March 10
0037: Roman Emperor Tiberius passed away at age 78. He followed Augustus to the throne and reigned from 14 through 37. His record in dealing with the Jews was a mixed one. On the one hand he over-ruled anti-Jewish edicts of Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea. At the same, he temporarily expelled all of the Jews from Rome when a Jew was falsely accused of defrauding a Roman matron.
0298:The Roman Emperor Maximian concluded his campaign in North Africa against the Berbers, and made a triumphal entry into Carthage.The city of Carthage appears repeatedly throughout Roman history. According to some historians, when Carthage fell to the Romans after the Punic Wars, “many Carthaginians and Phoenicians converted to Judaism, because Jerusalem was the only remaining centre of West Semitic civilization.” They attribute the original Jewish settlements in Spain to the fact that Spain had been a Carthaginian colony and that these settlers were part of a group of these converts. The Berbers would also figure in Jewish history. In the 7th century, they would convert to Islam. In the 8th century, the Berbers were a major part of the Muslim force that drove the Christians out of Spain and created a comparatively hospitable for the Jewish people.
0418: Jews were excluded from holding public office in the Roman Empire
1126: Following the death of his mother Alfonso VII, the monarch who started a school in Toledo which begins to spread Hebrew and Arabic learning as well as ancient Greek knowledge through Western Europe was crowned King of Leon and Castille.
1452: Birthdate of Ferdinand II the Catholic, King of Aragon/Sicily who expelled the Jews from his realm.
1616: Vincent Fettmilch was hanged. Fettmilch lived at Frankfort on the Main (Germany). During a period of economic downturn (1612-1616), the ruling class blamed the problems on the Jews. They allowed anti-Semitic demagogues to attack the Jews. Fettmilch was the ring leader of the action that resulted in the destruction of the Jewish property in the ghetto. Jews fled for their lives. Without the Jews to blame, the powers that be feared the mobs would turn on them. So they hanged Fettmilch as a way of re-establishing law and order.
1743: Today, Nathan Ley and David Franks of Philadelphia are listed as two of the owners of the Philadelphia built schooner Drake two years before they “appear…as the owners of the sloop Sea Flower built in Connecticut” and five years before they appear as the owner of Myrtilla.
1754(16thof Adar, 5514): Shushan Purim
1771: In New York, Uriah Hendricks and his first wife Eva Esther Henricks gave birth to Harmon Hendricks
1791(4th of Adar II): Rabbi Aryeh Leib Sarah, a disciple of Rabbi Dov Baer passed away.
1802: Victor Abraham married Rebecca Levy at the Great Synagogue today.
1793: One day after he had passed away, 54 year old Abraham Bowley Barrow was buried today at the “Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery.
1822(17thof Adar, 5582): The mother of Moses Sofer, Reizel the daughter of Elchanan passed away.
1823: In Prague, Abraham and Judith Eidlitz gave birth to New York architect whose commissions included the former Temple Emanu-El sanctuary built in New York between1866 and 1868 and which was destroyed in 1927
1831: The French Foreign Legion was established by King Louis-Philippe to support his war in Algeria. A large number of Jews who fled Eastern Europe during the 1930’s found “a home” in the French Foreign Legion. For more about the Legion and the Jewish people see Jews and the French Foreign Legion by Zosa Szajkowski
1841: One day after she had passed away, 67 year old Martha Ralph, the wife of Henry Ralph was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.
1845: Birthdate of Czar Alexander III. Alexander III was the second to the last of the Romanov Czars. In a line of rulers who made life hell on earth for the Jewish people, Alexander stands out as one of the worst, if not the worst of the lot. His policies were intended to give meaning to the one third, one third, one third rule. One third of the Jews would leave Russia, one third would convert. One third would perish.
1845: The Jewish Reform movement in Germany was publicly announced
1845: In Kovno, Rabbi Aaron Silberstein and Zibhya Sander gave birth to Rabbi Solomon (Sholem) Joseph Silberstein, the grandson of Kabbalist Naphtali and the author of numerous works including General Law of Nature and The Jewish Problem and Theology in General.
1847: Birthdate of “French deputy jurist Camille Sée, the native of Colmar, Alsace, who was the nephew of French physician Germain Sée and founder of “the École normale supérieure in Sèvres in 1881.
1855(20thof Adar, 5615): Parashat Ki Tisa and Shabbat Parah
1855(20thof Adar, 5615): Sixty-six year old Carol Mayer von Rothschild the Frankfurt am Main born son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild and Gulte Schnapper and husband of Adelheid Herz with whom he had four children who was “the founder of the Rothschild banking family of Naples” passed away today.
1856: The News of the World reported that in Constantinople a Turkish woman who could not locate her child for several hours started to scream after local Greeks told her Jews had dragged her child by force into the house to drain its blood for use on Passover. A crowd gathered and started to smash the windows of the home, and was only held back by the French soldiers. The child later was found by the mother.
1857(14thof Adar, 5617): Purim
1859: In Budapest, Jeanette and Jacob Herzl gave birth to Pauline Herzl, the sister of Theodor Herzl
1860: Mortiz Pinner, the German-Jewish immigrant abolitionist who was a publishing a newspaper in Kansas City served as a delegate at the Republican State Convention in Missouri. Pinner would be chosen as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Chicago where Abraham Lincoln was nominated as President of the United States.
1861: Birthdate of Meier Dizengoff. A native of Bessarabia, he would make Aliyah in 1905, help found Tel Aviv in 1909 and then became its first mayor.
1862: During the Civil War, William Durst was on board the U.S.S. Monitor as it held its position waiting in vain for the CSS Virginia to return to the fray – a failure to engage which meant the Union blockade of the Confederacy, a key to Union victory would hold and grow.
1863: Guests at today’s wedding Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) and Alexandra of Denmark heard a wedding march composed by Sir Julius Benedict the son of a German Jewish banker.
1864: During the American Civil War, beginning of the Red River Campaign which would claim the life of Colonel Newbold of the Fourteenth Iowa.
1866 (23 Adar 5626): Yitzchak Meir Alter passed away. Born in 1798, he is the first Rebbe of the Ger Chasidic dynasty. Some of his followers referred to him as Reb Itche Meir as the Chidushei HaRim.
1867: Birthdate of Lillian Wald. Born into a successful merchant family in Cincinnati, Ohio, and raised in Rochester, New York, Lillian Wald is remembered today as the founder of public health nursing and an influential pioneer in the settlement house movement of the early twentieth century.
1868: “The Purim Ball” published today reported that last night’s Purim Ball was so lavish that it was a fitting way to end New York’s gala winter social season. “The truly brilliant affair” reinforced the reputation of the Purim Society for providing a ball that “was unique in character” and “meriting the praise” that it has continued to receive. The ball not only is the epitome of refinement, it raises money for the disadvantaged – Jew and non-Jew alike.
1868(16thof Adar, 5628):Naphtali Hirsch Katzenellenbogen, theson of Simḥah Katzenellenbogen, “who was the editor of the baraita of thirty-two middot” and who delivered a funeral oration in memory of Saul Katzenellenbogen, passed away today.
1869: Abraham Belasco married Maria Davis at Bevis Marks Synagogue.
1967: Seventy-nine year old Charles Polakoff, the Russian born son of Louis and Annie Polakoff who with his father formed L. Polakoff and Company, the Buffalo based “wholesale and retail dealers in coal and ice” and raised three children – Gerson, Leah and Joseph – with his wife Rebecca Polakoff passed away today.
1870(7th of Adar, II 5630): Czech born composer Isaak-Ignaz Moscheles composer passed away at the age of 75.
1871: Seventy-eight year old German author August Lewald, the cousin of novelist Fanny Lewald, the Jewess who converted to Christianity, passed away today.
1872(30thof Adar I, 5632): Rosh Chodesh Adar II
1873: Birthdate of Anna Allscoffova, who was transported from Prague to Terezin in 1942 and then to Auschwitz in 1944 where she murdered at the age of 71.
1875: It was reported today that E.B. Hart, Joseph Seligman and Joseph Koch are among the prominent Jews heading the committee of the Purim Association that will be responsible for the upcoming Hebrew Charity Ball.
1873: Birthdate of Jakob Wassermann author of My Life As a German and a Jew. Wasserman was a novelist who dealt with challenges of being both a German and a Jew. His writings urged Jews to assimilate and "and thus destroy themselves as a group. By the end of his life, he recognized that Jewish survival was inevitable and desirable."
1875:Die Königin von Saba (The Queen of Sheba), an opera in four acts by Karl Goldmark was first performed today at the Hofoper (now the State Opera) in Vienna,
1876(14thof Adar, 5638) Purim
1876: The Anshe Bikur Cholim Society held a reception this evening at Irving Hall. It was very well attended because it was the Purim celebration of its kind in New York held today.
1876: In Pittsburgh, PA, Moses Lehman, the brother of Isaac Lehman, and his wife Franny Frank Lehman gave birth to the first of their four children Irvin Frank Lehman, the husband of Fanny Klein Lehman, the son of David Lehman and “one of the original trustees of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies.”
1877: In what was then Galicia, Esther Verner and dairy farmer Jacob Taffel gave birth to Frank Taffel who founded the Fulton Auto Exchange in Atlanta, GA in 1924.
1878: Birthdate of Lamed Lev Shapiro, the Ukrainian born Yiddish author known as Lamed Shapiro.
1879(15th of Adar, 5639): Shushan Purim
1879: Ernest Falck married Matilda Samuel today.
1880: In Hungary, “a doctor in a small town” and his wife gave birth to Max Thorek, a graduate of Rush Medical College who “founded the International College of Surgeons.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/11/07/85131581.pdf
1884(13thof Adar, 5644): Fast of Esther
1886: At the Hasell Street Synagogue, Rabbi David Levy officiated at the wedding of Belle Elias to Isadore Blank.
1887(14thof Adar, 5647): Purim
1887: “Three Hebrew clergymen” – Dr. L. Wintner, William Sparger, Leon Harrison – wrote a condolence letter to the widow of Henry Ward Beecher expressing their sorrow over his passing.
1887: In Galicia, Esther Verner and dairy farmer Jacob Taffel gave birth to Shrage Fyvel Taffe who as Frank Taffel became a pillar of the Georgia (USA) Jewish community.
1888(27th of Adar): Ferdinand Eberstadt, the first Jewish Mayor of Worms, passed away
1888(27th of Adar): Scholar and philanthropist Issachar Dov Ber Bampi passed away
1890: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association will host its fifth “informal entertainment of the season this evening at Vienna Hall.
1890: The body of an unidentified Jews was found in a cellar at a house on Eldridge Street in New York City.
1890: The Downtown Religious and Sewing Schools and the Young Men’s Society will hold their Purim celebration tonight at Pythagoras Hall.
1891: Birthdate of Sam Jaffe who starred in movies and television. He gained early fame playing an Indian water boy in the film “Gunga Din.” Television viewers of the 1950's and 1960's saw him as wise old Dr. Zorba in the popular medical series called “Ben Casey.”
1892(11thof Adar, 5652): Ta’anit Esther
1892: In Grodno, Russia, “Rabbi Eliezer Lipman and Chaya Gitel (Berkowsky) Farber gave birth to Lester Lipman Farber, product of the El Paso, TX public schools and husband of Lillian D. Flaum who was the President of Congregation B’nai Zion and the founder of the Talmud Torah in El Paso.
1892: Friedman Silverstein, a Jewish immigrant from Russia who has been living in the United States for 2 years was diagnosed as having typhus fever today.
1892: Two day after she had passed away, Elizabeth Joseph, the “daughter of the late Abraham and Sarah (Falcke) Joseph was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1892: Ruben Lodge No. 3 of the Independent Order of the Free Sons of Israel will host a masquerade ball this evening at the Lexington Opera House.
1893: Lillian Wald opened the Lower East Side settlement house that would become the Henry Street Settlement on her 26th birthday. The Nurses' Settlement opened on Jefferson Street. Two years later, in 1895, she moved her enterprise to Henry Street. In both locations, the settlement was dedicated to public health nursing, a term Wald coined to describe an organic relationship between health care and broader community needs. In the first year, the settlement cared for 4,500 patients. Recognizing the interconnectedness of illness and poverty, Wald expanded the activities of the settlement over time. The renamed Henry Street Settlement House offered boys' and girls' clubs; classes in arts, crafts, homemaking and English; and vocational training. Health care remained important, with over 26,000 patients cared for by 100 Henry Street nurses in 1915.
1893: In Philadelphia, Rabbi Dr. Henry Berkowitz delivered a speech to his congregation, Rodelph Shalom in which he suggests that a society be formed in the United States for "the dissemination of knowledge of the Jewish religion by fostering the study of its history and literature, giving popular courses of instruction, issuing publications, establishing reading-circles, holding general assemblies, and by such other means as may from time to time be found necessary and proper." In response to his suggestion, the Jewish literary societies of Philadelphia appointed a "committee on organization," which formulated plans. An agreement was entered into with the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for the use of the general methods of the popular education process known as the "Chautauqua System." A Jewish society, national in its scope, was then organized, with Dr. Berkowitz as chancellor. In the winter of 1893 the society began the publication of a series of "course books" or syllabi for general readers and members of reading-circles or study classes. These guide-books give syllabi of courses in Biblical and post-Biblical history and literature, in the Hebrew language (correspondence method), and on Jewish characters in fiction.
1893: “To Study Our Immigration” published today described the debate in the House of Lords led by Lord Lyon Playfair over the impact of Russian and Polish (Jewish) immigration in the United Kingdom and the treatment of these immigrants in the United States
1895(14th of Adar, 5655): Purim
1895: It was reported today that it will cost $80,000 to build a new facility for Beth Israel Hospital which now using a building on East Broadway owned by the Hebrew Free School
1895: Birthdate of Samuel Caplan, the native of Russia, who became and an American author and editor for the Congress Bi-Weekly
1895: In “Emanu-El’s Fifty Years,” published today described plans for the celebration of Temple Emanu-El’s fiftieth anniversary which will be held on April 12, 13 and 14th. The article also provides a brief history of the Reform Movement and the milestones in the history of New York’s leading Reform congregation.
1896:Dr. Reuben Bierer, chief rabbi of Sofia, announces that he considers Herzl to be the Messiah. The newspaper "Ha-am" in Kolomea places itself at Herzl's disposal.
1896: In London, 2 years before he was murdered by a blackmailer, Woolf Joel and his wife gave birth to their only son, Geoffrey Joel.
1896: Theodore Herzl described his first meeting with Reverend William Hechler in today’s diary entry. Herzl described Hechler as an enthusiastic Zionist who wants introduce him to the various German leaders who are friends of the Anglican minister.
1896: The world trade mark for State Express 555 cigarettes, a creating of Sir Albert Levy, “was first registered” today “in Ireland
1896: In Pittsburgh, PA, Anselm and Sophie Irene Loeb, the noted child welfare worker, were married today.
1897: One day after he had passed away, 90 year old Samuel Honigbaum was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1897: The will of the late Simon Goldenberg, who left an estate valued at $200,000 in real property and $1,000,000 in personal property was filed for probate today.
1897: The Charity Ball for the benefit of the Montefiore Home which is being sponsored by the Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s League will take place this evening at Carnegie Hall, under the leadership of Leon Hirsch, who is the group’s President.
1898: Funeral services for Moses Bruckheimer will be held today at Beth Elohim in Brooklyn
1898: At today’s meeting of the House of Commons Committee “inquiring into the evils of money lending”
Sir George Lewis “condemned the business in the strongest terms saying it frequently cost the victims
2000 percent” and speaking as a Jew he could say that the Jewish community “loathed and despised those
who engage in such activity.
1898: Fifteen thousand people are expected to attend tonight’s annual Fête and Bal Champêtre at
Carnegie Hall sponsored by the Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home for
Consumptives
1902(1st of Adar II, 5662): Rosh Chodesh Adar II
1902(1stof Adar II, 5662): Seventy-two year old author and social reformer Jenny Hirsch died today in Berlin.
1905(3rdof Adar, 5665): Fifty-nine year old Elijah David Rabinowitz-Teomim (ADeReT), a Lithuanian born Rabbi who made Aliyah at the turn of the century passed away today and was buried on the Mount of Olives.
1905: Ernst Gräfenberg earned his doctorate after studying medicine in Göttingen and Munich. Another intellectual casualty of the Nazis, this doctor who had served in the German Army in World War and who developed the IUD, would flee to the United States in the 1930’s.
1906(13thof Adar, 5666): Parashat Tetzaveh; Shabbat Zachor; Erev Purim
1906: Purim services were held this evening at the West End Synagogue at the end of which every worshipper made “his contribution to charity.”
1906: Sixty-seven year old Eugene Richter, a German political leader who defended the Jews during the growing waves of German anti-Semitism that marked the last decades of the 19th century passed away.
1908: Birthdate of Fevel Greenberg, the native of “the Russian occupied region of Galicia” who gained fame as Philip Rahv “the editor, author, reviewer for Partisan Review and The New York Review of Books and Brandeis University English Professor.
1910: Birthdate of Richmond, VA native Amelia Held Ullman the wife of Gilbert Victor.
1910: Karl Lueger, the sixty-five year old anti-Semitic mayor of Vienna passed away.
1911: Birthdate of New York native Harold “Hy” Lefft the NYU basketball player who was the older borther of NYU basketball player Joe Lefft.
1911: Birthdate of Odessa native Charles Robert “Buckets” Goldenberg the University of Wisconsin star who went on to play for 12 years with the Green Bay Packers. (Editor’s Note – according to some records he was born in April.)
1911: Jerome Kern’s “La Belle Paree” starring Al Jolson, opened at the Winter Garden Theatre.
1913(1stof Adar II, 5673): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1913(1stof Adar II, 5673): Forty-two year old Chicagoan Victor B Strelitz, a member of the firm of Strelitz Brothers and the husband of Sarah Strelitz passed away “suddenly in New York City” today.
1913: Birthdate of Canadian composer John Jacob Weinzweig. The son of Jewish immigrants from Poland, he received his first formal study of music in mandolin at the Workmen's Circle Peretz School.
1913: The funeral of Pauline Phillips, the wife of Herman Philips is scheduled to take place today followed by burial at Waldheim Cemetery.
1915: The American Jewish Relief Committee for Suffers from the War” made its first detailed report public today sowing that it has collected approximately $550,000 of which $472,000 has been sent to various countries in Europe.
1915: The Frankfurter Zeitung published a letter that had first appeared in the Hambruger Israelitische Familienblatt written by a Jewish soldier, who with his brother had joined the German Army even though they had been denied German citizenship. According to the letter, one brother had been killed in battle and the surviving brother wanted his family to know that it was not a piece of paper that made them Germans. It was their “sentiments that made them Germans.” Feeling this way, they could not let others fight while they remained spectators. “The hero’s death is better than shame.”
1916: With the passing of the Military Service Act in 1916 the period of voluntary enlistment came to an end as did the publication of the list entitled “Our Honour Record of All Jews who are serving” the last one of which was published.
1916: In Rochford, Essex, Isidore and Helen Ostrer gave birth to Pamela Helen Ostrer, the English actress known as Pamela Mason after she married actor James Mason.
1916: “According to the ninth annual report of the American Jewish Committee issued” today “by President Louis Marshall” “nearly $4,000,000 was spent for charity last year by Jewish organizations in New York State”
1917: “The Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies issued…an appeal” which was supported by President Felix Warburg and Executive Director Edwin Golwaser “to Jews to do away with the long-established practice of sending elaborate floral tributes to the dead on the grounds that the money so spent could be used to greater advantage in caring for the poor.”
1918: Birthdate of Isaac Rosenfeld, the Chicago born author who wrote Passage from Home in 1946.
1918 At today’s meeting of the Jewish Ministers’ Association of America being held at the Girls’ Hebrew Technical School Moses Hyamson called for “unified action on the part of the Orthodox congregation to provide for the welfare of Jewish soldiers” at camps in the United States and at the Front and the rabbis demonstrated their support for the war effort by pledging “their support for a campaign which the Independ Order of B’rith Abraham is conducting to raise one million dollars in thrift and war savings stamps.”
1918: Warner Brothers released its first major film “My Four Years in Germany." The corporate name honors the four founding Warner brothers, Jewish brothers who emigrated from Poland to London, Ontario, Canada, Harry Warner (1881–1958), Albert Warner (1883–1967), Sam Warner (1887–1927) and Jack L. Warner (1892–1978).
1919: At the Strand Theatre in Providence, Rhode Island, Archibald Silverman presided over the memorial service honoring the memory of Colonel Harry Cutler who passed away last year in London which was attended by hundreds of Jewish and Gentile residents of the state including Rabbi Samuel Gup of Temple Beth-El who characterized Cutler as “a God intoxicated man.”
1919: Tonight at the Harmonie Club in Manhattan, “the Executive Committee of the Isaac M. Wise Centenary launched a campaign to raise $300,000 for the support of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati” in response “to the appeals of Henry Morgenthau and Jacob Schiff for a united effort to spread the ideals of Judaism.”
1920: In the wake of Arab attacks on Jewish citizens, Major-General Louis Bols, the Officer Administering the Government of Palestine, issued an order prohibiting further demonstrations in Jerusalem.
1920: In the House of Commons, when Major W. Ormsby-Gore asked he Prime Minister if “any special instructions had been sent to the commander-in-chief in Palestine in the wake of anti-Jewish “excesses+ in Metulah and the Galilee, “Secretary Williamson of the War Office” replied he had “no information of such excesses.
1921: Birthdate of Charlotte Zucker, the wife of Burton Charles Zucker, “the mother directors Jerry and David Zucker and actress Susan Breslau
1922: Three justices of the Supreme Court of New York – M. Warley Platzek, Edward Lazansky and Irving Lehman were among those who made contributions today to the “Wood Wilson Foundation fund of $1,000,000.”
1924: In New York City, attorney Charles Bailey “and the former Phyllis Hedley gave birth to Judith Bailey who gained fame as Judith Jones, the literary editor whose accomplishments included rescuing “Anne Frank’s diary from a US publisher’s rejection pile.”
1925(14thof Adar, 5685): Purim
1925: In New York Charles and Elizabeth Kabrin Limmer gave birth to Abraham Louis Limmer who gained fame as Lou “Boomie” Limmer the major league first baseman who overcame the effects of having broken his neck and suffered temporary blindness “while sliding into third base in the Western League” to play for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1951 and 1954.
1925: “Wood Love” a silent comedy written by Hans Neumann was released today in Germany
1926: Today, at the Astor Hotel, during her address at the sixth annual convention of the Jewish Women’s Organizations, “Mrs. Leory S. Blatner, Field Secretary, New York State Federation of Temple Sisterhood, launched a spirited attack on the modern Jewish mother who prepared her daughter for a wedding and not for marriage…”
1927: The Committee on Civics and Communal Affairs of the Council of Jewish Women arranged for today’s visit to City Hall in Philadelphia which is part of “a series of trips through various places of interest in and hear Philadelphia with the idea of acquainting” members “with the many places of importance in” this historic city.
1927: Mrs. W.T. Andress presided over the opening meeting of the Dallas Section in Max J. Rosenfield Hall.
1927: Birthdate of Bronx native and Manhattan High School of Aviation graduate Louis “Lou” Limmer, the WW II Army Corps veteran who played first base for the Philadelphia Athletics of the American League and was part of Jewish trifecta when he came to bat against Saul Rogovin, the Jewish pitcher for the Detroit Tigers whose battery-mate was Joe Ginsberg, the Jewish Catcher.
1929(28thof Adar I, 5689): Seventy-seven year old German Jurist Victor Gabriel Ehrenberg passed away.
1929: “Shakedown” directed by William Wyler and produced by Samuel Goldwyn “was released in parallel silent and sound versions.”
1929: In New York, Lewis Steiger, the proprietor of men’s clothing business and his wife Rebecca gave birth to Samuel Steiger “a New Yorker who transformed himself into a Western rancher, served five terms in the House as a Republican from Arizona…” (As reported by William Yardley)
1929: Reports published today described the upcoming opening of “the Warner Brothers' ambitious Vitaphone production which will open at the Winter Garden, featuring Dolores Costello and George O'Brien” which is a cinematic treatment of the Biblical story.
1929: Birthdate of “Stephen Myron Schwebel is an American jurist and expert on international law.”
1930: It was reported today that Dr. Israel Goldstein has announced the formation of “a committee of one hundred leading Jews” to organize celebrations throughout the United States to mark 20th anniversary of the formation of Young Judaea, the Zionist youth group.
1932: In Great Britain, David and Eleanor Montague gave birth to businessman and Laborite Michael Montague, Baron Montague of Oxford
1932: It was reported today that when Benjamin Cardozo is sworn in next week as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, there will finally be enough Justices to constitute a quorum so that the Court can hear the government’s appeal of a consent decree by the lower court in an anti-trust case involving the nation’s meatpackers. The death of Justice Holmes and the recusal of Justices Hughes, Stone and Sutherland had meant that there were not enough Justices to hear the case.
1933: Michael Siegel, a Jewish lawyer who complained about the police “is forced to walk through Munich barefoot while carrying a sign reading ‘I will never complain to the police again.’”
1933: Victor Klemperer writes in his diary “Hitler elected as Chancellor. What I had called terror was only a mild prelude. . . . It is amazing how everything collapses . . . prohibitions and acts of violence. And with it, on streets and radio, unrestrained propaganda. On Saturday I heard a piece of Hitler's speech in Konsigsberg. I understood only a few words. But the tone! The unctuous roaring bark, the bark, really, of a clergyman. . . . How long will I be able to retain my professorship?”
1933: In Germany, premiere of Liebelei directed by Max Ophüls, based on a play of the same name by Arthur Schnitzler.
1934: “Jail Birds of Paradise” a Three Stooges comedy and directed by Al Boasberg was released in the United States today.
1936: “Two Jewish students, one them cast as Shylock, withdrew from a classroom production of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” at Hackensack (NJ) High School today as Rabbi Irving Silman of Hackensack Hebrew Institute continued a campaign to have the play stricken from the sophomore English course at the school because the character of Shylock ‘is the foulest slander ever penned by the hand of genius.’”
1936: A delegation from the Federation of Polish Jews in America met with Secretary of State Cordell Hall an asked him “to use the influence of the United States to stop the Polish Parliament from adopting a law “to prohibit Jewish ritual slaughter in” that country.
1936: In New York, the motion introduced by “Aldermen Morton Moses and Saul Frassler to grant holidays to Jewish employees during Passover” was sent to committee for consideration.
1937: “Chicken Heart” written by Arch Oboler was broadcast for the first time on the radio suspense show,
1937: Despite attempts by the Polish foreign minister to have Jews leave for Palestine, “the Council of Polish Organizations in the United States of America denied” today “that Poland as forcing Jews to emigrate” and “it declared the present emigration of about 80,000 Polish Jews annually wa normal.
1937: The Palestine Post reported from London that Viscount Cranborne, MP, the Foreign Under-Secretary told Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson, MP, that the population of Transjordan was about 300,000 and that the Palestine Mandate still applied there, except for the provisions which included the establishment of the Jewish National Home. The policy in regard to the prospects of the Jewish settlement in Transjordan "remained unchanged". Thomas Williams, MP, asked the Colonial Secretary why the recent British military expenditures were charged to the Palestine government, while they might have been caused by the necessities of the international situation.
1937: “Franklin Forgery Exposed by Beard” published today described Professor Charles A. Beards’ conclusion that “the anti-Semitic ‘Prophecy’ attributed to Benjamin Franklin and distributed in Germany within the last few days by the government news service” was “a barefaced forgery.”
1937: The Palestine Post reported that Jerusalem Arabs welcomed Moslem pilgrims returning by train from the pilgrimage to Mecca.
1938: The day after the Germans marched into Austira, Fritz Grünbaum and Karl Farkas acted for the last time in Simplicissimus before trying to flee to Czechoslovakia.
1938: “Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels” visited Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.
1938: Birthdate of Ron Mix. Mix was an oddity - a Jewish professional football player. He was all-star offensive tackle with the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1979. Just to be on the safe side, Mix went to law school at night.
1938: Birthdate of Ron Mix. Mix was an oddity - a Jewish professional football player. He was all-star offensive tackle with the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1979. Just to be on the safe side, Mix went to law school at night.
1939: “The Ice Follies of 1939,” a musical comedy directed by Reinhold Schünzel and produced by Harry Rapf was released in the United States today.
1939: “Striking a ‘Nazi persecution of Catholics as well as Jews in Germany,’ William Cardinal O’Connel, dean of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in” the United States “today set March 19 as ‘Catholic refugee Sunday’”
1943: Emanuel Zisman, his mother and his sister, along with the rest of the Jews living in Plovdiv, Bulgaria were rounded up for a planned deportation to the death camps.
1943: Bulgaria refused to release 48,000 of its Jews to the Germans. This became known to the Bulgarians as a "miracle of the Jewish people."
1943: More than 1,000 Jews in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Emanuel Zisman, the future Israeli ambassador to Bulgaria, his mother and his sister “were taken from their homes concentrated in the Jewish quarter, near to the school. But during the day the public pressure was so strong that the tsar of Bulgaria, Boris III, decided to cancel the deportation. It was a long day but a very, very happy night.”
1943: Last of two performances of “We Will Never Die” took place at Madison Square Garden in New York City
1944: Adolf Eichmann and his staff met at Mauthausen concentration camp to work out the deportation of over 750,000 Jews from Hungary.
1945: Major Ronald Edmond Balfour, “the son of Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Robert Balfour and May Eleanor Balfour (née Broadwood) of Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England” a British officer serving with the “Monuments Men” died in a shell-burst, while operating beyond the Allied front line at Kleve (Cleves), seeking out artworks to be protected from war damage” after which he was buried in Reichswald Forest War Cemetery.
1945(25th of Tevet, 5705): Thirty year old Czech journalist Joseph Taussig, the son of Otto and Frederike (Federer) Tausig and younger brother of journalist František (Franta) Taussig died today at Flossenburg just five weeks before the camp was liberated by the United States Army.
1947: In what seems to be a public change in policy by Jewish leaders, 5 mayors in the martial law zone, including the Mayor of Tel Aviv issued a strongly worded statement warning against any new outbreak of terrorism. “Acts of desperation do nothing but harm to the community and are calculated to bring about the disruption of our organized life. We urgently warn the perpetrators and those who bear responsibility for them to cease all acts of terrorism, murder and violence against Jews and Britons. Do not destroy the last possibility of maintain the wholeness of our organization.”
1947: “Twenty-one American citizens, including a woman named Hanna Herschkowitz, as well as two Norwegians with American…papers and two French nationals, all of whom arrived aboard the unauthorized immigrant ship Abril, were remanded by a magistrate in Haifa today. They will be held for a fortnight pending investigations into charges arising from the ship’s arrival in Palestine waters.” Two American newspapermen – Wallace Litwin and Albert L. Hrschkoff are among those being detained. Joseph Kaserman, an attorney from Haifa has been retained to defend the crew and protect the rights of the ship’s registered owner, the Tyre Shipping Company of New York City. The Abrilis also known as the SS Ben Hecht, a ship under Irgun control that had been carrying 599 Jewish refugees trying to land in Palestine.
1947: Daniel Frisch a leading member of the ZOA and the Zionist General Council said tonight, “I am persuaded by consultations and assurances obtained back by overwhelming Jewish as well as non-Jewish sentiment, that the United States Government will never give its consent to a solution of the Palestine problem which would tend to rob the Jewish people of its only path leading to rehabilitation and life.”
1948: Birthdate of retired government agent and private investigator Robert Levinson who has been held by the Iranians since 2007.
1948: A “company of the 1st Battalion commanded by Assaf Simchoni acted against an Arab gang which had settled in Kafr Kanna, on the Tiberias-Nazareth road. Information had been received that the village had become a center for gangs headed by a certain ‘Ibrahim’ that had carried out many attacks in the Lower Galilee and the Zevulun Valley. Among these was a gang that had previously been active in Shefaram, but had moved to Kafr Kanna. Born in 1922, Simchoni would rose to the rank of Major-General in the IDF. In 1956, he “commanded the Sinai Campaign and was killed in an airplane accident at the end of the war.”
1949: During Operation Uvda “an aerial photographer discovered that the police station guarding Ras al-Naqb was abandoned and the Negev Brigade set out towards Umm Rashrash through Ras al-Naqb
1949: At 15:00 the Negev Brigade reached the abandoned policed station at Umm Rashrash (the future site of Eilat) followed two hours later by the Golani Brigade.
1949: The conquest of the southern Negev and Um Rashrash (Eilat) in March 1949 ended the War of Independence.
1949: In Israel, the Provisional Government gave way to the first Cabinet of the new State.
1949: Moshe Sharett completed his term as Foreign Minister for the Provisional Government which had been in power since the creation of the state in May of 1948,
1949: Moshe Sharett begins serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs in Israel’s first elected government.
1949: Haim-Moshe Shapira replaced Yitzhak Gruenbaum as Internal Affairs Minister.
1949: Aharon Zisling completed his service as Israel’s first Minister of Agriculture.
1950: In Tel Aviv Dov Fruchtman, a teacher of literature and his wife gave birth to Nita Ben-Dov (nee Fruchtman a Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of Haifa
1950: “The Vicious Year” written by N. Richard Nash was released in the United States today.
1951: An estimated 200 million dollars’ worth of Jewish property was then taken over by the state. "At a secret session of the Iraqi Parliament passed Law No. 5 of 1951 under which "the assets of all Jews who were leaving and had denounced Iraqi citizenship - 103,866 by that time - were frozen and put under Iraqi Government control." This law actually was applied to the more than 123,000 Jews who had been forced to flee during the years 1948-1951. The Jews still trapped in Iran were not only stateless, they were now totally impoverished.
1951: In Los Angeles, Albert and Ruth (Feldman) Zugsmith gave birth to real estate executive Michael Albert Zugsmith who was also a “member of real estate and construction cabinet Jewish Federation” amd a “guardian of the Jewish Home for the Aging.”
1951: After 48 performances, the curtain came down a second Broadway production of Frank Loesser’s “Where’s Charley?”
1952(13th of Adar, 5712): Fast of Esther
1952: Fulgencio Batista leads a successful coup in Cuba and appoints himself as the "provisional president". This was Batista’s second time to serve as president. It was during this second presidency that Meyer Lanksy negotiated the deal with Batista that gave “the mob” monopoly control over the island’s gambling operations in return for a down payment of 3 million dollars and a fifty percent cut of the profits. (In those days, a million dollars was really worth a million dollars.)
952: The Jerusalem Post reported the cabinet’s decision that wages earned by Arabs in the employ of the state, municipalities and other public institutions, and the prices paid for Arab produce would be equal to those paid to the Jews. Mr. Palmon, the prime minister’s adviser on Arab affairs, stated that among Israeli Arabs the collection of income tax was practically nonexistent. They paid only a negligible property tax. The cabinet had also approved the Pensions and Rehabilitation of the Victims of the War of Independence bill.
1957(7th of Adar II, 5717): Sixty-six year old screenwriter and author Samuel Ornitz who was blacklisted as a member of the “Hollywood Ten” passed away today.
1959: Birthdate of Aital Selinger, the native of Haifa volleyball player who twice represented the Netherlands in the Summer Olympics.
1959: The original Broadway production of “Sweet Bird of Youth” starring Paul Newman opened today at the Martin Beck Theatre.
1960(11thof Adar, 5720): Ta’anit Esther observed for the last time during the Presidency of Dwight Eisenhower.
1961: “God Naked in the World” produced by Aaron Rosenberg was released in the United States today.
1963: Birthdate of Frederick Jay Rubin, known as Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin is one of the two guys behind legendary hip-hop label Def Jam.
1965: Neil Simon's play ''The Odd Couple'' opened on Broadway.
1966: Birthdate of actor Stephen Mailer, son of author Norman Mailer.
1967: Seventy-nine year old Charles Polakoff, the Russian born son of Louis and Annie Polakoff who with his father formed L. Polakoff and Company, the Buffalo based “wholesale and retail dealers in coal and ice” and raised three children – Gerson, Leah and Joseph – with his wife Rebecca Polakoff passed away today.
1970: Barbra Streisand recorded "The Singer"& "I Can Do It"
1970: The Knesset passed the "Who is a Jew?" bill which defined a Jew as one born to a Jewish mother or a convert to the Jewish religion.
1971: “Get Carter” a slick British crime film produced by Michael Klinger and photographed by Wolfgang Suschitzky.
1972: “Silent Running,” a sci-fi thriller featuring Ron Rifkin, produced by Michael Gruskoff1973(6th of Adar II, 5733): Seventy-two year old movie director Robert Siodmak, another of those whose career in Europe was cut short by the Nazis but who managed to escape to the United States before the war, passed away today.
1974: Golda Meir formed a new government that included Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres. The government was formed in response to a new threat from Syria and would prove to be the shortest lived government in the history of Israel.
1974: Abba Eban completed his term as Minister of Foreign Affairs in Israel’s 15thgovernment and began serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Israel’s 16thgovernment.
1974: Aharon Uzan replaced Shimon Peres as Communications Ministers
1974: Yitzhak Rafael replaced Zerach Warhaftig as the head of the Ministry of Religious Services.
1974: Yehoshua Rabinovitz replaced Ze’ev Sherf as Minster of Housing and Construction.
1974: Birthdate Keren Ann Zeidel the famous singer-song writer born at Caearea.
1977: This evening, the ambassadors of Egypt, Pakistan and Iran “along with a few D.C. officials, including the police commander Joseph O’Brien” met with the Hanifis who had seized the District Building, the headquarters of B’nai B’rith and the Islamic Center of Washington.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that US President Jimmy Carter suggested that the final Israeli borders should include only "some minor adjustments in the 1967 borders." He added, however, that it was important to recognize the difference between the "legal borders" and "defense lines" which would enable Israel to defend itself.
1978: “The Fury” a film version of the novel by the same name starring Kirk Douglas and Amy Irving was released in the United States today.
1979: Four terrorists were killed in Tel Aviv today.
1980: Yitzhak Shamir began serving as Foreign Minister.
1980: Jean Harris murdered Doctor Herman Tarnower, the Scarsdale diet doctor.
1986(29th of Adar I, 5746): Eighty-three year old Myron Cohen, the comedian noted for his use of dialect in his humor passed away today.
1986(29th of Adar I, 5746): Ninety-five year old Rosh Yeshiva Yaako Kamenetsky, author of Emes leYaakov al HaShas ("Truth to Jacob") passed away.
1987: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of Memoirs of a Fortunate Jew: An Italian Story by Dan Vittorio Serge and The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, Survival by Susan Zucotti.
1987:Five authors of books with Jewish themes, published in 1986, were honored today at the Eighth Annual Present Tense/Joel H. Cavior Book Awards luncheon, sponsored by Present Tense magazine and the American Jewish Committee, and held at the committee's headquarters. The winners were: Biography/Autobiography: Victor Perera, ''Rites: A Guatemalan Boyhood'' (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). Fiction: Art Spiegelman, ''Maus: A Survivor's Tale'' (Pantheon Books). History: Bernard Lewis, ''Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry Into Conflict and Prejudice'' (W. W. Norton & Company). Jewish Religious Thought: David Weiss Halivni, ''Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara: The Jewish Predilection for Justified Law'' (Harvard University Press). General Nonfiction: Lesley Hazleton, ''Jerusalem, Jerusalem'' (Atlantic Monthly Press). Elie Wiesel was honored with a special lifetime achievement citation for his ''extraordinary efforts to rescue the Holocaust from historical and literary oblivion and to dramatize the plight of Soviet Jews and other oppressed people.
1989: “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” a fantasy comedy with music by Michael Kamen was released in the United States today.
1991: Susanne J. Schwartz and Colin M. Davidson were married this evening. The bride’s father is Richard A. Jacobs, the president of the Joseph Jacobs Organization, an advertising agency that was founded by his father the late Joseph Jacobs.
1992: In “Menachem Begin, Guerrilla Leader Who Became Peacemaker,” published the day after he passed away James Feron described Menachem Begin as “the Israeli Prime Minister who made peace with Egypt” after living much of his life in the opposition. A Jewish underground leader before Israel gained independence in 1948; he openly fought the established Zionist leadership of the struggle against British rule. Then for nearly three decades, he headed Israel's major opposition party. Ultimately and to many Israelis, surprisingly, his minority bloc ousted the Labor Party, which had governed continuously in the three decades since statehood, and Mr. Begin, as party leader, became Prime Minister. He was to govern an ever more divided and troubled nation. Mr. Begin, who led Israel from May 1977 until he resigned as Prime Minister in 1983, stretched the national mood from great pride to deep dismay. He guided the nation to a peace treaty with Egypt, the first such pact with an Arab country. But he also presided over a bitterly divisive war against Palestinian guerrillas in Lebanon.” The treaty with Egypt, which brought Mr. Begin a shared 1978 Nobel Peace Prize with President Anwar el-Sadat, represented a high point in his political leadership while the war in Lebanon in 1982 and the stalemate that followed, with its steady toll of dead and wounded, were its low point.
1996: New York City Mayor Giuliani visited Israel.
1996(19thof Adar, 5656): Oscar nominated movie and television producer Ross Hunter passed away today.
1996: Helène Aylon's “The Liberation of G-d” was shown for the first time in the New York Jewish Museum's exhibit “Too Jewish?: Challenging Traditional Identities.” The work, which took six years to create, was made by covering every page of the five books of the Torah with transparent parchment, on which Aylon marked problematic passages with a pink pen. The marked passages were mostly those considered degrading to women, but also included negative references to homosexuality. This work was accompanied by commentary on the marked passages from a spectrum of Jewish scholars and rabbis. “Liberation” was typical of Aylon's work in combining Jewish and social justice themes.
1997: The New York Times reported that the ownership of The Chattanooga Times is being transferred from the four grandchildren of Adolph S. Ochs, who bought the paper in 1878 and remained its publisher until 1935, to his 13 great-grandchildren. The family said it did not anticipate any shift in the Tennessee newspaper's management or direction as a result of the change in ownership. ''It is part of an orderly transfer of responsibility to our children, and we make it with the utmost faith that they will sustain and enrich'' the family's commitment to the paper, said Ruth S. Holmberg, who remains the chairman of The Chattanooga Times and is one of the four current owners. In addition to Mrs. Holmberg, the other three owners are Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Marian S. Heiskell and Dr. Judith P. Sulzberger. All are in their 70's, while their children range in age from 32 to 53. The four grandchildren of Mr. Ochs are also the trustees of four trusts that own a controlling stake in The New York Times Company. Mr. Sulzberger is also the chairman of the Times Company. Although Mr. Ochs bought The New York Times in 1896, The Chattanooga Times remained separate from the Times Company.
1998(12thof Adar, 5758): Seventy-four year Hayim David HaLevi, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi for Tel Aviv and Jaffa passed way today. A native of Jerusalem, he served in the IDF during the War for Independence before following a rabbinical career to which this blog cannot do justice.
1998: The new building of the Jewish Museum of Greece was inaugurated today.
1999: The first Australian production of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” opened at the Sydney Theatre Company today.
2000: Barbra Streisand performed for the second and final time at the Sydney Football Stadium.
2001: It was reported today that Senator Hillary Clinton and former President Clinton are “stonewalling” the FBI in its investigation into Bill’s pardon “of four convicted swindlers from an upstate Hasidic village in a scandal labeled “Pardongate” which is not to be confused with President Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich which came on the last day of his presidency following a sizable contribution to his library fund.
2002: Israeli helicopters destroyed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's office in Gaza City, hours after 11 Israelis were killed in a suicide bombing in a cafe across the street from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's residence in Jerusalem.
2003: Yaakov Edri begins serving as Deputy Minister of Public Security.
2004: “A conference titled ‘Jacques Faitlovitch and the Jews of Ethiopia’” which was organized by the Centre de recherche français de Jérusalem in collaboration with Ben-Zvi Institute and Tel-Aviv University “to mark the centennial day of Jacques Faitlovitch’s first trip to discover the Falashas” opened today.
2006: The Conservative movement decided to postpone until December 2006 making a final decision on recognizing gay marriage and allowing homosexuals to be ordained as rabbis, a move that is threatening to split the movement. The movement's Halakhic (Jewish law) committee discussed the initiative today but it was decided to delay making a final decision. One of the Conservative movement's leading rabbis in New York, who requested to remain anonymous, told Haaretz on Monday that the initiative's approval would cause broad resistance among the movement's rabbis and congregation members, and that many would leave the movement.
2007: Shabbat Parah
2007: The Tel Aviv Museum hosts a gala concert in honor of American composer Steve Reich.
2007: “John Zorn’s Masada Quartet performed one of their last concerts at Lincoln Center today.
2007: “Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an alleged Al Qaeda operative reported to be third in command under Osama bin Laden, claimed responsibility, before his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, for the murder of Daniel Pearl” whom he claimed to have beheaded.
2008: An exhibition styled “Lucien Freud: The Painter’s Etchings” at the Museum of Modern of Art comes to an end.
2008: A screening of a film based on Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History takes place at The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
2009: “Irena’s Vow,” starring Tovah Feldshuh opens at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York City.
2009(14thAdar, 5769): Purim
2009(14thof Adar, 5769): One day before his 92nd birthday day New York real estate developer Aaron Gural, he NYU trained accountant and son of Meyer and Rose Guralnick passed away today.
2009: Sherwin B. Nuland, a clinical professor of surgery at Yale University and the author of The Uncertain Art: Thoughts on a Life in Medicine and the forthcoming The Soul of Medicine: Tales from the Bedside, presents the inaugural Stephen E. Straus Distinguished Lecture in the Science of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, "Chinese Medicine, Western Science and Acupuncture," at the National Institutes of Health.
2009:Charles Zentai, an 87-year-old man accused of killing a Jewish teenager in Hungary during World War II asked an Australian court today to prevent his extradition to Hungary, and claimed the results of a lie detector test prove he had nothing to do with the death.
Zentai, an Australian citizen, is listed by the U.S.-based Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center among its 10 most wanted Nazis as having participated in manhunts, persecution, and murder of Jews in Budapest in 1944.
Zentai, an Australian citizen, is listed by the U.S.-based Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center among its 10 most wanted Nazis as having participated in manhunts, persecution, and murder of Jews in Budapest in 1944.
2010:The CJH, YUM, Program in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies at Cardozo Law School is scheduled to present “Genocide and Responsibility to Protect" during which a panel of scholars and practitioners will discuss The Responsibility to Protect ("RtoP" or "R2P"), a new international security and human rights norm designed to address the international community's failure to prevent and stop genocides, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
2010(24thof Adar): Thirty-eight year old Actor Corey Haim passed away.
2010: The 121stannual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis came to a close today.
2010: “The Game Change” based on the book of the same name co-authored by Mark Halperin and featuring John Rothman had its public debut today on HBO.
2010: French premiere of “La Rafle” or “The Round Up a moved “based on the true story of a young Jewish boy living through “the mass arrest Jews by French (not German) police in Paris in 1942.
2011:The NJDC is scheduled to host a reception honoring Kenneth R. Feinberg an American attorney specializing in mediation who is currently overseeing the U.S. government’s response to claims arising from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
2011:The Israeli Opera is scheduled to host the premiere “of the tumultuous Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Katerina Izmaylova), by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, directed by Yulia Pevzner, based on a version staged by Irina Molostova, a Ukrainian stage director who first directed it in a joint production of the Israeli Opera and the Kirov Opera House in 1997.”
2011: Ruth Ellen Gruber is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “From Persona Non Grata to the Present: An American Jewish Journalist's View of Poland's Transformation” in Washington, DC.
2011: Opening night of the 15th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival.
2011:The faces of four of Israel’s most celebrated poets and playwrights have been selected to appear on a new series of banknotes slated for release in the next three years, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer announced today. Natan Alterman, Leah Goldberg, Shaul Tchernichovsky and Rachel Sela – better known as Rachel the Poetess – were selected for the list, which was finalized following more than a year of heated debate and which will now be submitted to the government for approval. The faces will appear on new NIS 20, 50, 100 and 200 banknotes. The Bank of Israel said in a press release that the poets were chosen in the hope that “featuring these personalities on the banknotes will help to instill in the younger generation of Israelis an appreciation of their contribution to Israeli society and to the state.” Fischer made the announcement a day after meeting with the Committee for the Planning of Banknotes, Coins and Commemorative Coins, chaired by retired Judge Yaacov Turkel, to confirm the four selections. The committee was tasked in December 2009 with finding a new set of personalities for the banknotes after the central bank shelved its original list – which included Rachel the Poetess, writer Shai Agnon and former prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin - following strong opposition from, amongst others, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz and MK Benny Begin, son of Menachem. The New Israeli Shekel was introduced in place of the old shekel in 1985, with banknotes featuring the same personalities that can still be found today: former prime minister Moshe Sharett on the NIS 20 note, Shay Agnon on the NIS 50 note, and former presidents Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Zalman Shazar on the NIS 100 and 200 notes. According to the Bank of Israel, the new series will incorporate state-of the-art security and identification features to aid anti-counterfeiting measures.
2011: In an agreement signed today, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate sold most of its leasing rights to large swaths of Jerusalem to a group of Jewish investors last week. The NIS 80 million agreement puts an end to the long draw-out land affair - at least for the next 140 years.
2011: “Today, Skopje, the capital of Macedonia — home to more than a quarter of the country’s population of 2 million — gained a new cultural artifact: the Holocaust Memorial Center of the Jews from Macedonia. A landmark in the middle of the city, the center remembers Jews lost in the Holocaust from Macedonia and from neighboring Southeast European nations.” (As reported by Katherine Clarke)
2011: Opening of the 15th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival
2012: “Camera Obscura” is scheduled to be shown at Congregation Beth-El Jewish Film Festival in Fort Worth, TX.
2012: Alison Westermann is scheduled to make her Washington, DC debut with a perforamcne at Tifereth Israel
2012(16thof Adar, 5772): On the Hebrew calendar, anniversary of the commencement of the rebuilding of the Walls of Jerusalem by Agrippa I in 41 of the CE.
2012” HBO broadcast the film version of Game Change co-authored by Mark Halperin.
2012: United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the barrage of rockets fired towards Israel from the Gaza Strip. Clinton said in a meeting with Opposition leader Tzipi Livni in New York that Israel has the right to defend itself. Livni in turn urged the international community to speak out against terrorism directed at Israel's southern communities.
2012: Due to the escalation in violence, the IDF Home Front command along with the heads of a number of local authorities in Israel’s south decided tonight to cancel school in all towns and cities located between 7km to 40km from the Gaza Strip. Due to the decision, approximately 200,000 children will stay home tomorrow.
2013:Bel Kaufman, author of Up the Down Staircase;Rachel Cohen Gerrol, co-founder of the Nexus Global Youth Summit; and Rachel Sklar, founder of Change the Ratio are scheduled to be honored at JWA's Third Annual Making Trouble/Making History awards luncheon
2013: The Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation’s Capital is scheduled to host a Purim Ball and Auction honoring Marsha Gentner and Joe Berman, Jacqueline Eyl and Leonard Chanin Mindy and Jeffrey Sosland featuring comedian Joel Chasnoff
2013: As part of Temple Judah’s 90th anniversary observance, Barb Feller will lead a trolley tour of historic Jewish cites in Cedar Rapids with Mark Hunter serving as “subject matter expert.”
2013: “Passages through the Fire: Jews and the Civil War” – an exhibition presented by Yeshiva University Museum and the American Jewish Historical Society opened today.
2013: In a ceremony joining together two of the nicest people in the world, Harvard grad Anna Michelle Resnick married Harvard grad Ilan Caplan who for years brought joy to the Cedar Rapids Jewish community as the High Holiday Chazan.
2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Exploring Esther: The Origins, Values and Power of Purim.”
2014: Jennifer George, Al Jaffee, Adam Gopnik and Brian Walker are scheduled to discuss “The Genius of Rube Goldberg” at the 92nd Street Y.
2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Lost Souls: Retrieving Jewish War Orphans after the Holocaust.”
2014: An Israeli man was attacked with a stun gun in the Marais district” of Paris.
2014: Authorities in Stockholm reported today that The Vasa Real School which offers classes in Jewish studies and Hebrew was emblazoned with pink and blue swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans, including “disgusting Jews” and the white supremacist insignia “1488” (As reported by Times of Israel)
2014: Muhammad Mafarji a Palestinain who was convicted last year of planting a bomb on a bus in Tel Aviv during Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense was sentenced to 25 years in prison today.
2014(8thof Adar II, 5774): Eighty three year old career diplomat Samuel Lewis who served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel for eight years passed away today.
2014(8thof Adar II, 5774): At the age of 111, Gisela Kohn Dollinger passed away today.
2014: “Dozens of rockets, boxes of hundreds thousands of bullets and nearly 200 mortar rounds will be opened for the world to see today as Israel puts weapons on show from a recently intercepted ship smuggling arms that it says exposes the “true face of Iran” which allegedly dispatched it (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)
2015: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia caters to diverse Jewish interest as it offers workshops on “Jews in Sports” and “the evolution of the Passover Seder over the last two thousand years.”
2015: Eliad Kabilio is scheduled to take attendees on “A Musical Journey through Jewish Space” at the Center for Jewish History.
2015: Today the defense ministry released new photos from the IDF archives of the raising of the Ink Flag, a historic moment in which IDF soldiers raised a handmade Israeli flag painted with ink over the Umm Al-Rashrash police station in 1949 to mark the capture of Eilat.
2015: “An IDF officer was lightly wounded on the Golan Heights today by gunfire emanating from Syria.” (As reported by Yoav Zitun)
2015: “Herzog Emerging as Credible Challenge to Netanyahu in Israeli Race” published today provides a status report on the Israeli elections to be held in just one week.
2016:The19th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to start in New York City this evening.
2016: “Rosenwald” and “Fire Birds” are scheduled to be shown at the Houston Jewish Film Festival.
2016(30thof Adar I, 5776): Rosh Chodesh I, Adar II
2016(30thof Adar, I 5776): Eighty-seven year old Booker Prize winning author Anita Brookner passed away today.
2017: Today “twenty one people were lightly injured in Tel Aviv during the city’s annual festival for the Jewish holiday of Purim.”
2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Friday night dinner during which all of those participating in “mystery matanot” reveal their identities.
2017: “A day after the Jewish Children’s Museum” in Brooklyn was evacuated due to a bomb threat, “the Jasa Senior Citizen Center on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn received the threat in the form of a text message at 8:45 a.m. local time.
2017: It was reported today that “a 1796 first edition of George Washington’s A Collection of the Speeches of the President of United States which includes “letters and speeches to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island” is scheduled to be sold at auction next week.
2017: In Paris, the symposium on “The Holocaust in Ukraine. New Perspectives on the Evils of the 20th Century” is scheduled to continue for a second day.
2018(23rdof Adar, 5778): Finish the book of Exodus with Vayakhel and Pekuday; Shabbat Parah;
2018: “Bar Bahar” is scheduled to be shown this afternoon at Jackson Hole Jewish Community Center in the Centennial Building.
2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host its last Shabbat observance of the term.
2018: The 21st NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host “Classic Move Night: Greek Sephardim in the Holocaust.”
2019: In Atlanta, GA, as “part of the 2019 Molly Blank Concert Series Celebrating Jewish Contributions to Music,” the Breman Museum is scheduled to host “Salute to Hollywood: Jewish Contributions to Academy Awards Best Original Songs.”
2019: “Henry Goodman, Nicholas Hytner, Jason Isaacs, Brian Leveson, Emily Maitlis, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jay Rayner, Philippe Sands, Janet Suzman and Zoe Wanamaker, are scheduled to read poems, letters and speeches, stretching from the beginnings of Jewish history, right up to the present day” this evening as part of “Jewish Voices,” “the grand finale of Jewish Book Week 2019” co-sponsored by World Jewish Relief
2019: The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present “Al Naharot Bavel (By the Waters of Babylon): during which “NYC ensembles ARTEK and PARTHENIA offer a concert of music by Jewish composers of the Renaissance and early baroque, in Italy and England.”
2019: Norman Ornststein, the former CBS election analyst and “resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institue” is scheduled to present “One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate and the Not-Yet-Deported” at the JCC of Northern Virginia.
2019: The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host the New York premiere of “From Cairo to the Cloud: The World of the Cairo Geniza” directed by Michelle Paymar.