and screen writer Norman Rae Taurog who won the Academy Award for directing “Skippy” which premiered in 1931.

1900: It was reported to that Nathan Straus was among those who had attended the dinner hosted by the Democratic Club for the New York City Fire Commissioner.

1901(4thof Adar, 5661): Parashat Terumah

1901 “Henry Charles Lea’s Moriscos of Spain” published today provides a review of that tome that includes a description of the impact of the Inquisition which stepped “in with its ferocious zeal which led from forcible conversion through long avenues of obloquy and persecution to the final edict of the banishment of both Jews and Moors.”

1902(16thof Adar I, 5662): Max Budinger, the native of Cassel German and the son of Moses Mordecai Budinger, who occupied the chair of history at the University of Vienna” starting in 1872 and who “was elected a member of the Vienna Academy of Sciences” in 1887 passed away today.

1902: The ninth meeting of the Union of Judaeo-German Congregations opened today in Berlin.

1903: Leopold Greenberg an English newspaper editor, Zionist and friend of Theodore Herzl leaves Egypt.

1904: While sailing from the Mediterranean to China, the USS Chauncey commanded by Lt. Stanford E. Moses which was part of the “First Torpedo Flotilla” was caught in a storm today.

1904: Birthdate of William L Shirer.  Shirer was one of "Murrow's Boys" a group of correspondents hired by Edward R. Murrow who covered the events prior to and including World War II.  Shirer's post was Berlin where he broadcast stories about the rise of the Nazis.  He actually provided live coverage of the French surrendering to Hitler in 1940.  His greatest claim to fame was as author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a classic on Hitler and his followers, based, in part, on Shirer's first hand observations

1904: Birthdate of Leopold Trepper, a Jewish James Bond.  Trepper was born in Poland.  During World War II he organized and ran one of the most famous espionage rings in history - The Red Orchestra.  Operating in France in 1940, the ring penetrated German intelligence and was able to provide the Soviets with detailed information about the impending invasion of Russia by Germany.  Unfortunately, Stalin refused to believe the warnings. Members of the Red Orchestra were captured in 1942.  Trepper escaped and hid until the liberation of Paris in 1944.  When he returned to Moscow, he was arrested along with thousands of others who had bravely fought the Nazis and spent ten years in prison.  Eventually he moved to Israel where he died in 1982.

1904(7thof Adar I, 5664): Sixty-seven-year-old German-Jewish poet, playwright and social reformer Friederike Kempner passed away today.

1905: “Hyman Solomon, who says he is an upholsterer, with a place of business at 207 West Forty-sixth Street, was arrested by detectives from the West Forty-seventh Street Police Station tonight and locked up, charged with extortion in procuring money by promising police protection” based on his alleged friendship with a NYC Police Captain.

1906: “The East Side Dry Goods Merchants’ Association…decided today to close all of its stores from Friday at 6 P.M. until Saturday at 6 P.M. in order to the employees a day off” since Saturday is chosen for a holiday because most patrons of these stores are Jews.”

1907: In Potsdam, Count Has von Blumenthal and his gave birth to Hans-Jürgen Graf von Blumenthal, a German officer who was part of the anti-Hitler resistance and was hung for his part in the plot to kill Hitler in July of 1944.

1908: “Song of Songs on Stage” published today described plans for a stage production of Solomon’s “Song of Songs” at the Queen’s Gate Hall in London under the auspices of the English Drama Society which is considered to be a “novel and daring experiment” in the world of the theatre.

1909(2ndof Adar, 5669): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of the Jews of Speyer who perished when they set fire to their own homes rather than be seized by a violent mob.

1910: Birthdate of Albert Philipson, the native of Ossining, NY and graduate of Columbia Law School work for the Farm Credit Administration and was active in Democratic politics.

1910: The Hahambashi proposes to convene, in summer, a conference of delegates of all Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire to consider reform of the rabbinate and to plan a new reorganization of the community. Included in this would be the elimination of life appointments in favor of elections.

1911: Governor Mahlakoff began a widespread expulsion of the Jews from the Province of Tchernigoff, a Government in Little Russia which meant that two hundred and nineteen families have already been marched through heavy snow drifts.

1912: A New York Ladino language newspaper called La Aguilahit the presses but failed due to lack of support and finished running on March 22 of the same year.

1912: Jews in Kustendil, Bulgaria were attacked by a mob and nine people were injured.

1912: A bill introduced in the Portuguese Congress provides for cession of land to Jewish emigrants who move to Angola, Portuguese West Africa.

1913: In Rozwadow, Poland, Abraham Chaim Springer, the son Mamci Springer and Sara Birnbaum was circumcised by Simon Katz.

1913: Dedication of the Sabbath School Building in Erie, PA.

1913: Dr. Stephen S. Wise, the rabbi at New York’s Free Synagogue, is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “What Ails the Jew” at Sinai Temple in Chicago.

1913: Nellie Woolf and Reuben Davis are scheduled to be the soloists at the Chicago Hebrew Institute’s Sunday Afternoon Concert directed by Alexander Zukovsky.

1913: An Auxiliary of the Marks Nathan Orphan Home is scheduled to host a fund-raising ball at the First Regiment Armory in Chicago.

1913: Solomon Schechter, President of the Jewish Theological Seminary, founded the United Synagogue of America, the association of Conservative synagogues in the United States and Canada. In 1957, it organized the World Council of Synagogues with membership in 22 countries

1914: In Philadelphia, at today’s meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society, Dr. Cyrus led a discussion on question of the possible Jewish origins of Christopher Columbus which was sparked by a paper Don Garcia de La Riega had presented to the Geographical Society of Madrid.

1915: In Bangor, ME, “the town shochet” (ritual slaughter) and his wife gave birth to Theodore L. Adams, the 1936 graduate of Yeshiva College and the Rabbi at “Congregation Mt. Sinai in Jersey City and Ohab Zedek in Manhattan who was the husband of Rebbitzen Bernice Adams with whom he had four children – Larry, Howard, Sivi and Myril.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/adams-theodore-l

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/27/classified/paid-notice-deaths-adams-rebbitzen-bernice.html

1915: The Supreme Court of the United States is scheduled to hold a hearing today in which the state of Georgia will oppose attempts to get a writ of habeas corpus granted in the case of Leo Frank.

1916(19th of Adar I, 5676): Twenty-one-year-old Max Neuman, a citizen of Kleinsteinach, was killed today while serving in the German Army.

1916: Delegates from Jewish organizations in Manhattan met today “to consider plans for the proposed Jewish Congress and to elect delegates to the preliminary conference” to be held next month in Philadelphia.

1917: The Wort, a Yiddish newspaper published in Warsaw said the Overseas News Agency announced “that the Jewish administration in that city granted loans without interest, made gifts in money or distributed free food, milk and medicines” in 1916 to 148,000 people from 25,000 families.

1917(O.S.): The February Revolution began in Russia.  This is the revolution that brought down the Czars and brought the Social Democrats to power.  Unfortunately, they failed and the next revolution brought the Communists to power with disastrous effects for the world in general and the Jews in particular.

1917(1st of Adar, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1917: Jenny Sender and David Fink gave birth to Esther Margaret Fink who passed away before reaching her second birthday after which she was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Edmonton, Canada.

1918: “Felix M. Warburg, Chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee for the various Jewish war relief funds announced” tonight that plans had been finalized “for the transmission and distribution of American relief money to the Jews in that part of Palestine now under occupation through cooperation with the Zionist Special Committee for the Relief of Jews in Palestine, at Cairo” which has been recognized by the British military authorities.

1919: In Dusseldorf, Gustav Cohn, the son of Sophie and Seligman Lazarus Cohn and his wife Henriette Cohn gave birth to Fritz Cohen

1919: Three days after he had died “while on military service, 18-year-old Michael Felperin, the “son of David and Alice Felperin” was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1919: Benito Mussolini forms the Fascist Party in Italy. According to author Alexander Stille "What distinguished the story of Italian Jews from that of Jews elsewhere in Europe was the long coexistence between Jews and Fascists in Mussolini's Italy. Italian Fascism was in power for 16 years before it turned anti-Semitic in 1938. Until then, Jews were as likely to be members of the Fascist Party as were other conservative-minded Italians. This singular fact altered the entire moral and existential equation for Italy's Jews. In other countries, Fascism was the undisguised enemy. But the experience of Italian Jews was far more complex: a strange mixture of benevolence and betrayal, persecution and rescue."

2001(30thof Shevat, 5761): Eighty-seven-year-old Marcus Joseph Sieff, Baron Sieff of Brimpton, “the second son of Israel Sieff, the decorated WW II veteran and advisor to the IDF at the request of Prime Minister Ben Gurion who served as chairman of Marks and Spencer, the family company passed away today.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/feb/26/guardianobituaries

1920: In his address tonight at Temple Rodeph Sholom on the subject of “Have the Jews Helped or Hurt the World?” Rabbi Stephen S. Wise asserted “that both the ‘higher anti-Semitism’ and the ‘lower anti-Semitism’” are products that are “made in Germany and that “the same forces that planned an carried out the plans the resulted in world war have, with their scholars and professors, carried on the movement against the Jew.”  (Editor’s note – this is thirteen years before Hitler came to power)

1921(15thof Adar I, 5681): Dermatologist Phineas Simon Abraham the native of Kingston, Jamaica, who was elected Medical Secretary of Britain’s National Leprosy Fund and President of the West London Chirurgical Society passed away today.

1921: Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Rabbi Ya'akov Meir were elected as the first two chief Rabbis of pre-state Israel.  Kook was the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi and Rabbi Ya'akov Meir was the Chief Sephardic Rabbi.

1921: As head of the Colonial Office, Winston Churchill reviews Pinchas Rutenberg’s request for a concession to harness the waters of the Jordan and Yarkon fivers for electrical power; a concession that would employ 800 Jews and Arabs.

1922(25thof Shevat, 5682): Fifty-five-year-old Leon Khan passed away today after which he was in the Jewish Cemetery in Morgan City, LA.

1922: “A Vanished World” a silent adventure film directed by Alexander Korda and co-starring his wife Maria Corda was released today in Austria.

1923: In today’s issue of the Jewish Chronicle, of author and Zionist Hannah Trager the London born daughter of Zerah and Rachel Barnett, who had founded the Jewish Free Reading Room in East London was quoted as saying that “If the Christian efforts for proselyting [sic] amongst Jews are resented, why do they not do something themselves for their own religious welfare, and distribute amongst themselves literature appertaining to the tenets of their own faith, and thereby try to inculcate a more spiritual outlook in their midst.”

1924(18thof Adar I, 5684): Ki Tisa

1925: U.S. premiere of “Le Miracle des Loups” (The Miracle of the Wolves) “a French historical drama directed by Raymond Bernard

1925(29thof Shevat, 5685): Eighty-six-year-old Yitzhak Yeruham Diskin the son of Rabbi Juda Leib Diskin and Hinda Rachel Diskin passed away today.

1926: Irving Lehman and Mrs. Rebecca Kohut are scheduled to address this evening’s good-will dinner (which will be Kosher) for Jews and Christians being sponsored by the Greater New Yorker Federation of Churches

1926: David A. Brown, chairman of the United Jewish Campaign trying to raise fifteen million dollars to aid the suffering Jews of Europe, is continuing his tour of “the west” after addressing a conference of Jews in Fargo, ND that was held to set a fund-raising target to help with the national campaign.

1927: In a statement issued today, “Dr. Louis I. Harris, Health Commissioner of New York, defended Dr. David H. Schelling of the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital against attacks by the Anti-Vivisection Society.”

1927: “Albert Thomas, head of the International Labor announced that “Dr. Victor Jacobson has been appointed representative of the Zionist organization at the International Labor Office  in Geneva.(JTA)

1929(13thof Adar I, 5689): Thirty-nine-year-old Mercédès Jellinek, the granddaughter of Adolf Jellinek, the former chief rabbi of Vienna whose name is the Mercedes in the Mercedes-Benz automobile succumbed to bone cancer today.

1929: A recording was made today of "Wedding Bells (Are Breaking Up That Old Gang Of Mine)” a popular barbershop song composed by Sammy Fain with lyrics by Irving Kahal and Willie Raskin which number 8 on the pop charts.

1930: “Chasing Rainbows” a romantic comedy with a script co-authored by Al Boasberg with music by Milton Ager and Jack Yellen and co-starring Jack Benny was released today in the United States.

1931(6thof Adar, 5691): Seventy-four-year-old failed Russian businessman Jacob Koppel Sander who came to the United States where pursued a successful career as a “musical director” and “composer whose works included “The Hero and Bracha or the Jewish King of Poland for a Night” passed away today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/sandler-jacob-koppel

https://www.jewish-music.huji.ac.il/content/jacob-koppel-sandler

1932: “The nomination of Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo to an associate just of the Supreme Court was unanimously reported favorably by the Senate Judiciary Committee which is chaired by Republican Senator Norris of Nebraska.

1932: Premiere of “Mamsell Nitouche” a 1932 French-German operetta film directed by Carl Lamac and filmed by cinematographer Otto Heller.

1932: In the Netherlands, the Jewish Historical Museum was officially opened. It was located in a single room on the top floor of the Amsterdam Historical Museum, which was housed in the Weigh House.

1933: “Louis Marshall Memorial Hall, the second building erected at the New York State College of Forestry, was dedicated” today in honor of the Jewish jurist who “was also a conservationist, and the force behind re-establishing the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, which evolved into today's State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.”

1934: Today the “Tel Hey Memorial,” known as the “Roaring Lion” which had been fashioned from a 22-ton block of stone by Abraham Melnikov which took the form of a “lion facing eastward and roaring to the heavens” was officially dedicated today.

1935(20thof Adar I, 5695): Parashat Ki Tisa

1935(20thof Adar I, 5695): Romanian born, American Yiddish playwright Joseph Latteiner passed away today

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/latteiner-joseph

1936(30thof Shevat, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1936: A conference to choose national officers and assign quotas for the 1936 campaign of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is scheduled to be held today in Cincinnati, Ohio, under the leadership of Felix Warburg.

1936: Birthdate of Harrison Jay Goldin the Bronx born lawyer and former New York politician who served as an attorney in the United States Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights during the Kennedy Administration and ran in the 1989 Democratic Primary election for Mayor of New York.

1936: Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope the High Commissioner of the British Mandate of Palestine was booed by a crowd as he left a museum in Tel Aviv where he had just given a dedicatory address.  The demonstration was prompted by reports that the mandatory government is about to implement new regulations designed to limit Jewish immigration and land purchases by Jews. The High Commissioner ordered the crowd to disperse but did not order any arrests.

1937: In what must have seen like a moment of irony considering the rise of Nazi German, 2,000 ex-servicemen attended synagogue services in Berlin honoring 12,000 of those who had had died during the World War.

1937: It was reported today that author Marvin Lowenthal described the Jews Poland to be “in the same condition as those in Germany with one million absolutely dependent upon charity” and another 2,400,000 needing outside to subsist” in a country that has not passed “public legislation on the Jewish question” but has “numerous other ways to destroy the Jews.”

1937: One day after he had passed away, funeral services were held in Prague today for 73-year-old Dr. Maxmillian Reiner, “a founder of the Czech-Jewish movement” and an active member of “Sokol, the national gymnastic and educational organization.”

1938: “Assailing Hitlerism as ‘fundamentally anti-German and anti-Christian’ and picturing the Nazi regime as ‘the Antichrist’ and the enemy of Western civilization, Dr. Ernst Wilhelm Meyer” a sixteen-year veteran of the German diplomatic service announced his resignation “as the first secretary of the German Embassy in Washington” where he has served for the last six years.

1938: Today is the planned date on which passengers will begin debarking at the newly refurbished port of Tel Aviv.  The event is viewed as “a milestone in the rebuilding of the Jewish National Home.”

1939: Birthdate of Lester Glassner, an artist who graduated from Pratt Institute who created a “museum-size collection that included dolls and wind-up toys, plastic fruit sculptures and costume jewelry, sunglasses and makeup kits, greeting cards and matchbooks, salt and pepper shakers and Christmas ornaments, not to mention movie stills, posters, cardboard cutouts, books, magazines, records, and 8- and 16-millimeter films.”

1939: “The chief architect and designer of the Palestine Pavilion” at the New York World’s Fair, Arieh El-Hanani arrived today “on the Queen Mary to supervise “the setting up of the Palestine exhibits, which will arrive next week on the liner Excalibur.

1939: “Under a decree that Field Marshall Goering announced today, all German or Stateless Jews must surrender with a fortnight all jewels,” “knives, forks, other tableware” “and other objects of gold, silver or platinum as well as all diamonds, pearls and other precious stones”

1939: At a time when “the present wave of anti-Semitism is aimed at the destruction the Jewish religion,” “ministers of a dozen Protestant denominations and non-denominational groups” met at Temple Israel to study Jewish religious forms and discuss common Jewish and Christian problems in a meeting “arranged by the Central Synagogue, Temple Israel and the Greater New York Federation of Churches.

1940(14th of Adar I, 5700): Purim Katan

1940: Al “Bummy’ Davis lost a unanimous decision at the lightweight level.

1940: Seventy-seven-year-old businessman and philanthropist Henry Frederick Samstag, the Washington, DC born son of Samuel and August Samstag who moved to New York in 1895 where founded Samstag and Hilder, co-founded the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies” and raised three children – Henry, Katherine and Matilda – with his wife Belle Samstag passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1940/02/24/92890229.pdf

1941 Romanian born painter Marcel and Medi Janco and their two daughters who had survived the Iron Guard’s Bucharest Pogrom, arrived in Tel Aviv

1941: David Zacharin, Russian born cellist and director of the Tel Aviv Academy, gave his first New York recital tonight at the Town Hall. His program was devoted Jewish music.  Of the seventeen works played 14 were his own while the remaining three were Bloch’s “Schelomo” (Hebrew for Rhapsody, Gnessin’s “Song of the Wandering Knight” and Bruch’s “Kol Nidre.”  Zacharin “achieved real eloquence” when he played “If I Forget Thee Jerusalem,” a piece of his own creation.  Whatever the evening lacked in artistic perfection was overcome by the fact that it gave “insight into the longings and religious aspirations of an ancient people.”

1941: A large scale pogrom in Amsterdam continued for a second day.

1942: Edward M.M. Warburg, son of the late Felix Warburg and Chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee, joined the army last week as a private, despite the fact that he is married and has a 6-months-old son, it was learned here today. A member of Company B, 518th Military Police Battalion, Private Warburg is in training at Governors Island, home station of the unit. Army headquarters, in disclosing Mr. Warburg's enlistment, emphasized that the battalion was a field unit subject to call to active service. Warburg himself declined to comment on his enlistment.

1942: Author Stefan Zweig and his wife Elizabeth who had died yesterday “were found dead of a barbiturate overdoes in their house in the city of Petropolis, Brazil.”

1942: Struma, a ship chartered to carry Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to British-controlled Palestine during World War II, with its engine inoperable, was towed from Istanbul through the Bosporus out to the Black Sea by Turkish authorities with its refugee passengers aboard, where it was left adrift.

1943: A division of the Red Army attacked the Germans at Alexseyevka, in the Ukraine. Many of the attacking soldiers were Jews.

1943: Lydia Litvyak “was awarded the Order of the Red Star, made a junior lieutenant and selected to take part in the elite air tactic called okhotniki, or "free hunter", where pairs of experienced pilots searched for targets on their own initiative.”

1944: It was reported today that “in a move to combat the wave of terror that flared up in Palestine this week, a Jewish vigilant organization calling itself ‘Yishuv’s Guard’ has been formed in Jersualem.

1944: At Zwadka, Poland, a Polish man and his daughter were killed by Germans, along with the two Jewish women whom they had helped.

1945(10thof Adar, 5705): As the Soviet Army approached Schwarzheide, in the Dresden (Germany) area 300 Jews who had been moved from Berkenau to the Schwarzheide factories were shot. The German camps of Belsen, Dachau, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen and Ravnebruck became the destination of thousands of evacuated Jews from all the other camps

1945: Father Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski who had been arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 died today at Dachau.

1945: Joe Rosenthal took the most famous picture of World War II, "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima." 

https://www.pulitzer.org/article/joe-rosenthal-and-flag-raising-iwo-jima

 

1946: In a report issued by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, medical authorities said that there were no reports of Plague in Europe with the exception of the Mediterranean ports including Jaffa with two cases, and Haifa and Tel Aviv with one case each.

1946: As the Allies sought to rebuild the media in Germany after WWII, the Broadcasting Control Unit in Hamburg issued an “Access Authorization to the Broadcasting Studio Hamburg for Major Everitt.”

https://jewish-history-online.net/source/jgo:source-145

Access Authorization to the Broadcasting Studio Hamburg for Major Everitt, issued by the Broadcasting Control Unit Hamburg 1946 | Key Documents of German-Jewish History (jewish-history-online.net)

1947: In Washington, DC, Harvard Law School and New Deal veteran Norman S. Altman and the former Sophie Robinson, a Yale Law School graduate and television producer gave birth to Woodrow Wilson High graduate and George Washington trained attorney Robert Alan Altman, a protégé Clark Clifford and husband of “Wonder Woman” Lynda Carter with whom he had two children, James and Jessica.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/business/robert-altman-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1947: General Eisenhower opened a drive to raise $170 million in aid for European Jews

1948: In Tel Aviv, Ruth and Gad Paz gave birth to their son Amnon Paz who perished aboard the Israeli Submarine Dakar on January 25, 1968.

1949(24thof Shevat, 5709): Fifty-nine-year-old printmaker Todros Geller a leading Chicago artist passed away today leaving behind a treasure trove of work part of which can be seen at the Spertus Institute.

http://www.oakton.edu/museum/Geller.html

http://nwpressbooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/1937-from-land-to-land-by-todros-geller.html

http://blog.chicagohistory.org/index.php/2013/02/my-jewish-chicago-todros-geller/

1950: Birthdate of Rebecca Newberger, the native of White Plains, NY, gained fame as author Rebecca Goldstein.

https://www.rebeccagoldstein.com/

1952: “Love is Better than Ever” a romantic comedy directed by Stanley Donen and starring Larry Parks and Elizabeth Taylor was released in the United States today.

1952: Three years after being released in the United Kingdom, “The Small Room” which Emeric Pressburger co-directed, co-produced and co-wrote was released in the United States today.

1952: In Philadelphia, Frieda (née Schreiber) and Alexander Herskovitz gave birth to Marshall Schreiber Herskowitz, the director, producer and writer who won several Emmys for “Thirtysomething” the television series he created.

1954: The first mass inoculation using the Salk Polio Vaccine began.  In one of the irony of history the first polio vaccine was created by a Jewish Doctor, Jonas Salk.  But the second polio vaccine was also created by a Jewish Doctor, Albert Sabin. 

1955: In France, the second government led by Pierre Mendès France ended today.

1955: Marianne Winters began playing the role of “Gelda” in a production of “The Dark Is Light Enough” which opened today.

1957: “The Diary of Anne Frank” which had opened at the Cort Theatre in 1955 was performed for the last time prior to moving to the Ambassador Theatre where it would open three days later

1959: Publication of Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow.

https://books.google.com/books?id=HPDqaTLKOEEC&pg=PA194&lpg=PA193&dq=%22Henderson+the+Rain+King%22&as_brr=3&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html

1960(25thof Shevat, 5720): Seventy-eight-year-old gold medal winning Olympic fencer Alexandre Lippmann passed away.

1961: Today, under the guidance of Atlantic Records producer Phil Spector the Top Notes recorded “Twist and Shout” co-authored by Bert Berns

1962: Churchill’s friend Montague Brown wrote a letter expressing his concerns about the retired Prime Minister’s plan to visit Israel on an upcoming cruise to the eastern Mediterranean.  He was fearful of the effect such a visit would have on Britain’s Arab friends in the Middle East. Ultimately, Churchill’s yacht would pass the coast of Israel at night and would not make landfall.

1962(19thof Adar I, 5722): Fifty-seven-year-old Chelsea, MA born Boston University Law School graduate Ada Feinberg York, “a lawyer for the NLRB,” “Republican candidate of Secretary of State of Massachusetts” and “former vice president of the Women’s Division of the American Jewish Congress” who was the wife realtor and insurance broker Benjamin H. York with who she raised a son and two daughters passed away today.

1965: Sixty-four-year-old Herberts Cukurs, a member of the Arajs Kommando which slaughter thousands of Jews in Latvia died today in Uruguay.

1965: In Houston Lorraine Charlotte (née Langfan), a stockbroker and Alexander Dell, an orthodontist, gave birth to Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computers.

1965: American classic’s scholar Charles A. Robinson, the husband of Celia Sachs and son-in-law of art historian Paul J. Sachs who played a key role in saving European art from the Nazis, passed away today.

1966: “Elimination From Liturgy of More Passages Offensive to Jews Suggested” published today included a call by “the Rev. Walter M. Abbot, association editor of America, the Jesuit weekly” for “the Catholic Church” to “make further changes in liturgy to eliminate readings which either hurt or offend Jews” such as the one “from John that referred to the disciples ‘gathered together for fear of the Jews.’” (JTA)

1966: Funeral services were held today for “seventy-seven-year-old Yiddish poet and editorial staff member for the Jewish Forward Nachum Yud who was born in Russia in 1888 and to come the United States in 1916.”

1968(24th of Shevat, 5728): Fannie Hurst passed away at the age of 78.  Born in 1889 in Ohio, she graduated from Washington University (St. Louis) and then furthered her studies at Columbia in NYC. (This educational activity was unusual in and of itself for a woman of her times.  Hurst was a successful author, friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and supporter of the New Deal and aid to refugees from Nazi Europe.  By the time she passed away she had written seventeen novels, nine volumes of short stories, three plays, many articles, speaking engagements, a television talk show and collaborated on a number of films. One of the most amusing stories about her, which shows that she was way ahead of her times, involved her marriage. “In 1915, she had secretly married pianist Jacques Danielson and they each had their own residence. When their marriage was revealed in 1920, a New York Times editorial took them to task for having separate residences when there was a housing shortage. Hurst retaliated by stating that a married woman had the right to retain her own name, her own special life and her own personal liberty. They remained happily married until his death in 1952.” When Justice Arthur Goldberg declared in 1962, "that it is time that we evaluated Women on merit and fitness for a job," she snapped back, "Time sir! You are a half century too late.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/hurst.html

1969(5thof Adar, 5729): Seventy-two year old WW I Army Signal Corps veteran and NYU trained attorney Judge Lawrence Peltin and husband of “the former Rosalie Glasser” passed away today.

1970: One American was killed and two more injured when terrorists opened fire on a bus at Halhoul.

1971: The First World Conference on Soviet Jewry which had opened in Brussels on February 23 came to a close today.

1973(21st of Adar I, 5733): Tehilla Lichtenstein passed who served as leader of the Society for Jewish Science from 1938 until her death, passed away today.

1974(1st of Adar, 5734): Songwriter Harry Ruby passed away.

http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C308

1977: Leonard Steinberg, Baron Steinberg of Belfast in the County of Antrim was shot by the Provisional Irish Republican Army after he refused to give in to a demand to pay “protection money.”

1979: Release date in Italy for “Christ Stopped at Eboli” (Cristo si è fermato a Eboli) a film adaptation of the book of the same name by Carlo Levi.

1980(6thof Adar, 5740): Parashat Terumah

1980(6th of Adar, 5740): Seventy-four-year-old Ukraine native Samuel Greenburg, the “painter, graphic artist, author and Chicago public school teacher who “studied at the Académie André Lhote in Paris, Bezalel Art School Jerusalem, and Chicago. He earned his bachelor and master’s degrees at the University of Chicago and took art classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) passed away today.

http://www.chicagomodern.org/artists/samuel_greenburg/

1981: Birthdate of actor, comedian and singer Joshua Ilan “Josh” Gad whose father “was a Jewish immigrant from Afghanistan.”

1981: Alan Berg made his “debut broadcast” today on KOA in Denver where he worked until his murder.

1982(30thof Shevat, 5742): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1982(30thof Shevat, 5742): Seventy-seven-year-old Dallas native and Missouri trained lawyer Irving Fane who was the attorney for the Sport’s Authority in Kansas City passed away today.

1982: Today, “Tanya Gulyaeva-Gurevich, the daughter of Minsk refusenik, Lieutenant-Colonel Lev Ovsischer, who emigrated to Israel in 1979, was allowed by the Soviet authorities to pay a month’s visit to her sick mother in Minsk.”

1983: Moshe Arens replaced Menachem Begin as Defense Minister.

1986: In “The Museums of Israel,” published today, Nitza Rosovsky, the curator of exhibits at the Harvard Semitic Museum and the author of Jerusalem Walksdescribes “Israel, as a crossroads of ancient civilizations in which the countryside itself is like a museum filled with the remains of those who were here before, from Canaanites to Philistines, from Romans to Crusaders. Even the present-day inhabitants -Jews from some 80 lands, Arabs from all over the Middle East, Christians of different denominations - create a living museum.”  In describing the rich variety of museums to be found in Israel, she captures both the history and the efforts to capture the history of the land and cultures that are now part of the Jewish homeland.

1987: The Russian Writers Union accepts Boris Pasternak as a as member posthumously

1987: Aulcie Perry Jr., a former basketball player who became an Israeli citizen and was hailed as a sports champion there, was convicted in Brooklyn Federal Court tonight of smuggling heroin with a street value of $1.8 million into the United States

1987: “Former Soviet Prisoner of Conscience Iosif Begun” who “was pardoned last week after serving three years for ‘anti-Soviet activities’ as a result of his teaching Hebrew” arrived in Moscow this morning after his released from Chistopol Prison.

1988: Elections for the President of Israel were held today in the Knesset with Chaim Herzog, who was unopposed winning re-election.

1989: At the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Soviet émigré pianist Vladimir Feltsman is scheduled to play the music of Schubert and Mussorgsky at a benefit performance designed to raise funds for the Maimonides Research and Development Foundation.

1990(28th of Shevat, 5750): David Samuilovich Kaufman who wrote under the name of David Samoylov passed away. Born in 1920, he was a “notable poet of War generation of Russian poets and considered one of the most important Russian poets of the post-World War II era.” 

1992: In Philadelphia, Israeli tennis player Amos Mansdorf lost in the finals to American Pete Sampras.

1995: The Washington Post reported today that “Steven T. Katz, who is to become director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here next month, was reprimanded in the early 1990's for misrepresenting his scholarly achievements and violating leave policies while on the faculty at Cornell University.”

1997: Sixty-five million viewers watch the completely uncensored version of “Schindler’s List” on NBC television.

1997(16th of Adar I, 5757):  Oscar Lewenstein, British producer and director, passed away at the age of 80.

1997: Palestinian Ali Abu Kamal opens fire on tourists on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, killing one and wounding another six before committing suicide.

1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 1: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 by Saul Friedlander and Conflicting Accounts: The Creation and Crash of the Saatchi &amp; Saatchi Advertising Empire by Kevin Goldman

1998: Osama bin Laden publishes a fatwa declaring jihad against all Jews and Crusaders. Considering what the Crusaders did to the Jews during the Middle Ages, this is a strange declaration indeed.

1999: In another example of personalization and splintering of Israeli politics, Yitzhak Mordechai quit Likud and formed the Israel in the Centre Party. Other members included David Magen and Dan Meridor from Likud, Hagai Meirom and Nissim Zvili of Labour, and Eliezer Sandberg of Tzomet.

1999: Michael Nudelman and Yuri Stern left Yisrael BaAliyahto form Aliyah, which later entered into an alliance with another Russian-immigrant party, Yisrael Beiteinu.

2000(17th of Adar I, 5760): Ofrz Haza, popular Yeminite Israeli singer, passed away. Born in 1957, she made her international debut at the Eurovision Song Contest 1983, which she very narrowly failed to win for Israel with the song "Hi". Ofra Haza had a world-wide hit in 1988 with "Im Nina'lu" from the album Fifty Gates of Wisdom. Her international hits also included "Temple of Love (Touched by the Hand of Ofra Haza)" with the Leeds-based post-punk band, The Sisters of Mercy in 1992 and "My Love is for Real" with Paula Abdul in 1995. She also sang in the animated film The Prince of Egypt in 1998. Her Israeli hits include "Shir ha-Frekha" ("The Bimbo Song", theme from the movie Shlager, in which she also acted) and "le-Orekh ha-Yam" ("Along the Shore"). Haza, who came from the poor Hatikvah neighborhood of Tel-Aviv, at one time almost a slum, was a success story and the subject of pride on behalf of many Israelis of Yemenite origin. She died of AIDS.

2001(30thof Shevat, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2001(30th of Shevat, 5761): Eighty-seven-year-old Marcus Joseph Sieff, Baron Sieff of Brimpton, “the second son of Israel Sieff, the decorated WW II veteran and advisor to the IDF at the request of Prime Minister Ben Gurion who served as chairman of Marks and Spencer, the family company passed away today.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/feb/26/guardianobituaries

2002(11thof Adar, 5762): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

2002: It was reported today that at Shabbat eve service Ronald B. Sobel, the senior rabbi at Temple Emanu-El spoke out about the arrest of Cantor Howard Nevison “on charges that he molested his nephew.

2003(21st of Adar I, 5763): Meyer R. Schkolnick, who became the famed sociologist Robert K. Merton, passed away at the age of 93. According to one source he is the man who coined such as phrases as “unintended consequences,” “role model” and “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

2003(21stof Adar I, 5763): Seventy-three-year-old Jerusalem native Shlomo Argov the confidant of David Ben Gurion and Israeli Ambassador to several countries including the United Kingdom who with his wife Hava had three children – Gideon, Yehudit and Edna – passed away today.

2003: Bruce Fleisher won the Verizon Classic.

2003: An International Conference hosted by the Dubnow Institute on “Transforming Religious and Ethnic Emblematics of Judaism and Jewishness” continued for a second day.

2004: “Federal prosecutors in Manhattan who had charged a prominent orthodox rabbi with stealing grant money last year said today that they would not prosecute the rabbi, Milton Balkany, who admitted that he was wrong in not complying with specific terms of the grant's use.”

2004:”Wrath of a Pulp Patriarch; Will Eisner Draws a Rebuttal to the Notorious 'Protocols' was published today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/books/wrath-pulp-patriarch-will-eisner-draws-rebuttal-notorious-protocols.html?searchResultPosition=1

2005(14thof Adar I, 5765): Purim Katan

2005: The French Law on Colonialism passed to by the Union for a Popular Movement was opposed by Jewish French historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet

2005: Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz announced that Dan Halutz would be the next IDF Chief of Staff.

2005: Effi Eitam and Yitzhak Levi announced that they had officially split from the NRP to form a new party, the Renewed Religious National Zionist Party

2005: “Serenada Schizophrana,” “a series of compositions written by American film composer Danny Elfman in 2004 premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York City by the American Composers Orchestra today.

2005: Chief Nazi hunter Eli Rosenbaum was the guest speaker for "Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals". Over 150 students, staff and community members crammed into the UMKC School of Law Courtroom for the lecture. Eli Rosenbaum has directed the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) for over 10 years.

2006: As reported in The Washington Post, Frederick Busch, 64, a writer whose novels and short stories were esteemed by critics but who never quite found a large following with the general public, died of a heart attack at a New York City hospital. Since 1971, Mr. Busch had written 27 books and came to be known, perhaps in sympathy with his middling sales, as the quintessential "writer's writer." Novelist Scott Spencer called him "a first-rate American storyteller," and Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley praised him as "a serious and gifted novelist" whose stories and novels "tend to be quiet, reflective and subtle."

2006: The Roundabout Theatre Company revival of “The Pajama Game,” a musical created by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross opened today.

2006: “'Maternal ambivalence' is Ayelet Waldman's baby” published today.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-02-23-waldman_x.htm

2007: Ben Stiller received the Hasty Pudding Man of the Year award from Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals. According to the organization, the award is given to performers who give a lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment

2007: In Amsterdam, the Jewish Historical Museum opens Retrospectives of the works of photographers Robert Capra and Eva Besnyö.  

2007: In Jerusalemthe 23rd International Book Fair which is being held at the Binyanei Haooma Convention Center comes to an end.

2007(5th of Adar, 5767): Heinz Berggruen, collector and gallery owner passed away at the age of 93. (As reported by Alan Riding)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/arts/design/27berggruen.html

 2008: In Washington, D.C. Susan Jacoby author of Half Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Past discusses and signs her newest work, The Age of American Unreason.

2008:Joseph Cedar, director of the Oscar-nominated Israeli film Beaufort, and an Orthodox Jew, will attend a symposium sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the five finalists vying for the best foreign-language film Oscar today

2008: Simon Garfield described the story of Anne Frank’s lost love.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/feb/24/news.features

2009: Manhattanville College sponsors a lecture and Q and A session with Ambassador Danny Carmon, Deputy Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations entitled "Israel and Europe: An Insider's Perspective."

2009: After undergoing surgery to remove a tumor on her pancreas, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg returned to the court in time for three days of oral arguments.

2009: Sport Illustrated“remembers the life” the late Joe Goldstein, the “old-school sports public relation man” who recently passed away at the age of 81.  He was known for his upbeat manner as well as his persistency which cause an NBC executive to describe him as “the Jewish equivalent of the Chinese water drip.”  His clients included “Joe Frazier, Bob Hope, the New York City Marathon, Evel Knivel and the Palisades Parkway.”

2009: In Washington, D.C.,Sara Houghteling reads from and signs her new novel, Pictures at an Exhibition, at the Sixth &amp; I Historic Synagogue (formerly the home of Adas Israel, the only Conservative Synagogue still located in the District of Columbia.)

2009:The Israel Antiquities Authority announced today that a routine archeological excavation that was conducted before the scheduled start of a private construction project in an Arab neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem has uncovered a series of seal impressions from the reign of the biblical King Hezekiah 2,700 years ago.

2009:IDF soldiers foiled a large-scale attack at the Kissufim border crossing against troops or a southern Israeli community.

2009: Gaza terrorists fired two Kassam rockets at southern Israeli civilian areas on Monday. One hit an open area in the Sha'ar Hanegev region, while the other landed in a field near Sderot. No one was wounded and no damage was reported.

2010: The three-day long meeting of the Jewish Agency for Israel being held in Jerusalem is scheduled to end.

2010: The Jewish Studies Program at Tulane University under the leadership of Dr. Brian Horowitz and the Center for Cultural Judaism are scheduled to present a program about Satmar Chasidism featuring Dr. David N. Myers, Professor and Director, UCLA Center for Jewish Studies.

2010: Israel said today that Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon will lead a high-level delegation next week to China, the most prominent holdout against tough sanctions on Iran. Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer will also travel with the delegation, expected to discuss issues shared by both nations.

2010: Delaware's first Jewish governor hung a mezuzah at the governor's mansion in Dover today. Among those joining Jack Markel in today’s ceremony in the capital were Rabbi Peter Grumbacher of the governor’s synagogue, Congregation Beth Emeth in Wilmington; Rabbi Steven Saks of the Rabbinical Association of Delaware; and Glenn Engelmann, president of the Jewish Federation of Delaware, according to the Sussex Countian. Markel received the mezuzah as an inauguration gift, according to the report.

2011: “Vidal Sassoon: The Movie” and “The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground” are two of the documentaries scheduled to be shown tonight at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: The 25th Jerusalem International Book Fair is scheduled to present a program entitled ''The Changing Jewish Kitchen - Is Jewish food still Jewish food and what is it?''

2011: David McKenzie is scheduled to present a program entitled “Isachar Zacharie: Lincoln’s Chiropodist—and Peace Envoy” at Adas Israel in Washington, DC.

2011: Eleven Palestinians were injured today when Israeli Defense Forces fired at a group of militants on the border with Gaza, Palestinian news agencies reported. The IDF responded by saying that an explosive device was detonated toward soldiers who were performing routine activity in the area, on the northern part of the border. The IDF noted that in the past two months, "over 12 devices were laid along the security fence and exploded at IDF forces."

2011(19thof Adar I, 5771): Eighty-seven-year-old Joseph H. Flom, a pioneering corporate lawyer who helped build Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom into one of the nation’s leading law firms, passed away today.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/joseph-h-flom-pioneering-deal-lawyer-dead-at-87/

2011(19th of Adar I, 5771):Jack Gottlieb, a composer who brought synagogue melodies to concert halls and who worked closely with the legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein passed away today at the age of 80.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/lohud/obituary.aspx?n=jack-gottlieb&amp;pid=149164072

2012(30thof Shevat, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2012: Dina Zvi-Riklis’s 2006 film “Three Mothers” that explores Israel’s history through the lives of three Egyptian-born sisters Triplets Rose, Flora and Yasmin who were born into “high society” over 60 years ago in Alexandria, Egypt and now live in Israel, is scheduled to be shown at The Yeshiva University Ring Family Israel Film Festival. 

2012: “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to shown at the Columbus Jewish Film Festival in Columbus, GA

2012: In London, “Mordechai Richler: The Last of the Wild Jews” a film about the Canadian-Jewish author is scheduled to be shown as part of Jewish Book Week.

2012: In London, Simon Goldhill is scheduled to discuss “Freud's Couch, Scott's Buttocks, Bronte's Grave” as part of Jewish Book Week.

2012: Iran submitted a letter of protest to the United Nations Security Council today, charging Israel of attacking its nuclear scientists and coloring recent accusations of Tehran's links to attempted attacks against Israeli officials worldwide as being part of a "war game" against the Islamic Republic.

2012: Interior Minister Eli Yishai said today that "The government will have to extend Tal Law until alternative legislation regulating yeshiva students' military service is drafted, with the collaboration of the Defense, Justice and Finance ministries

2013: The Northernmost Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open in Fairbanks, Alaska.

2013: In Iowa City, Hillel is scheduled to host its annual fundraising event in which Benjamin Coelho will join with colleagues from the University Of Iowa School Of Music to perform a program entitled “Songs without Words.”

2013: Purim in Ein Karem “More than Carnival: with the Ensemble Millennium is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. today.

2013: The Maccabeats are scheduled to perform at Temple Moses in Miami Beach, FL.

2013(13thof Adar, 5773): Shabbat Zachor Erev Purim

2013: In the evening, reading of the Megillah Esther

2013: Today’s announcement by the Pentagon that it was grounding all F-35 fighter jets due to a crack found in one of the engine blades” could have an unforeseen impact on Israel’s military capabilities since the IAF has ordered 20 of the planes in a bid to maintain a qualitative edge over its vast array of actual and potential adversaries

2014: Adam Liptak, Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times is scheduled to Hadassah Attorneys Council dinner in Washington, DC

2014: “Handle With Care,” a hilarious and heartwarming romantic comedy about an inept package deliverer who loses an Israeli grandmother’s corpse in a Virginia parking lot on a snowy Christmas Eve is scheduled to have its final performance at Westside Theatre Downstairs

2014: “Threshold to the Sacred: The Ark Door of Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue” is scheduled to close today at Yeshiva University Museum.

2014: Ruth Grumber is scheduled to appear via Skype at the event officially opening “Ahead of Time: The Extraordinary Journey of Ruth Gruber.”

2014: The annual Seforim Sale – the largest sale of Jewish books in North America – is scheduled to come to a close.

2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Forgiving The Angel: Four Stories for Franz Kafka by Jay Cantor

2014(23rdof Adar I, 5774): Alice Herz-Sommer, believed to be the oldest-known survivor of the Holocaust, died this morning in London at age 110, a family member said. Herz-Sommer’s devotion to the piano and to her son sustained her through two years in a Nazi prison camp, and a film about her has been nominated for best short documentary at next week’s Academy Awards.

2014: Following the death today Alice Herz-Sommer, Yisrael “Kristal became recognized as the wolrd’s oldest known Holocaust survivor.

2014(23rdof Adar I, 5774): Eighty-seven year old Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz who was the Executive Director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut and was the Synagogue Council of America's representative to the United Nations passed away today.

http://www.congregationagudathsholom.org/rabbiehrenkranz.htm

2014(23rdof Adar I, 5774): Samuel Sheinbein, an American-Israeli convicted murderer serving his sentence in Israel was shot and killed today at Rimonim Prison today after he shot three people today, all of whom were apparently prison guards.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/alice-herz-sommer-oldest-known-holocaust-survivor-dies-at-110/

2015: Cecile Kuntz is scheduled to “explore how Jews asserted their presence in cities by looking at buildings constructed by Yiddish-speaking communities in Poland and America” in a lecture styled “Towards a Yiddish Architecture

2015: The Winter Semester is scheduled start at the Skirball Center offering such courses as the “Golden Age of Yiddish Cinema” with Dr. Eric Goldman and “Man, Miracle and Menace – The Truth About Elijah” with Dr. Diane M. Sharon which comes just in time with Pesach only weeks away to enliven the part of the Seder when we open the proverbial door.

2015: In London, “Jewish Book Week, a unique nine day literary festival” is scheduled to open today.

2016: The Center for Jewish History and the Leo Baeck Institute hosted the opening “Burning Words: The Battle of the Books” that examines the 16thcentury debate among Christians as to whether or not Jews should be allowed to publish books on Jewish theology.

2016: The Jewish Book Council is scheduled to host an evening with Shulem Deen, Christopher Noxon and Sigal Samuel -- 3 authors who will “share their unorthodox perspectives on what it means to keep the faith with respect to their writing, personal lives, and the Jewish people at large.

2016: Under the terms of a settlement announced today by the University of Oklahoma,the ownership of impressionist Camille Pissarro's 1886 "Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep" will be transferred to Léone Meyer, a French Holocaust survivor whose father owned the painting when it was stolen and the painting “will split its time being displayed at the university's Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art in Norman and a museum in France.” (As reported by Daniel C. Houston)

2017(27thof Shevat, 5777): Sixty-six-year-old Alan Colmes, “the liberal foil” that FOX used to make it “fair and balanced” and husband of Professor Jocelyn Elise Crowley passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/business/media/obituary-alan-colmes-fox-news.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2017: “The Jewish Community Center in New Orleans was evacuated” for two hours today “after a receiving a bomb threat this morning – the latest in a series of such threats made against centers across the United States.

2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to co-host “a deli supper reception and docent-led tour of the Museum’s newest special exhibition, Operation Finale: The Capture & Trial of Adolf Eichmann, followed by a screening of Faceless, a story about a teenager on trial for terrorism, pitted against a female Muslim who is brought on to prosecute.

2017: In San Francisco, Lynn Downey is scheduled to “speak about her book, Levi Strauss: The Man Who Gave Blue Jeans to the World “at the Jewish Community Library

2017: In London, JW3 is scheduled to present past judges of the JQ Wingate Literary Prize discus “What Makes a Book Jewish?”

2017: “An Israeli Air Force fighter jet shot down” an Hamas drone today “before it managed to infiltrate Israel.” (As reported by Yoav Zitun)

2017: In Davie, FL, Nova Southeastern University is scheduled to host Holocaust survivor Alfred Munzer and Syrian immigrant Mouaz Moustafa, the Executive Director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force as they share their experiences dealing with “persecution and displacement.” (Editor’s note: One wonders how Moustafa will deal with the fate of the Syrian Jewish community and/or Syria’s decades long attempt to destroy the state of Israel – home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors.)

2017: At Coe College, Professor Steve Feller is scheduled to lead the final session of “The Conflicted World Of Chaim Potok” in which he uses the author’s novel to explore the “conflicts within Judaism.”

2018: In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host a Hebrew School Dinner followed by a Kabbalat Shabbat Song Fest.

2018(8thof Adar, 5778): Sixty-two-year-old “Maureen Kendler, one of British Jewry’s most popular and prolific educators” passed away this morning.

https://www.thejc.com/news/obituaries/obituary-maureen-kendler-1.459733

http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/leading-jewish-educator-maureen-kendler-passes-away/

2018: Following the Friday night Shabbat meal, the Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to hold Committee Elections for Trinity.

2018: The Jackson Hole Jewish Community Center is scheduled to host services with an oneg to follow.

2019(18thof Adar I, 5779): Parashat Ki Tissa;

2019:  While the Torah Portion may be from Shemot, Jews will be thinking about Beresheet, not the first book of the Torah but the unmanned, 1,300 pound space craft created by three Israeli’s which, if it is successful, will be the first privately built vessel to land on the moon.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/science/israel-moon-lander-spaceil.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

2019: Coe College is scheduled to host the 2019 Jazz Summit Grand Finale Concert under the leadership of Temple Judah “music man” Professor William S. Carson.

2019: In Rockville, MD (suburban Washington): Liz Savage, who has committed her life to working on behalf of individuals with disabilities is scheduled to Congregation B’nai Israel on Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Shabbat.

2019: In Oakland, CA, the Starline Social Club is scheduled to host “vocalist Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell and composer-arranger Dmitri Gaskin as they perform original compositions of Yiddish poetry in styles from classical to disco to hip-hop.”

2019: In what is a timely event given the reaction to an interview with Israel’s Foreign Minister earlier this week, in San Francisco, the Jewish Community Library is scheduled to host a lecture by Professor Magdalena Gross as she discusses how Polish teens learn about the Holocaust in school and through culture.”

2020: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America by Adam Cohen and The Escape Artist by Helen Fremont

2020: In London, Professor Joshua Berman, the rabbi who is a guest lecturer from Bar Ilan University and author of Ani Maamin: Biblical Criticism, Historical Truth and the Thirteen Principles of Faith is scheduled to lecture on “Are the accounts of the Tanach historically accurate?”

2020: In San Francisco, the Contemporary Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “Family ArtBash Sunday” held “in conjunction with the Levi Strauss exhibit,” it “includes a hands-on denim art lab, a family heritage project, gallery games and “Jewgrass” music by Isaac Zones.”

2020: The Sacramento Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “There Are No Lions in Tel Aviv” and “The Albanian Code” which tells “the true story of an Albanian Jewish woman, Annie Altaratz, now living in Israel, whose family was saved by Albanian people and their government during World War II.

2020: The Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Broken Mirrors” directed by Aviad Givon.

2021: The Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights and Pepper Pike is scheduled to host a discussion of contemporary views on the news by Rabbi Joshua Skoff by “Fun with Yiddish” hosted by Anabelle Weiss and Debbie Scolnick.

2021: The Boston-Area Jewish Education Program is scheduled to present online the “Purim Spiel Pop-Up.”

2021: The Contra Costa JCC, Congregation B’nai Shalom and Jewish Book Council are scheduled to present “former New York Times writer Howard Blum as he talks about Night of the Assassins, his recently published book, subtitled “The Untold Story of Hitler's Plot to Kill FDR, Churchill, and Stalin.”

2021: The Jewish Family Experience is scheduled to “hold its Young Professionals Purim game show ‘Social Distancing the Virtual Game Show’ hosted by Avi Frier.”

2021: The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a virtual screening of “Asia,” the Israel Academy Award winning fil about “a rebellious teen dealing with a progressive illness…”

2021: “Bad Dates” starring Andréa Burns,directed by her husband, Peter Flynn with choreography by her son Hudson Flynn, a production of the George Street Playhouse is scheduled to begin streaming today. (As reported by the Crescent City Jewish News owned and edited by Alan Smason)

2021: The Tikvah Fund is scheduled to present the second lecture in the series “The Artiest In Modern Jewish Literature” with author Dora Horn.

2021: The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to present Dr. Erica Brown as she explores the book of Esther.

2021: In association with The Jewish News, ORT UK is scheduled to present a virtual business event “Back to the Future: Innovating the Way We Work.”

2021: The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a second of hearings for Merrick Garland, the nominee for Attorney General.

 

 

 

 

 

This Day, February 24, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 24

303: The first official Roman edict for the persecution of Christians was issued by Roman Emperor Galerius Valerius Maximianus.  This was part a contest between Pagans and Christians for control of the Roman Empire.  The Jews were not involved.  But they would be the ultimate losers when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire and the Church unleashed the power of the state on all religious groups that opposed it, including the Jews.

1147: In Wurzburg, Germany, a rumor began that a Christian corpse was found in the river which could perform miracles. The Jews were accused to killing the person. In the ensuring riots, twenty two Jews were murdered including the rabbi, Isaac ben Elyukem. After the riot the survivors fled to a local Castle

1221: Alice de Montmorency, wife of Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester passed away.  In 1217, Alice ordered the arrest of all of the Jews living in Toulouse.  They could either convert or be killed.  Children under the age of six were taken from their parents, baptized and raised Christians.  Her actions violated the promise her husband had made to the Jews of Toulouse guaranteeing them their freedom and right to practice their religion.   

1463:At Mirandola, near Modena, Gianfrancesco I Pico, Lord of Mirandola and Count of Concordia, by his wife Giulia, daughter of Feltrino Boiardo, Count of Scandiano gave birth to Italian Renaissance philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola who studied Kabbalah with Johanan Aleman and was one of the first Italian nobles to collect Hebrew manuscripts and who “was convinced that the literature of Kabbalah was the true transcript of what Moses heard at Sinai , that Christianity and Judaism were one with Kabbalah as the point of connection and that the differences between Judaism and Christianity were superficial”

1479: After four years of conflict and intrigue, Queen Isabella of Castile secured her throne.  Isabella’s machinations to gain control of the kingdom show her as every bit as other female monarchs as Elizabeth of England or Catherine the Great of Russia.  Later in the year, she would marry Ferdinand of Aragon, a move that would lead to the creation of the modern Spanish state.  Contrary to popular misconception, she was the abler of the two monarchs.  In fact, it was only because Ferdinand was a man in a male-dominated society that saved his reputation.  Isabella’s accession to the throne was the first in a series of events that would end with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

1500: In Ghent, Philip the Handsome and Joanna Castile gave birth to Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor who provided Josel of Rosheim with “a charter or letter of protection from for the whole of German Jewry but who alos  “issued a proclamation again the Jews who had not been baptized” which may have applied to the Jews he ruled as King of Spain.

1510:  Pope Julius II excommunicated the Republic of Venice. Many remember Julius II as the Pope who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel.  Julius II, like at least one of his predecessors, had a Jewish physician; in this case Samuel Sarfatti.  From the Jewish point of view, Julius clashes such as the one that brought on the above-mentioned excommunication and aesthetic projects meant that he did not have time to waste on persecuting his Jews.  Out of sight out of mind or benign neglect placed Julius on the list of one of the “better Popes.” 

1530: Coronation in Italy of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor who provided Josel of Rosheim with “a charter or letter of protection from for the whole of German Jewry but who alos  “issued a proclamation again the Jews who had not been baptized” which may have applied to the Jews he ruled as King of Spain.

 

1536: Birthdate of Ippolito Aldobrandini who became Pope 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.

1590: Accused “Judaizer” Catalina de Leon, the wife of Antonio Dias de Caceres, did penance at an auto da fe held in Mexico City today.

1597:Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, who, in 1588 sent Mantua born engineer Abraham Colorni to Prague married his third wife today.

1582:  Pope Gregory XIII announced the Gregorian calendar.  This replaced the Julian Calendar which explains why there is some confusion about various dates in history.  Of course, the Jews use their own calendar, but as a people who “live in time” it is useful to know when other parts of the Western world began changing the way they keep track of the years.

1590: An entire family of Marranos named de Carabaja “was forced to confess and abjure at a public auto-da-fé, celebrated” today. “Luis de Carabajal the younger, with his mother and four sisters, was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and his brother, Baltasar, who had fled upon the first warning of danger, was, along with his deceased father, Francisco Rodriguez de Matos, burnt in effigy.” (According to some accounts this happened in 1599)

1688(23rd of Adar): Portuguese poet and grammarian Moses Gideon Abudiente passed away.

1739: The army of Iranian ruler Nadir Shah defeats the forces of the Mughal emperor of India, Muhammad Shah at the Battle of Karnal.  Nadir Shah’s rise to power marked an improvement in the lives of the Persian Jewish community.  The last half of the 17th century had been a period of persecution for the Jews when many of them outwardly converted to Islam. Under Nadir, the Jews were once again free to practice their religion in public.

1749(16h of Adar I, 5509): Sahara Helbert, the Daughter of Philip Helbert and the second wife of Baruch Judah passed away today in New York City.

1763: Today “a mob protesting the abolition of half-price admissions stormed the theatre in the middle of the performance of “Artaxerxes,” an opera which would in the next decade feature the tenor voice of Michael Leoni who was also known as Myer Lyon, the Chazan at the Great Synagogue in London.

1765: David Tevele Schiff was named as the Rabbi to lead the Great Synagogue in London succeeding Hart Lyon in that position.  Hart had actually been the rabbi for the Great Synagogue and the Hambro Synagogue. The two congregations were supposed to continue this practice.  But they could not agree on a successor.  Once the Great Synagogue had made its decision, the Hambro Synagogue chose Israel Meshullam Solomon to serve as their rabbi.

1793: Zipporah Isaacs and Hymen Cohen gave birth to Frances Cohen, the wife of Aaron Joseph with whom she had seven children.

1798(8thof Adar, 5558): Parashat Tetzaveh: Shabbat Zachor

1816(25thof Shevat, 5576): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1817: Two days after he had passed away, Zvi, the son of Isaac HaCohen was buried today at the “Brady Jewish Cemetery.”

1818: In London, “actor-manager Henry John Wallack and Fanny Jones” gave birth to American actor James William Wallack

https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-William-Wallack-II

http://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1801197

1829: Lyman and Achsah Wells Granger gave birth Fanny R. Granger who became Fanny Granger Kanter when she married Breslau native Edward Kanter, the Detroit banker with whom she had four children – Henry, Charles, Edward and Jessie.

1831: Birthdate of Leo von Caprivi, who as Chancellor of Germany earned the enmity of the anti-Semites, who were a growing force, when he attacked their leaders in a speech before the Reichstag in 1893.

1831: One day after he had passed away, Same Benjamin was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1835: Birthdate of Sir Julius Vogel, the eighth Premier of New Zealand and the first Jew to hold this position.

1836: Louis Goodman married Julia Salamon today at the Western Synagogue.

1841: David ben Jacob married Rachel bat Aaron HaLevi today at the Western Synagogue.

1842: Birthdate of German Egyptologist Émile Brugsch who in 1881 “discovered the tomb at Deir el Bahir” which included the mummy of Ramses II, the Pharaoh of the Exodus.  

1844: In New York, Isabella Lloyd and Henry Russell gave birth to William Clark Russell.

1847: Moss Ansell married Mary Cantor today at the Great Synagogue.

1847: Asher Solomon married Anna Russel today at the Great Synagogue.

1848: Louis-Philippe, “King of the French,” abdicates the throne. Louis’s reign began with a revolution in 1830 and ended with a revolution in 1848.  This monarch from the house of Orleans was a rather dull character when compared to the glory of the Bourbons and Bonaparte but it was his very dullness that got him to the throne.  As is so often the case, Louis’ record in dealing with the Jews is a mixed bag.  As Elliot Rosenberg points, by the time Louis came to the throne French Jews were well on their way to full emancipation.  Under Louis, “rabbis joined other clerics paid from the state exchequer.”  While English Jews were still denied entry to Oxford and Cambridge, the doors “opened widely” at French universities.  “Jewish communities joined in praising” him as the monarch who “’had enlarged our liberties.’” In 1835, Louis defended the rights of French Jews in a diplomatic conflict with the Swiss.  James de Rothschild, head of the French branch of the House of Rothschild was “a royal intimate” who according to his brother Salomon “goes to the palace whenever he wishes.  James was not only a pillar of the French government, he was also the man who handled the “personal investment accounts” of the French monarch.  All this good will was tainted by the Damascus Affair in which the French sided with those who supported the claim of the Blood Libel against Jews living in Syria.  The French were trying to establish their sphere of influence in the Middle East and North Africa and if the price was that of a few Jews, so be it.  Regardless, by the time of the abdication, Jewish emancipation in France was so ingrained that nothing would stem that tide.  Of course, the Dreyfus Affair, fifty years later would demonstrate the illusory nature of that emancipation.  Louis’s successor, Napoleon III would prove to be “bad for the French people” and therefore “bad for the Jews.”

1848: As the revolutionary forces took power, the Republicans named Adolphe Cremieux, a prominent lawyer, statesman and leader of the French Jewish community, to serve as the minister of justice. During his time in office, he “secured the decrees abolishing the death penalty for political offenses, and making the office of judge immovable.”  “He was instrumental in declaring an end to slavery in all French Colonies, for which some have called him the French Abraham Lincoln.”

1849: One day she had passed 62-year-old Catherine, “the wife of Shimson bar Tuvya” was buried today at the “Brady Street Jews Cemetery.”

1857: In England, Phoebe Levy and Aaron Samuel gave birth to John Samuel

1860(1st of Adar, 5620): Rosh Chodesh Adar observed on the day Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal, “A fact state barely is dry” but “it must be the vehicle of some humanity in order to interest us.”

1861(14thof Adar, 5621): Purim

1861: As the Jews celebrated Purim for the first time during the Civil War, President Lincoln sat for a photographic portrait by Alexander Gardner.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ColorizedHistory/comments/2toz5j/president_abraham_lincoln_seated_on_february_24/

1862: Sergeant Elias Reubenthal began a three-year enlistment with Company I of the 113thregiment of the 12th Cavalry.

1863: In New York City. Adolphe and Ida (Deutsch) Blumb gave birth to merchant and banker Edward Charles Blum, the First Vice President of Abraham and Strauss Department Store and husband of Florence Abraham.

1863: In Vienna, Austria, Rabbi Ignatz and Nettie (Rosenbaum) Grossman gave birth to Louis Grossman who graduated from Hebrew Union College and served as the rabbi at Detroit’s Temple Bethel and Congregation B’nai Yeshurun in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1864: During the Civil War, Joseph B. Greenhut, who had been fighting as a member of the Union Army since April of 1861, resigned his commission and returned to civilian life. Greenhut had fought at a series of famous battles including Fort Donelson, Gettysburg and Lookout Mountain.

1865: In Louisville, KY, “Moritz (Morris) Flexner, an immigrant from Neumark, Bohemia, via several years in Strasbourg, France; and his wife Esther from Roden, Germany” gave birth to Bernard Flexner the founder and first president of the Palestine Economic Corporation” and husband of Mary Flexner and younger brother of Dr. Simon Flexner.

https://library.princeton.edu/special-collections/collections/bernard-flexner-papers

1868(1st of Adar, 5628): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1868: Alphonse, Baron de Rothschild and his wife Leonora, the daughter of Baron Lionel de Rothschild of London gave birth to their only son Edouard who fought a duel during the Dreyfus case.

1869(13thof Adar, 5629): Erev Purim observed for the last time during the Presidency of Andrew Johnson.

1874: Three days after he had passed away, George John David Jonassohn, the young son of “Moses John Jonassohn” and Mathilda Jonassohn was buried at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1874: Birthdate of Moshe Smilansky, the native of Telepino and brother of Meir and Anna Smilansky who first came to Palestine in 1890 as part of the First Aliyah, became an author who wrote in Hebrew and was a proponent of a bi-national state in the 1930’s.

1876: Two days after he had passed away, Frederick Augusta Cowen, the husband of Emily Cowen and the father of Lionel, Emma and Frederick Cowen was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1877: An agreement was reached today between the Ottoman rulers and the Serbian envoys led by Prince Milan. The Serbians agreed to all of the conditions set by the Turks except two, one of which was the requirement that the Jews of Serbia be granted the same rights as all other Serbs.

1878: “Is Disraeli A Jew” was published today.

1878: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association met tonight in New York to discuss the proposal made by Thomas Grady to abolish the Free College.

1879(1stof Adar, 5639) Rosh Chodesh Adar

1881: Seventeen-year-old Marion Calish, the Hebrew teacher at Professor Felix Adler’s kindergarten who has been missing since the 19th, was found just before midnight tonight by a traveling salesman who took her to the local police precinct.

1882: A man who claimed to be named Rothschild and is thought to be Jewish attempted to use a bogus check to pay for purchases at A &amp; C Myer in New York City.

1882: Two of the Jewish refugees from Russia who arrived in Philadelphia, PA on the SS Illinois are the only ones who have been identified as being sick – that is two out over three hundred men, women and children.

1882: A cable sent to the Toronto Globe from London stated that at a meeting of the Committee on the Fund for the Relief of Russo-Jewish Refugees, Sir A.T. Galt suggested that two or three of the Jewish refugees should be allowed to go to Canada’s Northwest Territories to make arrangements for the arrival of their co-religionists. 

1884: Harold Emmanuel Levy, an infant, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1885: Birthdate of Joseph Sprinzak, first Speaker of Israeli Knesset. “Born in Moscow, Sprinzak's father was active in the Hovevei Zion. When Jews were expelled from Moscow in 1891, the family moved to Kishinev and then Warsaw. The home was a center for young Hebrew writers and Zionists. In the early 1900s, he was one of the organizers of HaTehiyah, a Zionist group led by Yitzhak Gruenbaum. During this period he worked in a Hebrew publishing house as well as on Hebrew and Yiddish newspapers in Warsaw. In 1905 he returned to Kishinev where he was active in Zionist affairs. In 1908 he spent several months in Constantinople where he was in contact with Zionist leaders, and then went to Beirut to study medicine. His studies were cut very short when, after just a few months, he was asked to become secretary of HaPoel HaZair. During World War I he was in Eretz Yisrael and after the war, was instrumental in founding Hitahdut, a world movement which joined HaPoel HaZair and Zeirei Zion. A delegate to the 11th and 12th Zionist Congresses, Sprinzak became the first representative of the yishuv's labor movement to be elected to the Zionist Executive. When independence was declared in 1948, he was elected to the Provisional State Council as well as the first three Knessets, serving as speaker for 10 years.   Joseph Sprinzak was known as a Zionist leader who strongly identified with the rank-and-file, both in Israel and abroad. His conception of Zionism was based on socialism and the process of national rebirth. During his tenure as secretary of HaPoel HaZair, he was involved in the absorption of Jews from Yemen. During World War I, he helped organize the yishuv's Jewish workers. In the 1920s, as a member of the Zionist executive, he was head of the Labor and then the Aliyah Departments. He also helped found the Histadrut labor federation and was a member of the Tel Aviv municipality. In the 1930s, as a member of the Histadrut executive, Sprinzak was instrumental in the formation of Ben-Gurion's Mapai political party. In the 1940s he became a leading member of the Zionist General Council and eventually was general secretary of the Histadrut. As Knesset speaker during the body's first 10 years, Sprinzak had a major influence on the country's emerging democracy. He died in 1959.”

1887: Birthdate of Furth native and German trained mathematician Arthur Rosenthal who was lucky enough to escape from the Nazis and in 1939 settle in the United States where he taught at the University of Michigan, the University of New Mexico and Purdue University where a scholarship “is named in his honor.”

1887: In Louisville, KY, Morris and Ray Forst Kaluber gave birth to medical school student turned journalist and broadcaster, Edward Kaluber, who married Doris Larson Klauser two years after the death of his first wife Gladys Gustafson Kaluber and served as the city of the New York Times before eventually becoming an executive vice president of the Columbia Broadcasting System

1887: Three days after he had passed away, Phineas Abraham, the husband of the former Caroline Simon with whom he had had eight children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1889: Birthdate of Aleksei Denisovich Dikiy, the native of the Ukraine and brother of actress Maria Sukhodolska – Dikova who was a Soviet actor and director during the Stalin era.

1889: Birthdate of Arne Laurin the graduate of the “Technical Academy of Prague,” the editor-in-chief of Prager Presse, a German language newspaper regarded as the mouthpiece of the Czech government who was forced to flee because of opposition to the Nazis and Conrad Henlein, leader of the Sudeten Germans and who “took charge of the index department of the Czechoslovak Information Service” after arriving in New York in 1939 with his wife “Olga Weiss Laurinova.”

1889: In “eastern Galicia,” Shmaryahu Imber, the Hebrew author and Bella Miriam Imber gave birth to Samuel Jacob Imber the “husband of Nussia Imber, the nephew of Naphtali-Herz Imber, the author of “Hatikvah” who wrote poetry in Polish and was Yiddish author who in 1942 was murdered by anti-Semites “during pogroms following the Nazi occupation of the Ukraine.”

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/imber-samuel-jacob

http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2014/06/shmuel-yankev-samuel-jacob-imber.html

1889: In the United States, Arthur Richard Rosson and Helene Rochefort gave birth to actress Ethel Rosson, who became Ethel Rosson Daly, the wife John Daly and whose siblings cinematographer Harold Rosson and actor/director Richard Rosson.

1889: Birthdate of Jacques (Jacob) Presser “a Dutch historian, writer and poet best known for his book Ashes in the Wind: The destruction of the Dutch Jewswhich descried “the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands during World War II.”.

1890: It was reported today that Sarah Bernhardt will be returning to the United States in October to perform at the Broadway Theatre in New York City. 

1890: It was reported today that at the request of Elsie Leslie, 500 hundred children from the Industrial Schools of the Associated Hebrew Charities will attend one of her final matinee performances of “The Prince and the Pauper at the Broadway Theatre. (Elsie Leslie was a noted child actress of her time.  Born in 1881, she passed away in 1966.  I cannot find any reason why she singled out a school for Jewish students for this treat.)

1890: It was reported today that the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is caring for nearly 600 children, 200 of whom were girls and 400 were boys.

1891: “Elevated Funeral Trains” published today described the decision of the Directors of the Union Elevated Railroad in Brooklyn to extend service to Cypress Cemetery and the “numerous Jewish cemeteries in the neighborhood and to establish funeral trains consisting of a car for the coffin and two or three cars for the funeral party.  Most of the directors are Jewish and Edward Lauterbach who is counsel for the company is attempting to establish contracts with various synagogues to convey the funeral parties from the ferries or bridge to the cemetery.

1893: The American University, a private Methodist university in Washigton, D.C. is chartered by an act of the Congress of the United States of America. A.U. has over one thousand Jewish undergraduate students out of a total of almost 6,000.  Out of an estimated 4,700 grad students, 1,000 are Jewish.  The school offers a minor in Jewish Studies, a university program in Israel and the services of an authorized Hillel House.

1893(8th of Adar): Benjamin Henry Ascher, Hebrew scholar and author passed away

1893: “At the second session of the 52nd Congress…a bill was presented to the House ordering that a gold medal be struck off in recognition of the services rendered by Haym Solomon during the Revolutionary War, in consider of which the Salomon heirs waived their claims upon the United States for indemnity.” The full House never took action on the resolution.

1894: It was reported that Kuhn, Loeb &amp; Co is among the contributors to the Citizens’ Relief Committee which has raised $94, 065.50 for those suffering from the effects of the economic depression.

1894: It was reported today that Jacob H. Schiff, Solomon Loeb and Abraham Wolff are among the prominent citizens who have joined a movement led by Cornelius Vanderbilt “to establish a pawn broking establishment” in New York modeled on “public pawn broking establishing that have been of great help to the poor in several large European cities.

1895: “A Most Noble Charity” published today described the work of the Montefiore Home for Incurables which “was originally intended as home where incurable patients should be received and made comfortable during their lives” has not taken on the additional role of providing treatment for chronic invalids” many of whom “were hopelessly stricken by disease” but have left the facility “in the full possession of health.

1896: “Religion In Large Cities” published today described the conditions of religious institutions in New York City including the fact that there “51 Hebrew organizations” in the city.

1896: According to Emily Crawford of the Associated Press, Prince Henry of Orleans is hoping to capitalize on the anti-Dreyfus spirit as a way of bringing about the downfall of the Republic which he no doubt hopes will be replaced with a Monarchy.

1897: Two days after he had passed away, 84-year-old Harris Silver was buried today at “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1898: Birthdate of Romanian born American political scientist and Fabian Socialist Herman Finer the University of Chicago professor and author who is the brother of Samuel Finer.

1898: “Prison and Fine For Zola” published today described the scene in the courtroom when Emile Zola was convicted. The verdict was handed down at seven in the evening, but the jury had agreed on its decision days ago in response, in part to threats from the mob that surrounded the court during the trial. In response to the sentence which stemmed from his defense of Captain Dreyfus the defamed Jewish officer Zola compared himself to Christ saying that he too was “a victim of mob violence office cowardice and a grand miscarriage of justice.”  (Considering that the Catholic Church were one of the groups arrayed against him, this was a bold, fitting, comparison.)

1899(14thof Adar, 5659): Last Purim celebration of the 19th century.

1902: In Berlin, the ninth meeting of the Union of Judæo-German Congregations came to end.

1904:  Herzl writes, "Yesterday I had a most curious visitor: Ali Nuri Bey ... His proposal ... comes to this: Sail into the Bosporus with two cruisers, bombard Yildiz, let the Sultan flee or capture him, put in another Sultan (Murad or Reshad), but first form a provisional government - which is to give us the Charter for Palestine...."

1906(29thof Shevat, 5666): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1906:Russian Communist leader Leon Trotsky and his second wife Natalia Sedova gave birth to Lev Lvoich Sedov.

http://spartacus-educational.com/Lev_Sedov.htm

1906: Birthdate of Yosef Serline, the native of Bialystok who served as personal secretary Nahum Sokolow before making Aliyah in 1930 following he which he served as an MK in the first seven Knessets.

1906: Birthdate of Yosef Serlin, the native of Bialystok who made Aliyah in 1933 and worked as lawyer in Tel Aviv while pursuing a political career that included serving as member of the First Knesset.

1906: “Their Stores to Close Saturdays” published today described the decision of the East Side Dry Goods Merchants’ Association to give their employees the day off on Saturday because they did little or no business because the vast majority of customers were Jews.

1907(10th of Adar, 5667): Composer Otto Goldschmidt passed away at the age of 87.

1908: Muller v. Oregon in which Louis Brandeis “as additional counsel for the state of Oregon” filed the first of its kind of brief now known as the “Brandeis Brief” which relied “more on a compilation of scientific information and social science than on legal citations” was decided today by the Supreme Court in favor of the state of Oregon

1908(22nd of Adar): Rabbi Jehiel Michal Epstein of Novogrdok, Russia author of Arukh ha-Shulhan passed away

1909: Birthdate of Max Black.  Born in Azerbaijan, raised and educated in England, Black became a U.S. citizen in 1948.  It is hard to classify him because his interests were so varied. “Black was famed for his contributions to the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mathematics and science, the philosophy of art, conceptual analysis, and his studies of the work of several major philosophers. Black was a prolific author and lists of his publications contain over 200 items. He passed away in 1988.

1910: Birthdate of Fred Sington, the native of Birmingham, Alabama, who as an all-America tackle at the University of Alabama, led the Crimson Tide to the national championship in 1930 before going on to a major league baseball career with the Washington Senators and Brooklyn Dodgers.

1911: As the issue of Russian treatment of American Jews wishing to go the land of the Czar for business purposes heated up, “Senator Culberson to-day introduced a resolution declaring it to be "the sense of the Senate that the treaty of 1832 between the United States and Russia should be abrogated because of the discrimination by Russia between American citizens in the administration of the treaty." (Editor’s Note- The irony is that this philo-Semitic behavior was going on at the same time efforts were being made to heavily restrict Jewish immigration, especially from Russia)

1912: “The Sunshine Girl” a musical comedy “with a book by Paul A. Rubens” opened at the Gaiety Theatre in London.

1912: “At a meeting at Temple Emanu-El in New York City today, Henrietta Szold together with other Zionist women, proposed to the Daughters of Zion study circle that they expand their purpose and embrace proactive work to help meet the health needs of Palestine's people” which resulted in the birth of Hadassah, the largest women's organization in America.

http://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/24/1912/hadassah

1913: Dr. Stephen Wise of New York is scheduled to deliver an address on “Moral and Religious Aspects of the Woman’s Movement” at a joint meeting of the Chicago Association of Jewish Women and the Chicago Woman’s Aide this afternoon at Sinai Temple

1914: Birthdate of Esta Saltzman the native of Boston, MA who gained fame as Yiddish actress Esta Saltzman Lubin

1914(28thof Shevat, 5674): Sixty-one year old Joseph Fels, the Virginia born son of Susannah and Lazarus Fels and the husband of Bavarian born, Iowa raised “philanthropist, Zionist”  WW I anti-War activist, Mary Fels passed away today in Philadelphia.

1915: It was reported today that Jews were among the hundreds of thousands who were suffering and has lost everything because they lived along the borders of between Russia and Germany where much of the fighting was taking place on the Eastern Front and were now fleeing to avoid the advancing and retreating armies.

1916: Representatives from the National Jewish Workmen’s Committee on Jewish Rights are scheduled to attend “a public hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations of the House of Representatives called for the purposed of considering a resolution…urging that all legal disabilities of the Jews be removed in the countries now at war.”

1916: In Congress, “the Committee on Foreign Relations” is scheduled to hold a public hearing on a joint resolution offered by Representative London and Senator Lane supporting the cause of peace and “the removal of discriminations against Jews wherever they exist.”

1916: The Zionist Council of New York held a mass meeting at Cooper Union tonight.  Louis Lipsky, who presided over the meeting, attacked the critics of the Zionist movement, including fellow Jews who had called it a “partisan issue.”  He said that “Zionism is the essential ingredient of any policy the Jewish people may adopt at this time time for the protection of Jewish interests.”  Wolf Gluskin, who has only arrived in the United States from Palestine where he had helped to establish one of first Zionist settlements, told the assembly about the suffering being experienced by 35,000 Palestinian Jews as a result of the World War.  The wine industry, which the Jewish settlers had worked so hard to develop, was on the verge of destruction.  The New York Zionists also heard from Dr. Ben Zion Mossinsohn, a teacher living in Jaffa and Dr. Schmaraya Levin of the International Zionist Committee. 

1917: H. Pereira Mendes celebrates his 40th anniversary as rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel of New York City.

1917: Dr. Samuel Schulman is scheduled to leader Saturday morning services at Temple Beth-El in Manhattan.

1917: Dr. Enelow is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “How Can We Gain the Benefits of Religion” at Temple Emanu-El.

1917: At Temple Israel of Harlem, Dr. M.H. Harris is scheduled to deliver a Sabbath sermon on “The Temple and Israel.”

1917: The Judeo-Spanish newspaper El Emigrante was established in New Jersey.

1917: The Russian Revolution begins in earnest when troops of the Czar fire on the citizens of St. Petersburg.  This is the first, non-Bolshevik Russian Revolution. Jews played an active role in the various upheavals that would bring an end to the reign of the Czars.  The Jews did not realize that anti-Semitism was such an integral part of the Russian psyche that it would survive and flourish under the next wave of autocrats – the Communists who replaced the Czars.

1917: The German plan to bring Mexico into World War on the German side is exposed.  The incident is referred to as the “Zimmerman telegram.”  Zimmerman was the German foreign minister.  This bit of arrogance and ignorance was one of the causes of the United States entering the war in April of 1917.  The Jewish author Barbara Tuchman wrote a very readable and informative book on this subject.

1918:  Einstein wrote “to an academic correspondent who had rebuked him for his dislike of war, ‘Your ostentatious Teutonic muscle-flexing runs rather against my grain.  I prefer to string along with my compatriot Jesus Christ, whose doctrines you and your kind consider to be obsolete.  Suffering is indeed more acceptable to me than resort to violence.’”

1918: It was reported today that the Joint Distribution Committee has appropriated an additional $100,000 to help pay for “the medical unit being formed by Hadassah” which is to be sent to Palestine.

1918: It was reported today that Joint Distribution Committee has allocated $500,000 “for the general relief” of Jews living “in the occupied parts of Russia, including Poland, Lithuania and Lublin” and $800,000 to help “the wives and children of American Jews stranded in Harbin to join their husbands” in the United States.

1918: Lenin’s newly installed government decided today that Russia would have to sign a “treaty of capitulation” with the Germans and that since nobody would lead the delegation Jewish born Bolshevik Grigori Sokolnikov was forced to lead the delegation that would sign the humiliating Brest-Litovsk Treaty.

1919: “Jews Point in Pride to Record in War” published today reported that “the total number of Jews in the military and naval service during the war was between 165,000 and 200,000, or from 4 to 5 per cent. of the total personnel of the American forces at the time the armistice was signed.”

1920: The Nazi party held it first major meeting in Munich, Germany during which they adopted a platform that stated, “Jews could never be citizens or a part of the German Volk or German people.”

1921: In New York City, two Jewish immigrants from Russia – Samuel Vigoda and the former Lena Moses gave birth to actor Abraham “Abe” Charles Vigoda known to many as “Tessio” the mobster who betrayed Michael Corleone in the “The Godfather” and Detective Fish in the comedy cop show “Barney Miller.”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&_r=0

1921: In Cincinnati, Ohio, the Board of Governors announced that Dr. Kaufman Kohler, President of the Hebrew Union College, will retire at the end of the current academic year.  Dr. Kohler has been serving as President since February 1903.

1921: As head of the Colonial Office, Winston Churchill makes his first commitment to practical Zionist enterprise by approving Pinchas Rutenberg’s plan to harness the waters of the Jordan and Yarkon rivers for electrical power enabling the Jews to begin to make further plans for substantial urban and rural development.1922:  Birthdate of actor Steven Hill.  Born Solomon Krakovsky in Seattle Washington, he is best known for his role as Adam Schiff on the television series “Law and Order.

1922: Birthdate of Seattle, Washington, native Solomon Krkovsky, who gained fame as actor Steven Hill who was the “original team leader” on “Mission: Impossible” and the long-serving New York District Attorney Adam Schiff on “Law and Order.”

http://www.biography.com/people/steven-hill-9542271

1922(26thof Shevat, 5682): Sir Ellis Kadoorie passed away today and was buried in keeping with Jewish ritual was buried on the same day at the Jewish Cemetery in Hong Kong. Born in 1865, he was part of prominent Jewish family from Baghdad that moved to Bombay and eventually made their fortune in a variety of enterprises many of which were located in China and Hong Kong.

1923: Karl and Helene Neubauer gave birth to Otto Neubauer who was murdered at an extermination camp in Belarus in 1942 at the age of 19.

1923: Birthdate of David Soyer, “the founding cellist of the Guarneri String Quartet” who raised two sons – Daniel and Jeffery – with his wife Janet.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/arts/music/27soyer.html

1923: In New York Hungarian born composer George Steiner and his wife gave birth Frederick
“Fred” Steiner whose most famous musical accomplishments may be creating the theme song for the ironic cartoon comedy show featuring Rocky and Bullwinkle and CBS’s popular series “Perry Mason.”

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-fred-steiner-20110625-story.html

1924: Birthdate of Warsaw native Simcha (Szymon) Rathajzer the ZOB fighter later known as Simcha Rosten who when he died had been known as the last surviving Warsaw Ghetto fighter.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/simcha-rotem-last-surviving-fighter-in-warsaw-ghetto-uprising-dies-at-94/

 1925(30th of Shevat): Rabbi Isaac Jeroham Diskin passed away today.

1925: Ida M. Frances Ehrich, the daughter of Lazarus and Seline Babette Morgenthau, the wifoe of William Joseph Ehrich and the mother of Lilian and Joseph Ehrich passed away today in New York City.

1926: An ad for Cass and Rosenthal, a business owned by Israel Cass and Max Rosenthal that produced closes for “children and juniors” appeared in Women’s Wear today.

1926: In Washington, DC, President Calvin Coolidge received a delegation from “Agudath Israel, the world organization of Orthodox Jewry, who extended the felicitations of the organization.”

1927: It was reported today, W.L. Lewis of the Bethlehem Steel Company Football Club and Morris Vanderweghe of the New York Giants Football Club have made arrangements to “conduct a tour in America of the Hakoah Soccer team of Vienna this Spring.”

1928: Birthdate of Ezat Delijani, a 1979 refugee from Iran’s Islamic Revolution who became a prominent Los Angeles businessman (As reported by Dennis McLellan)

1929(14thof Adar I, 5689): Purim Katan

1929(14thof Adar I) 5689): Twenty-nine-year-old Sophie Josephine Franks, the daughter of Louis and Emma Sachs and the wife of Siegfried Frank passed away today in Winschoten.

1932: Senator George Norris, the Republican from Nebraska who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee was reported today to have said that he did not know of any plans for speeches being given in the Senate expressing opposition to the confirmation of Benjamin Cardozo as a Supreme Court Justice.

1932: Benjamin N. Cardozo was confirmed by a unanimous voice vote in the Senate to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Compare the ease with which Cardozo’s name sailed through the approval process with the contentious combat that surrounded the confirmation of Justice Brandeis.  

1932: The Maccabee Association of the United States hosts a benefits concert at Carnegie Hall to raise funds for an athletic stadium in Tel Aviv.

1933: “Perfect Understanding” a comedy directed by Cyril Gardner was released in the United Kingdom today.

1934: Litzi Friedman, the daughter of Viennese Jews Israel and Gisella Kohlman, married Kim Philby the British communist spy.

http://spartacus-educational.com/Litzi_Friedmann.htm

1936(1stof Adar, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1936: “Henrietta Szold…replied today to Palestine Jewry’s greetings on her seventy-fifth birthday, stating that without their assistance she could have achieved nothing.”

1936: In Jaffa, Arabs picketing construction sites where schools were being built “stoned Jewish laborers and policemen, dangerously wounding one British constable and seriously damaging” at least one building.

1937(13thof Adar, 5697): Ta’anit Esther and Erev Purim

1937: Thy Neighbour by Lord Melchett which provided “a survey of the history of the persecution of Jews, a description of the rise and progress of Zionism and he position of Jews in the world today” was included on the “Books Published Today” listing.

1937: It was reported today that funeral services have been held in Prague for Dr. Maxmillian Reiner “a founder of the Czech-Jewish movement and active member of Sokol, the Czech national gymnastic organization.

1937: The anti-Semitic student demonstrations that took place today in Hungary included driving Jews from classrooms, interrupting professors’ lectures, smash windows in Budapest’s main synagogue, and the rector of the University of Budapest forcing threes Jewish students to “absent themselves from graduation ceremonies in order to prevent disturbances.

1938: Three speakers – Reverend Edward Lodge Curran, head of the International Catholic Truth Society; Rev. Dr. Mark Depp of Christ Methodist Church in Pittsburgh; Rabbi Philip D. Bookstaber of Ohev Sholom Temple in Harrisburg --- representing Catholics, Protestants and Jews “today addressed Dickinson College’s Forum on Interreligious Cooperation which is designed to opposed attempts by dictatorships to get a foothold in America.”

1939: An informal meeting that lasted less than half an hour “between Jewish delegates to the Palestine conference and representatives of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq was held today in St. James’s Palace on the same day that Dr. Stephen S. Wise and Louis Lipsky met with United States Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy.

1939: Europe’s Conscience in Decline by Charles E. Shulman which provided “a survey of the vicissitudes of the Jews in Europe” was included on the “Books Published Today” listing

1940: “Stop Me If You've Heard This One,” a comedy radio series hosted by Milton Berle and featuring Harry Hershfield (the Jewish Will Rogers) as a panelist was broadcast for the last time today.

1940:  Winston Churchill shared a telegram with the War Cabinet in which Chaim Weizmann described the “deplorable” effect that adoption of the Land Transfer Regulations would have.  The War Cabinet was unmoved by the plea.

1940: In Elizabethtown, NJ, Gregor Piatigorsky and Jacqueline de Rothschild gave birth molecular biologist Joram Pitaigorsky, the author of Jellyfish Have Eyes.

https://www.amazon.com/Jellyfish-Have-Eyes-Joram-Piatigorsky/dp/0989562263

1941: Today’s issue of Time magazine recalled 1928 as a time when people “danced to Leo Reisman’s orchestra at the Central Park Casino” while the New Yorker said “the reason for going” to the Central Park Casino” is the fact that Leo Reisman’s orchestra is what it is.

1941: Following a two-long pogrom in Amsterdam, “an open-air meeting was held on the Noordermarkt to organize a strike to protest against the pogrom as well as the forced labor in Germany.

1942: The Struma was torpedoed and sunk by the Soviet submarine SC 213.  Approximately 769 illegal Jewish immigrants aboard the Struma perished on their way to Palestine.  The Struma was one of a series of ships filled with Jews that attempted to run the British blockade.  The blockade was part of the British commitment to the Arabs to keep Jews out of Palestine in violation of the Balfour Declaration and the terms of the Mandate.  The British slavishly enforced the blockade during and after World War II.  The Struma traversed the Black Sea and attempted to stop at Istanbul.  But the British told the Turks that the Jews would not be allowed to land in Palestine, so they turned the ship back in the Black Sea.  It was there that the ship was sunk, reportedly torpedoed by a Nazi submarine.  Exodus by Leon Uris is based on another blockade running episode that took place in 1947.

1942:  In Stamford, CT, liquor store owner Henry Lieberman and Marcia (nee Manger) Lieberman gave birth to Joseph Isadore “Joe” Lieberman the U.S. Senator from Connecticut and the first Jew to run for Vice President of the United States on the ticket of a major political party. 

1943: Hitler sent Nazi members a message on the anniversary of the establishment of the Nazi Party, "The struggle will end . . . with the liquidation of Jewry in Europe."

1944: At Birkenau, 200 of the 800 prisoners in the Sonderkommando were sent to Majdanek where they were shot.

1944: Birthdate of Bucharest native Dan Manor (Menes) who perished when the Dakar was lost in 1968/

1944: Max Jacob a French artist, who was born Jewish but converted to Catholicism, was arrested by the Gestapo and put into Orléans prison. He was then transferred to a holding camp in Drancy for transport to a concentration camp in Germany.

1945(11thof Adar, 5705): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

1945(11thof Adar, 5705): Thirty-two-year-old Italian physicist and anti-Fascist Eugenio Curiel who had been a prisoner of the Mussolini government was gunned downed today by members of the Black Brigades, a fascist para-military unit that continued to flourish even though Italy was supposedly on the side of the Allies.

1946: In Tel Aviv, a throng of more than 50,000 Jews attended the funeral of four men killed during an attack on several RAF airfields. For more than six hours, this “all-Jewish” city was truly in control of the Jewish people as there were no signs of any British police or soldiers.  Jewish newspapers published black-bordered obituaries for each of the deceased.  During the funeral, the Haganah distributed leaflets, giving further proof that the airfield attacks were not the work of the Irgun, but were the work of a broader-based Jewish resistance movement.  The attack and the public outpouring of grief seemed to indicate a change in mood among the Jewish population who were now apparently willing to support more aggressive tactics designed to secure their national home in light of what they have come to view of as the British betrayal of the Zionist cause and their support for the Arabs.

1946: Birthdate of Michael Radford the New Delhi born son of an Austrian Jewish mother who became a successful director and screenwriter who directed the 2004 film version of the Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino as Shylock.

1947: Birthdate of Lawrence Bailey Bogdanow an architect whose love for natural materials and fine craftsmanship brought a sense of warmth and ease to the interiors of dozens of Manhattan’s most popular restaurants, including Union Square Café, Savoy and the Cub Room (As reported by William Grimes)

1947: Birthdate of Juval Aviv, the native of kibbutz Kfar Menachem who is known as an Israeli-American security consultant and writer.

1948: At Lake Success, NY, the home of the United Nations, “the tensest atmosphere yet felt in this international headquarters accompanied the long-awaited Palestine debate that opened today in the United Nations Security Council as disrupting crowds twice forced the Council's president to rap angrily for silence.”

1949: "Under the auspices of the United Nations Mediator Dr. Ralph Bunche, an armistice was signed between Egypt and Israel."  This marked, more or less, the end of Israel's War for Independence.  "It was the first such agreement between Israel and any of its warring neighbors.  The aim of the armistice was not merely to end the fighting but, as its terms stated to 'facilitate the transition...to permanent peace'.  The phrase was taken from the United Nations Security Council resolution of November 16."  Unfortunately, the Egyptians and the other Arab nations only viewed this as a cease fire.  Over the next several decades they would violate the spirit and the agreement as they sought to destroy the state of Israel.  For the Israelis the armistice was a great victory won against seemingly impossible odds.  When asked to explain the reason for this victory which sealed the creation of the Jewish state, Yigal Yadin replied, "If we are to condense all the various factors, and they are many, which brought about victory, I would not hesitate to credit the extraordinary qualities of Israel's youth, during the War of Independence, with that victory."  In other words, it was the spirit of the people that provided the will to hold out in the early dark days and then to take advantage of later breakthroughs to turn toward victory.  As we study Jewish History, it will be interesting to see the similarity between the causes of Jewish victories in ancient and modern times.

1949: President Weizmann entrusted David Ben-Gurion with the task of forming Israel’s first government.

1950: Ada Maimon, a member of the Knesset, is spearheading the drive to tighten Israel’s marriage laws.  She is seeking to raise the minimum age of consent from 15 to 18 and tighten up on rules concerning the exceptions.  Current law, which is left over from the British mandate allows girls to marry at the age of 15 but allows for marriage at a younger age with parental consent. Miss Maimon would limit exceptions to girls at the age of 17.  Miss Maimon, who is a member of the Knessett, is most concerned about ending what she considers the abuse of this “loophole” that has girls as young as 12 getting married.  Primary opposition is coming from Jews of Oriental orign who are offended by Miss Maimon’s characterization of Oriental mothers as “breeding delinquents.”  The fifty-seven-year-old Miss Maimon is the sister of Rabbi Judah L. Maimon Israel’s Minister for Religious Affairs and is in charge of the agricultural training farm at Ayanot that was founded in 1930.

1950: It was reported today that “St. Louis University, a Roman Catholic Instituion…presented its ninth honory degree in half a century and the first in its 132-year-old history to a faculty member, Professor Gustave Kaydsh Klausner,’ the Jewish refugee who came to the United States because of the pogroms in White Russia 1907.

1951: A month after premiering in New York City, “The Enforcer” co-starring Zero Mostel was released today in the rest of the United States.

1952:  Birthdate of Simon Weinstock, British businessman and racehorse owner.

1953: Birthdate of March Feinstein the native of Mitchell, South Dakota who has served as the Representative from the 14th District in the South Dakota House of Representatives.

1954: Birthdate of Dutch author Leon de Winter whose works include the novels Kaplanand Hoffman’s Hunger.

1956: “Churchill received the Israeli Ambassador, Eliahu Elath, who presented him with a portfolio of woodcuts depicting ancient Jerusalem as an eightieth birthday gift from the Prime Minister and Government of Israel.

1956:  Birthdate of television journalist, Paula Zahn, the ex-wife of Jewish realtor Richard Cohen, who decided with him to raise their children in the faith of their father.

1958: In London, Katherine Margaret McAdam and Lucian Freud gave birth Jane McAdam the “winner of the 2014 European Trebbia Award” who is the great-grand daughter of Sigmund Freud.

1959: Twenty-one-year-old “Roughhouse Rudy” LaRusso scored 29 points as Dartmouth defeated Holy Cross.

1962: “After 113 performances and three previews” at the Shubert Theatre, the curtain came down on the original Broadway production of “The Gay Life,” “a musical with a book by Fay and Michael Kanin, lyrics by Howard Dietz, and music by Arthur Schwartz,” “directed by Gerald Freedman” and co-starring “Jules Munshin as Max.”

1967(13th of Adar I, 5727): German born, American composer Franz Waxman passed away.  Waxman was nominated for 12 Oscars.  In back-to-back victories he won for “Sunset Boulevard” and “A Place in the Sun.”  These two films give us a sense of the breadth of Waxman’s skills since the first film was classic cinema noir and the second was a Western.

1969(6thof Adar, 5729): Seventy-four-year-old Riga native and University of Petrograd lawyer Anatole Chujoy who in 1924 came to the United States where he founded Dance Magazine in 1936 and Dance News in 1942 where he was editor and publisher until he passed away today.

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095611725

1970(18thof Adar I, 5730): Eighty-one-year-old Allen Kander, the Kansas City, MO born son of “Felix Victor and Matilda Epstein Kander the newspaper reporter turned “award winning” newspaper broker and husband of “the former Jeanette Unger” with whom he had three children – Kenneth, Carol and Margaret – passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/27/archives/allen-kander-81-newspaper-aide-consultant-and-exhearst-executive-is.html

1972(9thof Adar, 5732): Ninety-year-old Sidney Hollander, a 1902 graduate of the University of Maryland, President of the Maryland Pharmaceutical Company and the national president of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds from 1939 to 1956 passed away today in Baltimore.

1973(22ndof Adar I, 5733): Parashat Ki Tisa

1937(22ndof Adar I, 5733): Sixty-five-year-old Cracow native Martin Klein who in 1938 came from Nazi Vienna to the United where he co-founded Barton’s Candy Corporation and became the benefactor of many Jewish institutions including the Crown Heights Yeshiva and the Pressburger Yeshiva in Jerusalem while raising a son, Robert, with his wife, “the former Regina Ischhof” passed away today in the Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx.

https://www.brandlandusa.com/2008/12/22/bartons-candy-and-chocolate/

1973: First screening today of “A Brand New Life” starring Martin Balsam with music by Billy Goldenberg.

1976: Jules Feiffer's "Knock Knock" premiered in New York City.

1976: Birthdate of Kiryat Ata native Yuval Noah Harari, a professor of History at Hebrew University and the history of two major works: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/24/homo-deus-by-yuval-noah-harari-review

1977(6thof Adar, 5737): Fifty-five-year-old Milton “Milt” Kaimen who was a successful French horn player and occupied a French horn chair at the Metropolitan Opera” before pursuing his career as a comedic actor and standup comedian passed away today.

http://cscottrollins.blogspot.com/2013/03/milt-kamen-stand-up-guy.html

1977(6thof Adar, 5737): Seventy-five-year-old North Carolina born Johns Hopkins alum Louis Clark the member of the American relay team that won the gold medal at the 1924 Summer Olympics passed a way today.

1978(17thof Adar I, 5738): Lionel Jacobson, the son of Lithuanian immigrant Moses Jacobson and the brother of Sydney Jacobson with whom he created a major European textile business when he combing Jackson the Tailor with the Burton Tailoring Group and who was President of the Newcastle Jewish Representative Council passed away today.

1981(20thof Adar I, 5741): Eighty-two year old Moshe Nathanson, the Jerusalem born son of Rabbi Nahum Nathanson, who moved to Canada in 1922 before settling in New York where “ he became the cantor for the Society for the Advancement of Judaism (Mordecai Kaplan's Synagogue in New York) passed away today,

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/25/obituaries/moshe-nathanson.html

1981: Fannie (Stein) Schwartz the widow of Harry Schwartz, the maternal grandmother of Rabbi Fred Davidow, whose home was where the family celebrated all holidays including Passover, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur passed away. (Editor’s note – Fred was my college roommate. A lover of history and a really decent human being whose voice had the same sweet sound of the South as Shelby Foote, another Mississippi born Jew, has done a marvelous job of creating a family history which he has been kind enough to let me use.)

1981: Jean Harris as convicted of murdering Dr. Herman Tarnower, the Jewish author of the bestselling The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet. From “eat, eat my children eat” to a mania for weight watching; such is the Jewish experience in the last hundred years. 

1981: Two bronze doors, weighing about 200 pounds, were stolen from a mausoleum at the Baron Hirsch Cemetery on Staten Island cemetery today. The police estimated the value of the doors at $600.

1982(1stof Adar, 5742): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1983(11thof Adar, 5743): Ta’anit Esther

1987(24th of Shevat, 5747): Marian Gerber Greenberg, who worked closely with Henrietta Szold, the founder of the Hadassah, the Woman's Zionist Organization of America, and its Youth Aliyah to help rescue thousands of Jewish children from Nazi Germany, died of congestive heart failure at the Cooley-Dickenson Hospital, Northampton, Mass. She was 89 years old and lived in Amherst, Mass. Mrs. Greenberg was the first national chairman of Youth Aliyah, serving in the post from 1936 to 1941. A national board member of Hadassah since 1927, she was a national vice president and a Hadassah delegate to five world Zionist Congresses between 1931 and 1952. She was also national chairman of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Building Fund. She edited the Hadassah newsletter (now a magazine) and, from 1943 to 1946 was editor of the monthly bulletin of the Citizens' Housing and Planning Council of New York. A former resident of Manhattan, she retired to Amherst in 1976, where she taught courses in the Bible and modern Jewish thought, sponsored by the Judaic Studies department of the University of Massachusetts. She was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Cornell University in 1919. She was the widow of David Greenberg, a writer on wildlife and conservation, who died in 1968.

1988(6thof Adar, 5748): Sixty-one-year-old Seymour Siegel, the Rabbi who has been a major force in Conservative Judaism for the last four decades passed away today. (As reported by Ari L.Goldman)

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/25/obituaries/rabbi-seymour-siegel-61-leader-in-conservative-judaism-is-dead.html

1989(19thof Adar I): Sergeant Binyamin Meisner, an Israeli paratrooper, was killed today when he was struck in the head by a concrete block thrown from a building in Nablus, in the West Bank, the army said. Meisner, a 24-year-old reserve sergeant, is the sixth Israeli soldier to die in the current Arab wave of violence.

1989: Premiere of “My Left Foot” starring Daniel Day-Lewis with music by Elmer Bernstein.

1991: The New York Times reviews To Know A Woman by Amos Oz.

1991: Allied forces began their ground offensive in Gulf War – a war which was unique for the Israelis because they had trusted the United States to protect them from the Iraqi Scud attacks that were cheered by Palestinians.

1994(12th of Adar, 5754): Dinah Shore passed away. Born Francis Rose Shore in 1916, the Tennessee native gained fame as a singer and star of her own television variety show. (As reported by Stephen Holden)

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/25/obituaries/dinah-shore-homey-singer-and-star-of-tv-dies-at-76.html?pagewanted=print&amp;src=pm

1995: “New Director of Museum Was Censured by Cornell” published today described the reaction of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s to allegation that Steven Katz, the director-designate has falsified his record of academic achievement.

1995(24thof Adar I, 5755): Sixty-nine year old Ellen Louise Sulzberger Straus, the New York born daughter of David Hays Sulzberger and Louise Mayer Sulzberger and wife of Ronald Peter Straus, whose good works included starting the first telephone help line in the United States passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/26/obituaries/ellen-sulzberger-straus-founder-of-first-telephone-help-line-69.html

1996:  Andrew Beckerman-Rodau a Jewish professor at Suffolk University Law School flew from Detroit to Kiev. His visit to Kiev was at the invitation of the Ukrainian Supreme Court in cooperation with USAID, an agency of the United States government. USAID's mission is to assist this newly independent country in developing a democratic government.

1996: For the first time, HBO televised “The Late Shift” featuring Bab Balaban and Sandra Bernhard for the first time.

1997: Time published “Echoes of the Holocaust” that describes attempt for victims regain some of the wealth stolen from them be bankers during the Nazi domination of Europe.

http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,985946,00.html

1998(27th of Shevat, 5758): Comedian Henny Youngman passed away at the age of 92.  Youngman was famous for his tagline “Take my wife please.”  Youngman did not have a Bar Mitzvah as a child.  When he was in his seventies, he finally had one much to his joy and delight. (As reported by Mervyn Rothstein)

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/25/arts/henny-youngman-king-of-the-one-liners-is-dead-at-91-after-6-decades-of-laughter.html

1999(7th of Adar, 5759): David Daube, a world renowned Biblical law scholar who charmed generations of students while teaching at the University of California, Berkeley's law school passed away at the age of 90.

http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/10358/noted-bible-scholar-david-daube-dies/

2000(18thof Adar I, 5760): Eighty-four-year-old Bronx born Bernard Opper, the All SEC Guard for the pre-WWII University of Kentucky Wildcats who went on to play for nine years in the pros passed away today.

http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/Statistics/Players/Opper_Bernard.html

2001(1st of Adar, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2001: “On the eve of Colin L. Powell's first visit to the region as secretary of state, officials in Israel today rebuffed his pleas for an easing of the blockade of Palestinian territories, while Palestinian militants burned him in effigy.”

2002: Bruce Fleisher won the RJR (Golf) Championship

2002(11th of Adar, 5762):  Leo Orenstein, Russian born American composer and pianist passed away at the age of 89.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1387072/Leo-Ornstein.html

https://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/view/leo-ornstein/

2002: “An exhibition of the work of colonial silversmith Mike Myers, one of the most accomplished craftsmen working in pre-industrial America” is scheduled to open today at the Skirball Cultural Center.

2002: In Salt Lake City, the Winter Olympics where Sarah Hughes won a Gold Medal for Ladies’ Figure Skating came to a close today.

2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Life in Pieces: The Making and Unmaking of Binjamin Wilkomirski by Blake Eskin and Kindred Souls: The Friendship of Eleanor Roosevelt and David Gurewitsch by Edna P. Gurewitsch. (Gurewitsch, the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia was “Eleanor Roosevelt's friend, confidant, personal physician, housemate, and traveling companion during her post-White House years.”)

2003(22nd of Adar I, 5736): Ninety-two-year-old 10-time Oscar nominated composer Walter Scharf passed away today.

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/feb/28/local/me-scharf28

2003: An International Conference hosted by the Dubnow Institute on “Transforming Religious and Ethnic Emblematics of Judaism and Jewishness” ended today.

2003(22ndof Adar I, 5736): Ninety-two-year-old composer and arranger Walter Scharf, “the son of Yiddish theatre comic Bessie Zwerling” who worked with everybody from George Gershwin, to Rudy Valle, to Al Jolson to Elvis Presley passed away today.

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/feb/28/local/me-scharf28

2004(1stof Adar, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2004(1stof Adar, 5764): Eighty-three-year-old Albert “Albie” Axelrod the leading American fencer during the middle of the 20th century who won the Bronze at the 1960 Summer Olympics passed away today.

http://usfencinghalloffame.com/wp/axelrod-albert/

2005: Roger Ebert’s review of “Paper Clips” was published today.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/paper-clips-2005

2005: It was reported today that “a recent string of racist incidents in France” including swastikas on the walls of a Paris mosque, an arson attack on a railway carriage commemorating French Jews who were deported to Nazi camps in World War II and blatant anti-Semitic comments by a comedian “has shaken the political establishment at a time when the country is battling its image abroad as a country where anti-Semitism is making a powerful comeback and anti-Arab sentiments are rising.”

2006: London Mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from office for four weeks after being found guilty of bringing his office into disrepute by comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

2006: “After the Wedding” directed by Susanne Bier was released today in Denmark.

2006: "Growing Up Jewish In Nogales: Memories Of a Bygone Era," by Renee Claire and "Tucson Was a Wonderful Place to Grow Up In the '40s and '50s," by Lori Olshansky Sobel err published today in the Arizona Jewish Post.

2007: Israel Non-Stop “seven days of cutting edge Israeli music, theatre, film, art, food and more” began in New York with the appearance of Israeli music phenomenon Mosh Ben-Ari. According to the playbill, “Mosh Ben-Ari combines ecstatic middle eastern rhythms, spirituality, and scents of reggae and African beats. Mosh Ben-Ari's joyous concerts around the world turn into high spirited celebrations for peace. His recently released album, Go Giving, has been praised by music critics and fans alike.”

2007: “West Bank Story” won the Academy Award for Short Film-Live Action. The 21-minute musical has a “West Side Story” motif. “In this case the confrontation is between competing West Bank Falafel stands, the Israeli Kosher King and the Palestinian Hummus Hut.

2008: Rabbi Avrohom Yitzchok Ulman was one of the main speakers at a major protest rally against the growing influence of nationalistic (Zionist) thought and philosophies in the Haredi world” Born in Hungary, Ulman is an expert on Jewish law pertaining to fiancé and property and he is a member of the Dushinksy Hasidic Movement founded by Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky

2008: “Burnt Diary Yields Horror of Warsaw Ghetto” published today described the recovery of the writings of person known only as “Debora” who chronicled life in one of the most infamous places of Jewish captivity.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/25/secondworldwar.usa

2008: In Australia at Parliament House, Rabbis Reisenberg, Rubinfeld and Gutnik are scheduled to officiate at the marriage of Federal Labor MP Michael Darby and Amanda Mendes Da Costa “in the first Jewish wedding to be held in the big house” with the bedecken taking place in the Marble Hall followed by the trip to the chuppah which was erected at the Queens Terrace. (As reported by Jehane Sharah)

2008: The Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of a biography about Jewish author and playwright David Mamet entitled David Mamet: A Life In The Theatre by Ira Nadel.

2008: An exhibition styled “CHIM: The Photography of David Seymour (1911 – 1956)” came to an end at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco.

2008: The Washington Post book section featured a review of Alfred Kazin: A Biography by Richard M. Cook and Staring At The Sun Overcoming the Terror of Death by Irvin D. Yalom, the award winning Jewish born psychiatrist and author.

2008: Israelis (and many others) wonder if Beaufort directed by Joseph Cedar will win the Oscar for best Foreign Language Film.  This is the seventh time an Israeli film has been nominated in this category.

2009: Dalia Itzik completed her term as Speaker of the Knesset

2009: Paul Finkelman, a professor of law and public policy who had reviewed Eli Faber’s Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straightand is the author of Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson, presents a lecture on abolitionist John Brown as part of the "Great Lives Lecture Series" at the University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, VA.

2009: More than 300 rabbis gather at the 120th annual Central Conference American Rabbis convention opens in Jerusalem, Israel.

2009(1stof Adar, 5769): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2009(1stof Adar, 5769): Eighty-seven-year-old choreographer Pearl Lang, the founder of the Pearl Lang Dance Theatre passed away today. (As reported by Jack Anderson)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/arts/dance/27lang.html

2009:More than three months after the 17th Knesset was dispersed, the 18th Knesset was sworn in this afternoon, in a ceremony that began with a moving speech by President Shimon Peres, during which he paid tribute to the IDF for the recent Gaza operation, hailed US President Barack Obama's election and called for a peace deal with the Palestinians during the next Knesset's term.

2009: The Jerusalem Post reported that an archive of over 10,000 works of modern Yiddish literature has gone on-line. The collection of full texts, comprising the National Yiddish Book Center's Steven Spielberg Digital Library, can be read, downloaded and printed free at

www.archive.org/details/nationalyiddishbookcenter.

2010:The Israel Ballet, Israel's foremost classical ballet company which was founded in 1967 by Berta Yampolsky and Hillel Markman is scheduled to perform "Don Quixote" in Elmira, NY.

2010:Ted Leonsis, the AOL entrepreneur and the owner of the Washington Capitals as well as a partner in the Washington Wizards franchise, is scheduled to discuss his new book, "The Business of Happiness: 6 Secrets to Extraordinary Success in Life and Work," at the Sixth &amp; Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C.

2010:A bill that allows civil marriage in Israel to couples who could not be married by the rabbinate failed by a large margin in its initial reading.

2010:Today, the Israel Flower Growers Association reported a 30-percent drop in exports for Valentine’s Day compared to last year.

2010: Forty-year-old Dawn Brancheau who was “pulled into a tank and killed by a six-ton orca” at Seaworld – a death which Stephen A. Schwarzman blamed on her because he claimed “that the veteran animal trainer” had broken “multiple safety rules,” a claim which the company later disclaimed.

2011: Gainsbourg,the boldly imaginative and wildly entertaining biopic of Jewish French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, one of the most iconic and diversely talented music artists of the 20th Century” and Chariots of Fire are scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival

2011: Ruth David, Professor Peter Davies (Edinburgh) and Dr Andrea Hammel (Aberystwyth) are scheduled to present a program entitled “Holocaust Texts and Translation” at The Wiener Library in London, UK.

2011: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to continue its year round programming in Berkeley with an encore presentation of 2010 Festival sleeper hit Father’s Footsteps– a gripping coming of age drama about a Tunisian-Israeli family threatened by violence and crime.

2011: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present: "Integrale Yidishkeyt": Modern Yiddish Culture's Turn Inward in Response to the Holocaust.

2011: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a discussion of Joseph Roth's Job

2011: IAF aircraft struck against a number of terrorists in the southern Gaza Strip today in a joint IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) operation following a rocket being fired into Beersheba.

2011: With Israeli Apartheid Week a week away, Israel seems to have found an unexpected champion in Michael Lucas, a popular gay columnist and porno producer with dual US-Israeli citizenship who told The Jerusalem Post by phone from New York today that “I defeated a group of anti- Semites” who sought to equate Israel with the former South African apartheid regime at an event slated to be held at the city’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Center.

2011(20thof Adar I, 5771): Jerrold (Yoram) Kessel passed away today.

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=209791

2011: Judy Gross, the wife of Alan Gross “pleaded with the Cuban government to release her husband on humanitarian grounds. Gross' daughter, 26, has breast cancer, and his mother has been diagnosed with lung cancer.” (As reported by JTA)

2012(1stof Adar, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Adar

2012(1stof Adar, 5772): Ninety-two-year-old mathematician Benedict Freeman who co-authored the novel Mrs. Mike with his wife Nancy passed away today.

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-benedict-freedman-20120305-story.html

2012: In London, Claudia Roden is scheduled to talk about discoveries she made while researching her new book “The Food of Spain” as part of Jewish Book Week.

2012: As many as 100 college students who are part of the Kol HaOlam competition are scheduled to attend the Ruach Minyan at Adas Israel in Washington, DC.

2012: In New York City, Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to host a Friday night service that will include a commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the founding of Hadassah attended by Marcie Natan, National President of Hadassah.

2012: Tensions continued to escalate in the South early this morning with the Israel Air Force making two separate forays into the Gaza Strip to bomb terror targets in response to the firing of Kassam rockets into Israeli communities.

2012: Security forces used force to disperse hundreds of Muslim worshipers at the Temple Mount today who rioted and threw stones following a tense week in the Old City. 2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend by Glenn Frankel, City of Angels Or, the Overcoat of Dr. Freud by Christa Wolf and the recently released paperback edition of God’s Jury; The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World by Cullen Murphy

2013: Center for Jewish History, YIVO Institute and the International Center of Photography are scheduled to sponsor a screen of Eleanor Antin’s “Man Without a World.”

2013: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa is scheduled to celebrate Purim complete with a megillah reading and separate costume contests for children and adults.

2013: Dedication of the Jacobs Family Education Center is scheduled to take place at Agudas Achim in Iowa City, Iowa.

2013: The Maccaebeats are scheduled to perform at The Moriah School Purim Chagiga in Englewood, NJ

2013(14th of Adar, 5773): Purim

2013: Purim’s carnival atmosphere spread out across Israel today, with revelers of all types and ages soaking up the holiday cheer, many bedecked in bright, loud and extravagant costumes.   2014: German Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to begin a two day visit to Israel.

2014: At the Center for Jewish History, Henry L. Feingold is scheduled to speak on “American Jewish Political Culture and the Liberal Persuasion.”

2014: “Dancing Alfonso” is scheduled to be shown at the UK Jewish Film Festival

2014: Israel Apartheid Week, a week-long orgy of anti-Semitism hidden under the guise of anti-Israel lectures and workshops is scheduled to begin today.

2014(24thof Adar I, 5774): Sixty-nine-year-old comedy screenwriter Harold Remis passed away.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/movies/harold-ramis-who-helped-redefine-what-makes-us-laugh-on-screen-dies-at-69.html?_r=0

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-harold-ramis-dead-20140224,0,4983189,full.story

2014: Ian Heath Gershengorn, Principal Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, is scheduled to address the Hadassah Attorneys Council in Washington, DC.

2014: In New Orleans, the Jewish Studies Department of Tulane University is scheduled to present a lecture by Tome Beller entitled “J.D. Salinger’s Late Barmitzva.”

2014: According to a report today on the news site timenews.in.ua, the Giymat Rosa Synagogue in Zaporizhia located 250 miles southeast of Kiev was firebombed overnight.

2014: Israel is facing the driest winter since 1927, Ma'ariv reported today, leaving experts concerned. The Kinneret (Sea of Galilee)'s water level has dropped by four centimeters since the rainy season began, compared to a 1.97-meter rise over the same five-month period in 2013. (As reported by Tova Dvorin)

2015: The Tulane University Jewish Studies Department chaired by Professor Brian Horowitz is scheduled to host a lecture by Antony Polonsky entitled “Writing the History of the Jews of Poland and Russia.”

2015: Robin Renwick, former British Ambassador to South Africa is scheduled to discuss Helen Suzman’s extraordinary life and achievements with her daughter, art historian Frances Suzman Jowell and niece, actress and director Janet Suzman at the Jewish Museum in London during Jewish Book Week.

2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Roads Taken:  The Great Jewish Migrations to the New World and the Peddlers Who Forged the Way.”

2015(5thof Adar, 5775): One hundred- and nine-year-old Wall Street investor Irving Kahn passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/business/irving-kahn-oldest-active-wall-street-investor-dies-at-109.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2016: Itzik Barak the executive chef from Jerusalem’s Waldorf Astoria is scheduled to prepare 150 plated dishes of the Seven Species for the panel of judges at the annual Tastes of Waldorf Astoria competition.

2016: “The Breman Museum is scheduled to sponsor "Fitting In: A Short History of Jewish Film in America" at The Temple in Atlanta, GA.

2016: “Baba Joon” “Israel’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award” is scheduled to be shown on the opening night of the 26th Annual Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2017: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a pre-Shabbat celebration combining singing and challah baking.

2017: “Major roads and key thoroughfares were blocked to traffic in Tel Aviv today for the city’s marathon, with an estimated record number of 40,000 runners from across the country and abroad taking part in the annual event” which was won by Ethiopian runner Balata Mekonnen.

2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host both Orthodox and Egalitarian Kabbalat Services, followed by Shabbat dinner and voting for next term’s president and vice president.

2017: At Agudas Achim, Professor Robert Cargill is scheduled to deliver a lecture in which he “unfolds biblical verses talking about the kind of life one ought to live and about the origin of the z’’l tradition.”

2018(9thof Adar, 5778): Shabbat Zachor;

2018(9thof Adar, 5778): Ninety-three-year-old Latvian born Kalman Aron, the “American portraitist” who used skill as a sketch artist to survive the concentration camps passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/obituaries/kalman-aron-whose-art-spared-him-in-the-holocaust-dies-at-93.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2018: Agudas Achim is scheduled to host the Hillel Adult B’nai Mitzvah Service.

2018: Twenty-one-year-old Miss Internet Tamar Morali is scheduled to take part in “the final stage of the Miss Germany Contest today in Germany’s Europa Park.”

2018: “Israeli company Roy Assaf Dance is scheduled to perform at the Norman Rothstein Theatre.

2019: “Roman Vishniac Rediscovered,” the first UK retrospective of the Russian born American photographer” is scheduled to come to an end London.

https://jewishmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/roman-vishniac/

2019: The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “From Cairo to the Cloud: The World of the Cairo Geniza”

2019: The JCC of San Francisco is scheduled to host Bernard-Henri Lévy as he “discusses his book The Empire the Five Kings” which examines “the U.S. withdrawal from world leadership.”

2019: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America’s Journey From Slavery to Segregation by Steve Luxenberg, Good Riddance, a novel by Elinor Lipman, Willa and Hesper, the debut novel of Amy Feltman, At The Wolf’s Table by Rosella Postorino and Annelies, a novel by David Gillham as well as a “By the Book” interview with Isaac Mizrahi.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/books/review/isaac-mizrahi-by-the-book.html?ref=headline&nl_art=&te=1&nl=book-review&emc=edit_bk_20190222

2020: The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host the New York premiere of “Say Amen” and “Life Will Smile.”

2020: In San Francisco, the American Jewish Committee is scheduled to host a “Lunch and a report on reconciliation and interfaith relations from Rabbi David Rosen and Michael Pappas, director of S.F. Interfaith Council.”

2020: The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to host Senior Rabbi Joseph Dweck as he lectures “Meeting God at Mt. Sinai” as described in Shemot.

2020: In Palo Alto, CA, Congregation Etz Chayim,, “The San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society is scheduled to host a workshop to learn how to publish your family stories without being a professional author..”

2020: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Create Meaning or Fade Away: The Dilemma Facing American Jews.”

2020: Israeli Prize recipient Professor Asa Kasher, one of the authors of The Spirit of IDF is scheduled to be one of the speakers at the Begin Center during the program “Giving the Fallen a Face – Rescuing Combatants from Anonymity.”

2020: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Leona” directed by Isaac Cherem.

2021: The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans is scheduled to host the JNOLA Purim/Mardi Gras Event.

2021: The Atlanta Jewish Films Festival is scheduled host virtually, “Adventures of a Mathematician” and “Atlanta: The City Too Busy Wait.”

2021: The Lappin Foundation is scheduled to present online “Masking and Unmasking: A Purim Experience with Ariela HaLevi” the “director of healing, intuitive guide and energy healer at Soul Centered.”

2021: The Cass Tech High School is scheduled to host a screening of “Rosenwald” followed by a panel discussion with Aviva Kempner.

2021: In Pepper Pike, OH, Park Synagogue is scheduled to hold three Purim evets: a Purim car parade, a Zoom Megillah reading including a costume contest, and “an interactive Purim comedy show on Zoom” presented by the Bible Players.

2021: The Maltz Museum is scheduled to “kick off the Notorious RBG Exhibition” with a discussion by Irin Carmon and Shana Kniznik, authors of the biography of Justice Ginsburg.

2021: The Temple Emanu-El Streiker Center is scheduled to host “A Journey Across The Jewish Past “which provides look “Inside the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Rare Book Collection” lead by Dr. David Kraemer, Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian and Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at JTS.

2021: In Florida, Temple Judea is scheduled a lunch and learn with Rabbi Feivel Strauss who will discuss Abraham, “the founding father of Reform Judaism as part of the “Great Jewish Leaders Lecture Series.

2021: Staff at the Sea Turtle Rescue Center in Michmoret, are scheduled to continue with their efforts to treat 11 eleven sea turtles which is part of a larger effort that will last for several months to clean up Israel’s beaches that have been polluted by the “country’s worst oil spill.

 

 

This Day, February 25, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 25

161 BCE: Jewish soldiers led by Judah Maccabee defeated Nicanor, the Syrian general who had boasted that he would destroy the Temple and mount Judah’s head on the gates of Jerusalem.

138: The Emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius, effectively making him his successor. For Jews Hadrian stands out as one of the cruelest of the Roman emperors.  He is the one who defeated Bar Kochba.  It is said that Hadrain was more evil than Titus because he did not just make war against the Jewish people.  He made war against Judaism by banning its practice.  In one of those many ironic twists of fates, Antionious Pious, his hand-picked successor reversed the decrees of Hadrain. He allowed the Torah to be studied and is laws obeyed.  He reinstituted the ban on imperial statues in synagogues and he allowed the Jews to practice the rite of circumcision.

628: The reign Persian Shah Khosrau II who “conquered Jerusalem after a brief siege in 614 during the Byzantine – Sasanian War” came to an end today.

1308: Coronation of King Edward II.  One of this uniquely incompetent monarch’s claim to fame is that he was the first King of England to reign over a realm without any Jews since the Norman Conquest in 1066.  Edward’s father, Edward I, had expelled the Jews in 1290.

1304: Birthdate of Ibn Battuta, the Moslem Moroccan explorer who visit large segments of Asia and Africa where he chronicled meetings with various groups including Jews in India and China.

1333: Ibn Batuta, the Arab traveler, visited Jewish communities in India

1336: Alfonso X of Castile was persuaded by the apostate Alfonso of Valladolid to ban the prayer Aleinu. Alfonso alleged that the prayer was anti-Christian. As a result, many Jewish communities excised a sentence from the prayer which has only been printed in recent years in only some prayer books.  The offending line which was taken out comes just before the time when everybody bows and recites “Va-ananchnu Kor’im – But we bend our knees…” The line that was taken out reads “For they bow to vanity and emptiness and pray to a god which helps not.”  If you read the entire prayer and insert this line, the following line makes a lot more sense.  According to several commentators the offending line had nothing to do with the Christians but had been placed there to refer to all heretics and that its origins were found in Isaiah (30:7 and 45:20). Further evidence refuting the claim that it was anti-Christian can be found in the fact that it was composed in the third century by Rav Abba Arucha head of the Academy of Sura (Persia) which was not a Christian country.  Ashkenazi prayer books dropped the line but Sephardic prayer books i.e. those in the land of Islam, retained the line.  Today it can be found in some Ashkenazi prayer books including those in the Artscroll Series.

 1451: Nicholas V issued a papal bull banning all social intercourse between Christians and Jews probably caused by a fear of Christians being attracted to Judaism. A Christian who converted to Judaism and the Jews who helped him were usually subject to the death penalty in most Catholic and Eastern Orthodox countries.  It is amazing that with the Church's attitude towards Judaism, and with the contempt that Jews in which Jews were held, that there should be such a fear of "Jewish missionizing".

1570:  Pope Pious V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I.  This was one of the steps on the road to loosening the stranglehold that doctrinal Christianity had on Western Europe.  As the Church’s grip on Europe weakened it opened up the way to a religious toleration that was highly beneficial to the Jewish people.

1593: Pope Clement VIII issued “Caeca et Obdurata Hebraeorum perfidia” (the blind and obdurate perfidy of the Hebrews) a papal bull which expelled the Jews from the Papal States, effectively revoking the bull Christiana pietas issued in 1586 by his predecessor Pope Sixtus V.The bull was a culmination of Clement VII's tightening of the anti-Jewish measures of his predecessors which began with his elevation to the papacy in 1592. The bull gave Jews three months to leave the Papal States (with the exception of Rome, Ancona, and the Comtat Venaissin of Avignon). The main effect of the bull was to evict Jews who had returned to areas of the Papal States (mainly Umbria) after 1586 (following their expulsion in 1569) and to expel Jewish communities from cities like Bologna (which had been incorporated under papal dominion since 1569). For the Jews remaining within Rome, Ancona, or the Comtat Venaissin, the bull re-established mandatory weekly sermons. The bull also resulted in the relocation of Jewish cemeteries to Ferrara and Mantua. The bull alleged that Jews in the Papal States had engaged in usury and exploited the hospitality of Clement VIII's predecessors "who, in order to lead them from their darkness to knowledge of the true faith, deemed it opportune to use the clemency of Christian piety towards them" (alluding to Christiana pietas).

1634: Albrecht von Wallenstein, a Bohemian military leader during the Thirty Years War who permitted a variety of non-Catholic sects, including Jews, to worship freely, refused to enforce” the Edict of Restitution which “essentially turned back the religious clock to pre-reformation days,” passed away today.

1713: The reign of Frederick I, who in 1709 appointed Aaron ben Benjamin Wolf “to the office of chief rabbi of Berlin with jurisdicition over all the Jews living in the mark” came to an end today.

1742: Birthdate of Nachum the son of David who died before reaching the age of five.

1795: First New York City performance of “Sheva, The Benevolent” by English playwright Richard Cumberland which features, Sheva, “the Jewish moneylender as the benevolent hero.”

1799: Napoleon defeated the army led by Al Jazzar as he made his way from Khan Younis to Gaza.

1799: Napoleon captured Gaza. (Yes, the same place in the news today). This was his first encounter with "Palestinian" Jews.” It is said that he offered “the reestablishment of ancient Jerusalem” as a Jewish homeland in return for Jewish loyalty.

1806: Birthdate of Rabbi Salomon Ulmann the French rabbi who among other things organized the Central Conference of the Chief Rabbis of France

1806: Baptism of German theologian Johann August Wilhelm Neander who had been born David Mendel, the son of a Jewish peddler Emmanuel Mendel.

1809(8thof Adar, 5569): Parashat Tetzvaeh; Shabbat Zachor observed for the last time during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, a strong proponent of religious freedom and according to some, the person who popularized the expression “separation of Church and State.”

1810: Simcha De Lara Cohen and London native Isaac Crawcour gave birth to Solomon Crawcour.

1824: Moritz Bertram married Sophia Boss at the Hambro Synagogue.

1825(7thof Adar I, 5585): Thirty-one-year-old Hannah Aarons (Hannah bat Aharon be Jacob ZL) passed away today.

1826: In Charleston, SC, Rebecca Phillips and Isaiah Moses gave birth to Adeline Moses, the wife of Adolph J. Brady with whom she had five children – Matilda, Isaiah, Illiee, Edwin and Rosa.

1834: The “wife of Shmuel bar Shlomeh” was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1840: Birthdate of German philosopher, the Kantian, Otto Liebmann

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_12511.html

1841: Birthdate of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the French artist who painted “Alice and Elisabeth Cahen d’Anvers” (most commonly referred to as Pink and Blue). The painting portrayed the 2 daughters of the banker Louis Raphael Cahen d'Anvers, the blonde, Elisabeth, born in December 1874, and the younger, Alice, in February 1876, when they were respectively six and five years old. The artist produced many portraits for the families of the Parisian Jewish community at the time. Renoir was commissioned to paint many portraits for this family, which he had met through the collector Charles Ephrussi, proprietor of the "Gazette des Beaux-Arts."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_and_Blue_(Renoir)

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

1842: Birthdate of Elias Landauer who with “his spouse, Bertha Bodenheimer Landauer, immigrated from Germany in 1866 settled in Harrisonburg, Louisiana where he operated a retail supply business for 22 years before coming to New Orleans and opening Landauer & Meyer, a wholesale hat store’

1844: Birthdate of Leó Frankel, the Hungarian born revolution who active in the First International and a member of the Paris Commune that was formed in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War.

1846: Henry Hyman Defries married Dinah Samson in Liverpool today.

1847: State University of Iowa was approved.  What is now called the University of Iowa has certainly provided employment and educational opportunities for a fair number of Jews from the land of the Hawks as well a number of other places. Prior to the Pandemic, the 28,000-student body included approximately 600 Jewish undergrads and 200 Jewish grad students.  The school offers ten Jewish studies courses and the campus offers students a choice of Hillel or Chabad.  They also have access to Agudas Achim and its Rabbi, Jeff Portman, a mensch in the truest sense of the word. Several distinguished Jewish scholars have taught at the university including the late Dr. Jonathan A. Goldstein who provided the introduction and commentary for The Anchor Bible's Book of Maccabees and Dr. David Schoenbaum who has authored numerous works about German history as well as The United States and the State of Israel, a diplomatic history of relations between the United States and Israel from 1948 to 1993.

1848: Birthdate of Eugène-Melchior, vicomte de Vogüé the French diplomat and archaeologist who provided “much of the earliest documentation about the Temple Mount. Because his work was done with the “full consent of the Muslim Counsel” he “work included the most complete and detailed mongraphs on how the mosques looked and their relationships to ancient Temple of Jerusalem.”  De Vogue “was also known for his architectural studies of Jerusalem and its surroundings.” (For more on this Digging Through the Bible by Richard A. Freund

1848: Birthdate of Hungary native Josef Schiff, the “Austrian stenographer” who was “appointed teacher of stenography at the Vienna Academy of Agriculture in 1874” and “lecturer on Gabelsberg’s system of stenographer at the University of Vienna in 1898” which led to him receiving “the title of professor from the Emperor of Austria.”

1851: Elias Landauer, the German born son of Raphael Löb Landauer and Lucia Pessel Landauerm and his wife Karoline Kehle Landauer gave birth to Raphael Landauer

1855: The Jewish residents of Lancaster PA organized Congregation Shaarai Shomayim which then took possession of the old Jewish cemetery.

1856: Professor O.M. Mitchell is scheduled deliver a lecture tonight entitled "Critical Examination of the Astronomical Allusions and Illustrations Employed by the Writers of the Sacred Books of the Hebrews" at the Brooklyn Athenaeum. 

1858: Sir Anthony de Rothschild, Louis Nathan, Ephraim Alex and Marcus Samuel, the father of the first Lord Bearsted were among those who attended a conference designed to deal with the problems of “the strange and foreign poor” held in the chambers of the Great Synagogue in London.

1859: The first formal meeting was held at 31 New Bridge Street of the Board of Guardians which consisted of delegates from the London’s three leading congregations.

1860: Birthdate of Professor Hirsch Loeb Sabsovich, the native Berdiansk, Russia who came to the United States in 1888 to serve as an agricultural chemist at Colorado State Agricultural College before becoming the “General Agent of the Baron De Hirsch Fund and the first mayor of the Jewish Agricultural Colony at Woodbine, NJ.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1915/03/24/100147007.pdf

1861(15thof Adar, 5621): Shushan Purim

1861: Judah P. Benjamin began serving as Attorney General in the cabinet of Jefferson Davis.

1862(25thof Adar I, 5622): German educator Emanuel Hecht passed away.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7469-hecht-emanuel

1862: Birthdate of Stanisław Głąbiński Polish attorney and political leader who shared a cell in Lubyanka Prison with Rabbi Moses Schorr with whom he formed a close friendship before the Jew and Gentile met the same fate – murder by the NKVD in 1941.

1862: A fire broke at 6 o'clock this morning in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, on Lamartine-place.  Damages which are valued at three hundred dollars, should be fully covered by insurance.

1862: During the American Civil War commissioning of the USS Monitor, the U.S. Navy ironclad with the revolving turret that revolutionized naval war and whose crew included William Durst, the Austrian born “coal heaver” who was the last surviving member of the ship’s crew.

1865(29th of Shevat, 5625): Shabbat Shekalim

1867: Ralph Disraeli and his wife gave birth to British political leader Coningsby Disraeli, the nephew of Benjamin Disraeli.

1868: In Portsmouth, Isaac Phillips, the rabbi of the Portsmouth Hebrew Congregation and his wife gave birth to Jacob Phillips, the author of A Peep Into the Talmud andJewish Rites and Ceremonies who served as the rabbi of congregations at Tredegar, Swansea, Sunderland and Port Elizabeth, Cape Colony and was “Justice of the Peace for the Division of Port Elizabeth’

1869(14thof Adar, 5629): Purim observed for the last time during the Presidency of Andrew Johnson.

1869: “In Sagor, Russia, Etta and Solom Etta Levene” gave birth to Dr. Phoebus Aaron Levene, “the internationally recognized authority in biochemistry and husband of Anna Erickson Levene who in 1892 came to the United States where he began practicing medicine in New York City.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phoebus-Levene

1870(24thof Adar I, 5630): Seventy-two-year-old Danish poet Henrik Hertz passed away today.

1870: As a reminder that the battle over the separation of church and state which has been a cornerstone of Jewish success in the United States is on-going, a meeting was held at the Reformed Presbyterian Church in New York in which the attendees called for a national convention that would promote “constitutional recognition of Almighty God and the Christian religion in the United States.”

1871(4thof Adar, 5631): Parashat Terumah

1871: London native Dinah Abrahams and William Benjamin Collins gave birth to Alexander Solomon Collins.

1871(4thof Adar, 5631): Seventy-two-year-old Maurice Schlesinger (born Moritz Adolf Slesinger)
“a German music editor” who followed in the footsteps of his father Adolf Martin Schlesinger and founding a music publishing house passed away today in Baden-Baden.

1871: Rabbi Stephen Wise of Cincinnati delivered a lecture on the Apostle Paul, the third and final in a series of addresses on the Origin of Christianity. The well attended event took place at Steinway Hall in New York City.

1874: Jonas Hart married Amelia Cohen in Dublin today.

1875: Today eleven-year-old pianist Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler made her debut “at a concert of the Wolfsohn’s Beethoven Society.”

1876(30thof Shevat, 5636): Rosh Chodesh Adar observed during the U.S. Centennial Celebration.

1877: It was reported that the Purim Association will host a masked ball at Delmonico’s on March 1st in celebration of this minor Jewish festival.

1877: A reception celebrating Purim was held today at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.  The event was hosted by the lady managers of the well-maintained facility located at 87th Street and Avenue A in New York City.

1877: Professor Felix Adler delivered a detailed laudatory address to a mostly Jewish audience at Standard Hall on the life and teachings of Baruch Spinoza.  The 200th anniversary of the death of the famous Jewish Dutch philosopher provided the impetus for the “panegyric.”

1879” Birthdate of German silent film actor and director Julius Falkenstein who passed away the same year the Nazis came to power.

1880(13th of Adar, 5640) Ta'anit Esther

1881: It was reported today that the will of Louis Strauss of San Francisco includes bequests to the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Home Society of San Francisco ($10,000), and the Jewish Orphan Asylum of New York ($5,000) as well as three other non-Jewish institutions.

1881: It was reported today that Marion Calisch, young Jewess kindergarten teacher who disappeared mysteriously, has been re-united with her parents and taken home.  The police are still investigating the matter since they do not find Ms Calisch’s explanation of events creditable.

1882: A mass meeting is scheduled to be held at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia during which the attendees will express their outrage at the treatment of Russian Jews by the Czarist government.  The multi-denominational array of speakers will be expressing their sympathy with the plight of the refugees, some of whom have just arrived in the City of Brotherly Love.

1882: It was reported today that John W. Foster will be deliver a lecture on “The Czar and His People” before the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in Chickering Hall.  The New York event will be a benefit for Jewish refugees who have fled persecution in Russia.

1882: A Purim celebration for the Temple Beth-El Sunday School students was held at the Terrace Garden this afternoon in New York City.

1882: The Young Men’s Association of Temple Beth-El sponsored a grand ball in Terrace Garden.  This Purim celebration was organized by Nathan Ullman, Louis Lowenfels and Samuel Eiseman.

1884: Birthdate of Else Feldman, the native of Leopoldstadt (Austria) who overcame poverty to become a leading socialist author and writer which did not keep the Nazis from murdering her Sobibor.

1885: Birthdate of Princess Alice of Battenberg, the mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II, who personally saved Rachel Cohen and two of her children from the Nazi death camps.

1887: In Sheffield, England, David and Jochebed (Chaim) Benedict gave birth George Benedict, an alum of Jew’s College and the University of London and husband of Pauline Lewin with whom he had two children – Harold and David Jr – who organized and served s the first Rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Philadelphia, before moving on to Shaari Zedek in Tampa before settling in at Congregation Emanu-El in Roanoke, VA.

1887: Relief expedition to rescue the apostate Jew turned Ottoman official Emin Pasha, under the command of Henry M. Stanley, left Zanzibar for its next stop, Banana at the mouth of the Congo River.

1888(13thof Adar, 5648): Parahat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor; Erev Purim

1888: Birthdate of John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower’s Secretary of State from 1953 through 1959.  No, Dulles was not Jewish. But this patrician Cold Warrior did play a major role in American Israeli relations and his effect was less than positive.  He sided with the Soviets in their support of Nasser during the Suez crisis of 1956.  He led the forces that put pressure on Israel to withdraw from the Sinai and Gaza leaving the terrorist bases in tact while propping up the Egyptian dictator.  Dulles and Eisenhower’s misguided action led to the development of the independent French nuclear capability and to the Six Day War in 1967.

1889: Birthdate of Warsaw native and University of London alum Aaron Glanz-Leyeless the Yiddish journalist, poet, playwright and author whose works included the play “Shlomo Molcho and the award-wining A Jew at Sea and who had married “the former Sophia Kupfer” after his first wife “the former Fannie Wolynsky”

1890: Birthdate of Kilburn, London, native Julia Myra Hess the accomplished concert pianist remembered by many as the artist who “gave almost 2,000 lunchtime concert” during the six years of WW II – a performance time brought about by the wartime blackout and the need for moral building activities.

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/myra-hess-concerts/myra-remembered

 

1891: Charles W. Foster began serving as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, a position which gave him considerable control over the increasing influx of Jews from Russia and Poland; a fact that would be duly noted later in appeals made to him by leaders of the American Jewish Committee.

1892: “No Mercy For the Jews” published today provided a detailed account of the report prepared by Colonel John B. Weber who had represented the 33rdDistrict of New York in the 49th and 50th Congresses and Dr. Walter Kempster on the “conditions and treatment of the Jewish subjects of the Czar.  The report which was prepared for the House Committee on Immigration, “sets forth calmly, dispassionately and with a careful regard to accuracy...a state of things unheard of in modern times.” 

1893(9thof Adar, 5653): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

1893: In Newark, NJ, “Max Bornestien, a Polish Jews…has retained counsel in a suit for damages alleging that the defendants, three constables “brought pork sausage into his house and ate them therein” defiling his property in such a manner “that he can no longer make use of it.”

1894: In Philadelphia, PA, a non-sectarian memorial service in memory of the late George W. Childs was held at Keneseth Israel.

1894: It was reported today that a member of the Women’s Literary Club of Baltimore has contributed a paper on the “The Booth” the famous family of 19thcentury thespians.  According to the paper, they were originally a Jewish family from Spain named “Cabana.”  When one of the ancestors settled in England he translated the family name into English and that back the family name – Booth

1895: “Once Famous, Now Forgotten” published today described the life of Bernard Bauer, the Hungarian Jew who converted to Catholicism, where, as Father Maria Berhnard he became a popular preacher in France and the confessor of Empress.  This meant that he was following in the footsteps of Hermann Cohen, the Jewish pianist who converted and gained fame as Father Hermann.

1897: Birthdate of Irving Maidman, “the New York real estate investor who offered $1,000 to each of the 200 passengers who rode the New York Susquehanna and Western Railroad which he had purchased so that he could develop the division passenger stations “as small business concerns.”

1897(23rdof Adar I, 5657): Sixty-two-year-old author and historian Michael Bernays passed away today.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3120-bernays-michael

1898: A social event is scheduled to be held today to raise funds for Jewish hospital to be built in Brooklyn.  Currently there are no Jewish hospitals in Brooklyn and Robert Strahl, Sigmund Wechsler and Charles Levy are among those leading the drive to remedy this deficiency.

1898(3rdof Adar, 5658): Before reaching his second birthday, Albert Weil, the son of Abraham and Berta Weil pass away today in Oppau.

1899: It was reported today that the Junior Association of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews had participated in the annual Purim reception that had been held at the home on 106th Street.

1899: Paul Julius von Reuter founder of the news agency Reuters passed away.  Reuter was born in 1816 and his name was Israel Beer Josaphat.  He left his uncle's bank in the German town of Gottingeng and established what would become the world's greatest wire service in 1848. No Kaddish was said since he had converted and became a Lutheran in 1845 after having moved to London.

1900: It was reported today that Hermann Adler, the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire “has been elected a member of the Athenaeum Club, after having been proposed for membership by Reverend Mandell Creighton, the Bishop of London.

1900: Job Harriman, a former Baptist minister now running for President as the Socialist Labor’s Party candidate spoke to 1,500 Jewish Socialists today in the Windsor Theatre.

1901: In New York, Samuel and Minnie Schoenberg Marx gave birth to Herbert Manrfed Marx known as Zeppo Marx, the youngest of the Marx Brothers.

https://www.biography.com/people/zeppo-marx-21181001

http://www.marx-brothers.org/biography/zeppo.htm

1902: Abraham Abraham, Felix Adler, Jacob Schiff, Isaac N. Seligman, Adolph Ochs and Oscar Straus are members of the committee that has planned the festivities for the launching the yacht owned by Prince Henry of Prussia.

1902: In South Carolina Rabbi B.A. Elzas officiated at the marriage of James Dundas and Rebecca Bowman

1902: In Sweden, Albert and Alma Mallin gave birth to Ivar Mallin.

1902: On Broadway, final performance of “Frocks and Frills” starring Rose Eytinge.

1903: Dr. Kaufmann Kohler, the senior Rabbi at New York’s Temple Beth-El has been asked to serve as President of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, the first and until recently, when a conservative seminary was established in New York, the only college in America designed for the education of Rabbis.

1903: “Zionist committees set out today to investigate the feasibility of a British proposal to have Jews colonize El-Arish” which is located on the Mediterranean coast of the Sinai Peninsula.  

1903: Herzl receives a telegram from the commission in El Arish: "Vicinity has made a favorable impression."

1904: Two days after she had passed away, Flora Goldsmid, the daughter of Frederick David Goldsmid and the former Caroline Samuel was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1905(20thof Adar I, 5665): Parashat Ki Tisa

1905: “The Jewish Church” was one of the many buildings destroyed tonight as fire swept through downtown Hot Springs, AR. (Editor’s note: This would be a reference to the Jewish congregation known as The House of Israel which had purchased land for a cemetery in 1876 and “constructed” it first congregational home in 1885)

1906: In New York, today’s annual meeting of the Independent Order of Free Sons Israel included a business meeting followed by a dinner at the Harlem Casino where School Commissioner M.S. Stern and Coroner Julius Harburger were the principal speakers.

1906: In “Why France Sought Separation of Church and State” published today Yvest Guyot traced attempts by the Catholic Church to gain unique total power from the Napoleonic era, including the importation “of anti-Semitism from Austria” which was intend to purge Army of non-Catholics starting with the Jews, followed by Protestants and Freemasons.”

1907: Birthdate of actor Shimen Rushkin, the native of Poland who gained famed in America in televisions and a variety of films including Fiddler on the Roof and the original version of The Producers.  He passed away in 1967.

1907: “In the Bishop’s Carriage” starring Rose Eytinge opened on Broadway.

1908: Continued massacres in Setatt drive Jews to Casablanca for safety. During this period the Jewish population of all Morocco is somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000.

1909: Birthdate of Chicago native and Northwestern trained surgeon, Dr. Leon Judah Aries, the husband of Marie L. Aries with whom he had three daughters – Jane, Elizabeth and Nancy.

1909: In Washington, D.C., Myer Solomon Cohn the Russian born son of Leo and Sarah Cohn and his wife Sadie Cohn gave birth to Robert Cohn.

1910: I London, “under the auspices of the Jewish Religious Union, Dr. Stephen S. Wised the rabbi of the Free Synagogue” delivered the first of a series of addresses which is expected to bring to a head the controversy between the liberal and orthodox sections of the Anglo-Jewish Union,” “which was founded by C.G. Montefiore, L.S. Montague and other well-known members of the Jewish Community.”

1911(27thof Shevat, 5671): Parshat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

1911: “Important Meeting of Jews” published today described plans for an upcoming meeting of “representatives of widely different Jewish interests in New York from small and scarcely organized Jewish gatherings on the east side to such important bodies as the United Hebrew Charities, the American Jewish Committee, and the Congregation Temple Emanu-El.”

1912(7thof Adar I, 5672): Eighty-one year old Rabbi Nachum Paltiel Bromson passed away today in Baltimore, MD.

1913: “Reciprocity Day” Echoes of the Bicentennial Meeting of the Union of America is scheduled to be the topic at today’s regular meeting of the K.A.M. Auxiliary  in Chicago.

1913: Birthdate of Herman L. “Reds” Bassman, the native of Philadelphia who ran track, wrestled and played football for Ursinus before playing professionally for the Philadelphia Eagles.

http://www.profootballarchives.com/bass02000.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20150430215549/http://articles.philly.com/2010-08-05/sports/24971315_1_ursinus-virginia-75th-anniversary

1913(18thof Adar I, 5673): Forty-nine-year-old Boston merchant Maurice Newman passed away today.

1914: Maurice and Adda Nudelman Kallis gave birth to  Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman, the student of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University  whose donation of artworks by the likes of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell and Alexander Calder greatly bolstered the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s standing as an exhibitor of modern art.

1915(11thof Adar, 5675): Ta’anit Esther

1915: “The Supreme Court of the United States today heard” Louis Marshall “head counsel for Leo Frank…on his appeal from the denial by the Federal District Court of Georgia of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus.”

1916: “Tales of Hoffman” a silent film directed by Richard Oswald was released in Germany today.

1916: Simon Wolf wrote to Rabb C.H. Rubenstein of Baltimore, MD, expressing his appreciation for the role he has played in opposing measures to allow the reading of the Bible in Maryland public schools and and asking to be kept informed of the next steps he plans on taking.

1916: Based on reports published today, that 35,000 Jews living in Palestine including those at settlement started by Wolf Gluskin, are “in dire straits” because, among other things, “the wine industry which” had been developed “before Turkey entered” the World War “had been destroyed.”

1917: A list of the accomplishments of Rabbi Henry Pereira Menes published today included helping to found The American Hebrew, initiating the movement to found the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids and the School for Crippled Jewish Children and helping to found the Jewish Theological Seminary.

1917: Among the contributions acknowledged today by the American Jewish Relief Committee included $200 from the Jewish Women of East Chicago, $100 from the United Hebrew Organization of South Bend, Indiana and $500 from the Committee in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

1917: Dr. Samuel Schulman is scheduled to deliver an address on “The Jew’s Service to the World” at Temple Beth-El.

1917: At Temple Emanu-El, Dr. Silverman is scheduled to speak on “What the Hew Jews Should Know about Jews and Judaism: the Patriotism of the Jews.”

1917: At Carnegie Hall, Dr. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon to the Free Synagogue entitled “Marriage Ideals, True and False.”

1918: Today “a dispatch appeared in the daily newspapers to the effect that the Italian Government had notified its Ambassadors that it approved of the stand on Palestine taken by the Allies” making this “the first authorized announcement by the Italian Government to the Zionist organization.”

1919: The funeral for the Abraham Jesse Dittenhoefer, the native South Carolinian who was the last living elector to have voted for Lincoln in 1864, will be held at his home this morning at ten o’clock.

1919: Birthdate of Brooklyn born cellist Fred Katz.

1920: In Germany, the Nazi party endorsed its own platform consisting of twenty-five points. Seven of these points concerned the Jews.

1920: Twenty-one-year-old Parisian native Benny Valgar “won the Featherweight Boxing Championship of the World today.

1921: Greek authorities expropriate the old Jewish cemetery in Smyrna.

1923: Birthdate of Viennese native Jacob Taubes who taught Jewish studies at Harvard, Columbia, Princeton and the Free University of Berlin who was the husband of author Susan Tabes with whom he had two children - Ethan and Tania.

https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/2672/i-am-impossible-an-exchange-between-jacob-taubes-and-arthur-a-cohen/

1923: In Los Angeles, Mildred Rosenkranz, the “daughter of Emil and Benvenida Solis Firth” and her husband Elias Victor Rosenkranz gave birth to Marjorie Ruth Rosenkranz

1923: The price of bread rose to 2,000 marks in Berlin.  This hyper-inflation wiped people’s life savings and destroyed the basic faith of the middle class in many of the existing political and social institutions.  It laid the groundwork for the rise of political extremism that would make the Communists and the Nazis the dominant political forces in the 1930’s.

1923: In New York City, Louis Glazer, “a garment worker” and his wife Tilly, “a homemaker” gave birth to sociologist Nathan Glazer. (As reported by Barry Gewen)

1923: In “Palestine Relief Work Extended,” published today Doctor Isaac M. Rubinow, the director of the Hadassah Medical Organization describes the positive changes that the work of the Hadassah doctors and nurses has had on the citizens of Palestine including Jews, Arabs, Moslems and Christians.  When Dr. Rubinow went to Israel in 1919 the unit consisted of 43 nurses and doctors.  Today four hundred medical personnel sponsored by Hadassah support five major hospitals and several field hospitals.  As a sign as of its commitment to “heal the wounds of prejudice” all Hadassah hospitals and clinics are open to Moslems and Christians as well as Jews.  To ensure equality of treatment, the staff members do not maintain a private practice and there are no private rooms in the medical facilities.  Everybody is treated in a democratic fashion on modern hospital wards.  The Hadassah Medical Organization has established a modern infant welfare plan under the management of pediatricians at Rothschild Hospital in Jerusalem and a department of school hygiene “which has saved thousands of children from blindness and other ailments by regular examination for and treatment of trachoma and various forms of skin diseases.”

1925: In Camden, NJ, Congregation Beth-El and the Council of Jewish Women hosted its Fourth Annual Ball.

1926: New York Mayor James J. Walker received the advance delegates of Europe’s champion soccer team whose creation “was the direct result of the formation of the Hakoah organization in Austria fourteen years ago and that Hakoah had been created because of a realization of the need for building up the physical health of the Jews in Europe.”

1926: The Student’s Union gave as the reason for its strike which began today as being “the authorities’ refusal to meet its repeated demand for limiting the number of Jewish students admitted to the university.

1926: Three hundred guests attended “the Hundred-Dollar-Dinner of the Washington Heights United Palestine Appeal held tonight at the Hotel Astor” in New York City.

1926: “The country home of Milton F. Untermeyer, a member of the brokerage firm of Henry Henck and Company situated on the top of a mountain about five miles from Butler, NJ, was struck by lightning tonight and destroyed by fire.”

1926: Henry Hurwitz, the editor of The Menorah Journal was the principal speaker at “the third of a series of ‘plain-talk’ dinners tonight at the Aldine Club.

1926: Among those reported today to have recently met with President Coolidge are Jacob Rosenheim, the President of Agudath Israel, Dr. Leo Jung, the rabbi of the Jewish Centre in New York and New York state legislator Samuel H. Hofstadter.

1927: “Maccabi Tel Aviv defeated Hapoel-Allenby in the first Soccer Derby in Tel Aviv” today. (As reported by Al Wechsler)

1928: In New York City, Dr. and Mrs. Henry Stern gave birth to Richard Gustave Stern, the best American author of whom you have never heard…” (As reported by Bruce Weber)

1928: In Chicago, Harry Gelbart, a Latvian born barber and Frieda Sturner gave birth to Larry Gelbart, television producer responsible for the hit show “MASH.”

1928: Birthdate of Shlomo Kalo, a native of Bulgaria who survived the Holocaust and made Aliyah in 1949.  He gained fame as a microbiologist as well as a poet and an author of works of fictions and non-fiction.

1929: “Urges Bible As Guide” published today quoted Louis Marshall as saying that “It is the duty of Jewish parents to educate themselves so they may…discuss things Jewish them” because if they do not, “all that our ancestors and our glorious tradition have too for will have been for nothing and we as Jews will become a degenerate people.”

1930: “Declaring that at least three million Jews will remain in Russia to become producers under the Russian law and system James N. Rosenberg, president of the American Society for Jewish Farm Settlements in Russia, Inc., protested” today “against what he called ‘dragging problems of Jewish reconstruction and relief in Russia in to politics and controversies.’”

1931: Today, the violent ant-Semitic attacks were renewed at Pecs University in Budapest which resulted in the rector suspending lectures for two days

1932: Adolf Hitler who had been born in Austria and whose Germanic connection was ethnic rather than political until he joined the Kaiser’s army in 1914 officially became a German citizen.

1932: Premiere of “Behind the Mask” produced by Harry Cohn.

1932: In Brooklyn, Harold Spitzer and the former Gertrude Schwartz gave birth to Lincoln High graduate and Army veteran Elton Leopold Spitzer who created the “broadcasting phenomenon at WLIR.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/business/media/elton-spitzer-84-who-helped-turnwlir-into-a-radiodestinationdies.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1933: The Literary Digest, the magazine that would go out of business after picking Alf Landon to win the election in 1936, published “Israel’s Alarm at Hitler’s Rise.”

http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/Jewish_reaction_to_the_rise_of_ADOLF_HITLER_pdf

1934: Birthdate of Meir Har-Zion a sabra who “was an Israeli military commando” and “a key member of Unit 101.”

1934: Today the “Tel Hey Memorial,” known as the “Roaring Lion” which had been fashioned from a 22-ton block of stone by Abraham Melnikov which took the form of a “lion facing eastward and roaring to the heavens” was officially dedicated today.

1934: In London, two second-generation Jewish immigrants from Poland gave birth to 6’7” British actor Bernard Bresslaw.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-bernard-bresslaw-1491593.html

http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/bernard_bresslaw.htm

1935:  Birthdate of Sally Lowenthal, better known to most Americans as talk show hostess Sally Jesse Raphael.

1936: In Brooklyn, Max and Marion (Smith) Reinsdorf gave birth tax attorney turned sports mogul (Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox) Jerry M. Reinsdorf.

1936: Messages from David Lloyd George, the former British Prime Minister, English philanthropist Simon Marks and Leopold Amery, the former British Secretary of State for the Colonies, “congratulating the Palestine Foundation Fund on its fifteenth anniversary were made public” in New York today.

1936: In Magdeburg, Germany, “three Jewish employees of the Barasch Department Store were sentenced to four years, one year and give months imprisonment, respectively, on charges of immorality” that had been brought salesgirls or members of their families.

1936: Rose Pesotta joined the Goodyear Rubber workers' sit-in as an organizer of the strike which temporarily closed the largest tire factory in the world.

http://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/25/1936/rose-pesotta

1937(14thof Adar, 5697): Purim

1937: Children in Herrlingen, Germany dressed in Bedouin costumes as part of the Purim celebration.

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/march/02.asp

1937: In London, Winston Churchill met Emery Reves for the first time. Reeves was a Hungarian born Jew whose birth name was Imre Rvesz who had become a leading literary agent for European democratic leaders, a role he would soon assume for Churchill.

 1938: The Palestine Post reported that The Times of London criticized, in its leading article, the delay shown by the Colonial Office in appointing a new technical commission which would advise how to implement the proposed by the Royal (Peel) Commission and the League of Nations partition of Palestine. 

1939(6thof Adar, 5699): Parashat Terumah

1939: “I Married An Angel,” a Rogers and Hart musical closed today at the Schubert after 338 perfromances.

1939: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Is There Anything Sacred to the Modern Mind” today at Temple Emanuel.

1939: Rabbi Jonah B. Wise is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Gift of Faith” at the Central Synagogue on Lexington Avenue.

1939: Rabbi Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “We Are All Semites Spiritually” this morning at Temple Rodeph Sholom.

1939: Rabbi William F Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon on American Jews Have a Right to Be Proud” this morning at Temple Israel.

1939: Rabbi Nathan Stern is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Facing Life’s Sanctuaries” at West End Synagogue today.

1939: Rabbi Alexander Segel is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Treasures in the Sanctuary” at Fort Washington Synagogue today.

1939: Rabbi Harold Mashioff is scheduled to deliver a sermon “If This Be Freedom of Speech” at the Temple of the Covenant.

1939: Heinrich Himmler reportedly issued a secret decree designed to get of Germany’s Jews by encouraging emigration. This report would seem to lack credibility given the impediments that the German government placed in the way of Jews leaving Nazi control.

1939: U.S. premiere of “Wife, Husband and Friend’ a comedy directed by Gregory Ratoff, co-starring Binnie Barnes with music by Alfred Newman.

1939: In Britain, the Picture Post published the first of two photo-journalist presentations that supported the call for Winston Churchill’s return to an active role in the Government.  Stefan Lorant was the editor and designer for the Picture Post was the moving force behind the article.  Lorant was a Hungarian born Jew who had worked in Germany before being imprisoned at Dachau in 1933.

1940: Two days after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held for seventy-seven year old businessman and philanthropist Henry Frederick Samstag, the Washington, DC born son of Samuel and August Samstag who moved to New York in 1895 where founded Samstag and Hilder, co-founded the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies” and raised three children – Henry, Katherine and Matilda – with his wife Belle Samstag

1941(28thof Shevat, 5701): Fifty-seven-year-old New York Eton educated real estate manager and insurance agent Theodore Badman, the son of Herman and Rosa Frandenfelder Badman, the husband of Hortense Goldsmith and mother of Carl and Adolph Badman who had been a member of the Washington Lodge of B’nai B’rith and Free Sons of Israel passed away today.

1941: The 1941 February Strike (aka The Strike of February 1941) which was organized in the Netherlands as protest following pogroms that had taken place in Amsterdam’s Jewish neighborhoods began today

1941: One thousand, six hundred Jews were deported from Gora Kalwaria to the Warsaw Ghetto.

1942: In Toronto, Ontario,Herbert Dick "Hyman" Sherman a business partner for a zipper company and Sara "Sarah" Sherman (née Winter) an occupational therapist gave birth to billionaire Bernard Charles “Barry” Sherman the holder of a Ph. D from MIT, the chairman and CEO of Apotex, Inc, the pharmaceutical corporation and the husband of Honey Reich, who was found alongside his dead body and with whom he had four children – Jonathon, Lauren, Alexandra and Kaelen.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2017/12/15/canadian-pharmaceuticals-billionaire-and-wife-found-dead-in-toronto-mansion/#31b2588f7fe2

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/two-legacies-one-dark-mystery-toronto-elite-reeling-after-violent-deaths-of-barry-and-honey-sherman

 

 

1942: For the second time this month, Reverend Chait of the Army Chaplaincy visited Isidore Newman who was in the hospital after having broken his leg while going through parachute training for SOE agents

1943(20thof Adar I, 5703): Sixty-three-year-old New York native Dr. Lawrence Satenstein, the College of Physicians and Surgeons trained dermatologist and husband of Victoria Satenstein passed away today.

1944: Robert F. Wagner, the U.S. Senator from New York said today that “The American Palestine Committee will sponsor a national conference here on March 9 to promote "American Christian" support for the opening of Jewish immigration into Palestine.”

1945: Birthdate of Amram Mitzna “an Israeli politician and former general. He is the acting mayor of Yeruham, the former mayor of Haifa (1993–2003) and lead the Labour Party from 2002 to 2003.”

1946(24thof Adar I, 5706): Thirty-nine-year-old Beaver Falls, PA native and U. of Cincinnati and HUC graduate Rabbi Abraham Feinberg who in 1942 succeeded Rabbi I. Edmund Philo as the leader of Rodef Sholom Temple in Youngstown, OH, passed away today.

1946: Three RAF installations were attacked in Palestine tonight resulting in damage valued at $2,000,000,000.  Fourteen planes were destroyed outright and another 8 planes were damaged so badly that they were beyond repair.

1947: Birthdate of Gary Rosenblatt who has served as editor for the Baltimore Jewish Times, The Jewish News of Detroit, The Atlanta Jewish Times and The Jewish Week of New York

1947: British Foreign Minister Bevin continues his anti-Semitic rhetoric attacking Zionism and defending theArabs who have been in Palestine “for 2,000 years.”

1947: Birthdate of Buffalo native Anne Beatts, the comedy writer who converted to Judaism while a McGill University and “was the first female editor of National Lampoon magazine.

1947: The SS President Warfield set sail from Baltimore, MD on a voyage which would sail her into the history books as The Exodus.

1948: The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia takes control of government in Czechoslovakia and the period of the Third Republic ends.  The Communist seizure of power was a major step in the hardening of positions during the early days of the Cold War.  It galvanized pro-western forces in Europe to participate in what would become NATO.  It also helped internationalists (many of whom were Jewish) in the United States to overcome isolationist opposition America taking the lead in opposing Soviet imperialism.  For the Jews of Palestine who were already facing Arab attacks prior to the pending departure of the British, this turn of events was beneficial.  With the approval of their Soviet masters, the new Czech government would allow the shipment of surplus ME-109 aircraft that was stored in Czechoslovakia to Israel at the moment of the creation of the Jewish state.  In one of the great ironies of history, the first combat aircraft flown by Israeli pilots were former German fighter planes shipped from Communist Czechoslovakia.

1949(26thof Shevat, 5709): Noted portrait painter Alfred Joseph Praga, a native of Liverpool born in 1861 and the husband of journalist Teresa Prager, “who revitalized the art of miniature painting in Britain” and “was one of the founders in 1895 of the Society of Miniaturists” passed away today.

1950: "Your Show of Shows" with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca premiered on NBC. Writers included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Woody Allen. This was an early hour long variety - primarily comedy - show that dominated the airwaves in its weekend time slot.  And it was live when live meant live.  Yes, three of those mentioned above were Jewish.  But by now you have come to expect a connection between Jewish and Humor.

1951: Pan American Games, during which Byron “Krieger won gold medals in team foil and team sabre and the team silver in épée” opened today in Buenos Aires.”

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that after Jordan asked Britain to intervene against what he called Israeli "aggression" and invoked the Jordanian-British pact of mutual assistance, the British government officially disclosed that it considered the possibility of stationing its armed forces on Jordanian territory.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Hevrat Ovdim (the Histadrut's General Cooperative Society), together with the Histadrut's pension funds and other organizations, mobilized funds for the construction of the first huge hotel and rest house in Eilat. Eilat is Israel's southern port.  Early on, the Israelis sought to make it a tourist haven as well as a port that would be a gateway to Africa and Asia.  The blockade of Eilat by the Egyptians in 1967 was the official act of war that provided the justification under international law for what would become the Six Days War.

1954: Nasser became Egyptian premier. The “man behind the throne” who had masterminded the downfall of the Egyptian monarchy now took center stage and took his country down a road to repeated war with Israel as well as doom and disgrace.

1955(3rdof Adar I, 5715): Sixty-year-old Cornell and Brooklyn Law School alum Solomon Abelow the husband of Anna Abelow and father of Sanford Abelow who served as a field artillery officer during WW I and who served as state commander of the Jewish War Veterans passed away today after which he was buried at Mt. Hebron Cemetery in Queens.

1955: “The End of the Affair,” a film version of the novel produced by David Lewis was released today in the United States.

1955(3rdof Adar I, 5715): Arab terrorists, one of whom “was found to be in possession of documents linking him to Egyptian military intelligence” murdered an Israeli civilian in Rehovot.

1956: Nikita Khrushchev delivered a “secret speech” at the Twentieth Communist Party in which he denounced Stalin and his “cult of personality” – a denunciation that would lead to the posthumous rehabilitation of the victims of past purges many of whom were Jewish.

1957(24th of Adar I, 5717): Mark Aldanov, aka Mark A Landau, Russian born author and chemist passed away at the age of 70.

1957(24th of Adar I, 5717): B. P. Schulberg passed away. Born Percival Schulberg in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1892, he took the name Benjamin from the boy in front of him when registering for school to avoid mockery for his British name. He worked in the fledgling film industry in New York City until 1919 when he moved to Hollywood, California where he operated "Preferred Pictures" and was responsible for making Clara Bow a star. He joined Louis B. Mayer to form "Mayer-Schulberg Studio" but after Mayer became part of MGM, Schulberg would join with Adolph Zukor and became the head of Paramount Pictures. In an era when the film industry was filled with conservative studio executives, B.P. Schulberg was a "New Deal" liberal, described by Moving Pictures magazine as "a political liberal in the reactionary world of Mayer and Hearst." His wife Adeline Jaffe-Schulberg founded a talent agency taken over by her brother, producer/talent agent Sam Jaffe. She spent little time with Hollywood society women, instead working for charities that aided the poor and promoting socialism. She subsequently had a literary agency in New York. They were the parents of renowned novelist and screenwriter, Budd Schulberg, producer Stuart Schulberg, and writer Sonya Schulberg O'Sullivan.In a power struggle at Paramount, Schulberg left the studio in 1937 and remained out of the business until 1940 when he began producing for Columbia Pictures. He produced six films for Columbia in three years until he retired in 1943.

1958(5thof Adar, 5718): Just seventeen days after celebrating her 87thbirthday Lillian Burkhart Goldsmith, the Pittsburgh born daughter of Adolph and Rosalia Burkhart, and Curry Institute and University of Southern California alum who married George Goldsmith and gained fame as Lillian Goldsmith, the 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 passed away today.

1960: Lillian Hellman's "Toys in the Attic" premiered in New York City.

1963: “The Barbra Streisand Album,” “the debut album by Barbra Streisand was released today on Columbia Recoreds.

1963(1st of Adar, 5723): Melville J. Heskovits passed away. The American born anthropologist established African and African American studies in American academia. Herskovits's controversial classic The Myth of the Negro Past is about African cultural influences on American blacks. He also helped forge the concept of cultural relativism, particularly in his book Man and His Works.

1965:  On New York’s Upper East Side, Jane and Gerald Finerman gave birth to Karen Lisa Finerman, the sister of Wendy, Leslie, Stacey and Mark Finerman and the wife of private equity manager Lawrence Golub, who was the “co-founder and President of Metropolitan Capital Advisors, INC as well as a panelist on “Fast Money.”

1965: During the height of the Civil Rights struggle, Rabbi Max Nussbaum and his wife Ruth welcome the Reverend Martha King Jr. to the pulpit of Temple Israel in Hollywood.

1966(5thof Adar, 5726): Seventy-five-year-old University of Maryland Medical School graduate and WW I Army Medical Corps veteran Dr. Herbert L Langer, “the president of the medical board of Peninsula General Hospital” and the husband of “the former Helen Stein” with whom he had “two sons, Howard and Irwin” passed away today.

1967: Birthdate of Jonathan Saul Freedland “a British journalist, who writes a weekly column for The Guardian and a monthly piece for the Jewish Chronicle. Freedland has previously written for The Daily Mirror and as of September 2005, he writes each Thursday for the London Evening Standard. He is the son of Michael Freedland, the biographer and journalist.

1967: “Enter Laughing” a comedy directed and co-produced by Carl Reiner “based on his autobiographical novel and the stage play of the same name” with a screenplay by Carl Reiner and Joseph Stein and co-starring Shelley Winter, Elaine May, Jack Gilford, Janet Margolin, David Opatoshu and Don Rickles was released in the United States today.

1969: One person was injured during a bombing at the British consulate in East Jerusalem.

1969: “Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?” produced by Philip Rose opened at the Belasco Theatre.

1970(19th of Adar I, 5730): Latvian born American painter and print maker Mark Rothko born Marcus Rothkowitz passed away whose unusual work. includes the 1961 painting “Blue, Orange, Red.”

1971: Part One of a two-part production of Clifford Odette’s “Paradise Lost,” co-starring Eli Wallach was broadcast for the first time on American Public Television.

1972: Birthdate of Argentine attorney and activist Myriam Bregam who was elected as a national deputy in 2015 as a member of the Workers’ Left Front.

1973: Steven Sondheim's musical "Little Night Music" premiered at the Shubert Theater in New York NY for the first of its 601 performances.

1974(3rdof Adar, 5734): Seventy-nine-year-old Lothar Mendes “the German born screenwriter and film director who moved to the Hollywood in 1926 and is best known as the director of Jew Süss, the British film adaptation of the novel by Lion Feuchtwanger which is not to be confused with the viciously anti-Semitic film made by the Nazis.

1975(14thof Purim, 5735): Purim

1975: In Livingston, NJ, the former Rita Stoecker, a Mormon housewife and Seymour Handler an Ashkenazi Jewish used car dealer gave birth to multi-talented Chelsea Joy Handler who, in 2012, Time magazine named as “one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

1976: BBC2 broadcast the last episode of “The Glittering Prizes” a drama series written by Frederic Raphael.

1977(7thof Adar, 5737): Eighty-year-old producer Joseph Hyman, who collaborated with Moss Hart to create several successful Broadway plays passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/02/27/archives/joseph-hyman-80-producer-is-dead-worked-with-bernard-and-moss-hart.html

1980: The first episode of the British sitcom “Yes Minister” created by Jonathan Lynn was broadcast today.

1982: Today “Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres today rejected Premier Menachem Begin’s latest offer to form a national unity government.”

1983: Birthdate of “French-Israeli journalist” Jonathan-Simon Sellem.

1986:  Birthdate of actor Justin Berfeld who plays Reese on “Malcolm in the Middle.”

1987(26thof Shevat, 5747): Seventy-nine-year-old Alfred Plaut, the German born son of Isaac and Sophie Plaut and the “husband of Fanny K. Kasper” passed away today in El Paso, TX.

1988(7thof Adar, 5748): Eighty-year-old William G. Braude who has served as a rabbi for 40 years at Congregation Sons of Israel and David, Temple Beth-El in Providence, R.I., passed away today. A native of Lithuania, he came to the United States in 1920 where he earned degrees from the University of Cincinnati and Hebrew Union College. He also taught at Yale, Brown, Hebrew University and Leo Baeck College in London.

1988: Eighty-four year old Kurt Mahler, the German Mathematician who met Kurt Hirsch while in a British internment camp for “enemy aliens” (a strange appellation for somebody who had fled the Nazis) and eventually settled in Australia where he passed away today.

1988: Secretary of State George Schultz arrived in Israel today on the first of four day mission to the Middle East designed to explore reaction to recent American peace proposal. Shultz called on Israel to make ''decisions of historic proportions'' to help change the status quo in the Middle East when greeted by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres who responded by saying that this is ''a most demanding period of our life, facing probably the most complicated issue of the day.''

1990: In “Cafritz v. Cafritz” published today, Marjorie Williams described the attempt of two sons of the late Gwendolyn Cafritz to have her will overturned.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1990/02/25/cafritz-v-cafritz/9f486a14-9672-4802-802e-0e470a9f1507/?utm_term=.edf7eee05775

1991: The barrage of Iraqi scud attacks that began on January 18th came to an end today.  During that period 39 missiles were fired into Israel.

1994(14thof Adar, 5754): Purim

1994 (14th of Adar, 5754): Eighty-year-old Sam Eisenstadt was assaulted with an axe while walking in the center of Kfar Saba. Sam died of his wounds shortly afterwards.

1994: In one of the most shameful acts committed by a Jew, American-born Baruch Goldstein opened fire inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank, killing 29 Muslims before he was beaten to death by worshippers. 

1995(25thof Adar I, 5755): Parashat Vayakhel; Shabbat Shekalim

1996(5thof Adar I, 5756): One person died in the bombing of the Ashkelon bus station for which Hamas claimed responsibility.

1996(5thof Adar I, 5756): Seventeen civilians and nine soldiers were murdered and forty-eight people were injured when a Palestinian terrorist set off a bomb “on a No.18 bus traveling down Jaffa Road near the Jerusalem Central Bus Station.”

1999: The Reuters News Agency commemorated the 100th anniversary of the death of its founder, Paul Julius Reuter, by launching a university award in Germany.

1999: Eighty-eight-year-old Margaret Meagher, who when was appointed to be Canada’s ambassador to Israel in 1958 became the first Canadian woman to reach that diplomatic rank.

1999: Disney named Bob Iger president of Walt Disney International, the business unit that oversees Disney's international operations, as well as chairman of the ABC Group. Disney called the change a promotion for Iger. But the company's insistence was initially viewed with skepticism, as some thought Iger was merely being removed from day-to-day authority at ABC since ABC had been struggling.

2000: The European Indoor Championships during which Aleksandr Averbukh placed first in the Pole vault opened today in Ghent, Belgium.

2000: Hilary Koprowski, a Polish Jew, was honored with a reception at Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first administration of his oral polio vaccine. At the reception, he received commendations from the United States Senate, the Pennsylvania Senate and Governor Tom Ridge.

2001(2ndof Adar, 5761): Ninety-five year old Lithuanian born and education American philanthropist Jacob “Jack” Hiatt, the son of Joshua and Leah Hiatt who died in the Holocaust, the husband of Francis Hiatt with whom he had two children Myra and Janice and the father-in-law of Patriot’s owner Robert Kraft passed away today.

2002(13thof Adar I, 5762): Sixty-five-year-old Avraham Fish and forty-six-year-old Aharon Gorov were murdered by members of Fatah outside of Tekoa.

2003: “The new government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took shape today as a three-party coalition that is expected to take a tough line on the Palestinian uprising and on restarting peace negotiations.”

2003: “A wide-ranging Middle East storm dumped almost a foot of slushy snow on Jerusalem today, shutting schools, closing roads and temporarily infusing a tense city with the feel of a tranquil alpine village.”

2004: “Israeli security forces raided four branches of Palestinian banks, seizing $6.7 million they said was sent by Iran, Syria and Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas to fund Palestinian militants.”

2005(16thof Adar I, 5765):Yael Orbach, 28, of Rehovot, Yitzhak (Itzik) Buzaglo, 40, of Mishmar HaYarden, Aryeh (Arik) Nagar, 37, of Kfar Saba,Ronen Reuvenov, 30, of Tel Aviv and Odelia Hubara, 26, of Jerusalem were murdered today and fifty more people were injured when a Palestinian terrorist detonated a bomb “at the entrance to "Stage", a popular Tel Aviv nightclub, on the corner of Herbert Samuel and Yonah Hanavi streets, opposite the Israeli beachfront.”

2006(27thof Shevat, 5766): Parashat Mishaptim and Shabbat Shekalim

2006(27thof Shevat, 5766): Graphic artist Sally Fox passed away today.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/26/2006/this-week-in-history-death-of-artist-and-photograph-editor-sally-fox

http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch01175

2006: Tens of thousands of people marched through Paris in memory of Ilan Halimi, who was kidnapped, tortured and killed two weeks ago in an attack that authorities say was partly motivated by anti-Semitism.

2006: American cellist Yo-Yo Ma, a group of four journalists and a pair of U.S. cancer researchers have each won $1 million Dan David awards

2007: In Amsterdam, an exhibition styled “Looted, But from Whom?,” an exhibition about art objects which were either acquired by forced sale or stolen from their Jewish owners by the Nazis during the Second World War, closed.

2007: Yaakov Edri “was appointed be responsible for Israel’s sixtieth anniversary celebrations. 

2007: Yaakov Edri “was questioned under caution on suspicion of having tried to receive personal benefits in return for promoting a police commander, Ya'akov Zigdon, whilst he was Deputy Minister of Internal Security” and denied the charges.

2007: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Bambi vs. GodzillaOn the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business by David Mamet, George Gershwin His Life and Work by Howard Pollack and Overture by Yael Goldstein.

2007: Corresponds to the 7th day of Adar which “traditionally marks the birth and the death of Moses.  This is a minor fast date “observed by members of Jewish burial societies to atone for any acts of disrespect which they may unwittingly have committed toward the dead.”

2008: In New York City, the 92nd Street Y presents “Life is a Cabaret: A Tribute to Fred Ebb” highlighting the decades long collaboration between Jewish lyricist Fred Ebb and composer John Kander that produced such works as Cabaret, Zorba, Chicago, Woman of the Year, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Curtains

2008: Newsweekreported on the financial loss suffered by the New England Patriots owner, Jewish businessman Robert Kraft, as a result of the Pats failure to have a perfect 19-0 season.  Anticipating a Super Bowl victory, Kraft had applied for trademarks to use phrases such as “19-0” and Perfect Season” on a litany of gear including greeting cards, jigsaw puzzles, kites and temporary tattoos.  The trademarks are worthless and sale of the merchandize never materialized.

2008: Timereported on the recent death of 14 term California Congressman Tom Lantos the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the U.S. Congress.  Lantos was sixteen when the Nazis occupied his native Hungary where he escaped the death camps and fought against the Nazis.

2009: In New York, famed Italian performer Moni Ovadiahis presents a performance “Kavanah” (intention and participation through a chant), a reflection on the Hebraic liturgical tradition and its complex maze of meanings and sources.

2009: Another stage of “Le Bœuf sur le toit, Op. 58 (English title, The Ox on the Roof: The Nothing-Doing Bar) a surrealist ballet made on a score composed by Darius Milhaud” took place today “as part of the Montreal Highlights Festival.

2009: A fresh exhibition in New York that has put a spotlight on postcards used during and after the turn of the 20th century meant to depict important aspects of Jewish life comes to a close

2009: Rosh Chodesh Adar 5769

2009: Two Kassam rockets were fired across the Gaza border into Israel today. One of the rockets fired from Gaza hit an agricultural area near a kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev region, and rescue services were yet to find the second rocket.

2009: A British bishop whose denial of the Holocaust led Argentina to order him out of that country returned to England today. Richard Williamson, a bishop with the conservative Society of St. Pius X, was told to leave Argentina or face expulsion amid criticism over a television interview in which he said no Jews were gassed during the Holocaust. The controversial bishop had been excommunicated 20 years ago, but Pope Benedict XVI last month lifted the excommunication decree on Williamson and three other bishops.

2010: During a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee held today, Illinois Rep. Don Manzullo, a Republican, asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to intervene on behalf of a gefilte fish factory in his district.

2010: As he arrived at Jerusalem District Court for the opening of his trial today Ehud Olmert became the first former prime minister in Israel's history to stand trial for alleged corruption.

2010(11th of Adar, 5770): Fast of Esther

 2010(11thof Adar, 5770): “David Bankier, Professor of Holocaust History at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research and holder of the John Najmann Chair at Yad Vashem passed away” today.

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/institute/studies/issues/38-1/michman.pdf

2010(11thof Adar, 5770): Eighty-one year old Irish jurist Henry Barron who served as a justice on the Irish Supreme Court from 1997 until 2000 passed away today.

http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/respected-judge-who-led-bomb-inquiries-1.633921

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/former-supreme-court-judge-dies-1.853881

2010: “Andy Warhol's Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century: In Retrospect” is scheduled to open at the Washington DCJCC.

2010: Novelist, critic and broadcaster Howard Jacobson is scheduled to appear at the Washington DCJCC.

2010: Just one day after his 87th birthday, David Soyer, “the founding cellist of the Guarneri String Quartet” who raised two sons – Daniel and Jeffery – with his wife Janet passed away.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/arts/music/27soyer.html

2010(11th of Adar, 5770): Ninety-two-year-old Eugene L. Moore, a past commander of the Department of Florida Jewish War Veterans, passed in Boynton Beach, Florida.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/palmbeachpost/obituary.aspx?n=eugene-l-moore&amp;pid=148892651&amp;fhid=5124

2010(11th of Adar, 5770): Herta Herzog-Massing, “Austrian-American social scientist specializing in communication studies,” passed away

2011(21stof Adar I, 5771): Ninety-two-year-old Eugene Moore, a past commander of the Department of Florida Jewish War Veterans passed away in Boynton Beach, FL.

2011: Ahead of Time, “graceful portrait of the extraordinary life of 99-year-old American journalist and humanitarian Ruth Gruber whose efforts led to the rescue of 1,000 Jewish Holocaust refugees” and The Judge, a documentary featuring the former Chief Justice of Israel's Supreme Court, are scheduled to shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: Today, the IDF instructed teachers to keep children from going outside to play in kindergartens located in towns near Gaza after two Grad rockets landed in Beersheba

2012: “The Death of Klinghoffer” an American opera, that critics including the two daughters of the late Leon Klinghoffer have described as anti-Semitic and as glorifying terrorism was performed in London for the first time.

2012: In London, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jeffery Goldberg and Maureen Kendler are scheduled to a new Haggadah edited by Foer and translated by Englander as part of Jewish Book Week.

2012; “Jewish solders in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to be shown at Young Israel of Woodmere in Woodmere, NY.

2012: “Making Trouble: Three Generations of Funny Jewish Women” is scheduled to be shown at B'nai Sholom Reform Congregation in Albany, NY.

2012: HaOlam II, at the end of which the second official National Collegiate Jewish A Cappella will named, is scheduled to take place at Adas Israel in Washington, DC.

2012: Indian intelligence services have considerable evidence that Iran was behind this month's New Delhi terrorist attack but are not releasing it in a bid to avoid public confrontation with the Islamic republic, an Israeli security source says.

2012: Hundreds gathered in front of Ministry of Interior offices in Tel Aviv today to protest the deportation of families whose petitions for residency permits were rejected.

2013: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to co-host “Arnold Bernstein and Gerd Bucerius,” a lecture and discussion on the relationship between shipping pioneer Arnold Bernstein and Gerd Bucerius, the lawyer and published who defended him against the Nazis.

2013: Burglars broke into the home of an employee at the Prime Minister's Office today. Initial reports indicate a computer was taken from the house, which is located in Moshav Beit Yitzhak in the Sharon.. (As reported by Yaniv Kubovich)

2013: Israel carried out a successful test of its upgraded Arrow III missile interceptor today. Defense sources said it was the first flight test of the advanced interceptor. (As reported by Gil Cohen)

2014: Graham Spanier who was president of Penn St. during the “child sex scandal” “was granted a stay in his defamation lawsuit until his criminal case is resolved.”

2014: Dr. Daniel Rynhold is scheduled to deliver a lecture “Rav Kook and the Heroism of the Holy” at the Skirball Center.

2014: German Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to complete her two day trip to Israel.

 2014: Kay Menchel is scheduled to lecture on “The Short Stories of Bernard Malmud” at the JCC of Northern Virginia.

2014: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would neither confirm nor deny reports that the IAF had destroyed a shipment of weapons being sent from Syria to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.

2014: “Participants in programs that bring young Diaspora Jews to visit Israel should be allowed to extend their stay without proving they are Jewish enough to make aliyah, a Knesset committee recommended. (As reported by JTA)

2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “YIVO, Freud, and American Jewry: Discourse on Eastern Europe as a Talking Cure” for American Jewish Ambivalence” in which Marcus Krah explores how American Jews in the 1940s-50s used competing narratives of aspects of the East European Jewish past - from the shtetl, to pogroms, to Hasidism and Socialism - to find meaning in their American present.

2015: On the heels of the terrorist attacks in Paris, The UK Jewish Film festival is scheduled to host a showing of “Cartoonists: Foot Soldiers of Democracy.”

2015: Rosenwald is a 2015 documentary film directed by Aviva Kempner about the career of American businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald debuted today at the Washington Jewish Film Festival

2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Argentina and the Nisman Case: Why is it so Hard to Understand What Really Happened?”

2015: Jewish Disability Advocacy Day

http://blogs.rj.org/rac/2015/01/13/join-us-in-washington-for-jewish-disability-advocacy-day/

2016: The Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center is scheduled to host a screening of “Footnote” followed by a discussion with director/screenwriter Joseph Cedar moderated by historian Eric Goldman.

2016(16thof Adar I, 5776): Seventy-five-year-old “radical lawyer” William H. Schaap and the brother of sports broadcaster Dick Schaap passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/nyregion/william-h-schaap-radical-lawyer-author-and-publisher-dies-at-75.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2016(16thof Adar I, 5776): Ninety-year-old U.C.L.A. grad and developer of medical devices Alfred E. Mann passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/business/alfred-e-mann-pioneer-in-medical-devices-dies-at-90.html

2016: “Yona” and “On the Banks of the Tigris: The Hidden Story of Iraqi Music” are scheduled to be shown at the Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2017(29thof Shevat, 5777): Parashat Mishpatim; Shabbat Shekalim

2017: “The Eagle, a news site covering the Bryan-College Station area reported today that US authorities came close to deporting Henry Rousso, “an Egyptian-born French Jewish Holocaust-era scholar on his way to speak at a symposium at Texas A & M University” because he appeared to fit the profile of those who had been banned by President Trump’s executive order banning entry to refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries.”

2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to present a “Survivor Talk” featuring Frankfurt native Frank Stern who survived Kristallnacht at the age of ten, following which lived in Switzerland and England before leaving from Southampton aboard an armed merchant bound for the United States in 1940.

2017: “Broadway actress Ruthie Ann Blumstein, whose stage name is Ruthie Ann Miles,” attended FX’s
“The Americans” season five premiere at the DGA Theatre today. (As reported by Andy Kropa)

2017:Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat are some of the speakers scheduled to speak at the annual meeting of J Street opening today at the Washington Convention Center.

2018: The Exhbition: Semi(te) Sweet: On Jews and Chocolate is scheduled to come to a close today.

2018: A final closing reception celebrating Yiddish New York’s 2017 Visual Arts Exhibition is scheduled to take place today.

2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a production of “We Are the White Rose” written and directed by “local teens” that tells the story of the German resistance movement.

2018: In New Orleans, the JCC is scheduled to the community’s annual Purim Carnival.

2018: In Iowa, Congregation Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its annual Purim Carnival

2018: The 2018 Winter Olympics in which figure skater Aimee Buchanan competed with the Israeli team ended today in Korea.

2018: Eighty-six-year-old Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, who died in the night, is scheduled to be buried today.

2018: In Memphis, TN, Ti Chai and MEFTY are scheduled to present the Purim Carnival at Temple Israel.

2019: In Walnut Creek, CA, Emmy winning “writer-produced Mike Reiss” is scheduled to the Jewish themes and characters in the television show “The Simpons” while also signing copies his book Springfield Confidential.

2019: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host “How To Fight Anti-Semitism” in which Bari Wess of the New York Times discuss its appearance at places including at “the Tree of Life Synagogue, in her native Pittsburgh, on the streets of Paris, in the Labor Party in England, or in the leadership of the Women's March.”

2019: In San Francisco, CA, the Commonwealth Club is scheduled to host Hungarian-American Jewish Holocaust Dr. Edith Eva Eger, the clinical psychologist who will discuss her memoir The Choice: Embrace the Possible.

2019: In Highland Park, IL, North Suburban Synagogue Beth El is scheduled to host survivor Paul Beller filmmaker Steve Pressman and USHMM Acquisition Curator Fred Wasserman discuss issues related the documentary “50 Children” The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus.”

https://www.ushmm.org/online-calendar/event/mwrescevidhgpk0219

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “On the Basis of Sex,” a biopic about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

2019: In Washington, Adas Israel is scheduled to host “a Ruderman Foundation-sponsored conversation about how different institutions in the Conservative Movement (the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Camp Ramah network, the Rabbinical Assembly, the Ziegler School) can be more inclusive” which stands in stark contrast to the moves being by Prime Minister Netanyahu as he “boosts Otzma Yehudit.”

2019: The American Sephardi Federation and the Muslim American Leadership Alliance are scheduled to present “Looking In, Speaking Out: Commemorating the Khojaly Tragedy.”

2020(30th of Shevat, 5780): Rosh Chodesh Adar First Day

2020: Celebration of Mardi Gras. For more about Fat Tuesday and the Jewish people see https://www.crescentcityjewishnews.com/ the authoritative and informative source of information for all things Jewish in New Orleans and the land of the bayou as well as https://forward.com/culture/214736/the-secret-jewish-history-of-mardi-gras/and https://www.myjewishlearning.com/southern-and-jewish/is-mardi-gras-more-jewish-than-you-think/

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Chinese Dinner followed by a discussion of “Jewish practice, theology, pluralism and more!”

2020: In Berkeley, CA, “Urban Adamah’s Becca Heisler is scheduled to lead a rosh chodesh ritual in the Hebrew month of Adar.

2020: The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “Shalom Italia,”
“The Hug of Destiny” and “The Last Jew in the Village.”

2020: As Israelis awake today, they will be looking to see if yesterday’s fifty rocket barrage from the terrorists was the last of it, or if this will be another day of terror attacks which tragically are not considered newsworthy by any major news outlets in the United States.

2020: Rutgers University’s Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life are scheduled to screen “The Adventures of Saul Bellow,” the first documentary about the life of 20th-century novelist and Nobel- and Pulitzer Prize-winner Saul Bellow this evening at Rutgers Cinema, 105 Joyce Kilmer Ave., Piscataway (Livingston campus).

2021: In Florida, Temple Judea is scheduled to host a morning minyan with Abbie Strauss followed by an afternoon Hamantashen Contest.

2021: The Boston Synagogue is scheduled to present online “Purim with Klezmer Music” provided with the Klezmer duo “Mamaliga.”

2021: In addition to the traditional reading of the megillah and a Virtual Hamantaschen Bake Off, in London, the Highgate Synagogue is scheduled to host an interactive, live Megillah reading on zoom this evening.

2021: The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin a virtual screening of “The Chosen,” a film based on the Chaim Potok novel of the same name.

2021: The Friends of Bezalel are scheduled to present a discussion with Elie Shamir and Ben Shani of “A Lullaby for the Valley, a documentary that “focuses on the story of acclaimed artist Elie Shamir, as an unforeseen danger threatens to rob him of his talent.”

2021: As part of the Atlanta Jewish History Talks series, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host biographer David Lower “as he discusses the life and career of one of Atlanta’s most prominent and trailblazing Jewish politicians, Morris Abram, the civil rights lawyer who worked to end segregation in Georgia and played a key role in the Supreme Court’s “one man, one vote” ruling.

2021: In Columbus, OH, Tefireth Israel is scheduled to a reading of the Book of Esther via Zoom during which there will be a showing of photos from clergy, staff, and congregants acting out scenes from the narrative.

2021: San Francisco Bay Area instructor James Sokol is scheduled to lead a journey through a diverse array of music as part “Songs of Victory and Triumph: A Multi-Genre Musical Celebration of Purim.”

2021: In Coralville, IA. Agudas Achim congregants are scheduled to “grab their groggers, round up the kids and join the wonderful spielers for a Pandemic in Persia, a Zoom Purim Spiel.”

2021: In Cedar Rapids, IA, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss Sacred and Profane by Fay Kellerman.

2021: As part of the “Who Inspires the Women Who Inspire Us” series the Streicker Center is scheduled to an evening Mayim Bialik, the holder of a PhD in neuroscience best known for her role on as a neurobologist married to a narcissist in the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.”

2021(13th of Adar, 7801): Fast of Esther; in the evening reading the Megillah – for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

 

 

 


This Day, February 26, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 26

11 BCE: According to some sources, the day on which Herod dedicates the renovated Holy Temple in Jerusalem. According to Heinrich Graetz, the building project began in 20 BCE, the 18th year of Herod’s reign. A year and half later, (18 BCE) the inner part of the Temple was finished. It took another eight years to build the outer walls, courts and galleries. The dedicatory celebration took place on “the very anniversary of the day when twenty years previously, Herod, with blood stained hands, had made himself master of Jerusalem.”  Herod reportedly built this modernized version of the Second Temple because he loved to build things and because he was trying to show his Roman masters that he was the beloved ruler of his people.  Regardless, in one sense, Herod sealed the doom of the Temple and the Jewish people because he placed it under the protection of Rome.  What Rome protected Rome could destroy.

364:  Valentinian I is proclaimed Roman Emperor. He was the last Emperor to rule the Empire alone.  A month later, he would appoint his brother Valens Emperor in the East, while he would rule over the Western portion of the Empire. Valentinian belonged to a minority sect called the Arians.  In an attempt to keep peace in the Empire, in 371 he issued a proclamation allowing Christians and Arians to practice their religious belief without incurring any “political disadvantage. This toleration was extended to the Jews.”

1147: The Crusaders massacred the Jews of Wurtzburg; so much for all of those tales of knights and chivalry.

1226: At the Battle of Benevento, King Manfred of Sicily was killed during the conquest of the Kingdom of Charles I of Anjou who in 1227 had Moses of Palermo “learn the Latin language in order that Moses might translate a collection of medical works preserved in Castel dell' Novo at Naples, the residence of Charles of Anjou.”

1361: Birthdate of Wenceslaus IV who as Emperor failed to continue the Imperial protection of the Jews of Luxembourg led to their expulsion in 1391.

1418: Emperor Sigsmund “issued commands to all the German princes and magistrates, cities and subjects, to allow” the Jews the full enjoyment of the privileges and immunities given them by the Pope who had denounced attacks on the persons and property of the Jews and the practice of forced conversion.

1498: Isaac Abravanel completed "Mashmia' Yeshu'ah" (Proclaiming Salvation), one of three works “devoted to the exposition of the Jewish belief concerning the Messiah and the Messianic age.”

1569: Pius V issued Hebraeorum gens, a papal bull that accused the Jews of a variety of evil deeds including the practice of magic.

1569:  Pope Pius V ordered the eviction of all Jews from the Papal States (excluding Rome and Verona) who refuse to convert. Most of the approximately 1000 Jewish families decided to emigrate.

1592: First performance of “The Jew Malta” by Lord Strange’s Men, an English theatrical group.

1766: Birthdate of Andover, MA native John Adams, the husband of Dorcas Faulkner with whom he had eight children.

1767(27thof Adar I, 5527): Judith Jones, the wife of Joseph Jones passed away today in New York City.

1771: In Philadelphia, PA, Martha Lampley and Samson Levy gave birth to Rachel Levy.

1802 Birthdate of French man of letters Victor Hugo the “preeminent biblical poet among the French Romantics.” He eulogized Isaiah and Ezekiel in William Shakespeare (1864) and injected some basic knowledge of the Kabbalah (probably gained from his Jewish admirer, Alexandre Weill) into Les Contemplations(1856).

1809: Birthdate of Rosanna Dyer Osterman, the native of Germany who married Joseph Osterman who worked in his business in Galveston until he passed away at the age of 57 when a steamboat exploded near Vicksburg, MS.

1814: In Holland, a law was enacted officially ending the French rule that had been overseen by Napoleon’s.  The Jews supported the new government under William I and the Netherlands proved to be a welcoming home for the Jewish population which thrived there throughout the rest of the 19thcentury.

1818: In Georgia, Divinah Cohen and Isaac Minis gave birth to Phillippa Minis, the wife Baltimore native Edward Johnson Etting, part of one of the oldest and most prominent Jewish families in Philadelphia with whom she had six children including Civil War hero Charles Edward Etting.

1822, In Strasburg (which at this time was part of France, Jacob and Caroline Ashelmann Lauff gave birth to their “youngest child, Charles August Lauff.”

1825: Maryland removed the requirement of a Christian oath for public office and substituted a declaration of belief in reward and punishment and the World to Come. This obviously made life in Maryland easier on its Jewish citizens. On the very last day of the session of the legislature an act "for the relief of the Jews in Maryland," which had already been passed by the Senate, was passed by the House of Delegates by a vote of twenty-six to twenty-five.  Only fifty-one out of eighty members were present for the vote.  The bill provided that "every citizen of this state professing the Jewish religion" who shall be appointed to any office of profit or trust shall, in addition to the required oaths, make and subscribe a declaration of his belief in a future state of rewards and punishments instead of the declaration now required by the government of the state.

1825: Thirty-one-year-old Hannah Aarons who passed away yesterday was laid to rest today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery in London.

1827: “Lady Georgiana Mary Walpole, a descendant of Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister of Great Britain” married Joseph Wolff, the son of Rabbi David Wolff, who was baptized in 1812 and whose missionary travels and archaeological studies took him took him to the Sinai, Jerusalem and Aleppo as well a large part of Central Asia when began searching for the Ten Lost Tribes.

1829:  In Bttenheim, Germany, “Hirsch Strauss and his second wife Rebecca” gave birth to Loeb Strauss who as Levi Strauss made the riveted blue denim trouser an icon of American fashion called “Levi’s”

http://lsco.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Levi-Strauss-Full-Biography.pdf

1830: Birthdate of Philip Bondi, the Bohemian born Rabbi who “in 1857 received his doctor's degree from the University of Prague and his rabbinical diploma from Aaron Kornfeld and Daniel Frank” and whose works included “a Bohemian translation of the Pentateuch.”

1830: Birthdate of Holstein, Germany native Ernest Falck, the husband of London born Helene Samuel with whom he had five children.

1844(6th of Adar, 5604): Sixty-five-year-old Leah Lazarus Cohen, the daughter of Marks and Rachel Dorris Lazarus, the wife of Mordecai Cohen and the mother of Eliza, Lucretia and Marx Cohen based away today after which she was buried in the Coming Street Cemetery in Charleston, SC.

1845: In Berlin, Rabbi Meyer Landsberg and his wife gave birth to their eldest son Max Landsberg, a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Bresalau who became Rabbi at B’rith Kodesh at Rochester in 1871 where he served for 44 years.

1845: In London, Sarah Joseph Tolano and Emanuel Samuel Genese gave birth to Samuel Emanuel Genese.

1848: In the wake of revolutions that swept Europe, the Second French Republic comes into being.  The Republic last a mere four years when it was swept aside when Louis Napoleon (Bonaparte’s nephew) proclaimed the second empire.  Just prior to the birth of the Republic, the Jew’s Oath had been declared unconstitutional by the French courts.  This opened the way to further participation of the Jews in the general world of French business, society and culture.

1850: In New Orleans, Rosina Meyer Dreyfus gave birth to Pine Bluff, AR businessman Isaac Dreyfus, the husband of Bertha Simon Dreyfus.

1851: In Charleston, SC, Samuel Samson married Abigail Goldsmith, the second daughter of Morris Goldsmith.

1851: In England, Phoebe Levy and Aaron Samuel gave birth to Emanuel Samuel.

1851: Philadelphian Washington H. Nones was promoted from Third Assistant Engineer to Second Assistant Engineer today.

1853: The New York Times published a portion of a paper present by Dr. A.K. Gardner on "the meats of New York" that was delivered before the Academy of Medicine and was published in the New York Journal of Medicine. According to Dr. Garnder unlike the other butchers, the Jewish butchers "do not prostrate the animal with the ax but first suspend it and then cut this throat.  This must be performed in a peculiar manner.  It is necessary to have along knife, which must be from rust, nic, or any imperfection of the cutting edge."  Only one cut is allowed.  If more cuts are required, “the animal is deemed unfit for food for the Hebrews.  After the animal is dead, he is upon the fore-quarters.  From the difficulty of removing the blood vessels, as required by their law, from the hind quarters, this portion is rarely eaten by the Hebrews, but the mark is placed upon them for the benefit of many Christians, who prefer the meat thus examined.  The butcher paid by the Society in which he worships an annual salary and in addition he receives a small sum per animal from the keeper of the slaughter house for his services."

1854: Henry Cohen, a native of London who came to the United States in 1844 and Matilda Cohen gave birth to “social economist” Mary M. Cohen

1858: Disraeli began serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer in a government led by Lord Derby and most of whose members sat in the Lords which gave him an unusual amount of power since he led the Tory Party in the House of Commons.

1860(3rdof Adar, 5620): Seventy-seven-year-old educator and author Michael Hess the brother of Mendel Hess and the son of Rabbi Isaac Hess Kugelmann who among other accomplishments tutored “young Baron James Rothschild” passed away at Frankfort-on-Main.

1861: “The Fundamental Law of February 26, 1861” was promulgated in Austria today after which Raphael Basch, he served as the official spokesman government of Anton Ritter von Schmerling. Born in Bohemia, Basch alternated between being a journalist and political activist who actually became part of successive Austrian governments.  This latter element was unusual for a Jew living in the Austrian Empire at this time.

1862: In Wilna, Joel Kopelovitz and Zine Danishevsky gave birth to Victor Harris, founder and editor of the B’nai B’rith Messenger, the secretary of Congregation Beth Israel and a court interpreter in Los Angeles, CA.

1863: Two days after he had passed away, 73-year-old “Samuel Lawrence of St. Philips Terrace, Kensington” was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1865(30thof Shevat, 5625): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1865: Birthdate of Louisville, KY, native Bernard Flexner the “founder and first president of the Palestine Economic Corporation and the brother of “Dr. Abraham Flexner, former head of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Dr. Simon Flexner of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and Mary Flexner.

1869(15thof Adar, 5629): Shushan Purim observed for the last time during the Presidency of Andrew Johnson

1870: A “scheme of amalgamation” involving The Great Synagogue, the Habmro Synagogue and the New Synagogue as well as their branches on Portland Street and the Bayswater was incorporated in the Seventeenth Report of the Charity Commissioners of England and Wales so it could be presented by them to Parliament.

1870: In Augusta Georgia, Ellen Gobert and Phillip Lawrence Cohen gave birth to journalist, Democratic Party leader and U.S. from Georgia John Sanford Cohen who was raised as a Jew but raised in the Episcopalian faith of this mother.

1871: Today, on his 26th birthday, Max Landsberg, the Berlin born son of Rabbi Meyer Landsburg a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Bresalau who became Rabbi at B’rith Kodesh at Rochester in 1871 where he served for 44 years married Miriam Isengarten with whom he had three children – Emil, Clara and Rose.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1927/12/10/98425024.pdf

1872: Birthdate of New York City native Moses Henry Cohen, the Tampa, FL, lawyer, Spanish-American War veteran and secretary for 28 years of Schaarai Tzedek who married Julia Wolf, “whose family owned Wolf Brothers.

1873: It was reported today that the recent Hebrew Charity Ball in Philadelphia raised $7,920 after expenses.  The money has already been distributed to several of the city’s Jewish institutions.

1876(1stof Adar, 5636): Rosh Chodesh Adar and the Sabbath of Shekel.

1877(13thof Adar, 5637): Fast of Esther

1877: “The Home for Aged Hebrews” published today described it as “one of the most delightful” institutions of its kind in New York City.  The building which was originally a country home of the Astor family, offers views of the East River and Long Island Sound. The facility currently is home to 70 older men and women who live in “air well-furnished rooms,” are well clothed and enjoy excellent food on a daily basis which is complimented by wine if so desired.

1880(14th of Adar, 5640): Purim

1880: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association is scheduled to host a Purim entertainment and reception this evening at the Harlem Music Hall.

1880: In New York, the Purim Association sponsored a ball in the Academy. A tableaux featuring Queen Esther surrounded by the Muses, preceded the evening’s dancing.

1880: Sixty-year old Dr. Simon Rosenberger, a distinguished Philadelphia, PA Jewish physician and Ida Smith, a servant girl working in his house, were the victims of a mysterious malady. Miss Smith passed away after suffering convulsions brought on possibly by coal gas that had seeped into the house from the cellar.  Rosenberger who is unconscious and near death is thought to be a victim of the case or possibly an ingestion of poison.

1882: “The Hebrew Charity Ball” published today described plans for the upcoming Purim Association’s upcoming fancy dress ball.  This ball, which has been a part of the New York Social Scene for two decades, will be held at the Academy of Music under the leadership of M.H. Moses, the association’s President.

1882: A review of “Divorce and Divorce Legislation” by Theodore D. Woolsey notes that the volume includes a chapter devoted to the history of divorce among the Jewish people.

1882(7th of Adar, 5642): German painter Moritz Daniel Oppenheim passed away. He is often regarded as the first Jewish painter of the modern era. His work was shaped by his cultural and religious roots at a time when many of his German Jewish contemporaries chose to convert to Christianity. Oppenheim is considered to be in sympathy with the ideals of the Wissenschaft des Judentums (Science of Judaism) movement, because he remained "fair to the present" without denying his past.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moritz_Daniel_Oppenheim_The_Return_of_the_Jewish_Volunteer.jpeg

http://www.jewishart.org/Oppenheim/wedding.html

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

1887: In Cincinnati, OH, Rebecca and William Jacob Mack gave birth to Robert Tandler Mack who had three children – Robert, Jr., Julian and Susan – with his second wife Jeanette Mack.

1888(14thof Adar, 5648): Purim

1888: Birthdate of Alfons Klauber who was deported from Prague in 1942 to Ujazdow where he was murdered.

1888: The grant of citizenship for businessman, banker and philanthropist Jacob Noisotz was approved by the upper house of the Romanian legislature today but would fail to gain his goal when the lower house rejected the request in December.

1889: In Baltimore, founding of the Hebrew Free School Society whose members included Joseph Eisner and Abraham S. Shochet and which sponsored a Talmud Torah that offers daily instruction for three hours from 4 until 7 and that “maintains a school for girls” as well

1890: In New York City, Jake and Hulda Pilzer gave birth to conductor and composer Maximilian Pilzer.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/05/31/81884973.pdf

1890: In honor of a request made to Charles Frohman by child acting star Elsie Leslie, 500 children from the Industrial Schools of the Associated Hebrew Charities attended today’s matinee performance of the “Prince and the Pauper (Frohman was one of three Jewish brothers from Ohio who were involved with the Broadway theatre before World War I)

1891: The Purim Association hosted its 30th annual charity ball at the Metropolitan Opera House tonight in New York City.

1892: The New York Times“has received $20 for Russian Hebrew immigrants from ‘A.Y.E.’”

1893: “New Things in Lawsuits” published today described a lawsuit brought by Max Bronestein against three New Jersey constables for desecrating his home “by cooking and eating meals which had not been prepared according to the Hebraic usages and principles” including the use of “pork sausage.”

1894: “Zangwill’s New Jewish Stories” published today provided a review The King of Schnorrers: Grotesques and Fantasies by Israel Zangwill.

1894: It was reported today that Rabbi Henry Berkowitz offered the opening prayer and then presided over the non-denominational memorial service held in Philadelphia at Keneseth Israel in memory of George W. Childs who was a newspaper and public benefactor in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Joseph Krauskopf the rabbi at Keneseth Israel delivered an address that highlight Mr. Child’s philanthropic work.

1895: Three days after he had passed away, Benjamin Lazarus was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1896: More than 3,000 people are expected to attend tonight’s charity ball sponsored by the Young Ladies and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home.  This ball is the successor to Purim balls which were a popular social and fundraising event in New York City for many years.  Among the expected attendees are Mayor Strong and Governor Morton.

1896: Birthdate of Portsmouth, VA native Moses Abraham Jacobson, the 1916 graduate of Virginian Polytechnic Institute, the holder of an M.S. in Agriculture from Purdue University and a medical degree from the University of Chicago where he pursued a career as a bacteriologist.

1898: “London Literary Letter” published today described Israel Zangwill’s new novel as being “a Jewish story” similar to the one that was his “first great success.”  Zangwill’s attendance at the “congress called to consider” “the project of colonizing Palestine with Jews” means “that he intends to do more than write stories of the Ghetto.”

1898: It was reported today that David Christie Murray, the English author, “is emulating Zola in taking up the defense of Dreyfus. 

1898: Picquart is dismissed from the Army.

1898: Emile Zola appeals his conviction.

1899(16thof Adar, 5659) Shushan Purim – the 15th of Adar fell on Shabbat

1899: Two days after she had passed away, Bamberg, Germany native Caroline Zimmer, the wife of Nathan L.D. Zimmer and mother of David, Menki and Rebecca Zimmer was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London

1899: The children attending the religious school at Congregation B’nai Jershurun on the corner of 65th Street and Madison Avenue celebrated Purim today.

1899: Two days after he had passed away, Amsterdam native Henry Waas, the husband of Mariam Waas with whom he had had nine children was buried today at “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1899: In Syracuse, NY, Rabbi and Mrs. Simon J. Finkelstein gave birth to Columbia Law School and Harvard Law graduate Dr. Maurice Finkelstein, a member of the St. John’s faculty from 1926 until his death in 1957 and the father of Helen and James Finkelstein.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/02/09/84950051.pdf

1900: Birthdate of college football star and Medal of Freedom winner Harry Herbert.

1901: Birthdate of Aharon Zisling, the native of Minks who helped to found Youth Aliyah, the Palmach and Ahdut HaAovoda and was Israel’s first Minister of Agriculture.

1901: In Bucharest, Adolf Feldstein and his wife gave birth to Portland, OR resident Leon Feldstein who in 1908 came to the United States where he eventually married Esther Gumbert opened Hollywood Furniture, “where he worked until he retired.”

https://www.ojmche.org/oral-history-people/leon-feldstein/

1902: In Vienna, Ida Wolf and Siegfried Reginald Wolf gave birth to Irma Wolf.

1903: Rabbi Kaummann Kohler was elected to the presidency of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1903: Leopold Greenberg arrives in Brindisi and sends a short telegram whose obscurity of wording strikes dismays Herzl.

1903: A paper by Victor Rosewater was read at The National Convention on Municipal Ownership and Public Franchises which is meeting at the Reform Club in New York City.  Rosewater was arguing for the ownership of electric lighting plants by municipalities. Rosewater was the editor of the Omaha (Nebraska) Daily Bee, an important Republican political leader and an active member of the Jewish community.

1904: It was reported today that David Blaustein of the Educational Alliance will be one of the speakers at the upcoming meeting of the University Settlement Society of New York.

1904: Today Saks and Company advertised that it “Spring Topcoats for Men” at prices from $12.50 to $38.00.

1905(21stof Adar I, 5665):Abraham Adolphe Sée the attorney who “president of the Jewish consistory of Colmar and was “the brother of Marc Sée and Gustave Sée” passed away today in Paris.

1906: The New York Times reported that the Motor Yacht Club of Great Britain has received two challenges from E.J. Schroeder of New York, owner of the Dixie, to compete in races for the Hamsworth Cup and the International Cup which was won last year by Napier II, a vessel owned by Lord Montague and Lionel Rothschild.

1906: “The Jewish congress for the attainment of full civil and political rights of Jews which met” secretly in St. Petersburg “decided to participate in the elections for members of the National Assembly and to for a party to defend the interests of the Jewish masses.”

1907: Birthdate of Cyrus Sol “Cy” Malis the native of Philadelphia who pitched in one game for the hometown Phillies.

1908: Birthdate of Bridgeport, CT native Yale trained microbiologist and Boston University trained physician Louis Weinstein. (As reported by Lawrence K. Altman)

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/21/health/louis-weinstein-92-infectious-disease-expert.html

1909: Birthdate of Claude Cahen a native of Parish who was “a specialist in the studies of the Islamic Middle Ages, Muslim sources about the crusades and the social history of the medieval Islamic Society.”

1910: Today, the board of commissioners of the City Park received a letter from Isaac Delgado,” “a Kingston, Jamaica-born Jew who came to New Orleans as a young man and made a fortune dealing in sugar and molasses” “tendering to it a donation a sum of $150,000 for the erection of a building where objects of art may be collected through gifts or loans and where exhibits can be held from time to time by the Art Association of New Orleans…”

1910: In Germany, Isaac Plaut, the German born son of Simon and Lina Plaut, and his wife Sophie Plaut gave birth to Julius Plaut

1911: Today’s final session of the Jewish Kehilla of New York which has “238 constituent organizations including 138 congregations, 58 lodges, 44 educational and benevolent society and 3 federations” closed today “with the election of seventy-nine members of the Executive Committee and the Advisory Council.

1912(8thof Adar, 5672): Sixty-one-year-old Manheim, Germany native Ernst Thalmmann who in 1867 at the age of  16 came to the United State where he became a member of several exchanges including the NYSE and the Cotton and Produce Exchange of New York while rising to being a “senior member of Landenburg, Thalmann and Company, one of the leading international banking houses” in New York and serving as a Trustee of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, passed away today.

1912: Forty-six-year-old Columbia Law School graduate and Republican New York State Attorney General Julius Mayer began serving as “Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York

1913(19thof Adar I, 5673): “Communal worker” William Sicher passed away today in St. Louis, MO.

1913: Dr. Nathaniel I. Rubinkam is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Faust” this evening at the Chicago Hebrew Institute.

1914: “Five hundred unemployed Jewish garment workers held a mass meeting presided over by M.B. Martin which sent a telegram to President Wilson demanding jobs for the 150,000 unemployed workers.

1914: This evening, a group of unemployed Jewish workers marched to City Hall in Chicago where M.B. read the following “Resolved, The unemployed Jews of Chicago, comprising a part of the 150,000 jobless army, demand a job.”

1914: “While a stormy meeting of depositors of the failed bank of Henry Siegel Co. was being held in the temporary headquarters of the bank at 43 West Thirteenth Street” today, “preferred stockholders of the Siegel Stores Corporation at the Hotel Astor, discussed their standing and the plan for reorganizing the New York stores”

1915: For a second day, the Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments concerning the granting of a writ of habeas corpus in the case of Leo M. Frank who was found guilty of murdering a factory girl in 1913 in a courtroom “pervaded by mob spirit.”

1915: Arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States on the appeal of Leo M. Frank from the denial of a writ of habeas corpus by a Federal District Came to an end this afternoon” when Louis Marshall concluded his speech for the defense and Attorney General Grice and Solicitor General Dorsey argued for the State of Georgia

1916: Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, who has just returned from Constantinople, is to be honored today by the public at the Great Hall of the College of the City of New York.  Cleveland H. Dodge, acting on behalf of the Mayor, is chairman of the committee sponsoring the event.  Among the speaks will be Mayor Mitchell, Bishop Greer, Oscar S. Straus, Rabbi Wise John H. Finley, President Sidney E. Mezes and Ambassador Morgenthau himself.

1916: Birthdate of award-winning composer Mordecai Seter.  Born in Russia, he moved to Palestine in 1923 where he spent the rest of his life.  Among his earliest work was The Sabbath Cantata, patterned after Renaissance music.  Several of his most important works included Biblical themes.  These included music for the ballet Judith commissioned by Martha Graham Jephthah’s Daughter commissioned for the Bat Sheva Dance Company and a symphony simply entitled Jerusalem

1917: A. M. Sharp is scheduled to lead the daily service at Temple Emanu-El where Dr. Enelow will speak on “The Jewish Characteristics of Jesus.”

1917: As the Romanoff dynasty hurtled towards its final days, with all that that meant for the Jewish people, Tsar Nicholas “order the Duma to close down” today

1918(14thof Adar, 5678): As World War I enters its final year, Jews celebrate Purim

1918: “A memorial meeting in honor of the late Dr. Henry M. Leipziger” the long time “Supervisor of Lectures in the public schools was held” tonight “at Temple Emanu-El under the auspices of the Judeans, an organization which he had been President for many years.

1919: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Mason Adams the multi-talented actor who most famous role was as the anonymous voice of Smucker jams and jellies which ended with his tagline - "With a name like Smucker's, it has to be good"

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/28/arts/television/mason-adams-an-actor-lauded-for-role-on-lou-grant-dies-at.html

1920: “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” “a silent horror film…written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer” was released in Germany today.

1920: Major General Louis Bols, the Officer Administering the Government of Palestine, issued an official proclamation that the British government intended to carry out the terms of the Balfour Declaration

 1920: Birthdate of Tony Randall.  Born Leonard Rosenberg in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Randall is best remembered for his role as Felix Unger in the television version of The Odd Couple.  Randall often played light comedic roles in the movies but in reality, he was an accomplished actor and very urbane, cultured individual.  During the 1950’s, Randall lived near the Met.  In the evening he would take around the neighborhood often stopping in to catch the last two or three acts of that evening’s opera.  As Ed Murrow said when visiting Randall’s apartment during “Person to Person,” Randall’s apartment was not only filled with books, but Randall had actually read the books.

1924: The trial against Hitler began in Munich.  Hitler was on trial for his part in attempted coup that began in a Munich Beer Hall.  The coup failed.  Hitler was found guilty and sent to jail.  While in jail, he wrote Mien Kampf.  He was treated like a celebrity while in jail and came out stronger politically than when he went in.

1925: Seventy-four-year-old James Edgar who as U.S. Senator from New Jersey succeeded in getting the Senate to adopt a resolution in 1916 “asking the President to set aside a day as Jewish relief day for Jewish war sufferers” passed away today.

1925: As a sign of the growing power of the Nazi Party, The Völkischer Beobachter the party’s official newspaper begins publishing again.

1926: In London, David and Rose Pollack gave birth to Dr. William Pollack, who in 1980 along with his colleagues won the Lasker Award “for excellence in biomedical research.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/13/us/william-pollack-dies-at-87-his-vaccine-saved-infants.html?hpw&amp;rref=obituaries&amp;_r=0

1926: In New York City, Isaac and Bertha Belack, Jewish immigrants from Russia, gave birth to Doris Belack, the veteran actress known for her roles on “Law and Order” and the hit comedy “Tootsie” who was also the wife of Philip Rose, the producer of “A Raisin in the Sun.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)

1926: Fearing trouble now that students at Bucharest University have gone on strike because the school has not acted to limit the number of Jewish students, the government is having the streets of the city “patrolled by military policy” who have orders to “prohibit” “all authorized gatherings.”

1926: According to Menorah Journal Editor Henry Hurwitz, while in “the last century many of the finest minds and spirits in Europe and America turned their backs on Judaism, today, the intelligent Jew is seeking not avenues of but the road to return to Judaism.”

1926: According to reports published today, that according to H.J. Reit Chairman of the Washington Heights section of the United Palestine Appeal, the organization has reached its goal of $125,000 after raising $90,000 at its recent one hundred dollar a plate dinner.

1926: According to the official figures of the British Colonial Office published in the United States today, “during 1925 a total of 33,801 Jewish immigrants entered Palestine, 2,141 Jews emigrated from Palestine” for a “net increase in the Jewish population for the year of 31,660.”

1927: Ten-year-old Yeudi Menuhin made is his European debut as a soloist with the Lamoureux Orchestra under the baton of Paul Paray in Paris

1928: In Kfar Malal, Shmuel Scheinerman of Brest-Litovsk and Vera (née Schneirov) Scheinerman of Mogilev gave birth to Ariel Scheinermann who would gain as soldier-statesman Ariel Sharon.

1930:  Birthdate of pianist Lazar Berman.  Born in Leningrad to Jewish parents, he placed third in the piano competition at Budapest in 1956.

1930: Birthdate of Bronx native and DeWitt Clinton High graduate Donald R. Siegel who gained fame as actor Don Devlin.

1930: Moe Berg received his LL.B. today.

1930(28thof Shevat, 5690): Rabbi Samuel Isaac Andron, who for thirty years lived in New York where he founded the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School and who had moved to Palestine in 1922 passed away today in “Givoth Shaual.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/02/27/97790774.pdf

1931: In Buffalo, grocery store owner Max Bernhard “and the former Katie Benatovich” gave birth to Melvin Bernhard who gained fame as Tony and Pulitzer prize winning director Melvin Bernhardt. (As reported by Bruce Weber)

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/theater/melvin-bernhardt-tony-winning-director-dies-at-84.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1931(9th of Adar, 5691): Otto Wallach passed away at the age of 93.  The German born chemist was a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War and won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1910.

1932(19th of Adar I, 5692): Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld, or Sonnenfeld, passed away.  Born in 1848. He “was the Chief Rabbi and co-founder of the Edah HaChareidis, Haredi Jewish community in Jerusalem, during the years of the British Mandate of Palestine. He was originally given the name "Chaim", however, the name "Yosef" was added to him while he experienced an illness. Sonnenfeld was born in Verbó, Hungary (today: Vrbové, Slovakia). His father, Rabbi Avraham Shlomo Zonnenfeld, died when Chaim was five years old. He was a student of Rabbi Samuel Benjamin Sofer (the Ksav Sofer), the son of Rabbi Moses Sofer (the Chasam Sofer). He was also a student of Rabbi Avraham Schag in Kobersdorf (who was himself a disciple of the Chasam Sofer); Sonnenfeld moved from the latter city to Jerusalem in 1873. He became an important figure in Jerusalem's Old City, serving as the right-hand man of Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin and assisting the latter in communal activities, such as the founding of schools and the Diskin Orphanage, and the fight against secularism. He refused to meet with Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany who visited the Old City because he believed that the Emperor was a descendant of the nation of Amalek. Sonnenfeld sent a delegate, a former Dutch diplomat and writer who had become a baal teshuva, Dr. Jacob Israël de Haan, to Jordan with a peace proposal for King Abdullah.” Contrary to what some might have claimed, “he had a warm relationship with and mutual respect for Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, although the two were vigorous opponents in many areas. Indeed, in 1913 the two traveled together to Northern Israel to try to return lapsed Jews to Torah Judaism.”

1933: Birthdate of Anglo-French financier Sir James Michael "Jimmy" Goldsmith.

1933: A program marking the sixtieth anniversary of the birth of Chaim Nachman Bialik, national Hebrew poet, was held this evening in the auditorium of the College of the City of New York. Bialik’s birthdate was actually January 9, 1873.

1933(30thof Shevat, 5693): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1933(30thof Shevat, 5693): Therese Loeb Schiff, the daughter of Solomon Loeb and the wife of Jacob Schiff, who “organized a literary series for wealthy German Jewish women, donated ten thousand dollars to the National Council of Jewish Women to help cope with Jewish prostitution among young immigrant women, and lectured for the Consumers League in support of protective legislation to end child labor and the exploitation of women” passed away today.

1934: The New York Times featured a review of “’The Dream of My People, a film described as “a screen trip though Palestine with Cantor Joseph Rosenblatt” produced by the Palestine-American Film Company now showing at the Acme Theatre which is also showing “Lot in Sodom.”

1935: In violation of the Versailles Treaty, Hitler orders the rebuilding of the Luftwaffe.  This is one of the many times the West missed a chance to stop Hitler’s march that would lead to the Holocaust.

1935: The Jerusalem Shopkeepers Association announced today that it will be conducting a one day work stoppage next week in a “a protest against rising rents and the refusal of the Municipal Council to pass a rent restriction law.”

1936: Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, the Iowa native and longtime leader for the emancipation of women, delivered an address today “before the women’s division of the American Jewish Congress” said that Jews and Christians “together must uphold the standard of individual rights” and “singled out Germany for condemnation” because of “Nazi persecution of Jews, Catholics and Protestants.”

1937(15thof Adar, 5697): Shushan Purim

1937(15thof Adar, 5697): Sixty-six-year-old 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 passed away today.

1937: Mrs. Herbert H. Lehman was among those who addressed the Women’s Committee of the National Women’s Conference of Jews and Christians at the Hotel McAlpin where the theme was “Woman’s Contribution to Better Human Relations.

1938(25thof Adar I, 5698): Parashat Vayakhel and Shabbat Shekalim

1938: “Penrod and His Twin Brother” a comedy featuring Jay Adler, the eldest son of Jacob and Sara Adler as “Johnson” was released today in the United States.

1938: In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a meeting of the pro-Nazi German-American Volksbund ends in a riot. (A meeting like this in America’s heartland provides part of the background around which FDR made his decisions about the Jews of Europe This is not an excuse. It is an explanation.)

1939: The first in a series of sponsored by the New Friends of Music featuring the first of five symphonies, each of which has been verified “as the work of the Austrian master by Dr. Alfred Einstein who has restored them to their original form” is scheduled to place today in Carnegie Hall.

1939: Jews held protest demonstrations in Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv, and several of the large kibbutzim this evening. The demonstrations were sparked by credible reports from London that the British government intends to create an independent Arab State in Palestine which will be structured in such a way to ensure that Jewish people will be permanently relegated to “minority status.” 

1939: Israel Rokach, the Mayor of Tel Aviv, sent a telegram to Colonial Secretary of Malcolm MacDonald expressing the displeasure of the 150,000 citizens of his city over what is reported to be the British decision to turn Palestine into an Arab State in which Jews will permanently be a minority.   He wrote that “establishment of a Jewish National Home in the historic land of our ancestors was accepted by fifty-two nations as a sacred trust” and the Jewish people would never agree to accept this newly created permanent minority status.

1939: Professor Max Lerner of Williams College is scheduled to deliver an address today on “Is It Later Than You Think” at Temple B’nai Jeshurun

1939: Tehilla Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “The Uses of Adversity” today at the Jewish Science Society

1939: The sixth annual observance of Brotherhood Week which is sponsored by the National Conference of Jews and Christians and which has been endorsed by President Roosevelt came to an end today.

1940: It was learned today in Paris that “deportation of Jews to the Lublin Reservation in Central Poland near the German-Soviet border has been resumed by the Nazis” who have shipped “nearly one thousand men and women there from Northern Germany. (Reservation – what a quaint way to describe a Ghetto)

1941: On the second day of deportations, 1,349 Jews were shipped from Gora Klilwaria, Poland today to Warsaw where they either perished or stayed alive long enough to be sent to Treblinka. (As reported by Yad Vasehm)

1941: In the Netherlands, the citizens of Utrecht and Zaandam staged strikes protesting Nazi raids on the Jews.

1942: Isidore Newman and Edward Zeff, two Jewish wireless operators with the SOE began the trip that would end with them landing in Occupied France by take a train to Bristol and then flying to Gibraltar.

1942: For twelve hours today, between midday and midnight, the Jewish population of Palestine observed a voluntary stoppage of all commercial and business. During this period all persons remained indoors in a self-imposed curfew, as a sign of mourning for the loss of the more than 700 Jews who died when the Struma, sank in the Black Sea north of the Bosporus. The Jewish passengers were trying to escape from Nazi dominated Europe and settle in Palestine, something opposed by the British and the Arabs.

1943 The French Jewish Representative Committee which is affiliated with the World Jewish Congress issued a statement today calling for the “immediate and complete restoration of rights to the Jews of North Africa following the precedent established in other territories liberated from the Axis…”

1943: “More than 20,000 persons gathered” tonight “at 100 separate meetings throughout metropolitan New York to protest against the Nazi persecution of the Jewish people in Europe.”

1944: Birthdate of Ronald Steven Lauder “an American businessman, civic leader, philanthropist, and art collector. Forbes lists Lauder among the richest people of the world with an estimated net worth of $3.0 billion in 2007.”

1944: Primo Levy and Dr. Leonardo de Benedetti arrive at Auschwitz after a four-day trip from a detention camp at Fossoli in central Italy.

1944: Shooting begins of the Nazi propaganda film, "The Fuhrer Gives a Village to the Jews" in Theresienstadt.

1945: Birthdate of Ohio native Stephen Allan “Steve” Hertz who played five games for the National League Houston Colt .45s in 1964 and managed the Tel Aviv Lightning in the Israel Baseball League.

1946: As they searched for those responsible for last night’s attacks on three RAF airfields that destroyed and/or severely damaged 22 aircraft, British troops “seized 5,000 Jews today and imposed a paralyzing night traffic ban throughout Palestine.” The British have already found the body of a dead Jew near one of the airfields.  The deceased is assumed to have been one of the attackers.

1946: Birthdate of Ephraim Sidon the Jerusalem born author of satirical and children books now living in Tel Aviv who in 2004 “was a co-recipient along with David Grossman and Haya Shenhav of the Bialik Prize for literature.

http://www.jacketflap.com/ephraim-sidon/47232

1946(25thof Adar I, 5706): Seventy-seven-year-old Albany Law School graduate and “former City Court Judge in Albany, Julius Illch, the son of Simon and Celia Illch, who was “treasurer of the Albany Jewish Social Service, a trustee of Temple Beth Emeth and a past president of the Capital District Court B’nai B’rith” passed away today in Coronado, CA while in vacation after which he was buried at the Beth Emeth Cemetery in Albany County, NY.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/02/28/94041616.pdf

1946: “Inveterate Los Angeles Gambler, publicist and nightclub owner W.R. ‘Billy Wilkerson’” who had “bought a thirty-three-acre site between the El Rancho Vegas and the airport” “signed a contract with (Meyer) Lansky’s agent, Harry Rothberg, for a syndicate of investors to buy 60 percent of Wilkerson’s property for one million dollars. (The Mob meaning Lansky and Bugys Siegel, would completely buy-out Wilkerson)

1946: A resolution is scheduled to be introduced today in the United States Senate that would call for a “Congressional investigation of the Palestine situation…The measure calls for a joint House-Senate committee to be sent to the Holy Land to investigate conditions there and report its findings to Congress.”

1947: Jacob and Niza Gabbai arrived in New York from Palestine today.  The couple is here to continue their education.  The Gabbais were married in Tel Aviv in 1944 while Mr. Gabbai, who was serving with the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, was home one leave.  After the war, Mr. Gabbai became co-editor of the Maavak (Struggle), “a publication of the Young Palestinian League in Tel Aviv, which seeks to integrate the country’s cultural resources.

1948: Members of the Irgun and the Haganah “clashed tonight in the center of Tel Aviv.”

1948: “Former Governor Herbert Lehman and Senator Charles Tobey, the New Hampshire Republican were among the speakers at a meeting of 400 delegates representing 62 organizations which demanded the “implementation of the United Nations decision on the partition of Palestine.”

1949: “I Shot Jesse James” a low budget western directed by Samuel Fuller and featuring J. Edward Bromberg as “Harry Kane” was released in the United States today.

1950: Leonard Bernstein's "Age of Anxiety" premiered in New York City.

1951: Monnett B. Davis presented his credentials as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

1951: Birthdate of Brooklyn native and U. Cal, Berkley, Ph.D. Michael Scott Kimmel the Stony Brook University Sociology Professor and “spokesperson of the National Organization for Men Against Sexism (NOMAS) who ironically has been accused of “sexual harassment, bullying and academic conduct while remaining married to Journalism professor Amy Aronson.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that an agreement on the future status of the Haifa Refineries was initialed by the representatives of the government, the Consolidated Refineries Ltd. and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. Ltd.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the fourth anniversary of the liberation of Eilat was celebrated by a military parade attended by President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, and "a show of local achievements."

1954: In New Haven, CT, Helen (née Gubin) and George Bolotin gave birth to Michael Bolotin the younger brother of Orrin and Sandra Bolotin who gained fame as singer and actor Michael Bolton and who won the Grammy in 1990 and again in 1992 as the Male, Best Pop Vocal Performance.

1954(23rdof Adar I, 5714): Sixty-eight-year-old Ukraine born Yiddish author and HIAS staff member David Ignatoff, the husband of Minnie Radnitz Ignatoff with whom he had two children passed away today in Brooklyn

http://www.yivoarchives.org/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=33701

https://yiddishkayt.org/view/ignatoff/

 

1954: Birthdate of Yuli Tamir the veteran of “Aman” who has served as an MK and held various ministerial posts.

1955: Final performance of “Peter Pan” a musical version the 1904 play “Peter Pan: with music by Mark Charlap and Jule Styne with lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, Betty Comden and Adolph Green.

1957: The Diary of Anne Frank which had been running on Broadway at the Cort Theatre since October, 1955, re-opened at the Ambassador Theatre after it had left the Cort four days ago.

1957: In Jerusalem, Geula Cohen, a prominent member of the 1940s underground group Lehi and later MK for Likud and Tehiya and Immanuel Hanegbi, was the Operations Officer for the Lehi gave birth to MK, cabinet member and security expert Yitzhak “Tzachi” Hanegbi

1958(6thof Adar I, 5718): Eighty-seven-year-old “magazine cover artist” Modest Stein who was “best known for his painted covers for several Street and Smith magazines, such as The Shadow Magazine” passed away today.

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/thelivingshadow/images/3/3b/Shadow_Magazine_Vol_1_265.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121129231826

1959(18thof Adar I, 5719): Eighty-five-year-old agronomist Selig Suskin, a native of the Crimea who was one of the founder of Be’er Tuvia, and a delegate to the Sixth Zionist Congress passed away

1961: Fifty-one-year-old Mohammed V, the Sultan of Morocco, who according to Meredith Hindley, found Vichy’s laws pertaining to Jews “appalling” and did what he could given his limited power, to ameliorate their affect, passed away today.

1961(10thof Adar, 5721): Sixty-five-year-old Uberto De Morpurgo, the son of Julius Baron von Morpurgo and Mary Catherine and husband of Claire Clara Maria de Morpurgo who was Italy’s leading male tennis player during the 1920’s passed away today.

1964: “He Rides Tall” a western with a musical score by Irving Getz was released today in the United States.

1967(16th of Adar I, 5727): Seventy-five-year-old Shaker Heights resident Louis Gottlieb, the Polish born son of Ida Ravitz and Morris Gottlieb and the husband of Clara Gottlieb with whom he had three children – Lillian, Florence and Harvey – passed away today after which he was buried at Bet Olam Cemetery in Beachwood, OH. (Some sources show February 24)

1969(8thof Adar, 5729): Seventy-year-old orthopedic surgeon and World War II veteran Philip Palew, the husband of Dr. Stephanie Shick Palow passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/02/28/77446251.pdf

1969(8th of Adar, 5729): Levi Eshkol passed away.  Eshkol is one of the ironic characters in Jewish History.  He was the Prime Minister sandwiched in between such giants as David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir.  Yet this comparative political non-entity was the Prime Minister in 1967.  He was the one who made the decisions that saved the state in those fateful days of May and June.  And he was the Prime Minister who reunited Jerusalem and reclaimed the City of David.

http://research.haifa.ac.il/~eshkol/index.html

1970: “Beverly Hills developer Louis Lesser filed suit in San Diego Superior Court today claiming half interest in the estimated $100 million Rancho Los Penasquitos Inc. development company.”

1970: “Georgy” “a musical with a book by Tom Mankiewicz, lyrics by Carole Bayer” opened today at the Winter Garden Theatre.

1973(24thof Adar I, 5733): Eighty-five-year-old Nathan Kolko, the Polish born son of Solomon and Rose Goldstock Kolko and the husband of Sarah Alpert Kolko passed away today after which he was buried in the Britton Road Cemetery in Greece, NY.

1974: At its founding convention The American Sephardi Federation announced its goals: First to revitalize Sephardi heritage, and second to provide for aid the underprivileged population in Israel.

1974(4thof Adar, 5734): Five days after his 68th birthday Alameda CA born, Cal Berkley Law School grad Tevis Jacobs, the “senior partner in Jacobs, Sills and Coblentz,” and active member of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco who for 38 years was the husband of children’s right advocate Jill Jacobs and the father of Diane, Leatrice, Lori and Stephen Jacobs passed away today.

https://www.jweekly.com/1999/10/22/jacobs-advocate-for-children-s-rights-dies-at-85/

1977(8thof Adar, 5737): Parashat Terumah; Shabbat Zachor

1977(8thof Adar, 5737): Eighty-nine-year-old Wharton graduate Morton Gustavus Thalhimer, the Richmond born son of Pauline and Gustavus Thalhimer and husband of Ruth Wallerstein Thalhimer passed away today after which he was buried in the Hebrew Cemetery in his hometown.

1978(18thof Adar I, 5738): Parashat Ki Tisa

1978(18thof Adar I, 5738): Joan Colb Fried, the mother of Leanna Belson and Yael Fried passed away today in Israel.

1978: “Deathtrap” written by Ira Levin debuted on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre with Marian Winters in the role of “Helga ten Dorp,” a part that she would stop playing in October when she was diagnosed with Cancer that would claim her life.

1978(18thof Adar I, 5738): Eighty-one-year-old Vilna native Menahem G. Glenn who in 1914 came to the United States where he graduated from Columbia and earned a Ph.D. from Dropsie Colle while pursuing a career as a Yiddish author, poet and journalist.

http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2015/09/menakhem-gershon-glen-menahem-g-glenn.html

1980: Egypt and Israel exchanged ambassadors for the first time.  This was one of the tangible outcomes of the historic Sadat - Begin Peace Accords.  While the peace may have turned out to be a cold one, the peace has held.

1980: An Off-Broadway production of “Biography” written by S.N. Behrman opened at Stage 73.

1982: It was reported today that Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres had “told the party’s Central Committee that he had responded negatively to a letter from Begin because he believed that before there could be any talk of a national unity government there had to be a debate on a joint policy.

1982(3rdof Adar, 5742): Sixty-two-year-old Vilnius born Rutgers Ph.D. “Arcadius Kahan, the professor of economics and history at the University of Chicago” who had two daughters – Vivian and Miriam – with his wife Pearl passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/01/obituaries/arcadius-kahan-a-professor-of-economics-at-chicago-u.html

1984: Reverend Jesse Jackson acknowledged that he called New York City, "Hymietown".  What can I say? Twenty years later we get Mel Gibson and his dad.

1984: ABC broadcast the first half of “Lace” a two-part min-series featuring June Brown as “Mrs. Trelowney.”

1986: Seventy-four-year-old Czech jazz musician Karel Vlach who had “a day job as a traveling salesman for Jewish notions firm until the German occupation made it untenable” and who played with several Jewish musicians including Fritz Weiss before the war when Weiss was ultimately shipped to his death at Auschwitz passed away today.

1987: Israeli officials contended tonight that the Tower Commission had played down the Israeli role in the Iranian arms deal as secondary to that of the United States. ''At first glance, it doesn't seem to stress especially the role of Israel; we are not being blamed,'' said Avi Pazner, spokesman for Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. ''But that's at first glance, and we have to study it in depth.'' Unofficially, Government members appeared generally relieved that the report did not disclose any involvement deeper than that already attributed to Israeli officials and middlemen.

1987(27thof Shevat): Eighty-three-year-old Fredric R. Mann, an industrialist and patron of the arts who helped finance music centers in Philadelphia and Tel Aviv, died of cancer this morning in Miami. (As reported by Tim Page)

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/27/obituaries/fredric-r-mann-arts-patron.html

1988: Secretary George Shultz is scheduled to meet with Israeli leaders today in an attempt to promote the Bush Administration’s latest peace proposals for the Middle East.

1988: “Alien From L.A.” a sci-fi thriller produced by Yoram Globus was released in the United States today.

1988: “Frantic” a fast-paced mystery directed by Roman Polanski was released in France and the United States today.

1988: Settlers from the West Bank demonstrated in Jerusalem today outside the office where Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was meeting with Secretary of State George P. Shultz at the start of a new Middle East peace drive. The demonstrations stood in stark contrast to the expression of other Israelis, notably Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who are willing to consider trading occupied land for peace.

1988: Naum Meiman a 77-year-old Soviet Jew who battled for 13 years to leave the Soviet Union embraced his daughter when he arrived in Israel today. Mr. Meiman hugged his daughter, Olga Plam, 50, of Boulder, Colo., who left the Soviet Union 14 years ago and had not seen her father since then.  Meiman who is a mathematician said, “Some of us managed to get out. Many are still left behind.'' Soviet authorities said they delayed Mr. Meiman's emigration request because of his ''access to state secrets.'' Mr. Meiman had worked on classified calculations in 1955.

1989: In an article entitled “Design: Imagine This,” Carol Vogel describes architect Ron Arad's gallery and office including the small back room in which the architect is drafting his design for the new opera house in Tel Aviv.

1991: The Bank of Israel said today that it would permit foreign companies to issue stocks and bonds on the Tel Aviv stock exchange. But the amount of money a foreign concern could take out of the country would be limited to 20 percent of any new issue. Previously the central bank had turned down applications by foreign firms to issue shares on the stock market. The change of policy "will make the Israeli stock market more international," said Gideon Schurr, speaking for the Bank of Israel."Now we need local investments, not Israeli investments abroad."

1993: In New York City, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing 6 and injuring over a thousand. One of the bombers claimed the attack was in retaliation for American support of Israel.  The bombers were later found to be connected with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.

1993: “Leon the Pig Farmer, “a British comedy starry Mark Frankel and Janet Suzman was released today in the United Kingdom.

1993(5thof Adar, 5753): Sixty-four-year-old Carol Solomon author of Report from the Asylum: Afterthoughts of a Shock Patient, “an account of the shock-therapy treatment used to treat patients in asylums, drawn directly from personal experience.”

1994: Eight-six-year-old Sofka Skipwith, the Russian émigré and Communist who was honored by Yad Vashem for saving Jews during the Shoah passed away today.

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/righteous-women/skipwith.asp

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-sofka-skipwith-1427738.html

1994: The Peace Now supporters rallied tonight in central Jerusalem, demanding an independent inquiry into the Friday massacre and an evacuation of the 400 Jewish settlers living in overwhelmingly Arab Hebron.

1994: Palestinians rioted and fought with Israeli soldiers across the occupied territories and in predominantly Arab towns in Israel today to protest the massacre here on Friday of at least 40 Arab worshipers by a Jewish settler.

1996(6th of Adar, 5756): Mieczysław Weinberg passed away. Born in Warsaw in 1919, he moved to Moscow in 1943.  He lived and composed in the Soviet Union for the rest of his life. His musical virtuosity did not keep him from being arrested during the period Stalin’s “Doctor Plot.” (He left a large body of work that included twenty-two symphonies and seventeen string quartets; according to one reviewer he ranked as, "the third great Soviet composer, along with Prokofiev and Shostakovich".[1

1999: Jewish American cultural historian Maurice Berger when writing in the Los Angeles Times about “the flap at Inglewood High School over Black History Month and Cinco de Mayo observances” reminder readers that “that history can be a valuable force for social change.”

2000: ‘After a lull of close to a week, fighting resumed in south Lebanon” with Israeli warplanes firing six rockets and an exchange of ground fire near the Israeli border where “a mortar shell landed in a field in northern Israel.”

2001: In Israel, the Labor Party joined a coalition government with Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister, Shimon Peres as Foreign Minister and Binyamin Ben-Eliezer as Minister of Defense.

2002(14thof Adar, 5762): Purim

2002: “Two pregnant women one Palestinian, the other Israeli -- gave birth today after being shot and wounded in separate attacks across their political divide, as violence proceeded unabated the day after Israel decided to keep Yasir Arafat confined to the West Bank city of Ramallah.” (As reported by James Bennet)

2002: “The Bank of Israel raised its monthly benchmark interest rate for the first time in more than three years in a bid to stem inflation, which has been accelerated by a two-month slide in the shekel.”

2003: The paperback edition of 1492: The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castilepart of the Jewish Latin America Series was published today

2004: A fourth Broadway revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” today and ran for 36 previews and 781 performances at the Minskoff Theatre in NYC.

2005(17th of Adar I, 5765): Henry Anatole Grunwald an Austrian-born journalist and diplomat perhaps best known for his position as managing editor of TIME magazine and editor in chief of Time, Inc passed away today. (As reported by Richard Severo)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/27/business/media/27grunwald.html?scp=1&amp;sq=Henry+Grunwald&amp;st=nyt

2005(17th of Adar I, 5765): Sixty-one-year-old Jeff Raskin an America human-computer interface expert best-known for starting the Macintosh project for Apple Computer in the late 1970s passed away tody

2005: In “The Morning After the Tel Aviv Bombing” Joseph M. Hochstein provided a portrait of the indomitable will of the citizens of Tel Aviv in the face of senseless slaughter.

http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000337.htm

2006(28th of Shevat, 5766): Sixty-six-year-old artist and photograph editor Sally C. Fox passed away.

http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch01175

http://jwa.org/thisweek/feb/26/2006/this-week-in-history-death-of-artist-and-photograph-editor-sally-fox

2006(28th of Shevat, 5766): Sir Hans Singer, a refugee from Nazi Germany and a well-known British development economist, passed away.

2006: In “Betty Friedan's Enduring 'Mystique'”, published today Rachel Donadio describes the importance of the writings and career of the recently deceased author and feminist.

2006:  The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel's two chief rabbis, Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger have “questions” for the Archbishop of Canterbury but will not cancel plans to meet the leader of Britain's state church this May in light of the vote by the General Synod of the Church of England to divest its shares in companies whose products are used by the Israeli government in the territories.

2007: Members of Histadrut remained on the job giving authorities more time to affect an immediate solution to the problem of salary debts in 40 local authorities.

2007: Starting today Diane Ravitch “participated in a ‘blog debate’ called ‘Bridging Difference’ with Deborah Meier on the website of Education Week.”

2007: “It was announced today that former Major League Baseball player Steve Hertz would be the manager of the “Tel Aviv Lightning” a team in the Israel Baseball League that would finish in second place at the end of the 2007 season.

2007: Knesset members yesterday urged the legal authorities to explore ways of indicting Professor Ariel Toaff over his book Pasque di Sangue, which alleges a factual basis to a 15th-century blood libel.”

2008: In New York, The Center for Jewish History and the American Jewish Historical Society presents distinguished writer and journalist Janet Malcolm reading from her stunningly perceptive work Two Lives, in which she pursues the charmed life of famed literary couple Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas while living in a Vichy, France village and pursues the larger question of biographical truth.

2008: The New York Times reports on the results of  a survey of religious affiliation by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.http://religions.pewforum.org/.  The report indicates that the behavior of American Jews in terms of religious affiliation may be more a function of their behavior as Americans as opposed to their behavior as Jews.  The report supports the bi-modal nature of religious behavior in America – a quest for spirituality which is not necessarily tied to usual patterns of denominational affiliation – which is also apparent in the Jewish community.

2008(20th of Adar I, 5768):Lt. Gen. Dan Shomron, a former chief of Israel’s general staff and the paratroop commander who planned and led the storied 1976 raid in which Israeli troops freed 103 hijacked hostages at Entebbe Airport in Uganda, in Israel. He was 70. He was the 13th Chief of Staff for the IDF.

2008:Rabbi Charles A. Klein, a Conservative rabbi and for the last 30 years the spiritual leader of the Merrick Jewish Center-Congregation Ohr Torah,will be installed today as the 59th president of the New York Board of Rabbis, the world’s oldest and largest interdenominational rabbinical board.

2009:Comedian and actor Eugene Mirman discusses and signs his new book, The Will to

 Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life, at Barnes &amp; Noble in Georgetown.

2009: The Nineteenth Annual KOACH Kallah, sponsored by KOACH, the college program of The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism opens at the Brandeis-Bardin Campus of the American Jewish University in Simi Valley, CA.

2009: In Venezuela, assailants threw an explosive at a Jewish community center today, but nobody was hurt which was the second assault against Venezuela's Jewish community this year.

2009: Today Sergio Widder of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for failing to take steps aimed at curbing anti-Semitism.

2010: U.S. premiere of “The Yellow Handkerchief” produced by Arthur Cohen with music by Eef Barzelay.

2010: Harry Baron, the first Jewish justice to serve on the Irish Supreme court whose wife Harriet had passed away 13 years ago, was laid to rest today at “Dolphin’s Barn’s Jewish Cemetery.

 2010:Rabbi Barry Baron, co-Director of Jewish Welfare Board is scheduled to lead Purim festivities and services at Fort Belvoir.

2010:Today's issue of Haaretz Magazine is scheduled to publish the exclusive story of Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a Hamas founder and one of its leaders in the West Bank, who served for over a decade as the Shin Bet security service's most valuable source in the militant organization's leadership.

2010(12th of Adar, 5770): Eighty-eight year Daniel Kapilow, the “retired President of Teamster Local 966” and advocate for providing aid to retired boxers who was predeceased by his wife Natalie with whom he had two children – Susan and Gloria – passed away today.

2010:ABC News President David Westin confirmed in an interview today that the network's ranks of bureau correspondents, which currently number several dozen, would be cut in half and be replaced with "digital" journalists who would be expected to shoot and edit their own stories. As part of the deep cuts announced this week at ABC News, the network plans to close all of its physical bureaus around the country except Washington and halve the number of its domestic correspondents.

2010(12 Adar, 5770):Prof. David Bankier, one of the world's most renowned Holocaust scholars who also served as the head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, died at the age of 63 today after a four-year battle with cancer. 

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/david-bankier-renowned-holocaust-scholar-dies-of-cancer-at-63-1.263945

2011:Five Brothers, a film about a brotherhood of Algerian Jews living in France who rally to defend themselves while avenging the memory of their murdered father, is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: In Iowa City, Benjamin Coelho and other local musicians are scheduled to perform at Hillel’s Champagne &amp; Classical Evening, which is a fundraiser for this vital part of the University Of Iowa and Iowa City Jewish communities.

2011: In Fairfax, VA, the Olam Tikvah Mens Club is scheduled to host its Judaism is for Lover’s Party.

2011: Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan is scheduled to perform as part of the People’s Symphony Concerts in NYC.

2011:Palestinians in Gaza reported today that IDF planes hit targets in Gaza belonging to Islamic Jihad west of Khan Younis but the IDF did not confirm the Palestinian reports.

2011:Iran and Syria have agreed to cooperate on naval training, Reuters reported Iran’s official news agency saying today.

2011(22nd Adar I, 5771): Eighty-nine year old “Judith Coplon, a former Justice Department employee who became a sensation in 1949 when she was accused of being a Soviet spy” passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02coplon.html?_r=0

2011(22nd Adar I, 5771):Arnost Lustig, an acclaimed Czech author who drew on his own harrowing experiences as a teenager in World War II to produce novels and short stories laced with tales of young people who survive the Holocaust, passed away today the age of 84. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/books/06lustig.html

2011(22nd Adar I, 5771):Ora Eyal, one of Israel’s most successful children’s book illustrators, whose work included the Israeli classic “A Tale of Five Balloons,” passed away today at the age of 64. “Eyal was born in Jerusalem in 1946 and studied at the Bezalel Academy in the city. She also worked as a translator from Italian. Eyal won the 1994 Ben Isaac Prize for Illustration from the Israel Museum. She was awaiting delivery of the final book she illustrated, “Everyone Went for a Trip,” just before she died.” (As reported by the Eulogizer)

2011(22nd Adar I, 5771):Howard R. Johnston, 86, a retired lieutenant colonel, passed away today. A native of Bruce Lake, Indiana, he spent 23 years on active duty, and was a combat veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He was a senior aviator, qualified in fixed and rotary wing aircraft, and a certified flight examiner. (As reported by the Eulogizer)

2012: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Technologist” by Matthew Pear and the recently released paperback edition of “Endgame: Bobby Fischer’s Remarkable Rise and Fall — From America’s Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness” by Frank Brady.

2012: Today, the IDF is expected to open the southwest segment of a highway that leads to Eilat for the first time since a terror attack near the border with Egypt left 8 Israelis dead after having made major security improvements including the erection of 23 foot high fence. (As reported by Yoav Zitun)

2012: “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg” is scheduled to be shown at Temple Beth-El in Poughkeepsie, NY

2012: “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” is scheduled to be shown at the Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival in Scottsdale, AZ

2012: In London, Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and president of J Street and the author of “A New Voice for Israel” and Jonathan Freedland who writes a weekly column for The Guardian are scheduled to take part in a panel discussion entitled “A New Voice for Israel” as part of Jewish Book Week.

2012: The new edition of “IBM and the Holocaust” by Edwin Black will be released today at a special Live Global Streaming Event at Yeshiva University’s Furst Hall in New York. The Event can be seen at http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

http://hnn.us/articles/new-ibm-correspondence-about-holocaust-revealed-edwin-black

2012(3rd of Adar):  Anniversary of the completion of the Second Temple.  [Editor's Note – This ushers in one of the best periods in Jewish History; we got to be Jewish and nobody tried to kill us!  It is puzzling that we celebrate the tragedy of the destruction of the Temple but do not celebrate the joy of it completion.  It is also puzzling that we celebrate an invented moment in our history (Purim) and do nothing to celebrate a real moment of joy.]

2012: One-hundred-one year old Canadian violinist Ethel Stark founder of the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra passed away.

http://www.jewishpubliclibrary.org/blog/?p=1296

2012(3rdof Adar, 5772): Ninety-four-year-old Sol Schiff who so dominated his sport that he was known as “Mr. Table Tennis” passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/sports/sol-schiff-mr-table-tennis-dies-at-94.html?hpw

2012: Workers at Haifa, Ashdod and Eilat ports called a general strike starting at 6 A.M. this morning, after overnight talks between representatives of the finance and transportation ministries, leaders of the Histadrut labor federation and workers’ committees failed to reach an agreement to prevent the strike.

2012: Israeli aircraft bombed two targets in the southern Gaza Strip overnight, the military said today.

2013: “MAKERS: Women Who Make America,” which is follow up to “Gloria Steinem: In Her Own Words” is scheduled to be shown on PBS this evening

2013((16th of Adar, 5773): Ninety-five-year-old Stéphane Hessel, the hero of the Resistance, concentration camp survivor and French diplomat passed away.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/world/europe/stephane-hessel-author-and-activist-dies-at-95.html?hpw&amp;_r=0

2013: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host “Political Earthquake In The Middle East: Are There Any Good Options For The U.S. and Israel” with Walter Russell Mead and Warren Kozak

2013:A rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip at Ashkelon early this morning, breaking months of quiet between Israel and the Palestinian enclave.

2013: US President Barack Obama will not present a new peace initiative when he visits Israel and the Palestinian territories next month, and instead is coming “to listen,” Secretary of State John Kerry said today

2014: The Thaler Holocaust Committee under the leadership of Dr. Bob Silber is scheduled to meet at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2014: Author and newswoman Hoda Kotb is scheduled to talk about her memoir with Jonathan Tisch at the 92nd Street Y.

2014: Jordan warned today that it might review a 1994 peace treaty with Israel after Israeli MPs began a debate on allowing Jewish prayers at Jerusalem’s sensitive Temple Mount.

2014: Yad Vashem recognized Sebastián Romero Radigales as Righteous Among the Nations.

2014: “It was announced today that actress Jessica Lange would be the new face of Marc Jacobs Beauty (He is Jewish – she isn’t)

2014: Israeli troops along the border with Lebanon were on high alert tonight after Hezbollah threatened action over what it said was an Israeli air raid

2014: Pulitzer-prize winning author Philip Schultz is scheduled to discuss The Wherewithal: A Novel in Verse about a young man translating his mother mother’s diaries that “concern the Jedwabne massacre.”

2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center For Holocaust Education is scheduled to host “The Hiding Place: A Queer Storytelling Tribute to the Diary of Anne Frank.”

2016: In New York, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host 45 minute tours of the exhibition “Unorthodox” led by the Museum’s docents.

2016: “Ten terrorist attack victims who won financial claims against Iran can seize a $2.8 million judgment owed to that country’s Defense Ministry, a federal appeals court said today.”

2016: “Feeling are Facts: The Life of Yvonne Rainer” and “Cremator” are scheduled to be shown at the 26th Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2017(30thof Shevat, 5777): Rosh Chodesh Adar;

2017: The New York Times published books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Almost Complete Poems by Stanley Moss, When Police Kill by Franklin E. Zimring, A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Older by Richard Haass and the recently released paperback edition of Not In God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

2017: “Cloudy Sunday,” a film that tells “of a war-time romance in Thessaloniki between a Jewish girls and a young resistance fighter” is scheduled to be shown for the last time at JW3 in London.

2017:Soprano Rachel Joselson and pianist Rene Lecuona are scheduled to perform selections by composers who were prisoners of Nazi Germany in Theresienstadt during the Holocaust, including Viktor Ullmann, Adolf Strauss, Ilse Weber and Gideon Klein at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

2017: Among those waiting to see if they will win an Oscar tonight are actress Natalie Portman, actor Andrew Garfield and the creator of “Joe’s Violin”

http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/a-violin-thats-a-survivor/

2017: “The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936” – an exhibition that “explores whether a controversial proposed boycott might have strengthened international resistance to Nazi tyranny and how the Nazis used the games as propaganda to further their agenda” is scheduled to come a close at California African American Museum.

2017: Efraim Halevy, the ninth director of the Mossad is scheduled to be interviewed by David Horovitz tonight at the Hirsch Theatre in Jerusalem.

2017: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host “An Evening with Wolf Blitzer.”

2018: The Center for Jewish History and YIVO Institute are scheduled to host the opening of the exhibition of “Jews in Space: Members of the Tribe in Orbit.”

2018: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host “An Evening with Israeli Master-Mentalist Lior Suchard.”

2018: “Prayer” is scheduled to be the topic for the interdenominational scripture discussion group co-sponsored by the Oxford University Jewish Society.

2018: The Jewish Women’s Group is scheduled to celebrate Purim at the Brody Center at the University of Virginia.

2019: The “workshop at the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture” on “Transdisciplinary Perspectives in the Field of Jewish Cultural Studies” is scheduled to come to an end today.

2019: “The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Museum of American Jewish History” are scheduled to host “Race and Society in Nazi Germany and the US: From Swastika to Jim Crow” which will include “a film screening that will explore the encounter between two groups targeted by oppression, brutality, and forced segregation who were brought together by World War II and racism in their societies” followed by a panel discussion moderated by “Edna Friedberg, PhD, Historian, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.”

2019: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Woman in Gold: A Quest for Justice” during which “Helen Mirren, the star of ‘Woman in Gold,’ discusses “the ironic transformation of the portrait of a Jewish woman into an Austrian national treasure…and the importance of pursuing truth.”

2019: In San Francisco, the Jewish Community Library is scheduled to host a screening of “Above and Beyond,” “a feature-length documentary, created from a mix of archival footage and special effects from Industrial Light and Magic” that “tells the story of WWII volunteer pilots, Jews and non-Jews alike, who risked everything to defend Israel in its War of Independence in 1948.”

2019: At Berkeley, CA, “UC Berkeley professor John Connelly is scheduled to discuss Poland between World War I and the Nazi invasion” as part of the “Around Arthur Szyk” lecture series.

2020: In Berkley, Congregation Netivot Shalom is scheduled to host a “Earth Seder Workshop” during which Rabbi Ellen Bernstein shares the earthy wisdom of Passover through her new Haggadah, “The Promise of the Land.”

2020: Keren Ann is scheduled to host Avishai Cohen at the Tzidkiyahu Cave.

2020: The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “Everytime We Say Goodbye” and the U.S. premiere of “The Final Hour.”

2020: In San Rafael, CA, the Osher Martin JCC is scheduled to host a screening of “Picture of His Life,” a “documentary that follows Amos Nachoum, an underwater still photographer.”

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to Joanne Greenway, the Chief Excutive of the London School of Jewish Studies as she talks about difficult cases of “Get Refusal she worked on while with the London Beth Din.”

2020(1st of Adar, 5780): Rosh Chodesh Adar.

2021: In London, Highgate Synagogue is scheduled to host a Morning Service followed by a Megillah reading that will finished “by 8:10 a.m.”

2021: The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to begin hosting a virtual screening of “Here We Are” and “Love It Was Not.”

2021: In Cedar Rapids, IA, Temple Judah is scheduled to host a virtual Purim Service and Megillah reading to which congregants are encouraged to wear costumes.

2021: The final episode of “Losing Alice” starring Ayelet Zurer as Alice is scheduled to be broadcast today.

2021: Congregation B’nai Torah is scheduled to present online a “Post Purim Shabbat Service” followed by a “Purim After Party featuring comedian Orli Matlow.”

2021: In Florida, Temple Judea is scheduled to host a two-hour Noon Drive by Event where attended are encouraged to “bring Matanot L’Evyonim.”

2021: Israel’s Purim Pandemic Curfew which began yesterday evening continues to be in effect today as part “an effort to stop mass celebrations during the ongoing” health crisis.

2021: Based on reports published yesterday, as of today Israel will have halted shipment of vaccines to friendly nations following a request for a clarification by Attorney General Mandelbit and criticism from several sources including Defense Minister Ganz.

2021(14th of Adar, 5781): Purim; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

This Day, February 27, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 27

272:  Birthdate of Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor from 306 to 337.  Constantine adopted Christianity as the state religion for the Roman Empire which marked a turning point (negative) for the Jews of Europe. [ There is plenty of agreement that Constantine was born on February 27 but there is not agreement on the year.  It ranges from 272 to 289]

380: Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II jointly issued The Edict of Thessalonica which made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire.

1514: King Sigismund I appointed Michael Yosefovich “senior” of all Lithuanian Jews

1562: Pius IV issued Dudum e felicis recordationis, a papal bull that confirmed the papal bulls of Paul IV including those that put restrictions on where Jews could live and how they could earn a living.

 1670: Leopold I ordered the Jews expelled from Austria.

1680: Seventy-nine-year-old Puritan theologian Thomas Goodwin the author of Moses and Aaron: Civil and Ecclesiastical Rites, Used by the Ancient Hebrews passed away today.

1717: Birthdate of German bible scholar Johann David Michaelis one of whose “dissertations was a defense of the antiquity and divine authority of the vowel points in Hebrew.”

1719: In London, Moses Raphael Levy, a native of Germany and Grace Mears, a native of Jamaica gave birth to Rachel Franks Levy, the wife of Isaac Mendes Seixas.

1733: The Prattenburg, which had left Amsterdam in November of 1732 arrived today at the Cape of Good Hope with Jacob de Beer serving as a ship’s gunner.

1755: Birthdate of Shalom Ullman, the Hungarian born rabbi and Talmudist whose son and grandson followed in his footsteps by serving as rabbis at Lackenbach.

1719: In London, Grace Mears and Moses Raphael Levy gave birth to Rachel Franks Levy, the wife of Lisbon native Isaac Menes Seixas whom she married in New York City in 1740.

1771: “Mr. Isaac De Peza presented the Synagogue in Barbados with 6 Silver Purim Cups.

1777: In Baltimore, Congress adjourns and makes plans to return to Philadelphia now that General Washington has eliminated the British threat to the city.

1790: Birthdate of Sara Ballin who was buried at the Hosens Jewish Cemetery in Denmark when she passed away in 1876.

1791: In New York City, Zipporah Levy and Newport, RI native Benjamin Mendes Seixas gave birth to Sarah Seixas, the wife of Isaac Mendes Seixas Nathan whom she married in New York City in 1808, and with whom she had fourteen children 1792(4th of Adar, 5552): After he passed away today, Moses ben Meir was buried at the “Alderney Road (Globe Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1799: Birthdate of Frederick Catherwood the English artist architect.  In 1833, he made a detailed survey of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.  He probably was the first westerner since the days of the crusades to have access to this shrine which is located on the Temple Mount.  Catherwood was one of a veritable army of English visitors to “the holy land” who helped to excavate and map the area in the 19th century.

1801: Pursuant to the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. “The first recorded Jewish resident of the city was Isaac Polock. He arrived in 1795. Polock, a grandson of a founder of the Newport, Rhode Island synagogue, was a small time real estate developer. He built a number of fine homes along present day Pennsylvania Ave. An early renter of one of Polock's houses and his neighbor was James Madison, a later President.”  Major Alfred Mordecai was another of D.C.’s first Jewish residents. The North Carolina native entered West Point at the age of 15 and was in the first graduating class when he completed his studies in 1823.  Mordecai came to Washington in 1828 where he served as the commander of the Washington Arsenal. Washington Hebrew Congregation founded in 1852 was the city’s first Jewish Congregation.  Adas Israel, which was originally founded as an Orthodox synagogue in 1869 received a donation from President Grant for its building fund. The congregation later switched to the Conservative movement.  Today the downtown location of Adas Israel is remembered as the Historic 6th& amp; I Synagogue.  For me, the synagogue at 6th&amp; I was the place in the late 1940’s and 1950’s where I went for my first Simchat Torah Services, my first Megillah readings and a whole lot more.  The synagogue at 5th& amp; I was famous because Al Jolson’s father had been its cantor and Jolson sang their as a little boy.  Adas Israel moved to its Connecticut and Porter where it remains today. During the 1950’s Ambassador Eban spoke from its pulpit on more than one occasion much to the congregation’s joy and delight.  For more about the history of the Jewish community in Washington you might want to look at the website of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington.

1805(28th of Adar I, 5565): Naphtali Herz (Hartwig) Wessely passed away. Born in Hamburg in 1725, he “was a 18th-century German Jewish Hebraist and educationist born at Hamburg.”

1807: In Portland, Maine Zilpah Wadsworth Longfellow and Stephen Longfellow gave birth to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow the poet famed for such famous poetic works as “Paul Revere’s Ride” and “Evangeline” as well as “Judas Maccabaeus”  an 1872 five-act verse tragedy a Hebrew version of which  was published in 1900.

http://www.readbookonline.net/title/2821/

1811: In Charleston, SC, Mr. Solomon Hyams officiated at the wedding of Montague Jackson to Hannah Hyams.

1821: Birthdate of Selig Cassel, the brother of Jewish historian and author David Cassel, who converted and became Paulus Stephanus Cassel who was then able to further his academic career as well as taking on the role of being a missionary trying to convert other Jews.

1827(30thof Shevat, 5587): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1827(30thof Shevat, 5587): Samuel Marx, the chief rabbi of Trier and an uncle of Karl Marx passed away today.

1828: In New York City, Esther B. Seixas and Naphtali Phillips gave birth to Rachel Seixas Phillips the wife of Adolphus S. Solomons whom she married in 1851 at New York City and the mother of NYC native Aline Esther Solomons.

1831(14thof Adar, 5591): Purim

1831(14thof Adar, 5591): “Austrian historian and educator” Adolf Beer passed away today.

1833: Two years after she had passed away, Catherine Raphael, the wife of Joseph Raphael, was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”

1837: In Speyer, Bavaria, Rebecca Adler ad Joseph Moses gave birth University of Louisiana trained attorney and veteran of the CSA, Adolph Moses the husband of Matilda Wolfe who began practicing law in Chicago in 1869 while being an active member of B’nai B’rith. (Not to be confused with rabbi in Louisville, KY with the same name)

1841: In the Netherlands Eliezer Eduard Hirschel Kann and Hyacintha Kann gave birth to Livia Amalia Kann.

1844: The Dominican Republic (then known as Santa Domingo) on the island of Hispaniola gained its independence from Haiti.  During the 16thand 17th century Sephardic merchants settled on the island, many of them coming from Curaco. “The oldest Jewish grave (on the island) is dated 1826.”  Jews of this period assimilated into the general population and lost their identity.  In the 1930’s the Dominican Republic became a haven for Jews escaping Hitler’s Europe and most of today’s vibrant Jewish community traces its origins to this period.

1844: Birthdate of Moses Ha-Levi Horowitz, the Romanian born Yiddish actor and playwright who came to the United States in 1882 where he was known as the famous Morris Horowitz.

1845: A “Reise-Pass” was issued to Bernhard Behrend today which he was required to carry with him at all times as he traveled “from his native Rodenberg to Frankfurt.

1846; “In Darmstadt-Eberstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, Emanuel Bamberger and the former Helen Fleisch gave birth to  Simon Bamberger, “the fourth Governor of the state of Utah who was the first non-Mormon, the first Democrat and the first (and so far only) Jew to hold this post.

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

1847(11thof Adar, 5607): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

1847: Sarah Moses and Alexander Jones gave birth to Adelaide Jones.

1847: Birthdate of English actress Ellen Terry, whose portrayal of Portia in the Merchant of Venice was one of her signature roles.  She performed with Sir Henry Irving whose greatest dramatic success came with his performances in “The Bells.”

1852: Benjamin Disraeli began serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer for  the first of three times which also meant that he was the leader of the Tories in the House of Commons

1853(19th of Adar I, 5613): Sixty-eight-year-old Jacob Aaron passed away in London.

1855: A concert designed to raise funds for the Hebrew Benevolent Society is scheduled to be held today.

1856: Estra (Therese) Wiesner and Rabbi Jonas Wiesner gave birth to Emilie Wiesner.

1856: Adolphe Salomon married Esther Russell today in the United Kingdom.

1859: Birthdate of Bertha Pappenheim “the founder of the Jüdischer Frauenbund (League of Jewish Women).”

1861(17th of Adar): Rabbi David Tevele ben Moses of Minks author of Bet David passed away today

1861: In Frankfurt, Selig Meir Goldschmidt and Clementine Fuld, the daughter of Herz Salomon Fuld and Caroline Schuster gave birth to Hedwig Goldschmidt who after her marriage was known as Hedwig Cramer.

1862: In Russia, Avraam-Abel Khaymovich Zeliksohn and Shterna Slava Zalmanovna Zelikson gave birth to Shneur Zalman Zalman זלמן Seligson

1864(20th of Adar I, 5624): Chaia Basia, the daughter of Rabbi Yehoshua Usher Rabinowicz of Parysow passed away.

1865(1st of Adar, 5625): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1865: Birthdate of Jacques Mieses, the native of Leipzig who became a journalist and world-class chess champion.

1865: In Pittsburgh, PA, Meyer and Henrietta (Lehrberger) Hanauer gave birth to Duff’s College graduate and gold medal award winning distiller Albert M. Hanauer, the husband of Carrie Marx who was a partner and Secretary-Treasurer of the Hamburger Distillery and a member of the American Jewish Committee.

1865: Birthdate of Armand Bloch, the native of Strasbourg who was the grandson of Rabbi Moses Bloch known as of 'Hokhom (the Wise) of Uttenheim, who served in a variety of rabbinic and communal roles in France and Algeria. In 1931, the French government named him as Chevialier of the Legion of Honor in recognition of his service to his co-religionists and his country.

1868: Benjamin Disraeli begins serving as Prime Minister for the first time.

1870: In New York City, James (Jacob) Seligman, the son of Fanny and David Seligman, and Rosa Seligman gave birth to Fleurette Guggenheim, the future wife of Wife of Benjamin Guggenheim

1870: The Chicago Tribune reported that the Constitutional Convention will not be amending the Illinois State Convention mandating a day of the week for observing the Sabbath.  The Jews and the Seventh Day Adventists had petitioned the convention include a provision making the 7th day of the week the Sabbath.  Since this would be based on the 4th commandment of the Decalogue, the biblical source would make it more likely that the populace would enjoy a day of rest. Other groups wanted to disregard the literal biblical reading and follow the first day of rest practice.  Rather than offend any group, the committee hearing the matter decided the convention should take no action.

1871: In Newark, NJ, the Ladies’ Temple Association opened a grand fair at Turn Hall.  The fair is scheduled to be open for the next four nights and is a fund-raiser for the Temple on Washington Street.

1872: In New York, Abraham and Amelia Stein Abrahamson gave birth to Dr. Isador Abrahamson, a graduate of Columbia’s School of Medicine and husband of the former Stella Heidelberg who was one of New York City’s “foremost neurologists” and a “founder and director of the Jewish Mental Health Society”

1873: A national convention of those who want to amend the U.S. Constitution so that it will state that the United States is a Christian nation met today in Pittsburgh, PA.  There were 500 people at the opening session and more than a thousand attending the evening session.  Attendees claim that their move is part of a fight against atheism, something that Catholics and Jews of the time might have found difficult to believe.

1873: In New York, Isaac and Adeline Phillips gave birth to portrait painter J. Campbell Phillips whose last work was a portrait of his cousin Bernard Baruch completed just two months before his death in 1948.

https://www.artprice.com/artist/60852/john-campbell-phillips

1874: It was reported today that the annual Purim reception at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews in New York will be held on March 1st and 2nd.

1874: Birthdate of Dr. David Nunes Nabarro, the son of London merchant who became President of the Medical Society for the Study of Venereal Diseases, President of the Association of Clinical Pathologists and President of the London Jewish Hospital Medical Society.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC479864/pdf/jclinpath00048-0102.pdf

1877(14th of Adar, 5637): Purim

1877: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association hosted a Purim Ball this evening at Cooper Hall in Jersey City, New Jersey.

1877: Birthdate of Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski “the head of the Council of Eldgers in the Lodz Ghetto who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1944.

1878: The parents of Lucy Shereck, a young Jewess, “wept bitterly” as they watched the baptism of their daughter at the Marcey Avenue Baptist Church.

1879: Constantine Fahlberg discovered the artificial sweetener saccharine which Ellen Glotz described in The Accidental Epicure.

1880(15th of Adar, 5640): Shushan Purim

1880: Over 4,000 people attended the fancy dress ball given by the Purim Association at the Academy of Music. This year’s annual event raised an estimated $18,000 for Mount Sinai Hospital.

1880: It was reported today that “the war which has for some time raged in Germany between the natives and the Jews, seems to increase rather than to diminish…The crime of the Jews appears to be…their financial prosperity.” “If the Jews in Germany were poor, they would not be attacked.”  But many of them are very rich “and this is their offense.” [Editor’s note – this is fifty years before Hitler came to power]

1881: It was reported today that the second edition of the “History of Egypt Under the Pharaohs” by Dr. Henry Brugsch-Bey is now available.  The description of the Exodus presented in this edition is one of the many improvements made in this edition. In a special preface to the new volume, Brugsh-Gey claims that he bases his description of the change in direction taken by the Jews on “contemporary records and the evidence of the Egyptian monuments” to establish “the veracity of the scriptural record.”  He also co-authored “The True Story of the Exodus of Israel: Together with a Brief Review of the History of Monumental Egypt” with Francis Henry Underwood.

1882: In Hudson, Mass., Mary Elizabeth Rice (née Tyler) and Asa Leonard Wheeler, gave birth to Burton K. Wheeler, the U.S. Senator from Montana who in 1936 “said that anti-Semitism has not only gained a foothold in European countries like Germany, Poland, Rumania, Austria and Hungary, but has been imported in the Western Hemisphere by Mexico, Brazil and Ecuador” and that the “capacity for persecution” as embodied in anti-Semitism is not “foreign to American soil.”

1882: A review of “The Electorate and the Legislature” by Spencer Walpole, one of a series of books on the rights and responsibilities of an English Citizen, published today notes that “The House of commons kept one of the members elected for the city of London out of his seat for 11 years because he was a Jew.” This was based on the “historic intolerance and prejudice” of the Commons and its members which has not been fully overcome.

1883:Oscar Hammerstein patented the 1st cigar-rolling machine

1883(20thof Adar I, 5643): Sixty-two-year-old Julius Stern co-founder of the Stern Conservatory and conductor of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra from 1869 to 1871 passed away today.

1885: In Dublin “Maurice Solomons, an optician who practice is mentioned in Ulyssesand his wife gave birth to Dr. Bethel Solomons who played rugby for Ireland was a “supporter of the 1916 Rising.” 

1886: Birthdate of Cedar Rapids, IA native and Indiana University alum Albert Y. Aronson who was “the managing editor of The Louisville Times for nearly thirty years.”

1888(14thof Adar, 5648): Purim

1888: In Xenia, Ohio, Bernhard Schlesinger, a Prussian Jew and Kate Feurle, an Austrian Catholic gave birth to historian Arthur Meir Schlesinger, the Harvard professor who was the father of historian and Kennedy aficionado Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

1888: Birthdate of Lotte Lehman German opera star who eventually moved to the United States and became known for the foundation in her name.  Lehman was not Jewish.  But her stepchildren (on their mother’s side) were Jewish.  When Hitler marched into Austria, Lehman got the children out, moved them to Paris and eventually brought all of them to the United States. 

1889: In Soroki, Bessarabia, Mindel and Yechiel Bronfman gave birth to Samuel Bonfaman founder of Distillers Corporation Limited which was renamed Seagram Co., Ltd whose products included Dewars scotch and a leader of the Canadian Jewish committee.

1890: In Michigan, Hattie Houseman Amberg and David Moses Amberg gave birth to Julius Houseman Amberg the husband of Callie Smith Amberg.

1891: Birthdate of David Sarnoff.  Born in Russia, Sarnoff became the head of R.C.A. and N.B.C.

1891: It was reported today that the Purim Association raised $15,000 at its annual ball which it will donate to the United Hebrew Charities.

1892(30thof Shevat, 5652): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1892(30thof Shevat, 5652): Seventy-three-year-old Chazan Moritz German passed away in Bresalua

1893: “Coming Exodus of Russian Jews” published today compared the doubling of the Jewish population in the United Kingdom over the last twenty years to the projected redoubling of that number in only another five years because of the mass migration of Jews from the lands of the Czar due to their cruel treatment.

1893: In Boston, Alice (Goldmark) Brandeis and Louis D. Brandeis, the future Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court gave birth to Bryn Mawr graduate Susan Brandeis, the University of Chicago trained attorney, Hadassah member and wife Jacob H. Gilbert.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/gilbert-susan-brandeis

1895: “Elsie Leslie’s Little Guests” published today described an afternoon at the theatre enjoyed by several hundred Jewish children who saw “The Prince and the Pauper” who were there as guest of the famous child actress.  As a sign of their appreciation they gave her an a bag which was elegantly embroidered with her initials – “E.L.L.”

1895: A debate opened in the Reichstag today over a motion to restrict the immigration of Jews from Russia and Austria.

1895: A large number of prominent Jewish citizens attended “the third reception for the season of the Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home took place this evening at Carnegie Hall.

1895: Rabbi Joseph Silverman of Temple Emanu-El delivered a speech tonight entitled “Charity” in which he said that charity was “the language of the heart…the very poetry religion.”  “The Jewish sages of old had said that the world existed on three pillars – education, religion and charity.  Some might be willing to strike of education, others would be willing to strike of religion and even some would go so far as to strike off both religion and education, but where is the man who would be willing to strike off the pillar of charity?”

1896(13thof Adar, 5656): Ta’anit Esther; erev Purim

1897: A visit to “the Hebrew theatres” was included in the tour of the Lower East Side slums by a group of Yale University divinity students which was followed by a symposium on the methods of organized charities that included Nathaniel S. Rosenthal of the United Hebrew Charities.

1898: “Jews Defended In Reichstag” described the debate during which “deprecated the promotion of Jews to the rank of officers and surgeons, on the ground of their ‘un-soldier like spirit.’” Herr Eugene “Richter vigorously repudiate this” He said that during the war with France in 1870,83 Jewish soldiers received the Iron Cross and 36 of the 70 Jewish surgeons received the same decoration.  General Heinrich von Gossler, the Minister of War, defended the Jews against the false accusation that they had sold defective rifles to the government.

1899: Two days after he had passed away, 64-year-old Nathan Hallel was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery.”

1899: “A Bible Story Up To Date” published today described Abraham Gruber’s updated version of the Purim story which equated the behavior of Haman with anti-Dreyfus forces in France and the European bigots who falsely claim that Jews have their own laws which makes them disloyal of whatever country they are living in.

1899: In his on-going attempt to create a Jewish homeland, Herzl meets with Grossherzog Friedrich of Baden in Karlsruhe. He offers the Grossherzog the protectorate over the land company and requests another audience with the Kaiser. Herzl receives a recommendation to the Deutsche Bank in Berlin to act as a subscription agency for the Jewish Colonial Bank.

1900(28thof Adar I, 5660): Seventy-five year old Austrian born Abraham Woolner, the husband of Magdelena Woolner  and father of Sophe, Hannah, Isabella, Gisela and Maximillian Woolner

1902: In London, a group of Zionists formed the Anglo Palestine Company which became the Bank Leumi.

1903: In Pruzhany, Rabbi Moshe Soloveichik and Pesya Feinstein, the daughter of Rabbi Elihyahu Feinstein gave birth to Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik.

http://www.manfredlehmann.com/news/news_detail.cgi/110/0

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/10/nyregion/no-headline-684393.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/10/nyregion/no-headline-684393.html

1904(11thof Adar, 5664): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

1904: Henri Daniel Mayrargue and Eveline Bethsabée Lattès gave birth to Mayrargue Marel Mayrargue

1906: As the Russian rulers issued an “imperial ukase” calling for the first meeting a Russian Parliament, some Jewish leaders have decided to form a political party and participate in the elections for members of this National Assembly.

1907: Jockey Walter Miller, the native of Brooklyn born in 1890 who rode his first race at the age of 14 and passed away in 1959 after having rode 1,094 winners, today road “winners in all vie races at Oakland Race Course.”

1908: Zionist leader Arthur Ruppin delivered an address to the Jewish Colonization of Vienna.

1909: Birthdate of New York native and NYU trained research chemist Samuel Natelson.

https://www.aacc.org/-/media/Files/Divisions/Dividers/sameatelson.pdf?la=en&hash=679D3485042B1A1E7FD6CE67EA0F7FE37959FAC2

https://www.aacc.org/-/media/Files/Divisions/Dividers/natelson_stories.pdf?la=en&hash=61B9F263EADBE5255C91316B3024F9F14BF89137

 1911: Twenty-four-year-old Matt Wells fought a twenty round bout at the National Sporting Club in London “to win the lightweight championship of Great Britain and take home the Lonsdale Belt.”

1913: In Brooklyn, “hat-trimming salesman” William Shamforoff and his wife Rose gave birth to Irwin Gilbert Shamorfoff who gained fame as author Irwin Shaw two of whose most  famous works were The Young Lions, a novel about World War II that became a popular movie and Rich Man, Poor Man, a saga about department store tycoon that provided the basis for a television mini-series of the same name.

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/17/obituaries/irwin-shaw-extolled-for-short-stories-dies.html?pagewanted=all

1914(1stof Adar, 5674): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1914: “Films Show Charity Work” published today described plans of the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities to host screenings this weekend of “How the Jews Care for Their Poor.”

1915(13thof Adar, 5675): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor; erev Purim

1916: “Dr. Stephen S. Wise spoke at the Free Synagogue” this morning on ‘Marriage and After,’ the fourth of his series of addresses on the deeper things of life”

1916: “The twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Temple Israel Sisterhood of Personal Service was formally observed” this evening.

1916: Prior to Mark “Sykes’s departure to meet the Russian Foreign Minister in Petrograd today, Sir Herbert Samuel approached Sykes with “a plan in the form of a memorandum” concerning Palestine which later led Sykes to write to Samuel “suggesting that if Belgium should assume the administration of Palestine it might be more acceptable to France as an alternative to the international administration which France wanted and the Zionists did not.

1916: “E.M. Newman of Chicago delivered he first of his illustrated lectures for the current season at Carnegie Hall” tonight.

1916: The Morris Loeb Memorial Building and the Joseph B. Bloomingdale Memorial Auditorium were formally dedicated today during “the annual meeting of the Hebrew Technical Institute.

1916:  During his speech this afternoon at the annual meeting of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association, Dr. Cyrus Adler “said he did not altogether approve of young women soliciting for the relief funds on the street in the manner exhibited” during “tag day.”

1916: At today’s annual meeting of The Widowed Mothers’ Fund Association, Mrs. William Einstein, the President “made a plea against ‘machine ready’ charity.”

1916: “The new Hebrew Technical Institute” was dedicated today in New York

1916: This afternoon, “at the annual meeting of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society…President Sanders announced that Jacob H. Schiff had donated $25,000 to the organization as the nucleus of a fund with which to erect a new building” to help the society meet its increased needs.

1917: The Russian Revolution broke out in Petrograd. After three years of ruinous war the old regime collapsed. By March a provisional government under Kerensky was set up. During the ensuing revolution, the Jews were caught in the middle. Much of the conflict centered around the south and west where over 3 million Jews lived. It is estimated that over 2000 pogroms took place, especially in the Ukraine, leading to the death of 100,000-200,000 Jews within the next 3 years.

1917: Three days after defeating the Ottomans at Kut, the British forces under Frederick Stanley Maude arrived at Aziziyah on their way to Baghdad with all that this will mean to creation of what we have come to call the modern “Middle East.”

1917: Assemblyman Nathan D. Pearlman sponsored a bill today in the New York State legislature to allow New York City “to buy and sell food” “as an emergency measure” to relieve shortages,

1918: “A dinner,” attended by “officers of the British Recruiting Mission and many rabbis” “for the 150 Jewish soldiers in the battalion recruited for service in Palestine was given at the Hotel Imperial tonight by the Zionist Lunch Club.”

1918: Morris Weinberg, the publisher of the Day announced that in the future, the Dayand the Warheit would appear as one publication, Day-Warheit.

1919: During the Versailles Peace Conference, today the Dr. Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow, Professor Sylvain Levi of the College of France, Andre Spire of the French Zionist organization and Mr. Syzsyahkin representing the Jews of Russia presented their case before the Supreme Council which at a “minimum” called for the “establishment of communities Palestine and guarantee of special rights and sovereignty for these communities” and which at a “maximum” called :for the creation of a Jewish state in order that the Jews may have a national home where they can live in peace.”

1921: “On a farm in Calgary, Alberta, Samuel and Zelda Cohen gave birth to “Morton Cohen, a scholar of Victorian literature.” (As reported by Richard Sandomir)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/books/morton-cohen-scholar-of-lewis-carroll-and-his-wonderland-dies-at-96.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1922: Psychoanalyst Ernest Jones and his wife gave birth to Mervyn Jones the British author whose works included Joseph, a fictional tale based on the life of Stalin.

1923: Birthdate of Reichel “Rae” Kushner along with her brother led 350 people out of the local ghetto by digging a tuner and who married Joseph Kushner, the grandfather of Jared Kushner, in 1945.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1925:  Birthdate of Sam Dash.  The Georgetown Law Professor would gain fame as the Chief Counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate Scandal.

1926(13thof Adar, 5686): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor; Erev Purim

1926: Young Judea Clubs throughout the United States presented Purim plays.

1926: “The Einstein Theory of Relativity is not valid under a strict mathematical analysis according to a statement made” today by Charles Lane Poor, the Professor of Celestial Mechanics at Columbia University who attacked the mathematics of theory and “criticized Einstein for his errors in logic saying that he would prove the laws of logic false in order to make his theory hold.”

1927: In Detroit, MI, Abraham and Ruth Jaroff gave birth to Leon Morton Jaroff, “a science writer and editor who persuaded Time Inc. to start Discover magazine in 1980, became its top editor and for many years wrote the popular Skeptical Eye column challenging pseudo-sciences…” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)

1927: Birthdate of Ariel Sharon, Israeli soldier and political leader.

1927: “Nearly 271 years after Baruch Spinoza…was excommunicated by the Jewish community of Amsterdam, the ban was revoked when Dr. Joseph Klausner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem uttered the formula of release at” today’s meeting of the university faculty.

1928: In Malden, MA, Nathan and Katherine (Hellerman) Greenfield gave birth to Joshua Joseph Greenfield, the Brooklyn College, University of Michigan and Columbia University educated author and screenwriter best known for writing about his autistic son. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/obituaries/josh-greenfeld-who-chronicled-his-sons-autism-dies-at-90.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1928: Abie Bain, the St. Petersburg born Jewish-American middleweight Abie Bain was knocked out in the fifth round by “KO” Phil Kapla.

1929: As a sign of the respect for his success, today’s issue of Variety was dedicated to Abraham Joseph (A.J.) Balaban, the co-founder of the theatre chain of Balaban and Katz.

1930: In Los Angeles, silent film writer and producer John Stone and the former Hilda Ness gave birth to Peter Hess Stone, the writer who won an Oscar, and Emmy and a Tony

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/28/movies/peter-stone-award-winning-writer-of-1776-dies-at-73.html

1931: Arnold Zweig and Jakob Wassermann were among the German writers and scholars who “who published a join manifesto today addressed to those 186 French men of letters who recently appealed to German intellectuals to join them in work for a Franco-German understanding a new Europe.”

1932: Today, “Chef Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo summoned the Court of Appeals to meet in special session in Albany” on March 3rd which has led many to believe that a decision has been reached in a case regarding the investigation of the government of New York City by a joint state legislative committee.

1932: In Hampstead Garden Suburb, London “art dealer Francis Lenn Taylor” and retired actress Sara Sothern gave birth to American actress Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor who converted to Judaism in 1959, had two Jewish husbands (producer Mike Todd and crooner Eddie Fisher) and was such an ardent supporter of Israel and Jewish causes such as the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate, that her films were “were banned by Muslim countries throughout the Middle East and Africa.”

 1933: Germany’s parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, was set on fire.  The Reichstag Fire was started by the Nazis who used the fire as an excuse to begin their subversion of the German legal and political system.

1933: As a result of the Reichstag Fire which he saw as the confirmation of the Nazis rise to power, Walter Benjamin left Germany.

1933: Along with all the Jewish and leftist actors, Wolfgag Heinz (David Hirsch) was dismissed from his work mark the start of an exile that would lead him from Holland to Britain and finally to Switzerland.

1935: Lazar Kaganovich began serving his first term as People’s Commissar for Transport.

1935: In the Bronx, Jeanette Efron and Sol Fineman gave birth to Eleanor Fineman, an “American photographer, author, and artist” whose works included “Vilna Nights” with dealt with lost Jewish culture.

1935: Harry Hoffman, who works at the Curb Exchange, is scheduled to compete in the 400-meter run at tryouts for the American Maccabi Team being held at the 102ndEngineers Armory today.  The “Jewish Olympics” are scheduled to be held in Tel Aviv starting on April 2 and finishing on April 7.

1935: Birthdate of Uri Shulevitz American author and illustrator. Born in Poland, he survived the bombing of Warsaw in 1939 and moved with his family first to Paris and finally to Israel, in 1949. During the Sinai War in 1956, Mr. Shulevitz joined the Israeli Army. Later, he joined the Ein Gedi kibbutz. He moved to New York City in 1959, studying painting at Brooklyn Museum Art School and working as an illustrator for a Hebrew children's book publisher. In 1962, an editor at Harper &amp; Row saw his freelance portfolio and suggested he write children's book. He won the Caldecott Medal in 1969 for his illustration of The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship. He created his first picture book, The Moon in My Room, in 1963.

1936: U.S. premiere of Liebelei a German film directed by Max Ophüls which was based on a play of the same name (Liebelei (de)) by Arthur Schnitzler, the Austrian playwright was the son of laryngologist Johann Schnitzler.

1936: “The Goes ‘Round” a musical comedy with a script co-authored Jo Swerling and starring Harry Richman was released in the United States today.

1936: Mathematician Issai Schur returned from Switzerland via Karlsruhe, where his sister lived, to Berlin.

1936: “The plight of the Christian men and women who fled from Germany because of Nazi persecution and terrorism was described this afternoon and evening at a conference and dinner under the auspices of the American Christian Committee for German Refugees at the Hotel Astor.”

1936: “A street fight broke out today in front of a Warsaw synagogue when a group of Jews tried to prevent a number of Jewish tradesmen, who they alleged were continuing to import German goods, from entering the synagogue.”

1936: During a press conference today Count Henri de Baillet-Latour of Belgium, president of the International Olympic Committee sportswriters asked if Germany had lived up to all her promises and agreements to which he answered, “In every respect, the International Olympic Committee had not fault to find.  There Jews on the teams, among the officials and among the spectators.  There were no signs of discrimination.”

1936(4thof Adar, 5696): Eighty-one-year-old Rachel H. Hays, the Utica, NY born wife of attorney Daniel Peixotto Hays, a member of one of New York’s oldest Jewish families who among other things as a trustee and secretary of the Jewish Publication Society, passed away today in Pleasantville, NY.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hays-daniel-peixotto

1937: New York Times columnist Arthur Krock had an award winning “exclusive interview with the President of the United States.

1937: In Rumania, thirty people were hospitalized after having been injured today “when members of an anti-Semitic Nazi party sought to prevent Jews from voting in municipal elections” while another thirty-five people suffered injuries that were not serious enough to require hospitalization.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that during his last day in Palestine, the departing High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, laid the foundation stone of the Andrews Memorial Hospital in Netanya, and visited Pardess Hana, Hadera and Haifa.

1938: One day after he had passed away, sixty-four-year-old merchant and philanthropist Herman Lissner, the German born son of Pesse Pauline Lissner and Machol Michael Lissner and the husband of Gerda Lissner was buried today.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that In New York the Joint Distribution Committee announced that the Soviet government's firm opposition to the immigration of Jews from outside of the Soviet Union to Birobidjan ended the practical prospect of the development, if not of the entire existence, of what was expected to become an autonomous Soviet Jewish republic. The report mentioned that out of some 27,000 foreign Jews who immigrated to Birobijan, 20,000 had later left the area. 

1939: Birthdate American Formula One driver Peter Revson, who won the 1973 British and Canadian Grand Prix events and was runner-up at the 1971 Indianapolis 500. He was killed during a practice run in 1974.

1939: In Milwaukee, WI, Harry Cutler, the Russian born son of Meyer and Elda Cutler and his wife Rose Cutler gave birth to Joel Leslie Cutler

1939: As the multi-year Arab wave of violence continues, 32 people were killed today and another fifty persons were wounded in a series of explosions and shootings throughout Palestine today.

1940: Jewish scientists Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discovered carbon-14, the critical material for the method known as “carbon dating.”

1940: The Land Transfer Regulations aimed at ending Jewish property acquisition in Palestine were put into effect by the British government.

1941: “So Ends Our Night” the movie version of the novel by the same name featuring Erich von Stroheim, Alexander Granach and Ernst Deutsch with music by Louis Gruenberg was released in the United States today.

1941: The Nazis completed the suppression of “the February Strike,” the first even if unsuccessful direct action taken against the “treatment of Jews in Europe.”

1941: In retaliation for an innocent incident in Amsterdam, the Germans arrested 425 Jewish men, beat them and deported 389 of them to Buchenwald concentration camp. Two months later 364 of them were transferred to Mauthausen concentration camp. Ten of them committed suicide. By autumn, none of the men were alive.

1942: In Kovno, the German issued an order stipulating “that the Jews were to submit all books in their possession” – which resulted in the confiscation of over 100,000 books. (Yad VaShem_

1942: The first transport of French Jews was sent to Nazi-Germany 

1942: A group of Aryan women staged a protest in Berlin against the arrest of their Jewish husbands whom the government was planning to ship off to concentration camps. 

1943(22ndof Adar I. 5703): Parashat Ki Tisa

1943: Birthdate of Jonathan Rosenbuam, the native of Florence, Alabama whose “childhood home was the Rosenbaum House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright” who “was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008.”

http://colinmarshall.libsyn.com/the-consummate-cinephile-jonathan-rosenbaum-on-the-changing-film-culture

http://www.wellesnet.com/rosenbaum_interview.htm

1943: Work orders were increased in the Lodz Ghetto increased, easing tensions within the ghetto since more Jews would be needed to work and less would be exposed to deportation.

1943 (22nd of Adar I, 5703): On Shabbat, Rabbi Avraham Duber Shapiro, Chief Rabbi of Kovno, died in the Kovno Ghetto.  Shapiro was a famous Talmudic scholar.  He had been Chief Rabbi of Kovno since before World War I.  At the outbreak of World War II, he was in Switzerland under a doctor’s care.  He insisted on returning to Kovno in Lithuania and revisited one of his son’s efforts to join in him in the United States.  Shapiro stayed with his fellow Jews.  When he died, the Nazis forbade any public demonstrations.  Thousands of Jews defied the decree and showed their affection by attending his funeral on the next day.

1943: U.S. premiere of “The Hard Way” “a musical drama directed by Vincent Sherman,” produced by Jerry Wald with a screenplay by Daniel Fuchs and Peter Viertel.

1944: This morning, there were reports of explosions at the income tax office in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.  There were no reports of casualties.  The Irgun Zvai Leumi is thought to have set off the devices that caused the explosions.

1945: During “The Hunting Season,” “Yaakov Tavi who was in charge of Irgun’s intelligence service was kidnapped at 11 a.m. at the corner of Dizengoff and Yirimiyahu streets.”

1945(14thof Adar, 5705): Purim

1945: In Mt. Clemens, MI, an “Orthodox rabbi” and his wife gave birth to dermatologist Arnold William “Arnie” Klein known for his star-studded Hollywood clientele

1946:La Bataille du rail (Battle of the Rails), French film about the sabotage of railroads prior to the Normandy invasion was released in France today almost three year before Arthur Mayer and Joseph Burstyn released it in the United States.

1947: Louis B. “Mayer auctioned of his horses” today after having thrown Mendel Silberberg and “a gaggle of Jewish Leaders” when they “suggested that Mayer give up his involvement in horse racing because it was bad for the image of the Hollywood Jew.”

1948: The International Agriculture Institute which had been co-founded by David Lubin in 1908 “to help farmers share knowledge, produce systematically, establish a cooperative system of rural credit, and have control over the marketing of their products” was dissolved today.

1949: “The United Jewish Appeal announced tonight the opening of its 1949 campaign for $250,000,000.”

1949: “The nation-wide campaign of Histadrut, the Israeli Labor Federation, to raise $10,000,000 this week for its work in Israel, was started here today at a luncheon of presidents of 500 benevolent and fraternal societies.

1949: It was learned today in Cairo that “Egypt and Syria are seeking the means of mobilizing the Arab community of nations against any settlement of the Palestine question that would give Arab Palestine to Trans-Jordan.”

1950: In Detroit, Mrs. John C. Hopp is scheduled to chair a meeting of the Women’s Division of the Jewish Welfare Division which is intended insure the active participation of all women’s organization in the 1950 Allied Jewish Campaign,

1950: In the UK, Walter and Liesel (Alice) Schwab gave birth to Julia Schwab, the wife of Professor Anthony Neuberger, who gained fame as Rabbi Julia Babette Sarah Neuberger, Baroness Neuberger, the first female rabbi to have her own congregation (South London Liberal Synagogue) and the “full-time Senior Rabb at the West London Synagogue.”

1951: Three years after having been released in Sweden.“The Little Ballerina” a British drama featuring Anthony Newley was released in the United States. today.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that an Israeli soldier was killed when Jordanians opened fire on an Israeli patrol in the frequently infiltrated Beit Guvrin area.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that A Nahal group established a settlement at Ein Gedi, on the shores of the Dead Sea.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that A festive meeting celebrated the establishment of the first local council of Ashkelon, the Afridar housing suburb near Migdal Ashkelon. 

1956: Final broadcast on NBC of “The Tony Martin Show,” a 15 minute musical variety hosted by Tony Martin and produced by Bud Yorkin.

1957: Lazar Kaganovich completed his final term as a “Full Member” of the Politburo.

1958: The original Broadway production of “Blue Denim” co-starring Warren Berlinger opend today at the Playhouse Theatre where it “ran for 166 performances.”

1958(6th of Adar, 5718):  Harry Cohn, CEO of Columbia who was one of several Jewish movie moguls who shaped Hollywood and the entertainment business passed away after suffering a heart attack.  Cohn

http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=89

1964, Steve Lawrence opened at the 54th Street Theatre in a Broadway musical version of “What Makes Sammy Run?” which ran for 540 performances.

1967: Funeral services were held in Cleveland Heights for seventy-five-year-old Shaker Heights resident Louis Gottlieb, the Polish born son of Ida Ravitz and Morris Gottlieb and the husband of Clara Gottlieb with whom he had three children – Lillian, Florence and Harvey – after which he was buried in the Park Synagogue Cemetery.

1967: Two days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held today at Yeshiva University’s Lamport Auditorium for fifty-eight-year-old chemistry professor Dr. Samuel Soloveichik, the Bealrus born son of Rabbi Moses Soloveichik and Pescha Soloveitchik and the brother of Dr. Joseph B. Solveitchik, the professor of Talmud at Yehsiva’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological School and Rabbi Aaron Soloveichek, the dean of the Hebrew Theological Seminary in Chicago as well as two sisters, Shulamith Meiselman and Anna Gerber.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/02/27/90281353.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1967(17th of Adar I, 5727): Sixty-five-year-old Norman Tishman, the New York born son of Julius and Hilda Karmel Tishman and the husband of Rita Valentine Tishman who was “the chairman of the board of Tishman Realty” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/02/28/83581694.pdf

https://www.jta.org/1967/03/01/archive/norman-tishman-new-york-philanthropist-dead-active-in-jewish-groups

1970: Three days after he had passed away, funerals services are scheduled to be held for eighty-one-year-old Allen Kander, the Kansas City, MO born son of “Felix Victor and Matilda Epstein Kander the newspaper reporter turned “award winning” newspaper broker and husband of “the former Jeanette Unger” with whom he had three children – Kenneth, Carol and Margaret.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/27/archives/allen-kander-81-newspaper-aide-consultant-and-exhearst-executive-is.html

1970:  Birthdate of science fiction writer Michael A. Burstein.  According to some, Burstein is not unique because he is a Jewish science fiction writer.  He is unique because he is a practicing Jew who writes science fiction. “Burstein appears at a number of science fiction conventions throughout the year, which can be a problem because they are inevitably held on weekends. “It can be difficult, but it is manageable," he said. He and his wife Nomi either bring kosher meals or arrange to have them delivered to the hotel. Other issues are more complicated. "One of the biggest problems is that a lot of hotels use electronic key cards," he explained. Burstein arranges with a non-Jewish friend to handle unlocking his room during Shabbat, when such usage might not be deemed appropriate. There are a number of Shabbat-observant fans at local science fiction conventions, and they often congregate in Burstein's room for a festive Friday night meal, complete with wine and challah. As for his science fiction, Burstein said there's been nothing particularly Jewish about it... so far. Although there are many Jews who have made it big in science fiction, including Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, and Asimov himself, Burstein is one of the few who has succeeded in the genre who takes his religious obligations as seriously as his scientific ones.”

1971(2ndof Adar, 5731): Parashat Terumah

1971(2ndof Adar, 5731): Seventy-year-old Russian born American producer Oscar Serlin whose most famous play was “Life With Father” pass away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/28/archives/ocarsbrlin-70-produger-isdead-stage-hit-life-with-father-i-made-him.html

1972(12thof Adar, 5732): Sixty-two-year Vienna born, American expert on “medieval Islam” Gustave Edmund von Grunebaum, the husband of Giselle von Grunebaum with whom he had had two daughters, Claudia and Tessa, passed away today after a prolonged illness.

http://texts.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb9t1nb5rm;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00068&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=calisphere

https://books.google.com/books/about/Classical_Islam.html?id=93wIOnFD6q4C

1975(16thof Adar, 5735): One day before his 86th birthday, Hyman Levy passed away in Wimbledon.

http://www.scottish-places.info/people/famousfirst836.html

1975(16thof Adar, 5735): Seventy-six-year-old Lithuanian born Rabbi and JTS graduate Abraham Mayer Heller, the spiritual director of the Flatbush Jewish Center since 1924 and author who raised a son, Rabbi Zachary Heller with his wife the former Frances Lesser, passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1975/03/01/archives/abraham-heller-rabbi-dies-at-76-conservative-led-flatbush-jewish.html?searchResultPosition=3

 

1976: The World Sephardi Federation headed by Nessim Gaon met with King Juan Carlos of Spain. The WSF goal of helping to normalize relations with Israel and Spain did not come to fruition immediately, but over time a relationship developed and eventually the two countries recognized each other.

1978: After premiering at The São Paulo International Film in 1977, Lucio Flaviom a Brazilian film directed by Héctor Babenco was released in Brazil today.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the cabinet had agreed on a new settlement policy which apparently implied a virtual moratorium on new settlements in the administered territories. The cabinet, however, actually failed to make this statement official. At the same time the cabinet rejected any phrasing of the Palestine question in the declaration of principles, now being discussed with Egypt, which would go significantly further than the West Bank and Gaza autonomy scheme, already proposed to Egypt and the US by Israel.

1980: Egypt and Israel exchanged ambassadors for the first time.

1980(9th of Adar, 5740):  Seventy-eight-year-old character actor George Tobias passed away. Despite a long career that included performing in such hit movies as “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “Sergeant York” most Americans will remember him as Abner Kravitz, the husband of the busybody neighbor Alice Kravitz on the television sitcom “Bewitched.”

1980: At Mercer Island, Washington Julie Mahdavi and her “Iranian” husband gave birth to Ben Mahdavi, the “running back, linebacker and long snapper” at the University of Washington who went on to an NFL career with the Colts and Falcons while also earning “his BA in Communications and an MBA from University of Washington Michael G. Foster School of Business.

1980: Birthdate of Israeli MK Bazalel Yoel Smotrich, the conservative attorney who opposed the disengagement from Gaza and organized anti-LGBT events.

1981 (22nd of Adar I, 5741): Former New York Congressman Jacob Gilbert passed away at the age of 60.  Gilbert served in Congress from 1960 to 1971.

1981(22ndof Adar I, 5741): Forty-nine-year-old Jerry Gerd Landauer, the German born son of Adolph and Meta (Marx) Landauer who in 1938 came to the United States where he graduated from Columbia and worked as an award winning reporter for UPI, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal passed away today.

1983(14thof Adar, 5743): Purim

1983: In Philadelphia, Benjamin Bloom, an eye doctor, and Esther Stern-Bloom a retired Hebrew and French teacher gave birth to Yale trained baseball executive who had led the Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox while raising two sons – Isaiah and Judah—with his wife, the former Aliza Hochman.

1984: ABC broadcast the second and final episode of “Lace” featuring June Brown as “Mrs. Trelowney.”

1985:  “Prime Minister Shimon Peres told Egyptians envoys” in Jerusalem “today that Israel supported President Hosni Mubarak’s call for direct talks between Israel and delegation of Jordanians and Palestinians.”

1987: The Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, announced today that he had agreed with Egyptian officials that there should be an international conference on Middle East peace this year.

1988(9thof Adar, 5748): Shabbat Zachor

1988(9thof Adar, 5748): Seventy-six-year-old economist Moe Frankel who earned his doctorate from Rutgers University passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/01/obituaries/dr-moe-frankel-76-economics-educator.html

1988: Today, “TV presenter Esther Rantzen announced live on air that the people in the audience sitting around Nicky Winton were some of the children he had saved” which “was an overwhelming, unexpected and emotional moment and became the catalyst for an outpouring of written material tributes and accolades, including a knighthood in 2003…”

1989: U.S. premiere of “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors” with a script by Bruce Wagner.

1990(1stof Adar, 5750: Rosh Chodesh Adar

1990(1stof Adar, 5750): Eighty-two year old Brooklyn born NYU Law School graduate Samuel Perlman, the husband of the former Lucille Rabinowitz and “chief executive of L.M. Rabinowitz and Company” passed away today.

1990 (1st of Adar, 5750): Nahum N. Glatzer passed away. Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and educated in Germany, Glatzer moved to the United States in 1938 where he furthered his reputation as a literary scholar, theologian, and editor. A list of his works includes The Schocken Passover Haggadah, The Complete Stories of Franz Kafka and Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought

1991(13thof Adar, 5751): Ta’anit Esther; Erev Purim

1991(13thof Adar, 5751): Eighty-five-year-old Nathan Perilman who served as the rabbi at Manhattan’s Temple Emanu-El passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/28/obituaries/nathan-perilman-retired-rabbi-of-temple-emanu-el-dies-at-85.html

1991: President George H.W. Bush announced the end of the first Gulf War. During the war, the Israelis agreed not to join the coalition and not to retaliate against the Iraqi’s when they began firing Scuds into their country.  It was the first time that the Israelis had entrusted their security to another country.

1995: Uzi Baram replaced Yithak Rabin as Minister of the Interior

1995(27thof Adar I, 5756): Sixty-seven-year-old financier Bernard “Bernie” Cornfeld passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/02/obituaries/bernard-cornfeld-67-dies-led-flamboyant-mutual-fund.html

1997: Funeral services were held in Manhattan today for 97 year old May W. Hartman, the widow of Judge Gustave Hartman and mother of Kenneth Hartman and Alicia Ashe who was “founder of the Gustave Hartman YM-YWHA and for 25 years she was President of the Gustave Hartman Home for Children.

1997: Eighty-one-year-old Scottish painter William Gear who worked for the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section, making him one of the Monuments Men who play a major role in returning looted art, much of it taken by the Nazis from the Jews, to the rightful owners or their heirs.

1998: U.S. premiere of “Dark City” a sci-fi cinema with a script co-authored by David S. Goyer.

1998: The 25th European Athletics Indoor Championships in which Aleksandr Averbukh placed sixth in the Heptathlon opened today at Valencia.

2000:The opening ceremony of the temporary exhibition of photographs and artifacts, “The Jewish Community of Volos” took place, at the Jewish Museum of Greece.

2000: The European Indoor Championships during which Aleksandr Averbukh placed first in the Pole vault came to an end today in Ghent, Belgium.

2000:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Stroheim by Arthur Lennig.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/02/27/reviews/000227.27basingt.html

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/l/lennig-stroheim.html

2002: Thirty-four year old Gad Rejwan was shot by a Fatah terrorist north of Jerusalem.

2003: Today, Daniel Libeskind “won the competition to be the master plan architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center Site in Lower Manhattan.”

2003(25th of Adar I, 5763):  Eighty-nine year old Rabbi Noah Golinkin, the former spiritual leader of a Columbia synagogue who earned a national reputation for programs that taught Hebrew literacy to more than 150,000 Jewish adults, passed away today at Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center &amp; Hospital of complications after surgery. His one-day Hebrew Reading Marathon and its forerunner, the Hebrew Literacy Campaign, is credited with quickly giving adults enough knowledge of the language to follow the Hebrew prayer book. He wrote textbooks widely used to teach adults because he could not find any suitable for his programs. He is best known for his crash course, an eight-hour program that uses familiar Hebrew words, repetition, exercise, humor and encouragement to bring Hebrew reading familiarity to those who did not learn it as children.

http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2003-02-golinkin.php

2004: Today, in a case of a Jew honoring a Jew, actress Lauren Bacall, spoke at the posthumous induction of screenwriter Peter Stone into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

2005:  The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life by Tom Reiss

2006: The Harlem Globetrotters, the creation of Abe Saperstein, extended their overall record to 22,000 wins.

2006:  The Jerusalem Post reported that a new Israeli tourism campaign will take center stage at Emirates Stadium, the London home of English soccer giants Arsenal, starting in August.

2007: Holocaust survivors from around the world gather in Warsaw to urge the Polish government to compensate them for property confiscated by the former communist regime.

2007: Ninety-three-year-old Hitler aide Baron Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/world/europe/01loringhoven.html

2007(9thof Adar, 5767): Ninety-three year old Rabbi Marcus Schachter, the Romanian born son of Morris and Mary Schachter and husband of Claire Schachter “who, for 46 years, was the central pillar of the Halachah L'Maaseh program at RIETS where he held the Rabbi Dr. and Mrs. Leon Katz Professorship in Rabbinics” passed away today.

https://archive.nytimes.com/query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage-9C03E3D7173AF934A15751C0A9619C8B63.html

2007: Israel got its first Arab President.  Acting President Dalia Itzik left for a weeklong trip to the United States.  During that time, Jajallie Whbee, a Druse who had attained the rank of Lt. Colonel before retiring from the IDF, served in the largely ceremonial post.

2007: Commander Mark Polansky visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to meet Sophie Turner-Zaretsky.  He presented the replica of the bear called Refugee that had comforted Sophie during the Holocaust and a photo of an orphan from war-torn Dafur -- along with NASA space travel certificates -- to U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum chief of staff Bill Parsons, who said the Museum wanted to provide something that would be a timely reminder of history’s relevance. "Although we can send people into space, we still can’t seem to stop them from hating and killing one another. A child’s stuffed toy from the Holocaust and a photograph of a refugee from the genocide today in Darfur remind us the lessons of the Holocaust have yet to be learned."

2007: David Bromberg released “Try Me One More Time,” the first new studio album he had recorded since 1990.

2007: Teapacks performed four songs in a TV special, and the song "Push The Button" was chosen as the Israeli entry for the 2007 Eurovision Contest by popular vote

2008: The Finalist Grand Prize portion of The Second Annual Simply Manischewitz Cook-Off takes place in New York City.

2008 (21 Adar I 5768): Anthony Bernard Blond passed away.  The British publisher and author’s mother was a Sephardic Jew from Manchester and he was the cousin of Harold Laski, the noted British socialist and Laborite.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1580358/Anthony-Blond.html

2008(21 Adar I): Myron Cope, "the voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers" passed away.

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sports/uncategorized/obituary-myron-copes-career-spanned-newspapers-magazines-radio-and-tv-382354/

2008 (21 Adar I 5768): Approximately 50 Palestinian rockets hit the western Negev today, with one of them slamming into Sapir College near Sderot, killing a 47-year-old student. Another exploded on the helipad of Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, while the hospital was treating casualties from Sderot. The deceased, Roni Yechiah from the town of Btecha in the western Negev, was inside his car in Sapir's parking lot. He died of shrapnel wounds to the chest. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. Yechiah is survived by his wife, Esther, and four children: Niv, who is currently serving in the Israel Defense Forces, Lital, a 17-year-old high school pupil, her 14-year-old sister Coral and 8-year-old brother Idan.

2009:Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip continued their attacks on Israeli civilian areas early this morning when they fired a Kassam that hit an open area in the Sdot Negev region.

2009: Rick Recht returns to Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for another incomparable Musical Shabbat.  Rick is joined by the talented Abbe Silber, daughter of Dr. Bob &amp; Laurie Silber, pillars of the Jewish community.

2009:Robert M. Morgenthau, the long-serving Manhattan district attorney and an institution in New York City politics, will not run for re-election this year. Outside New York, Mr. Morgenthau is most well-known as the model for the original district attorney, Adam Schiff, on the television show “Law &amp; Order.” Mr. Morgenthau had a cameo on the show, portraying a judge.

2009: Former Iowa State University quarterback Sage “Rosenfels was acquired from the Texans by the Minnesota Vikings.”

2010: An Egyptian court overturned a lower court ruling today that called for a halt to natural gas exports to Israel, saying the deliveries should continue unhindered.

2010:An Israeli Arab rights committee sent a petition to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) today opposing the addition of Israel to the organization. After two years of official talks, the OECD will vote in May on whether to admit Israel.

2010: Shabbat Zachor!

2010:  In the evening, Purim and the reading of the Megillah.

2010:Glass falling from the atrium roof of the Sony Building in New York interrupted a Purim party. Ice reportedly broke through the glass roof of the midtown Manhattan building after 11 p.m. Saturday, injuring at least 10 of the 300 guests, according to reports. The party, reportedly given by Aish Hatorah, was attended by "Sex and the City" actor Chris Noth, as well as reality show "Jersey Shore" cast members Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi and Vinny Guadagnino. "Omg roof just collapsed!" Polizzi Tweeted from the party."I think me and @sn00ki felt the wrath for not being Jewish," Guadagnino Tweeted.The actors were not injured. 

2010(Adar 13, 5770):Eighty-nine year old Hank Rosenstein, who played in what is considered the National Basketball Association’s first game, in 1946, as an original member of the New York Knicks, died today in Boca Raton, FL. (As reported by Vincent M. Mallozzi)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/sports/basketball/03rosenstein.html

2010: Opening of Jewish Book Week in London, UK.

2011(27th of Adar I, 5771): Eighty-nine-year-old Philip Burgher, a World War II Army veteran passed away in Buffalo Grove, Illinois.

2011(27th of Adar I, 5771):Brazilian born author Moacyr Scliar, whose “The Centaur in the Garden,” was included among the 100 Greatest Works of Modern Jewish Literature by The National Yiddish Book Center, passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/books/06scliar.html

2011: The Prince of Kosher Gospel, Joshua Nelson, is scheduled to perform at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA.

2011: Closing night of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

2011: Closing night of The “Voices From a Changing Middle East” festival.

2011: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Modigliani: A Life by Meryle Secrest and Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall — From America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness by Frank Brady

2011: Among the Jewish winners are tonight’s Oscar ceremonies were:

Israel-born Natalie Portman for her portrayal of a tortured ballerina in “Black Swan”

Emile Sherman one of the co-producers of “The King’s Speech” which was named best picture

David Seidler of “King’s Speech” winning for original screenplay

Aaron Sorkin of “The Social Network” for adapted screenplay

Danish director-writer Susanne Bier, took the best foreign-language film statuette for “In a Better World,”

American filmmakers Kirk Simon and Karen Goodman won in the short documentary category for “Strangers No More” - a film based on the work of the Bialik-Rogozin School in south Tel

Director-writer Lee Unkrich accepted the award for his animated feature “Toy Story 3,”

Randy Newman won for his song “We Belong Together.”

Lora Hirschberg was one of the co-winners for the work of sound-mixing for “Inception.”

(As reported by JTA)

2012: Anna Kantar is scheduled to give a reading of poems by Leah Goldberg at the Stern College for Women in New York City.

2012: Open Women’s Mic Night featuring Poetry, Music, Comedy, whatever you do to entertain the ladies at David Lilimnick’s Off the Wall Comedy Club in Jerusalem

2012: The Tal Law cannot be extended by even one hour, and any attempt to ignore the issue is a mistake, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said at a press conference in the Knesset today (As reported by Lahav Harkov)

2012: Workers at the Haifa, Ashdod and Eilat ports who had held a one-day strike over pension-related demands yesterday will return to work today after a truce was reached at a late-night National Labor Court meeting.

2012: Nurses across Israel went on a 24-hour strike this morning, after overnight negotiations between the Finance Ministry and the chairman of the national nurses’ union failed to reach an agreement to prevent the strike.

2013: L'Chaim Kosher Vodka is scheduled to sponsor the reception that follows The SHUFFLE Concert that will feature performances by Eliran Avni, piano, Moran Katz, clarinet, Linor Katz, cello, Hassan Anderson, oboe, Francisco Fullana, violin, and soprano Ariadne Greif

2013: “The Mexican Suitcase” Rediscovered Spanish Civil War Negatives by Capa, Taro and Chim is scheduled to open at the Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme

2013: The Weiner Library is scheduled to sponsor a lecture by Mary Fulbrook, author of A Small Town Near Auschwitz

2013: In Portland, the Oregon Jewish Museum is scheduled to host a reception marking the opening of “Pictures of Resistance: The Wartime Photographs of Jewish Partisan Faye Schulman.”

2013: A panel of judges at the International Convention Center Haifa awarded the title of Miss Israel to 21 year old Yityish Aynaw “the young and gorgeous model, who came to Israel only about a decade ago from Ethiopia.” (As reported by Yori Yanover)

2014: The Consulate General of Israel in New York, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York and the Jewish National Fund are scheduled to honor Dr. Clarence B. Jones, co-author of the “I Have A Dream Speech” at the annual commemoration of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2014: Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen are scheduled to discuss their bestseller The New Digital Age at the Historic 6th&amp; I Synagogue.

2014: “In the wake of an alleged attack by Israel on a Hezbollah arms convoy, the organization’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, warned key military personnel of the possibility of war with the Jewish state, a Lebanese journalist with close ties to the organization said today. (As reported by Spencer Ho and Elhanan Miller)

2014: Soldiers are searching for the two Palestinian Arab men who robbed and stabbed an Israeli cab driver this evening near Ariel junction. (As reported by Maayana Miskin)

2015: In London, Jewish Book Week at the Jewish Museum is scheduled to come to an end.

2015: “A Happy End” by Iddo Netanayahu, the younger brother of Benjamin and Yonatan Netanyahu  is scheduled to be performed at Abingdon Theatre.

2015: “Deli Man” “Erik Greenberg Anjou’s forthcoming documentary about the dying (but perhaps reviving!) culture of Jewish delicatessens is a meal with many courses” is scheduled to being “its theatrical run in Florida and Arizona” today.

2015(17thof Shevat, 5775): Eighty-three-year-old Leonard Nimoy passed away today. (As reported Virginia Heffernan)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/arts/television/leonard-nimoy-spock-of-star-trek-dies-at-83.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&amp;smprod=nytcore-ipad&amp;_r=0

2016: Shabbat Ki Tissa

2016: “Einstein in the Holy Land” and “One in a Lifetime” are scheduled to be shown at the Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2016: In North Carolina, “Apples from the Desert” is scheduled to be shown at the Charlotte Jewish Film Festival.  (A reminder that there are thriving Jewish communities all over the United States)

2017(1stof Adar, 5777): Rosh Chodesh Adar

 

 

 

 

 

2017: “Through the Wall” a melodrama starring Noa Koller is scheduled to be shown at JW3 in London.

2017: “More than 200 Israelis attended the funeral of a complete stranger,” Holocaust survivor Hilde Nathan “from the Canary Islands who fulfilled a final wish to be buried in Israel alongside her mother.”

2017: The Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to host “Nuclear Weapons in the Trump Era.”

2017: The J Street annual convention is scheduled to continue for a third day at the Washington Convention Center.

2017: In Paris, “The State of Deception,” an exhibition that examines the Nazis use of “propaganda to win broad voter support, implement radical programs, and justify war and mass murder” is scheduled to come to an end today.

2017: Yiddish folk singer Cindy Paley is scheduled to lead a sing-along of Yiddish love songs at the Beverly Hills House Concert.

2018: Today, Stephen Mandel was elected Leader of the Albert Party…with 66% of the vote.

2018:The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host a presentation by Rabbi Joy Levitt and Rabbi Michael Strassfeld on “Wife and Husband: Ruth and Boaz”

2018: In Washington, D.C., the Tabard Inn is scheduled to host a screening of “Rosenwald” followed by “further readings and discussion with poet E. Ethelbert Miller and director, producer and writer Aviva Kempner.

2018(12th of Adar, 5778): Ninety-one-year-old Alan Gershwin, who claimed to be the “long-lost son of George Gershwin passed away today. (As reported by David Margolick)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/obituaries/alan-gershwin-who-claimed-a-famous-father-is-dead-at-91.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2018: “According to an ADL audit released” today, “there were 1,986 acts of anti-Semitism in the U.S. last year…comprising the largest one-year increase in recorded history.” (JTA)

2018: In Des Moines, Temple B’nai Jeshusrun is scheduled to host Shayna Steinger speaking “about her professional experiences with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.”

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Hamantashen Bake-Off followed by a sale of the pastries for the benefit of the Oxford Food Bank.

2018: JW3 is scheduled to host the penultimate screening of “Shalom Bollywood: The Untold Story of Indian Cinema.”

2018: The Hillel Jewish Leadership Council at the University of Virginia is scheduled to host an evening of “Hamantaschen Making: Bake Action Against Gun Violence.”

https://www.facebook.com/events/352979081774565/

2019: After expressing “contrition” and “apologizing to the Senate Intelligence Committee for the lies that he told during his 2017 testimony” when he appeared behind closed doors yesterday, Michael Cohen, “President Trump’s former fixer and personal attorney Michael Cohen is scheduled to testify publicly before the House Oversight Committee.

2019: The American Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to present a “Panel Discussion with Lila Corwin Berman (Temple University), Tony Michels (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Jonathan Sarna (Brandeis University), moderated by Samuel G. Freedman (Columbia University) discussing “Is American Different?  Anti-Semitism in the United States.”

2019: In Washington, DC, the Jewish Study Center is scheduled to host “The Secrets of Ashkenazi Comfort Food.”

2019: The JCC of Northern Virginia scheduled to host historian David Weinstein, author of The Eddie Cantor Story: A Jewish Life in Performance and Politics in a discussion of the “banjo-eyed entertainer” and “the history of American Jewish popular entertainment.

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/E/bo43630294.html

2020: The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “Wanderings: A Journey to Connect” and “The Wolf of Baghdad.”

2020: In San Francisco, the Jewish Community Library is scheduled to host “a talk by educator Tamar Zaken about how many immigrants to Israel had their names changed upon arrival.”

2020: In Berkley, the Haas Pavilion is scheduled to host “Jewish Heritage Night at Cal,” where the Cal vs Colorado basketball game will include the giving away Jewish Heritage Night t-shirts and a “post-game question and answer with a former Cal and B’nai Herzilya basketball player Sam Singer.

2020: JSoc is scheduled to host pre-drinks tonight ahead of a big Bridge night with President Sheinman!

2021:Addison-Penzak JCC in Los Gatos is scheduled to presents Zumba with instructor Joanna to celebrate Purim.

2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host a Torah Study session with Rabbi Feivel Strauss.

2021: In Columbus, OH, Tifereth Israel is scheduled to host via zoom a Happy Hour and Game Night, filled with “fun cocktail recipes and online games for adults.”

2021: Congregation Beth Am is scheduled to present online Santa Clara Law professor Michael Asimow leads a discussion of “The Trial of the Chicago Seven,” the 2020 film about the 1969 trial that had a Jewish judge, three Jewish defendants and a Jewish defense lawyer.

2021: Cocktail enthusiast Arah Rasp is scheduled to present online, a Purim-themed cocktail recipe, with a Purim conversation led by Addison-Penzak JCC’s Rabbi Laurie Matzkin.

2021: Israel is prepared to observe Shabbat under the terms of the curfew that began on the evening of February 25th and is scheduled to last through tomorrow.

2021: Temple Emanuel of Newton is scheduled to host online a screening of “Crip Camp,” a “feel-good documentary, executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, which recounts the ties of a Catskills summer camp to American disability rights activism in the 1970s.”

2021(15th of Adar, 5781): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shushan Purim; for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

This Day, February 28, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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February 28

628: Persian Shah Khosrau II who “conquered Jerusalem after a brief siege in 614 during the Byzantine – Sasanian War” came passed away today.

1255: Bishop Richard of Worms transferred to the chapter of the local cathedral, among other revenues from the city, the sum of 40 pounds heller which the Jewish community was obliged to pay annually on St. Martin's Day which falls on November 11.

1261: Henry III, the Duke of Brabant and Margrave who provided the first evidence Jews living in Antwerp when he “expressed his wish that the Jews of Brabant should be expelled and destroyed because they were all considered ‘usurers’’ passed away today.

1276(12th of Adar): Bishop Pierre III Rostaing guaranteed protection to the Jews of Carpentras, France in return for a tax of one-thirteenth of the total seat rents of the synagogue

1348: At the Cortes of Alcala de Hebares King Alfonso XI issued a "startling" decree which forbad Jews and Moors from lending money “at interet.”

1488: Joshua Solomon Soncino began printing copies of the Bible at Soncino, Italy.

1533:  Birthdate of French writer and philosopher Michael de Montaigne.  His mother, Antoinette de Louppes, came from a rich Spanish Jewish family, but was herself raised as a Protestant.  Should Montaigne be considered Jewish?  It depends upon whose list you look at, so I will leave it up to others to investigate more fully and decide.

1574: The first official Auto da Fe in the New World was held in Mexico after the establishment of the Inquisition 5 years earlier. The first unofficial Auto da Fe was actually held in 1528 when the conquistador Hernando Alonso was executed.

1575(18th of Adar II): Rabbi Elijah ben Moses de Vidas completed Reishit Hakhmah

1592: Clement VIII issued Cum saepe accidere, a Papal Bull that forbade the Jews of Avignon from selling new goods.

1593: Clement VIII issued Cum Haebraeorum militia, a Papal Bull decreeing that the Talmud should be burnt along with cabalistic works and commentaries, which gave the owners of such works 10 days to turn them over to the Universal Inquisition in Rome and subsequently two months to hand them over to local inquisitors.

1648: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” began his reign 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.”]

1659: Birthdate of Father Jean Morin, a French biblical scholar who was the first to edit the “Samaritan Pentateuch and Targum.

1660(16thof Adar I, 5420): Jacob Katzenellenbogen the son and successor of Abraham (Joseph Jacob) Katzenellenbogen of Lemberg who served as President of the bet din and head of the yeshibah of Lemberg passed away today.

1675: An agreement was ratified today that would allow 250 Jewish families to return Vienna and occupy 50 places of business.  In return for this privilege, the Jews agreed to make a payment of 300,000 florins and the payment of an annual tax of 10,000 florins.  The government agreed to the return of the Jews because the treasury was empty.

1677: In Newport, RI, Jewish community purchased land to be used as a cemetery

1715: Judah Monis “was admitted a freeman by the Mayor and Common Council of New York City today.

1720: Judah Monis, an Algerian born Jew who would become the first American author of a Hebrew grammar book arrived in New York.

1721: In New York City, Moses Raphael Levy and Grace Mears who had been married in London in 1718 gave birth to “Esther (Hetty) Levy,” the wife of Jacob Hart.

1747: Benedict XIV issued Postremomens, a Papal Bull that deals with the baptism of Jews.

1762: Dutch born Hyam Mers and Rachel Louzada who were married in New York in 1751, gave birth to Belle Myers, the wife of Samuel Asher Levy.

1767(29thof Adar I, 5527): Parashat Pekudei; Shabbat Shekalim

1781: Birthdate of German native Isaac Jacob Bamberger, the husband of Babette Treu, Bella Jacobs and Gela Weil and father of Bertha, Henry, Ansel, Rosa and Clara Bamberger.

1784: Moses Cohen de Larah arrived in Savannah after which he lived in Charleston and Philadelphai.

1784: Ralph de Pass, a “vendue master” (auctioneer) arrived in Savannah today from Jamaica before moving on to Charleston, SC where he passed away in 1812.

1784: Jacob de Pass, the son of Ralph de Pass arrived in Savannah today from Jamaica the place to which he would return in 1788.

1784: Esther de Pass, the future wife of Samuel da Costa, arrived in Savannah today.

1784: One day after he had passed away, Nathan ben Hayyim, was buried today, erev Shabbat, at the “Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery.”

1787: The state legislature of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania granted Hugh Henry Breckenridge a charter for a school that is now known as the University of Pittsburgh. Today, there are approximately 1,800 Jewish students among the total undergrad population of 16,000 and 500 Jewish students among the 7,000 graduate students. The university offers a major in Jewish studies.  Jewish students can avail themselves of programs offered by Hillel and Chabad as well as find kosher meals at the “Kosher Korner” at the University Center.

1799: Birthdate of Father Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger author of “The Jews In Europe.”

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_21/June_1882/The_Jews_in_Europe_I

1799: Napoleon, the first European leader to meet with Jewish leaders in Palestine, led his army out of Gaza and headed for Ramallah.

1799: In Georgetown, SC, Belle Moses and Solomon Cohen who were married her hometown of Charleston in 1786 gave birth to Sarah Henrietta Cohen, the wife of Mordecai Myers and then Robert Phillips.

1805(29thof Adar I, 5565): Naphtali Hirz Wessely, the Jewish man of letters born at Hamburg in 1725 and educated at Copenhagen passed away today in his native city.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0021_0_20854.html

1811(4th of Adar, 5571): Eighty-six-year-old Jakob Faibel, the husband of Ewa Duschenes passed away in Prague.

1812: Birthdate of German-Jewish author Berthold Auerbach.  Born Moses (Moyses) Baruch, Auerbach published a novel entitled Spinoza: Ein Historischer Romanin 1837.  He passed away in 1882 at the age of 70.

1814: Two days after she had passed away, Bilhah Gompertz, the son of Barnet Gompertz and Rachel Benjamin Isaac was buried today at the “Hoxton Old Burial Ground.”

1819(3rdof Adar, 5579): Jochebed Levy, the daughter of Simeon Levy passed away. (She is not to be confused with other contemporaries with the same name.)

1823: Birthdate of Ernest Renan a French author who specialized in studies of the ancient languages and civilizations of the Middle East. Late in life, Renan wrote a three volume “History of Israel.”  The first volume appeared in 1887 and the final volume appeared in 1897. Some claimed that he was an anti-Semite (anti-Jewish) because of comments about the limitations of the Semitic mind.  But Renan contended that the Jewish people were not a race in the biological and he was an opponent of the nationalism that took hold in Germany in the latter of the 19th century because of its anti-Semitic component.

1824(29thof Adar I, 5584): Parashat Vayakhel; Shabbat Shekalim

1826: Birthdate of Prague native and Czech trained physician William Tausig who immigrated to New York in 1847 and moved on to St. Louis a year later where he was elected Mayor in 1852 in which would mark the start of decades of public service that included serving as St. Louis County Judge, the raising of two regiments during the Civil War to turn back Rebel raiders and the construction of the first road and railroad bridge across the Mississippi River

1827(1st of Adar): Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Shklov passed away

1828(13thof Adar, 5588): Ta’anit Esther; Erev Purim

1829(25th of Adar): Wolf Breidenbach passed away   p137

1831: In Philadelphia, John A. Forepaugh and Susannah Heimer gave birth to Adam John Forepaugh, the circus owner who included Leopold S. Kahn, “the dwarf performer” known as Admiral Dot among his acts in the 1890’s

1832: Birthdate of Moritz Wahrmann, the native of Budapest and the grandson of Israel Wahrman and brother of Alexander Wahrmann who was a leader of the Jewish community, a member of the Hungarian Parliament and President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Budapest.

1837: In Bavaria, Jakob Neumond and his wife gave birth to Isidore Newman the husband of Rebecca Kiefer and “head of the banking firm of Isidore Newman and Sons, the “owner of street railway systems” in several cities and the President of the New Orleans Stock Exchange whose philanthropies included chairing the Board of Trustees of the Endowment Fund for the Jewish Widows’ and Orphans’ Home, chairing the Endowment Fund of the Touro Infirmary Board, Commissioner of Audubon Park and the founding of the Isidore Newman Manuel Training School.

1838: Birthdate of French engineer Maurice Levy.

1838: In New York City, Myer David Cohen and Judith Simha Solis gave birth to Jacob Da Silva Solis Cohen, the husband of Miriam Binswanger with whom he had eleven children who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson Medical College and who served with both the U.S. Army and Navy during the Civil War before pursuing a career as a leading laryngologist in Philadelphia.

https://archives.cjh.org//repositories/3/resources/356

  

1842: B'ne Yeshurun, a congregation organized by the German Jews living in Cincinnati, Ohio was incorporated under the laws of the state of Ohio.

1842: In Cleveland, Ohio, Anshe Chesed (now Anshe Chesed - Fairmount Temple) which had been founded as a German Orthodox congregation in 1841 was chartered today.  The congregation had 30 members and Asher Lehman served as the Rabbi.

1843: In Bishop-Purnitz, Austria, Mina and Benedict Greenhut gave birth to Joseph B. Greenhut, a decorated Civil War veteran and a successful Chicago, Illinois, businessman.

1845: Sarah Moses and Alexander Jones gave birth to Lewis Jones.

1847: In Canterbury, Kent, Hannah Baranard and Nathan Jones gave birth to their daughter Ellah Jacobs.

1849: London born Amelia Joel and Solomon Marks gave birth to Mary Marks.

1850: The General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret established the University Desert which was the forerunner of the University of Utah located at Salt Lake City, Utah. Today the university has approximately 350 Jewish students out of a student population of 15,000.  The school has ten courses in Jewish studies and offers a major degree in Jewish Studies.  Not bad for a school founded deep the heart of the land of Brigham Young.

1851(26thof Adar I, 5611):  Annie Ezekiel, the England born daughter of Sarah and Abraham Ezekiel, the husband of Exeter, England, Benjamin Jonas with whom she had nine children passed away today in Cincinnati, OH.

1853: One day after he had passed away, Jacob Aaron, a London hosier and haberdasher, the son of “Leib Milkman Aaaron”, husaband of the former Catherine Benjamin with whom he had had six children was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1854: The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin. The party was formed in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska act and was designed to stop the Democrats’ pro-slavery agenda.  Some of the Jews who were active in the early days of the party were Sabato Morais, rabbi of the Mikveh Israel Congregation, Moritz Pinner who edited a German language abolitionist paper in Kansas, Kentuckian Lewis Naphtali Dembitz, uncle of the Louis Brandeis and New Yorker Sigsmund Kaufman who was an a member of the electoral college that chose Abraham Lincoln to serve as President in 1860.

1855: In a demonstration of the extent to which Jewish concepts have penetrated the general cultural milieu, while giving a speech in New York on the habits of North American Indians, General Sam Houston tells the audience that until “the spirit of revenge had been conquered by civilization” the law of the Cherokee Nation “was the same as that practiced under the old dispensation by the Jews of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and blood for blood.”

1858(14thof Adar, 5618): Purim

1858(14thof Adar, 5618): Joseph Reuben Romm, the third generation of printers of Hebrew books, who moved the family business from Grodno to Vilna, passed away today.

1858: At Frankfurt Am Main, Selig Meier Goldschmidt and Clementine Goldschmidt gave birth Helene Goldschmidt, the future wife of Leon Yehudah Tedesco making her Helen Tedesco.

1860: “In Nieder-Rehbach, Austria-Hungary (today in Romania,” Julia and Ignatz Bker gave birth to Milwaukee, WI socialist journalist Victor L. Berger, the husband of fellow socialist Meta Schlichting and the first member of the Socialist Party to hold a seat in the U.S. House of Representative.

https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1851-1900/Representative-Victor-Berger-of-Wisconsin,-the-first-Socialist-Member-of-Congress/

https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/9304

1861: Birthdate of Kuppenheim, Germany native and San Francisco trained lawyer Julius Kahn, the U.S Congressman who was a strong advocate for national defense before, during and after WW I and the author of legislation designed to exclude Chinese immigrants while enjoying the unique distinction of having his wife Florence Prag Kahn succeed him in the House after he passed away.

https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/K/KAHN,-Julius-(K000003)/

1862: “Affairs In Utah” published today described the drive of those living in that territory to become a state in the Union. “As things go, it does seem apparent that Jews and Gentiles here are, more or less, under the conviction that the particular time ‘in the course of human events’ is at hand when a change is inevitable in the fashion of Government among "this people." Some may be surprised to hear of Jews connected with Utah which is almost synonymous with the Mormon Religion. The first Jews who settled in Utah were probably “dropouts” from the wagon trains heading to California during the California Gold Rush. By 1853, two Jews had established a millenary store in Salt Lake City. The first non-Mormon governor of Utah would be a Jew named Simon Bamberger.  As to the issue of statehood, it would be another 34 years before that goal was reached.  The price of admission would be a formal rejection by the Mormons of the practice of polygamy.  To date, this is the only time that the federal government has “interfered” with the doctrines of a religious organization.

1862(28thof Adar I, 5622): Meyer Schoenfeld, who is buried in the New Mount Sinai Cemetery &amp; Mausoleum in St. Louis County, passed away today.

1863: The will of the late Commodore Uriah P. Levy, U.S. Navy, which has been admitted to probate, is now before the Supreme Court, at Special Term. Proceedings have been “instituted to break it, in respect to its bequests to the people of the United States, or the State of Virginia, and then to certain Hebrew congregations in New-York, Philadelphia and Richmond, for the purpose of founding an agricultural school at Monticello, in the State of Virginia.”

1865: In Geneva, Kate, née Levison and Michel Bergson gave birth to Mina Begson, the sister of Henri Bergson who gained fame as “artist and occultist” Moina Mathers.

1866(13thof Adar, 5626): Ta’anit Esther; Erev Purim

1868(5th of Adar): Rabbi Israel Muschkat, author of Harei Besamim, passed away.

1869: In Austria-Hungary, Philip and Marie (Goldfinger) Greenbaum gave birth to Philadelphia Dental College graduate, Max Greenbaum, D.D.S, the husband of Blanche Goldsmith and author of “The Practice of Dentistry” who was a member of Keneseth Israel.

1875: Birthdate of Kiev native Morris Garfunkel, the resident of New York and President of the Garfunkel Conditioning Corporation.

1877(15thof Adar, 5637): Shushan Purim

1875: Birthdate of Riga native Adolph Abbey, the student of Rabbi Isaac Eichanan Spector and University of Oregon trained attorney who led congregations in Washington, D.C. and Spokane, WA before becoming the rabbi at the Hall Street Synagogue in Portland, OR.

1878: Birthdate of Warsaw native Zdzisław Birnbaum, the Polish violinist and conductor who served two terms as Music Director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.

1879: One day after he had passed away, Isaac Horwitz, the son of “Abraham Horwitz” and “Lena Altman” was buried today in the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1880: In New York City, Samuel Steinbrink, who operated a small candy store on the east side and Fredricka (Stein) Steinbrink gave birth to NYU trained attorney and Republican party member Meier Steinbrink, the husband of Sadie Bloch and father of Stuart Steinbrink and Miriam Abelow who became a New Your State Supreme Court Justice and President of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn as well as a “director and incorporator of the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Chairites.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/12/08/89997995.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1880: In Lithuania, Lazarus and Miriam (Burros) Abramowitz gave birth to Herman Rabinowitz, who in 1890 came to the United States where he graduated from CCNY, Columbia and the Jewish Theological Seminary before moving to Canada in 1903 where he served as Rabbi of Montreal’s Shaar Hashomayim Congregation and the Senior Jewish Chaplain in the Canadian Army during WW I while also founding the Canadian Jewish Congress and raising two children with “his wife, the former Theresa Bockar.

1882 In Hungary, Judah and Marjem Grunwald gave birth William Vilmus Grunwald, the borther of Samuel, Hani, Emanuel and Ida Ethel Grunwald.

1882(9thof Adar, 5642): Eighty-four-year-old Almeria Levy, the daughter of Jacob and Hannah de Leon and wife of Hayman Levy passed away today in Philadelphia.

1882: It was reported today that the Russian government offered an explanation to the British government for the expulsion of Mr. Lewisohn from the Czar’s empire.  While the British saw Lewisohn as an English citizen, the Russians saw him as being a Jew.  And in Russia, Jews, regardless of the country in which they live, are considered to be Jews which make them a thing without legal standing.

1882: John w. Foster will deliver a lecture on “The Czar and His People” a tonight’s meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association at Chickering Hall in New York City.

1883: In New York City, Louis and Ethel (Baltan) Finkelstein gave birth to Columbia trained physician Rae B. Blum who was the “consulting orthopedic surgeon at Jewish Memorial Hospital and a member of the original founding staff of the Hospital for Joint Diseases, where he was a chief of orthopedic surgery;

1883: In the U.K. British Zionist and barrister Herbert Bentwich and Susannah Bentwich gave birth to Norman De Mattos Bentwich who “was the British-appointed attorney-general of Mandatory Palestine.

1886(23rdof Adar I, 5646): Pawnbroker Aaron Simon, a native of Prussia, passed away today after which he was buried at the Wolverhampton Old Jewish Burial Ground.

1887: Rumania excluded Jews from public service and the tobacco trade.

1887: Birthdate of William Zorach, “a Lithuanian-American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and writer” who won the Logan Medal of the arts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Zorach#mediaviewer/File:William_Zorach,_Moses,_1952.JPG

1889(27th of Adar I, 5649): In Edinburgh, Marcus Levy, a picture frame maker and Minna Levy, a draper, gave birth to Hyman Levy.

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Levy_Hyman.html

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Obits/Levy_Hyman.html

1890: Lena Catosk Pearlstone, the Mississippi born daughter of Mina and Louis Hart and her husband Barney Pearlstone gave birth to Morris Pearlstone

1891: Birthdate of Yaakov Kamenetsky, the Lithuanian born Rosh Yeshiva and Talmudist, who moved to North America in 1937 where he served as a Rabbi in several U.S. and Canadian cities.

1892: In Buffalo, NY Nathan and Esther (Freedman) Aaron gave birth to University of Buffalo trained attorney A. Howard Aaron, a member of Temple Beth Zion and supporter of the Jewish Federation for Social Service who was the husband of Arline Schwartz.

1893: Decrees ordering the expulsion of the Jews from Poland today which were even more far-reaching than those that had been issued expelling Jews from their homes in Russia.

1894: In New York City, Joseph Seligman and Babette Seligman gave birth to Walter Joseph Seligman

1894: In New York City, Joseph and Sarah Swernofsky Hecht gave birth to Racine, Wisconsin resident and American playwright Ben Hecht, the two-time Oscar winner whose most famous work was “The Front Page” which he co-authored with Charles MacArthur but whose real claim to fame for some was his ardent support for the Zionist cause.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ben-Hecht

https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hecht-Fighting-Moving-Pictures/dp/030018042X

1895: It was reported today that the officers of the Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home are: Lucien Bonheur, President; Miss Gertrude Hess, Vice President; James Loeb, Treasurer; Amelia Simon, Secretary.

1895: “Great Hebrew Charity” published today included Jacob Schiff’s acknowledgement of the receipt $10,063.19 for the Montefiore Home that was raised by the recent charity ball as well as an additional $2,000 that came from payment of dues.

1895: “German Hebrew Immigration” published today described the debate in the Reichstag on restricting the immigration of Jews from Russia and Austria which one deputy described as being “so great as to amount to a national plague.” Deputies from the Social Democrats and National Liberty Party voiced their opposition to any restrictive measures which led to an end to the debate.

1895: Birthdate of New York City native and Johns Hopkins trained obstetrician and gynecologist Jacob Pearl Greenhill, the author Office Gynecology.

1896(14thof Adar, 5656): Purim

1896: Two days after she had passed away, Sarah (Levy) Moses, the wife of Moses Moses, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1897: One day after she had passed away, 71-year-old Henrietta Cohen, the wife of Marcus Cohen, was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1897(26thof Adar I, 5657): Fifty-eight-year-old the Cracow born Austrian physician Blumenstock von Halban who was raised to nobility in 1891 in recognition of his service as chairman of the forensic medicine department passed away today.

1898: In New York City, Polish Jewish immigrants “Clara (née Ostrow), a wardrobe mistress, and Louis Opiekun, a shirtmaker” gave birth Malka Opiekun who gained fame as actress Molly Picon.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/molly-picon

http://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-Mi-So/Picon-Molly.html

1898: Two days after he had passed away 63-year-old Nathaniel Nathan was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1898: In Lisrobin, Kiskeam, County Cork James and Margaret O’Flaherty gave birth to Hugh O’Flaherty, the priest and Roman Curia official who risked his life to save Allied P.O.W.’s and Italian Jews

http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-unbelievable-heroic-story-of-irelands-overlooked-oscar-schindler/

1898(6thof Adar, 5658): Eighty-two-year-old Joseph Baron von Morpurgo passed away today at Trieste.

1898: “The Get-Together Clubs” of New York and Brooklyn met this evening where the general discussion of “The Problem of the Unemployed” including a presentation by N.S. Rosenau, the Director of the United Hebrew Charities.

1900: During the Second Boer War the 118-day siege of Ladysmith came to an end. 1899: Major Karri Davies was one of the Jewish soldiers who fought in defense of the British position at Ladysmith. There were at least 2,800 Jews fighting for the British and an untold number fighting for the Boers.

1901: Birthdate of Vilem Bribram, a member of the Czech Army who was buried in the East Ham Jewish Cemetery in 1944.

1902(21stof Adar I, 5662): Fifty-two-year-old Gratz Mordecai, the Washington, D.C. born son Sarah Ann Hays and West Point graduate Alfred Mordecai, the youngest brother of Civil War hero Alfred Mordecai and the husband of Frances Kingsland Gifford whom he married in 1900 and who was the author of A Report on the Terminal Facilities for Handling Freight of the Railroads Entering the Port of New York passed away today in Swarthmore, PA.

1902: Two days after she had passed away, Elizabeth Michaels was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1903: Max Nordau meets Leopold Greenberg in Paris and sends a wire to Herzl: "Greenberg had obtained everything that can possibly be conceded in an official agreement."

1904: The first entry was made on the marriage register of the Artillery Lane Synagogue.

1905: In New York, the initial meeting of a “Choral Society for Ancient Hebrew Melodies” was held at the rooms Young Men’s Hebrew Association under the direction of Mr. Rosenblatt.

1906: In the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn Jennie (Riechenthal) and Max Siegel gave birth to Benjamin Siegel who gained fame as mobster Ben “Bugsy” Siegel considered by some to be “the father of Las Vegas.”

https://www.biography.com/people/bugsy-siegel-9542063

1907(14thof Adar, 5667): Purim

1907(14thof Adar, 5667): Ninety-two Canadian “businessman and financier” Jacob Henry Joseph passed away today in Montreal.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/biology-physics-cooper-westinghouse/

1907: In Hillsboro, OH, John and Elizabeth Caniff gave birth to cartoonist Milton Arthur Paul Caniff the creator of “Steve Canyon” and “Terry and the Pirates.” 

1907(14thof Adar, 5667): Eighty-year-old Wilhelm Rapp passed away.  Born in Germany in 1827, he moved to the United States in 1852 after having participated in the failed Revolutions of 1848. Rapp edited newspapers in several cities before the Civil War.  An outspoken abolitionist and Unionist he was forced to flee from Baltimore to Washington, DC in 1861. Rapp turned down President Lincoln’s offer to make him postmaster general and moved to Chicago, Illinois where worked as a newspaper editor until his death.

1908: In Milwaukee, WI, Henry and Anna Gattman gave birth to Marie Louise Gattman the “ex-wife of Hyman Hirsh.”

1909: In Kensington (UK) Edward Harold Spender and Violet Hilda Schuster who was consider “half Jewish” because her father’s family had been German Jews before converting gave birth to Poet Laureate Sir Stephen Spender whose identification with the Jewish people was strengthened by the fact that his second wife was English Pianist and author Natasha Spender.

1910: “Leon Kamarky and Jacob Faphirstein of New York told President Taft today that for a number of years the Jews of” the United States “had been endeavoring to secure action that would give American citizens freedom from political arrest in Russia” and “President Taft said he was deeply interested in the matter and had instructed Mr. Rockhill,” the American Ambassador to St. Petersburg “to make strong representations to the Russian Government looking to the inviolability of America of American passports” in Russia.”

1911: Akron, Ohio businessman Bert A. Polsky and the former Hazel Steiner gave birth to their daughter Peggy who was the wife of H.C. Dodge.

1911: Birthdate of Judah Leon Bernstein who gained fame as photographer Lou Bernstein.

https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/lou-bernstein?all/all/all/all/0

1912(10thof Adar, 5672): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of Rabbi Joseph Chajes of Lamberg who passed away in 5445 on the Jewish calendar.

1913(21stof Adar I, 5673): Fifty-seven-year-old Phil Phillips passed away in Cardiff, Wales.

1915(14thof Adar, 5675): Purim

1915: “One thousand members of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association attended” services at Temple Beth-El in New York this “morning to celebrate the festival of Purim.”

1915: Tonight “The Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Congregation, the oldest in the United States” presented “a series of tableaux representing the influence of Jews on the early history of America.”

1915: The Church Peace Union founded by Andrew Carnegie whose trustees are 29 prominent clergymen including those from Jewish organizations made public an address cautioning the clergy “against partisanship in discussing the European War and protesting against the agitation for increased armaments.”

 1915: In Brooklyn, NY, Israel Mostel and Cina "Celia" Druchs gave birth Samuel Joel "Zero" Mostel an actor known for his roles in the original version of “The Producers” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”

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

http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/179731%7C179732/Zero-Mostel-Profile.html

1915: “Aid For Polish Jews” published today described efforts that have been organized in the United States and Petrograd to provide aide for the approximately 500,000 Jews of Galicia who have been “ruined” by the war.

1915: It was reported today that “the large number of Jewish refugees arriving in Moscow from various parts of” war torn Poland are given “a sympathetic reception” while “the situation is quite different for Jewish refugees…who arrive in Petrograd” who now “are all being sent back to the pale of settlement.”

1916(24th of Adar I, 5676): Morris Lasker, aged 76, millionaire miller, pioneer, Indian fighter and philanthropist died in Galveston, Texas, this afternoon.  Mr. Lasker won wide fame when he led the Jews of the South in a fight for the life and vindication of Leo Frank, who was convicted in Atlanta for the murder of Mary Phagan.  Mr. Lasker came to America from Germany at the age of 16.  He “was in the mercantile business in George for three years, and then came to Texas, settling at Weatherford, where he engaged in many expeditions against the Indians.”  He settled in Galveston in 1867 and married Miss Nettie Davis of Albany, NY, the widow who survives him, along with six children including Albert Lasker of Chicago.

1916: The Board of Trustees of Congregation Orachim held a special meeting today where they adopted resolutions expressing their sorrow at the death of Henry Glass, the President of Henry Glass and Company.

1916: On the same day that it was reported that the Czar has granted freedom of travel to Jews from the United States, Judge Leon Sanders said that as a result of the work of New York lawyer Isidore Hershfield “sums of money are now being sent to Russia by Jewish immigrants in” in the United States “which will far surpass the amounts thus far collected for relief purposes.

1916: Henry James, one of the literary giants of the 19th century, passed away.  For more about how James viewed Jews including his review of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda see Milton Kerker’s Henry James on the Jewish scene/

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-112354673.html

1917: “The 5,000 members of the Federation of Hebrew Grocers’ Association have been advised by their executive committee” “which met last night” “to close the 8,000 retail grocery stores which they operate unless the housewives, now boy boycotting certain foodstuffs, are force to change their tactics.”

1917: Two days after she had passed away today, 58 year old Kate Samuel, the “wife of Ralph Samuel” was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1917: Today, fearing a violent revolution, “the High Command of the Russian tried to convince Czar Nicholas II to abdicate in favor Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, his younger brother.

1917:: Two days after he had passed, 46 year old Morris Hymovitch was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1918: “The 150 recruits for the Jewish units in the British Army who have enlisted” in the United States “were mustered into the service at the British and Canadian Recruiting Mission” in New York City “and led by mounted policemen, a band and British and Canadian officers down Fifth Avenue to the Fall River line pier from which point they embarked on their way to way

1919: Birthdate of Leo Cantor who “played halfback at the University of California-Los Angeles from 1938-1941. He then played defensive back, halfback, and fullback in the NFL with the New York Giants in 1942 and for the Chicago Cardinals in 1945.”

http://scjewishsportshof.com/cantor.html

http://www.nfl.com/player/leocantor/2511023/profile

1919: Following the decision to combine two Yiddish newspapers whose readers were “the younger and more progressive Orthodox Jews, the Day-Warheit appeared for the first time today

1919: In Paris, Dr. Sikolow, the head of the Zionist delegation to the Peace Conference who summed up the aspirations of the Jews as comprising the recognition of the historic title of the Jews people to Palestine and the right to re-establish national home” “said today that the Supreme Council gave an attentive hearing to the Zionist case.”

1920(9thof Adar, 5680): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

1920: Oscar S. Straus, the former Ambassador to Turkey said today that the people of the United States “should demand immediate ratification of the Paris Peace Treaty” and that “the responsibility for delaying the reconstruction of the world rests upon the United States of America” and those who wish to make ratification the issue in the upcoming Presidential campaign.

1921: Fire destroys 120 homes and a large number of shops in the Jewish quarter of Kouskoundjouk, Constantinople. Most of these belonged to poor Jews.

1921: Conference of rabbis in Jerusalem elects a court of Justice and chooses four Ashkenazi and four Sephardi rabbis with Rabbi Kook (Ashkenazi) &amp; Jacob Meir (Sephardic).

1921: In Passaic, NJ, “Morris and Goldie Zaentz, Jewish refugees from a shtetl in eastern Poland” gave birth to Oscar award winning movie producer Saul Zaentz whose work included “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Next” and “Amadeus” (As reported by Robert McFadden

1925: In Hamilton, Ontario, an immigrant Hebrew teacher from the Ukraine and his wife gave to McGill University graduate and NYU Ph.D. Louis Nirenberg, “a mathematician who explored the complexities of equations commonly used by physicists and engineers, and who shared the 2015 Abel Prize, a top math award modeled after the Nobles.” (As reported by Kenneth Chang)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/science/louis-nirenberg-dead.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00449-y

1926(14thof Adar, 5686): Purim

1926 Programs celebrating Purim are scheduled to take place at all of the 91 institutions affiliated with the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies.

1926: “Young Judaea Clubs throughout” the United States presented plays as part of their Purim celebrations.

1926: In New York, the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews held an open house on Purim.

1928: In Malden, Massachusetts, “Katherine (Hellerman) Greenfield” and Nathan Greenfield, who “was in the wool and waste business” gave birth to Joshua Joseph Greenfield “the Oscar nominated screenwriter” who chronicled the life of his autistic son. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/obituaries/josh-greenfeld-who-chronicled-his-sons-autism-dies-at-90.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1929:”The Jewish Immigrant Aid Society of Canada issued an official statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent” in Montreal “denying the previous report that the Society had received 2,500 permits for the admission of Jewish immigrants to Canada and that there is a 5,000 qota for Jewish immigrants under present regulations.

1928:  The Soviets decided to set up a Jewish district in Biro-bijanin Eastern Siberia. Most of its 14,200 square miles were uninhabitable due to floods. It was to be used as a buffer zone against China.

1929:  In Toronto, Thelma (née Kaplanski/Caplan) and Irving Goldberg gave birth to architect Frank Gehry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Gehry#/media/File:Dr_Chau_Chak_Wing_Building_from_The_Goods_Line_(27438092220).jpg

1930: Birthdate of Bronx native and Columbia trained Nobel Prize laureate Leon N. Cooper, the husband of Kay Allard.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060316094457/http://physics.nobel.brainparad.com/leon_neil_cooper.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/biology-physics-cooper-westinghouse/

1931(11thof Adar, 5691): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

1931: “A letter from Professor Albert Einstein commending the work of American Jewry in its efforts to rehabilitate the Jews of Eastern and Central Europe was made public” today “by Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, chairman of the 1931 fund of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee which is seeking $2,500,000 to continue reconstruction work among destitute European Jews.”

1932: It was reported today that Eugene Meyer, Jr., chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation would be one of the witnesses to be called by the Senate Banking and Currency Committee which is holding hearings on the behavior the stock markets flowing the passage of “the Glass-Steagall credit stimulus.”

1933(2ndof Adar, 5693): Eighty-four-year-old Lautenburg, Germany native David Davidson, the Breslau educated Rabbi who came to the United States in 1880 where he served on the “faculty of Hebrew Union College” and led several congregations including Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Des Moines from 1881 to 1885 passed away today.

1934(13thof Adar, 5694): In the depths of the Great Depression, for some Jews, the fast of Esther was just one more day without food.

1935(25th of Adar I, 5695): Jeannette Miriam Goldberg, who organized Texas chapters of the National Council of Jewish Women and the Jewish Chautauqua Society, passed away.

1936: The celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding the Young Men’s Hebrew Association took place today in Atlantic City, NJ.

1936:Otto David Tolischus, the Prussian born Pulitzer Prize winning correspondent today wrote a description of the Nazi regime that began with the withering words: “Like every successful revolution that wants to be more than successful in ousting the ins by the outs the National Socialist revolution is eagerly seeking to creates its own style of living which shall visibly demonstrate its totalitarian character and wean the populace from any longing to return to ‘the good old day,’ thereby helping to assure the permanence of the new regime.

1937: It was reported today that Rabbi Sidney E. Goldstein of the Free Synagogue will chair “a community program on ‘Marriage and the Home’”

1937: “More than 100 Jews of German origin attended a service held in memory of the Jews who have died as a result of Nazi persecution sponsored by the German Jewish Congregation and led by Rabbi Max Malina.

1937: In “Jewish Literature” published today John Cournos provided a review of Volume III of A History of Jewish Literature from the Close of the Bible to Our Own Days by Meyer Waxman.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/02/28/118958393.pdf

1938: During the Arab revolt, “an armed Arab mob” attacked Tirat Tzvi, “a kibbutz in the Beit She’an Valley.

1938: As the latest wave of Arab violence continued, The Palestine Post reported that the "representatives" of armed bands were regularly visiting Arab towns and villages, demanding money for their "activities" and issuing "receipts." A bridge on the Jenin-Afula road was damaged by an explosion and there were numerous shooting incidents throughout the country. A curfew was imposed on a number of villages after armed Arab terrorists stormed isolated police posts and stole arms and ammunition, intimidating the local Arab constables.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that The Union of Romanian Journalists expelled all Jews who became members after December 1919.

1939: The curfew that had been imposed on all of the Arab quarters starting on February 26 following the murder of 3 Jews by Arabs was scheduled to come to an end today at 6 A.M.

1940: The British adopted the MacDonald White Paper that included restriction of sale of Arab land to Jews in Eretz Yisrael. This document nearly voided the Balfour Declaration

1940: Ben “Auberbach and his NYU squad played against in Georgetown University in a doubleheader at Madison Square Garden in one of the first two college basketball games to ever appear on television.”

1941(1stof Adar, 5701): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1941: “A gold medal for the most creative idea submitted in a poster contest for Brotherhood Weed, conducted by the National Conference of Christians and Jew was presented” today “to Joseph Hess, a senior in the School of Industrial Art.”

1941: It was reported today that ‘the immigration quotas of the United States” and other countries “remain unfilled because Jews” in Vienna who are in a position to meet immigration requirements have not the money to pay for transportation which means they will be “transferred” Poland.

1942: In Tel Aviv, Aharon Werba, a civil servant who made Aliyah in 1933 and his wife Chava gave birth to Dorit Werba who as Dorit Beinish was the first woman to serve as president of the Supreme Court of Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Madam-Chief-Justice

1943: George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" opened on Broadway with Anne Brown and Todd Duncan.  The musical originally premiered in 1935 and survived for a mere 124 performances.  The musical was revised after Gershwin's death and slowly gained popular and critical acclaim.

1943: Brotherhood Week came to an end today.

1943: In Kovono Ghetto, thousands of Jews attend the funeral of Rabbi Avraham Duber Shapiro, Chief Rabbi of Kovno despite an order from the Nazis forbidding them to do so.

1944(4thof Adar, 5704): Sixty-three-year-old Kishinev native Semion Portugeiz who camed to the United States in 1941 after the Nazis conquered France and “who for many years wrote in the Jewish Daily Forward under the name of S. Ivanovitch” passed away today, (JTA)

1945(15thof Adar, 5705): Shushan Purim

1945(15thof Adar, 5705): Siegried Adler, one of the last Jews surviving in Berlin, died today.

1945: Author Heinrich Eduard Jacob “gained American citizenship” today.

1945(15thof Adar, 5705): Walter Süskind, the German born Dutch Jew who saved over six hundred Jewish children died either at Auschwitz or one of the death marches inflicted on Jews by their Nazi captors as the war came to a close.

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/suskind.html

http://www.morsephotography.com/suskindfilm/home_welcome.htm

http://www.castelfilm.ro/node/202

1946: Fifty-four year old “Bela Imredy, the father of the anti-Jewish bill intended to exclude Jews and those Christians with Jewish parentage from the Hungarian civil service and liberal professional while radically curtailing their position in trade and industry who resigned as Premier in 1939 because “he was compelled to admit…that he was of Jewish descent” since “his mother’s grandfather was born a Jew” passed away today.

1947: The group of 600 Jewish passengers who were going to sail on the Abril, a ship intending to run the British Blockade arrived at Port de Bouc from Grenoble.

1947: Jacob and Niza Gabbai, a husband and wife couple who have just arrived in New York City from Palestine enrolled at Fordham University.  The Gabbais are part of the Young Palestinian League which is working to develop a new cultural environment in their homeland.  They chose Fordham “because it is a complete university and not just a drama or radio school, and also because it located in the world capital of the theatre.”

1948: The famed Golani Brigade was formed today during the Israeli War for Independence when the Levanoni Brigade in the Galilee split into the 1st Golani Brigade and the 2nd Carmeli Brigade

1949: “Problems of racial and religious discrimination cannot be solved by statutes or speeches but require a militant personal living of brotherhood, former Governor Herbert H. Lehman said today at the eighth annual luncheon of the rayon division of the National Conference of Christians and Jews at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.”

1949: A delegation from Trans-Jordan which is scheduled to negotiate an armistice with Israel was greeted by Dr. Ralph S. Bunche today at Rodes.

1949: Following evacuation by an Egyptian brigade, today Israel too control “of the Faluja pocket.”

1949: “1950: Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett presented the cabinet with the draft of five-year non-aggression pact between Israel and Jordan.  The pact is the product of several months of secret negotiations.  It includes most of the terms of the armistice agreement without setting final boundaries.  Some additional points include the opening of the Israeli held road to Bethlehem to Arab traffic, the opening of the road to Mt. Scopus to Israelis and an Israeli promise to supply electricity to the Arab held sections of Jerusalem.  Israeli opposition to the agreement will be limited to a handful of leftists who oppose King Abdullah because they think he is a puppet of the British imperialists and the rightwing nationalists who believe that all of the land west of the Jordan should be part of a Jewish state.  Jordanian approval is much more problematic since it will face serious opposition from numerous sources including those who want a second war with the Jews so that they can destroy the Zionist entity. [Abdullah would be assassinated in the following year for conducting these negotiations and it would take another four decades before Israel and Jordan finally concluded a peace agreement.]

1952:  Birthdate of William Alan Finn the Boston born musician whose “musical Falsettos received the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Music and Lyrics and for Best Book.”

1953: Birthdate of Paul Krugman, leading U.S. economist, New York Timescolumnist and Nobel Prize Winner.

1953(13th of Adar, 5713): Israeli archeologist and Hebrew University professor,Eleazar Lipa Sukenik passed away. His life reads like an early history of the Zionist movement. Born in Bialystok in 1889, Sukenik made Aliyah in 1911. He served in the British army in World War I in the 40th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers which became known as the Jewish Legion. He played a central role in the establishment of the Department of Archaeology of the Hebrew University. He recognized the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls to Israel and worked for the Israeli state to buy them. In 1948, he published an article tentatively linking the scrolls and their content to a community of Essenes, which became the standard interpretation of the origin of the scrolls, a theory that is still probably the consensus among scholars, but has also been widely questioned. He was the father of soldier, politician and archeologist Yigael Yadin, the actor Yossi Yadin, and Mati Yadin, who was killed in action during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

1954: “Riot in Cell Block 11,” a crime film directed by Don Siegel was released today in the United States.

1954: Birthdate of Tulane graduate and Renaissance man Alan Smason whose interests have led to serve as everything from a theatre reviewer to the founder of the Crescent City Jewish News, the source for everything Jewish along the bayou.

http://www.crescentcityjewishnews.com

http://koshercomputing.blogspot.com/

1955: Three days after Arab terrorists had murdered an Israeli civilian at Rehovot, paratroopers from a brigade under the command of Ariel Sharon implemented Operation Black Arrow that included an attack on an Egyptian base in Gaza and the ambushing of the relief column – an action in which the Israelis lost eight men while he enemy lost 37 men with “many more wounded.”

1959: In Atlantic City, NJ, “Jane (née Divac) and Franklin Abramoff, who was president of the Franchises unit of Diners Club Credit Card Company” gave birth to crooked lobbyist Jack Allan Ambramoff.

1960: The Second Annual Concert of Jewish Music was held this evening at Congregation Beth-El in Camden, NJ, for the benefit of the Cantors Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

1961: Recently elected President Kennedy named Henry Kissinger as special advisor.  Before being the first Jew to be named Secretary of State, Kissinger followed a path that took him from Kennedy, to Rockefeller, to Nixon.

1961: Twelve days after premiering in London, “Jungle Fighters” produced by Michael Balcon, with a screenplay by Wolf Mankowitz, music by Stanley Black and starring Laurence Harvey was released today in the UK.

1963: “Hot Spot,” a musical with “lyrics by Martin Charnin, music by Mary Rodgers, and additional lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim” opened at the Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia, PA.

1964(15thof Adar, 5724): Shushan Purim

1964(15thof Adar, 5724): Sixty-two year old mining engineer Samuel Grossman Laskey, the Denver, CO, born son of Ida Grossman Lasky and Juda Eisen Lasky who graduated from the Colorado School of Mines and earned an MS from Yale while marrying Leon Lasky in 1927 and the former Melba Beale in 1944 passed away today in Luxembourg after which he was buried at Home of Peace Cemetery and Emanu-El Mausoleum in Colma, California.

1966: The New York City debut of The Guarneri Quartet whose members included 1stViolinist Arnold Steinhardt, Violist Michael Tree and Violoncellist David Soyer took place today at the New School for Social Research.

1967(18thof Adar I, 5727): Ninety-year-old Eleanor Kuh, the daughter of Samuel and Rosalie Peck, the wife of Millar F. Kuh and “mother of Howard Michael Kuh” passed away today.

1969: “The State’s Chief Watchdog” published today provided a detailed profile of Vilna native and Harvard trained attorney Goodman Alexander Sarachan, the acting chairman of the State Investigation Commission. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/02/28/77446153.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1972(13th of Adar, 5732): Fast of Esther

1974: Nigel Lawson began serving as a Member of Parliament for Blaby

1974: The United States and Egypt renew diplomatic relations.  This was one of the steps from the Yom Kippur War to the Camp David Peace Accords.

1974: Greville Ewan Janner began serving as an MP for Leicester on the same day he completed his services MP for Leicester North West.

1976(27thof Adar I, 5736): Parashat Vayakhel; Shabbat Shekalim

1977: The family and friends of Joseph M. Hyman, the producer and co-producer with the late Bernard Hart of nearly a score of Broadway plays who passed away last week are scheduled to gather this morning at Frank E. Campbell’s in Manhattan.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the majority of the plenum of the 29th Zionist Congress, held in Jerusalem, approved a resolution calling for a Jewish education program in the Diaspora, based on the principle of equality for all trends in Judaism, and specifically including the Conservative and Reform movements.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Liberal Faction of the Likud in the Knesset described the recent action taken by Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon in the settlement of the Yamit (Rafiah) area as injurious to the national interest, "idiotic" and "crazy."

1978: David Mamet’s “The Water Engine” “transferred to the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway as a double-bill with a short Mamet play entitled Mr. Happiness, and ran for 24 performances”

1979: Six people were injured in a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem.

1983(15th of Adar, 5743): Shushan Purim

1983: Ninety-year old Dutch born, Englisn“writer and translator” Joseph Leftwich one of “The Whitechapel Boys” whose career included stints with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Palestine Post, passed away today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/leftwich-joseph

1986: John Demjanjuk was deported to Israel today

1986: The first issue of The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles “appeared today.”

1986: Laura Z. Hobson who wrote Gentlemen’s Agreement, the novel about anti-Semitism that was turned into a 1947 film classic starring Gregory Peck, passed away.

1987(29thof Shevat, 5747): Sixty-seven year ballerina Nora Kay, born Nora Koreff, passed away. (As reported by Jennifer Dunning)

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/01/obituaries/nora-kay-is-dead-leading-ballerina.html

1991(14thof Adar, 5751): Purim

1991: A twenty-five-year-old Jewish religious student, Elhanan Atali, was found in an abandoned storeroom in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.  His throat had been slit and he had been stabbed in the back.

1993: At the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, “The Sisters Rosensweig…a play by Wendy Wasserstein” that “focuses on the lives of three Jewish-American sisters” closes after 149 performances.

1993: Actor Tony Curtis, born Bernard Schwartz, wed Lisa Deutsch. 

1994: Jeffrey Dinowitz began serving as a member of the New York State Assembly from the 81stDistrict.

1994(17thof Adar, 5754): Seventy-eight-year-old geographer Jean Gottman passed away today. (As reported by Richard D. Lyons)

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/02/obituaries/jean-gottman-78-a-geographer-who-saw-a-northeast-megalopolis.html

1997:“The Portrait of a Lady,” the cinematic version of the novel of the same name starring Nicole Kidman, Barbara Hershey and Shelley Winters which had premiered at the Venice Film Festival was released in the United Kingdom today.

1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters by Wendy Lesser and Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economyby Edward Luttwak

2000(22nd of Adar I, 5760): Kariel Gardosh, the prominent Israeli political cartoonist known by the pen-name "Dosh," died in his home in Tel Aviv from a cardiac arrest. He was 79 years old. “Gardosh was best known for cartoons featuring his character Srulik. Srulik was a small boy in short, sandals and a traditional Tembel hat. Gardosh's character, always intended by the caricaturist to act a symbol for Israel, was a blank slate upon which to reflect the changing national mood and a perfect emblem for the emerging nation's view of itself in the 1960s and 1970s as a small nation surrounded by hostile aggressors. The small boy facing down representative from a hostile Arab world left an indelible impression upon several generations of Israelis allowing the character to remain popular through several changes in the political climate. The character is still a presence in various licensed formats such as posters and stickers.”

2001: “Bolstered by the Labor Party's agreement to join him in a unity government, Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon shifted his attention today to satisfying the demands of potential partners from religious and right-wing political factions.”

2002: Hungarian premiere of “An American Rhapsody” starring Brandeis graduate Tony Goldwyn, the grandson of Samuel Goldwyn and featuring Emmy Rossum as “Eva.”

2003(26th of Adar I, 5763): “Alfred Bernstein, a New Deal lawyer who led the movement to unionize government workers and later helped desegregate the lunch counters, restaurants, public swimming pools and playgrounds of Jim Crow-era Washington, died today at his home in Washington. He was 92.Mr. Bernstein attended public schools in Manhattan and graduated from Columbia College and Columbia Law School. Inspired by the social ferment of the New Deal, he moved to the capital in 1937 to work as an investigator for the Senate Commerce Committee's inquiry into the monopolistic railroad industry. ''What all of us were interested in was the transformation of the political process -- drafting regulations, establishing Social Security, making regulatory agencies work,'' he once told an interviewer. ''There was a lot of idealism at the time.'' After serving in the Army Air Transport Command in the South Pacific in World War II, Mr. Bernstein returned to Washington where he helped lead the successful effort against Jim Crow laws in the capital.”

2003: Ariel Sharon begins serving as Communications Minister.

2003: Eliezer Sandberg began serving as Science and Technology Minister

2003. Reuven Rivlin completed serving as Communications Minister.

2003: Benjamin Netanyahu completed his service as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

2003: Silvan Shalom begins serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

2003: Natan Sharansky completed his service as Minister of Housing and Construction.

2003: Eli Suissa completed his service Jerusalem Affairs Minister

2003: Tzachi Hanegbi succeeded Uzi Landau as Minister of Public Safety.

2003: Yosef Paritzky replaced Effi Eitam as National Infrastructure Minister

2003: Avraham Poraz replaced Eli Yishai as Minister of Internal Affairs.

2003: David Azulai competed his service as Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.

2004(6th of Adar, 5764): Daniel Boorstin passed away at the age of 89. He was one of America's most renowned historians and, between 1975 and 1987, the Librarian of Congress in the world's largest library in Washington. The son of Russian-Jewish im­migrants, Daniel Joseph Boorstin was born on October 1, 1914, in Atlanta. He was educated at Tulsa Central High School and Harvard, from where he graduated with honors in Law. Boorstin wrote more than 20 books, including a trilogy on the American experience and one on world intellectual history. The Americans: The Democratic Experience, the final book in the first trilogy, received the 1973 Pulitzer Prize in history.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/mar/01/guardianobituaries.obituaries

2004(6thof Adar, 5763): Forty-seven-year-old “poet and published of avant-garde magazines” Elzabeth Perl Nasaw, he sister of historian and author David Nasaw passed away today

2005: In Hackensack, NJ, funeral services were held for Ella Nagle, the widow of Isidore Nagle and mother of “Harvey Nagler and Claire Harmon.”

2006(30thof Elul, 5766): Rosh Chodesh Adar (first of a two day Rosh Chodesh).

2006: Johanna van Schagen, a woman who helped Jews escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust and later was honored by Israel died at the age of 91. Johanna van Schagen, who had suffered a series of strokes, died at Friendship Village in nearby Trotwood, where she lived. Van Schagen and her husband, Cornelius, moved to the United States from the Netherlands in 1956. She told the Dayton Daily Newsin 1994 that she and her husband sheltered Jews out of anger toward Germans who were taking over their native Netherlands. "We were afraid many times ... there were lots of raids and if they had found them in your home, you would be taken to concentration camps, too," she said. Israel honored the couple in 1987 and a tree along the Avenue of the Righteous in Jerusalem is named for Johanna van Schagen, the newspaper said. Her funeral was scheduled for Friday at Polk Grove United Church of Christ in Dayton, which sponsored the van Schagens when they moved to the United States, said Jacob van Schagen, a son. She is survived by four sons and a daughter.

2007: The second International Eilat Chamber Music Festival opens.

2007: One day after the anniversary of the birth of his father and historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. the son of Prussian Jew, 89-year-old historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. whose Unitarianism is an oft told tale of the assimilation of American Jewry passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1954/04/16/83750756.pdf

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/10/31/98543706.pdf

2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Rabbi Lane Steinger, Regional Director of the Union for Reform Judaism,teaches an adult education class at Temple Judah on the Reform Movement's New Prayer book, Mishkan Tifillah.

2008: In New York City, the 92nd Street Y presents “Witness to Nuremberg” featuring Richard W. Sonnenfeldt the chief interpreter for the American prosecution at the Nuremberg trials who discusses startling new information about the Nazi war criminals and the origins and development of the Holocaust.

2008:“The Diary of Anne Frank: A Song To Life” a musical that tells the story of Anne Frank's life in German-occupied Holland and her death in a concentration camp, using songs that sound like a combination of Fiddler On the Roof and Spanish tunes (complete with flamenco guitar) opens in Spain.

2008(22 Adar 1, 5768): Israel Prize-winning author and translator Aharon Amir passed away at age 85. Amir, who was born in Lithuania, grew up in Tel Aviv and was a member of both the Irgun and the Lehi. He was one of the founders of the Canaanite movement, which saw geographical location rather than religious affiliation as the defining element of Hebrew or Israeli culture. He studied Arabic language and literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem but translated works of literature mainly from English and French. Authors whose work he rendered into Hebrew include Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Lewis Carroll, Albert Camus, and Charles de Gaulle. Amir won the Tchernichovsky Prize for translation in 1951 and the Israel Prize for translation in 2003.

2008:‘Eyes Wide Open,” a documentary film that chronicles the preconceptions and revelations of American Jews as they visit Israel, is held at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.The film was directed by veteran filmmaker Paula Weiman-Kelman and written by award-winning journalist Stuart Schoffman

2008(22 Adar 1, 5768):Esra Shereshevsky, 92, noted Hebrew-language scholar and educator, died in Jerusalem. As founder and former chairman of the Department of Hebrew and Near Eastern Languages and Literature at Temple University, Shereshevsky was one of the first professors to establish Hebrew as a full course of study at an American university. His classes were exciting events. Whether discussing Bible, medieval manuscripts or 20th-century poets, his teaching was seasoned by his love of the Hebrew language.

2009: According to Reform Judaism magazine, Brandeis University, Harvard University and RadcliffeCollege, Tufts University, Boston University, and Northeastern University are among the "Top 60 Schools Jews Choose."

2009: In Barbados, Terry Schwarzfeld, who had just started her term as president of Canadian Hadassah WIZO and was executive director of Ottawa's largest synagogue, Agudath Israel, was mortally by an ex-con when he tried to rob her and her daughter-in-law, Lauana Cotsman.

2009: In Chicago, the Harris Theatre presents “Pinchas Zukerman in Recital” along “with his long time collaborator, pianist Mark Neikruug.”

2009:Rabbi Ellen Weomberg Dreyfus is installed in Jerusalem during the CCAR's 120th Annual Convention. She is the second female Rabbi to be elected to this position and the first female leader of a major rabbinic organization to begin her tenure in Israel. She succeeds Rabbi Peter S. Knobel, 66, Rabbi of Beth Emet in Evanston, IL, who will complete his two-year term as CCAR President.

2009:From January 1 through today, there were 64 terrorist attacks that took place in the West Bank or were carried out by terrorists from the West Bank

2009: In “His Story Told, Koch Makes His Peace and Dares to Look Ahead,” published today former New York May Ed Koch ruminates on his concerns as he reaches the twilight years and describes his plans for a funeral that will leave no question as to his profound attachment to his Jewish faith.

2010(14thof Adar, 5770): Purim

2010(14thof Adar, 5770): Ninety-five-year-old Chicago born child-welfare advocate Natalie Goldstein Heineman passed away today.

http://www.examiner.com/article/natalie-goldstein-heineman-died-just-18-days-after-her-96th-birthday

http://jwa.org/weremember/heineman-natalie

2010: An exhibition at the Center for Jewish History in New York entitled “In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis” is scheduled to come to a close.

2010: Final performance of Rinne Groff’s “Compulsion” is scheduled to take place at the Yale Repertory Theatre.

2010: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Ask, a novel by Sam Lipsyte

2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapir.

2010(14thof Adar, 5710): Ninety-five-year-old Jose Mindlin, a Jewish bibliophile who owned the largest private library in Latin America has died today in Brazil.

2010:Israeli police entered the Temple Mount compound today after Palestinians began throwing stones during rioting in Jerusalem's Old City

2010: Two Jewish athletes took home medals at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver which ended today. Steve Meisler won a gold medal for the United States in the four-man bobsled, pushing his team to a combined time of 3:24:46 in the four-heat race.  Jewish ice dancer Charlie White claimed a silver medal in ice dancing along with partner Meryl Davis.

2010: Ethan Bronner wrote the following obituary describing the life of Holocaust scholar David Bankier. “David Bankier, who helped expand the contours of Holocaust research by examining the participation of ordinary Europeans in the extermination of their Jewish neighbors, died over the weekend after a long illness, Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem Holocaust center, announced. He was 63.  Mr. Bankier, who was head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, focused his scholarly work on anti-Semitism, especially its use by the Nazis to promote and sustain a broader ideology. He was the author of “Germans and the Final Solution: Public Opinion Under Nazism” as well as a collection of essays, “Hitler, the Holocaust and German Society: Cooperation and Awareness.”  Born in Germany just before the state of Israel was created, Mr. Bankier grew up and was educated here, earning his doctorate in Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He held a professorship at Hebrew University and had served as a visiting professor in Britain, the United States, South Africa and South America. He spoke excellent English and Spanish, in addition to German and Hebrew. A rumpled, somber man who sought to understand the most bewildering aspects of genocide — how someone could play soccer with an acquaintance one day and assist in his murder the next — Mr. Bankier insisted both on the uniqueness of the Nazi Holocaust of six million Jews and on its applicability to other cases of mass murder. For anti-Semites, ‘Jews represent mysterious, mythic and evil forces,” he said at a recent lecture, “an omnipotence playing a sinister role in world history.’ At another lecture he noted that for Hitler, “Nazism was a doctrine of world salvation to redeem humanity from the Jewish-Christian-Marxist doctrine. The acquisition and maintenance of total suppression of the German race, Hitler believed, must be through total war of Germans against the Jews.” At the same time, Mr. Bankier said last year in an interview with The New York Times that the work he was overseeing at Yad Vashem on the role of bystanders and neighbors in numerous smaller mass killings across the former Soviet Union in the early 1940s had important implications for contemporary genocide in Africa and other places. He argued that the world was a different place as a result of what the Nazis had done, that if genocide in far-off places shocked average people today it was partly because of their knowledge of the details of the Holocaust. In other words, Holocaust deniers aside, Holocaust awareness was central to contemporary sensibility. Avner Shalev, chairman of Yad Vashem, said that with Mr. Bankier’s death, the world had lost one of its most important scholars in the field. He noted that Mr. Bankier, who had fought his illness over a long period, kept a regular schedule until his last day.”

2011:“Korach: The Biblical Anarchist” is scheduled to have its final performance tonight at the Living Theater on New York’s Lower East Side.

2011: Theodore Bikel and Jim Brochu are scheduled to do a concert reading of The Sunshine Boys by Neil Simon at a fundraiser for Theatre J in Washington, DC.

2011:A host of charities and social action organizations from across the Jewish world” are scheduled to meet at the Nalaga’at Theater in Jaffa ttoday “to discuss the future of their field and hear from a wide range of professionals who will guide them on improving their services

2011: The New York Times featured a review of “Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics: JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan” by Jewish author and political pundit Jeff Greenfield.

2011(24th of Adar I, 5771): Eighty-two-year-old “prolific writer, editor and popular radio broadcaster Netiva Ben Yehuda passed away in the early hours of this morning.

2011:The prosecuting attorney in the trial of Adolf Eichmann, retired Supreme Court justice Gabriel Bach, said today that a psychiatric evaluation conducted on the Nazi leader following his capture in 1960 suggested that the man responsible for the deaths of millions during the Holocaust had ambivalent sexual tendencies. (As reported by the Jerusalem Post).

2011(24thof Adar I, 5771): Ninety-two year old Louis Sachwald, the former resident of Pikesville, MD who survived the Bataan Death March and 42 months as a POW passed away today.  He was a member of Baltimore’s Beth-El Congreation.

http://philippine-defenders.lib.wv.us/html/sachwald_louis_bio.html

 2011(24th of Adar I, 5771): Seventy-five-year-old Harvey Dorfman who worked with many Major League Baseball stars and wrote books on sports psychology, including “The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance,” passed away today. (As reported by the Eulogizer)

2011: Actress Natalie Portman condemned Christian Dior chief designer John Galliano for anti-Semitic comments made at a bar in Paris, France which appeared online. “I am deeply shocked and disgusted by the video of John Galliano’s comments that surfaced today," Portman said in a statement. "In light of this video, and as an individual who is proud to be Jewish, I will not be associated with Mr. Galliano in any way." The Oscar winning actress is currently under an endorsement contract with Dior for its "Dior Cherie" fragrance.

2011: The United States Senate confirmed the nomination of Amy Totenberg to serve as Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia

2012: Ballet de Genève's stunning artists are scheduled to perform a work by Israeli born choreographer Emanuel Gat at the Joyce Theatre in New York City.

2012: Israeli trained clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein is scheduled to perform at Lincoln Center tonight. The program will include a work by American Jewish composer Aaron Copland.

2012: Megillat Ha-Manginot (The Scroll of Melodies) a musical celebrating Israel and its songs is scheduled to be performed at the Jerusalem Theatre on Rechov Marcus.

2012: Publication of “Faye Schulman – the Jewish Girl Who Fought the Nazis”

http://www.blogwrath.com/jewish-issues/faye-schulman-the-jewish-girl-who-fought-the-nazis/2585/

2012: Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch put down her gavel this morning, ending a 45-year legal career, and urged in her farewell remarks that it is crucial to maintain the independence of court. 

2012: The IDF said today that soldiers patrolling the border overnight spotted a group of people who had breached the frontier.

2013: Jack Lew, an observant Orthodox Jew, was sworn as Secretary of the Treasury.

2013: It was announced today that Idina Menzel would make her return to the Broadway stage, starring as Elizabeth in the new musical “If/Then.”

2013: Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot “performed with violinist Itzhak Perlman at a Jewish Music concert at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn.”

2014: The exhibition, “Passages through the Fire: Jews and the Civil War,” comes to a close at the Jewish Museum of Maryland.

2014: In Bethesda, MD, Congregation Adat Shalom is scheduled to start a hosting a weekend devoted to exploring “The Enduring Legacy of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan.”

2014: Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor are scheduled to perform at Abrons Arts Center Playhouse.

2014: In Denver, CO, “45 Israeli and North American Jewish Artists are scheduled to show and sell their creations: under the auspices “Jewishcolorado.”

2014: The IDF has reportedly issued a stern warning to the Lebanese government, clarifying that the government will be held response and be a target for response should Hezbollah carry out its threats to attack Israel. (As reported by Ari Yashar)

2014: The Israeli Air Force attacked an underground rocket launcher in the northern Gaza Strip tonight in an effort to eliminate “an imminent threat” of rocket fire towards Israel.  (As reported by Yoav Zitun)

2014: The Islamist Basij militia force in Tehran ran a special military exercise yesterday and today preparing for an Iranian takeover of Jerusalem. (As reported by Dalit Halevy and Tov Dvorin)

2015: In Rockville, MD, Magen David Sephardic Congregation is scheduled to host “Bling Bling Like A Persian King…..A 21+Purim Extravaganza.”

2015: In a bit of homecoming, Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C.

2015: This evening in Iowa City, Hillel is scheduled to host its Annual Fundraising Concert.

2015: “Stitching History” “a remarkable exhibit about the late Hedy Strnad, a Jewish-Czech dressmaker who with her husband, Paul, attempted to immigrate to the United States on the eve of the Holocaust” is scheduled to come to a close at the Jewish Museum in Milwaukee.

2015: The Igael Shemtov Exhibition which has been on display for the last three weeks at Baxter St at CCNY is scheduled to come to an end

http://www.baxterst.org/exhibitions-3/igaelshemtov/

 2016: The Andalusian Orchestra is scheduled perform with Berry Sakharov and Raymonde Abecassis on tonight at 10 p.m. at Zappa Herzliya.

2016: “The first major documentary about legendary director about Claude Lanzman who has never won an Oscar entitled ‘Claude Lanzmann: Specters of the Shoah’ is among the nominees for this year’s Academy Awards” which are scheduled to be announced at tonight ceremony in Los Angeles.

 2016: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Right Wrong Man:John Demjanjuk and the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial by Lawrence Douglas

2016(19thof Adar I, 5776): Ninety-three-year-old Chicago born real estate developer and “banker to the stars” Bram Goldsmith whose philanthropies included Jewish Federal Council of Greater Los Angeles and the National Conference of Christians and Jews passed away today.

2017: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “No Shushing Allowed” an event designed to introduce the general public to the institutions librarians and archivists in an informal atmosphere.

2017(2ndof Adar, 5777): Ninety-two-year-old Marion Javits, the widow of Senator Jacob K. Javits passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/nyregion/marian-javits-dead.html?ribbon-ad-idx=3&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article

https://nypost.com/2017/03/01/marion-javits-found-dead-in-her-apartment/

2017: “Israel’s state comptroller took military and political leaders to task for their failure to prepare adequately for the threat of attack tunnels ahead of the 2014 war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in a pair of long-awaited, highly critical reports published” today. (As reported by Judah Ari Gross)

2017: The headstone of Staff Sgt. Jack Weinger, a navigator for the 345thBombardment Group killed during an air raid over Japan in 1945 was replaced today “with one bearing a Star of David” “at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.” (JTA/TOI)

2017: Dr. Robert Silber, a pillar of the Jewish community and chair of the Thaler Holocaust Committee is scheduled to begin his career as a professor at the University of Iowa Medical School.

2017: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host Rabbi Norman Cohen’s lecture “Cain and Abel.”

2017: “Israel’s state comptroller took military and political leaders to task for their failure to prepare adequately for the threat of attack tunnels ahead of the 2014 war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in a pair of long-awaited, highly critical reports published” today.

2017: Today Marc “Trestman was named the head coach of the Toronto Argonauts,”

2017: J Street’s annual convention is scheduled to come to an end today.

2017: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to host a screening of the iconic film “Casablanca” followed by a discussion of We’ll Always Have Casablanca by Noah Isenberg.

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Well-Always-Have-Casablanca/

2018(13th of Adar, 5778): Fast of Esther; Megillah reading in the evening;

2018: Today, “Olympic gymnast Aly Raisan” filed papers in California Superior Court suing “the United States Olympic Committee and U.S.A. Gymnastics…saying that they should have prevented the former team doctor, Lawrence G. Nassar, from sexually abusing her and other athletes.

2018: Hillel of Iowa and Augdas Achim are scheduled to join forces to observe Purim complete with Megillah reading, face painting, hamantaschen baking and carnival games.

2018: Following a community breaking of the fast and the reading of the Megillah, the Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Purim Party.

2019: The Oxford University LBBTQ Society is scheduled to host a panel on “Gender, Diversity and Religion.”

2019: “Professor Ora Paltiel, a haematologist and epidemiologist at Hadassah-Hebrew University, and Professor A Mark Clarfield, a geriatrician at Ben-Gurion University,” are scheduled to speak at UCL today in the United Kingdom.

2019(23rd of Adar I, 5779): Eighty-nine-year-old award musician Andre Previn passed away today. (As reported by James Barron)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/obituaries/andre-previn-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

2019: The Town and Village Synagogue Social Hall is scheduled to host Ken Maltz, Lauren Brody and Aaron Alexander as part of the New York Klezmer Series.

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the last two screenings of “On the Basis of Sex,” a biopic about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

2019: In the Negev, the Darom Adom (Red South Festival) is scheduled to come an end.

2019: Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, Dr. Deborah Lipstadt is scheduled to discuss her latest book Antisemitism: Here and Nowthis evening at the Streicker Center.

2019: The 24th annual East Bay International Jewish Film Festival is schedule to open “with ‘Riphagen,’ a drama about a Nazi collaborator” “who help the Nazis round up Jews, stealing their treasures for himself” while destroying “Resistance groups.”

2019: Friends and family are scheduled to celebrate a milestone-birthday for Tulane grad and CCJN published Alan Smason, a mensch and Renaissance man

2019: After testifying publicly yesterday before the House Oversight Committee, Michael Cohen is scheduled to testify today in a closed session before House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

2020: Erev Shabbat, The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to “go dark” for the evening.

2020: In Los Gatos, CA, Congregation Shir Hadash is scheduled to host a Shabbat service followed by historian Benny Morris lecturing on “A New Look at the 1948 Arab Israeli War”

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host both “an orthodox minyan and a student-led egalitarian minyan” followed by an interfaith Friday night dinner.

2020: “Friends of Bezalel are schedule to present “Growing a Garden for an Unknown Lover by Boaz Aharonovitch” a photo-diary “documenting a gardening project that took place in his studio.”

2020: Erev of Shabbat is especially joyful for the friends and family of Alan Smason, the multi-talented bon vivant who publishes the Crescent City Jewish News, as he celebrates another natal day.

2021: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Milk Fed, a novel by Melissa Broder, A Tip For The Hangman, a novel by Allison Epstein and the recently published paperback edition of The Hot Hand” The Mystery and Science of Streaks by Ben Cohen.

2021: The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of Howie Mandel: But, Enough About Me.”

2021: Addison-Penzak JCC in Los Gatos is scheduled to host a Purim CARnival, “a drive-in event in its parking lot.”

2021: “The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans and the Birmingham Jewish Federation, in partnership with the Jewish Agency for Israel's Partnership2Gether program” is scheduled to host Mitchell Barak and Robert Mann “for an informative and engaging discussion on how civics and governance structures work in Israel and in the United States - and what we can do when those mechanisms become stuck.”

2021: As part of Jewish Book, the Jewish Book Council is scheduled to sponsor Del­phine Horvilleur, only France’s third female rabbi, as she” discusses anti­semitism and more with Philippe Sands.”

2021: In Ohio, Temple Emanu El and five other area synagogues are schedule to sponsor “a concert by Nefesh Mountain,” this afternoon.

2021: In New Orleans, the Jewish Community is scheduled to host a Purim Celebration.

2021: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present “live on Zoom, “Sephardic Culinary History with Chef Hélène Jawhara-Piñer.”

2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host a Purim Party “for all kids 0-13.”

2021: The Jewish Community Library is scheduled to present Historian David Nasaw talking “about the difficult times and lives in limbo for the last 1 million Eastern Europeans in Germany after WWII, including 250,000 Jews, stuck in displaced persons camps for three to five years.”

2021: KlezCalifornia is scheduled to present Instructor Bruce Bierman teaching “a class on how to inject shtick and special, old-time styles of exaggerated acting to the characters in the Purim story.”

2021: In London, at Highgate Synagogue Rabbi Liss is scheduled to lead a “Sunday Morning Discussion” on the topic of “Is It Ever Ok to Lie?”

2021: Based on published reports Israel has “posted 4,574 new virus cases with 31 deaths over the weekend.”

2021: Private graveside services are scheduled to be held at noon today for Eishes Chayil Diane Levin, age 60, beloved wife of Stephen Levin, happily married for 35 years; loving mother of Amy Levin and Allison Levin (Max Affrunti); much loved sister of Sharon Finegood.

https://legacy.suntimes.com/obituaries/chicagosuntimes/obituary.aspx?n=diane-levin&pid=197889662&fhid=4243

 

 

 

 February 28

628: Persian Shah Khosrau II who “conquered Jerusalem after a brief siege in 614 during the Byzantine – Sasanian War” came passed away today.

1255: Bishop Richard of Worms transferred to the chapter of the local cathedral, among other revenues from the city, the sum of 40 pounds heller which the Jewish community was obliged to pay annually on St. Martin's Day which falls on November 11.

1261: Henry III, the Duke of Brabant and Margrave who provided the first evidence Jews living in Antwerp when he “expressed his wish that the Jews of Brabant should be expelled and destroyed because they were all considered ‘usurers’’ passed away today.

1276(12th of Adar): Bishop Pierre III Rostaing guaranteed protection to the Jews of Carpentras, France in return for a tax of one-thirteenth of the total seat rents of the synagogue

1348: At the Cortes of Alcala de Hebares King Alfonso XI issued a "startling" decree which forbad Jews and Moors from lending money “at interet.”

1488: Joshua Solomon Soncino began printing copies of the Bible at Soncino, Italy.

1533:  Birthdate of French writer and philosopher Michael de Montaigne.  His mother, Antoinette de Louppes, came from a rich Spanish Jewish family, but was herself raised as a Protestant.  Should Montaigne be considered Jewish?  It depends upon whose list you look at, so I will leave it up to others to investigate more fully and decide.

1574: The first official Auto da Fe in the New World was held in Mexico after the establishment of the Inquisition 5 years earlier. The first unofficial Auto da Fe was actually held in 1528 when the conquistador Hernando Alonso was executed.

1575(18th of Adar II): Rabbi Elijah ben Moses de Vidas completed Reishit Hakhmah

1592: Clement VIII issued Cum saepe accidere, a Papal Bull that forbade the Jews of Avignon from selling new goods.

1593: Clement VIII issued Cum Haebraeorum militia, a Papal Bull decreeing that the Talmud should be burnt along with cabalistic works and commentaries, which gave the owners of such works 10 days to turn them over to the Universal Inquisition in Rome and subsequently two months to hand them over to local inquisitors.

1648: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” began his reign 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.”]

1659: Birthdate of Father Jean Morin, a French biblical scholar who was the first to edit the “Samaritan Pentateuch and Targum.

1660(16thof Adar I, 5420): Jacob Katzenellenbogen the son and successor of Abraham (Joseph Jacob) Katzenellenbogen of Lemberg who served as President of the bet din and head of the yeshibah of Lemberg passed away today.

1675: An agreement was ratified today that would allow 250 Jewish families to return Vienna and occupy 50 places of business.  In return for this privilege, the Jews agreed to make a payment of 300,000 florins and the payment of an annual tax of 10,000 florins.  The government agreed to the return of the Jews because the treasury was empty.

1677: In Newport, RI, Jewish community purchased land to be used as a cemetery

1715: Judah Monis “was admitted a freeman by the Mayor and Common Council of New York City today.

1720: Judah Monis, an Algerian born Jew who would become the first American author of a Hebrew grammar book arrived in New York.

1721: In New York City, Moses Raphael Levy and Grace Mears who had been married in London in 1718 gave birth to “Esther (Hetty) Levy,” the wife of Jacob Hart.

1747: Benedict XIV issued Postremomens, a Papal Bull that deals with the baptism of Jews.

1762: Dutch born Hyam Mers and Rachel Louzada who were married in New York in 1751, gave birth to Belle Myers, the wife of Samuel Asher Levy.

1767(29thof Adar I, 5527): Parashat Pekudei; Shabbat Shekalim

1781: Birthdate of German native Isaac Jacob Bamberger, the husband of Babette Treu, Bella Jacobs and Gela Weil and father of Bertha, Henry, Ansel, Rosa and Clara Bamberger.

1784: Moses Cohen de Larah arrived in Savannah after which he lived in Charleston and Philadelphai.

1784: Ralph de Pass, a “vendue master” (auctioneer) arrived in Savannah today from Jamaica before moving on to Charleston, SC where he passed away in 1812.

1784: Jacob de Pass, the son of Ralph de Pass arrived in Savannah today from Jamaica the place to which he would return in 1788.

1784: Esther de Pass, the future wife of Samuel da Costa, arrived in Savannah today.

1784: One day after he had passed away, Nathan ben Hayyim, was buried today, erev Shabbat, at the “Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery.”

1787: The state legislature of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania granted Hugh Henry Breckenridge a charter for a school that is now known as the University of Pittsburgh. Today, there are approximately 1,800 Jewish students among the total undergrad population of 16,000 and 500 Jewish students among the 7,000 graduate students. The university offers a major in Jewish studies.  Jewish students can avail themselves of programs offered by Hillel and Chabad as well as find kosher meals at the “Kosher Korner” at the University Center.

1799: Birthdate of Father Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger author of “The Jews In Europe.”

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_21/June_1882/The_Jews_in_Europe_I

1799: Napoleon, the first European leader to meet with Jewish leaders in Palestine, led his army out of Gaza and headed for Ramallah.

1799: In Georgetown, SC, Belle Moses and Solomon Cohen who were married her hometown of Charleston in 1786 gave birth to Sarah Henrietta Cohen, the wife of Mordecai Myers and then Robert Phillips.

1805(29thof Adar I, 5565): Naphtali Hirz Wessely, the Jewish man of letters born at Hamburg in 1725 and educated at Copenhagen passed away today in his native city.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0021_0_20854.html

1811(4th of Adar, 5571): Eighty-six-year-old Jakob Faibel, the husband of Ewa Duschenes passed away in Prague.

1812: Birthdate of German-Jewish author Berthold Auerbach.  Born Moses (Moyses) Baruch, Auerbach published a novel entitled Spinoza: Ein Historischer Romanin 1837.  He passed away in 1882 at the age of 70.

1814: Two days after she had passed away, Bilhah Gompertz, the son of Barnet Gompertz and Rachel Benjamin Isaac was buried today at the “Hoxton Old Burial Ground.”

1819(3rdof Adar, 5579): Jochebed Levy, the daughter of Simeon Levy passed away. (She is not to be confused with other contemporaries with the same name.)

1823: Birthdate of Ernest Renan a French author who specialized in studies of the ancient languages and civilizations of the Middle East. Late in life, Renan wrote a three volume “History of Israel.”  The first volume appeared in 1887 and the final volume appeared in 1897. Some claimed that he was an anti-Semite (anti-Jewish) because of comments about the limitations of the Semitic mind.  But Renan contended that the Jewish people were not a race in the biological and he was an opponent of the nationalism that took hold in Germany in the latter of the 19th century because of its anti-Semitic component.

1824(29thof Adar I, 5584): Parashat Vayakhel; Shabbat Shekalim

1826: Birthdate of Prague native and Czech trained physician William Tausig who immigrated to New York in 1847 and moved on to St. Louis a year later where he was elected Mayor in 1852 in which would mark the start of decades of public service that included serving as St. Louis County Judge, the raising of two regiments during the Civil War to turn back Rebel raiders and the construction of the first road and railroad bridge across the Mississippi River

1827(1st of Adar): Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Shklov passed away

1828(13thof Adar, 5588): Ta’anit Esther; Erev Purim

1829(25th of Adar): Wolf Breidenbach passed away   p137

1831: In Philadelphia, John A. Forepaugh and Susannah Heimer gave birth to Adam John Forepaugh, the circus owner who included Leopold S. Kahn, “the dwarf performer” known as Admiral Dot among his acts in the 1890’s

1832: Birthdate of Moritz Wahrmann, the native of Budapest and the grandson of Israel Wahrman and brother of Alexander Wahrmann who was a leader of the Jewish community, a member of the Hungarian Parliament and President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Budapest.

1837: In Bavaria, Jakob Neumond and his wife gave birth to Isidore Newman the husband of Rebecca Kiefer and “head of the banking firm of Isidore Newman and Sons, the “owner of street railway systems” in several cities and the President of the New Orleans Stock Exchange whose philanthropies included chairing the Board of Trustees of the Endowment Fund for the Jewish Widows’ and Orphans’ Home, chairing the Endowment Fund of the Touro Infirmary Board, Commissioner of Audubon Park and the founding of the Isidore Newman Manuel Training School.

1838: Birthdate of French engineer Maurice Levy.

1838: In New York City, Myer David Cohen and Judith Simha Solis gave birth to Jacob Da Silva Solis Cohen, the husband of Miriam Binswanger with whom he had eleven children who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson Medical College and who served with both the U.S. Army and Navy during the Civil War before pursuing a career as a leading laryngologist in Philadelphia.

https://archives.cjh.org//repositories/3/resources/356

  

1842: B'ne Yeshurun, a congregation organized by the German Jews living in Cincinnati, Ohio was incorporated under the laws of the state of Ohio.

1842: In Cleveland, Ohio, Anshe Chesed (now Anshe Chesed - Fairmount Temple) which had been founded as a German Orthodox congregation in 1841 was chartered today.  The congregation had 30 members and Asher Lehman served as the Rabbi.

1843: In Bishop-Purnitz, Austria, Mina and Benedict Greenhut gave birth to Joseph B. Greenhut, a decorated Civil War veteran and a successful Chicago, Illinois, businessman.

1845: Sarah Moses and Alexander Jones gave birth to Lewis Jones.

1847: In Canterbury, Kent, Hannah Baranard and Nathan Jones gave birth to their daughter Ellah Jacobs.

1849: London born Amelia Joel and Solomon Marks gave birth to Mary Marks.

1850: The General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret established the University Desert which was the forerunner of the University of Utah located at Salt Lake City, Utah. Today the university has approximately 350 Jewish students out of a student population of 15,000.  The school has ten courses in Jewish studies and offers a major degree in Jewish Studies.  Not bad for a school founded deep the heart of the land of Brigham Young.

1851(26thof Adar I, 5611):  Annie Ezekiel, the England born daughter of Sarah and Abraham Ezekiel, the husband of Exeter, England, Benjamin Jonas with whom she had nine children passed away today in Cincinnati, OH.

1853: One day after he had passed away, Jacob Aaron, a London hosier and haberdasher, the son of “Leib Milkman Aaaron”, husaband of the former Catherine Benjamin with whom he had had six children was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.

1854: The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin. The party was formed in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska act and was designed to stop the Democrats’ pro-slavery agenda.  Some of the Jews who were active in the early days of the party were Sabato Morais, rabbi of the Mikveh Israel Congregation, Moritz Pinner who edited a German language abolitionist paper in Kansas, Kentuckian Lewis Naphtali Dembitz, uncle of the Louis Brandeis and New Yorker Sigsmund Kaufman who was an a member of the electoral college that chose Abraham Lincoln to serve as President in 1860.

1855: In a demonstration of the extent to which Jewish concepts have penetrated the general cultural milieu, while giving a speech in New York on the habits of North American Indians, General Sam Houston tells the audience that until “the spirit of revenge had been conquered by civilization” the law of the Cherokee Nation “was the same as that practiced under the old dispensation by the Jews of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and blood for blood.”

1858(14thof Adar, 5618): Purim

1858(14thof Adar, 5618): Joseph Reuben Romm, the third generation of printers of Hebrew books, who moved the family business from Grodno to Vilna, passed away today.

1858: At Frankfurt Am Main, Selig Meier Goldschmidt and Clementine Goldschmidt gave birth Helene Goldschmidt, the future wife of Leon Yehudah Tedesco making her Helen Tedesco.

1860: “In Nieder-Rehbach, Austria-Hungary (today in Romania,” Julia and Ignatz Bker gave birth to Milwaukee, WI socialist journalist Victor L. Berger, the husband of fellow socialist Meta Schlichting and the first member of the Socialist Party to hold a seat in the U.S. House of Representative.

https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1851-1900/Representative-Victor-Berger-of-Wisconsin,-the-first-Socialist-Member-of-Congress/

https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/9304

1861: Birthdate of Kuppenheim, Germany native and San Francisco trained lawyer Julius Kahn, the U.S Congressman who was a strong advocate for national defense before, during and after WW I and the author of legislation designed to exclude Chinese immigrants while enjoying the unique distinction of having his wife Florence Prag Kahn succeed him in the House after he passed away.

https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/K/KAHN,-Julius-(K000003)/

1862: “Affairs In Utah” published today described the drive of those living in that territory to become a state in the Union. “As things go, it does seem apparent that Jews and Gentiles here are, more or less, under the conviction that the particular time ‘in the course of human events’ is at hand when a change is inevitable in the fashion of Government among "this people." Some may be surprised to hear of Jews connected with Utah which is almost synonymous with the Mormon Religion. The first Jews who settled in Utah were probably “dropouts” from the wagon trains heading to California during the California Gold Rush. By 1853, two Jews had established a millenary store in Salt Lake City. The first non-Mormon governor of Utah would be a Jew named Simon Bamberger.  As to the issue of statehood, it would be another 34 years before that goal was reached.  The price of admission would be a formal rejection by the Mormons of the practice of polygamy.  To date, this is the only time that the federal government has “interfered” with the doctrines of a religious organization.

1862(28thof Adar I, 5622): Meyer Schoenfeld, who is buried in the New Mount Sinai Cemetery &amp; Mausoleum in St. Louis County, passed away today.

1863: The will of the late Commodore Uriah P. Levy, U.S. Navy, which has been admitted to probate, is now before the Supreme Court, at Special Term. Proceedings have been “instituted to break it, in respect to its bequests to the people of the United States, or the State of Virginia, and then to certain Hebrew congregations in New-York, Philadelphia and Richmond, for the purpose of founding an agricultural school at Monticello, in the State of Virginia.”

1865: In Geneva, Kate, née Levison and Michel Bergson gave birth to Mina Begson, the sister of Henri Bergson who gained fame as “artist and occultist” Moina Mathers.

1866(13thof Adar, 5626): Ta’anit Esther; Erev Purim

1868(5th of Adar): Rabbi Israel Muschkat, author of Harei Besamim, passed away.

1869: In Austria-Hungary, Philip and Marie (Goldfinger) Greenbaum gave birth to Philadelphia Dental College graduate, Max Greenbaum, D.D.S, the husband of Blanche Goldsmith and author of “The Practice of Dentistry” who was a member of Keneseth Israel.

1875: Birthdate of Kiev native Morris Garfunkel, the resident of New York and President of the Garfunkel Conditioning Corporation.

1877(15thof Adar, 5637): Shushan Purim

1875: Birthdate of Riga native Adolph Abbey, the student of Rabbi Isaac Eichanan Spector and University of Oregon trained attorney who led congregations in Washington, D.C. and Spokane, WA before becoming the rabbi at the Hall Street Synagogue in Portland, OR.

1878: Birthdate of Warsaw native Zdzisław Birnbaum, the Polish violinist and conductor who served two terms as Music Director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.

1879: One day after he had passed away, Isaac Horwitz, the son of “Abraham Horwitz” and “Lena Altman” was buried today in the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”

1880: In New York City, Samuel Steinbrink, who operated a small candy store on the east side and Fredricka (Stein) Steinbrink gave birth to NYU trained attorney and Republican party member Meier Steinbrink, the husband of Sadie Bloch and father of Stuart Steinbrink and Miriam Abelow who became a New Your State Supreme Court Justice and President of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn as well as a “director and incorporator of the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Chairites.”

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/12/08/89997995.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1880: In Lithuania, Lazarus and Miriam (Burros) Abramowitz gave birth to Herman Rabinowitz, who in 1890 came to the United States where he graduated from CCNY, Columbia and the Jewish Theological Seminary before moving to Canada in 1903 where he served as Rabbi of Montreal’s Shaar Hashomayim Congregation and the Senior Jewish Chaplain in the Canadian Army during WW I while also founding the Canadian Jewish Congress and raising two children with “his wife, the former Theresa Bockar.

1882 In Hungary, Judah and Marjem Grunwald gave birth William Vilmus Grunwald, the borther of Samuel, Hani, Emanuel and Ida Ethel Grunwald.

1882(9thof Adar, 5642): Eighty-four-year-old Almeria Levy, the daughter of Jacob and Hannah de Leon and wife of Hayman Levy passed away today in Philadelphia.

1882: It was reported today that the Russian government offered an explanation to the British government for the expulsion of Mr. Lewisohn from the Czar’s empire.  While the British saw Lewisohn as an English citizen, the Russians saw him as being a Jew.  And in Russia, Jews, regardless of the country in which they live, are considered to be Jews which make them a thing without legal standing.

1882: John w. Foster will deliver a lecture on “The Czar and His People” a tonight’s meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association at Chickering Hall in New York City.

1883: In New York City, Louis and Ethel (Baltan) Finkelstein gave birth to Columbia trained physician Rae B. Blum who was the “consulting orthopedic surgeon at Jewish Memorial Hospital and a member of the original founding staff of the Hospital for Joint Diseases, where he was a chief of orthopedic surgery;

1883: In the U.K. British Zionist and barrister Herbert Bentwich and Susannah Bentwich gave birth to Norman De Mattos Bentwich who “was the British-appointed attorney-general of Mandatory Palestine.

1886(23rdof Adar I, 5646): Pawnbroker Aaron Simon, a native of Prussia, passed away today after which he was buried at the Wolverhampton Old Jewish Burial Ground.

1887: Rumania excluded Jews from public service and the tobacco trade.

1887: Birthdate of William Zorach, “a Lithuanian-American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and writer” who won the Logan Medal of the arts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Zorach#mediaviewer/File:William_Zorach,_Moses,_1952.JPG

1889(27th of Adar I, 5649): In Edinburgh, Marcus Levy, a picture frame maker and Minna Levy, a draper, gave birth to Hyman Levy.

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Levy_Hyman.html

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Obits/Levy_Hyman.html

1890: Lena Catosk Pearlstone, the Mississippi born daughter of Mina and Louis Hart and her husband Barney Pearlstone gave birth to Morris Pearlstone

1891: Birthdate of Yaakov Kamenetsky, the Lithuanian born Rosh Yeshiva and Talmudist, who moved to North America in 1937 where he served as a Rabbi in several U.S. and Canadian cities.

1892: In Buffalo, NY Nathan and Esther (Freedman) Aaron gave birth to University of Buffalo trained attorney A. Howard Aaron, a member of Temple Beth Zion and supporter of the Jewish Federation for Social Service who was the husband of Arline Schwartz.

1893: Decrees ordering the expulsion of the Jews from Poland today which were even more far-reaching than those that had been issued expelling Jews from their homes in Russia.

1894: In New York City, Joseph Seligman and Babette Seligman gave birth to Walter Joseph Seligman

1894: In New York City, Joseph and Sarah Swernofsky Hecht gave birth to Racine, Wisconsin resident and American playwright Ben Hecht, the two-time Oscar winner whose most famous work was “The Front Page” which he co-authored with Charles MacArthur but whose real claim to fame for some was his ardent support for the Zionist cause.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ben-Hecht

https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Hecht-Fighting-Moving-Pictures/dp/030018042X

1895: It was reported today that the officers of the Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home are: Lucien Bonheur, President; Miss Gertrude Hess, Vice President; James Loeb, Treasurer; Amelia Simon, Secretary.

1895: “Great Hebrew Charity” published today included Jacob Schiff’s acknowledgement of the receipt $10,063.19 for the Montefiore Home that was raised by the recent charity ball as well as an additional $2,000 that came from payment of dues.

1895: “German Hebrew Immigration” published today described the debate in the Reichstag on restricting the immigration of Jews from Russia and Austria which one deputy described as being “so great as to amount to a national plague.” Deputies from the Social Democrats and National Liberty Party voiced their opposition to any restrictive measures which led to an end to the debate.

1895: Birthdate of New York City native and Johns Hopkins trained obstetrician and gynecologist Jacob Pearl Greenhill, the author Office Gynecology.

1896(14thof Adar, 5656): Purim

1896: Two days after she had passed away, Sarah (Levy) Moses, the wife of Moses Moses, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1897: One day after she had passed away, 71-year-old Henrietta Cohen, the wife of Marcus Cohen, was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1897(26thof Adar I, 5657): Fifty-eight-year-old the Cracow born Austrian physician Blumenstock von Halban who was raised to nobility in 1891 in recognition of his service as chairman of the forensic medicine department passed away today.

1898: In New York City, Polish Jewish immigrants “Clara (née Ostrow), a wardrobe mistress, and Louis Opiekun, a shirtmaker” gave birth Malka Opiekun who gained fame as actress Molly Picon.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/molly-picon

http://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-Mi-So/Picon-Molly.html

1898: Two days after he had passed away 63-year-old Nathaniel Nathan was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1898: In Lisrobin, Kiskeam, County Cork James and Margaret O’Flaherty gave birth to Hugh O’Flaherty, the priest and Roman Curia official who risked his life to save Allied P.O.W.’s and Italian Jews

http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-unbelievable-heroic-story-of-irelands-overlooked-oscar-schindler/

1898(6thof Adar, 5658): Eighty-two-year-old Joseph Baron von Morpurgo passed away today at Trieste.

1898: “The Get-Together Clubs” of New York and Brooklyn met this evening where the general discussion of “The Problem of the Unemployed” including a presentation by N.S. Rosenau, the Director of the United Hebrew Charities.

1900: During the Second Boer War the 118-day siege of Ladysmith came to an end. 1899: Major Karri Davies was one of the Jewish soldiers who fought in defense of the British position at Ladysmith. There were at least 2,800 Jews fighting for the British and an untold number fighting for the Boers.

1901: Birthdate of Vilem Bribram, a member of the Czech Army who was buried in the East Ham Jewish Cemetery in 1944.

1902(21stof Adar I, 5662): Fifty-two-year-old Gratz Mordecai, the Washington, D.C. born son Sarah Ann Hays and West Point graduate Alfred Mordecai, the youngest brother of Civil War hero Alfred Mordecai and the husband of Frances Kingsland Gifford whom he married in 1900 and who was the author of A Report on the Terminal Facilities for Handling Freight of the Railroads Entering the Port of New York passed away today in Swarthmore, PA.

1902: Two days after she had passed away, Elizabeth Michaels was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1903: Max Nordau meets Leopold Greenberg in Paris and sends a wire to Herzl: "Greenberg had obtained everything that can possibly be conceded in an official agreement."

1904: The first entry was made on the marriage register of the Artillery Lane Synagogue.

1905: In New York, the initial meeting of a “Choral Society for Ancient Hebrew Melodies” was held at the rooms Young Men’s Hebrew Association under the direction of Mr. Rosenblatt.

1906: In the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn Jennie (Riechenthal) and Max Siegel gave birth to Benjamin Siegel who gained fame as mobster Ben “Bugsy” Siegel considered by some to be “the father of Las Vegas.”

https://www.biography.com/people/bugsy-siegel-9542063

1907(14thof Adar, 5667): Purim

1907(14thof Adar, 5667): Ninety-two Canadian “businessman and financier” Jacob Henry Joseph passed away today in Montreal.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/biology-physics-cooper-westinghouse/

1907: In Hillsboro, OH, John and Elizabeth Caniff gave birth to cartoonist Milton Arthur Paul Caniff the creator of “Steve Canyon” and “Terry and the Pirates.” 

1907(14thof Adar, 5667): Eighty-year-old Wilhelm Rapp passed away.  Born in Germany in 1827, he moved to the United States in 1852 after having participated in the failed Revolutions of 1848. Rapp edited newspapers in several cities before the Civil War.  An outspoken abolitionist and Unionist he was forced to flee from Baltimore to Washington, DC in 1861. Rapp turned down President Lincoln’s offer to make him postmaster general and moved to Chicago, Illinois where worked as a newspaper editor until his death.

1908: In Milwaukee, WI, Henry and Anna Gattman gave birth to Marie Louise Gattman the “ex-wife of Hyman Hirsh.”

1909: In Kensington (UK) Edward Harold Spender and Violet Hilda Schuster who was consider “half Jewish” because her father’s family had been German Jews before converting gave birth to Poet Laureate Sir Stephen Spender whose identification with the Jewish people was strengthened by the fact that his second wife was English Pianist and author Natasha Spender.

1910: “Leon Kamarky and Jacob Faphirstein of New York told President Taft today that for a number of years the Jews of” the United States “had been endeavoring to secure action that would give American citizens freedom from political arrest in Russia” and “President Taft said he was deeply interested in the matter and had instructed Mr. Rockhill,” the American Ambassador to St. Petersburg “to make strong representations to the Russian Government looking to the inviolability of America of American passports” in Russia.”

1911: Akron, Ohio businessman Bert A. Polsky and the former Hazel Steiner gave birth to their daughter Peggy who was the wife of H.C. Dodge.

1911: Birthdate of Judah Leon Bernstein who gained fame as photographer Lou Bernstein.

https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/lou-bernstein?all/all/all/all/0

1912(10thof Adar, 5672): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of Rabbi Joseph Chajes of Lamberg who passed away in 5445 on the Jewish calendar.

1913(21stof Adar I, 5673): Fifty-seven-year-old Phil Phillips passed away in Cardiff, Wales.

1915(14thof Adar, 5675): Purim

1915: “One thousand members of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association attended” services at Temple Beth-El in New York this “morning to celebrate the festival of Purim.”

1915: Tonight “The Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Congregation, the oldest in the United States” presented “a series of tableaux representing the influence of Jews on the early history of America.”

1915: The Church Peace Union founded by Andrew Carnegie whose trustees are 29 prominent clergymen including those from Jewish organizations made public an address cautioning the clergy “against partisanship in discussing the European War and protesting against the agitation for increased armaments.”

 1915: In Brooklyn, NY, Israel Mostel and Cina "Celia" Druchs gave birth Samuel Joel "Zero" Mostel an actor known for his roles in the original version of “The Producers” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”

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

http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/179731%7C179732/Zero-Mostel-Profile.html

1915: “Aid For Polish Jews” published today described efforts that have been organized in the United States and Petrograd to provide aide for the approximately 500,000 Jews of Galicia who have been “ruined” by the war.

1915: It was reported today that “the large number of Jewish refugees arriving in Moscow from various parts of” war torn Poland are given “a sympathetic reception” while “the situation is quite different for Jewish refugees…who arrive in Petrograd” who now “are all being sent back to the pale of settlement.”

1916(24th of Adar I, 5676): Morris Lasker, aged 76, millionaire miller, pioneer, Indian fighter and philanthropist died in Galveston, Texas, this afternoon.  Mr. Lasker won wide fame when he led the Jews of the South in a fight for the life and vindication of Leo Frank, who was convicted in Atlanta for the murder of Mary Phagan.  Mr. Lasker came to America from Germany at the age of 16.  He “was in the mercantile business in George for three years, and then came to Texas, settling at Weatherford, where he engaged in many expeditions against the Indians.”  He settled in Galveston in 1867 and married Miss Nettie Davis of Albany, NY, the widow who survives him, along with six children including Albert Lasker of Chicago.

1916: The Board of Trustees of Congregation Orachim held a special meeting today where they adopted resolutions expressing their sorrow at the death of Henry Glass, the President of Henry Glass and Company.

1916: On the same day that it was reported that the Czar has granted freedom of travel to Jews from the United States, Judge Leon Sanders said that as a result of the work of New York lawyer Isidore Hershfield “sums of money are now being sent to Russia by Jewish immigrants in” in the United States “which will far surpass the amounts thus far collected for relief purposes.

1916: Henry James, one of the literary giants of the 19th century, passed away.  For more about how James viewed Jews including his review of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda see Milton Kerker’s Henry James on the Jewish scene/

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-112354673.html

1917: “The 5,000 members of the Federation of Hebrew Grocers’ Association have been advised by their executive committee” “which met last night” “to close the 8,000 retail grocery stores which they operate unless the housewives, now boy boycotting certain foodstuffs, are force to change their tactics.”

1917: Two days after she had passed away today, 58 year old Kate Samuel, the “wife of Ralph Samuel” was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1917: Today, fearing a violent revolution, “the High Command of the Russian tried to convince Czar Nicholas II to abdicate in favor Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, his younger brother.

1917:: Two days after he had passed, 46 year old Morris Hymovitch was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1918: “The 150 recruits for the Jewish units in the British Army who have enlisted” in the United States “were mustered into the service at the British and Canadian Recruiting Mission” in New York City “and led by mounted policemen, a band and British and Canadian officers down Fifth Avenue to the Fall River line pier from which point they embarked on their way to way

1919: Birthdate of Leo Cantor who “played halfback at the University of California-Los Angeles from 1938-1941. He then played defensive back, halfback, and fullback in the NFL with the New York Giants in 1942 and for the Chicago Cardinals in 1945.”

http://scjewishsportshof.com/cantor.html

http://www.nfl.com/player/leocantor/2511023/profile

1919: Following the decision to combine two Yiddish newspapers whose readers were “the younger and more progressive Orthodox Jews, the Day-Warheit appeared for the first time today

1919: In Paris, Dr. Sikolow, the head of the Zionist delegation to the Peace Conference who summed up the aspirations of the Jews as comprising the recognition of the historic title of the Jews people to Palestine and the right to re-establish national home” “said today that the Supreme Council gave an attentive hearing to the Zionist case.”

1920(9thof Adar, 5680): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

1920: Oscar S. Straus, the former Ambassador to Turkey said today that the people of the United States “should demand immediate ratification of the Paris Peace Treaty” and that “the responsibility for delaying the reconstruction of the world rests upon the United States of America” and those who wish to make ratification the issue in the upcoming Presidential campaign.

1921: Fire destroys 120 homes and a large number of shops in the Jewish quarter of Kouskoundjouk, Constantinople. Most of these belonged to poor Jews.

1921: Conference of rabbis in Jerusalem elects a court of Justice and chooses four Ashkenazi and four Sephardi rabbis with Rabbi Kook (Ashkenazi) &amp; Jacob Meir (Sephardic).

1921: In Passaic, NJ, “Morris and Goldie Zaentz, Jewish refugees from a shtetl in eastern Poland” gave birth to Oscar award winning movie producer Saul Zaentz whose work included “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Next” and “Amadeus” (As reported by Robert McFadden

1925: In Hamilton, Ontario, an immigrant Hebrew teacher from the Ukraine and his wife gave to McGill University graduate and NYU Ph.D. Louis Nirenberg, “a mathematician who explored the complexities of equations commonly used by physicists and engineers, and who shared the 2015 Abel Prize, a top math award modeled after the Nobles.” (As reported by Kenneth Chang)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/science/louis-nirenberg-dead.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00449-y

1926(14thof Adar, 5686): Purim

1926 Programs celebrating Purim are scheduled to take place at all of the 91 institutions affiliated with the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies.

1926: “Young Judaea Clubs throughout” the United States presented plays as part of their Purim celebrations.

1926: In New York, the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews held an open house on Purim.

1928: In Malden, Massachusetts, “Katherine (Hellerman) Greenfield” and Nathan Greenfield, who “was in the wool and waste business” gave birth to Joshua Joseph Greenfield “the Oscar nominated screenwriter” who chronicled the life of his autistic son. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/obituaries/josh-greenfeld-who-chronicled-his-sons-autism-dies-at-90.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1929:”The Jewish Immigrant Aid Society of Canada issued an official statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent” in Montreal “denying the previous report that the Society had received 2,500 permits for the admission of Jewish immigrants to Canada and that there is a 5,000 qota for Jewish immigrants under present regulations.

1928:  The Soviets decided to set up a Jewish district in Biro-bijanin Eastern Siberia. Most of its 14,200 square miles were uninhabitable due to floods. It was to be used as a buffer zone against China.

1929:  In Toronto, Thelma (née Kaplanski/Caplan) and Irving Goldberg gave birth to architect Frank Gehry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Gehry#/media/File:Dr_Chau_Chak_Wing_Building_from_The_Goods_Line_(27438092220).jpg

1930: Birthdate of Bronx native and Columbia trained Nobel Prize laureate Leon N. Cooper, the husband of Kay Allard.

https://web.archive.org/web/20060316094457/http://physics.nobel.brainparad.com/leon_neil_cooper.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/biology-physics-cooper-westinghouse/

1931(11thof Adar, 5691): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

1931: “A letter from Professor Albert Einstein commending the work of American Jewry in its efforts to rehabilitate the Jews of Eastern and Central Europe was made public” today “by Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, chairman of the 1931 fund of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee which is seeking $2,500,000 to continue reconstruction work among destitute European Jews.”

1932: It was reported today that Eugene Meyer, Jr., chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation would be one of the witnesses to be called by the Senate Banking and Currency Committee which is holding hearings on the behavior the stock markets flowing the passage of “the Glass-Steagall credit stimulus.”

1933(2ndof Adar, 5693): Eighty-four-year-old Lautenburg, Germany native David Davidson, the Breslau educated Rabbi who came to the United States in 1880 where he served on the “faculty of Hebrew Union College” and led several congregations including Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Des Moines from 1881 to 1885 passed away today.

1934(13thof Adar, 5694): In the depths of the Great Depression, for some Jews, the fast of Esther was just one more day without food.

1935(25th of Adar I, 5695): Jeannette Miriam Goldberg, who organized Texas chapters of the National Council of Jewish Women and the Jewish Chautauqua Society, passed away.

1936: The celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding the Young Men’s Hebrew Association took place today in Atlantic City, NJ.

1936:Otto David Tolischus, the Prussian born Pulitzer Prize winning correspondent today wrote a description of the Nazi regime that began with the withering words: “Like every successful revolution that wants to be more than successful in ousting the ins by the outs the National Socialist revolution is eagerly seeking to creates its own style of living which shall visibly demonstrate its totalitarian character and wean the populace from any longing to return to ‘the good old day,’ thereby helping to assure the permanence of the new regime.

1937: It was reported today that Rabbi Sidney E. Goldstein of the Free Synagogue will chair “a community program on ‘Marriage and the Home’”

1937: “More than 100 Jews of German origin attended a service held in memory of the Jews who have died as a result of Nazi persecution sponsored by the German Jewish Congregation and led by Rabbi Max Malina.

1937: In “Jewish Literature” published today John Cournos provided a review of Volume III of A History of Jewish Literature from the Close of the Bible to Our Own Days by Meyer Waxman.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/02/28/118958393.pdf

1938: During the Arab revolt, “an armed Arab mob” attacked Tirat Tzvi, “a kibbutz in the Beit She’an Valley.

1938: As the latest wave of Arab violence continued, The Palestine Post reported that the "representatives" of armed bands were regularly visiting Arab towns and villages, demanding money for their "activities" and issuing "receipts." A bridge on the Jenin-Afula road was damaged by an explosion and there were numerous shooting incidents throughout the country. A curfew was imposed on a number of villages after armed Arab terrorists stormed isolated police posts and stole arms and ammunition, intimidating the local Arab constables.

1938: The Palestine Post reported that The Union of Romanian Journalists expelled all Jews who became members after December 1919.

1939: The curfew that had been imposed on all of the Arab quarters starting on February 26 following the murder of 3 Jews by Arabs was scheduled to come to an end today at 6 A.M.

1940: The British adopted the MacDonald White Paper that included restriction of sale of Arab land to Jews in Eretz Yisrael. This document nearly voided the Balfour Declaration

1940: Ben “Auberbach and his NYU squad played against in Georgetown University in a doubleheader at Madison Square Garden in one of the first two college basketball games to ever appear on television.”

1941(1stof Adar, 5701): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1941: “A gold medal for the most creative idea submitted in a poster contest for Brotherhood Weed, conducted by the National Conference of Christians and Jew was presented” today “to Joseph Hess, a senior in the School of Industrial Art.”

1941: It was reported today that ‘the immigration quotas of the United States” and other countries “remain unfilled because Jews” in Vienna who are in a position to meet immigration requirements have not the money to pay for transportation which means they will be “transferred” Poland.

1942: In Tel Aviv, Aharon Werba, a civil servant who made Aliyah in 1933 and his wife Chava gave birth to Dorit Werba who as Dorit Beinish was the first woman to serve as president of the Supreme Court of Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Madam-Chief-Justice

1943: George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" opened on Broadway with Anne Brown and Todd Duncan.  The musical originally premiered in 1935 and survived for a mere 124 performances.  The musical was revised after Gershwin's death and slowly gained popular and critical acclaim.

1943: Brotherhood Week came to an end today.

1943: In Kovono Ghetto, thousands of Jews attend the funeral of Rabbi Avraham Duber Shapiro, Chief Rabbi of Kovno despite an order from the Nazis forbidding them to do so.

1944(4thof Adar, 5704): Sixty-three-year-old Kishinev native Semion Portugeiz who camed to the United States in 1941 after the Nazis conquered France and “who for many years wrote in the Jewish Daily Forward under the name of S. Ivanovitch” passed away today, (JTA)

1945(15thof Adar, 5705): Shushan Purim

1945(15thof Adar, 5705): Siegried Adler, one of the last Jews surviving in Berlin, died today.

1945: Author Heinrich Eduard Jacob “gained American citizenship” today.

1945(15thof Adar, 5705): Walter Süskind, the German born Dutch Jew who saved over six hundred Jewish children died either at Auschwitz or one of the death marches inflicted on Jews by their Nazi captors as the war came to a close.

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/suskind.html

http://www.morsephotography.com/suskindfilm/home_welcome.htm

http://www.castelfilm.ro/node/202

1946: Fifty-four year old “Bela Imredy, the father of the anti-Jewish bill intended to exclude Jews and those Christians with Jewish parentage from the Hungarian civil service and liberal professional while radically curtailing their position in trade and industry who resigned as Premier in 1939 because “he was compelled to admit…that he was of Jewish descent” since “his mother’s grandfather was born a Jew” passed away today.

1947: The group of 600 Jewish passengers who were going to sail on the Abril, a ship intending to run the British Blockade arrived at Port de Bouc from Grenoble.

1947: Jacob and Niza Gabbai, a husband and wife couple who have just arrived in New York City from Palestine enrolled at Fordham University.  The Gabbais are part of the Young Palestinian League which is working to develop a new cultural environment in their homeland.  They chose Fordham “because it is a complete university and not just a drama or radio school, and also because it located in the world capital of the theatre.”

1948: The famed Golani Brigade was formed today during the Israeli War for Independence when the Levanoni Brigade in the Galilee split into the 1st Golani Brigade and the 2nd Carmeli Brigade

1949: “Problems of racial and religious discrimination cannot be solved by statutes or speeches but require a militant personal living of brotherhood, former Governor Herbert H. Lehman said today at the eighth annual luncheon of the rayon division of the National Conference of Christians and Jews at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.”

1949: A delegation from Trans-Jordan which is scheduled to negotiate an armistice with Israel was greeted by Dr. Ralph S. Bunche today at Rodes.

1949: Following evacuation by an Egyptian brigade, today Israel too control “of the Faluja pocket.”

1949: “1950: Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett presented the cabinet with the draft of five-year non-aggression pact between Israel and Jordan.  The pact is the product of several months of secret negotiations.  It includes most of the terms of the armistice agreement without setting final boundaries.  Some additional points include the opening of the Israeli held road to Bethlehem to Arab traffic, the opening of the road to Mt. Scopus to Israelis and an Israeli promise to supply electricity to the Arab held sections of Jerusalem.  Israeli opposition to the agreement will be limited to a handful of leftists who oppose King Abdullah because they think he is a puppet of the British imperialists and the rightwing nationalists who believe that all of the land west of the Jordan should be part of a Jewish state.  Jordanian approval is much more problematic since it will face serious opposition from numerous sources including those who want a second war with the Jews so that they can destroy the Zionist entity. [Abdullah would be assassinated in the following year for conducting these negotiations and it would take another four decades before Israel and Jordan finally concluded a peace agreement.]

1952:  Birthdate of William Alan Finn the Boston born musician whose “musical Falsettos received the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Music and Lyrics and for Best Book.”

1953: Birthdate of Paul Krugman, leading U.S. economist, New York Timescolumnist and Nobel Prize Winner.

1953(13th of Adar, 5713): Israeli archeologist and Hebrew University professor,Eleazar Lipa Sukenik passed away. His life reads like an early history of the Zionist movement. Born in Bialystok in 1889, Sukenik made Aliyah in 1911. He served in the British army in World War I in the 40th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers which became known as the Jewish Legion. He played a central role in the establishment of the Department of Archaeology of the Hebrew University. He recognized the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls to Israel and worked for the Israeli state to buy them. In 1948, he published an article tentatively linking the scrolls and their content to a community of Essenes, which became the standard interpretation of the origin of the scrolls, a theory that is still probably the consensus among scholars, but has also been widely questioned. He was the father of soldier, politician and archeologist Yigael Yadin, the actor Yossi Yadin, and Mati Yadin, who was killed in action during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

1954: “Riot in Cell Block 11,” a crime film directed by Don Siegel was released today in the United States.

1954: Birthdate of Tulane graduate and Renaissance man Alan Smason whose interests have led to serve as everything from a theatre reviewer to the founder of the Crescent City Jewish News, the source for everything Jewish along the bayou.

http://www.crescentcityjewishnews.com

http://koshercomputing.blogspot.com/

1955: Three days after Arab terrorists had murdered an Israeli civilian at Rehovot, paratroopers from a brigade under the command of Ariel Sharon implemented Operation Black Arrow that included an attack on an Egyptian base in Gaza and the ambushing of the relief column – an action in which the Israelis lost eight men while he enemy lost 37 men with “many more wounded.”

1959: In Atlantic City, NJ, “Jane (née Divac) and Franklin Abramoff, who was president of the Franchises unit of Diners Club Credit Card Company” gave birth to crooked lobbyist Jack Allan Ambramoff.

1960: The Second Annual Concert of Jewish Music was held this evening at Congregation Beth-El in Camden, NJ, for the benefit of the Cantors Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

1961: Recently elected President Kennedy named Henry Kissinger as special advisor.  Before being the first Jew to be named Secretary of State, Kissinger followed a path that took him from Kennedy, to Rockefeller, to Nixon.

1961: Twelve days after premiering in London, “Jungle Fighters” produced by Michael Balcon, with a screenplay by Wolf Mankowitz, music by Stanley Black and starring Laurence Harvey was released today in the UK.

1963: “Hot Spot,” a musical with “lyrics by Martin Charnin, music by Mary Rodgers, and additional lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim” opened at the Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia, PA.

1964(15thof Adar, 5724): Shushan Purim

1964(15thof Adar, 5724): Sixty-two year old mining engineer Samuel Grossman Laskey, the Denver, CO, born son of Ida Grossman Lasky and Juda Eisen Lasky who graduated from the Colorado School of Mines and earned an MS from Yale while marrying Leon Lasky in 1927 and the former Melba Beale in 1944 passed away today in Luxembourg after which he was buried at Home of Peace Cemetery and Emanu-El Mausoleum in Colma, California.

1966: The New York City debut of The Guarneri Quartet whose members included 1stViolinist Arnold Steinhardt, Violist Michael Tree and Violoncellist David Soyer took place today at the New School for Social Research.

1967(18thof Adar I, 5727): Ninety-year-old Eleanor Kuh, the daughter of Samuel and Rosalie Peck, the wife of Millar F. Kuh and “mother of Howard Michael Kuh” passed away today.

1969: “The State’s Chief Watchdog” published today provided a detailed profile of Vilna native and Harvard trained attorney Goodman Alexander Sarachan, the acting chairman of the State Investigation Commission. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/02/28/77446153.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1972(13th of Adar, 5732): Fast of Esther

1974: Nigel Lawson began serving as a Member of Parliament for Blaby

1974: The United States and Egypt renew diplomatic relations.  This was one of the steps from the Yom Kippur War to the Camp David Peace Accords.

1974: Greville Ewan Janner began serving as an MP for Leicester on the same day he completed his services MP for Leicester North West.

1976(27thof Adar I, 5736): Parashat Vayakhel; Shabbat Shekalim

1977: The family and friends of Joseph M. Hyman, the producer and co-producer with the late Bernard Hart of nearly a score of Broadway plays who passed away last week are scheduled to gather this morning at Frank E. Campbell’s in Manhattan.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the majority of the plenum of the 29th Zionist Congress, held in Jerusalem, approved a resolution calling for a Jewish education program in the Diaspora, based on the principle of equality for all trends in Judaism, and specifically including the Conservative and Reform movements.

1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Liberal Faction of the Likud in the Knesset described the recent action taken by Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon in the settlement of the Yamit (Rafiah) area as injurious to the national interest, "idiotic" and "crazy."

1978: David Mamet’s “The Water Engine” “transferred to the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway as a double-bill with a short Mamet play entitled Mr. Happiness, and ran for 24 performances”

1979: Six people were injured in a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem.

1983(15th of Adar, 5743): Shushan Purim

1983: Ninety-year old Dutch born, Englisn“writer and translator” Joseph Leftwich one of “The Whitechapel Boys” whose career included stints with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Palestine Post, passed away today.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/leftwich-joseph

1986: John Demjanjuk was deported to Israel today

1986: The first issue of The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles “appeared today.”

1986: Laura Z. Hobson who wrote Gentlemen’s Agreement, the novel about anti-Semitism that was turned into a 1947 film classic starring Gregory Peck, passed away.

1987(29thof Shevat, 5747): Sixty-seven year ballerina Nora Kay, born Nora Koreff, passed away. (As reported by Jennifer Dunning)

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/01/obituaries/nora-kay-is-dead-leading-ballerina.html

1991(14thof Adar, 5751): Purim

1991: A twenty-five-year-old Jewish religious student, Elhanan Atali, was found in an abandoned storeroom in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.  His throat had been slit and he had been stabbed in the back.

1993: At the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, “The Sisters Rosensweig…a play by Wendy Wasserstein” that “focuses on the lives of three Jewish-American sisters” closes after 149 performances.

1993: Actor Tony Curtis, born Bernard Schwartz, wed Lisa Deutsch. 

1994: Jeffrey Dinowitz began serving as a member of the New York State Assembly from the 81stDistrict.

1994(17thof Adar, 5754): Seventy-eight-year-old geographer Jean Gottman passed away today. (As reported by Richard D. Lyons)

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/02/obituaries/jean-gottman-78-a-geographer-who-saw-a-northeast-megalopolis.html

1997:“The Portrait of a Lady,” the cinematic version of the novel of the same name starring Nicole Kidman, Barbara Hershey and Shelley Winters which had premiered at the Venice Film Festival was released in the United Kingdom today.

1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters by Wendy Lesser and Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economyby Edward Luttwak

2000(22nd of Adar I, 5760): Kariel Gardosh, the prominent Israeli political cartoonist known by the pen-name "Dosh," died in his home in Tel Aviv from a cardiac arrest. He was 79 years old. “Gardosh was best known for cartoons featuring his character Srulik. Srulik was a small boy in short, sandals and a traditional Tembel hat. Gardosh's character, always intended by the caricaturist to act a symbol for Israel, was a blank slate upon which to reflect the changing national mood and a perfect emblem for the emerging nation's view of itself in the 1960s and 1970s as a small nation surrounded by hostile aggressors. The small boy facing down representative from a hostile Arab world left an indelible impression upon several generations of Israelis allowing the character to remain popular through several changes in the political climate. The character is still a presence in various licensed formats such as posters and stickers.”

2001: “Bolstered by the Labor Party's agreement to join him in a unity government, Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon shifted his attention today to satisfying the demands of potential partners from religious and right-wing political factions.”

2002: Hungarian premiere of “An American Rhapsody” starring Brandeis graduate Tony Goldwyn, the grandson of Samuel Goldwyn and featuring Emmy Rossum as “Eva.”

2003(26th of Adar I, 5763): “Alfred Bernstein, a New Deal lawyer who led the movement to unionize government workers and later helped desegregate the lunch counters, restaurants, public swimming pools and playgrounds of Jim Crow-era Washington, died today at his home in Washington. He was 92.Mr. Bernstein attended public schools in Manhattan and graduated from Columbia College and Columbia Law School. Inspired by the social ferment of the New Deal, he moved to the capital in 1937 to work as an investigator for the Senate Commerce Committee's inquiry into the monopolistic railroad industry. ''What all of us were interested in was the transformation of the political process -- drafting regulations, establishing Social Security, making regulatory agencies work,'' he once told an interviewer. ''There was a lot of idealism at the time.'' After serving in the Army Air Transport Command in the South Pacific in World War II, Mr. Bernstein returned to Washington where he helped lead the successful effort against Jim Crow laws in the capital.”

2003: Ariel Sharon begins serving as Communications Minister.

2003: Eliezer Sandberg began serving as Science and Technology Minister

2003. Reuven Rivlin completed serving as Communications Minister.

2003: Benjamin Netanyahu completed his service as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

2003: Silvan Shalom begins serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

2003: Natan Sharansky completed his service as Minister of Housing and Construction.

2003: Eli Suissa completed his service Jerusalem Affairs Minister

2003: Tzachi Hanegbi succeeded Uzi Landau as Minister of Public Safety.

2003: Yosef Paritzky replaced Effi Eitam as National Infrastructure Minister

2003: Avraham Poraz replaced Eli Yishai as Minister of Internal Affairs.

2003: David Azulai competed his service as Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.

2004(6th of Adar, 5764): Daniel Boorstin passed away at the age of 89. He was one of America's most renowned historians and, between 1975 and 1987, the Librarian of Congress in the world's largest library in Washington. The son of Russian-Jewish im­migrants, Daniel Joseph Boorstin was born on October 1, 1914, in Atlanta. He was educated at Tulsa Central High School and Harvard, from where he graduated with honors in Law. Boorstin wrote more than 20 books, including a trilogy on the American experience and one on world intellectual history. The Americans: The Democratic Experience, the final book in the first trilogy, received the 1973 Pulitzer Prize in history.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/mar/01/guardianobituaries.obituaries

2004(6thof Adar, 5763): Forty-seven-year-old “poet and published of avant-garde magazines” Elzabeth Perl Nasaw, he sister of historian and author David Nasaw passed away today

2005: In Hackensack, NJ, funeral services were held for Ella Nagle, the widow of Isidore Nagle and mother of “Harvey Nagler and Claire Harmon.”

2006(30thof Elul, 5766): Rosh Chodesh Adar (first of a two day Rosh Chodesh).

2006: Johanna van Schagen, a woman who helped Jews escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust and later was honored by Israel died at the age of 91. Johanna van Schagen, who had suffered a series of strokes, died at Friendship Village in nearby Trotwood, where she lived. Van Schagen and her husband, Cornelius, moved to the United States from the Netherlands in 1956. She told the Dayton Daily Newsin 1994 that she and her husband sheltered Jews out of anger toward Germans who were taking over their native Netherlands. "We were afraid many times ... there were lots of raids and if they had found them in your home, you would be taken to concentration camps, too," she said. Israel honored the couple in 1987 and a tree along the Avenue of the Righteous in Jerusalem is named for Johanna van Schagen, the newspaper said. Her funeral was scheduled for Friday at Polk Grove United Church of Christ in Dayton, which sponsored the van Schagens when they moved to the United States, said Jacob van Schagen, a son. She is survived by four sons and a daughter.

2007: The second International Eilat Chamber Music Festival opens.

2007: One day after the anniversary of the birth of his father and historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. the son of Prussian Jew, 89-year-old historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. whose Unitarianism is an oft told tale of the assimilation of American Jewry passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1954/04/16/83750756.pdf

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/10/31/98543706.pdf

2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Rabbi Lane Steinger, Regional Director of the Union for Reform Judaism,teaches an adult education class at Temple Judah on the Reform Movement's New Prayer book, Mishkan Tifillah.

2008: In New York City, the 92nd Street Y presents “Witness to Nuremberg” featuring Richard W. Sonnenfeldt the chief interpreter for the American prosecution at the Nuremberg trials who discusses startling new information about the Nazi war criminals and the origins and development of the Holocaust.

2008:The Diary of Anne Frank: A Song To Life” a musical that tells the story of Anne Frank's life in German-occupied Holland and her death in a concentration camp, using songs that sound like a combination of Fiddler On the Roof and Spanish tunes (complete with flamenco guitar) opens in Spain.

2008(22 Adar 1, 5768): Israel Prize-winning author and translator Aharon Amir passed away at age 85. Amir, who was born in Lithuania, grew up in Tel Aviv and was a member of both the Irgun and the Lehi. He was one of the founders of the Canaanite movement, which saw geographical location rather than religious affiliation as the defining element of Hebrew or Israeli culture. He studied Arabic language and literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem but translated works of literature mainly from English and French. Authors whose work he rendered into Hebrew include Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Lewis Carroll, Albert Camus, and Charles de Gaulle. Amir won the Tchernichovsky Prize for translation in 1951 and the Israel Prize for translation in 2003.

2008:Eyes Wide Open,” a documentary film that chronicles the preconceptions and revelations of American Jews as they visit Israel, is held at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.The film was directed by veteran filmmaker Paula Weiman-Kelman and written by award-winning journalist Stuart Schoffman

2008(22 Adar 1, 5768):Esra Shereshevsky, 92, noted Hebrew-language scholar and educator, died in Jerusalem. As founder and former chairman of the Department of Hebrew and Near Eastern Languages and Literature at Temple University, Shereshevsky was one of the first professors to establish Hebrew as a full course of study at an American university. His classes were exciting events. Whether discussing Bible, medieval manuscripts or 20th-century poets, his teaching was seasoned by his love of the Hebrew language.

2009:According to Reform Judaism magazine, Brandeis University, Harvard University and RadcliffeCollege, Tufts University, Boston University, and Northeastern University are among the "Top 60Schools Jews Choose."

2009: In Barbados, Terry Schwarzfeld, who had just started her term as president of Canadian Hadassah WIZO and was executive director of Ottawa's largest synagogue, Agudath Israel, was mortally by an ex-con when he tried to rob her and her daughter-in-law, Lauana Cotsman.

2009: In Chicago, the Harris Theatre presents “Pinchas Zukerman in Recital” along “with his long time collaborator, pianist Mark Neikruug.”

2009:Rabbi Ellen Weomberg Dreyfus is installed in Jerusalem during the CCAR's 120th Annual Convention. She is the second female Rabbi to be elected to this position and the first female leader of a major rabbinic organization to begin her tenure in Israel. She succeeds Rabbi Peter S. Knobel, 66, Rabbi of Beth Emet in Evanston, IL, who will complete his two-year term as CCAR President.

2009:From January 1 through today, there were 64 terrorist attacks that took place in the West Bank or were carried out by terrorists from the West Bank

2009: In “His Story Told, Koch Makes His Peace and Dares to Look Ahead,” published today former New York May Ed Koch ruminates on his concerns as he reaches the twilight years and describes his plans for a funeral that will leave no question as to his profound attachment to his Jewish faith.

2010(14thof Adar, 5770): Purim

2010(14thof Adar, 5770): Ninety-five-year-old Chicago born child-welfare advocate Natalie Goldstein Heineman passed away today.

http://www.examiner.com/article/natalie-goldstein-heineman-died-just-18-days-after-her-96th-birthday

http://jwa.org/weremember/heineman-natalie

2010: An exhibition at the Center for Jewish History in New York entitled “In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis” is scheduled to come to a close.

2010: Final performance of Rinne Groff’s “Compulsion” is scheduled to take place at the Yale Repertory Theatre.

2010: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Ask, a novel by Sam Lipsyte

2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapir.

2010(14thof Adar, 5710): Ninety-five-year-old Jose Mindlin, a Jewish bibliophile who owned the largest private library in Latin America has died today in Brazil.

2010:Israeli police entered the Temple Mount compound today after Palestinians began throwing stones during rioting in Jerusalem's Old City

2010: Two Jewish athletes took home medals at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver which ended today. Steve Meisler won a gold medal for the United States in the four-man bobsled, pushing his team to a combined time of 3:24:46 in the four-heat race.  Jewish ice dancer Charlie White claimed a silver medal in ice dancing along with partner Meryl Davis.

2010: Ethan Bronner wrote the following obituary describing the life of Holocaust scholar David Bankier. “David Bankier, who helped expand the contours of Holocaust research by examining the participation of ordinary Europeans in the extermination of their Jewish neighbors, died over the weekend after a long illness, Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem Holocaust center, announced. He was 63.  Mr. Bankier, who was head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, focused his scholarly work on anti-Semitism, especially its use by the Nazis to promote and sustain a broader ideology. He was the author of “Germans and the Final Solution: Public Opinion Under Nazism” as well as a collection of essays, “Hitler, the Holocaust and German Society: Cooperation and Awareness.”  Born in Germany just before the state of Israel was created, Mr. Bankier grew up and was educated here, earning his doctorate in Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He held a professorship at Hebrew University and had served as a visiting professor in Britain, the United States, South Africa and South America. He spoke excellent English and Spanish, in addition to German and Hebrew. A rumpled, somber man who sought to understand the most bewildering aspects of genocide — how someone could play soccer with an acquaintance one day and assist in his murder the next — Mr. Bankier insisted both on the uniqueness of the Nazi Holocaust of six million Jews and on its applicability to other cases of mass murder. For anti-Semites, ‘Jews represent mysterious, mythic and evil forces,” he said at a recent lecture, “an omnipotence playing a sinister role in world history.’ At another lecture he noted that for Hitler, “Nazism was a doctrine of world salvation to redeem humanity from the Jewish-Christian-Marxist doctrine. The acquisition and maintenance of total suppression of the German race, Hitler believed, must be through total war of Germans against the Jews.” At the same time, Mr. Bankier said last year in an interview with The New York Times that the work he was overseeing at Yad Vashem on the role of bystanders and neighbors in numerous smaller mass killings across the former Soviet Union in the early 1940s had important implications for contemporary genocide in Africa and other places. He argued that the world was a different place as a result of what the Nazis had done, that if genocide in far-off places shocked average people today it was partly because of their knowledge of the details of the Holocaust. In other words, Holocaust deniers aside, Holocaust awareness was central to contemporary sensibility. Avner Shalev, chairman of Yad Vashem, said that with Mr. Bankier’s death, the world had lost one of its most important scholars in the field. He noted that Mr. Bankier, who had fought his illness over a long period, kept a regular schedule until his last day.”

2011:“Korach: The Biblical Anarchist” is scheduled to have its final performance tonight at the Living Theater on New York’s Lower East Side.

2011: Theodore Bikel and Jim Brochu are scheduled to do a concert reading of The Sunshine Boys by Neil Simon at a fundraiser for Theatre J in Washington, DC.

2011:A host of charities and social action organizations from across the Jewish world” are scheduled to meet at the Nalaga’at Theater in Jaffa ttoday “to discuss the future of their field and hear from a wide range of professionals who will guide them on improving their services

2011: The New York Times featured a review of “Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics: JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan” by Jewish author and political pundit Jeff Greenfield.

2011(24th of Adar I, 5771): Eighty-two-year-old “prolific writer, editor and popular radio broadcaster Netiva Ben Yehuda passed away in the early hours of this morning.

2011:The prosecuting attorney in the trial of Adolf Eichmann, retired Supreme Court justice Gabriel Bach, said today that a psychiatric evaluation conducted on the Nazi leader following his capture in 1960 suggested that the man responsible for the deaths of millions during the Holocaust had ambivalent sexual tendencies. (As reported by the Jerusalem Post).

2011(24thof Adar I, 5771): Ninety-two year old Louis Sachwald, the former resident of Pikesville, MD who survived the Bataan Death March and 42 months as a POW passed away today.  He was a member of Baltimore’s Beth-El Congreation.

http://philippine-defenders.lib.wv.us/html/sachwald_louis_bio.html

 2011(24th of Adar I, 5771): Seventy-five-year-old Harvey Dorfman who worked with many Major League Baseball stars and wrote books on sports psychology, including “The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance,” passed away today. (As reported by the Eulogizer)

2011: Actress Natalie Portman condemned Christian Dior chief designer John Galliano for anti-Semitic comments made at a bar in Paris, France which appeared online. “I am deeply shocked and disgusted by the video of John Galliano’s comments that surfaced today," Portman said in a statement. "In light of this video, and as an individual who is proud to be Jewish, I will not be associated with Mr. Galliano in any way." The Oscar winning actress is currently under an endorsement contract with Dior for its "Dior Cherie" fragrance.

2011: The United States Senate confirmed the nomination of Amy Totenberg to serve as Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia

2012: Ballet de Genève's stunning artists are scheduled to perform a work by Israeli born choreographer Emanuel Gat at the Joyce Theatre in New York City.

2012: Israeli trained clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein is scheduled to perform at Lincoln Center tonight. The program will include a work by American Jewish composer Aaron Copland.

2012: Megillat Ha-Manginot (The Scroll of Melodies) a musical celebrating Israel and its songs is scheduled to be performed at the Jerusalem Theatre on Rechov Marcus.

2012: Publication of “Faye Schulman – the Jewish Girl Who Fought the Nazis”

http://www.blogwrath.com/jewish-issues/faye-schulman-the-jewish-girl-who-fought-the-nazis/2585/

2012: Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch put down her gavel this morning, ending a 45-year legal career, and urged in her farewell remarks that it is crucial to maintain the independence of court. 

2012: The IDF said today that soldiers patrolling the border overnight spotted a group of people who had breached the frontier.

2013: Jack Lew, an observant Orthodox Jew, was sworn as Secretary of the Treasury.

2013: It was announced today that Idina Menzel would make her return to the Broadway stage, starring as Elizabeth in the new musical “If/Then.”

2013: Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot “performed with violinist Itzhak Perlman at a Jewish Music concert at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn.”

2014: The exhibition, “Passages through the Fire: Jews and the Civil War,” comes to a close at the Jewish Museum of Maryland.

2014: In Bethesda, MD, Congregation Adat Shalom is scheduled to start a hosting a weekend devoted to exploring “The Enduring Legacy of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan.”

2014: Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor are scheduled to perform at Abrons Arts Center Playhouse.

2014: In Denver, CO, “45 Israeli and North American Jewish Artists are scheduled to show and sell their creations: under the auspices “Jewishcolorado.”

2014: The IDF has reportedly issued a stern warning to the Lebanese government, clarifying that the government will be held response and be a target for response should Hezbollah carry out its threats to attack Israel. (As reported by Ari Yashar)

2014: The Israeli Air Force attacked an underground rocket launcher in the northern Gaza Strip tonight in an effort to eliminate “an imminent threat” of rocket fire towards Israel.  (As reported by Yoav Zitun)

2014: The Islamist Basij militia force in Tehran ran a special military exercise yesterday and today preparing for an Iranian takeover of Jerusalem. (As reported by Dalit Halevy and Tov Dvorin)

2015: In Rockville, MD, Magen David Sephardic Congregation is scheduled to host “Bling Bling Like A Persian King…..A 21+Purim Extravaganza.”

2015: In a bit of homecoming, Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C.

2015: This evening in Iowa City, Hillel is scheduled to host its Annual Fundraising Concert.

2015: “Stitching History” “a remarkable exhibit about the late Hedy Strnad, a Jewish-Czech dressmaker who with her husband, Paul, attempted to immigrate to the United States on the eve of the Holocaust” is scheduled to come to a close at the Jewish Museum in Milwaukee.

2015: The Igael Shemtov Exhibition which has been on display for the last three weeks at Baxter St at CCNY is scheduled to come to an end

http://www.baxterst.org/exhibitions-3/igaelshemtov/

 2016: The Andalusian Orchestra is scheduled perform with Berry Sakharov and Raymonde Abecassis on tonight at 10 p.m. at Zappa Herzliya.

2016: “The first major documentary about legendary director about Claude Lanzman who has never won an Oscar entitled ‘Claude Lanzmann: Specters of the Shoah’ is among the nominees for this year’s Academy Awards” which are scheduled to be announced at tonight ceremony in Los Angeles.

 2016: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Right Wrong Man:John Demjanjuk and the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial by Lawrence Douglas

2016(19thof Adar I, 5776): Ninety-three-year-old Chicago born real estate developer and “banker to the stars” Bram Goldsmith whose philanthropies included Jewish Federal Council of Greater Los Angeles and the National Conference of Christians and Jews passed away today.

2017: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “No Shushing Allowed” an event designed to introduce the general public to the institutions librarians and archivists in an informal atmosphere.

2017(2ndof Adar, 5777): Ninety-two-year-old Marion Javits, the widow of Senator Jacob K. Javits passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/nyregion/marian-javits-dead.html?ribbon-ad-idx=3&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article

https://nypost.com/2017/03/01/marion-javits-found-dead-in-her-apartment/

2017: “Israel’s state comptroller took military and political leaders to task for their failure to prepare adequately for the threat of attack tunnels ahead of the 2014 war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in a pair of long-awaited, highly critical reports published” today. (As reported by Judah Ari Gross)

2017: The headstone of Staff Sgt. Jack Weinger, a navigator for the 345thBombardment Group killed during an air raid over Japan in 1945 was replaced today “with one bearing a Star of David” “at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.” (JTA/TOI)

2017: Dr. Robert Silber, a pillar of the Jewish community and chair of the Thaler Holocaust Committee is scheduled to begin his career as a professor at the University of Iowa Medical School.

2017: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host Rabbi Norman Cohen’s lecture “Cain and Abel.”

2017: “Israel’s state comptroller took military and political leaders to task for their failure to prepare adequately for the threat of attack tunnels ahead of the 2014 war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in a pair of long-awaited, highly critical reports published” today.

2017: Today Marc “Trestman was named the head coach of the Toronto Argonauts,”

2017: J Street’s annual convention is scheduled to come to an end today.

2017: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to host a screening of the iconic film “Casablanca” followed by a discussion of We’ll Always Have Casablanca by Noah Isenberg.

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Well-Always-Have-Casablanca/

2018(13th of Adar, 5778): Fast of Esther; Megillah reading in the evening;

2018: Today, “Olympic gymnast Aly Raisan” filed papers in California Superior Court suing “the United States Olympic Committee and U.S.A. Gymnastics…saying that they should have prevented the former team doctor, Lawrence G. Nassar, from sexually abusing her and other athletes.

2018: Hillel of Iowa and Augdas Achim are scheduled to join forces to observe Purim complete with Megillah reading, face painting, hamantaschen baking and carnival games.

2018: Following a community breaking of the fast and the reading of the Megillah, the Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Purim Party.

2019: The Oxford University LBBTQ Society is scheduled to host a panel on “Gender, Diversity and Religion.”

2019: “Professor Ora Paltiel, a haematologist and epidemiologist at Hadassah-Hebrew University, and Professor A Mark Clarfield, a geriatrician at Ben-Gurion University,” are scheduled to speak at UCL today in the United Kingdom.

2019(23rd of Adar I, 5779): Eighty-nine-year-old award musician Andre Previn passed away today. (As reported by James Barron)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/obituaries/andre-previn-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

2019: The Town and Village Synagogue Social Hall is scheduled to host Ken Maltz, Lauren Brody and Aaron Alexander as part of the New York Klezmer Series.

2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the last two screenings of “On the Basis of Sex,” a biopic about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

2019: In the Negev, the Darom Adom (Red South Festival) is scheduled to come an end.

2019: Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, Dr. Deborah Lipstadt is scheduled to discuss her latest book Antisemitism: Here and Nowthis evening at the Streicker Center.

2019: The 24th annual East Bay International Jewish Film Festival is schedule to open “with ‘Riphagen,’ a drama about a Nazi collaborator” “who help the Nazis round up Jews, stealing their treasures for himself” while destroying “Resistance groups.”

2019: Friends and family are scheduled to celebrate a milestone-birthday for Tulane grad and CCJN published Alan Smason, a mensch and Renaissance man

2019: After testifying publicly yesterday before the House Oversight Committee, Michael Cohen is scheduled to testify today in a closed session before House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

2020: Erev Shabbat, The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to “go dark” for the evening.

2020: In Los Gatos, CA, Congregation Shir Hadash is scheduled to host a Shabbat service followed by historian Benny Morris lecturing on “A New Look at the 1948 Arab Israeli War”

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host both “an orthodox minyan and a student-led egalitarian minyan” followed by an interfaith Friday night dinner.

2020: “Friends of Bezalel are schedule to present “Growing a Garden for an Unknown Lover by Boaz Aharonovitch” a photo-diary “documenting a gardening project that took place in his studio.”

2020: Erev of Shabbat is especially joyful for the friends and family of Alan Smason, the multi-talented bon vivant who publishes the Crescent City Jewish News, as he celebrates another natal day.

2021: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Milk Fed, a novel by Melissa Broder, A Tip For The Hangman, a novel by Allison Epstein and the recently published paperback edition of The Hot Hand” The Mystery and Science of Streaks by Ben Cohen.

2021: The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of Howie Mandel: But, Enough About Me.”

2021: Addison-Penzak JCC in Los Gatos is scheduled to host a Purim CARnival, “a drive-in event in its parking lot.”

2021: “The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans and the Birmingham Jewish Federation, in partnership with the Jewish Agency for Israel's Partnership2Gether program” is scheduled to host Mitchell Barak and Robert Mann “for an informative and engaging discussion on how civics and governance structures work in Israel and in the United States - and what we can do when those mechanisms become stuck.”

2021: As part of Jewish Book, the Jewish Book Council is scheduled to sponsor Del­phine Horvilleur, only France’s third female rabbi, as she” discusses anti­semitism and more with Philippe Sands.”

2021: In Ohio, Temple Emanu El and five other area synagogues are schedule to sponsor “a concert by Nefesh Mountain,” this afternoon.

2021: In New Orleans, the Jewish Community is scheduled to host a Purim Celebration.

2021: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present “live on Zoom, “Sephardic Culinary History with Chef Hélène Jawhara-Piñer.”

2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host a Purim Party “for all kids 0-13.”

2021: The Jewish Community Library is scheduled to present Historian David Nasaw talking “about the difficult times and lives in limbo for the last 1 million Eastern Europeans in Germany after WWII, including 250,000 Jews, stuck in displaced persons camps for three to five years.”

2021: KlezCalifornia is scheduled to present Instructor Bruce Bierman teaching “a class on how to inject shtick and special, old-time styles of exaggerated acting to the characters in the Purim story.”

2021: In London, at Highgate Synagogue Rabbi Liss is scheduled to lead a “Sunday Morning Discussion” on the topic of “Is It Ever Ok to Lie?”

2021: Based on published reports Israel has “posted 4,574 new virus cases with 31 deaths over the weekend.”

2021: Private graveside services are scheduled to be held at noon today for Eishes Chayil Diane Levin, age 60, beloved wife of Stephen Levin, happily married for 35 years; loving mother of Amy Levin and Allison Levin (Max Affrunti); much loved sister of Sharon Finegood.

https://legacy.suntimes.com/obituaries/chicagosuntimes/obituary.aspx?n=diane-levin&pid=197889662&fhid=4243

 

 

 

This Day, March 1, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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March 1

286: Roman Emperor Diocletian raises Maximian to the rank of Caesar. Diocletian was determined to restore greatness and stability to the Roman Empire.  He was far more concerned about the Christians whom he saw “as the sole cause of the dissolution of the Empire, on account of their persistent struggle against the Roman state religion and their zeal for conversion” than he was about the Jews.  When he attempted to unify the empire by ordering all of those under his reign to accept his divinity and “bring sacrifices to his cult,” Diocletian exempted the Jews.  The only negative note of import surrounding Diocletian and his Jewish subjects had to do with accusation that they had mocked him because of his early origins as a swineherd.  Judah III, the Patriarch, actually had to appear before the Emperor while he was in Tiberias to answer the charge.  Judah assured him that while some may of spoken disrespectfully of Diocletian the swineherd nobody had uttered any words of criticism against Diocletian, the emperor.  The explanation assuaged Diocletian but it has been used an example of the dangers of speaking L’shon Hara.

293: Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian appoint Constantius Chlorus and Galerius as Caesares, thus beginning the Tetrarchy.  This move on the part of Diocletian was part of an attempt to ensure a smooth transition of power after Diocletian resigned as Emperor.  The plan would fail and would result in 19 years of turmoil that would end only when Constantine took the throne. For the Jews, this would mean an end to great Yeshiva at Tiberias.  Those who could, would flee to Caesarea where they would a haven at the yeshiva begun by Abbahu.

317: Crispus and Constantine II, sons of Roman Emperor Constantine I, and Licinius Iunior, son of Emperor Licinius, are made Caesares. Lucinius and Crispus would be killed, the latter by his father Emperor Constantine I.  Constantine II would continue the anti-Jewish policies of his father.  Among other things, he decreed that any Christians who converted to Judaism would forfeit their property to the state.

1105: Birthdate of Alfonso VII who in 1130, started a school in Toledo which begins to spread Hebrew and Arabic learning as well as ancient Greek knowledge through Western Europe

1274: Gregory X issued Turbato Code, a Papal Bull that forbade Christians from “embracing Judaism.”

1349 (Adar 10): Riots broke out in Worms (Germany). Many Jews fled to Heidelberg.  Others in desperation set fire to their homes or were murdered. An estimated 420 people died that day. Their property was seized by the town.

1565: Portuguese settlers founded the city of Rio de Janeiro. For the first two centuries of its existence, Jewish life in the city was hindered by the reality of the Portuguese laws against Judaism and the Inquisition.  “New Christians” played an active role in the city’s commercial and social life but records show that at least 300 of these New Christians were found guilty by the Inquisition of secretly practicing Judaism.  After Brazil gained its independence in 1822 and adopted a constitution in 1824 that allowed for religious toleration, more Jews began arriving in the city and played a more active role in its growth and prosperity.  Today, Rio has the second largest Jewish community in Brazil.

1655: The Magistrate of New Amsterdam wrote a ruling making an attempt to expel the Jews. It read, in part, "Resolved that the Jews, who came last year from the West Indies and now from the Fatherland, must prepare to depart forthwith." (“The Patroons of the West India Company decided, however, that the Jews owned most of the stock in that organization they would have to be left alone.”

1655: The Sheriff of New Amsterdam as plaintiff filed suit against the defendant Abram de la Sina, a Jew, for the crime of keeping his store open during the hour the church gave a sermon.

1670: “A solemn proclamation was made in all public places that ‘for the glory of God’ all Jews should, on penalty of imprisonment and death, leave Vienna and Upper and Lower Austria before Corpus Christi Day, never to return. Hirz Koma and a physician named Leo Winkler, “made a last attempt to propitiate the emperor by offering him 100,000 florins and, in addition, 10,000 florins a year.”

1692: “In the Parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields” apothecary John Tovey and his wife gave birth to De Blossiers Tovey, the “principal of New Inn Hall at Oxford” who devoted much of his to studying the history of the Jews of medieval England and wrote Anglia Judaica (the History and Antiquities of the Jews in England.)

1728(2nd of Nisan, 5488): Joseph Abraham Azuby, the Amsterdam born son of Lea Azuby and Chazan Abraham Azuby and husband of Rachel David Azuby and Esperanca David Azuby passed away today in the Netherlands.

1761: In Philadelphia, PA, Tabitha Mears and Mathias Bush gave birth to “Catherine” Bush, the wife of Myers S. Solomon whom she married in 1778 and the mother of Joseph, Samuel Arabella, Mattathias, Alexander, Sarah and Henry Solomon.

1769: In Buchau, German, Rebekka and Joseph Einstein gave birth to David Einstein, the husband of Sara Kan and the father of Lena, Abraham, Baruch, Joseph and Eva Einstein.

1779(13th of Adar, 5539): Ta’anit Esther; erev Purim

1790: The Pennsylvania Packet featured an advertisement offering the skills of Abraham Cohen as Hebrew tutor

1792: Francis II, who relied on Bernhard Eskeles for “financial advice” became King of Hungary and Croatia.

1798(13th of Adar, 5558): Fast of Esther; erev Purim

1799: Eppingen, Germany natives Babetter Furth and Maier Heinsheimer gave birth to Jeanette Heinsheimer, the wife of Model Wertheimer.

1800(4th of Adar 5560): Parashat Terumah

1800: English born Esther Cohen and German born Michael Hart gave birth to Rachel Hart.

1803: In London, Dinah Myers and Rabbi Henry Henoch Myers gave birth to Rabbi Moses Henry Myers, the husband of Sarah Abrahams whom he married at the Hambro Synagogue in 1826  and father of Kate, Phoebe, Miriam, Matilda, Isaac, Dinah and Victor Myers.

1803: Birthdate of Editor Salomon Frensdorff

1803: Ohio is admitted as the 17th U.S. state. Under the terms of the Northwest Ordinance there was not to be any religious qualification for states formed in the region including Ohio. The first record of Jewish settlement in Ohio relates to the city of Cincinnati.  By 1824, there were enough Jews living in the “Queen City,” that the Jews formed a congregation called the Sons of Israel.  The twenty-four members of the congregation were not able to raise enough funds for a building until 1836.  Max Lilienthal and Isaac Mayer were the first two rabbis in the state.  By the time of the Civil War, the Jewish population was large enough that it sent almost 1,200 of its sons to fight in the Union cause.

1806(11th of Adar, 5566): Chaim Yosef David Azulai ben Isaac Zerachia passed away.  Born in Jerusalem in 1724, he was the great-great grandson of Abraham Azulai who was a noted student of the Talmud and Kabbalah, community leader and prolific author.

http://www.ou.org/about/judaism/rabbis/chida.htm

1809(13th of Adar, 5569): Fast of Esther; erev Purim are observed for the last time during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson.

1810:Georgetown College was chartered in Washington, D.C., making it the first Roman Catholic institution of higher learning established in the United States.  Today Georgetown has approximately 1,600 Jewish students out of a student boy of 13,000 students.  The school offers approximately 35 Jewish Studies Courses.

1810: John Jonas, the son of Jacob Jonas and Sarah Reuben was circumcised today in the UK.

1811: In Dresden, German, Reitzel and Mordecahi David Landau gave birth to Wolf Landau, the husband of Fanny Landua, the father of David and Emilie Landau and the grandson of Rabbi David Landau who “in 1854, when Zacharias Frankel became director of the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau,  was unanimously elected as his successor in the Dresden chief rabbinate.”

1819: Jamaica native Rosetta Micholls and Edward Emanuel Micholls gave birth to Emma Micholls he wife of Salomon Henry Godefron.

1822: In Brno, Joshua Philipp Feibelman Gomperz and Henriette Auspitz gave birth to Max von Gomperz the sugar merchant who was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Creditanstalt

1827: In Karlsruhe, Germany, Fanny and David Ellstaetter gave birth to Mortiz Ellstaetter whose quarter of a century as Minister of Finance made him “the first and only Jew since the days of Joseph Suss Oppenheimer to be a Cabinet Minister in Germany.”

1823: In New York, Solomon Henry Jackson published “The Jew,” an anti-missionary journal. This is thought to be the first Jewish publication to be published in the United States. Jackson is also known for translating and publishing the first Sephardic Siddur in America. He published an English-Hebrew version in 1826.

1837: Birthdate of Egyptologist Georg Moritz Ebers, the Berlin native who “discovered the Ebers Papyrus at Luxor” which dates from 1550 BCE.

1841: Dr. Marcus Mosse and Ulrike Mosse gave birth to Deborah Leonore Mosse who became Leonore Cohn When she married Emil Cohn

1843: David Belasco married Mary Davis at Bevis Marks in London.

1843: The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of New York passed a resolution prohibiting the performing of ceremonies at funerals of persons intermarried with Christians.

1843: Isaac Michael Emanuel married Jane Jacobs today at the Great Synagogue.

1847(13th of Adar, 5607): Fast of Esther; erev Purim

1848: In Shirwint, Russia Hirsch Tannenbaum and his wife gave birth to Abner Tannenbaum who came to New York in 1887 and “opened a small candy and cigar store” and then starting in 1889 began writing for Jewish publications including Der Morgenstern as well as translating “all the work of Jules Verne into Yiddish.”

1848: Birthdate of San Francisco native Abraham B. Arnold, the graduate of Washington University School of Medicine who was granted a “certificate to practice medicine and surgery in” California at meeting of the Board of Examiners on December 22, 1890.

1851: Noting the appearance of Jews in Utah, Lorenzo Brown wrote in his diary today that he had seen “some Hungarian Jews living in the ward--emigrants bound for the [California] mines...forced to leave their native land because of the revolution.”

1852: The New York Times reported that a funding raising ball has raised $1,034 which will be donated to "The Hebrew Hospital" in New York City.

1854: In Dresden, on his 43rdbirthday, Rabbi Wolf Zeev Landau, the Dresden born son of Reitzel and Mordechai David Landau and his wife Fanny Landau gave birth to Emilie Landau in the same year that Woolf Landau became the Chief Rabbi of Dresden.

1857: The Hebrew Indigent Sick and Burial Society was organized today.

1858: The New York Times reported that in February of this year, Lord John Russell's bill that would modify the oath of office so that Jews could serve in Parliament had been "debated and read for a second time" in the House of Commons. [This was in the days before the transatlantic cable.  Gaps between events and published reports are responsible for some of the inconsistencies in providing specific dates for events]

1858: Birthdate of German born philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel. Simmel’s family was Jewish, but when his father died, Simmel’s Catholic guardian converted him to the Church of Rome. 

1860: “Gang of Rogues Started on a Traveling Tour,” published today, reported that “Five Polish and Prussian Jews, who have long been known to the police authorities of” New York City “as expert pickpockets and daring burglars… started on a Western traveling tour” yesterday evening.  Information of their departure was given by two members of the gang, who have lately sundered relationship with their old associates.” According to these two, “the gang has for a long time gone by the name of the ‘Order of Vatabeds,’ a name till now kept private among the members.” Since it was impossible for the police to detain them in New York, “telegrams were sent to Albany, Buffalo and Dunkirk, stating the fact of their departure, and putting the public and Police on guard against their arrival. The names of the traveling troupe are Samuel Levy, alias "Old Levy"; Morris M. Goldstein, alias Goldever; L. Truebart; Michael Roberts, alias "Big Roberts," and Henry Wcyman. Most of them have served terms in foreign state prisons.” 

1860: A column entitled London Town Talk published today provides a gossipy and       negative view of William Ward’s elevation from Baron of Ward to Earl of Dudley. His elevation was attributed not to his virtue but to his wealth. According to the unnamed author the role of money should come as no surprise since it was “Baron Rothschild’s millions” that made Lord John Russell an advocate of the bill to remove “Jewish disabilities” when it came to taking the oath to serve in Parliament. 

1861: The first train of the Florida Railroad arrived in Cedar Key providing the first link between Florida’s Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico’s ports.  The railroad was the creation of David Levy Yulee, the first Jew to be elected to the United States Senate. Unfortunately for Yulee, the business success was short-lived due to the Civil War which began a month later.  Yulee supported secession and served in the Confederate Congress so you might say he was the architect of his own doom

1861: Birthdate of American author Henry Harland. A lawyer by trade he began his literary career by using the pen name Sidney Luska under which he wrote his first three novel’s  As It Was Written, Mrs. Peixada and The Yoke of the Torah which were known as his “Jewish Trilogy.”

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/16044a.htm

 

 

1861: The New York Times reported that The Knoxville (Tenn.) Whig gave “a first rate” description of a “Jew” named Mordecai who distinguished himself a few weeks” ago since by presenting $10,000 to the Governor of South Carolina. The Whig stated that “Mordecai who is a druggist, visited New-York, Philadelphia and Boston, just before he did this act, and represented to his creditors that he was insolvent, and settled with them by paying 50 cents on the dollar.”  [By this time, South Carolina had seceded from the Union, so the money was going to support the Rebel government.]

1863: Six days after she had passed away, Franklin, Maria (nee Levy), the wife of Benjamin Woolfe Franklin and the mother of Louisa Franklin was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1865: The Medal of Honor was issued to Private Benjamin Levy for bravery displaced during fighting at Glendale, VA in 1862.

1866(14th of Adar, 5626): Purim

1866: The Purim Ball, the last of the three great events of New York’s Winter Social Season was held this evening.

1867: Nebraska becomes the 37th state to join the Union. The Jewish community in Nebraska pre-dates statehood. Services were conducted in Omaha in the 1860’s. The oldest congregation in the state, Temple Israel, was founded in 1871 along with a burial society.  The town of Lancaster was renamed Lincoln at this time and Lincoln became the state capital. Lincoln, Nebraska’s Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, also known as the South Street Temple was Lincoln’s first Jewish congregation. The Temple was founded in 1884, principally by German immigrants. The year 1884 must have been an auspicious one for Cornhusker Jews, since that is the same year in which the first synagogue building in the state was dedicated at Omaha.  It was the home of Congregation Israel now known as Temple Israel.

1870: Israel and Rebecca (Kaplan) Gerstein gave birth to law student turned physician Maurice Gerstein, the laryngologist and husband of Miriam Brodie who was a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society and Temple Israel.

1870: J.K. Buchner published Di Yiddshe Zeitunge, the first Yiddish weekly to be published in the United States. The language itself was more of a German Yiddish than the eastern European variant of the patois.   The politics were conservative rather than socialist in direction.

1871: Birthdate of Baltimore native Bertha van Leer.

1872(22nd of Adar II, 5632): Forty-four-year-old Hannah Moses, the widow of Zvi Moes passed away today after which she was buried at the Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.

1872: “In the Galitzian town of Lemberg, or Lviv, then under Austrian administration, Nahum Niemirower, a Jewish trader and his wife gave birth to Dr. Jacob Itzhak Neimirower, “a modern reform rabbi” who served as the first Chief Rabbi of Romania as well as a member of the Romanian Senate.

1874: The first day of the annual Purim Reception at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews in New York is scheduled to begin at eleven o’clock this morning.

1874: Birthdate of General Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope who was appointed High Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief for Palestine and Trans-Jordan in 1931” and whose firs four years in office were described as “the heyday of Zionist history in Palestine” with an increase in immigration, land holdings and “Jewish business and commerce.”

1875: It was reported today that a Jewish furniture dealer named Beyfus has brought suit against a weekly London newspaper claiming that he and his son have been defamed as money-lenders by the publication.

1876: In Savannah, GA, the cornerstone is laid for the new home of Mikveh Israel.  The new structure was required because the congregation had outgrown the old building. 

1877: The Purim Association is sponsoring a Purim calico masked reception at Delmonico’s in New York City.  The association had originally planned on sponsoring a fancy dress ball but changed its plans because of the current economic problems.

1878: In Cincinnati, OH, Leopold Henry Anspacher and Rosa Kaufman gave birth to “author and dramatist Leopold Henry Anspacher the holder of a B.A., M.A. and LL.B from Columbia best known for as a playwright, poet and lecturer in philosophy.

http://archives.nypl.org/mss/110

1878: It was reported that George H. Hepworth is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Our American Homes” at a meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association at Lyric Hall later this week.

1879: Birthdate of Edward Ganz the Vilna born American “coal and fuel dealer who was the co-owner of Harris and Gans in Norwalk, CT where he was a city councilman and an active Zionist.

1879: In a modern case that is harkens back to the fifth commandment, in the Court of General Sessions, Judge Gildersleeve heard charges from seventy-year-old Fanny Salomon that she had been abandoned and refused support by her three sons – Alfred, Leopold and Felix.  The sons responded by contending that their mother was financially secure and was merely to parsimonious to pay for her own upkeep.

1880: It was reported today that Lee & Shepard is about to published “The Exodus of the Children of Israel” by Francis Underwood and Brugsch Bey that uses the latter’s research to provide that the Red Sea has been mistaken for the Sea of Reeds in the Exodus narrative.

1880: It was reported today that Ernest Renan, the French scholar who is an expert on ancient eastern civilizations and Semitic languages is scheduled to deliver a series of lectures in London.  Renan’s knowledge of Hebrew is such that he was the chair of Hebrew at the College de France, a position from which he was ousted because he challenged the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.[Renan would eventually write a three volume history of Israel.]

1881(30th of Adar I, 5641): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1881: Ida (Kuhn) Cohen and Eduard Cohen gave birth to Sophie Cohen

1881: Judith Salzedo Peixotto, the first Jewish school principal in the history of New York City and the daughter of the Amsterdam-born physician Dr. Daniel Levy Maduro Peixotto and New York–born Rachel (Seixas) Peixotto who was the wife David Hays with she had eight children -  “Sarah Rosalie (b. 1852), Daniel Peixotto (b. 1854), Rebecca Touro (b. 1855), Benjamin Franklin (b. 1857), George Davis (b. 1859), Rachel Peixotto (b. 1861), David Solis, Jr. (b. 1863), and Cora Florence (b. 1870). Judith Peixotto Hays –“ passed away today after which she was buried at the Shearith Israel Cypress Hills Street Cemetery in Queens, New York.”

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/peixotto-judith

1881: Twenty-three citizens of Salt Lake City met to form B’nai Israel. Under the direction of President Henry Siegel $2,600 was spent on a lot which would be the site of Utah’s first synagogue. (As reported by Jack Goodman)

http://historytogo.utah.gov/people/ethnic_cultures/the_peoples_of_utah/jewsinzion.html

1883: In West Virginia, Bertrand Kahn, the Atlanta, GA, born son of Matilda and Samuel Kahn and his wife Leonora Kahn gave birth to Louis Isaac Kahn, the brother of Minette Hirsch

1885(14th of Adar, 5645): Purim

1885: Four days after he had passed away, Morris Angel, the son of “Rachel and Daniel Angel” and the husband of Sarah Angel with whom he had had six children was buried today at “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”

1886: First organized Arab attack on a Jewish settlement in what would become Eretz Yisrael.  The attack was waged against Petak Tikvah, the first all Jewish village to be built in Palestine during modern times.  The early settlers had a difficult time of it facing not only Arab marauders but malaria as well.  The land on which the village was built was purchased by English Jew named Hayyim Amzalak who had moved to Palestine in 1830.  Money for draining the malarial swamps in the area was given by Baron Edmond de Rothschild.  Much of the labor was supplied by Russian Jewish immigrants.

1888: Rabbi Joseph Silverman begins serving as spiritual leader for Temple Emanu-El replacing the legendary Gustav Gottheil. Silverman is the first American born rabbi to serve a congregation in New York City.

1889: In Baltimore, MD, “Jacob Levy and Bertha Arnold” gave birth to Elsie Levy, who became Elsie Pfaelzer when she married Frank Pfaelzer with whom she had four children – Maurice, Betty, Frank and Mildred – while being active in several social improvement organizations in Philadelphia.

1890: Birthdate of Theresa Ferber Bernstein the Krakow born American artist who settled in Manhattan in 1912 whose husband William Meyerowitz was a well-known artist in his own right.

1891(21st of Adar I, 5651): Sixty-seven-year-old Bernhard Sondheim passed away today in New York.  Born in Hesse Homburg, he and his family moved to Georgia when Sondheim was nine years old.  Eventually he settled in New York where he established a successful import business. He was a member of the 10thRegiment of the state militia and served as Vice President of the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society, a position he held at the time of his death.

1891: With less than two months until the start of Passover, The Passover Relief Association, which provides matzoth and items to New York’s less fortunate Jews, finds itself with only $173.45 in its treasury.  Considering the fact that the association spent $675.24 and the fact that the population of needy Jews has greatly increased, the association is in need of donations which can be sent to its members including the chairman, Benjamin Saidel.

1891: Today the United States trustees of the fund created by the late Baron de Hirsch to provide for the needs of immigrants coming to America will draw the $2,400,000 set aside for this purpose from the banks in Paris.

1891: In New York city Harriet "Hattie" (nee Lehman) and Philip Julius Goodhart gave birth to their third and youngest child Arthur Lehman Goodhart, the brother of Howard Goodhard and Helen Goodhart Altschul and grandson of Mayer Lehman (co-founder of Lehman borthers who became a Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxoford and “was the first American to the Master of an Oxford College.”

https://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/law/wps/WPS2010-01_Goodhart.pdf

1891: “Good Things From Foreign Tongues” published today provided a review of A Literary Manual of Foreign Quotations, Ancient and Modern by John Devoe Belton which includes an explanation of the Latin phrase “Credat Judaeus Appella” which Horace saw as a reference to Appella “the most superstitious of his race” who “believed that the incense placed on the threshold of his temple melted without fire” but whom Renan “thought referred to a Hellenized Jew who, was orthodox, ill-informed and consequently very superstitious.” (As the worse Latin student in the history of Alice Deal and Woodrow Wilson, I can claim no credit for the following.  According to some experts this phrase, which by the way Doc Holliday used in the movie “Tombstone”, can loosely be translated as “Let the Jew believe it; not I” or in colloquial English, “tell it to someone else, not me.”)

1892: It was reported today that the next meeting of the Hebrew Technical Institute will take place at Temple Emanu-El

1892: Carl Wiser played the role of Shylock in the German version of “The Merchant of Venice” at New York’s

Thalia Theatre

1892:  As of this afternoon, 21-year-old Joseph Seigler who worked in his father’s dry good store is the only new case of typhus reported today. 

1892: As New York City continued to deal with the latest outbreak of typhus fever, public health officials ordered all synagogues on the Lower East to be fumigated.1893: “Jewish Women’s Achievements” published today outlined the plans for the presentation of papers to delivered at the upcoming Parliament of Religions “which is to be a feature” of the upcoming World’s Fair. The papers which will be prepared by some of New York’s leading Jewish ladies will highlight the unique contributions of such groups as the Woman’s Auxiliary of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

1893(13th of Adar, 5653): Fast of Esther; Erev Purim

1893: Three days after she had passed away Eloisa Berger, the wife of Austrian native Leo Berger with whom she had had five children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.

1894(23rd of Adar I, 5654): Twenty-seven-year-old Hyman Freedman, the husband of Sarah Freedman passed away today after which he was buried at the Edmonton Western Jewish Cemetery.

1894: According to the testimony of Benny Weiss, Charles Krumm gave two ten dollar bills to Ward Man Jeremiah Levy of the Eleventh Police Precinct “in pursuance of an arrangement with the policeman.” (Arrangement is a euphemism for bribe)

1894: In London, Abraham and Leah (Santman) Broun gave birth to Beaux Arts Institute trained American illustrator Aaron Broun, the husband Sadie Cohen.

1894: Over the last six months (10/1/93 – 3/1/94), the United Hebrew Charities spent $103,102.40 providing aid to the needy as opposed to $46,498.22 “for the corresponding period of the preceding year.”

1895: The National Council of Women, an organization whose members included Jewish, Protestant and Catholic women, opened the penultimate session of its annual triennial meeting in Washington D.C.

1895: “Russians Arrested on Suspicion” published today relied on telegraphs from the Vienna correspondent of the Central News to described arrests made in Kiev and Odessa of those thought to be “engaged in revolutionary plots’ many of whom were Jews.

1896(16th of Adar, 5656): Forty-three-year-old Jacob Bueno De Mesquita, the son of David and Jessy Bueno De Mesquita passed away after which he was buried in the Nuevo Jewish Cemetery in London.

1896:  Theodor Herzl and Nathan Birnbaum meet for the first time. Nathan Birnbaum was born in Vienna, and lived there from.1864-1908, and again from 1914-21. In 1882, together with two other students in the University of Vienna, he founded “Kadimah,” the first organization of Jewish nationalist students in the West. In 1884, he published his first pamphlet, Die Assimilationsucht(“The Assimilation Disease/Mania”). He founded, published and edited Selbst-Emancipation!(“Self-Emancipation!”)  The periodical promoted “the idea of a Jewish renaissance and the resettlement of Palestine.” It incorporated and developed the ideas of Leon Pinsker. In 1890, Birnbaum coined the terms “Zionist” and “Zionism,” and, in 1892, “Political Zionism.” In 1893, he published a brochure entitled Die Nationale Wiedergeburtdes Juedischen Volkes in seinem Lande als Mittel zur Loesung der Judenfrage(“The National Rebirth of the Jewish People in its Homeland as a Means of Solving the Jewish Question”), in which he expounded ideas similar to those that Herzl was to promote subsequently. Birnbaum played a prominent part in the First Zionist Congress (1897) and was elected Secretary General of the Zionist Organization. However, he and Herzl developed ideological differences. Birnbaum had begun to question the political aims of Zionism and to attach increasing importance to the national-cultural content of Judaism. Birnbaum eventually left the Zionist movement and later became a leading spokesman for Jewish cultural autonomy in the Diaspora. He stressed the Yiddish language as the basis of Ashkenazi Jewish culture and was chief convenor of the Conference on Yiddish held in Czernowitz, Bukovina, in 1908. This was attended by leading Yiddish writers, and proclaimed Yiddish as a national Jewish language. Birnbaum propagated his ideas in writing and by lecturing in many Jewish communities. In the years preceding World War I he gradually abandoned his materialistic and secular outlook, eventually embracing full traditional Judaism. He may be seen as the forerunner of the modern Baal Teshuvah movement. His most famous book of this period was Gottesvolk (“God’s People”) first published in German and Yiddish in 1917 (translated into English in a shortened form by J. Elias in 1947 titled "Confession"). In 1919, he became the first Secretary General of the new Agudath Yisrael Organization. Dissatisfied with the spiritual complacency of the religious masses, he initiated a movement, the Order of the Olim (“[Spiritual] Ascenders”), to consist of small groups of people dedicated by their way of living to raising spiritual awareness within the larger Jewish society, thus leading toward a Jewish spiritual renaissance. Disturbed by the urbanized focus of Jewish life, he promoted the establishment of agricultural communities and other groups living a style of Jewish life more in conformity with nature. Settlement in Eretz Israel was to be for the prime purpose of fulfilling the spiritual role of the Jewish people. He lived in Berlin from 1912-1914, and again from 1921-1933. After the rise of Nazism, he left Germany for Scheveningen, Netherlands, where he edited Der Ruf("The Call"), a platform for his ideas. He died there in 1937.

1896: “Gifts on Purim” published today based on information that first appeared in The American Hebrew described the near disappearance of “the custom of sending gifts on Purim to friends” a custom, “that can easily be restored.”

1896: “The Mexican Inquisition” published today described the publication of two papers by the American Jewish Historical Society – “Trials of Jorge de Alemdia by the Inquisition in Mexico” by Dr. Cyrus Adler and Jewish Martyrs of the Inquisition in South America” by George Alexander Kohut – which provide a hitherto untold story of the  early Jews living in Latin America.

1897(27th of Adar I, 5657): Seventy-one-year-old Mosbach native and editor of Jewish texts Seligman (Isaac) Baer whose most famous work was Seder Avodat Yisrael, “a monumental edition of the Jewish prayerbook according to the Ashkenazic rite” passed away today.

1897:” Old Bibles In A New Home” published today “rich and curious library of the American Bible Society” which includes “an ancient Hebrew roll found in a synagogue in the interior of China” that “is supposed to date back to the year 900 and is supposed to have been used for centuries.”

1897: It was reported today that the Yale Divinity Students who visited New York last week learned about “the magnitude of the problems confronting charitable organizations” including the United Hebrew Charities whose director N.S. Rosenau told them “We have been faced since with an unprecedented rush of immigration” since 1890 because the Russian have driven 400,000 people to the United States.

1898: In Bucharest, Tulius Revici and Ecaterina Gaster Revici, the daughter of Phina Judith Gaster and Abraham Emanuel Gaster, gave birth to Fina Friedman

1898: “Get-Together Clubs Meet” published today included a summary of a speech, “The United Hebrew Charities and the Unemployed” by N.S. Rosenau in which the director described “the problem of Jewish labor in New York saying that their natural limits of ability had kept them out of the work of the day laborer” and had “sent them into the garment trades” where “the Italians were already displacing them.”

1898: “Hope For Zionist Union” published today described efforts two unify the religious and secular supporters of the Zionist which, if successful will strengthen the movement designed to buy land for Jewish settlement in the Ottoman Empire.  Representative of 26 different Jewish organizations including Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Adam Rosenberg, E.D. Eisenstein and Dr. Moses Mintz are working on the effort led by Columbia Professor Richard Gottheil.

 

1899(19th of Adar, 5659): Sixty-one-year-old Farrer Herschell, the 1st Baron Herschell whose father Rabbi Ridley Haim Herschell who had converted to Christianity and founded the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews passed away today.

1899(19th of Adar, 5659): Bavarian born William S. Rayner, who in 1838 settled In Baltimore from which he managed “mining enterprises in Pennsylvania and North Carolina” while also serving as a director of the the Western National Bank and the Western Maryland Railroad and playing an active role in the Jewish community as can be seen by his serving as President of the Hebrew Orphans’ Asylum, the Hebrew Benevolent Society and Congregation Har Sinai which he helped to found passed away today.

1899(19th of Adar, 5659): Miriam Joel, the wife of Lewis Leapman passed away today in her 66th year after which she was buried at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.

1900(30th of Adar I, 5660): Rosh Chodesh Adar II

1900: In France, a bill calling for amnesty of all matters related with the Dreyfus Affair is introduced by   the Senate.

1901: “A fire which started in the basement of the five-story brick tenement at 20 Clinton Street” this evening “caused a panic among the occupants” including Mrs. Nathan Goldberg and her four children.

1902: In New York City, Goodman Richard Davis and Benvenida Solis Davis, the daughter of David and Sarah Brickner, gave birth to Walter Alan Davis

1903: “Light on the Jewish Question in Romania,” published today summarizes an article that first appeared in The Romanian Bulletin that defends King Charles (a.k.a. Carlos I) against accusations that he is the prime mover in the persecution of his Hebrew subjects.  The article depicts him as being sympathetic to their plight, but as a constitutional monarch, all but powerless to defend the Jews against “unscrupulous ministers” who do not share his enlightened views of Romanian Hebrews.  

1903: In Topeka, KS, Henry A. Auerbach, the Achim, Germany born so of Emma and Abraham Auerbach, and his wife, Rosine Auerbach gave birth to Ruth Auebrach who became Ruth Hirsch, the wife of Clarence Hirsch and the mother of Rosine and Robert Hirtsch.

1904(14th of Adar, 5665): Purim

1904: In London, Redcliffe Nathan Salman, the son of Myer and Sarah Salaman and Nina Ruth Salaman gave birth to Arthur Gabriel Salaman

1904: Israel Schochat, founder of Ha-shomer arrived in Palestine.

1905: Birthdate of New York native research chemist Saul Caspe who was educated at Columbia and Brooklyn Poly Technique.

1906: In Hamburg, “Austrian actor Fritz Spira who died in the Ruma concentration camp in 1943” and actress Lotte Spira gave birth to German actress Camilla Spira.

1907: As of today, 15,000 Jews have fled Odessa since the attacks by members of the Black Hundreds began and thousands more “have their passports in readiness to leave Odessa at the first sign of an anti-Jewish attack.

1908: In a letter made public today, Henry Bergh, the nephew of the founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, called “attention to the present means of killing used by Jewish butchers to comply with Hebraic laws” and said that “efforts are now being made to construct some form of harness which will permit the animal to be treated more humanely while it is being suspended by their hind legs as part of the Jewish method of slaughtering animals.

1909: The theme of “Meyer and Son” “the news modern drama by Thomas Addison that opened at the Garden Theatre tonight puts a new twist on the theme of “Jew against Gentile” since it tells the story of college educated son of an old Jewish banker who falls in love with the daughter of business rival “who is prejudiced again father and son because race and creed.”

1910: It was reported today that “in Replying to a delegation from the American Association of Foreign Language Newspapers, who called at the White House to protest against the Hayes and Overman bills to restrict immigration, President Taft paid a high tribute to the Jews who had come to America from various parts of the world and had become imbued with a true spirit of patriotism.”

1911: Birthdate of chess grandmaster Harry Golombek

1912: Three-day long dedication ceremonies for Sinai Temple and Social Center began today in Chicago.

1913(22ndof Adar I, 5673): Parshat Vayakhel

1913(22ndof Adar I, 5673): Seventy-two-year-old Rabbi Judas Leopold Friedman passed away today in Cleveland, Ohio.

1913: Rabbi Weil is scheduled to preach his sermon in German this morning at Temple B’Nai Jehoshua in Chicago.

1913: Rabbi Abram Hirschberg delivered the sermon this morning at Temple Sholom.

1913: Birthdate of boxer Nathan “Nat” Bor, the native of Fall River, MA, “who won a bronze medal at the 1932 Summer Olympics.

1913: Effective today, Congregation Anshai Emeth released Dr. Charles S. Levi from his contract as of today.

1914: Adolph Lewisohn, Lee Kohns, Simon F. Rosenthal and Benjamin H. Nam are in charge of tonight’s program at the 39th Street Theatre in Manhattan which includes a screening of “How the Jews Care for Their Poor” and “a program of music.”

1914: Birthdate of Aaron Ruben the Chicago native who gain fame as 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

1915(15th of Adar, 5675): Shushan Purim

1915: Mrs. Piza Weyl was reported today to have been in charge of the tableaux “representing the influence of Jews on the early history of America” which were shown at the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue at 70tth Street and Central Park West.

1915: Rabbi Emil Hirsch was reported today to be among the 29 clergymen who are trustees of the Church Peace Union founded by Andrew Carnegie designed to promote “a new moral leadership to prevent armed conflict” – specifically to limit and/or end the World War that had begun in 1914

1915: “Dr. (Samuel) Schulman Tells Why He Opposes Return To Palestine Movement” published today quotes the President of the Metropolitan League as saying that “In America we are Americans, and if there are those who wish to perpetuate Jewish customs and narrow nationalism, let it be done in Palestine, not here in America. The highest work of the Jews is not to teach customs but how different races and peoples may live together in accord and harmony.”

1915: The American Jewish Relief Committee received a cablegram from the Jewish Colonization Association of Petrograd describing the desperate condition of the “tens of thousands” of refugees from Poland” and the granting of official permission to organize assistance for the Jews of Galicia.

1916: The funeral of Rose Fridstein, the wife of Joseph Fridstein and the mother of Myer, Sam and Harry Fridstein is scheduled to take place today followed by burial at Bickur Cholim Cemetery.

1917: As the Russian Revolution gained momentum, with all that that would mean to the Jewish people, the Czar abdicated today “leaving the Provisional Government in control of” the Russian Empire.

1917: The U.S. government released the plaintext of the Zimmermann Telegram to the public.  Barbara Tuchman, the noted Jewish historian, wrote The Zimmerman Telegram a fascinating volume covering this little-known event which had a major impact on America’s decision to enter World War I on the side of the Allies.

1917: Benjamin and Dora Finkelstein gave birth to Maurice Finkelsteinm “the husband of “Justice Irene Finkelstein” and the father of Arlene Dawn Joelson.

1918: In Vienna, the “Press states that Count Czernin, Minister of Foreign Affairs, will in the course of peace negotiations with Romania, bring up thequestion of granting full rights to the Jews.”

1918: The new Zionist publication, Ungarische Wochenschrift reported that Galician Jewish regfugees are the victims of frequent atrocities.

1919: Emir Feisal, the son of Emir Hussein, Grand Sharif of Mecca and the leader of the Arabs of Hejaz sent a letter to Felix Frankfurter.  According to Martin Gilbert he wrote, “We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement.  We will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.”  “I hope the Arabs may soon be in a position to make the Jews some return for their kindness.  We are working together for a reformed and derived Near East, and our two movements complete one another.  The Jewish movement is notional and not imperialist: our movement is national and not imperialist, and there is room in Syria for both.  Indeed I think that neither can be a real success with the other.  I look forward, and the people with me look forward to a future in which we will help you and you will help us, so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once against take their place in the comity of the civilized peoples of the world.” 

1919(29th of Adar I, 5679): Parashat Vayakhel and Sabbat Shekalim

1919(29th of Adar I, 5679): Seventy-three-year-old Moshe Dov ben Mordecai Zev passed away today after which he was buried at the Blackley Jewish Cemetery.

1920: “Several hundred Shiite Arabs from the village of Jabal Amil in southern Lebanon marched to the gates of Tel Hai together with Bedouin from Halasa and their Mukhtar, Kamal Affendi” demanding to search Tel Hai for French soldiers

1920(11th of Adar, 5680): Tel Hai, a Jewish village in the Galilee is attacked by Arabs. Joseph Trumpeldor, the one-armed Jewish military leader and one of the Zionist movement’s first military heroes was killed in the ensuing battled along with five men under his command. “Trumpeldor was born in 1880 in Russia. Originally in training as a dentist, he volunteered for the Russian army in 1902. During the Russo-Japanese War he participated in the siege of Port Arthur, where he lost his left arm and was captured. Subsequently, he received four decorations for bravery, which made him the most decorated Jewish soldier in Russia. In 1906 he became the first Jew in the army to receive an officer's commission. In 1911 he emigrated to Palestine then under the Ottoman Turks, living for a time at kibbutz Deganya. When World War I broke out, he went to Egypt, where together with Vladimir Jabotinsky he developed the idea of the Jewish legion to fight with the British against common enemies and as a result, the Zion Mule Corps was formed in 1917, considered to be the first all-Jewish military unit organized in close to two thousand years, and the ideological beginning of the Israel Defense Forces. He saw action in Gallipoli, where he was wounded in the shoulder. Upon his return to Russia in 1918, he established the He-Halutz, a youth organization that prepared immigrants for Aliyah (moving to Palestine), and returned to Palestine himself, then under the British Mandate. He was one of the founders of the Zionist Socialist movement in pre-state Israel. After his death Trumpeldor became the symbol of Jewish "self-defense", and his memorial day on the 11th day of Adar is officially noted in Israel every year. Supposedly, his last words were, "Never mind, it is good to die for our country". There is no proof whether this is true.”

1921: The Political committee of the Zionist Organization met in London to discuss Churchill’s forthcoming visit to Palestine.

1921: Margery Merlyn Baillieu and Sidney Myer, the founder of Myer (Australia’s largest department store chain) gave birth to the first child, Ken.  But since Myer had converted a year earlier and Baillieu was not Jewish, Ken would not be carrying on the “faith of his fathers.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1391841/Sir-Michael-Kerr.htm

1921: In Berlin, “Alfred Kerr, the well-known socialist author and theatre critic for Berliner Tageblatt and Frankfurter Zeitung” and his non-Jewish wife gave birth to Sir Michael Kerr, the Lord Justice of Appeal who was believed to be “England's first foreign-born judge since the reign of Henry II.”

1922: John Schuburgh a member of the Middle East Department (of the British Government) sent a visiting Arab delegation a letter reiterating British support for the Balfour Declaration and the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. 

1922:  Birthdate of Yitzhak Rabin(יצחק רבין). A Sabra, Rabin was a soldier-statesman who served as Prime Minister from 1974 until 1977.  The scandal which drove him from office would open the way for the Right-Wing Likud to take power for the first time since the founding of the Jewish State.  Rabin would return as Prime Minister in 1992.  He would win the Nobel Peace Prize for his groundbreaking attempts to end the violence in the Middle East.  Sadly, the man who had avoided death at the hands of Israel’s Arab enemies, met death at the hands of a Jewish fanatic bent on derailing the Peace Process.  Would events been different had Rabin lived?  We will never know.  Just as a killer at Dallas had thwarted the American electoral process, so a killer thwarted the democratic process in Israel in 1995.

1924: Dr. Max Pinner, the recipient of the American Thoracic Society’s Trudeau Medal, married Berna Rudovic, four years before he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

1924: In New York “Max Druckman, a Manhattan furniture dealer” and Pearl Cohen gave birth to Arnold Druckman who gained fame as Arnold Drake “an American comic book writer and screenwriter best known for co-creating the DC Comics characters Deadman and the Doom Patrol, and the Marvel Comics characters the Guardians of the Galaxy, among others” who was the brother of songwriters Ervin and Milton Drake.

1926(15th of Adar, 5686): Shushan Purim

1926: It was reported today that the Purim Ball at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel sponsored by the Old Timers of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association had “served a reunion for all former Y.H.M.H.A. members since 1874.”

1926: At a testimonial dinner honoring Joseph Barondess’ forty years of service to American Jewrtygiven tonight in the ballroom of the Manhattan Opera House, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise said “that no Jew in America had given more to Jewish life.”

1926: Mlle. Maxa Nordau, the daughter of the late Zionist author Max Nordau is scheduled to begin holding an exhibition of art in New York staring today.\1926: Birthdate of Robert Clary, the French born actor who gained fame playing the part of LeBeau on “Hogan’s Heroes” and who ironically was the only one of his immediate family members to survive imprisonment by the Nazis during World War II.

 

1928: Joseph Levy, writing in the New York Times described the ceremonies that marked “the recent inauguration of the plantation of the Balfour Forest at Ginegar, in the Valley of Jezreel, Palestine.” As part of the ceremony, Sir Alfred Mond delivered an address in which he “paid high tribute to Lord Plumer, the High Commissioner, for the devotion he has shown during his tenure in office and to the Jewish national fund. The entire cost of the Balfour Forest is being borne by the Jews of Great Britain.  The project is part of the Zionist led reforestation project that is vital to the renewal of Palestine.

1929(19th of Adar I, 5689): Forty-eight-year-old Lodz native Louis DeWitt Gibbs, the 1906 graduate of New York University Law and state legislator who led the battle to make the Bronx into a separate country before going to serve as “a member of the New York State Supreme Court and who was the husband of Anna White Gibbs with whom he had three children – Howard, Harriet and Isadora – passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/03/02/95885301.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1929: It was reported today that “The Anshe Russia Synagogue, the oldest Orthodox congregation in Newark, NJ” which is led by Rabbi Joseph Konvitz and President Bernard Brody, “is planning to erect a new synagogue at a cost of three hundred thousand dollars.”

1930(1st of Adar, 5690): Parashat Mishpatim; Rosh Chodesh Adar; Shabbat Shekalim

1930: “Puttin’ On the Ritz” produced by Joseph M. Schenck starring Harry Richman in his movie debut who also wrote the music for the film along with Fred E. Ahlert and Irving Berlin was released in the United States today.

1931: The White House released President Herbert Hoover’s congratulatory message expressing his congratulations to Baith Israel Anshei Emes on the celebration of the 75th anniversary of its founding.

1931: “Anti-Semitism is a challenge to the Jew to be at his best, and he must find his idealism not only in fighting against anti-Semitism with every legal weapon, but also in accepting it as a spur to his own virtue, declared Rabbi Samuel Schulman in his sermon today at Temple Emanu-El” while he also said that “the Jewish problem is a spiritual problem for the Jew and for the world and there is no short cut to its solution.”

1932: On a radio broadcast Clarence C. Dill, Democratic Senator for Washington, called Hoover's appointment of Justice Cardozo "the finest act of his career as President"

1932: It was reported today that Daniel Frohman is the honorary president of “Theatre in Art” exhibition which will open later this month as a fundraiser for the Actors’ Fund of America.

1932: It was reported today that Judge Cardozo has met with Chief Justice Hughes and “made tentative arrangements for his induction as a member of the Supreme Court.”

1932: “The confirmation of the appointment of Judge Benjamin Cardozo as associated just of the Supreme Court was transmitted to the White House by this Senate this evening.”

1932: Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr. the infant son of “the Lone Eagle” was kidnapped today which would lead to the trial of his kidnapper where David Theodore Wilentz, the Attorney General of New Jersey would serve as the lead prosecutor.

1932: The Maccabee Association of the United States announced the members of the swimming and track and field teams that will be sent to compete in the Jewish Olympic Games that will take place at the end of March.  The selection committee was chaired by Sol Goodstein.

1932: Benjamin N. Cardozo was elected an honorary member at today’s meeting of the governing committee of the Lawyers’ Club in New York City.

1933: During the movement to boycott Jewish businesses in Germany, Nazi troops sang in front of the Berlin Woolworth Company store” because they believed that the Methodist Woolworth brothers were Jewish.

1933: Today, Billy Wilder arrived in Paris from Berlin and settled in the Hotel Asonia which was “a haven for members of the German film industry who had fled from their homeland to escape the encroaching threat of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party including actor Peter Lorre, composers Franz Waxman and Friedrich Hollaender, and screenwriters H.G. Lustig and Max Kolpé, who agreed to help Wilder develop a plot he had conceived in Berlin” which became the French film “Mauvaise Graine.”

1934(14th of Adar, 5694): Purim

1934: Birthdate of New York native and Olympic gymnast Abie Grossfeld.

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

1934: As of this date, according to a report prepared by Morris Rothenberg, President of the ZOA, there are a quarter of a million Jews living in Palestine which marks a significant increase from the total of 85,000 Jews living there in 1921.

1934: Billy Wilder arrived in Paris from Berlin today and “settled in the Hotel Ansonia where he joined Peter Lore, Franz Waxman, Friedrich Hollaender and others who fled from Hitler and the Nazis and directed “Mauvaise Graine” which premiered later in 1934.

.1935: Sandor Harmati served as the conductor today when “Serenade” had its “official premiere” today with “the American Ballet at the Adelphia Theatre in New York.”

1935: Aaron DeRoy, the University of Pittsburgh trained dentist and husband of oil heiress Helen Lowentritt DeRoy who moved to Detroit where he established the Aaron DeRoy Motor Car Compnay and “sat on the board of the Hudson Motor Company” died today in an automobile accident in South Carolina.

1936(7th of Adar I, 5696): Eighty-one-year-old “Dr. Arnold Netter, noted physician and newly elected President of the Alliance Israelite Universelle died today while addressing a meeting of the French Medical Association” in Paris.

1936: Dr. Chaim Weizmann, is scheduled to leave Palestine today for London where he will meet with those Jews who “are sponsors of a scheme to accelerate the evacuation of Jews from Germany “told the New York Times ‘I do not know the extent of the funds of the nature of the scheme contemplated by Herman Samuel’s mission, but I am ready to cooperate in the execution of any project promising to increase Jewish immigration to Palestine.’”

1936: Birthdate of Richmond, VA native Shirley Bernice Politzer who would gain fame as “Dr. Shirley P. Glass, a psychologist who strove to redefine the nature of infidelity” and the mother of Ira Glass, producer of “This American Life.”

1936: “Creation of an ‘Albert Einstein Fund for Palestine’ to be applied to the nation-wide campaign of the United Palestine Appeal to raise $3,500,000 for the settlement in Palestine of Jews from Germany, Poland and other countries was announced” today “after a meeting of the Council of Jewish Organizations at the Hotel Pennsylvania.

1936: “A new anti-Semitic wave was ushered in today in Germany following of weeks of quiet because of the Winter Olympics” during which the “Nazis attempted not to offend foreign visitors.”

1936: “Two thousand people attending the fifty-first annual meeting of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aids Society” today “at the Hotel Astor urged Congress to ‘humanize’ sections of the immigration law affecting resident aliens by enacting the Kerr-Coolidge Bill” which according HIAS President Abraham Herman “would tend to remove ‘some hardships affecting innocent resident aliens.’”

1936: “In view of the recent Nuremberg decrees” it was reported today that the “efforts” of the Joint Distribution Committee “will be intensified including the continuation of aid to Jewish and non-Jewish German refugees in France, Czechoslovakia, Holland, etc., providing money for German Jews going to Palestine as well as the “education of about 60,000 German Jewish children in Germany.”

1936: “Travels in Palestine” published today provided a review of Footprints in Palestine: Where the East Begins by Madeline Sweeney Miller with an introduction by Field Marshal Viscount Allenby, the liberator of Palestine during WW I.

1936: It was reported today that the “three hundred chapters of Hadassah throughout the country will merge the celebration of Purim with founders’ day programs” that will mark the 24thanniversary of the organization which was established by Henriette Szold in 1912.”

1936: Taking advantage of earlier meetings held by Eliezer Kaplan, treasurer of the Jewish Agency in Palestine and the General Manager of the Anglo Palestine Bank, Dr. Chaim Weizmann is scheduled to leave today for London “to confer with Sir Herbert Samuel, Viscount Bearsted and Simon Marks, sponsors of a scheme to accelerate the evacuation of Jews from Germany”

1936: According to sources in Heidelberg, “Nazi Government will…now undertake a counter-campaign against the refusals of the English universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Birmingham to accept an invitation to send representatives to the ceremony celebrating the 550thanniversary of the found of Heidelberg University.”

1936: Columbia University’s acceptance of “an invitation to send a representative to the 550th anniversary celebration of Heidelberg University evoked a protest” today “from Roger E. Chase, editor of Spectator, an undergraduate publication.”

1936: It was reported that the Nazi “program, which fundamentally has only one aim, namely, racial, as a substitute for national, unification through restoration of German military strength” will require it t”o make compromises with all existing classes except the Jews.”

 

1936: The Cornell University Daily Sun will say editorially today: If Cornell has already accepted the German invitation as reported, it can only save its academic face by publicly reversing its stand and by joining British and American universities in a boycott of this Nazi travesty.”

1936: “Germany recovered full sovereignty over the Saar today when the last League of Nations bonds were cut” which meant an end to “the validity of assurances given by the German government to the League that ‘no discrimination on account of language, race or religion’ would be made during the one year period.”

1936: “Details of an agreement under which 1,000 non-Russian Jewish families will be settled in the Jewish autonomous territory of Birobidjan, Soviet Russia have been made public by William W. Cohen, chairman of the American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobidjan.”

1937: Winston Churchill retained Hungarian born Jew Emery Reves as his literary agent which would prove a boon to Churchill’s literary career and pocketbook.

1938: Today, “the American ORT Federation opened a national campaign to raise $450,000 to provide technical and agricultural training for Jewish victims of social and economic decimation in Poland, Germany, Rumania and other European countries and to assist them in achieving economic independence and stability.

1939(10th of Adar, 5699): Jacob C. Felsenthal, the Kentucky born son of Bina and Marcus Felsanthal, the Memphis merchant and philanthropist who was the husband of Cecillia Felsenthal and the father of Jeanette, Edward and Marcus Felsnethal passed away today in Jackson, TN.

1940: In Brooklyn Joseph Grossman, the owner of “a silk-screen printing shop” and “the former Ethel Stern” gave birth to Robert Samuel Grossman to the illustrator you may not know by name but do know by product.  (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/obituaries/robert-grossman-illustrator-with-a-brash-touch-dies-at-78.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

https://www.robertgrossman.com/

1940: In Brooklyn, “Maurice Schaap, a salesman, and the former Leah Lerner, a French teacher” gave birth to controversial attorney William H. Schaap, the older brother of sportscaster Dick Schaap.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/nyregion/william-h-schaap-radical-lawyer-author-and-publisher-dies-at-75.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1941: In South Miami Beach, FL, Max and Mae Greenberg gave birth to “anthologist” Martin Harry Greenberg.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120710140557/http://sfscope.com/2011/06/anthologist-martin-greenberg-d.html

1941: Prime Minister Winston Churchill wr0t4 to Colonial Secretary Lord Moyne expressing his displeasure with General Wavell who, “like most British officers is pro-Arab” and opposed to the Jews.  This attitude extends to an unwillingness on the part of the British military to form additional Jewish military units to fight in the Imperial Army.

1941:  Himmler inspected the Auschwitz concentration camp

1941: Bulgaria officially joins the Axis Powers - Germany, Italy and Japan.

1942: Three years after premiering in the United Kingdom, “The Silent Battle” with a script co-authored by Emeric Pressburger and music by Francis Chagrin was released in the United States today.

1942: On Purim Eve, the Germans ordered 5,000 Jews deported from Minsk.

1942: Three years after premiering in the United Kingdom, “The Silent Battle,” featuring Carl Jaffe who had escaped from Nazi Germany and settled in the UK, was released today in the United States.

1942: “Hitler order the Einsatzstab to establishment a library of Jewish books and works to art to be use in the in the ideological war against the Jews” “600,000 of which volumes fell intact in the hands of the United States Army” at the end of the war.

1942: In Boston, Ruth Ashen and Sam Gruber, the owner of a junk business, gave birth to Howard Peter Gruber, best-selling author, CEO of Mandalay Entertainment and the owner of several pro teams.

1943: In Jerusalem, Aliza and Menachem Begin gave birth to Benny Begin who earned a doctorate in Geology from Colorado State University before following his father into the world of Israeli politics.

1943: In Amsterdam, a Jewish old age home for the disabled was raided.

1943: Fourteen examples of the work of William Zorach including “Hound” and “Cat” were part of his one-man show that opened today in New York at the Downtown Gallery.

1943:  In a speech given before a crowd of 70,000 people at Madison Square Garden, Chaim Weizmann states, “Two million Jews have already been exterminated.  The world can no longer plead that the ghastly facts are unknown or unconfirmed. This rally had been planned by the American Jewish Congress in an attempt to mobilize American public opinion in support of efforts to rescue Jews trapped in Hitler’s Europe.

1944: In London, “Dr. Wolf Gottlieb, Rabbi at Queen's Park Synagogue, Glasgow and head of Glasgow's rabbinical court (av beit din)” and his wife gave birth to Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, the Torah scholar and author who finally settled in Jerusalem.

http://www.avivahzornberg.com/

1945: “Pope Spoke In Hebrew” published today described the visit of Pvt. Lou Herman who in civilian life was a cantor and other Canadian Jewish soldiers who were singled out by Pope Pius XII and speaking in Hebrew were blessed by the Pontiff who “raised his arms in the manner of the priests of the Hebrew faith” while giving the benediction.

1945: During the “Hunting Season” the British expressed their concerns that the Jewish Agency was interested in more than just going after terrorists when the High Commissioner to the Minster of Colonies wrote today that Unfortunately, the Jewish Agency's lists of so-called terrorists continues to include numerous people who have no terror connections, but politically speaking are undesirable to the Jewish Agency. This adds to the difficulties the police has in separating the sheep from the goats…”

1946: It was disclosed today that the investigation of the activities of the big six German banks by the Allies has found evidence that the Netherlands subsidiary of the Dresdner bank “collected rans by accepting payments from Netherland Jews in concentration camps outside the Netherlands who had assets abroad.”

1946: In Vienna, the police guard “at the headquarters of the Jewish community organization has been strengthened” in response to Vienna Jewish community organization having previously informed the police that it has been receiving threatening letters from Nazis who wrote that ‘Hitler’s task’ would be finished when the last Jews had been liquidated.”

1947: Jews responded violently to British Foreign Minister Bevin’s latest pronouncements about Palestine by conducting multiple attacks that resulted in the death of at least sixteen British military personnel.

1947: The Abril, filled with 600 Jewish refugees, set sail from Port du Bouc today only after have been pulled free by tugboats after she ran aground.

1947: David Remez, Chairman of The Jewish National Council, announced tonight that the “Jewish population of Palestine will observe a self-imposed curfew for four hours” tomorrow night to express their concern for the refugees from Europe recently seized by the British.

1948: This month Henry and Phoebe Ephron gave birth to author Hallie Ephron one of four sisters all of whom are talented authors.

1948: A dramatization of Robert Nathan’s The Bishop Wife“was dramatized as half-hour radio play on today’s broadcast of The Screen Guild Theatre.

1949: “Henry Morgenthau Jr., former Secretary of the Treasury, announced today that he had accepted the chairmanship of the 1949 campaign of the United Jewish Appeal.”

1950: It was revealed today that in the non-aggression pact being considered by Israel and Jordan included a promise that Haifa would become a free-port for Jordan thus giving the Arab state access to the Mediterranean.

1953(14th of Adar, 5713): Purim

1953(14th of Adar, 5713): Eighty-four-year-old retired New York Stock Exchange member Hartwig Baruch, the, Winnsboro, SC born son of Simon and Isabel Wolfe Baruch and brother of Bernard Baruch who had acted under the name of “Nathaniel Hartwig” and who had one son and two daughters with his wife Arline Lennox Baruch whom he married in 1917 passed away today in Coral Gables, FL after which he was buried at the Flushing Cemetery in Flushing, NY.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1953/03/02/93603323.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1953:In Wilmington, DE, The Executive Council of the Building Committee of Congregation Beth Emeth which had been founded in 1905 presented plans for a new building to the congregation at a special meeting and received approval to go ahead with the project.

1954: Today,Rokhl Auerbakh “one of the three surviving members of the covert Oyneg Shabes group led by Emanuel Ringelblum that chronicled daily life in the Warsaw Ghetto, and the initiator of the excavation of the group's buried manuscripts after the war” “was named director of Yad Vashem's new Department for the Collection of Witness Testimony, which was based in Tel Aviv where most Holocaust survivors had settled.”

1954: In Perm, Russia, Victor Radunsky, the teacher at naval school and Maria (Ilinichna) Radunsky, a teacher gave birth to illustrator Vladimir Radunksky, the brother of Alexander Radunsky, the husband of Eugenia Uriitsky whom he married in 1987 the year before the publication of his first book The Riddle and the father of Anna and Alexandra Radunsky. (As reported by Daniel E. Slotnik)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/05/obituaries/vladimir-radunsky-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Obituaries

1955: The Lux Radio Theatre broadcast an hour long adaptation of “The Bishop’s Wife” based on the novel of the same name by Robert Nathan.

1960(2nd of Adar): Hundreds of Jews, including some students of the local Chabad Yeshivah, were among the thousands of victims to perish in a devastating earthquake that struck Agadir, Morocco today

1961(13th of Adar, 5721): For the first time during the Presidency of John Kenney, Jews observe Ta’anit Esther.

1964: Fifty-four-year-old composer and pianist, whose father was “a Lithuanian Jews” passed away today.

1967: In a sketch tonight on “At Last the 1948 Show” Marty “Feldman’s character harassed a patient shop assistant for a series of fictitious books, achieving success with Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying.

1967: “More than four hundred Jewish lay and religious leaders representing fifty national Jewish organizations” are scheduled to meet David Ben Gurion today at Kennedy International Airport to makr the state of a three-week tour of the United States that will be part of the celebration of his 80th birthday.

1969: Joseph Vogel the MGM executive who served as its President from 1956 to 1963 during which the studio produced the classic “North by Northwest” passed away.

1970: Birthdate of best-selling author Darin Strauss author of “Half a Life, which won the 2011 NBCC Award for memoir/autobiography.”

1971: In Massachusetts, “Nancy Falchuk, the national president of Hadassah” and her husband gave birth to Hobart and William Smith Colleges grad and self-proclaimed Republican Brad Falchuk, the award-winning television “writer, director and producer” and husband of actress of Gwyneth Paltrow whose brother Evan Falchuk was the founder of the United Independent Party.

1972: Naomi Bronheim Levine was appointed Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress (A. J. Cong.), becoming the first woman to take the helm of a major American Jewish organization that included both men and women as members

1972(15th of Adar, 5732): Shushan Purim

1972(15th of Adar, 5732): Sixty-three-year-old Moshe Sneh passed away

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0018_0_18758.html

1972: Seventy-eight-year-old Vladimir Golschmann, the Paris born son of Russian parents and conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra from 1931 to 1957 passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/03/02/archives/vladimirgolschmann-conductor-dies.html

https://www.naxos.com/person/Vladimir_Golschmann/31777.htm

1973: U.S. premiere of “The Thief Who Came To Dinner co-produced by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin who also directed the film featuring Alan Oppenheimer as “Insurance Man.”

1973: A week after premiering in New York “Charlotte’s Web” with music by Richard and Robert Sherman is released today across the United States.

1973: Eight Palestinians were arrested after the Saudi Arabian Embassy at Khartoum was seized and the U.S. Ambassador and Deputy Head of Mission and the Belgian Charge d’ Affaires were murdered.

1974: “Soviet police detained about 70 Jews from Moscow and other Soviet cities to prevent the transmission of a petition to the Central Committee of the CPSU with 200 signatures.

1974: “Radio Moscow reported demonstrations by Zionist elements during the wreath laying ceremony at the monument to the heroes of Plevna in Moscow.”

1976: The International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee began its annual meeting in Jerusalem today.

1978: At today’s 17th Annual Grammy Awards presentation Marvin Hamlisch was honored as “best new artist” and Alan and Marilyn Bergman & Marvin Hamlisch (composers) were honored for The Way We Were performed by Barbra Streisand.

1978:  Charlie Chaplin's coffin was stolen from a Swiss cemetery.

1978: In “Lefkowitz Style: Example of the Old School” published today Maurice Carroll traced the career of New York’s Attorney General.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1978/03/01/110786105.pdf

1979: Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” opened on Broadway at the Uris Theater.

1982: Wadi Aranki of the POL was killed in Madrid

1983(16th of Adar, 5743): Author Arthur Koestler and his wife Cynthia took their own lives this evening.

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/04/world/arthur-koestler-and-wife-suicides-in-london.html?pagewanted=all&mcubz=3

1983:” Soviet dissident, mathematician, teacher and human rights advocate” Valery Senderov went on trial in the USSR today.

1985: Milwaukee businessman Herb Kohl Kohl would go on to become one of Wisconsin’s two Jewish senators purchased the Milwaukee Bucks. 

1985: “The Sure Thing” a comedy directed by Rob Reiner and co-produced by Henry Winkler and Roger Birnbaum was released in the United States today

1987:  In “An Israeli Lawyer Dares Defend an Accused Nazi,”published today Francis X. Clines describes the challenges and criticism facing  Yoram Sheftel, the Tel Aviv criminal lawyer serving as co-counsel in the defense of  John Demjanjuk, the retired auto worker from the United States who is accused of being the infamous executioner of the Treblinka death camp.

1988(12th of Adar, 5748):  Joe Besser one of the Three Stooges passed away.

1990(4th of Adar, 5750): Seventy-seven-year-old 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” passed away.

1991(15th of Adar, 5751): Shushan Purim

1991(15th of Adar, 5751): Edwin H Landinventor of the Polaroid Camera passed away at the age of 81.

https://www.biography.com/people/edwin-land-9372429

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/02/obituaries/edwin-h-land-is-dead-at-81-inventor-of-polaroid-camera.html?pagewanted=all

1991: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors including Mr. Mani by A.B.Yehoshua

https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/01/books/history-overheard.html?searchResultPosition=2

and The Story of H. H. Asquith, Venetia Stanley andEdwin Montagu, Based on the Life and Lettersof Edwin Samuel Montagu by Naomi B. Levine

https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/01/books/no-prime-minister.html?searchResultPosition=5

1991: Following the end of the Iraq War, Lufthansa plans to resume service to Tel Aviv today.

1991: “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” a rodeo drama directed by Stuart Rosenberg was released in the United States today.

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 the United Kingdom.

1993: In “Doubts Mar PBS Film of Black Army Unit,” published today Richard Bernstein describes the controversy surrounding a movie that is supposed to be a documentary about the 761st Tank Battalion’s role in the liberation of Jews held in concentration camps at the end of World War II.  The tank battalion was an all-black unit and the film was supposed to be a tool to rejuvenate the alliance between Jews and African-American.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/01/nyregion/doubts-mar-pbs-film-of-black-army-unit.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm

1993: Publication of E. M. Broner's The Telling: The Story of a Group of Jewish Women Who Journey to Spirituality Through Community and Ceremony

http://jwa.org/thisweek/mar/01/1993/em-broner

1993(8th of Adar, 5753): “Two civilians in their twenties, Natan Azaria and Gregory Avramov, were stabbed to death in Tel Aviv by Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

 

1994: Ari Halberstam, a 16-year-old yeshiva student, was returning from a vigil for Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. While pulling onto the exit ramp for the Brooklyn Bridge, Halberstam’s vehicle was shot at by Rashid Baz, a Lebanese immigrant. He died five days later. (As reported by Seth Berkman)

1994: Publication of Gun, with Occasional Music, a novel by Jonathan Lethem.

1994: U.S. Air Force Captain Jack Weinstein, the future Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, was promoted to Major today.

1995: Publication of the paperback edition of Gun, with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem.

1998: The 25th European Athletics Indoor Championships in which Aleksandr Averbukh placed sixth in the Heptathlon closed today at Valencia.

1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including recently released paperback editions of Unto the Soulby Aharon Appelfeld in which “Gadand Amalia, brother and sister, have been given the sacred duty of tending an ancient cemetery of Jewish martyrs near their village in turn-of-the-century Eastern Europe and Isaiah Berlin John Gray’s study of the 20th century's premier Renaissance man that focuses on his liberalism, which was complex in that it acknowledged no one right path for human society.

1998: Today, “Titanic” produced by Jon Landau and featuring Victor Garber and David Warner became the first film to earn more than $1 billion worldwide

1999: Dan Seligman provide a detailed review of The Times of My Life by Max Frankel today.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-times-of-my-life-by-max-frankel/

1999(13thof Adar, 5759): Fast of Esther; erev Purim

1999(13th of Adar, 5959): Seventy-seven-year-old Jews’ College educated Rabbi Bernard Hooker, “the youngest Jewish Chaplain to serve in the British Armed Services and the husband of Eileen Hooker, whose career began at the Birmingham Liberal Jewish Synagogue in 1948 and ended at the North London Progressive Synagogue in 1991 where he later reached emeritus status passed today in Ledbury Herefordshire

2000: “After combing through their holdings, Britain's art museums and galleries released a list of more than 350 works of art today that have murky provenances for the period around World War II and may have been seized by the Nazis.”

2001(6thof Adar, 5761): Hamas claimed credit for the Mei Ami junction bombing which took place at Vadi Ara where one person was murdered.

2002: In the fiercest fighting of the last 17 months, Israelis troops fought their way into two camps one of which was located at Jenin.

2003: “Another Round in the Skirmish Over Elio and Anti-Semitism” published today examined charges that the famous poet had an animus and bias towards Jews that was unknown to most readers and students.https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/books/shelf-life-another-round-in-the-skirmish-over-eliot-and-anti-semitism.html?searchResultPosition=1

2004: It was reported today that in Vienna, “an Austrian genealogist said two Jewish relatives of” Senator John Kerry's -- his grandmother's sister and half-brother -- had died in Nazi concentration camps.”

2005(20th of Adar I, 5765): Seventy-seven-year-old Peter “Zvi” Malkin, the Mossad agent who led the team that captured Adolf Eichmann passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/obituaries/peter-zvi-malkin-israeli-agent-who-captured-adolf-eichmann-dies.html

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/mar/08/guardianobituaries.israel

2005: Completion of the Eleventh Daf Yomi Cycle begun in September of 1997.  The next cycle begins on Wednesday, March 2, 2005.

2005: Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel was deported from Canada to Germany today where he “was arrested and detained in Mannheim prison” where he would await “trial for inciting racial hatred.”

2005: Penultimate broadcast of “Boston Public” co-starring Fyvush Finkel as “Harvey Lipschultz.”

2005: “Boris Lurie: Uneasy visions, uncomfortable truths” published today highlights the views of artist Boris Lurie the native of Leningrad who survived imprisonment in a string of concentration camps including Buchenwald.

http://thevillager.com/vil_95/borislurieuneasy.html

2006:  On the secular calendar Rosh Chodesh Adar, first day of the month of Adar.

2006: London Mayor Ken Livingstone began serving his four-week suspension from office after being found guilty of bringing his office into disrepute by comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

2007: Fast of Esther observed on 11th of Adar since the 13th of Adar falls on Shabbat.

2007(11thof Adar, 5767): Eighty-seven year old New York native Harold Michelson “the illustrator and storyboard artist” who with his wife Lillian formed a formidable behind the camera Hollywood power couple immortalized in the biopic “Harold and Lillian” passed away today.

https://www.jta.org/jewniverse/2017/meet-the-jewish-power-couple-behind-hollywoods-iconic-films?utm_source=jewniverse_maropost&utm_campaign=jewniverse&utm_medium=email&mpweb=1161-5275-39206

2007(11th of Adar, 5767): Meyer “Mike” Feldman, a White House advisor for President Kennedy, passed away at the age of 92.

2007: Celebration of the birthday of Muriel Rogers, doyen of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community

2008: The Jerusalem Cinematheque presents The Path Of Our Fathers .”

2008: Beth Hillel Congregation in Wilmette, Illinois, presents a screening of the Argentinean film Legado a documentary about the arrival of the first Russian Jews in 19th century Argentina

2008(24th of Adar I, 5768): St. Sgt. Doron Asulin, 20 of Beersheba and St. Sgt. Eran Dan-Gur, 20, of Jerusalem, were killed early Saturday as their Givati Brigade units operated against terrorists.  Asulin served in the brigade’s anti-tank company and Dan-Gur served in the Shaked Battalion.

2008:On the second day of Operation Hot Winter which was aimed at disrupting terrorist infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces “carried out airstrikes at ammo warehouses, rocket factories, rocket warehouses and launching cells, combined with small incursions close to the border. Despite the IAF presence in the whole Gaza Strip and the IDF presence in the border areas, the Palestinian terrorists managed to fire more than 200 rockets during the operation, most of them at Sderot, but at least 20 at Ashkelon and 1 at Netivot.”

2009: Jonathan Schanzer, director of policy at the Jewish Policy Center discusses and signs copies of Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle For Palestine at Politics and Prose Bookstore in

Washington, D.C.

2009: The 120th annual Central Conference American Rabbis being held in Jerusalem comes to an end.

2009: The annual Koach Kallah comes to an end.

2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War by Alexander Waugh, A Mad Desire to Dance by Elie Wiesel and recently released paperback editions of The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal,by Lily Koppel and Swimming in a Sea of Death:A Son’s Memoir, by David Rieff.

2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Future of Liberalism by Alan Wolfe

2009:Effective today the Glendale Uptown Home will become a nonkosher facility, leaving Philadelphia proper without a certified glatt-kosher nursing home.

2009: A revival of Rogers and Hart’s Pal Joey presented by the Roundabout Theatre Company had its last performance 

2010 (15thof Adar, 5770): Shushan Purim

2010:In a talk at Harvard University on "Identity, Diversity, and Human Rights," Canada Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella shared her family's Holocaust story and explained how it informs her view of human rights. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives)

2010: “The 48 Ways to Wisdom,” a program cosponsored by The Jewish Renaissance is scheduled for this evening at Keter Torah Synagogue this evening in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

2010:In Jerusalem, The Kingdom of Alrov Mamilla Avenue is scheduled to celebrate Shushan Purim at its annual Purim carnival which will include a colorful parade with characters from the Megilla, clowns and jugglers, circus performances, circus workshops, magnet games, and whole lot more. 

2010:Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel was released from a German prison today after serving a five-year sentence.

2011: Israel LTD, film that records “a group of young Americans on their intensive bus journey across a strong and righteous Israel” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan.

2011:Today Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh accused Israel of financing and plotting the protests in his country and other Arab states.

2011:In reaction to clashes that took place a day earlier in the Gilad Farm outpost in Samaria, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said today that "We cannot let citizens take the law into their hands."

2011: Amy Totenberg assumed office as the Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia which includes Atlanta, GA.

2011: In an “Anti-Semtism Double Header”Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said Jews and Zionists are "trying to push the US into war" and are a cover for Satan, at the group's annual meeting near Chicago today while a report published by a British magazine today said the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, suggested that British journalists, including the editor of The Guardian, were engaged in a Jewish-led conspiracy to smear his organization.

2011(25th of Adar I, 5771):Marilyn Henry, a journalist and lecturer, died of cancer today four days short of her 58th birthday. She lived in Teaneck, NJ with her husband, Rabbi Shammai Engelmayer

http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=210568

2011(25th of Adar): On the Yahrzeit of those who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire (March 25), Rabbi Shmuel Plafker led a memorial survey at the Hebrew Free Burial Association cemetery on Staten Island where 22 of the victims are buried (As reported by Joseph Berger)

2011:The postal services of Liberia, Gambia and Sierra Leone will simultaneously issue a set of three commemorative postal sheets today in memory of 12 Jews – men and women – who fought Apartheid and racism in Africa.

2011: On the 70th anniversary of the signing of the pact uniting Bulgaria with Germany as Axis partners The Sephardic Temple in Cedarhurst, New York is hosting a public meeting as part of a campaign to convince “the government of Bulgaria to reveal the truth over its interaction with the Jews during the Holocaust.”

2011: A Merkava MK IV stationed near the Gaza border, equipped with the Trophy active protection system, successfully foiled a missile attack aimed towards it and became the first operational success of the system

2011: It was announced today that Frank Rich would be leaving the New York Times for New York magazine.

2012(7th of Adar, 5772): Forty-three-year-old Tulane alum Andrew Breitbart the creator of Brietbart.com passed away today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/business/media/the-life-and-death-of-andrew-breitbart.html

2012: “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to be shown at the Charleston Film Festival in Charleston, SC

2012: “Tijuana Jews” is scheduled to be shown at Congregation Etz Chaim in Toledo, Ohio.

2012: Miriam Gilbert is scheduled to deliver a lecture Shakespeare and ‘the likeness of a Jew’ Shylock, Fagin and Disraeli” will take place at the Iowa City Public Library

2012: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present: “Anti-Jewish Violence in Eastern Europe” an evening based on a book of the same name that “and Israel that investigates the phenomenon of anti-Jewish violence, the local and transnational responses to pogroms, and instances where violence was averted.”

2012: Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein today ordered the police to open a criminal investigation into illegal building in the West Bank Shiloh settlement. Notification of the investigation was given to the High Court of Justice, which in November asked the state to decide if it planned to hold such a investigation.

2012: Former Shas Minister Shlomo Benizri, who was released from the Maasiyahu Prison this morning, said Israel was the most anti-Semitic country in the world due to what he referred to as its "incitement campaign against the haredi community."

2013: In Ashburn, VA Beth Chaverim is scheduled to join hundreds of congregations throughout the United States in “Shabbat Across America!” that will include a screening and discussion of “Advice and Dissent” starring Eli Wallach.

2013:Release date for Put it in the Book, Howie Rose’s “autobiography and memoir of 50 years of Mets history”

2013: As sequestration goes into effect today, Israeli defense planners are bracing for a potentially dramatic cut in US assistance that may slash as much as $300 million in aid over the next seven months. (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur)

2013(19thof Adar, 5773): Sixty-nine-year-old actress Bonnie Franklin passed away. (As reported by Douglas Martin

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/world/europe/kerry-criticizes-turkish-prime-minister-over-zionism-remark.html?hp

2013: Some 20,000 runners took part this morning in the Jerusalem marathon, which was won by Abraham Kabeto Katale of Ethiopia. His final time of 2:16:29 was a record for the course.

2013: Secretary of State John Kerry said today that Turkey’s prime minister had made “objectionable” remarks when he cast Zionism as a crime against humanity in comments earlier this week.

2014: In London, JW3 in partnership with the UK Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present “Oscars Warm-Up Night” including a screening of “Searching For Sugar Man.”

2014: “A Prayer for Aliyah” and “The Jewish Cardinal” are scheduled to be shown at the 24th Washington Jewish Film Festival.”

2014: Observance of Tel Hai Day in honor of the memory of Joseph Trumpeldor

2014: Professor David Shneer is scheduled to host a seminar on “Post Holocaust American Judaism” in Boulder, CO.

2014(29thof Adar I, 5774: Shabbat Shekalim

2014: Two rockets landed near an IDF post in Mount Hermon early this morning. According to the IDF, the rockets “were most likely the spillover from the clashes in neighboring Syria, not a deliberate attack.” (As reported by Tova Dvorin)

2014: Renowned Religious Zionist leader Rabbi Haim Druckman has called on the Religious Zionist community to stay far away from tomorrow’s "million-man march" against the hareidi draft. "I totally reject [the march]," Rabbi Druckman declared tonight. "If this demonstration is being held to say that Israel is fighting against the rule of the Kingdom of Heaven, I am so shocked and outraged by it," said the rabbi. (As reported by Tova Dvorin)

2014: Twentieth anniversary of the mortal wounding of 16-year-old yeshiva student Ari Halberstram who was shot by Rashid Baz, an immigrant from Lebanon.

2014: At Tiftereth Israel in Columbus, Ohio, Rachel Levin will join her classmates in the First Grade Consecration Service.

2015(10thof Adar, 5775): Ninety-one-year-old record executive Orrin Keepnews passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/arts/music/orrin-keepnews-jazz-producer-and-record-executive-is-dead-at-91.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

2015: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Why Not Say What Happened: A Sentimental Education by Morris Dickstein, We Are Pirates by Daniel Handler and Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947 by Bruce Hoffman

2015: The 25th Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.

2015: F.I.U. is scheduled to host the 30th Anniversary Screening of “Shoah”

2015: The curtain is scheduled to come down on “The King of Second Avenue” which has been playing at Boston’s Charles Mosesian Theatre.

2015: “The exhibition Light & Noir: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, 1933–1950 which explores how the experiences of German-speaking exiles and émigrés who fled Nazi Europe—many of them Jews—influenced the classic films of Hollywood’s Golden Age” is scheduled to come to an end at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles.

2015: ““’Twas the Night Before Hanukkah” an “exhibition, which highlights the music of Hanukkah and Christmas, and the people behind some of the holidays’ songs” at the National Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to come to a close today.

2015: “California Senator Dianne Feinstein” who is a supporter of Israel, “lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his “arrogant” claim to speak for all Jews today, two days before he is scheduled to deliver a controversial speech to the US Congress. (As reported by Joshua Davidovich)

2015: Commanders for Israel’s Security, “a nonpartisan body of more than 200 retired officers held a press conference in Tel Aviv this morning” where Prime Minister Netanyahu was “slammed” for what were described as his “destructive diplomatic policies.” (As reported by Sturart Winer)

2015: “Activists pitched tenets in Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard to protest inequality and the cost of living.” (Lazar Berman)

2015: Today “is the anniversary of the execution by beheading of Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans and their school friend Christopher Probst who farmed the short-lived anti-Nazi ‘White Rose’ conspiracy in Munich” during World War II.

2016: The Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to co-present a screening Raise the Roof “as part of the 26th annual Washington Jewish Film Festival.”

2016: “The Indiana Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill banning state dealings with entities that boycott Israel or its settlements.”

2016: “According to the 30th annual Forbes billionaires list released today, “five Jews are in the top 15 spots and seven are in the top 25 spots” with Mark Zuckerberg being ranked as the “sixth richest person in the world and the richest Jew” in the world.

2017(3rdof Adar, 5777): Ninety-two-year-old Israeli photographer David Rubinger whose many iconic photos of the early days of the Jewish state included the pictures of soldiers at the Wall during the Six Day War passed away today.

http://time.com/4687856/in-memoriam-david-rubinger/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Rubinger#/media/File:Soldiers_Western_Wall_1967.jpg

2017(3rdof Adar, 5777): Ninety-year-old “artist and political radical” Gustav Metzger passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/arts/design/gustav-metzger-dead-auto-destructive-artist.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

2017: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host the Phoenix Chamber Ensemble playing an evening of “Mostly Schubert.”

2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host “Jewbilation!” featuring “music from the Yoelling Stones, food, Jewish dancing and regular music.”

2017: Rabbi Michael Rosenfeld-Schuler is scheduled to lean an interfaith discussion on “Scriptural Reasoning” in the Harold Wilson Room of Jesus College, Oxford.

2017: In Pikesville, MD, Chizuk Amuno is scheduled to host “Auschwitz through the Lens of the SS.”

https://www.ushmm.org/online/calendar/eventDetails.php?event=MAPPGLENSS0317

2018(14thof Adar, 5778): Purim

2018: MIT Assistant Dean Ray Feller is scheduled to speak on “Hard Times in Hard Sciences: Mental Health in Stem” at Coe College in Cedar Rapids.

2018: In Little Rock, Chabad under the leadership of Rabbi Pinchas Ciment is scheduled to host a “Royal Purim Fest and Masquerade Party” completed with a multimedia Megilla reading

2018: In Iowa City, Rabbi Avremel Belsofky is scheduled to host a “multi-cultural” Purim celebration featuring Sushi and Hamantashen.

2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host two screening of “Remember Baghdad,” “fascinating exploration of the rich Jewish life and culture that had flourished in Iraq before the events of the 20th and early 21st centuries dramatically changed the course of the country – and the fate of its Jews.

2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Gemara shiur which will be on mesechet Megillah.”

2018: In London, the Phoenix Cinema is scheduled to host a screening “The Cakemaker” directed by Ofir Raul Graizer.

2019: The next ShabbatUK is scheduled to begin today.

2019: In Arlington, VA, Congregation Etz Hayim is scheduled to host “Potluck Shabbat.”

2019: In California, Chabad of Petaluma is scheduled to “host a gourmet dinner for 100.”

2019: Parents Shabbat is scheduled to begin today at the University of Iowa Hillel.

2019: In Washington, DC, HIAS Action DC, Moishe House Bethesda, and Avodah DC Service Corps are scheduled to “kick off Women's History month with a Shabbat dinner highlighting the experience of women refugees and asylum seekers.”

2020: Funeral services are scheduled to held today in Mamaroneck, NY for Dr. Steven Charles Strauss, the former resident of Chevy Chase and husband of Ruth Strauss with whom he had two daughters, Marley and Amelia.

2020: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Aperirgon, Colum McCann’s novel that begins with 1997 terrorist attack on Ben Yehuda Street, Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East by Kim Ghattas, This Brilliant Darkness: A Book of Strangers by Jeff Sharlett, the son of a Jewish father from Schenectady and the recently released paperback edition of Spies of No Country: Israel’s Secret Agents at the Birth of the Mossad by Matti Friedman

2020: As part of the JCC Chicago Film Festival, the Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host a screening of “A Bag of Marbles,” “the true story of two young Jewish brothers in German occupied France…”

2020: “Objector” and “A Cantor’s Head” are two films scheduled to be shown on the second and final day of the Seventh Annual JFI WinterFest.

2020: In Boston, Liberty Hall is scheduled to host “Beyond Bubbie’s Kitchen,” Boston’s “biggest, best and most delicious celebration of Jewish food.”

2020: In Coralville, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its Purim Carnival and Petting Zoo on a day when the temperature is scheduled to reach a torrid (for Iowa) sixty degrees.

2020: In Sacramento, CA, the Kashenberg Ostrow Hayward Library is scheduled to host historian Jennifer Craig—Norton as she talks about The Kindertransport: Contesting Memory,” which is about child refugees and family separation during the Holocaust.

2021: “The first passengers who will be subject to the measure of being electronically tagged will be those arriving on Arkia flight 232 from Frankfurt, set to arrive at 4:35pm today at Ben-Gurion Airport. (As reported by Adir Yanko)

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/ByM41UBMd

2020: In New York, Adi Nes is scheduled to explore social and political questions revolving around gender, the center vs. the periphery, Eastern vs. Western cultures, ethnicity, Judaism, local myths, militarism, humanism and social justice through his portraits.

2021: The London School of Jewish Studies is scheduled to “S&P Senior Sephardi Rabbi Joseph Dweck and Rabbi Dr Rapahel Zarum as they continue their in-depth discussion into the 10 Commandments.”

2021: In New Orleans, the National Council of Jewish Women is scheduled to hold its Board Meeting this evening.

2021: The American Sephardi Federation is scheduled to present Manashe Khaimov is an Adjunct Professor in Jewish Studies, with a specialty in History and Culture of the Bukharian Jews at Queens College as he lectures on “The Persian Experience: The Jews of the Great Silk Road.”

2021: As part of Jewish Book Week, Trudy Gold, the director of Holocaust Studies at JW3 and former chief executive of the LJCC who is the Editor-in-Chief of Understanding the Holocaust is scheduled to talk with Dr Brendan McGeever, a Lecturer in the Sociology of Racialization and Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London and a Research Associate at the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism about the subject matter covered in his book Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution.

 

 

 

 

 


This Day, March 2, In Jewish History by Mitchell A and Deb Levin Z"L

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March 2

117(12th of Adar, 3877):  As the rebellion by Disapora Jews against the Roman Empire of Trajan came to an unsuccessful close, two Jewish brothers who had been leaders in the revolt, Pappus and Julianus were executed at Laodicea in Syria.  Trajan did not get to savor his victory since he died in 117.  Unfortunately for the Jews he was followed by Hadrian who was even crueler than his predecessor.  

986: Louis V becomes King of the Franks. Louis was the last of the Carolingian, a dynasty under whom the Jews had done rather well, all things considered.  Charlemagne was the most famous of the Carolingian rulers and he supported his Jewish subjects despite opposition from church leaders. Louis le Débonnaire who reigned from 814 to 833 was another of the Carolingians who gave special protection to his Jewish subjects. During the reign of Carolingians the Jews were active in commerce, medicine and agriculture, especially in the field of viticulture a fact of which we are reminded when we study about Rashi.  The change in dynasties would not have an immediate effect on the Jews living in France.  Life for them would not really change until the first crusade in 1096.

1127: Charles, the Good, Count of Flanders was murdered while praying in the church of St. Donat at Bruges. This came two years after Charles had expelled the Jews from Ghent because he blamed them for the famine that consumed his realm in 1125.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6652-ghent

1291: As Moslems and Christians continue their war for control of “the Holy Land” “Al-Ashraf Khalil resumed the offensive” begun by his later father Al-Mansur Qalawun which including laying siege to Acre, the capital of the Crusader’s Kingdom of Jerusalem.

1336(10thof Adar I, 5096): Physician and astronomer Joseph Sason, a member of a prominent Iberian Jewish family passed away today in Toledo

1349: In Erfurt, the capital of the German state of Thuringia, 1,000 Jews were killed in a single day of violence in a pogrom brought on by hysteria surrounding The Black Death which struck Europe in 1340.  During this outbreak of what was probably bubonic plagues millions died in Europe removing approximately one third of the continent’s population. “Modern research has revealed that the plague was probably carried by boat from an Asian source, but at the time the affected communities had no idea why and how such a terrible affliction had come upon them so suddenly. In seeking an explanation, they needed a scapegoat and lighted upon the Jews living in their midst. In many villages, towns and cities, Jews were accused of causing the sickness by poisoning drinking water in wells and fountains.”  [Editor’s note: for those tracking sweeping patterns of history, note that blaming Jews is not different or rational today than it was in what was supposedly the unenlightened Dark Ages.

1382: The Mailotin Riots began in Paris. These riots were similar to the tax riots held two years previously. Both times the Jews were considered accomplices in over-oppressive taxes. Sixteen Jews fell victim to this outbreak violence.

1578: In Bishopsthorpe, Edwin Sandys, the Archbishop of York and his wife gave birth to Oxford educated travel writer George Sandys who claimed to have found the Ten Lost “1610 in the neighborhood of the Caspian Sea” and whose third book in “The Relation of a Journey” series provided “a description of Palestine, the Holy Land and the Jewish and Christians living there during the middle of the seventeenth century,

1640(20th of Adar): Rabbi Joel Sirkes, author of Bayit Hadash passed away today.

1641(Julian; 1st of Nisan, 5401): Rabbi Meir Jacob Schiff-KaZ, the son of Jacob Schiff-KaZ and  Gutlin Schiff-KaZ and the husband of Sprinz Schiff-KaZ passed away today at Frankfurt am Main.

1727: Abraham Pinto and his wife gave birth to Samuel Pinto.  (Editor’s note – There are several men who bear the name of Samuel Pinto)

1743: In Wolfenbütteler, “court factor Samson Gumpel” and his wife gave birth to “court banker” Philipp Samson.

1753(26th of Adar I, 5513): Issachar Berush Eskeles the native of Poland who was the son of Gabriel Eskeles and son-in-law of Samson Wertheimer, who was named rabbi of Kremsir in 1710, when he was only eighteen years old and eventually served as "Landesrabbiner" of Moravia passed away today in Vienna.

1775: Birthdate of Steinhart, Bavaria native Israel Mayer, the husband of Marianne Miriam Dreifus with whom he had seven children.

1779(14th of Adar, 5539): Purim

1781: Ninety-five-year-old Elias Mordecai was buried today at the “Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery.”

1785: In Philadelphia, PA, Miriam Marks and Bordeaux born Benjamin Abraham Nones gave birth to Rachel Nones.

1789: 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 five months of service as Delegate to the Congress of the Confederation from New York .

1793: Sarah Cohen and New York native David Nunez Cardozo gave birth to Isaac N. Cardozo.

1794: Benjamin Farmer who had changed his last name from Solomons married Phoebe Moses at the Great Synagogue today

1796: Rabbi Mordecai of Niesvizh, issued a proclamation, which was approved by other rabbis in Poland, addressed to all Jews of Poland, imploring every male and female, adult and minor, whether living in cities or villages, to subscribe a fixed sum every week for the support of their countrymen, who had settled in the Holy Land with the amount to be paid quarterly, in addition to special donations at weddings, circumcisions, and other religious rejoicings all of which resulted in a substantial increase in the halukkah (the fund to support Jews living in the Holy Land.

1798(14th of Adar, 5558): Purim

1798: Esther Cohen and Michael Hart gave birth to Samuel Hart, the husband of Emily Hart and the father of Charles, Isabel and Hetty Hart.

1799(25th of Adar I, 5559): Parashat Vayakhel; Shabbat Shekalim

1799: As these Jews observed Shabbat, a day on which they are often reminded that God will judge us based on how we treat the widow, the orphan and the stranger in our midst – the weakest member of society – President Adams approved an act of Congress providing “for the relief of sick and disabled seaman.”

1803: Isaac Joseph married Judith Myers today at the Great Synagogue.

1809(14th of Adar, 5569): Purim is observed two days before the end of the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson.

1822: In Bavaria, Solomon Blumauer and Helen Binswanger gave birth to Simon Blumauer the Portland businessman, the builder of the second brick building in Portland, Oregon, and charter member of Congregation Beth Israel who was the husband of Malie Rodelsheimer.

1822: In London, Keila bat Joseph and Michael Myers gave birth printer Benjamin Myers who settled in Edmonton, Canada.

1824: Founding of The Boston Courier which had become a weekly newspaper by the time Benjamin Cohen began serving as its Business Manager.

1831: Frederick Samuel married Sarah Mocatta today at the Great Synagogue.

1831: Birthdate of Dutch native Levi Sasieni.

1835: Francis, who as Francis II was the last Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and who as Francis, I was the first Emperor of the Austrian Empire passed away.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2152-austria#anchor23

1835: Ferdinand I of Austria, who was reported to be “a member of the Chevra Kadisha of Prague began his reign today.

1835: In Christchurch, Rachel and Edward Nathan gave birth to Joseph Edward Nathan, the husband of Dinah Nathan who died while she was sailing on the SS Kaikoura.

1836: Texans signed the Texas Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos, effectively creating the Republic of Texas. Adolphus Sterne was one of the many Jews who supported the cause of Texas Independence both on and off of the battlefield.  Sterne was “an East Texas merchant who became a principal source of financial backing for the Texas Revolution. Born in the Rhineland in 1801, he arrived in Texas in time to fight in the ill-fated 1826-27 Fredonia Rebellion at Nacogdoches. He was sentenced to be shot but was released on the promise never to bear arms against the government again. He kept to the vow in the 1836 struggle for independence but supplied funds, coordinated with his old friend Sam Houston, who he had known in Tennessee before coming to Texas.”

1839: French political leader Benoit Fould was re-elected for a third time.

1844(11th of Adar, 5604): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

1847(14thof Adar, 5607): Purim

1847(14thof Adar, 5607): Forty-seven-year-old Immanuel Wohlwill taught at the Israelite Free School in Hamburg and then became the Director of the Jacobson School in Seesen.

1848: Ibrahim Pasha who issued a decree “forbidding the Jews to pave the passage in front of the Wall. It also cautioned them against “raising their voices and displaying their books there.” They were however allowed “to pay visits to it as of old” began his reign over Egypt without the approval of the Porte.

1854: Temple Israel which was established as the Orthodox Congregation B'nai Israel in 1853 by 36 heads of families, was granted a charter by the Tennessee state legislature today.

1855: Czar Nicholas I, a narrow-minded, reactionary, whose anti-Semitism included but was not limited to expulsion from a variety of cities including Kiev; the drafting of under-age Jewish boys for twenty-five years of military service; the banning of beards and a sidelocks for men and banning of women shaving their heads at the time of marriage; the banning of Yiddish; censorship and destruction of Jewish books passed away today.

1855: Alexander II becomes Czar of Russia. Alexander gets high marks from many historians for two reasons.  First, he is the Czar who freed the serfs.  Second, he was a lot better than his two successors, Alexander III and Nicholas II.  Alexander earned the goodwill of the Jewish people because “he called a half to the cantonist system that separated Jewish youths from their families, a staple of the previous Czars anti-Semitic program.”  From then on, “only Jews of draft age would serve, and under the same rules as well as other Russians.”  Under his reign, universities liberalized their admission policies for Jews and Jews were allowed to enter the legal profession.  Jewish businessman and craftsmen were allowed to work outside of the Pale and enter into the commercial life of many major urban areas.  The Czar was no liberal.  His changes in policies were caused, in part, by a desire to attract investment from Jewish European financiers.  The Czar’s reforms were proving to be too little too late.  When the Czar saw Jewish names among opponents, his anti-Semitism rose to the surface as can be seen by the closing of Yeshivot and his opposition to legal equality for Jews when the issue came up at the 1878 Congress of Berlin.

1857: In New York Solomon and Jael Belais gave birth to Henry Belais Belais

1858: Caroline Davis and Levy Jacobs gave birth Alice Ann Jacobs.

1859(N.S): In Russia, Menachem-Nukhem Rabinovich, a “rich merchant” who lost it all and his wife Chaye-Esther gave birth to Solomon Rabinowitz who became famous under the penname of Sholem Aleichem.  Born in Russia, Sholem Aleichem first wrote in Hebrew and only later turned to writing in Yiddish.  He moved from Russia to Denmark, to Switzerland and ultimately moved to the United States at the outbreak of World War I.  Unfortunately, he only lived in America for two years and he passed away in 1916.  Known as the Yiddish Mark Twain, Sholem Aleichem is most famous for creating Tevya and all of the wonderful characters who lived with him in the shtetels of the Pale.  He used humor to portray both the joy and the suffering of his co-religionists.  He became famous among generations of Jews who had thought they had escaped from all of that "Yiddish stuff" and gentiles as well with the production of Fiddler on the Roof.  Some of his famous lines include: "In the mud, but not of the mud."  "When a Jew eats a chicken one of them was sick.""A bachelor is a man who comes to work each morning from a different direction.""Gossip is nature's telephone.""Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.""No matter how bad things get you got to go on living, even if it kills you.""The rich swell up with pride, the poor from hunger." Some of his works that have been translated into English include Tevye's Daughters, The Adventures of Menahem-Mendel, The Best of Sholom Aleichem and The Great Fair which is his autobiography. (Editor’s note: As with many Russians of his periods, Sholom Aleichim has two birthdates on the secular calendar – one on the Julian calendar and one on the Gregorian calendar.)

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/shalom-aleichem

1861(20th of Adar, 5621): Parashat Ki Tisa; Shabbat Parah

1861: In Warsaw, despite the fact that is was Shabbat, three Rabbis including Morris Jastrow joined the funeral procession for five Polish nationalists who had been shot by the military.

1861: Morris Jastrow preached his first sermon in Polish at the Shabbat service during which the five victims of the Polish military were memorialized.

1864(O.S.) Birthdate of Sergei Zubatov. “the head of the Czarist Secret Police in Moscow” who “convinced” the imprisoned Manya Shochat to form “tame” workers “organizations that would work for reform rather than the overthrow of the government” which would supposedly “help achieve rights for Jews” – a supposition which the policeman knew was false and which the Jewish leader came to see as a “pipe dream.”

1864: Marian Moss and Alphonse Hartog gave birth to Philip Hartog.

1868: “The Alleged Illegal Action of the American Consul at Jerusalem” published today described a dispute that took place recently in Jerusalem involving a Prussian Rabbi, named Markus, a Prussian Jewess named Steinberg, her sister who had converted to Christianity and Victor Beaubouchier, the American Counsel in Jerusalem

1870(29thof Adar I, 5630): Abraham Jacob Jones, the native of Whitechapel and husband of Sophia Goldsmid passed away today

1870: In New York, Judge Brady began hearing a suit brought by Benjamin Abrahams, the executor for the estate of his late brother Dr. Simeon Abrahams.  The total value of the bequest exceeds the value of the estate and the executor is seeking to obtain a decree that will establish “which if any legacies have preference” or, if there be no such preference, what pro rata share each of the legacies should receive. The late Dr. Abrahams was a prominent member of the Jewish community and he left several large bequests to Jewish charities including the Hebrew Benevolent Society, Mt. Sinai Hospital as well as numerous bequests to secular charities most of which provide aid to orphans, juveniles and those in need of medical aide.

1871: The Purim Association hosted its second reception of this social season at Delmonico’s under the management of Emanuel B. Hart, Samuel A. Lewis and Gustave D. Cardozo.

1871: Adolph Marx Oppenheimer, the son of Marx and Sarah Oppenheimer, and Julie Oppenheimer gave birth to Alfred Oppenheimer

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9800EFD7173BEF34BC4F51DFB466838F669FDE

1873: Three days after she had passed away. Phoebe Aarons, the wife of Barnet Aarons with whom she had had eight children was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”

1874(13thof Adar): Fast of Esther

1874: In Vicksburg, Mississippi, Nicholas Scharff and the former Carrie Bernheimer gave birth to their second child Sidney N. Scharff.

1874: Today marked the second and final day of the Purim reception at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews in Manhattan.

1877: The Hayes-Tilden election is finally settled by the specially created electoral commission that resolved the disputed election returns of four states in favor Hayes making him the 19th President of the United States. Hayes appointed the first Jew to effectively serve as a U.S. Ambassador - Benjamin Peixotto – and assured a government employee that she would not lose her job if she did not work on Saturday.

1878: In New York City, Isaac Blumenthal and his wife gave birth to NYU alum and art collector Irving Blumenthal, the father of Clairce Altmayer Blumenthal and father of Suzanne and Thomas Blumenthal who rose to be president of the United Dress Beef Company, a business that had been started by his grandfather Wolf Blumenthal.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/03/

1879: At the Clinton Street Synagogue in New York City, Rabbi H.P. Mendes of the Nineteenth Street Synagogue delivered a lecture on “A Dark Chapter of Spanish-Jewish History” one the opening of the tenth season of lectures sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Union.

1876: In Rome, Filippo Pacelli and Virginia (née Graziosi) Pacelli gave birth to Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli who gained fame as Pope Pius XII, the Holocaust Pope.

1877: Rutherford B. Hayes declared winner of the 1876 Presidential Election.  Samuel Tilden won the popular vote, but Hayes won a majority of the disputed in the Electoral College giving him and the Republicans the White House by one vote.  As President, Hayes worked to protect the well-being of Jewish communities in Europe.  In 1879, his Secretary of State, William Evarts said that “this government has ever felt a deep interest in the welfare of the Hebrew race in foreign countries.”  Hayes backed up these noble sentiments in negotiations with the government of Romania where he worked to try and improve the condition of Jews living under that anti-Semitic regime.

1880: It was reported today that Mrs. W. T. Brothington of Newark, NJ has finally received the $10,000 from the estate of deceased English family. 

1880(19th of Adar, 5640): “Daniel (Gedalia) Mandelbaum” the oldest child German native Jacob Mandelbaum and Bella Epstein passed away today.

1882(11th of Adar, 5642): Fast of Esther observed since the 13th of Adar falls on Shabbat.

1882: The twentieth annual Hebrew charity dress ball sponsored by the Purim Association will begin at the in the Academy of Music at nine o’clock with the grand march starting at ten.

1884: Birthdate of Albert Samuel, the native of Vesoul who was the father of Raymond Samuel, better known as French Resistance leader Raymond Aubrac

1884: Seventy-four-year-old anti-Semitic author Theodor Griesinger passed away.

1885(15th of Adar, 5645): Shushan Purim

1886: This afternoon Rabbi Gustav Gottheil of Temple Emanu-El officiated at the wedding of Julia Wormser, “the only daughter of Isidor Wormser” and Jefferson Seligman, the “youngest son of James Seligman, the head of the well-known bank house.”

1888: The Convention of Constantinople is signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace.  The one major exception to this would be the state of Israel.  For years, the government of Egypt denied ships flying the flag of Israel from using the canal.  The Egyptians also denied access to ships that had visited Israeli ports from using the canal. 

1891: At today’s meeting of the Louisville (KY) Ministerial Association a debate was held over the question of admitting priests, rabbis and Unitarian Ministers.

1891: Frances Lucy Henriques and Raoul Foa gave birth to Aubrey Henriques Foa.

1891: At a meeting of the New York Siberian Exile Petition Association was held at the Church of Ascension in New York City, “Isaac Aronavitch Hourvitch, a Russian Jew who had suffered exile in Russia related his terrible experiences as a political prisoner.”  Following discussion of this and other matter, “copies of the petition which is to be forwarded to the Czar in April protesting against the present treatment of the Jews were circulated” and signed by many attendees.

1892: A theatrical review published today described Carl Weiser’s portrayal of Shylock, “the vengeful Jew” as being “picturesque, if not strikingly dignified.”  “The Merchant of Venice” reportedly first performed in America in the 16th century making it possibly the first Shakespearean drama performed in what would become the United States.

1892: Fifty-eight-year-old Konigsberg born ant-Semitic journalist Otto Glagau who blamed the Jews for financial problems in Germany passed away today

1892: It was reported today that the sixty Russian Jewish immigrants who are in quarantine on North Brother Island due to the outbreak of typhus are housed in their own heated pavilion where they have their own cooks who prepare their food according to Orthodox Jewish law.

1892: Fifty-year old Otto Glagau the anti-Semitic author whose hatred of Jews may be traced to losses he suffered while speculating in stocks passed away today.

1892: Forty-two Russian Jewish immigrants who may be infected with typhus and are under the care of the United Hebrew Charities will be taken to North Brother Island today if the storm sweeping the area abates.

1892: Birthdate of Felix Bressart, a native of what was then East Prussia the German-American character actor whose best known for his appearance in the Jimmy Stewart comedy “The Shop Around the Corner.”

1893(14th of Adar, 5653): Purim

1893: A fire broke out in a building in Fall River, MA, that was used as meeting place by the Hebrew Literary Club. (Who would have thought that Fall River would have been home to such an organization in the 19th century?)

1893: Birthdate of Eliyahu Golomb the native of Russia who made Aliyah in 1909 and organized the Haganah during the Mandate.

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

1894: Birthdate of NYU trained civil engineer Jay Frank Krakauer, an associate member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and a “Special Lecturer” at NYU.

1894: Birthdate of Hélène Falk, the native of Crest who was the mother of of Raymond Samuel better known as French Resistance leader Raymond Aubrac.

1895(6th of Adar I, 5655): Thirty-eight-year-old Charlotte Myers, the wife of Godfrey Harris passed away today after which she was buried at the Edmonton, Western Jewish Cemetery.

1895: The National Council of Women, an organization that was unique for its time because it included Jewish, Catholic and Protestant members, held the final session of its triennial meeting in Washington, DC.

1896: “Mathias Bells for Bicycles” published today described the debate in Parliament where lawmakers are trying to force cyclists to use “the continuous bell of the kind brought into vogue by Sir Henry Irving’s “Polish Jew.”

1897: Three days after she had passed away, 23-year-old Dora Fisher, the wife of Phillip Fisher, was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1897: Birthdate of Budapest native Jacob Weiss who gained fame as producer, director and writer Jack White.

1897: In Albuquerque, NM, wholesale merchant Ivan Grunsfeld and Hannah Nusbaum Grunsfeld gave birth to Florence Grunsfeld, the niece of Julius Rosenwald, “the founder of Sears Roebuck and Company  who when she married financier Walter Heller became Florence Grunsfeld Heller, the name under which she gained a social benefactor and philanthropist.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/heller-florence

1898(8th of Adar I, 5658): Forty-two-year-old Marylebone native Isaac Botibol, the son of Moses Botibol and Jessie Myers, passed away to today.

1898: In Albany, the Senate Cities Committee will report out a bill sponsored by Senator Cantor “exempting the real estate of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association from taxation, assessment and water rates.”

1899: The annual Purim reception at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews will be held today starting at 11 a.m. and lasting until 5 p.m.

1899: Birthdate of Russian native and Odessa Imperial Art School student, Jacob B. Abramowitz, a WW I veteran of the Russian Amry who in 1919 came to New York City where he pursued a career as a journalist.

1900: In Dessau Emma Weill (née Ackermann) and Albert Weil gave birth to German-American composer Kurt Weill whose “best-known work is The Threepenny Opera.”

http://orelfoundation.org/index.php/composers/article/kurt_weill/

1901: Birthdate of Breman native, mathematician Grete Hermann.

http://www.academia.edu/7818454/Grete_Hermann_Mathematician_Philosopher_and_Physicist

1901(11th of Adar, 5661): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

1901(11th of Adar, 5661): Sixty-six-year-old Joseph Blumenthal passed away in New York City.  Born in Munich in 1834, he came to the United States in 1839, settled in California with his family before moving to New York.  He was part of the Committee of Seventy that helped to overthrow the infamous Tweed Ring and spend the last 15 years of his life working to create and build the Jewish Theological Seminary.

1902: In Harlem, Bernard Berg, a pharmacist, and Rose Tashker, a homemaker” gave birth to their third and last child baseball catcher Morris “Moe” Berg.  In a day when most baseball players were barely literate Berg stood out as a Princeton graduate who was multi-lingual. His major league career lasted from 1923 to 1939. He was a journey-man catcher, described as “good field, no hit.” The stories about his eccentricities are too numerous for this brief entry.  Suffice it to say, he makes the television character “Monk” look normal.  His real claim to fame was his espionage work.  During barnstorming trips to Japan in the 1930’s, the Japanese speaking Berg would leave the group to do his own “explorations.”  Among other things, he took a series of pictures in Tokyo which later were used to help plan the famous Doolittle Raid during World War II. 

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/MBerg.html

1903:  Herzl receives Leopold Greenberg's report. Greenberg was the owner of a successful advertising agency, publisher of the Jewish Yearbook and an ardent Zionist.

1904(15th of Adar, 5664): Fifty-seven-year-old professor of statistics Gottlieb Schnapper-Arndt passed away today in Halberstadt, Germany.

1904(15th of Adar, 5664): Sixty-six-year-old Moritz Framing, the German rabbi who edited two Jewish magazines and whose writings included On the Introduction to Maimonides and Jerome’s Commentary on the Twelve Minor Prophets, passed away today in Magdeburg.

1905: Birthdate of Pincus “Pinky” Sober the half-miler who became an executive with the Amateur Athletic Union.

1905: Birthdate of Philadelphia native and noted composer Marcus Samuel Blitzstein.

http://www.masterworksbroadway.com/artist/marc-blitzstein/

1906: “The Rabbinical Conference of Bohemia decided that a Rabbi may officiate at the funeral of a cremated body” which led “Chief Rabbi Ehrenfield of Prague” to resign his membership.

1907:Ein Walzertraum (A Waltz Dream), “an operetta by Oscar Straus premiered today at the Carltheater in Vienna.

1908: “Know The Talmud And Bible” published today described how fifteen hundred Jewish boys ranging in age from 7 to 14 had been “put through a searing examination on the Bible and the Talmud” at the Norfolk Street Synagogue, after President Phillips, head of the congregation located at 66 Norfolk Street, “congratulated the boys on the progress they had made in their studies.”

1909(9thof Adar, 5669): Seventy-six year old Baron Horace Günzburg, the son Joseph Günzburg, wealthy merchant and army contractor, and  the father of David Günzburg who was a major philanthropist and leader of the Jewish community passed away.

http://www.jewhistory.ort.spb.ru/eng/main/s.php?id=840

1909: Birthdate of Konigsberg, native Hanoch Jacoby, one of the many German musicians whose career was ended by the Nuremberg laws and who immigrated to Palestine as part of the Fifth Aliyah where he pursed a musical career that included playing viola with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra while raising four children - Hava Nir (deceased), Ilana Yaari, Rafi Jacoby, Michal Preminger – with his wife, the former Alice Kennel.

https://www.jewish-music.huji.ac.il/content/hanoch-jacoby

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jacobi-hanoch

1910: Birthdate of Natie W. Brown, the Washington, D.C. native, brother of Morris Brown and wife of Ann McKinley Brown, who “fought Joe Louis two times in the heavyweight division.”

1911: Sophie Tucker recorded “Some of these Days” on a four-inch cylinder.  “Some of these Days” was written by African American composer Shelton Brooks in 1910.  “Some of these Days” was Tucker’s signature song and the title of her autobiography.

https://jwa.org/thisweek/mar/02/1911/sophie-tucker

1912(13th of Adar, 5672): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor; Erev Purim

1912: In Chicago, the ceremonies marking the dedication of Sinai Temple and Social Center continued for a second day.

1913: The New York Timesreported that Dr. Joseph H. Hertz, Rabbi of the Congregation Orach Chayim of New York was recently appointed replace the late Dr. Hermann Adler, who was serving as Chief Rabbi of the British Empire when he passed away in July of 1911.

1913: This evening, Temple Emanuel is scheduled to host “a Congregational Sociable” that will include “a ventriloquist act by Mr. I.D. Levy and Frederick M. Gotlieb.

1913: “Mr. Aaron Aronsohn, chief of the Experimental Station at Haifa is scheduled to deliver a lecture at Sinai Temple in Chicago.

1913: Today, “The Hebrew Sunday School Society which maintains fifteen schools in various parts of Philadelphia with an enrollment of more than 4,000 pupils celebrated its 75thanniversary at the Horticultural Hall in Philadelphia.

1913: I.D. Levy and Frederick M. Gottlieb are scheduled to perform a ventriloquist act as part of a congregational social at Temple Emanuel.

1914: Two days after he had passed away, Morris Rose, the 38 year old husband of Sarah Rose, was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.

1914:  Birthdate of New York native and small-college football player Martin Ritt, the veteran of the WPA arts program and WW II best known as the  director of The Long Hot Summer and one of the many victims of the “black list.”

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/11/obituaries/martin-ritt-director-dead-at-76-maker-of-socially-conscious-films.html

1915:  Vladmir Jabotinsky formed a Jewish military force to fight in Palestine against the Turks in World War I.

1915: The Red Cross Fund of which Jacob H. Schiff is the treasurer received an additional $1,670.07 in contributions bringing the total collected so far to $464,796.11.

1915: An “official communication” concerning the condition of the Jews was sent from Constantinople stating that “All the recent publications to the contrary are unfounded.  The natural inconveniences they may have experienced during the mobilization have been shared by the rest of the population.”

1916: The funeral of Bertha Hirsch, the wife of Adolphe Hirsch and the sister of Mrs. William Hirsch is scheduled to take place at her residence today in Chicago.

1916: After funeral services are held at the home of George Levitt, his father Jacob Levi is scheduled to be buried at Waldheim Cemetery where mourners will include his other son Henry Levi.

1917: In Philadelphia, PA, Russian Jewish refugees William Goodies, the owner of William Goodis Company, a textile company, and the former Mollie Halpern gave birth to Temple University graduate and author David Loeb Goodies who may be best known for his novel Dark Passage which he claimed was the basis for the popular television series “The Fugitive.”

http://www.beatbookcovers.com/goodis-books/

1918: Today, “the House Immigration Committee recommended the adoption of a resolution by Representative Slayden of Texas” which be beneficial to Jewish immigrants “authorizing readmission to the United States of aliens who were conscripted or have volunteered for service with the United States or the Allies.”

1918: An announcement was made today at the headquarters of the Palestine Restoration Fund, “that contributions for the fund were close to the $950,000 mark nearly $150,000 having been raised in the last ten days.

1919(29th of Adar I, 5679): For the first time since the end of The World War, observance of Parashat Vayakhel and Shabbat Shekalim.

1919: “Approval of the plans of Zionist leaders for the creation of a national Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine was given tonight by President to a delegation of representatives who spent an hour at the White House in conference with the President over the international stats of Jews around the world.”

1920: An appeal signed by several prominent Polish academics supporting historian Szymon Askenazy joining the faculty of Warsaw University was published today in Robotnik,“a newspaper published by the Polish Socialist Party.” (He did not get the position, probably because he was Jewish)

1920: The U.S. Supreme Court hear arguments in Missouri v. Holland in which Louis Marshall, submitted an amicus curae brief on behalf of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks

1921: In Vienna, “Ernst Haas and Frederike Haas-Zipser gave birth photographer and refugee from Hitler’s Europe Ernst Haas whose work included the iconic “Marlboro Man.”

https://www.thejc.com/culture/features/ernst-haas-the-mad-men-s-favourite-photographer-1.26391

1921: In Harrisburg, PA, Jules Solomon, “a scrap-metal dealer” and homemaker Lena Solomon gave birth to Birdie Solomon who gained fame as “operatic soprano” Brenda Lewis.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QZsKu2GJtv0J:www.masterworksbroadway.com/artist/brenda-lewis+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

1922: On the Lower East Side, Barnet and Tessie Greenglass gave birth to “Atomic Spy” David Greenglass, the brother of Ethel Rosenberg and the brother-in-law of Julius Rosenberg.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/us/david-greenglass-spy-who-helped-seal-the-rosenbergs-doom-dies-at-92.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LargeMediaHeadlineSumCentered&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

1923(14th of Adar, 5683): Purim

1923(14th of Adar, 5683): Sixty-seven-year-old Max Meyerhard a native of Krojanka, Germany who practiced law in Rome, Georgia for nearly forty years passed away today.

1923: In the Bronx, social worker Louis Keepnews and his wife, the former Naomi Perlman gave birth to “Orrin Keepnews, who as a record company executive and producer helped create some of the most celebrated recordings in jazz over a half-century.” (As reported by Nate Chinen)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/arts/music/orrin-keepnews-jazz-producer-and-record-executive-is-dead-at-91.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

1924: Birthdate of Calvin “Cal” Abrams, the native of Philadelphia the left-handed hitting outfield who played for several major league teams from 1949 to 1956.

1925(6th of Adar, 5685): Zionist leader Shneur Abel passed away today in NYC/

1926: It was reported that Jean Barondes, the daughter of Joseph Barondess, had joined with the Herzliah Hebrew Academy Choir and Cantor Adolphe J. Weisgal had provided the music at the gala dinner honoring her father’s “forty years of work in behalf of American Jewry.

1926: In the Bronx, chemist David Rothbard and his wife Rae gave birth to American economist Murray Rothbard.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/11/obituaries/murray-n-rothbard-economist-and-free-market-exponent-68.html

1927: Today “representatives of eleven organizations meeting at Temple Emanu-el” formed “ a national organization to carry on religious and welfare work among Jewish university students.”

1928(10th of Adar, 5688): Sixty-two-year-old Max Pine the native of Smolensk who came to the United States in 1889 who became the Secretary of the United Hebrew Trades passed away today.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=990DE0D7113DE73ABC4B53DFB5668383639EDE

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Life_and_Times_of_Max_Pine.html?id=6EEYAAAAIAAJ

1928: In Antwerp, Belgium, Morris Golinski, a tailor and his wife Caroline gave birth to Marie Golinski who gained fame as Mary Adelman, whose Osner Business Machines was the most famous of that dying breed – a typewriter repair shop.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/24/obituaries/mary-adelman-89-fixer-of-broken-typewriters-is-dead.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=region&region=region&WT.nav=region&_r=0

1929: Following a positive vote in the House of Representatives, “the Senate unanimously passed the resolution” favoring “the erection” in Washington, DC “of a memorial or monument” honoring the late Oscar Straus which has been sent to President Hoover for his signature.

1930: Twenty-two-year-old Solomon “Happy” Furth, who would compete in the 1932 Olympics, won “the 70-yard hurdles at the IC4A indoor meet” today.

1931(13th of Adar, 5691): Fast of Esther; erev Purim

1931: Birthdate of Lionel I. Pincus “an American finance executive, venture capitalist, and entrepreneur” who “ran the private equity firm Warburg Pincus from 1966 to 2002.”

1931: “While attempts are being made by the Zionists and Palestine Government to bring about a friendly understand between Arabs and Jews, the Chief Executive will head a plenary meeting of all forty-eight members of the Executive” which is scheduled to be held today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/03/01/118400842.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1932: Birthdate of Jacob “Jack” Austin, the native of Calgary who went from being an attorney to a political leader whose career included serving the Canadian Senate.

1932: Reports published today explained that the delay between the Senate confirmation of Judge Cardozo and its transmittal to the President was due to “a Senate rule that all confirmations must be held through three executive sessions in the event that the Senate should wish to reconsider its action.

1932: The New York Times reported on speech by Senator Dill of Washington praising the appointment of Benjamin Cardozo to the U.S. Supreme Court.

1933: “King Kong” with a music by Max Steiner premiered in New York City.

1933: Despite the fact that he was gay, on his 28th birthday composer Marc Blitzstein married novelist Eva Goldbeck whose mother was soprano Lina Abarbanell, whose “father was the descendant of prominent Sephardic family.

1934(15th of Adar, 5694): Shushan Purim

1934: “The Zwie Family,” a drama of Jewish life “translated from the original Yiddish by Isaac Goldberg” which was performed for the first time last night at the Sutton Theatres is scheduled to be performed again tonight.

1935: In Toronto, Aaron Waxman and his wife who together owned and operated Melinda Lunch gave birth to actor and director Albert Samuel “Al” Waxman the husband of Sara Waxman.

 1935 (27th of Adar I, 5695):Eighty-three-year-old Samuel Sachs, an American investment banker passed away. He was born in Maryland in 1851 to Jewish immigrants from Bavaria, Germany. Sachs along with his longtime friend Philip Lehman of Lehman Brothers pioneered the issuing of stock as a way for new companies to raise funds. He married Louisa Goldman, the youngest daughter of close friends and fellow Bavarian immigrants, who had already seen their older child wed as well. Sachs then joined his father-in-law Marcus Goldman's firm which prompted the name change to Goldman Sachs in 1904. Together they underwrote securities offerings for such large firms as Sears, Roebuck and Company. During this time Goldman Sachs also diversified to become involved in other major securities markets, like the over-the-counter, bond, and convertibles markets which are still a big part of the company's revenue today. Sachs retired in 1928 and died in 1935.

1936(8thof Adar I, 5695): Seventy-six-year-old, Shalom Binder, the retired cantor and father of composer Abraham W. Binder, who had come to the United States from Poland forty-five years ago and was the “founder of the Federation of Galician and Bukowinian Jews” as well “as the first president of the Home of the Sons and Daughters of Israel” passed away at Bronx Hospital today.

1936(8thof Adar I, 5696): Sixty-one-year-old Isaac Brill, the leader and rabbi of Congregation Agudath Achim, native of Mainz and son the Jewish scholar Jechiel Bril, who came to the United States from London in 1904 where he spent 25 years as the editor of the English department of The Jewish Daily News and was the first editor “of The Hebrew Standard which later merged with the Jewish Tribune” passed away today.

1936: When the “first crown session of Parliament” opened today in Athens, deputies swore their oath to their respective deities which meant “the Spanish Jews from Salonika swore by Jehova.”

1936: It was reported today that the Nazi Governor of the Saar has already warned that now that Germany has assumed full sovereignty over the region it “will become the most Jewless part of Germany.”

1936: “The official organ German Justice announced 763 notaries had been ousted through the recent Nuremberg anti-Jewish laws.”

1936: The newly formed Physician Committee of the United Palestine Appeal is scheduled to hold its first meeting this evening at the Harmonie Club under the leadership of co-chairmen Dr. Emanuel Libman and Dr. Bernard Sachs.

1937: “According to a statement issued” today “by the American Delegation to Palestine, Great Britain has not discharged her duties or fulfilled her pledges with respect to Palestine but instead has place artificial barriers to immigration there and obstructed the purchase of land by Jws and failed to give adequate assistance in reconstruction work.

1937: In Pittsburgh, the Convention of the Women’s League of the United Synagogue adopted resolutions “urging prompt ratification of the child labor amendment, passage of neutrality legislation to prohibit the use of American armed forces outside continental and territorial United States and endorsing President Roosevelt’s ‘good neighbor’ policy in Pan-American relations” at its final sessions. (Editor’s Note – For those critical of FDR’s response to the plight of the Jews of Germany, please note that this leading Jewish women’s organization favored the very kind of isolationist legislation that helped to tie the President’s hands.)

1937: “Lost Horizon,” the cinema version of the novel with the same name with a screenplay by Robert Riskin, co- starring Sam Jaffe and with music by Dimitri Tiomkin was released today in the United States.

1937: Rabbi Goodman “George” Lipkind wrote “Here’s Hoping” a three act farce.

1938(1stof Adar I, 5698): Rosh Chodesh Adar I

1938(1stof Adar I, 5698): After a prolonged illness, 57-year-old to NYU Law School graduate Joseph J. Baker, “a senior member of the law firm of Baker, Obermeir Rosenson and Rosner,” “President of the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn, the son of Adolph and Carrie Baker and the husband of the former “May Lautman” with whom he had two children – Ruth and Edward” passed away today.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/03/03/98105620.pdf

1938: The Palestine Post (the progenitor of today’s Jerusalem Post) published the farewell message of the retiring High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, addressed to the people of Palestine. In a separate letter to the Post, Sir Arthur wrote that “though rather busy during most of my leave in England, I always found time to read The Palestine Post... I hope to read your paper in future years.”

1938: The Palestine Postreported that Sir John Woodhead, Sir Allison Russel and Mr. A.P. Waterfield were appointed by the British Government to serve as members of the Technical Commission which will proceed to Palestine to investigate conditions for the country’s eventual partition. 

1938: The Palestine Postreported that An Emek settler, Abraham Goldschlager, 38, was murdered by Arab terrorists near Mishmar Ha¹emek. Tirat Zvi came under heavy Arab fire.

1938: According to a report published today, The Jewish Agricultural Society, Inc. led by General Manager Dr. Gabriel Davidson, which aids Jews in settling on farms and then helps them with an educational and extension programs, has granted 12,313 farm loans totaling $7,513,857 since its founding in 1900.

1939: Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is elected Pope and takes the name Pius XII. As Secretary of State for the Vatican he had negotiated a concordat with Hitler.  As Pope, he would remain silent about the Nazis and the Holocaust even when a Roman Catholic nun who converted to Judaism years ago was taken to the death camp because, under Hitler’s Race Laws, she was really a Jew.  Based on this alone, one wonders what this Pope thought about the meaning of baptism.

1940: “The police imposed curfew regulations at Tel Aviv tonight after breaking up widespread demonstrations protesting against British restrictions on the sale of Arab lands to Jews.

1941: “One day after Bulgaria's King Boris III is coerced into accepting Adolf Hitler's terms and joins the Axis, the German army marched into Bulgaria” which would be the first step in bringing Bulgarian Jews into the orbit of “the Final Solution.”

1942: Birthdate of Brooklyn born American musician Lewis Allan “Lou” Reed

1942(13thof Adar): As Purim began, Jews from Minsk refused to cooperate in latest deportation. Germans and Ukrainians retaliated by searching houses, dragging children to sand pits and throwing them in alive, throwing candies in after them as they died. By the end of Purim 5,000 Jews were murdered in Minsk. Jews all over Europe were tortured, murdered or deported that day included those from Krosniewice, Baranowicze, Lvov and Zdunska Wola

1942: At Janowska, eight laborers were ordered to stand in a barrel of water by Gestapo chief Dibauer, because "they didn't look too clean." They all froze to death by the next day as the ice hardened around their feet.

1943(25th of Adar I, 5703): Seventy-year-old Washington University Law School graduate, Judge Moses Hartman, the St. Louis born “son of Ignatz and Anna (Kohn) Hartman” and husband of Carrie A. Scooler with whom he had three children who was President of Congregation B’nai El passed away today after which he was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA.

1943: Over 2,500 Jews in Salonica are crammed into 593 rooms in the Baron de Hirsh Ghetto. The ghetto was surrounded with high wooden fences, topped with barbed wire. Signs in German, Greek and Ladino warned Jews not to leave, under penalty of death.

1943: “Zorah Sculpture on Display Today” published today described two New York showings of works by William Zorach, “a Lithuanian-American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and writer” who won the Logan Medal of the arts.

1943: The daily transports to Treblinka continued. Included are New York Born Yetta Flater and London born Helene Rosenberg. Three hundred of the deportees that day were over 70 years old.

1943: In explaining the Nazi commitment to the Final Solution, Goebbels writes in his diary, “We are so entangled in the Jewish question that henceforth it is impossible to retreat.”

1944: Eighty-five-year-old Lucius Nathan Littauer, the first Harvard football coach, businessman and Congressman passed away today.

http://www.jta.org/1944/03/03/archive/lucius-n-littauer-noted-jewish-philanthropist-dies-suddenly-was-85

1944: Denise Bloch and a fellow SOE agent “were dropped back into central France” on what would, tragically prove to be her last mission since she would be captured in June and executed at Ravensbruck.

http://nigelperrin.com/denisebloch.htm#.VPJpOWfwt9A

1945: Haaretz published the following description of kidnapping Yaakov Tavin during the “Hunting Season.” “Passersby in Dizengoff and Yirmiyahu streets were greatly struck…by the kidnapping of a young man in the street. The kidnapping occurred at 11 a.m, and was witnessed by a large number of people. A large taxi halted at the corner of Dizengoff and Yirmiyahu streets, and several men emerged, one of them dressed in police uniform. They approached the young man, who was standing on the pavement holding a package. Shouting 'Thief!', they attacked him and began to hit him. The crowd thought that he was in fact a thief, and several of them joined the attackers and helped them to push the young man into the taxi. He struggled with them and shouted in Yiddish and in Hebrew: 'Jews, help me! Why do you let them hit a Jew?' He was thrown into the car, which swiftly drove away.

1945: In Afula, Yemima and Adam Rubin gave birth to Michal Breslavy who gained fame Michal Bat-Adam who among other things was “the first Israeli woman to direct a feature film.”

1946(29thof Adar I, 5706): Parashat Vayahkel; Shabbat Shekalim

1946: “Concluding a week of active discussion of the problems facing the world's Jewish communities, the London conference of Jewish organizations adopted today a final report stressing the heavy responsibility of Jewish communities in the United States and Britain for assisting European Jews on the road back and he need for immediately opening up of avenues for emigration for thousands of displaces Jews still in Europe.”

1947: In Tel Aviv, a radio announcement by the Irgun was heard in which the Jewish organization took responsibility for yesterday’s attack on a British officers’ club in Jerusalem yesterday.  The Irgun said the attack was in retaliation for British attacks in Haifa on Friday, February 28.

1947: In response to the latest wave of violence, the British imposed martial law throughout Palestine.  At 4 A.M. British troops occupied Petah Tikav Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv as well as other coastal communities while the government in Jerusalem imposed additional restrictions on Mea Sharim.

1947(10th of Adar, 5707): Four-year-old Ketti Shalom died tonight after having been shot by British forces as she stood on the balcony of her home in Jerusalem, which is under martial law.  Her mother was wounded but survived the shooting.

1947: Composer Morton Gould and his second wife Shirley Blank gave birth to their second child David.

1948: “Backing the United States proposal that the Security Council accept partition as the solution of the Palestine question, the Soviet Union today urged "direct negotiations" between the Big Five as the best approach to the whole problem.”

1948: During a speech at the headquarters of the UJA in New York, “David Hacohen, engineer and managing direct of Soleh Bonen, the construction cooperative said that “all Jewish settlements in Palestine are being fortified” and “that women are being rained to handled firearms” so they can fight on an equal basis with men.

1949(1st of Adar, 5709): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1949(1st of Adar, 5709): Fifty-four-year-old Henry J. Berkowitz, the Rabbi at Temple Israel “the largest Jewish Congregation in the Pacific Northwest passed away today.  Born in Philadelphia, a veteran of WW I, and a graduate of HUC, he wrote several books including Book Camp which “described his experiences as a Navy chaplain.” (As reported by JTA)

1949: “Two Blind Mice,” a comedy by Samuel and Bella Spewack opened on Broadway at the Cort Theatre.

1949(1st of Adar, 5709): Seventy-six-year-old Quad Cities newspaper man Emanuel Philp Adler, the Chicago born son of Bertha (Blade) Adler and Philip Emanuel Adler, husband of the former Lena Rothschild and father of Iowa journalist Philip David who was President of Temple Emanuel in Davenport and head of the Tri-City Jewish Charities passed away today after which he was buried in the Mount Nebo Hebrew Cemetery in Davenport, IA.

http://uipress.lib.uiowa.edu/bdi/DetailsPage.aspx?id=4

1950(13th of Adar, 5710): Ta'anit Esther

1950: Israel Railways began regular passenger service today from Tel Aviv North Railway Station, via the Eastern Railway and Rosh HaAyin, to Jerusalem.

1950: “Salih Jabr, the Iraqi interior minister in a draft bill to parliament – Supplement to Decree 62 of 1933 --  that became law a week later which said the Jews were “free to go” as long as they give up their citizenship, agree never to return and basically left them impoverished at the time of their departure

1950: A bill was introduced in the Iraqi parliament allowing the Jews of Iraq to immigrate to Israel.  Introduction of the bill required a large cash payment by the Israeli representatives.  The “Jews could leave provided they left behind all gold, jewelry and valuables and provided that they also gave up their Iraqi citizenship.”

1950: In Iraq, Parliament passed the Revocation of Citizenship which had been introduced earlier on that same day by Saleh Jabr, the Minister of the Interior. 

1950: A horse named Tel Aviv is entered in the second race at Hialeah Park in Miami.

1951(24th of Adar I, 5711): Yakov Gilyarievich Etinger, “one of the physicians accused in the ‘Doctor’s Plot’” died today in prisons as result of the brutal interrogations he was forced to endure.

1952: Birthdate of comedian and early star of SNL Laraine Newman and the sister of Emmy winning television writer Tracy Newman.

1952: It was reported today that 74-year-old Dr. Alexander Marx, director of libraries and Jacob H. Schiff Professor of History at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America will be taking his first trip to Israel this month.

1953(15th of Adar, 5713): Shushan Purim

1953: In Janesville, WI, attorney Leon Feingold and the former Sylvia Binstock gave birth to Phi Beta Kappa graduate and Harvard trained attorney Russell Dana Feingold who served as U.S. Senator from Wisconsin from 1993 through 2011.

1953: The Jerusalem Post reported from Washington that the Eisenhower administration decided to pay more attention to Arab countries and less to Israel. The first concrete step in this direction was granting Egypt an $11m. credit so it could purchase American arms.

1953: The Jerusalem Postreported that twenty Jewish families from Poland arrived in Austria on their way to Israel. They reported that the Polish Jews were in a state of panic and more families were expected to follow.

1956: Seventy-four-year-old Israel Zolli, the former chief rabbi of Rome who converted to Catholicism in 1945 passed away today.

1956: Morocco gains its independence from France; date celebrated as Independence Day in Morocco. Jews are known to have settled in what is no Morocco during Roman times.  In 1948, the ancient Jewish community had over a quarter of a million members.  Following violent attacks, large numbers of Jews began leaving for Israel.  At the time of independence, Jews served in the parliament and held at least one ministerial post.  The new government banned immigration to Israel.  The ban was lifted in 1963 and Jews began moving en masse to Israel.  The ancient community has now dwindled to a couple of thousand members.

1957(29th of Adar I, 5717): Parashat Pekudei; Shabbat Shekalim

1967(29th of Adar I, 5717): Eight-four-year-old Hunter College graduate and educational activist Mrs. Miriam Sutro Price, the New York born daughter of Bernard and Pauline Josephthal Sutro, and sister of Richard and Lionel Sutro, the founders of Sutro Brothers and Company who was the widow of Joseph M. Price, “the chairman of the Fusion Executive Committee” and president of the Improved Mailing Case Company, passed away today in New York.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/03/04/102275058.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

1958: In “Israel’s Anniversary Year” Mary Qualley King described plans being made by Israelis to celebrate the country’s tenth anniversary.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F70C13F9385D1A7B93C0A91788D85F4C8585F9

1959: “Sleep Warm,” an album including songs by Alan Bergman and Harold Arlen was released today.

1961(14th of Adar, 5721): Purim is observed for the first time during the Presidency of John Kennedy.

1962: Harvey Pollack, the New Jersey born statistician and journalist kept score tonight during Wilt the Stilt Chamberlain’s 100 point game.  (Pollack was Jewish; Chamberlain was not)

1964: Pre-Broadway tryouts for “Anyone Can Whistle” “with a book by Arthur Laurents and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim” opened in Philadelphia.

1965: U.S. premiere “The Sound of Music” the movie version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical with a score by Irwin Kostal and a screenplay by Ernest Lehman.

1966: In Moscow, Mikhail Sheferovsky and Rachel Sheferovskaya gave birth to Felix Mikhailovich Sheferovsky who gained fame as real estate developer and business associate of Donald Trump Felix Henry Sater.

1970(24th of Adar I, 5730): Seventy-one year old Russian born Joseph L. Dubow who in 1902 came to the United States where “he was admitted to the bar…after graduating from the University of Chattanooga Law School” and eventually became the “executive director of the New York Coat and Suit Association” while raising two sons – Peter and Robert – with his wife Estelle passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/03/04/archives/joseph-l-dubow-garment-leader-coat-suit-associations-executive.html

1970: “The white minority Rhodesian Front government, led by Ian Smith, severed ties with the British crown; Smith declared Rhodesia an independent republic.” The majority black population resisted the Smith government. A civil war broke between the Smith government and the black population which was represented by ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) and ZAPU (Zimbabwe African People’s Union).  Because of the civil war, most of the Jewish population (approximately 7,000 in number as of 1961) left the country.  Eventually the minority white government was defeated and the Republic of Zimbabwe was formed.

 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/zimbabwe.html

1970(24th of Adar, 5730): Eighty-three-year-old Solomon A. Wald the President of S.A. and Wald, Co, the marine cargo salvage company he founded in 1916 which ironically got the “contract to dismantle the German dirigible Hindenbrug” the pride of the Nazi lighter than air fleet” when it crashed in Lakehurst passed away today.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/03/05/archives/solomon-a-wald-cargo-salvor-83-founder-of-marine-dealer-in-damaged.html

1971: Daniel Ellsberg, the son of “Ashkenazi Jews who had converted to Christian Scientist  went to the home of Neil Sheehan, who had offered him a place to stay and talked to him about the possibility of the NYT publishing what came to be known as The Pentagon Papers.

1972: “Journey Through Rosebud” co-starring Kristoffer Tabori was released in the United States today.

1975: Birthdate of Rishon LeZion native Danny Niv, the “Israeli singer and rapper” known as “Muki.”

1976: The International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee continued to meet for a second day in Jerusalem.

1976: In New York, “Madelin Itzkoff” and “cocaine addict Gerald Itzkoff” gave birth to Princeton educated journalist and author David Itzkoff, a reporter with the New York Times whose memoir is entitled Cocaine’s Son for obvious reasons.

1978:The Jerusalem Postreported that Egypt was counting on US President Jimmy Carter to put forward an American peace package to put pressure on Israel and to break the apparent deadlock over the Israeli-Egyptian “declaration of principles.” In Israel government sources declared that the positions of the two sides remained far apart on major issues, especially on the problem of the future of the “administered areas.”

1978: “Fingers,” an aptly named drama about a pianist directed and written by James Tobac and starring Harvey Keitel was released in the United States today.

1978:The Jerusalem Postreported that Venezuela had announced that there were no obstacles in selling oil to Israel and welcomed cooperation on other aspects of energy.

1979: U.S. premriere of “Norma Rae” directed by Martin Ritt, with music by David Shire, a screenplay by Irving Ravetch and his wife Harriet Frank Jr. co-starring Ron Liebman.

 1980(14th of Adar, 5740): Purim

1980: Yigal Allon’s funeral took place today at Kibbutz Ginosar on the shore of Lake Kinneret which had been his home for almost fifty years.

1981: Rockets from Lebanese territory struck several homes in the Galilee town of Qiryat Shemona today, wounding three people.

1981: Discovery of 5020 Asimov, an asteroid named after science fiction author Isaac Asimov.

1982: Rabbi Haim Meir Drukman lost his post as Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs.

1982(7th of Adar, 5742): Seventy-one-year-old Yoel Zussman the fourth President of the Supreme Court of Israel, passed away today.

1982: The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the Soviet Union to end the persecution, arrests and trials of Jewish activists; to remove obstacles to emigration; and to respect the rights of its citizens to practice their religion

1982: The Dearborn Station, “a Romanesque Revival structure designed by Cyrus W. Eidlitz” was designated as an official Chicago Landmark.

1983: Shulamit Ran's Verticals“was premiered by pianist Alan Feinberg at New York's Merkin Concert Hall. The New York Times described the work by the Tel Aviv native as “rhapsodic and intriguing.”

1984: U.S. premiere of “This Is Spinal Tap” “an American 1984 rock music mockumentary written and scored by Rob Reiner who also co-starred along with Harry Shearer.

1984: U.S. premiere of “Harry and Son” directed, produced and written by Paul Newman, who co-starred in the feature along with Ellen Barkin.

1984: “Against All Odds” a romantic thriller featuring Saul Rubinek was released today in the United States.

1986(21st of Adar I, 5746): Marcel Liebman, Belgian historian and Holocaust survivor, passed away at the age of 56. 

1986: A revival of “Jubilee” a musical with a book by Moss Hart opened today at The Town Hall.

1987:Law-enforcement officials said today that federal prosecutors are on the verge of seeking the indictment of Aviem Sella, a prominent Israeli Air Force officer who the Justice Department alleges played a key role in directing the espionage activities of Jonathan Jay Pollard,

1988:Dr. Inamullah Khan, secretary general of the Pakistan-based World Moslem Congress has been named as the winner of the $369,000 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion even though there are reports that the prize winner has been associated with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel causes.

1989: The Broadway production “Lend Me A Tenor” directed by Tony Award winner Jerry Sake opened at the Royale Theatre.

1991(16th of Adar, 5751):  French musician Serge Gainsbourg passed away at the age of 62. Born Lucien Ginzburg, Gainsbourg survived the Nazi occupation of France to become a leading poet, songwriter, singer and director.

1992(27th of Adar I, 5752): The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, suffered a disabling stroke while praying at the gravesite of the previous Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch.

1993(9th of Adar, 5753): Yehoshua Weissbrod was stoned and then shot dead by Palesinian terrorists in the town of Rafa.

1993: ABC broadcast the episode of “Civil Wars” created by Steven Bocho who served with Executive Produces along with William M. Finkelstein and co-starring Debi Mazar and Alan Rosenberg.

1996(11thof Adar, 5756): Parsashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor

1996(11thof Adar, 5756): Eighty-year-old Tufts and Columbia trained social worker and WW II veteran Mitchell Irving Ginsberg, the Revere, Massachusetts born son “Harry J Ginsberg, a maintenance worker and Rose Harris and the husband of Ida Robbins, who held leadership roles in the Peace Corps and VISTA while also teaching at Columbia, passed away today.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/ginsberg-mitchell-irving

1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Rubber Bullets:Power and Conscience in Modern Israel
by Yaron Ezrahi, the children’s book, When Chickens Grow Teeth: A Story From the French of Guy de Maupassant retold and illustrated by Wendy Anderson Halperin and Too Much Is Never Enough by Russian born architect Morris Lapidus, the man who “created Miami Beach in the 1950’s

1998: After almost three months of negotiations, Ronald Perelman and Al Dunlap reach an agreement involving the sale of Sunbeam and Coleman.

1999(14thof Adar, 5759): Purim

2000: Thomas Buergenthal began serving as a Judge of the International Court of Justice.

2001(7thof Adar I, 5761): Forty-seven-year-old British journalist and broadcaster John Diamond lost his battle with throat cancer and passed away today.

http://web.archive.org/web/20091216113301/http://www.lastingtribute.co.uk/tribute/diamond/260391

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/mar/03/guardianobituaries.lifeandhealth

 2001: “Inherit the Wind,” the controversial play co-authored Jerome Lawrence “that used Darwin vs. Genesis as a way to speak out against McCarthyism” opened at the Sheffel Theatre of the Topeka Civic Theatre & Academy

2001:Eleanor Antin: Real Time Streaming” opened at the Cornerhouse in Manchester, UK.

2001: The Times of Londonreviewed The Jewish State: The struggle for Israel's Soul by Yoram Hazony

2002(18th of Adar, 5762): Eleven Israelis were killed in a Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox neighborhood.

2003: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including 'The Pieces From Berlin': Swindling Holocaust Victims by John Sutherland and Irving Howe: A Life of Passionate Dissent by Gerald Sorin.

2004:The creeping chaos in Palestinian areas has been evident throughout the last three years of intifada…but the killing early” today “of Khalil al-Zebin, a longtime associate of Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, seemed to crystallize the growing lawlessness” which for once has not blamed on the Israelis.


 2005: Start of the 12th Daf Yomi Cycle.  Daf Yomi is translated as "Daily Page."  Daf refers to the double-sided page of the Talmud.  Daf is also the word for Plank.  Tjere are those who say that the double meaning of the term Daf comes from a story about Rabbi Akiva who was saved by from drowning when he grabbed hold of a plank of a daf.  By holding on a daf - a page of the Talmud, the Jew stays a float in the worldly sea.  The program called Daf Yomi is "a systematic approach to the daily study of the Talmud formulated by Reb Meir Shapira of Lublin in 1923.   The program enables Jews throughout the world to study the same daf or double-sided page of the Talmud simultaneously.  Using this method, one can study the Talmud in a little over seven years.  This system has become popular and there is plethora of sites that provide both text and audio explanations.  There are also weekly summaries.  The success of Daf Yomi has led to the creation of other cyclical study programs.  These programs can be found on the web.  Also, many congregations - Orthodox, Conservative and Reform - now have spontaneously formed lay study groups that cover this material.  It is one more example of the burgeoning interest in Adult Jewish Education.

2005: Final performance of television series “Boston Public” co-starring Fyvush Frinkel, the veteran of the Yiddish theatre who portrayed “history teach Harvey Lipshultz.”

2006:  The Jerusalem Post reported on deteriorating condition for Jewish communities in parts of the former Soviet Union.  In Uzbekistan authorities are probing the murder of one of Tashkent's rabbis.  And despite pleas from the Jewish community and international organizations, the Tajikistan government has started to destroy the country's only synagogue.

2006(2nd of Adar, 5766): Marty Stein, who helped start Stein drugstores and Stein Optical, has died of cancer. He was 68. Mr. Stein was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 1994. He passed away in Milwaukee. A former pharmacist, Mr. Stein co-founded the first Stein drugstore in Menomonee Falls in 1961. He later expanded the chain into 19 stores, which he sold to the Walgreen Co. in 1979.  He then started Stein Health Services Inc., which ran three companies in home health care, eye care and related fields. The Eye Care One division ran Wisconsin stores as Stein Optical and Chicago stores as EyeQ. Those were sold in the late 1990s.Mr. Stein also was involved in efforts to help Israel and Jewish immigrants, including serving as national chairman of a worldwide effort to airlift thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. By 1988, he had met President Ronald Reagan, the pope and Israeli leaders. Despite his international focus, Mr. Stein remained committed to helping those in his local communities.” There are two Americas in America," he once said. "There's the one where I live and there's the other one in places such as the inner city. I want to help other people who live in the other America to know the America I know. "Mr. Stein was active in groups such as the Hunger Task Force of Milwaukee. Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson called the news of Mr. Stein's death "devastating."

2006: This evening poet Rachel Tzvia Back gave a lecture entitled "Placing the Voice: The Personal and Political, Israel 2006" at Williams College. Though born in Buffalo, NY, she "is the seventh generation of her family in Palestine," according to this bio at The Drunken Boat. Her grandfather left there in the 1920s, seeking his fortune in America; in the 1980s she returned to Israel, completing the cycle, and lives there still.

2007: Ethiopian born singer Aiiala Ingdsht released her first album in Tel Aviv.

2007: The Secretary of State appointed Eliot Asher Cohen, the Harvard Ph.D. and graduate of the Army ROTC program at MIT “serve as Counselor of the State Department.

2007(12th of Adar, 5767): Former American Jewish Congress leader William Maslow died in his Manhattan home at the age of 99. Born in Kiev in 1907, Maslow moved to the United States with his family in 1911. He served as general counsel to the American Jewish Congress from 1945 to 1960, and as executive director from 1960 to 1972, guiding the organization’s fight against discrimination to the court system. Under Maslow’s direction, the American Jewish Congress fought housing restrictions on Jews in many communities, as well as discriminatory hiring and admissions policies at U.S. companies and universities. He filed the group’s amicus brief in Brown v. Board of Education and helping organize the 1963 March on Washington that featured the “I Have a Dream Speech.” He also founded the Commission on Law and Social Action, modeled after the ACLU and NAACP. A nephew of Paula Ben-Gurion, wife of Israel’s first Prime Minister, Maslow was a dedicated Zionist and helped lead Israel’s fight against the Arab economic boycott in the 1970s.

2007: 153 years to the day after the congregation now known as Temple Israel received its charter from the State of Tennessee, a historical marker was erected by the Shelby County Historical Commission, the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, and Temple Israel, on the corner where the synagogue had once stood describing the building as the "First Permanent Jewish House of Worship in Tennessee".

2007: After almost thirty-two years, Jacob “Jack” Austin completed his service as a Senator from British Columbia.

2008: The Washington Post featured a review of Richard M. Cohen's Strong at the Broken Places.

2008: The Sunday New York Times features a review of Dreams and Shadows:The Future of the Middle East by Robin Wright and The Bush Tragedyby Jacob Wiesberg.

2008: In New York City, the 92nd Street Y presents what might be called“Jewish night the press” in a program styled “In the News With Jeff Greenfield—On the Election with Jonathan Alter, Joe Klein and Rich Lowry.” 

2008: During Operation Hot Winter the “IDF decided to change its strategy today and sent a whole regiment (about 2000 men) into the Northern Strip to occupy Jabalya and Sajiyah but met stiff resistance from the Palestinians. In the bloodiest day for Gaza since 2002, close to 70 civilians were killed. Military deaths totaled 4 Palestinian fighters and 2 Israeli soldiers.”

2009: Jonathan David Leibowitz assuming the Chairmanship of the Federal Trade Commission.

2009: Sports Illustrated reports that Andy Roddic will “not be showing up at the Dubai Open” this week.  “He’s ticked that Israel’s Shahar Peer was denied entry to the United Arab Emirates to ply in the women’s tournament.”

2009: At the 92nd Street Y, playwright, author and actress Anna Deavere delivers the Annual State of Anti-Semitism lecture entitled “Hatred Knows No Boundaries, a unique address on the issues of hatred, racial conflict and genocide

2009: In “Lesbian Nation” published today author Ariel Levy, who described herself as “female and gay” and who had been named one of the "Forty Under 40" most influential out individuals in the June/July 2009 issue of The Advocate examines a “golden age” of sexual expression.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/03/02/lesbian-nation

2009: In Washington, D.C. Jewish author Adam Gopnikdiscusses and signs his new book, Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life,

2009: Israel's UN envoy filed a letter of complaint about the continued rocket attacks from Gaza to the Secretary-General and the president of the Security Council, whose rotating chair is currently held by Libya. Ambassador Gabriela Shalev warned that the Hamas attacks would hinder efforts to reach a "stable and durable cease-fire" - a deliberate echo of language adopted by the Security Council in its January resolution calling for an end to Israel's Operation Cast Lead offensive in Gaza.

 2009: In “The Good, the Bad, the Bible,” published today Lisa Miller examines The Good Book by David Plotz, “a naïf wandering in a strange land full of eccentric people and incomprehensible rules.” 

2010: Today is the day the New Israeli Foundation for Cinema & TV has set as the deadline for submitting scripts based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem that could be used for television productions.  The selected scripts will be eligible for special funding supplied by the foundation.

2010: A direct-to-DVD sequel to the animated film Curious George titled Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey!” based on the character created by Hans Augusto Rey and Margret Rey was released today.

2010:At noon today a demonstration that will include members of the Union of Israel Journalists who are demanding the safeguarding of public broadcasting in Israel is scheduled to take place at Beit Sokolov in Tel Aviv..

2010: The Tulane University Jewish Studies Program under the direction of Dr. Brian Horowitz is scheduled to present to present a program entitled “Obama and Israel,” featuring Mitchell Bard of the American Israeli Cooperative Enterprise

2010:Late today reports started to emerge that, contrary to initial reports, the Masorti synagogue in Concepcion was destroyed in the earthquake that had rocked Chile this past weekend. 

2010: Amos Oz said today that the Khoury family of East Jerusalem had funded the translation of A Tale of Love and Darkness, his best-selling autobiography to promote coexistence. 

2011: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to present a program entitled “Jewish Confederates” at Adas Israel Congregation.JHSGW Board Member Les Bergen’s presentation will include information about “a female spy living just doors from the White House and her sister, who ran a military hospital in Richmond and became known as the ‘Confederate Clara Barton.’”

2011:Pope Benedict XVI reiterated that the Jewish people are not responsible for Jesus' death in a new book released today. The Pope also denies the Gospel writers' claim that Jews working in the Temple collaborated with the Roman authorities, leading to Jesus' execution."Many readers will find this section of the book particularly interesting as the Pope reviews the historical positions taken about this," said Father Joseph Fessio, founder and publisher of Ignatius Press, the primary publisher of the Pope's books in the US. "He discusses some very controversial claims that have been made, and draws on some contemporary scholarly resources to reach a conclusion that I am certain will generate a lot of discussion."The book, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week - From the Entrance Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, a sequel to a previous book on Jesus' life, the Pope describes "the final week of Jesus' earthly life."

2011:There were signs today of a new effort to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process after months of stagnation, but chances of a resumption of talks looked slim and Israel appeared to be stepping back from the stated goal of reaching a framework agreement resolving the core issues of the conflict by September. I

2011(26thof Adar I, 5771): Eighty-seven-year-old Walter Zacharius, a publisher and iconoclast who released an unauthorized version of the erotic classic "Candy" and had the savvy and sales talk to help romance novels make the transition from drugstores to superstores to the Internet passed away today (As reported by Hillel Italie)

http://www.jta.org/news/article-print/2011/03/14/3086393/the-eulogizer-innovative-publisher-bataan-death-march-survivor?TB_iframe=true&width=750&height=500

2012: Final day to make reservations for the 2012 Humanitarian Awards Dinner sponsored by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

2012:Joseph Cedar’s “Footnote,” a tragicomic tale of rival father-and-son Jewish scholars in the Talmud department of Hebrew University in Jerusalem is scheduled to open in New York today.

2012: Emanuel Berman, author of “City within a City” is scheduled to participate in a lecture and book signing sponsored by   the YIVO Institute of Research.

2012:In his first public comments on a North American visit that will include talks with U.S. President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today Israel reserved the right to defend itself against Iran. Netanyahu said the international community should not allow what he called "Iran's relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons" to succeed. "As for Israel, like any sovereign country, we reserve the right to defend ourselves against a country that calls and works for our destruction," he told reporters in Ottawa at the start of a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Netanyahu also ruled out the idea of international talks to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, just as the United States is pursuing a diplomatic tack.

2012: A memorial service is scheduled to be held this afternoon at Congregation B’nai Israel In Baton Rouge for 81-year-old attorney Victor Alphonse Sachse III, the Korean War Combat Veteran and husband of Mary-Lynn Cross Sachse.

https://obits.theadvocate.com/obituaries/theadvocate/obituary.aspx?n=victor-alphonse-sachse-jd&pid=156203740

2012:Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said today that Israel is ready to help treat Syrians wounded in the uprising against President Bashar Assad. Today’s statement from Lieberman's office quotes him as saying that Israel is willing to provide wounded Syrians "all humanitarian aid at any minute it is requested." Lieberman's spokesman Tzachi Moshe says Israel would provide the aid through the United Nations or other international organizations. The aid would be purely humanitarian, and Israel would not get involved in Syria's affairs.

2013(20thof Adar, 5773): In Cedar Rapids, the traditional minyan at Temple Judah gathers for Shabbat Parah which, the weekly portion includes the story of the Golden Calf, might be called “The Tale of Two Bovines.

2013: The Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival is scheduled the Minnesota Premiere of “Life In Stills.”

2013: The Israel String Quartet – Yigal Tuneh and Avital Steiner (violins), Robert Moses (viola), and Tzvi Moskovsky (cello) – is sechduedl to perform to pieces by Beethoven at the Eden-Tamir Music Center

2013: “After failing to assemble a coalition within the legally allotted month, Prime Minister Netanyahu went back to President Shimon Peres tonight to ask for an extension. Peres granted Netanyahu a two week extension, which is the maximum allowed by the law. If he fails to put together a coalition within two weeks, Peres can assign the job of assembling the coalition to someone else, and if that attempt fails, Israel will be required to hold new elections.” (As reported by Jewish Press News Briefs)

2013: Three Syrian mortars landed near moshav Ramat Magshimim in the southern Golan Heights this afternoon, causing no injuries or damage (As reported by Yoel Goldman and Gavriel Fiske)

http://www.timesofisrael.com/two-syrian-mortars-land-in-southern-golan-heights/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=820ae2e111-2013_03_02&utm_medium=email

2014(30th of Adar I, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Adar II

2014(30th of Adar I, 5774): Eighty-eight-year-old Justin Kaplan who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1967 for Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/books/justin-kaplan-literary-biographer-dies-at-88.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&_r=0

2014: The Center for Jewish History and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research are scheduled to present a symposium, “Tevye’s Daughters: How Jewish Women Confronted Modernity.”

2014: Yuval Adler’s “Bethlehem” a move that “explores the relationship between a Shin Bet agent and a Palestinian teenager is among the films competing tonight for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. (As reported by Debra Kamin)

2014: Niv Adiri who was “part of the team” nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound for “Gravity” is the only Israeli nominated for one of tonight’s Oscars.

 2014: Opening session of the AIPAC Policy Conference is scheduled to take place today in Washington

2014: “The Sturgeon Queens,” a documentary featuring Russ & Daughters is scheduled to be shown at the Washington, DC Jewish Film Festival.

2014: Eight people have been arrested as suspects in a stabbing that took place in Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, this evening. The background for the attack is suspected to be nationalistic.

2014: A Jewish man is beaten on the Paris Metro by assailants who reportedly told him “Jew, we are going to lay into you, you have no country.”

2014: Jerusalem is the site of the so-called million man march where haredim protest having to serve in the IDF.

2014: Michael Kapustin, the rabbi at Ner Tamid, the reform congregation in Simferpolo, the capital of Ukraine’s republic “said there is an atmosphere of fear in the city, with few cars and fewer pedestrians on the streets” and that his congregants should “stay indoors.”  Ner Tamid has already been vandalized with “anti-Semitic graffiti including swastikas” (As reported by Amanda Borschel-Dan)

2014: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or Jewish readers including Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen and Not I: Memoir of a German Childhood by Joachim Fest.

2015: Dr. Hana Barouk is scheduled to deliver a lecture on”Chassidic Feminism? Rabbi Menachem Schneersohn's Approach to the Role of Women in Chabad Chassidism” at the Jewish Museum of Florida.

2015: Rabbi Robert Loewy is scheduled to officiate at the graveside services at Hebrew Rest Cemetery in New Orleans for Elma Bloch Rosenfeld, the mother of Becky Ripps.

2015:  Evan Rapport is scheduled to deliver a lecture “Greeted with Smiles: Bukharin Jewish Music and Musicians in New York” at the Center for Jewish History.

2015: In an interview to be broadcast on Channel 2 today, “Israel’s recently retired Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz hinted that he helped prevent a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

2015: Three thousand reservists will have to report for duty today as part of an exercise to prepare of “possible destabilization of the security situation in the West Bank.” (As reported by Justin Jalil)

2015: US Secretary of State John Kerry today delivered a vigorous defense of Israel before the UN Human Rights Council, urging its members to end what the United States says is its unfair and biased focus on the Jewish State that could undermine its credibility.

2015: Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed AIPAC today.

2016: “Black Jews: The Roots of the Olive Tree” and “Chaos Within” are scheduled to be shown today at the 26th annual Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2016: As part of the Books on Broadway seriesAuthor Barbara Isenberg is scheduled to chronicle the rich tale of how Sholem Aleichem's 19th-century Yiddish stories of Tevye the milkman and his family were re-imagined, set to music and popularized onstage and onscreen and scholar Diane Cole is scheduled to set the context with a background discussion on Yiddish author Sholom Aleichem, whose stories were the basis for Fiddler on the Roof.

 2016: Dario Disegni, the president of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Italy, told a meeting of the foundation board in Rome today that Carbon 14 dating carried out by the Geochronology Laboratory of the University of Illinois has established that “a Torah scroll from the synagogue in the northern Italian town of Biella has been identified as probably the oldest in the world still owned and used by a Jewish community.” (As reported by JTA)

2016: In Tel Aviv, the Estonian Israeli Music Festival is scheduled to come to an end today.

2016: “Mr. Kaplan” a movie made in Uruguay about a Jewish refugee is scheduled to be shown at the Charlotte Jewish Film Festival.

2016: “A bipartisan slate of House lawmakers introduced a bill that would ensure that claims of Jews from Iran and Arab lands are addressed in any Arab-Israeli peace talks in which the United States is involved and also requires that any administration report to Congress each year what it has done to address the issue of those Jews.”

2017: The family of photojournalist David Rubinger made public the news today that he had passed away yesterday at the age of 92.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/david-rubinger-photographer-of-the-nation-dies-at-92/

2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host “Growing Up Bielski” during which Michael “Mickey” Bielski, the son of Tuvia Bielski describes the his families fight for survival which was depicted in the film “Defiance.”

2017: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host the final focus group to provide input for a new Jewish Museum

2018: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host a concert by the Woman to Woman All-Start Band featuring clarinetist Anat Cohen.

2018: In Des Moines, I, Temple B’nai Jershurun is scheduled to host a special “Megillah reading for kids” this evening.

2018: The Jackson Hold Jewish Community Center is scheduled to host “Megillah Madness: Purim Shabbat and Improv Comedy Night.”

2019: ShabbatUK is scheduled to come to an end today.

2019: The East Bay International Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Monsieur and Madame Adelman” this evening.

2019: The Carmel Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open tonight with a screening of “Laemmle,” a documentary about “Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures” and a pioneer of the world of movies as we have come to know them.

2019: Jewish Book Week Festival 2019 is scheduled to open today in London.

2019(25th of Adar I, 5779): Shabbat Shekalim; Parashat Vayakhel;

2020: A screening of “Leona” is scheduled to take place on the final night of The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival

2020: The legislative elections for the 23rdKnesset are scheduled to held today in Israel which are unique in that they take place when the sitting Prime Minister is under indictment and facing trial on charges of corruption.

2020: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Waiting for Anya.”

2020: As part of Jewish Book Week, Elliot is scheduled to discuss Yeshiva Days: Learning on the Lower East Side with its author Johnathan Boyarin, a professor of Modern Jewish Studies at Cornell University.

2021: The Tulane University Hillel Board Meeting is scheduled to take place this evening in New Orleans.

2021: An agreement between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Education Minister Yoav Galant that students in grades 7-10 would return to school today, has reportedly been supplanted by an agreed between the Prime Minister and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein delaying the opening until Sunday, March 7th.

2021: The Jewish Volunteering Network (JVN) is scheduled to host its “Celebration of Volunteering Awards,” an online event this evening.

https://jvnawards.org.uk/

2021: As part of the “Who Inspires the Women Who Inspire Us” series the Streicker Center is scheduled to host an evening with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, “the first Jewish female to be elected to the US Congress from Florida.

2021: The YIVO Institute is scheduled to present discussion celebrating the exhibition “Beba Epstein: The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Girl” featuring Beba Epstein's son, Michael Leventhal, scholar Antony Polonsky, museum chief curator Karolina Ziulkoski, and YIVO's Executive Director and CEO Jonathan Brent.

https://museum.yivo.org/

 

 

 

 

 

 

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