March 22
1144: This date marks the first ritual murder libel which took place in in Norwich, England. It set the pattern for subsequent accusations that would be made into the 20th century all across Europe.. A 12 year old boy, William, was found dead on Easter Eve, and the Jews were accused of killing him in a mock crucifixion. They were not, however, accused of using his blood for the making of matzos, although this would become a standard feature of later libels. It was later presumed by scholars that the boy died during a cataleptic fit or else he was killed by a sexual pervert. After Easter, a synod convened and summoned the Jews to the Church court. The Jews refused on the grounds that only the king had jurisdiction over them and they feared that they would be subjected to "trial by ordeal." William was regarded as a martyred saint and a shrine was erected in his memory. In spite of this episode, there was no immediate violence against the Jews. Over the years, despite denunciations by various popes, ritual murder libels continued. Possession of a saint's shrine bestowed great economic benefits on a town because sacred relics drew pilgrims who spent money on offerings, board, and lodging. For bones to be considered sacred relics they had to be killed by a heretic (i.e. a Jew). Such charges were used as an excuse to murder Jews as late as 1900.
1190: In England, King Richard angered by the riots and the loss of crown property (since the Jews belonged to the crown) renewed a general charter in favor of the Jews first issued by Henry II. His Chancellor Longchamp instituted heavy fines against the Pudsey and Percy families thus at the same time enriching the treasury and hurting his political opponents. Only three people who were also accused of destroying Christian property were executed
1349: The townspeople of Fulda Germany massacred the Jews because they blamed them for the Black Death.
1369: In France, Charles V sought to force Jews to attend church services by issuing an order that included a penalty for defiance. Unless they complied "the Jews might suffer great bodily harm".
1457: The Gutenberg Bible became the first printed book. The printing revolution would soon reach the world of Jewish literature. Thanks to Gutenberg's remarkable invention, books would soon be much more readily available to the People of the Book.
1500: A huge fleet under the command of Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, accompanied by Gaspar da Gama, a Polish born Jew whose slave name had been Yusuf ‘Adil before being forcibly converted to Christianity reached Cape Verde, a Portuguese colony on Africa’s West Coast as it made its way towards India.
1503: After 8 years of exile, Jews are allowed to return to Lithuania
1510: The Jews were expelled from Colmar Germany. Jews had been living in this town in Upper Alsac for at least three centuries prior to their expulsion for which no reason is given.
1564: In Mantua, Italy, David Provensalo and his son Abraham asked the Jewish notables to help him create a Jewish College. The idea was to allow Jews to learn languages and science while also receiving a “Jewish education.” Although they did establish a Talmudic academy they were opposed by the local Church and did not succeed in opening the College.
1599: Birthdate of Antwerp native and “English court painter” Anthony van Dyck whose “Portrait of Adriaen Moens” was stolen from the Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker by the Nazis.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/dr-oetker-restitutes-van-dyck-831605
1609: In Mexico, “a bailiff of the Holy Office carried a statue of Jorge de Almeida in a procession and the bailiff tied the effigy to a stake” and publicly burned it. Almeda was the wife of Donna Lenor “a Jewess” and escaped the Inquisition when he was charged with Judaizing so he was tried in absentia which meant that his effigy could not suffer auto de fe.
1749: “Solomon,” an oratorio by George Handel based on the biblical stories about King Solomon had its final performance at the Theatre Royal in London.
1753(16thof Adar II, 5513): David Israel Athias, who had served as “Hakam of the Portuguese community at Amsterdam” since 1728, passed away today.
1781(25thof Adar, 5541): Fifty-eight year old Samson Levy, the son of Moses Raphael Levy and Grace Mears passed away today in Philadelphia.
1797: Birthdate of German-Jewish jurist Eduard Gans.
1798(5thof Nisan, 5558): Isaac Jacob Gans , the Lower Saxony born son of Jacob and Ferude Katz Gans and husband of Pesse Pauline Leah Gans who became a wealthy tobacco merchant and note philanthropist passed away today.https://thejewishmuseum.org/collection/3701
1797: Birthdate of Kaiser Wilhelm I German whose reign lasted from 1871 1888. The Prussian monarch became the first ruler over a united Germany. In 1869, the emancipation process for the Jews of Germany was completed. “All still existing limitations of the…civil rights which are rooted in differences of religious faith are hereby annulled.” Jews rose rapidly during his reign. Guided by Chancellor Bismarck, the German government actually became champion of the less fortunate Jews living to the East.
1798 Aarau, the city in which Albert Einstein “attended the Argovian cantonal school (gymnasium) in 1895 and 1896 to complete his secondary schooling” was declared the capital of the Helvetic Republic making it “the first capital of a unified Switzerland” and another site for a failed attempt to effect the emancipation of the Jews in that country.
1799(15th of Adar II, 5559): Shushan Purim
1805: Birthdate of Kassel native and convert to Christianity Franz Ferdinand Benary, the orientalist and University Berlin associate professor of Old Testament exegis who “was the older brother of classical philologist Agathon Benary.”
1814: In Dresden, Naftali and Bertha Nachod gave birth to “German banker and philanthropist Jacob Nachod.
1815: Napoleon reached Paris. Soon King Louis has fled, and all Europe has become mobilized. In June, after a number of victories by Napoleon, the stock exchange in London goes through a panic, and rumors circulate that it may close. To prevent the closing, which would mean the collapse of English credit, Nathan stubbornly continues to buy amid rumors of Wellington's defeat, until the war ends with Wellington's victory at Waterloo. Sometime later, Julie and Fitzroy are reunited, and Nathan is made a baron by the King of England, who expresses the country's gratitude to this "adopted" son whose generosity and courage brought victory and peace to England
1817: In Charleston, SC, David Nunes Carvalho and Sarah Carvalho gave birth to Emanuel Nunes Carvalho
1822: In Vejle, Joseph Joel Ballin and Hanne Behrend gave birth to Danish engravier John Ballin.
1827: Birthdate of William Lafayette Strong, the last Mayor of New York City elected prior to its modern consolidation. As befitted a Mayor of New York, Strong spoke positively of his Jewish constituents of whom he said, “The Jews take care their own. They are taught to be self-supporting.” He expressed the view that while he had seen many applications for public assistance, he did not “one single application came from a Hebrew.”
1818(14thof Adar II, 5578): Purim
1832: German writer J W Goethe passed away at the age of 82. The creator of Fuast admitted to being ant-Semite from his earliest days. His attitude towards Jews changed when he came to realize that they were the same people who had authored the Bible, especially the Songs of Songs, a book for which he had a special affection. While Goethe could admire the Jews from an historic point of view he was an opponent of Jewish emancipation in the Fatherland. Goethe was not the first or the last intellectual who loved Jews, so long as they were dead Jews.
1833(2ndof Nisan, 5593): Thirty-two year old poet Michael Beer, the brother of composer Giacomo Meyerbeer and astronomer Wilhelm Beer, passed away today.
1837(15thof Adar II, 5597): Shushan Purim
1837: Phillip Levy married Elizabeth Davis at the Great Synagogue today.
1838: Joseph “Perl wrote a letter suggesting that the government censor Jewish libraries, prohibit meetings in Jewish ritual baths and close traditional Jewish schools, which he called "a place of refuge for vagabonds, thieves . . . a nest of demoralization and of . . . nefarious, scandalous deeds."
1842: Isaac Sanguinetti married Harriet Nathan today at the Great Synagogue.
1845: Birthdate of Father Theodor Kohn whose appointment as Archbishop of Olomouc drew a great deal of opposition because his grandfather was born Jewish.
1845: In Liverpool, “John R. Isaac, one of the Liverpool Commissioners of the 1851 and the engraver to” to Prince Albert and his wife gave birth to Benjamin Yates’ great-grandson Percy Lewis Isaac, the “naval architect marine engineer” who in 1867 was “appointed to supervise work in connection with the ‘Great Eastern’ steamship” and was the “author of Historical Notes on Shipping which contains references to early Anglo-Jewish history.”
1848: Birthdate of German historian Harry Breslau under whose chairmanship “the Historical Commission for the History of the Jews in Germany was founded by the Union of German-Jewish Congregations.”
1853: James (Jacob) Seligman and Rosa Seligman gave birth to De Witt J. (David) Seligman
1853: Birthdate of Isidor Kaufman, the Hungarian born painter whose works include “Portrait of a Yeshiva Boy” and “Day of Atonement”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kaufmann_Day_of_Atonement.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Isidor_Kaufmann_Portrait_of_a_Yeshiva_Boy.jpg
1861: Jacob and Amalia Freud gave birth to Maria “Mitzi” Freud
1862: During the American Civil War, as Union forces under the command of General McClellan moved up the peninsula in an attempt to take the Rebel capital of Richmond, an article entitled "Clippings From Rebel Papers” Conditions of Richmond” published today reported that only soldiers returning to their regiments were being issued permits to leave the city. At the same time “The Jews have packed up their goods, and gold and silver ornaments, and are in great tribulation and ferment that their flight has been stopped.”
1864: In Albany, NY, the Assembly passed a bill “authorizing the New-York City authorities to convey to the Hebrew Benevolent Society certain real estate.”
1864(14th of Adar II, 5624): Purim
1864: “The Jewish festival of Purim will be celebrated this evening, by a grand, fancy dress ball, at the Academy of Music. It is recognized as one of the most important of Jewish festivals, as it commemorates the deliverance of the Jews from the tyranny of Haman, who was prime minister to King Ahasuerus. The arrangements for the ball are very extensive, and the ornaments appropriate and beautiful. But one thousand tickets have been issued, and these only to be obtained by personal introduction to a member of the committee, the party introducing being held strictly accountable for the character and conduct of the persons introduced. With such strict rules and such liberal preparations, the ball cannot fail to be one of the best of the season.”
1865: Joseph Magnus married Louisa Eve Finsterer today.
1865: In Natchez, Mississippi, the Hebrew Ladies’ Aid Association was founded today
1866: Three days after he had passed away, fifty-four year old Frederick David Goldsmid, the son Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid and Isabel Goldsmid, the husband of the former Caroline Samuel with whom he had had nine children was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1868: Birthdate of Vilmos Vázsonyi the Hungarian political leader who served as Minister of Justice and was beaten to death by “a notorious anti-Semite.”
1868: Elizabeth and George Joseph Emanuel gave birth to Blanche Emanuel who became Blanche Abrahams when she married Samuel Abrahams.
1873: It was reported today that of 11,859 people committed to New York’s public lunatic asylums since 1847, 402 of them were Jews.
1874; The Young Men's Hebrew Association was founded in New York City. It was the first of several such organizations found in cities across the United States intended to provide for the “mental, moral, social, and physical improvement of Jewish young men.” In part the YMHA was a Jewish response to the YMCA.
1875: Sixty-two year old Hezekiah Linthicum Bateman, the American theatrical manager known as H.L. Bateman passed away. Bateman was responsible for bringing Henry Irving so that he could star in The Bells, the play based on “Le Juif Polonias” (The Polish Jew)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bells_(play)
1875: Samuel Alexander, the famed Australian-born British philosopher who was the first Jewish fellow of an Oxbridge college “matriculated at the University of Melbourne where he entered an arts course.
1875: It was reported today that the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews in New York had raised $17,455.08 in the past year, spent $13,345.96 leaving a balance of $4,109.12.
1877: Albert von Rothschild and Baroness Bettina Caroline de Rothschild gave birth to their first child, Georg Anselm Alphonse.
1878: In Frankfurt Flora Goldschmidt married Emil Schwarzschild the son of Emanuel Schwarzschild and Rahel Fraenkel
1883(13th of Adar II, 5643): Fast of Esther
1883: Seligman, MO, a town which had been named in honor of financier Joseph Seligman shortly after his death, suffered its second major fire of the year when “the stables of the Seligman and Eureka Springs Stage Coach Company burned down” today.
1883: In New York City, Rudolph and Virginia (Kohlberg) Sampter gave birth to Jessie Ethel Sampter “poet, Zionist thinker and educator, social reformer, and pacifist” who “was a member of the inner circle of Henrietta Szold’s female friends in Palestine during the 1920s and 1930s.” (As reported by Baila R. Shargel)
1885: In London, Meyer Adam Spielman, the son of Adam and Marian Spielman and his wife Gertrude gave birth to Edgar Raphael Meyer Spielman
1885: Birthdate of Reb Aryeh Levin.
1886(15thof Adar II, 5646): Shushan Purim
1887: Birthdate Chico [Leonard] Marx, one of the famous Marx Brothers.
1890: The will of Solomon Adler was filed for probate today.
1890: Harold Nathan will deliver a lecture tonight on “The Use of a Library” at the downtown branch of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association. (The public libraries of the United States were “the poor man’s university, especially for the immigrant population that came to the United States at the turn of the century.)
1890: Colonel Jacob E. Bloom, a New York attorney “is suing James M. Seymour and Francis J. Patton to establish an interest in Patten’s electrical inventions and to recover $200,000. (Bloom would serve as Superintendent of the Baron de Hirsch Industrial School)
1891: It was reported today that the Jews were the first to feel the effects of the resurgence of “semi-savage orthodoxy throughout the Muscovite Empire” although they no longer have a monopoly “on the pains of persecution” since the Protestants are now under government surveillance.
1891: It was reported today that “the proposal of Baron Hirsch to” settle 300,000 Russian Jews in Argentina, “which was at first very favorably received by the government” has now been rejected as a result of objections “stirred up in the press.” The government of Uruguay has also rejected the proposal.
1892: The creditors of the Jewish banker J.E. Guenzburg met in St. Petersburg today.
1892: In London, The Times reported that “after the death of his father Samson Wertheimer, Ashe Wertheimer took over his Bond-street premises” and operated his business “from this address until his death in 1918.”
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/21424
1892: The New York City Health Department received information today that the SS Massilia, the ship that had brought a large number of Jewish immigrants infected with typhus on its last trip to New York was on its way back to the city with another load of immigrants.
1893: Thousands of people gathered outside of the Reichstag waiting to hear the details of Hermann Ahlwardt’s proof that while Bismarck was Chancellor “fraudulent contracts” had been entered to with Jewish financiers resulting in “the loss of vast sums of money belonging to the State” Ahlwardt was a high school president, who ironically, had been extricated from his financial problems by Jewish friends before turning on them to pursue a career as an anti-Semitic agitator.
1893: Dr. Louis Fischer will deliver a lecture “Cholera – What It Is and How To Cure It” at the Hebrew Institute.
1893: Banker, philanthropist and leader of the Jewish community Maurice J.Mandelbaum, the Cleveland born son of “Jacob and Amelia (Lehman) Mandelbaum took the first of his three trips to the alter today when he married Amanda Mayer today.
1893: Arabs attack Jews at Rehovot
1893: Senda Berenson, the "Mother of Women's Basketball", officiated at the first women's basketball game at Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts. Born in Lithuania and raised in Boston, Berenson was weak and delicate as a child. An athletic career would have seemed unlikely for the woman whose poor health rendered her unable to complete her training at the Boston Conservatory of Music. But in 1890, she entered the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, in a bid to improve her strength and health. There, she trained in anatomy, physiology, and hygiene, and was hired by Smith College upon her graduation in 1892. Berenson, the director of the physical education department at Smith, first heard about a new game called "Basket Ball" soon after her arrival in Northampton. Invented as a class exercise for boys, the game — like most team sports — was considered too strenuous for girls, who were instead encouraged to participate in individual sports like swimming, archery, and horseback riding. Berenson observed the game being played in Springfield, and met its inventor, Dr. James Naismith, who encouraged her to adopt the game as exercise for her female students. At the first basketball game on March 22, 1893 (some sources cite March 21), Smith freshmen were pitted against Smith sophomores, with no male spectators allowed. With rules intended to avoid the roughness of the men's game, the new game became a hit, and soon swept the country. By 1895, there were hundreds of women's basketball teams, and these teams helped open the door to other team sports programs for women. Berenson wrote the first official rulebook for women's college basketball, as well as a number of articles on the new sport. She continued to edit the rules until the 1916-17 season, and many of the rules she developed remained standard until the 1980s. Berenson died in 1954. Over thirty years later, in 1985, she was the first woman to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA.
1894(14thof Adar II, 5654): Purim
1895: The will of the late Dr. Bernard Grunhut was filed for probate following the end of the challenge brought by the two children of the descendant. The judge’s ruling that enough evidence had been presented that their father’s marriage was valid, “even if he was not of sound mind” at the time of the ceremony. This means that the Hebrew Benevolent Society and Mount Sinai Hospital will each receive bequests of $25,000 with the widow receiving the residual of the estate with the exception of $25,000 that had been bequeathed to a baby that reportedly died fifteen days after it was born.
1895:Operatic sopranoSelma Kurz was first heard in Vienna at a student concert of Ress pupils
1896: “Easter Cookery” published today included a description of Chad Gad Ya, “The Kid of Passover,” which it compared to “The House That Jack Built.”
1896: Dr. Gustav Gottheil delivered the second in a series of sermons on “What Is a Christian Nation” at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.
1896: In Vienna, Erna (née Weinstein) and stage (and later motion picture) actor Rudolph Schildkraut to American actor Joseph Schildkraut.
1897: Four day after she had died, 32 year old Julia Fisher was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.
1897: Rabbi Ignatz Grossman, who passed away two days ago in New York, will be buried in Detroit, Michigan where his son Dr. Louis Grossman serves as a rabbi. Two of his other sons, Julius and Rudolph, are also rabbis while his fourth son Adolph is a businessman in Chicago.
1897: Two days after he had passed away, 20 year old Moses Levy, the son of Aaron and Miriam Levy was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.
1897: “The Austrian Elections” published today described the various factions competing for seats in the Reichsrath that meets in Vienna including “the anti-Semites, the Jews baiters of Vienna and Lower Austria” who are “closely connected with the Clericals.”
1897: Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Schiff were unable to attend the Purim Ball at the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids because they were in Frankfort-on-the-Main. Schiff is President of the Montefiore Home and he sent a telegram from Germany expressing his regrets.
1897: “Home For Aged Hebrews” published today included a history of the organization which “is an outgrowth of the B’nai Jeshurun Ladies’ Benevolent Society.” In 1870, a young men’s organization, the Benevolent, Dramatic and Musical Association, gave the women $3,500 as seed money and the home was incorporated in 1872. The home was designed to serve those over the age of sixty who are “entirely dependent on themselves for support and unable to support themselves.
1897: Dr. S.N. Leo is the director of the pharmacy at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews in New York.
1898: It was reported today that 300 children from the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society and the New York Orphan Asylum are going to attend the upcoming show at the Harlem Music Hall.
1899: Seventy-eight year old Beila Geitel Felber was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.
1899: Rabbi Gottheil is among the speakers scheduled to address a meeting of workers at the Hebrew
Institute
1899: The “liberal synagogue” was dedicated in Cologne.
1901: In Camden, NJ, Rabbi David Shane, with the assistance of Rabbi Banet Leventhal of Philadelphia officiated at the wedding of Annie Pauline Alberts, the daughter of Isaac Alberts to Philip Sihisky at the Sons of Israel synagogue.
1902: Birthdate of French actress Madeleine Milhaud.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/madeleine-milhaud-actress-wife-of-the-composer-776120.html
1903: In Brooklyn “Louis and Lena (Betz) Pomerantz gave birth to Brooklyn Law School trained attorney
Abraham Louis Pomerantz,, the husband of Phyllis Cohen and father of Dan and Charlotte Cohen who served as deputy chief counsel at the Nuremburg Trials.
1903: In Cherkassy, Russia, Max and Bessie (Leshinsky) Olanovsky gave birth to Lemel Olanovsky who gained fame as Levi Arthur Olan whose accomplishments including serving as the Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El of Dallas, Texas from 1949 to 1970.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0181/ms0181.html
1904: Birthdate of Isaac Goldberg, the native of Poland, who gained fame as “Itche Goldberg, a champion of Yiddish who wrote and edited and taught his beloved language in the face of all those who said keeping Yiddish alive was a lost cause.” (As reported by Ari L. Goodman)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/obituaries/03goldberg.html
1905(15thof Adar II, 5665): Shushan Purim
1905: In Hoboken, NJ, two Austrian immigrants gave birth 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.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/02/23/77172613.pdf
1905: Birthdate of Nathaniel “Nate” Weinstock who “played tackle at Western Maryland College from 1925 to 1927” and whose breakout game came against Holy Cross in 1926 when he was a junior.
1905: In New Orleans, during an executive session of the Constitution Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith, Jacob Singer of Philadelphia “maintained that time was not ripe for taking the step” of “abolishing the secrecy of the Order.”
1906: It was reported today that “Jewish merchants and their families are leaving” Moscow “in haste owing to fears of a massacre at Easter time.
1906: It was reported today that “the first appearance of anti-Jewish disorders” have been “reported from Theodosia, in the Crimea, where a crowd broke into a synagogue and destroyed the altar, religious emblems and pictures.
1906: In Petach Tikva, Moshe Dov Bear Margalit and Taube (Yona) Margalit, the Bialystok born daughter of Elijah and Sarah Golda Bloch gave birth to Avraham Margalit.
1906: It was reported today that Nicolas Notovitch, a Jewish newspaper editor has been imprisoned “for one year in a fortress for the publication of articles against the” Czar and the army.
1908: In London, “Sir Oscar Emanuel Warburg, businessman and later chairman of the London County Council, and his wife, Catherine née Byrne” gave birth to “English botanist Edmund Frederick (E.F) Warburg. The husand of Primrose Barrett. (Great first name for the wife of a botanist)
1909: Birthdate of Brooklynite Nathan Rosen, the MIT graduate who gained fame as an American-Israeli physicist working with Albert Einstein. Among other things he is known for the “The Einstein–Rosen Bridge, later named the wormhole, which was a theory of Nathan Rosen.” The only person I know who understands any of this is Dr. Joe Rosen, the son of Nathan Rosen, a prominent physicist in his own right and a son of which his father would be proud.
1910: Eugene Foss who would be one of the leaders in the fight to save the life of Leo Frank, began serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts’s 14th Congressional District.
1910: “Impresario” Max Rabinoff married his first wife, singer Marie La Salle, today.
1912: Birthdate of Eliyanu Kitov the native of Poland who made Aliyah in 1936 and in 1954 established Aleph Institute Publications. His works include Is U’Veito which was translated into English as A Jew and his Home by Rabbi Nachman Bulman the New York born son of Rabbi Meir and Etil Bulman
1912(4thof Nisan, 5672): Sixty-three year old Mark Arnheim, a “clothing merchant” in New York passed away today.
1912: Dedication ceremonies for Anshe Chesed’s new temple on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio began.
1913(13thof Adar II, 5673): Parsashat Tzav; Shabbat Zachor; Erev Purim
1913: Rabbi Julius Rappaport led services at Beth El Temple in Chicago.
1913: Rabbi Felix A. Levy led services at Temple Emanuel today.
1913: Louis-Lucien Klotz completed his service as Minister of Finance.
1913: In Cleveland Ohio, Isaac Wasserman and Minnie Chernick gave birth to Lewis Robert “Lew Wasserman, the MCA chairman who was a true “tinsel town” mogul.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/04/business/lew-wasserman-89-is-dead-last-of-hollywood-s-moguls.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
1913: Louis-Lucien Klotz began serving as Minster of the Interior.
1913: “Under the leadership of Mrs. Minna Solomon and Mrs. Grete Hirsch” the women of Emanuel Congregation enjoyed an afternoon of entertainment at the Kaiser Garten in Chicago.
1914: The United Synagogues of America, an organization of Conservative Congregations, held its second annual convention in New York City. During his address to the convention, Professor Solomon Schechter, President of the Jewish Theological Seminary, called for worship services to be conducted in Hebrew with English replacing Yiddish as the language in which the sermons were to be given. Schechter also refused to serve another term as President of the organization and Dr. Cyrus Adler of Dropsie College was elected to serve in his place. Among the other highlights of the convention was a presentation by Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, Chairman of the Education Committee in which he outline an aggressive program to upgrade and modern the Jewish educational opportunities in a manner consistent with the challenges of modern day America.
1915: “A New Palestine If The Allies Win” published today
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9503E1D91238E633A25751C2A9659C946496D6CF
1915: It was reported today that Just Gustave Hartman of the Municipal Court, President of the Israel Orphan Asylum has expressed “some objections” to plans for building a second home for Jewish orphans in the Bronx sponsored by the Hebrew National Orphan Asylum.
1915: It was reported today that “more than 7,000 persons come to the building housing the Educational Alliance daily” most of whom come to study and that the Alliance spends “upward of $110,000 annually” to support its educational work.
1915(7th of Nisan, 5675): Fifty-five year old “Professor H.L. Sabsovich, General Agent of the Baron De Hirsh Fund and the first mayor of the Jewish Agricultural Colony at Woodbine, NJ” who was well known for his social work among the Jews passed away tonight in New York. A native of Russia, where he gained famed as a chemists and “manager of estates,” he organized the Committee of Safety during the Pogrom of 1881 and help found the Society of Am Olam. He came to the United States in 1888 and worked as an agricultural chemist for Colorado State before joining the Woodbine Colony and joining the Baron de Hirsch Fund.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F40F16F9395C13738DDDAD0A94DB405B858DF1D3
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/sabsovich-h-l
1915: The Army and Navy Young Men’s Hebrew Association issued an appeal to the New York Jewish community asking that its members open their homes to serviceman for the first Seder on March 29 and the second Seder on March 30. According to the Association, “there are 300” Jewish serviceman in the New York area “who have no friends or relatives here.” The Association will provide lodgings at a local hotel and the servicemen will attend services at the synagogue or temple of their choice. Those who cannot offer hospitality are urged to send a contribution to support the group’s efforts to Joseph S. Marcus, the association’s treasurer.
1915: British Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson backed by Major-General Alexander Godley was appointed commander of the force he was to recruit, with Captain Trumpeldor as Second-in-Command after which they left Cairo for Alexandria where there was a large Jewish refugee community.
1915: The majority of the Palestine Refugees' Committee under the encouragement of Joseph Trompledor and Vladimir Jabotinsky endorsed a resolution calling for the formation of a “Jewish Legion" and propose to England its utilization in Palestine. Within a few days about 500 enlisted.
1916: During on World War I, on the Western Front, the first British tree observation post was put up today. The camouflages for these posts was developed and produced by a unit under the command of Lt. Col. Solomon Joseph Solomon, the artist who had been hand-picked by the British General Staff to fill this role.
1917: Today, “Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears, Roebuck and Co. of Chicago” sent a telegraph “to the American Jewish Relief Committee” in New York City saying “that he would contribute $100,000 for each $1,000,000 collected by the committee in its campaign to raise $10,000,000 by June 1 for the benefit of Jews suffering from the war.”
1917: “It was announced that the State Department had given assurance that in the event of war between” the United States and “the Central powers, American diplomats in neutral countries would carry on interruptedly the work of feeding Jewish noncombatants” using fund raised by the American Jewish Relief Committee which is expecting a fresh impetus to its activities that’s to the Russian Revolution.”
1918: In Lodz, the “municipality” has agreed “to maintain a college for Jewish teachers” where Hebrew will “be the language of instruction for Jewish subjects” and Polish will be the language of instruction for all other subjects.
1918(9thof Nisan, 5678): Second Lieutenant Crispian Asabel de Pass who was Wellington College before the war died today while serving with the Tank Corps.
1920: In Cologne, German, conductor Otto Klemperer and soprano Johanna Geisler gave birth to actor Werner Klemperer who played Colonel Klink on Hogan’s Heroes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/08/arts/werner-klemperer-klink-in-hogan-s-heroes-dies-at-80.html
1921: In, Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic, “Erwin Schwenk, an organic chemist and the former Rascha Shapiro, a pediatrician” gave birth to Lili Schwenk who gained fame as Lili Horning, the holder of a Ph.D. from Harvard who played a significant role in the Manhattan project and was the wife of fellow scientist Donald Hornig.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/obituaries/lilli-hornig-96-dies-a-bomb-researcher-lobbied-for-women-in-science.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=region®ion=region&WT.nav=region&_r=0
1922: Birthdate of screenwriter Stewart Henry Stern, the New York native and nephew Adolph Zukor whose most famous script was the one he wrote for cult classic “Rebel Without a Cause.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/movies/stewart-stern-92-screenwriter-of-rebel-without-a-cause-dies.html?_r=1
1922: “Ludwig II” a biopic about the Bavarian king directed by Otto Kreisler and written by Alfred Deutsch-German was released today in Austria.
1922: In Manhattan, “Morris Neuman and the former Ida Mitnistky gave birth to Charlotte Sandra Neuman who gained fame as “Charlotte Spiegel, a civic leader and Democratic politician from the Lower East Side who created New York’s pioneering and lifesaving window guard program in the 1970s.” (As reported by Sam Roberts)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/nyregion/charlotte-spiegel-politician-who-safeguarded-new-yorks-windows-dies-at-92.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
1923: Birthdate of Eva Kleinova who in 1942 was transported from Prague to Ujazdow where she was murdered.
1923(5th of Nisan, 5683): Max Nordau, early Zionist leader, passed away at the age of 73. Born in 1849 in the city that would later be known as Budapest, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire), Nordau’s life followed a conventional pattern for many Jews of his time and social class. Raised with a traditional Jewish background, he drifted away from Judaism finding fame and fortune as a writer and physician. As the 19th century came to a close, Nordau was alarmed by the rise of anti-Semitism and became and early supporter of another Austrian Jew, Theodore Herzl. When Herzl died, Nordau was asked to take his place. He declined offering to serve as an advisor to David Wolffsohn. Nordau drifted away from the formal organization as Zionism changed from Herzl's grand political approach to a more practical approach. After World War I, Nordau advocated the immediate immigration of half a million Jews to Palestine. Nobody heeded his advice. He died in Paris, far from the limelight, an almost forgotten figure who had believed in the cause of the Jewish state when most said it was an impractical dream or the scheme of lunatics.
1923: In Strasbourg, France “Ann Werzberg and Charles Mangel, a kosher butcher” gave birth to Marcel Mangel, who gained fame as mime Marcel Marceau. After having seen Charlie Chaplin, he became interested in acting. At 15, his Jewish family was forced to flee their home as France entered the Second World War. He later joined Charles De Gaulle’s Free French Forces and, because of his excellent English, worked as a liaison officer with General Patton's army. He began studying acting at the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris in 1946.
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/24/local/me-marceau24
1924: Birthdate of Michael Hamburger, the Berlin native who moved with his family to Great Britain in 1933 where he became a “translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic.”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jun/11/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries
1924: Birthdate of Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today.
1926: The funeral for 77 year old Dr. Philip Klein who has been the rabbi of the First Hungarian Congregation Ohab Zedek for the past 35 years is scheduled to take place this afternoon at the family home.
1926: Chairman William Fox announced that the United Jewish Campaign had received a $30,000 contribution from Paul Baerwald and a $50,000 contribution from Louis Marshall who attached a letter “in which he described the misery now” being endured by Jews in Europe and urging “the Jews of New York City to give unstinted support” to the fund raising drive.
1927: Approximately nine hundred people, including Zionists and non-Zionists attended a dinner at the Hotel Biltmore this evening that had been arranged by Judge Irving Lehman to celebrate “the accord which now exists” among most Jewish factions regarding “the up-building of Palestine.”
1927: In Detroit, the libel case brought by Aaron Sapiro against Henry Ford, Stewart Handley, a member of the Ford legal staff testified that stories published in Ford’s Dearborn Independent from 1920 to 1922 “cast aspersions on the whole Jewish race.”
1928(1st of Nisan, 5688): Rosh Chodesh
1928: “Spione” (Spies in English) directed and written by Fritz Lang was released today in Germany
1929: The month long celebration of the 20th anniversary of the founding of Tel Aviv began with a Purim Carnival.
1929: “Diary of a Coquette” silent drama directed by Constantin J. David and produced by Seymour Nebenzal was released in Germany today.
1930: Birthdate of composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Born in New York City, the son of a successful dress manufacturer, Sondheim's childhood was comfortably upper-middle class. He was a precocious child: he skipped kindergarten, began reading the New York Times in the first grade, and at ten began studying lyric writing with Oscar Hammerstein, who was a family friend. Sondheim went on to compose his own music and lyrics for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Follies (1971), Sweeney Todd (1979) and Sunday in the Park with George (1984)
1931: “In the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood of Montréal, Québec, Canada Ann (née Garmaise) and Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacture” gave birth to William Shatner best known as Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. (Editor’s note – Kirk and Spock never talked about their bar mitzvahs in any of the episodes I ever saw)
1931: In Brooklyn “Fanny (Pollack) and Abraham Richter, a textile worker” gave birth Nobel Prize winner in Physics and the “director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/obituaries/burton-richter-a-nobel-winner-for-plumbing-matter-dies-at-87.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
1931: Moghannam Elias Moghannam, a member of the Palestine Arab Executive declared that “it was totally untrue that certain Arab politicians had met Jewish representatives I Palestine into to establish the preliminary basis of a peace parley.” The Arab leader was especially critical of any Arab who was willing to meet with Dr. Chaim Weizmann who had arrived in Tel Aviv in an attempt to reach a modus Vivendi that would restore peace to Palestine.
1931: “Marshall Letter Won $500,000 Gift” tells the hitherto unknown story of how a letter from Louis Marshall to Julius Rosenwald resulted in the latter’s decision to make a major donation to the Jewish Theological Seminary.
1932(14thof Adar, II, 5692): Purim
1932: In Germany, premiere of “Peter Voss, Thief of Millions” with a script co-authored by Bruno Frank and directed by Ewald André Dupont for whom this would be his penultimate film in Germany before being forced to flee due to the rise of the Nazis even though he was not Jewish.
1932: “One Hour With You” a musical comedy directed by George Cukor and Ernst Lubitsch who also produced the film which was written by Samson Raphaelson and with music by Oscar Straus was released in the United States today.
1933: “The Concentration Camp at Dachau was opened today with the arrival of about 200 prisoners from Stadelheim Prison in Munich and the Landsberg fortress.” According to the official press statement (yes the Nazis issued a press release for this) on March 22, “Wednesday the first concentration camp is to be opened in Dachau with an accommodation for 5000 people. 'All Communists and—where necessary—Reichsbanner and Social Democratic functionaries who endanger state security are to be concentrated here, as in the long run it is not possible to keep individual functionaries in the state prisons without overburdening these prisons, and on the other hand these people cannot be released because attempts have shown that they persist in their efforts to agitate and organize as soon as they are released.”
1935: In Camden, NJ, Rabbi Philip Lipis addressed Congregation Beth El during its search for a new spiritual leader. In April, the congregation offered him the position which he accepted.
1936: An article published today previewing the upcoming tourist and cruise season, reported that a spring fair in Tel Aviv will attract large crowds “from overseas and Near Eastern cities.”
1936: “The Polish Government was charged with ‘deliberate violations of its pledges made in the treaty of June, 191 in which the Jews, together with other minority groups, were assured full equality of rights and status’ by an emergency conference at the Hotel Edison today attended by delegates from nearly 500 Jewish organizations.”
1936: At the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall, Lewis Browne is scheduled to speak on “What Makes A Jew?”
1936: Professor Louis Finkelstein is scheduled to deliver an address on “The Jewish Problem in the Perspective of History.”
1936: At Temple Rodeph Shalom, Rabbi Louis I Newman is scheduled to deliver a message on “Women’s Grievances Against Men and Men’s Grievances Against Women.”
1936: Rabbi Morris Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “When the Heart is Hungry” at the Jewish Science Society.
1936: A letter from President Roosevelt in which he commended Rabbi B. Leon Hurwitz as a leader in Brooklyn interfaith activities was read this afternoon at the Ninth Street Temple during the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Congregation B’nai Shalom.
1936: Sir Oswald Mosley, Britain’s leading fascist delivered a speech to a packed house at Albert Hall where he delivered a speech calling for peace between Germany and Britain while deliver “one of the most violent denunciations of the Jews” that he has made to date.
1937(10th of Nisan, 5697): Dr. Henry J. Wolfe, a general practitioner who “had also done extensive work in neurology and psychiatry” passed away today at the age of 75. A graduate of City College, Wolf earned his M.D. at Heidelberg University in 1884. One of his daughter, Mrs. Prsscilla Litavsky has made Aliyah and lives in Tel Aviv.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that Dov Zemel, a lorry driver, was shot at an ambush near Kfar Saba and was in critical condition.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that British troops captured two terrorists in a battle with an Arab gang near Acre. There were sporadic shooting accidents in Jerusalem and Safed.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that Six Arab prisoners sentenced to death had their sentences commuted to penal servitude for life by the High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that Two cooperative groups settled on the Jewish National Fund land, allocated by the Arlosoroff Memorial Fund in the Jordan Valley. Important archaeological finds were discovered near Afula.
1938: “Following the annexation of Austria, journalist and author Heinrich Eduard Jacob was arrested today and eventually shipped to Dachau.
1939: The German army occupied Memel and the region around the Lithuanian town. By that time about 21,000 people had left the city, most of them Lithuanians as well as a small number of Jews, the majority of the latter having left beforehand. The Nazis confiscated private and public Jewish property valued at tens of millions Litas. Jews had lived in Memel since the 14th century.
1943: The first group of Macedonian Jews were shipped from Skopje to Treblinka.
1943: While flying with a group of six Yak fighters, Lydia Litvyak shot down a Junker 88 bomber and a Messerschmitt fighter and then, after having been wounded, managed to land safely despite being in severe pain and suffering significant loss of blood.
1943: The first of four new crematoriums at Auschwitz was ready for use and began operation.
1943(15thof Adar II, 5703): Shushan Purim
1943(15thof Adar II, 5703): Seventy-seven year old Dr. Lucian Mayer Langbank died today at Theresienstadt Ghetto.
1943: Time magazine reported on speech by Henri Honoré Giraud in which the High Commissioner of North Africa disavowed the conditions of the German armistice and the subsequent decrees of Vichy ("promulgated without the participation of the French people, and directed against them"). He said that Vichy's anti-Jewish laws "no longer exist," promised to hold municipal elections in North Africa. He also revoked the Cremieux Decree of 1870, which granted French citizenship en bloc to Jews in Algeria, but excluded the Arabs. Henceforth, Moslems and Jews must complement each other economically, "the latter working in his shop, the former in the desert, without either having advantage over the other, France assuring both security and tranquility."
1944: The Washington Post reported "Poles Report Nazis Slay 10,000 Daily." (Jewish Virtual Library)
1944: Shlomo Venezia and his family who were living in Thessaloniki were deported to Athens, the first leg of a trip that would take them Auschwitz.
1944: In Poland, at the Koldzyczewo Work Camp Shlomo Kushnir succeeded in leading almost all the Jewish inmates who were still alive out of the camp after killing ten Nazi guards. Kushnir committed suicide when he was caught with twenty-five others. The others joined the partisans in the forests.
1945: In New York City, “Miriam "Mimi", a teacher, studio executive, and radio writer, and Leon Roth, a university teacher and film producer” gave birth to Eric Roth who “won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Forrest Gump” in 1994.
1945: The Arab League was formed today in Cairo. "The League's first resolutions included a restriction on Egyptian Muslim contact with those who were call 'supporters of Zionism,' that is, all Egyptian Jews."
1946: Gotthil Wagner was killed by as yet unidentified gunmen today outside of Tel Aviv. Wagner was a German national who had been detained by the British as an enemy alien. The British were permitting Wagner to engage in his various business interests. Reportedly several younger Jews were not happy with Wagner and other Germans to return to a normal life in Palestine because they had openly sympathized with Nazi policies before the war “and openly voice anti-Jewish sentiments.”
1946: “Gotthilf Wagner, former mayor of the German colony of Sarona, near Tel Aviv,” a pre-war S.S. Group Leader “and one of the leading Palestine Nazis, was today shot to death as he journeyed from Sarona to Wilhelma, another German community.”
https://www.jta.org/1946/03/24/archive/sarona-mayor-prominent-palestine-nazi-and-s-s-leader-shot-to-death-near-tel-aviv
1946: Birthdate of Tel Aviv native Rivka Golani, the daughter of Holocaust survivors who became a world class viola player.
https://www.naxos.com/person/Rivka_Golani/249.htm
1947: For the first time in eight days, all 12 members of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine were at the hearing in Jerusalem where a variety of Christian leaders described their view (and needs) of the current conflict between Arabs and Jews. The Anglican Bishop in Jersualem described the conflict as one of “differing civilizations and different tempos of progress.”
1947: “Mr. and Mrs. Bert Adler” of Woodmere, LI, “announced the engagement of their daughter Joan,” a graduate of Goucher College “to Norman A. Lish the son of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Lish” who is studying at Hobart College.
1947: Sigmund Menkes was award the Corcoran Gold Medal and the first W.A. Clark Prize for his entry “Day’s End, 1946” in the Twentieth Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Painitings sponsored by the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Thirty-two year old Jack Levine of Boston won the Bronze Medal for his entry “Apteka” making him the youngest of the winners.
1947: “Hagannah posted pamphlets in Tel Avi” today “accusing the Irgun…of being deserters from the Zionist struggle and of wasting their efforts in murder while Haganah strove to rescue Jews from Europe. As the principal organizer of illegal immigration Haganah charged the Irgun with neglecting that primary function.”
1947: Dr. Nahum Goldman addressed the Tel Aviv Journalists Associate today telling them that “the historical alliance between Britian and Jewry is nearing its end. That alliance has existed since 1917 when the Balfour Declaration gave Zionists their first legal claim on Palestine as a national home. Its virtual dissolution obviously brings the Zionist movement to an hour of decision. It must ovtain a new international guarantee, another protector among the great powers.
1948: “Twenty Jews…were reported killed today in two battles at Nitzanim, near the Mediterranian coast in the land of the ancient Philistines.”
1948: Today, while introducing “a joint resolution to authorize the shipment of arms and munitions to Jews in Palestine,” Representative Jacob K. Javits “argued that failure to ship arms would leave 700,000 Jews in Palestine defenseless and ripe for slaughter by the thousands of Arab fanatics who are being armed and supplied, as all the world knows, by the surrounding Arab States.”
1948: In Augusburg, Germany, Holocaust survivors Cesia Blitzer (née Zylberfuden), a homemaker, and David Blitzer, a home builder gave birth to Wolf Blitzer the graduate of the University of Buffalo (NY) who is best known for his work on CNN.
1948: Birthdate of Australian author Dr. Stephen Skinner.
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/240084/was-the-author-of-the-voynich-manuscript-the-literary-worlds-greatest-mystery-a-jew?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=0050ff72bf-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_07_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-0050ff72bf-206644398’
1949: Holocaust survivors Moryc Brajtbart (later Morris Breitbart) and Lucy Gliklich “married in the Rosenheim displaced persons camp today and immigrated to the United States the following December.”
1950: According to New York Times correspondent C.L. Sulzberger, the future of Israel depends on its ability to make peace with the surrounding Arab nations and developing normal commercial relations with them while receiving continued political support from the the United Kingdom and the United States and getting additional American aid so that it can meet is “grandiose economic development plans.
1951(14thof Adar II, 5711): Purim
1952: Birthdate of sportscaster Bob Costas
1953: Arthur Miller's "Crucible" premiered in New York City.
1955: “Yellowneck,” a film set in the Everglades of 1863 with music by Laurence Rosenthal was released today in the United States.
1955: Twenty-nine year old Max “Slats” Zaslofsky playing in his second to the last season with the Fort Wayne Pistons providing the winning margin in the playoff game with the Lakers.
1956: In London, Royal World Premiere of “Alexander the Great” a Hollywood “epic” directed, produced and written by Robert Rossen and co-starring Claire Bloom.
1956: The Broadway production of “Mr. Wonderful” a musical starring Sammy Davis, Jr with music and lyrics by Jerry Bock and George David Weiss and a book co-authored by Joseph Stein opened today at The Broadway Theatre today.
1957: Israeli forces withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula as part of the peace process following the Suez Crisis of 1956. Failure of the international community and United Nations to honor its guarantees will lead to further crisis that will boil over into the Six Day War of 1967.
1957(19thof Adar II, 5717): Sixty-one year old Geoffrey Joel, the son of Woolf Joel, and husband of Edith Joel passed away in Johannesburg
1958(1st of Nisan, 5718): Rosh Chodesh Nisan;Shabbat HaChodesh
1958(1stof Nisan, 5718): Forty-eight year old Art Cohn, the husband of Marta Cohn and the Oakland Tribune sports journalist who wrote the column “The Cohn-ing Tower” died today in the same plane crash that claimed the life of Mike Todd.
http://tribunegogetters.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_26.html
1958(1st of Nisan, 5718): Movie producer Michael Todd died in an airplane crash in New Mexico. Born Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen in 1909, Todd won an Academy Award for Best Picture in 1956 for producing Around the World in Eighty Days. At the time of his death he was married to Elizabeth Taylor who would later marry Jewish crooner, Eddie Fisher. Along the way, Ms. Taylor would convert to Judaism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeoJFUT6m28#aid=P7JYwcjLtNA
http://documents.latimes.com/mike-todd-plane-crash/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0865239/bio
1959: In New York, Yaakov Moshe Friedman, “an administrator at the United Lubavitcher Yishiva in Crown Heights” and his wife gave birth to Avraham Shabsi Hakohen Friedman “better known by his stage name Avraham Fried.”
1960: Arthur Leonard Schawlow whose father was a Jewish immigrant from Latvia and Charles Hard Townes receives the first patent for a laser.
1961(5thof Nisan 5721): Eighty-eight year old Frederick Z. “Fred” Salomon, the Greeley, CO, born son of Adolph and Mathilde Salomon, the husband of Helen Salomon and the father of Fred, Jr who helped to create what is now the Famous Barr Co. passed away today in St. Louis.
https://www.geni.com/people/Frederick-Salomon/6000000078555675279
1962: In another reminder of the depth of Jewish involvement in the world of the Broadway Musical “ I Can Get It For You Wholesale” premiered at the Schubert Theatre. It was based on the novel by Jerome Weidman who wrote the script, with music and lyrics by Harold Rome, directed by Arthur Laurens, starring Elliot Gould and introducing Barbra Streisand as “Miss Marmelstein.”
1963(26thof Adar, 5723): Fifty-five year old composer Abraham “Abe” Ellstein passed away.
http://www.milkenarchive.org/people/view/all/511/Abraham+Ellstein
1965(18thof Adar II, 5725): Eighty-four year old University of West Virginia tackle who “during several games away from home heard he cry of ‘Kill the Jew’” and who went on to a career in law and politics which took him to U.S. House of Representatives passed away today in Cleveland.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/benjamin-louis-rosenbloom
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=R000441
1965: Yitzhak Rafael completed his service as Deputy Minister of Health.
1965:More than 400 persons paid tribute tonight to Dr. David de Sola Pool, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Shearith Israel–the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue–in honor of the rabbi’s 80th birthday. (JTA)
1965: Bob Dylan "goes electric," releasing his first album featuring electric instruments, Bringing It All Back Home.
1966(1stof Nisan, 5726): Rosh Chodesh Nisan
1966(1stof Nisan, 5726): Sixty-one year old Austrian born and Prague trained award winning biochemist Heinrich B. Waelsach, a professor at Columbia’s Collee of Physicians and Surgeon and the husband of Dr. Salome G. Waelsch, a professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine with whom he raised two children – Peter and Naomi – passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/03/23/79985075.pdf
1967: “Thunder Alley” produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff and co-starring Jan Murray was released in the United States today.
1969(3rdof Nisan, 5729): Begin the Book of Vayikra
1969: Three days after he had passed away, memorial services are scheduled to be held at the Princeton University Chapel for 31 year old Sociology Professor Dr. Ian Weinberg, the son of Mrs. Golda Weinberg.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/03/19/90071779.pdf
1969(3rdof Nisan, 5729): Seventy-eight year old Ernst Deutsch, the Austrian actor, who spent the war in the United States ironically playing “Nazi and German officers” and who is best known for his role in the classic spy film “The Third Man” passed away today in Berlin after which he was interred in that city’s Jewish Cemetery.
1970(14thof Adar II, 5730): Purim
1972: In an aritcle in the Jerusalem Post, Walter Eytan, who has served as Amabassador to France and Chairman of the Israel Broadcasting Authority, wrote that he was sure Israelis would vote overwhelmingly in a favor of a move to leave the West Bank if that departure would guarantee peace. He was equally sure that Israelis would reject a call for withdrawal just for the sake of withdrawal that was not part of a guaranteed peace.
1973: Lyndon B Johnson President died at his Texas Ranch at the age of 64. As a young member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1930’s, Johnson intervened to help bring Jews from Hitler’s Europe to the United. In 1945, he visited concentration camps in Germany where he was visibility moved by the suffering inflicted on the Jewish people. At the time of the 1956 Suez Crisis, As a U.S. Senator in 1956 and 1957, Johnson opposed the Eisenhower Administration's pressure on Israel and supported her position. During the crisis that led to the Six Day War in 1967, President Johnson urged the Israelis to act with caution. Pre-occupied with the Vietnam War, Johnson attempted to organize an International Flotilla that would enter the Straits of Tiran and break the Egyptian Blockade of Elath. His attempts failed. Based on his intelligence reports, Johnson assured the Israelis that he knew they would emerge victorious. As the war came to a close, the Soviets attempted to repeat their 1956 diplomatic rescue of their Arab allies. The Soviets threatened military action unless the Israelis immediately withdrew. Unlike Eisenhower, Johnson did not cave into the threat. Instead he mobilized the Sixth Fleet and sent into the eastern Mediterranean. The Soviets got the message. After the war, Johnson saw to it that America filled the void left by France's new anti-Israel policy and the United States became the main arms supplier for the IDF. Thanks to Johnson’s efforts, the 1964 Civil Rights Act became law which, among other things, banned discrimination against religion. Last but not least, one of Johnson’s favorite lines was from Isaiah, “Come let us reason together;” a line when uttered was a sure sign that an opponent was about to get “The Treatment” intended to turn foe into political friend.
1977: The second season of “One Day At A Time” starring Bonnie Franklin comes to an end.
1977(3rdof Nisan, 5737): Seventy-six year old Henry Calechman, the “son of Joseph Calechman” and the husband of Gertrude Calechman passed away today after which he was buried at B’nai Jacob Memorial Park in New Haven, CT.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that the 4,500 employees of the country's three ports went on a general strike to back up their demands for an increase of IL 600 per month. Only passenger ships were exempted.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Supreme Court set a precedent in declaring an Israeli citizen extraditable. An Israeli businessman who was wanted by the Swiss government on charges of defrauding a bank was declared extraditable in a precedent-setting ruling.
1979: The Wes End production of “Ain’t Misbehavin’” a musical with a “book” co-authored by Murray Horwitz opened today at Her Majesty’s Theatre
1979: The Israeli Parliament approved the peace treaty with Egypt.
1981(16th of Adar II, 5741): Shusan Purim
1983: Chaim Herzog was elected President of Israel today by the Knesset defeating Menachem Elon.
1984(18thof Adar II, 5744): Fifty six year old Harvard and Princeton trained economist Otto Eckstein, the German born son of Hugo and Hedwig Eckstein, best known as the co-founder of Data Resources Inc. passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/23/obituaries/otto-ecktein-educator-who-led-in-economic-forecasting.html
http://www.hetwebsite.net/het/profiles/eckstein.htm
1987: The New York Times reviews "The Messiah of Stockholm" by Cynthia Ozick, a novel that is dedicated to Philip Roth.
1989(15thof Adar II, 5749): Shushan Purim
1990: “Ambulance,” an off-beat comedy written by Larry Cohn who also produced and directed the film co-starring Red Buttons was released in the United States today.
1992:The original Broadway production 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” opened at the Royale Theatre.
1993: The third round of talks comes to an end at Oslo, Norway.
1995: Hilary Koprowski was awarded the title of Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland by the President of the Republic of Finland. 1995: Hillary Koprowski was awarded the title of Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland by the President of the Republic of Finland. A native of Poland, Koprowski is an American virologist and immunologist, and inventor of the world's first effective live polio vaccine. He was one of three Jews – the other two being Salk and Sabin – who played a leading role in developing a Polio Vaccine.
1998: “Escape: Human Cargo,” co-starring Sasson Gabai was broadcast for the first time in the U.S. on Showtime television network.
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including Laughing Matters: On Writing ''M*A*S*H,''''Tootsie,''''Oh, God!,'' and a Few Other Funny Things by Larry Gelbart, A March to Madness: The View From the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference by John Feinstein and Spin Cyle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine by Howard Kurtz.
1999: Eliezer Sandberg left the Israel in the Centre party to establish HaTzeirim
1999(5th of Nisan, 5759): Eighty-five year old British historian Max Beloff, passed away. In addition to his academic accomplishments, Beloff served as governor of the University of Haifa and as Baron Beloff served as an active member of the House of Lords. According to the Unbroken Chain, the Beloff’s family lineage traces back “to the House of David as descendants of Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen, the Maharam of Padua.” For about Beloff see his autobiography An Historian in the Twentieth Century.
2000: In “A Victim's Sang-Froid in Very Coldblooded Times,” published today Richard Bernstein not only reviews I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1942-1945 by Victor Klemperer; translated and with a preface by Martin Chalmers but provides a valuable picture of the privation faced by this hidden Jew.
2002(9thof Nisan, 5762): Seventy-nine year old Josef von Stroheim, the son of director Erich von Stroheim passed away today.
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/mar/30/local/me-vonstroheim30
2004: Ahmed Yassin, co-founder and leader of Hamas, and his bodyguards are killed in the Gaza Strip when hit by Israeli Air Force AH-64 Apache fired Hellfire missiles.
2005: The New-York Historical Society opened an exhibit entitled "First Ladies of New York and the Nation." Among the unusual items on display in the exhibit were four handbags created by Judith Lieber.”
http://jwa.org/thisweek/mar/22/2005/judith-leiber
2006: Rabbi Joseph Telushkin delivers a speech on "A Code of Jewish Ethics", followed by a book signing at Barnes and Noble Bookstore in New York City.
2006: In Seville, Spain, the Second World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for peace came to a close.
2006: Haaretz reported that a string of anti-Semitic incidents in the aftermath of the torture and murder of a young Jewish vendor is fueling concerns that anti-Jewish feelings are spreading in France's black community.
2007: Ira Glass and company began airing a television version of This American Life as half-hour episodes on the Showtime network.
2007: In a move opposed by the family of Bess Houdini, Harry “Houdini's grand-nephew (the grandson of his brother Theo), George Hardeen, announced that the courts would be asked to allow exhumation of Houdini's body, to investigate the possibility of Houdini being murdered by spiritualists, as suggested in the biography The Secret Life of Houdini.
2008: Shushan Purim, 5768
2008: As part of the Israel at 60, the 92nd Street Y presents Danny Sanderson, Israeli lyricist and pop icon. Sanderson, a singer-songwriter legend whose album, Kongo Blues, was voted January 06 album of the month in Israel, performs some of Israel's best known and most beloved songs.
2008: Publication of selected writings of Pfc. Daniel Agami, of blessed memory.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/us/4000agami.web.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
2009: An exhibition featuring the works of Israeli born photographer Shai Kremer at the Metropolitan Museum comes to a close.
2009: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research presents a speech by Dr. David Fishman of the Jewish Theological Seminary on the topic "The Problem of Religion and Secularism among Secular Yiddishists in Eastern Europe.
2009: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently published paperback edition of “Now You See Him” by Eli Gotlieb.
2009: At Temple Sinai in Los Angeles, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen “faced off against some 400 Iranian Jews and Bahais” who took exception to his recent columns describing the plight of Jews living in Iran.
2010: The 14th Annual Hartford Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present “Tribute: Observations on Survival and Spirit - Lessons from the Holocaust” featuring eight short films including “Holding Leah,” “Pigeon,” “Sarah and Hayah,” “The Next Harvest,” “The Wall,” “Torte Bluma,” “Toyland” and “Waiting for Dachau.”
2010: Shots were fired at an Israeli army patrol this evening next to Aduraim in the southern Hevron Hills. No injuries or damage were reported. Additional troops were sent to search the scene.
2010(7th of Nisan, 5760): Rabbi Zachary Heller, past president of the World Council of Masorti Synagogues and a congregational rabbi for nearly 30 years died today after a long battle with cancer. He was 71. He served as senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, a Conservative congregation in Bayonne, N.J., for 29 years, and was considered "a rabbi's rabbi," according to a death notice in The New York Times. Heller worked as the associate director of the National Center for Jewish Policy Studies for 12 years from 1997. As president of the World Council of Masorti Synagogues from 1989 to 1994, he lectured and taught in 22 countries and mentored rabbis in many communities. The Masorti movement in Israel is affiliated with Conservative Judaism.
2011: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today in Covina, CA for actor Al Israel, Jr. who was survived by his children Kathleen and John and his grandchildren Johnny and Lizzy
2011: Tony Kushner’s latest play, “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures,” is scheduled to open today.
2011: Moshe Katsav was sentenced to seven years in prison and two years’ probation for rape, indecent acts, sexual harassment and obstruction of justice, becoming the first former President of Israel to be sentenced to prison. In addition, he was ordered to pay one of the women compensation totaling 100,000 NIS and another a sum of 25,000 NIS
2011: “James’ Journey to Jerusalem” is scheduled to be shown in Iowa City as part of the Hillel Film Series.
2011(16h of Adar II): On this date on the Hebrew Calendar the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem began under King Agrippa I.
2011: The three major film schools in Manhattan-- Columbia University School of Arts, The School of Visual Arts Film School and NYU Tisch School of the Arts--,are scheduled to host the opening night of a three day salute to the achievements of the Sam Spiegel Film School. “Over the last decade The Sam Spiegel Film School played a pivotal role in the film renaissance of Israeli cinema by virtue of its distinctive focus on a personal and sensitive dialogue with the audience.”
2011: Thirty-five congregations including shuls from cities as large as Phoenix and Las Vegas, and as small as Chesterfield, Mo. and Norfolk, VA have registered for the 3rd annual Emerging Communities Conference sponsored by the Orthodox Union which is scheduled to begin today.
2011: Today, the Tel Aviv District Court sentenced former president Moshe Katsav to seven years in prison and two years’ probation for rape and sexual harassment, which he was convicted of in December. Judges George Karra, Judith Shevach and Miriam Sokolov also ruled that Katsav pay NIS 100,000 to victim "Aleph" from the Tourism Ministry.
2011: Palestinians reported that four people were killed, including several children, and several others were injured when IDF shells hit a house east of Gaza City this afternoon.
2011: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin slammed the “dangerous” military conversion bill, while calling on the rabbinate to increase and enhance its conversion efforts as a countermeasure to the massive assimilation taking place in Israel. (As reported by Isaac Harari)
2011: A Grad rocket fired from Gaza exploded south of Ashdod today after a day of escalation along the border..
2011: The opening of the exhibition by artist Sharon Poliakine and painter Oren Eliav, takes place at The Tel Aviv Museum of Art
2011: In “New edition out for Maxwell House Haggadah, part of Passover tradition for many American Jews” that “From the White House to the Schein house, Passover is good to the last drop thanks to the Maxwell House Haggadah, lovingly passed down through generations, red wine splotches and gravy smears marking nearly 80 years of service at American Seder tables.
http://www.startribune.com/templates/Print_This_Story?sid=118438959
2012: Spokane Jewish Cultural Cultural Film Festival is scheduled to open in Spokane, Washington
2012: The 16th Annual New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to a close.
2012: The Jewish Music Festival is scheduled to present the Bustan Quartet in Berkley, CA.
2013: Julius Genachowski announced that he would be leaving the FCC which he had been chairing since June of 2009.
2013: “The Gang’s All Here” which features Benny Goodman playing himself is scheduled to be shown as part of the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Classic Film Series.
2013: Portugal’s national soccer team is scheduled to square off against its Israeli rivals at the national stadium in Ramat Gan this afternoon.
2013: Political leaders flocked this morning to the bedside of Acre Mayor Shimon Lankri, who survived an assassination attempt in what doctors describe as a lucky escape.
2013: Barack Obama ended his first presidential visit to Israel and headed off to Jordan today, after another packed day. He visited Mount Herzl, and the tombs of Theodor Herzl and Yitzhak Rabin — meeting with Rabin’s family — as well as the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum. He held a longer-than-scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, made a brief private visit to Bethlehem, and then headed to the airport for his flight to Jordan. “Israel does not owe its existence to the Holocaust but its existence prevents another one from happening, U.S. President Obama said on the third and final day of his first presidential visit to Israel.”
2013: President Barack Obama scored a diplomatic coup just before leaving Israel when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Turkey for a 2010 commando raid that killed nine activists on a Turkish vessel in a Gaza-bound flotilla.
2014: The Jewish Children’s Regional Service (JCRS) which has done an outstanding job of serving Jewish families and youth since 1855, is scheduled to host a gala fundraiser “The Jewish Roots of Broadway.”
2014: “The German Doctor” is scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.
2014: “A Palestinian militants sent threatening text messages to a large number of Israelis this evening, calling on them to leave the country and warning them they would be “the next Gilad Shalit.”
2014: “Hunting Elephants” and “The Attack” are scheduled to be shown at the Houston Jewish Film Festival.
2014: “A joint IDF, Shin Bet and Border Police raid early today killed a wanted Hamas operative in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank who was reportedly plotting a major terrorist attack.”
2014: Flexiblity Key to Survial” published today described the way that Lebo’s the 91 year old family owned footwear business founded by Sidney Levin has changed to meet the needs and challenges of its customers.
2014: In Rockville, MD, The Magen David Sephardic Congregation is scheduled host its fundraiser “Casino Night”
2015: “Disobedience - The Sousa Mendes Story” (Desobeir) is scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.
2015: “Letter to Afar, “ an exhibition “based on films taken by Jewish immigrants who traveled from New York back to Poland during the 1920’s and 1930’s came to a close today at the Museum of the City of New York.
2015: Ron Arons, author of "Jews of Sing Sing" and of "Mind Maps for Genealogy," is scheduled to introduce basic concepts of "family systems theory" at the Center for Jewish History.
2015; In Cedar Rapids, Dan Bern, the son of Marianne Bern, is scheduled to perform as CSPC.
2015: “Letters to Afar: Installation by Péter Forgács and The Klezmatics,” a new exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York is scheduled to closed today. (As reported by Cathryn J. Prince)
2016: The annual AIPAC conference in Washington, DC is scheduled to come to an end.
2016: The “Jews in the American South” is scheduled to visit Hobcaw Barony, the on-time hunting retreat of Wall Street Investment Maven and Presidential advisor Bernard Baruch, who contrary to the popular caricature was a native of Camden, South Caroline where his father practiced medicine.
2016: “Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Manhattan
2017: Today “Yahya Sinwar said Hamas would not allow the State of Israel to exist on even a “morsel” of land.”
2017: Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely: "Israel expresses its deep shock at the terror attack in London today and its solidarity with the victims and with the people and government of Great Britain. Terror is terror wherever it occurs and we will fight it relentlessly."
2017:Producer, keyboardist, lyricist, composer and performer Idan Raichel, a global music icon and “leader of The Idan Raichel Project is scheduled to perform this evening at City Winery in New York.
2017: In Memphis, TN, Temple Israel is scheduled to host an Israeli Wine Tasting and a discussion led by Rabbi Feivel Strauss on “The Role of Wine in Judaism – From the Bible Through Prohibition.
2018: JW3 is scheduled to host the final screening in London of “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story.”
2018: Weather permitting, the New Jersey Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “Across the Line” and “Operation Wedding.”
2018: "Bal Ej: the hidden Jews of Ethiopia" is scheduled to be shown at Beit Oleh America Netanya AACI, Israel followed by a Q and A with filmmaker Irene Orleansky.
2019: The Meyerson JCC is scheduled to host “Shabbat Shabbang” featuring a world premiere concert by Joanie Leeds and Matthew Check.
2018: Fifty years after the publication of his controversial book The Population Bomb, biologist Paul Ehrlich warns overpopulation and overconsumption are driving us over the edge.”
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/22/collapse-civilisation-near-certain-decades-population-bomb-paul-ehrlich
2019: As Jews prepare for Shabbat, one question they may be asking is if President Trump’s twitter about the Golan Heights is venting, like his recent attacks on Senator McCain who has been dead for seven months or if they represent an official change in U.S. policy.
2019 The Boca Raton Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “Fractures” and “Waldheim Waltz.”
2019: In San Jose, the 3Below Theaters and Lounge is scheduled to host “An Evening with Groucho” as in Groucho Marx.
2019: Forbidden Music, “an exploration of forgotten masterworks written by composers living under the shadow of oppressive regimes and perished in the Holocaust” is scheduled to continue for a second night in the San Francisco Bay area.