January 24
76: Birthdate of Publius A Hadrianus 14th Roman Emperor. Hadrian reigned from 117 through 138. Hadrian banned Torah study, Synagogue worships and led the Romans in the defeat of the Bar Kochba Revolt.
1436: InAix-en-Provence , a riot ensued after a crowd felt that a Jew who insulted the Virgin Mary received too light a sentence
1656: Dr. Jacob Lumbrozo, the first Jewish physician in what would be theUnited States arrived in Maryland
1712: Birthdate of Frederick II,King of Prussia from 1740 until 86. Known as Frederick the Great, the Prussian king’s treatment of Jews was, to say the least, uneven. He did grant special rights to some, including Mendelssohn. However for the most part, he treated them as an exploitable economic commodity. But what can you expect from a man who wished to be buried with his greyhounds, the only living creatures he really loved.
1828: Birthdate of Ferdinand J Cohn, German botanist. He is considered a founder of the science of bacteriology. From his early studies of microscopic life he developed theories of the bacterial causes of infectious disease and recognized bacteria as plants. He aided Robert Koch in preparing Koch's famous work on anthrax. Cohn's writings cover such diverse subjects as fungi, algae, insect epidemics, and plant diseases.
1848: James Marshall finds gold at mill that is being built for John Sutter near San Francisco, CA. According to historian Hubert Howe Bancroft this event brought “a medley of races and nationalities, including the ubiquitous Hebrews." According to Stephen Mark Dobbs there were thirty Jews at a Rosh Hashanah services in San Francisco and the number grew to fifty for Yom Kippur. Jews mined for gold but they mined the commercial opportunities and by 1853 their number had grown to 3,000 in San Francisco alone.
1850: “The House of Rothschild made a fifty million franc loan to Pope Pius IX on condition that” the walls of Rome’s Ghetto would be taken down. Not only did the Pope fail to remove the walls, he “re-imposed restrictions on Jews living in the Papal States…brought pressure against other rulers to revoke Jewish rights granted in 1848” and ruled that the kidnapped Jewish Edgar Mortara should be raised as a Catholic.
1879: Rosa Sonneschein founded "The Pioneers," a Jewish women's literary club inSt. Louis , Missouri Chicago and founded a magazine specifically addressed to American Jewish women, the American Jewess. Though the magazine ran only until 1899, it was the first English periodical specifically addressed to Jewish women. It sought to document and inspire the activism of an emerging network of Jewish women's organizations that expanded upon the model established by the Pioneers.”
1892: It was reported today that as the famine worsens in Russia Czar Nicholas II has decided to devote all of his energies to dealing with the crisis which means he has “indefinitely postponed” all of the measures aimed against his Jewish subjects.
1898: It was reported today that for the year ending November 30, 1897, Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York treated 2,996 patients with a mortality rate of 9.04 percent. (More for 2014)
1898: An anti-Jewish riot took place today in St. Malo, a town in Brittany.
1902: Birthdate of economist Oskar Morgenstern. Morgenstern enjoyed a successful career inEurope until the coming of the Nazis forced him to flee to the United States , where he pursued his career.
1911: Founding of Merchaviya the first Jewish settlement in Emek Yizra'el (Jezreel Valley
1913: Birthdate of Mark Goodson, TV game-show producer
1913: Franz Kafka stopped working on "Amerika"; it will never be finished
1920 (29th of Tevet, 5680): Amedeo Clemente Modigliani passed away at the age of 35. http://www.isabel.com/gallery/reproduction/m/modiglia/record.html
1922: Eskimo Pie patented by Christian K Nelson ofIowa . (Nelson was not an Eskimo and he was not Jewish. But those of who live in Iowa don’t get to brag very often, so just laugh and move on. There is a Jewish connection between Iowa and Ice Cream. Many of the products manufactured by Blue Bunny Ice Cream which is located in La Mars, Iowa, are kosher and delicious)
1924: Birthdate of Chaim David ha-Levi, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv.
1934: A Lutheran minister (name unknown) opposed to theReich Church
1938: The Palestine Post reported that a meeting of the General Council (Va'ad Leumi) of Palestine Jews published a manifesto calling for the immediate opening of the gates of the country to the millions of suffering Diaspora Jews.
1940: As the Nazi plunder ofPoland continues, General Gouvernment ordered registration of all Jewish property.
1943: During the past three weeks, fifteen trains reached theAuschwitz from Belgium , Holland , Berlin Grodno and Bialystok . Of the new arrivals, 4,000 were sent to the barracks and 20,000 were killed before their luggage could be sorted. To accommodate the rate of killing, four new crematoriums were constructed.
1943 One thousand Jews from Jasionowka were rounded up and deported to Treblinka.
1943: The Nazis incinerated Jewish patients, nurses and doctors at Auschwitz-Birkenau
1943: Hitler ordered Nazi troops atStalingrad to fight to death. This militarily stupid command helped seal the fate of the German army and marked the beginning of the end for the Nazi juggernaut.
1944: Birthdate of David Gerrold [Jerrold David Friedman] author of the World of Star Trek. There has always been a strange affinity between Jewish writers and science fiction. Maybe it comes from those Biblical chariots of Elijah, Ezekiel and Isaiah.
1948: Birthdate Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State and foreign policy expert..
1949:France recognized Israel .
1951: Birthdate of Soviet-born American comedian Yakov Smirfnoff
1959: "Party with Comden & Green" closes at John Golden TheatreNew York City
1962: Brian Epstein signed a contract to manage The Beatles
1975: Larry Fine, actor, comedian and member of the Three Stooges passed away
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Menachem Begin told the Knesset that he might reconsider his previous decision, and would send a delegation to the Cairo-held military talks, but warned that this would not happen ifEgypt continued to issue statements offensive to Jewish dignity. Begin explained that Egypt broke off the political talks held in Jerusalem despite the fact that President Anwar Sadat was well aware, in advance, of Israel 's stand on the Rafiah Sinai salient and on the future of Palestine 's Arab people. In Cairo Egypt confirmed that the political peace talks had been frozen, but not terminated. The US insisted that both Egypt and Israel should embark on a useful process that should resume whenever possible.
1983: Director George Cukor passed away at the age of 83 after a stroke and a heart attack.
1986: In Eilat, Laura (née Ehrenkranz), a teacher, and Brian Ullman, a printer gave birth to Ricky Ullman who moved to the United States after his first birthday and became a successful actor and musician.
2007: In what some considered as a major breakthrough in the history of the Holocaust, Haaretz reported that Khaled Abd al-Wahab, a well-to-do Tunisian farmer who died in 1997, was the first Arab to be named as a candidate for a Righteous Gentile award from Yad Vashem. The nomination was based on testimony of Anny Boukris, a 73-year-old Jewish woman fromLos Angeles who survived the Axis occupation of North Africa . In a letter sent to the authorities at Yad Vashaem, she described how Abd al-Wahab rescued her and 24 relatives from their hiding place and hid them on his farm until the end of the German occupation. Boukris, who was 11 at the time, related that al-Wahab risked his life when he stopped a German officer from raping her mother.
2007: At the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA, an exhibition entitled “Morris Louis Now: An American Master Revisited” comes to a close. By 1966, kingmaker-critics had anointed Morris Louis, the great Washington abstractionist, the greatest painter since Jackson Pollock.
2008: The New York Jewish Film Festival comes to an end with showings of "Orthodox Stance" a documentary about “Dmitry Salita a twenty-something Russian immigrant equally devoted to the seemingly disparate worlds of professional boxing and Orthodox Judaism”; Villa Jasmin, a film about “Serge, a Tunisian-born Jew living in Paris, who takes his wife to see the country he remembers fondly from his childhood.
41: Roman Emperor Caligula is murdered by the Praetorian Guard. Caligula’s treatment of the Jews does not qualify him as an anti-Semite since he was “a certifiable nut case” who murdered several of his family members, reportedly had incestuous relationships with at least of on his sisters and planned to name his favorite horse as a Counsel of Rome. Caligula believed he was a divinity who was to be publicly worshipped. A delegation of Jews from Alexandria , including the famous Philo, went to Rome to plead the Jewish case before Caligula. At first Caligula was hostile to the Jews, but in the end he reportedly dismissed the delegation saying, the Jews are “just a poor, stupid people unable to believe in my divinity.” The real threat came when Caligula took steps to install a statute of himself in Jerusalem that was to be worshipped. Agrippa, King of Judea and Petronious Publius, the Roman governor of Syria were able to stall the Emperor whose subsequent assassination rendered the point moot.
76: Birthdate of Publius A Hadrianus 14th Roman Emperor. Hadrian reigned from 117 through 138. Hadrian banned Torah study, Synagogue worships and led the Romans in the defeat of the Bar Kochba Revolt.
1059: Nicholas II who “condemned the persecution of the Jews and who…expressed” his opposition to “compulsory baptism” began his Papacy.
1436: In
1517: Selim I defeated the Mamluks at the Battle of Ridaniya giving the Ottomans control over Egypt leading to “radical changes in the affairs of” Egyptian Jewry including the abolition of the office of nagid, the creation of independent Jewish communities including the one in Cairo head by David ibn Abi Zimra and the appointment of Abraham de Castro as the master of the mint..
1656: Dr. Jacob Lumbrozo, the first Jewish physician in what would be the
1678(1st of Shevat): Rabbi Solomon Lichtenstein of Bialystok, author of Kokhmat Shelomo, passed away
1678(1st of Shevat): The first Jewish newspaper, the Judaeo-Spanish Gazeta de Amsterdam was published today in Amsterday. Nine years later Kurant, the first Yiddish magazine was printed in the same city.
1712: Birthdate of Frederick II,
1803(1st of Shevat, 5563): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1804: Presbyterian minister and poet Joseph Fawcett passed away. In 1785, he began a series of Sunday evening lectures at the Old Jewry meeting house the popular meeting house for a Presbyterians that took its name from the fact that the area had been the Jewish quarter or ghetto in the days before Edward expelled them at the end of the 14th century. There is no record of how these Christians felt about occupying the territory used by the people they had been persecuting and to whom they still denied the full rights of British citizens.
1828: Birthdate of Ferdinand J Cohn, German botanist. He is considered a founder of the science of bacteriology. From his early studies of microscopic life he developed theories of the bacterial causes of infectious disease and recognized bacteria as plants. He aided Robert Koch in preparing Koch's famous work on anthrax. Cohn's writings cover such diverse subjects as fungi, algae, insect epidemics, and plant diseases.
1830: Birthdate of Jules Worms, the Paris born physician served the French Army as a surgeon during the Crimean War and was on the staff at Rothschild Hospital from 1865 to 1875
1844: The Second Annual Benevolent Ball of the Israelites of Philadelphia raised $489.79 today.
1850: “The House of Rothschild made a fifty million franc loan to Pope Pius IX on condition that” the walls of Rome’s Ghetto would be taken down. Not only did the Pope fail to remove the walls, he “re-imposed restrictions on Jews living in the Papal States…brought pressure against other rulers to revoke Jewish rights granted in 1848” and ruled that the kidnapped Jewish Edgar Mortara should be raised as a Catholic.
1851: In Cayuga County, NY, Albert Baham was hung for his role in the murder of the Jewish peddler Nathan Adler. After the execution, Albert’s brother John confessed his role which resulted in his death sentence being commuted to life in prison. In point of fact, he was pardoned by the governor after having served 8 years in prison for his part in the crime.
1856 (17th of Shevat, 5616): Rabbi Yechezkel of Kuzmir, Polish Hasidic leader passed away. (Ed. Note: This comparatively lengthy note is intended to provide those with limited background an introduction to the richly textured, multi-dimensional world of Chassidic Jewry.) Born in 1755, he was the founder of the) Modzitz or Modzhitz Chassidim. This is the name of a Chassidic group that derives its name from Modzice, one of the boroughs of the town of Dęblin , Poland , located on the Vistula River Jerusalem in Israel where their Rebbe lives. They also have a smaller following in Brooklyn , New York Zvolin , Poland Modzitz , Poland November 24, 1920 , he was succeeded by his son Rabbi Shaul Yedidya Elazar Taub. Shaul Yedidya Elazar Taub was born on October 20, 1886 . He guided his Hasidim until 1938 when he fled Poland due to Nazi persecution. He made his way to Lithuania , then to Russia , then to China , and then to Japan . Eventually, with the help of some Modzitzer Chassidim, he and some family members reached the shores of San Francisco and then moved to Brooklyn , New York Brooklyn that Rabbi Shaul became popular and helped rebuild Modzitz. He was a gifted songwriter and wrote over 1000 Hasidic melodies. He constantly talked about the coming of the State of Israel. He was unable to see his prediction come true and he passed away on November 29, 1947 , the day the UN voted to create the state of Israel . He was succeded by his son Rabbi Samuel Eliyahu Taub. Rabbi Samuel Eliyahu was born in Lublin , Poland February 9, 1905 . Rabbi Shaul and his son Rabbi Samuel were on a trip to the then British Mandate of Palestine in 1935. While they were there Samuel fell in love with Palestine and asked his father if he could stay there. His father agreed and within a year Rabbi Samuel's wife and their child came over to Israel . In 1947 he succeeded his father and became the Modzitzer Rebbe to be known as the Imre Aish ("Words of Fire") as Samuel Eliyahu is called, and continued the traditions of Modzitz both as a composer and Torah scholar. He passed away on May 6, 1984 , when he was succeeded by his son Rabbi Dan Israel Taub. Rabbi Israel Dan was born in 1928 in Warsaw , Poland Palestine in 1936 to meet up with his father Rabbi Samuel. For a number of years he headed the Modzitz Chasidim in the city of Tel-Aviv where his father had lived. He moved to a new building in Bnei Brak , Israel
1862: Bucharest was proclaimed capital of Romania. The Jewish population of Bucharest had grown from 127 families in 1820 to 5,934 persons in 1860. By the turn of the century, the Jewish population would exceed 40,000 people making them almost 15% of the city’s total population.
1874: Nathan W. Lyman appeared at the Jefferson Market Police Court today and withdrew his complaint that he had been swindled out of $7,000 by a Hungarian born Jew, Dr. Gabor Naphegyi.
1876: Leaders of several New York congregations met at Temple Emanu-El met tonight to discuss the possibility of establishing a college for Jewish students. A committee was established to contact congregations throughout the United States to gain support for the endeavor. Louis May, President of Temple Emanu-El was selected as chairman and Meyer S. Isaacs was selected as Secretary.
1879: Rosa Sonneschein founded "The Pioneers," a Jewish women's literary club in
1880: Birthdate of New York political leader and Congressman Meyer Jacobstein.
1888: President Moritz Loth chaired a special meeting of the Executive Board of Hebrew Union College at 1:30 p.m. where resolutions were adopted praising Max Hoffheimer, the board member who passed away unexpectedly yesterday.
1888: Birthdate of Austrian writer, Hedwig (Vicki) Baum. Vicki Baum is considered one of the first modern bestselling authors, and her books are reputed to be among the first examples of contemporary mainstream literature. She attended Vienna Conservatory to study the harp, later playing the harp professionally and teaching music for several years in Darmstadt . After a number of novels in German, a breakthrough novel, Menschen im Hotel, was turned into a play and then at the instigation of producer Irving Thalberg into the highly successful film Grand Hotel directed by Edmund Goulding. The story details one weekend in a posh hotel in minute detail -- Baum had taken a job as maid to yield realism. The film won Best Picture Oscar. Her time in the United States made her realize it was time to leave Germany , emigrating in 1932. From that point Baum wrote many of her novels in English and took citizenship in 1938. Residing in California , she lived in Pacific Palisades, Pasadena , and then Hollywood , where she died of leukemia in 1960. Among two of her most pithy sayings are, "Pity is the deadliest feeling that can be offered to a woman" and "To be a Jew is a destiny.”
1888: In New York City, over a thousand people attended a benefit performance of "King Solomon" at the Roumania Opera House. The event was organized by Mrs. M. Rosendorff who will use the funds to buy meat for needy Jews at Passover time. This is not Mrs. Rosendorff's first foray into fund raising. In 1887, she hosted a ball at the the Webster Hall that paid for meat Passover time.
1891(15thof Shevat, 5651): Tu B’Shevat
1892: It was reported today that as the famine worsens in Russia Czar Nicholas II has decided to devote all of his energies to dealing with the crisis which means he has “indefinitely postponed” all of the measures aimed against his Jewish subjects.
1892: It was reported today that the upcoming Hebrew Charity Ball is the last major festivity of the social season in Philadelphia, PA.
1892: It was reported today that in addition to persecuting the Jews, the Czar is now persecuting the Stundists, a Christian sect founded in the 1850’s.
1895: “A Dance For Charity” published today described the dances sponsored by the Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore home which have replaced the annual Purim Ball as the leading social event “in Jewish social circles.” The change took place two years ago but has not had any effect on the ability to raise funds for the charities that benefit from these social events. (more for 2015)
1895: The officers of the Montefiore Home were today reported to be: President – Jacob H. Schiff; Vice President – Louse Gans; Treasurer – Isidor Straus; and Honorary Secretary – Raphael Ettinger.
1896: It was reported that while giving President Kreuger was giving a sermon during the ceremonies dedicating a synagogue in Johannesburg, he said “And so I consecrate this building to the worship of the Triune God.” While some Jews minimized this reference to the Trinity, “others maintain that the building has been descreated and they have built another synagogue…”
1896: It was reported today that in Jersey City, forty or fifty Jews who were sitting in the audience during a speech being given by Herman Ahlwardt, the German anti-Semite “threatened to kill him and burn the hall” when he “made some particularly bitter references to them.” The Jews “were ejected by the police and order was restored.”
1897: Berlin Zionists Willy Bambus and Theodor Zlocisti address a letter to Herzl.
1897: Dr. Lyman Abbott delivered a sermon today on the books of Esther, Daniel and Jonah “all of which he said were fictitious although the book of Esther was based on historical facts and was derived from court records.”
1898: It was reported today that leaders of the Jewish community in Algiers have advised their co-religionists to remain indoors and stay away from their businesses following attacks by anti-Dreyfus/ant-Semitic mobs.
1898: A mob of approximately 3,000 people surged through the streets of Algiers shouting “Down With the Jews.”
1898: An anti-Jewish riot took place today in St. Malo, a town in Brittany.
1899: “The Zionist Movement” published today provided a summary of the report prepared by the U.S. Consul at Beirut that concluded by “saying that the prospects are brighter than ever before for the Jews in Palestine and for the country itself.”
1899: It was reported today that Henry Herzberg believes “that there never was a period in the world’s history when more potent reasons existed why the essential teachings of Judaism should be faithfully observed. Amid the forces of modern civilization…there is vital need for constructive thought which feeds the moral springs of action.”
1899: It was reported today that the population of Palestine is 200,000 of which 40,000 are Jews. This is an increase of 26,000 Jews in the last twenty years. There are 22,000 Jews living in Jerusalem “half of whom” have come from Europe.
1901: The Industrial Removal Office was formally created as part of the Jewish Agricultural Society at the Society's Executive Committee meeting. The Society rented a store at 34 Stanton Street in New York and named it "The Industrial Removal Office." The philosophy behind the IRO was to assimilate the immigrants into American Society, both economically and culturally. In 1901, following anti-Semitic decrees by the Romanian government, a large wave of Romanian Jews fled to New York . The Rumanian Committee was quickly formed in New York to distribute the immigrants to other towns where they might find employment. B'nai B'rith lodges in these towns and cities assisted the refugees upon their arrival. The Romanian Committee rapidly evolved into the Industrial Removal Office, which took over the work on a much larger scale and opened its availability to any unemployed Jewish immigrant, regardless of their origin. The process of procuring work for immigrants was done through traveling agents, who also obtained the cooperation of local Jewish organizations. Local committees, organized primarily by B'nai B'rith, obtained orders for workers and assisted the immigrants on their arrival. The New York bureau noted requests received from the traveling agents and local committees and matched up opportunities from their applicant lists. In the first year of the Industrial Removal Office's existence, nearly 2000 individuals were sent to 250 places throughout the United States .
1902: Birthdate of economist Oskar Morgenstern. Morgenstern enjoyed a successful career in
1903: The New York Times reports on the growth and development of the Jewish Theological Seminary including the securing of a $500,000 endowment and the election of Justice Greenbaum, the New York state jurist, to the Board of Directors.
1905(18thof Shevat, 5665): Sixty-two year old Edward Einstein, the native of Cincinnati, Ohio who “was elected a Republican from New York’s 7th Congressional District and who ran unsuccessfully for Mayor passed away today.
1905: Henry S. Morais, journalist, educator and rabbi, writes a letter praising Benjamin Disraeli to the New York Timesentitled “Why the People of the United States Should Cherish His Memory” in which he reviews Disraeli’s support for the Union during the Civil War when other English leaders including Gladstone “were known to be in sympathy” with the Confederates and which concludes with the statement that this “scion of the famous Israelis of Jewish history…the offspring of a people as old as the ages, will live in the minds and in the hearts not alone of his own, but in those of a liberty loving humanity.”
1908(21stof Shevat, 5668): Leopold Wallach a distinguished New York lawyer who is the father-in-law of Max Morgenthau, Jr. passed away today.
1911: Founding of Merchaviya the first Jewish settlement in Emek Yizra'el (
1913: Birthdate of Mark Goodson, TV game-show producer
1913: Franz Kafka stopped working on "Amerika"; it will never be finished
1917(1st of Sh'vat, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Sh'vat
1918: The Gregorian calendar introduced in Russia by decree of the Council of People's Commissars effective from February 14(NS). This change is one of the impediments to pinpoint accuracy in dating events in Russian history. Events are marked in different places by Old Style and New Style dates. Unfortunately, some sources do not tell which they are which leads to added confusion. (Yes, this is an excuse for some of the inaccuracies in this document.)
1920 (29th of Tevet, 5680): Amedeo Clemente Modigliani passed away at the age of 35. http://www.isabel.com/gallery/reproduction/m/modiglia/record.html
1922: Eskimo Pie patented by Christian K Nelson of
1922: Professor Louis Ginzberg presented a paper on “The Question of Fermented Wines in Jewish Religious Observances” to members of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary who meeting in an executive session today. Following a lengthy and lively discussion the consensus of opinion was that unfermented grape juice may be used for sacramental purposes. This decision will be forwarded to the American Jewish Committee which is collecting information on the acceptability of using grape juice instead of wine when reciting Kiddush, etc. Ginzberg’s belief that the use of unfermented grape juice could be used put him at odds with the writings of Rabi Abraham Klausner. Currently, nobody produces grape juice that meets the standards of Kashrut so adoption of Ginzberg’s view would require the start of a new business venture. [For those of you unacquainted with American History, this issue arose with the start of Prohibition and its attempt to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol in the U.S.]
1924: Birthdate of Chaim David ha-Levi, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv.
1924: Birthdate of character actor Marvin Kaplan.
1932(16thof Shevat, 5692): Sixty-four year old Paul M. Warburg, the brother of Felix Warburg, passed away at 6:30 this evening at his home in Manhattan. At the time of his death he was chairman of the boards of the International Acceptance Bank of New York and the Manhattan Company. A native of Hamburg, and a member of one of the most prominent banking family, he was instrumental in providing many of the ideas that culminated in the creation of the Federal Reserve. He was married to Nina Loeb, the daughter of the late Solomon Loeb of the famed financial firm Kuhn, Loeb & Co.
1932: Celebration of the 70th anniversary of the birth of author Sigmund Dische in Czernowitz, Romania.
1932: The New York Times describes Dr. Abraham Schwardon’s gift to Hebrew University
1933 Jüdisches Museum zu Berlin(1933–1938, opened on Oranienburger Straße a street in central Berlin that was the in the heart of Berlin’s Jewish community before the rise of the Nazis
1933(26th of Tevet, 5693):Charles "King" Solomon a Boston racketeer born in 1884 who controlled New England's bootlegging, narcotics and illegal gambling during Prohibition was killed in Boston's Cotton Club by rival gunmen.
1934: A Lutheran minister (name unknown) opposed to the
1935: In Haifa Matilda and Yehuda HaCohen gave birth to Nisim Cohen, a crewman on the ill-fated INS Dakar.
1936: Jewish band leader Benny Goodman and his orchestra record "Stompin' at the Savoy" on Victor Records
1938: The Palestine Post reported that a meeting of the General Council (Va'ad Leumi) of Palestine Jews published a manifesto calling for the immediate opening of the gates of the country to the millions of suffering Diaspora Jews.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that one Jew was severely wounded when Arabs shot at a group of workers returning from the Givat Shaul quarry to Jerusalem.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that according to the new Romanian law, all Jews had to appear before the courts in order to prove their citizenship rights.
1939: Hermann Goring, Hitler’s #2, formally appointed Reinhard Heydrich as head of Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration and ordered him to speed up the process
1940: Final day of an Aktion begun on January 18 during which 255 Jews were arrested in Warsaw and then murdered in the Palmiry Forest.
1940: As the Nazi plunder of
1941: Birthdate of Dan Schecthman, the Tel Aviv native who is a professor at the Technion and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
1943: During the past three weeks, fifteen trains reached the
1943 One thousand Jews from Jasionowka were rounded up and deported to Treblinka.
1943: The Nazis incinerated Jewish patients, nurses and doctors at Auschwitz-Birkenau
1943: Hitler ordered Nazi troops at
1944: The SS Meyer London was launched today. This “liberty ship” was named for the American Jewish leader who was one of only two Socialist Party members to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She was sunk by a torpedo off the cost of Lybia.
1944: Birthdate of singer Neil Diamond
1944: Birthdate of singer Neil Diamond
1944: Birthdate of David Gerrold [Jerrold David Friedman] author of the World of Star Trek. There has always been a strange affinity between Jewish writers and science fiction. Maybe it comes from those Biblical chariots of Elijah, Ezekiel and Isaiah.
1947: Birthdate of Warren William Zevon, the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant and a Scottish/Welsh Mormon who became a noted singer, song writer and musician
1948: Julius Ochs Adler was promoted to Major General in the United States Army.
1948: Birthdate Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State and foreign policy expert..
1949:
1951: Birthdate of Soviet-born American comedian Yakov Smirfnoff
1959(15th of Sh'vat, 5719): Tu B'Shvat
1959: "Party with Comden & Green" closes at John Golden TheatreNew York City
1962: Brian Epstein signed a contract to manage The Beatles
1965: In Damascus, Syrian police arrested Kamel Amin Th’abet on charges of being an Israeli spy. After being tortured he was hung in a pubic execution. Th’abet was Eli Cohen who successfully penetrated the highest level of the Syrian government and provided intelligence of immeasurable value.
1965: Winston Churchill died in London at age 90. Churchill supported the Balfour Declaration. He led the fight against Hitler. At the same time, he stood by and did virtually nothing to rescue the Jews of Europe. And he continued to enforce the White Paper after there was no military reason to do so. Martin Gilbert, his biographer, is Jewish and has written a slim, fascinating volume entitled Churchill and the Jews.
1974(1st of Shevat, 5734): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1975: Larry Fine, actor, comedian and member of the Three Stooges passed away
1976(22ndof Shevat, 5736): Seventy-one year old Pinchas Lavon passed away
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Menachem Begin told the Knesset that he might reconsider his previous decision, and would send a delegation to the Cairo-held military talks, but warned that this would not happen if
1983: Director George Cukor passed away at the age of 83 after a stroke and a heart attack.
1986: In Eilat, Laura (née Ehrenkranz), a teacher, and Brian Ullman, a printer gave birth to Ricky Ullman who moved to the United States after his first birthday and became a successful actor and musician.
1988: After the Israeli Cabinet met today Police Minister Haim Bar-Lev told reporters that reports to contrary, there is no policy to beat Palestinians to stop protests in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He said that the using the word beatings “is an unfortunate term.”
1990: An Israeli court jailed for life plus 40 years a Palestinian known as the ''Tel Aviv Strangler,'' who claimed to have killed seven people to prove he was not a collaborator with the Israelis. Four of his victims were Jews and three were Arabs. Mohammed Halabi, 32 years old, was sentenced today for the murders in October of five women and two men. The Tel Aviv District Court jailed him for 40 additional years for two attempted murders. The police said Mr. Halabi confessed to all the charges.
1991:Israel said it would not carry out an immediate retaliatory strike against Iraq despite the missile attack on Tel Aviv that killed three people. After that decision, another Iraqi missile was destroyed by one of the American Patriot missiles stationed in Israel over the weekend. And it was disclosed that a Patriot had clipped the missile that hit Tel Aviv.
1991:Mayor David N. Dinkins, who has repeatedly criticized the American effort in the Persian Gulf, said today that he would travel to Israel next week in a symbolic gesture of support for Israelis and for American troops. In the tender world of the city's ethnic politics, the visit could prove awkward. It would appeal to Jewish supporters and strengthen his pro-Israel stance, but it might appear too hawkish to some of his anti-war constituents, including many blacks, who still form the base of his support.
1991:In the currency market, the dollar's recovery today, which was partly technical, followed comments by Israel's Ambassador to the United States, who said Tel Aviv would be ready to join in regional arms control efforts and possible peace talks with the Palestinians once the Persian Gulf War ended.
1992: In “A Physical Approach For an Israeli 'Hamlet'” Mel Gussow reviews Rina Yerushalmi's provocative adaptation of "Hamlet" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
1993: A “travel advisory” issued to reported that the American Jewish Congress will be sponsoring 4 “family tours of Israel” this year ‘that include the opportunity to celebrate a bar or bat mitzvah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and at the Zealot's Synagogue in Masada”
1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or topics of special interest to Jewish readers including Primo Levi:Tragedy of an Optimistby Myriam Anissimov, The Conversion by Aharon Appelfeld and Reporting Live by Leslie Stahl.
2000:RADWARE Ltd., of Tel Aviv is prepared to make an equity offering 2.5 million shares this week.
2001:As the controversy surrounding the pardon of Marc Rich continues to grow, Jack Quinn, former White House counsel under President Clinton, who is now Mr. Rich's lawyer said in an interview today that the president had given every indication in their conversations on January 19th that he had read the petition and piles of testimonials that had been sent the previous month and that he was eager to discuss the case on its merits. Their conversation was strictly about the “legal merits.” There were no questions about party affiliations or the role of Denis Rich, Mr. Rich's former wife, a prominent Democratic fund-raiser and close friend of the Clintons. But now with the pardon drawing so much criticism, Mr. Quinn acknowledged making mistakes and said that President Clinton had every right to be angry with him. ''He should be upset,'' Mr. Quinn said. ''I'm upset.'' Mr. Quinn faulted himself for failing to go public sooner with the rationale for the pardon. Mr. Clinton has been widely criticized for pardoning Mr. Rich, a financier who lived a wealthy exile life in Switzerland for the last 17 years instead of returning to face charges of tax fraud and trading with Iran in violation of sanctions. ''I didn't anticipate well enough the reaction to this,'' Mr. Quinn said. Beyond his kindling a firestorm of criticism more searing than that surrounding any of Mr. Clinton's other last-minute pardons, Mr. Quinn said he was distressed by the perception that he had used connections gained in the years when he was chief of staff to Al Gore and White House counsel to Mr. Clinton to obliterate much of the case against Mr. Rich.
2001:Today, President Bush appeared to be directing attention away from the Israeli-Palestinian talks and toward major Arab countries by placing telephone calls to four leaders: King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan. The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, described the calls as an effort to ''underscore the strong relations the United States has with these nations.'' He said they were ''introductory'' in nature and declined to be specific about substance.
2001:The cabinet decided tonightIsrael will return to peace talks with the Palestinians here on Thursday, after a nearly two-day suspension prompted by the killing of two Israeli civilians in the West Bank.
2002:In New York, the 11th annual New York Jewish Film Festival comes to a close.
2004(1stof Shevat, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
2004: An exhibition entitled “What Does It Mean To Be Jewish?” opens at the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam .
2005: In an article entitled “A Bright Diaspora Star Fails to Dazzle Israel ,” Steven Erlanger describes the Israeli reaction to American economist and banker Stanley Fischer becoming Governor of the Bank of Israel.
2006: During the Presidency of Robert A. Iger, The Walt Disney Company announced that it would acquire Pixar for $7.4 billion in an all-stock transaction
2006: The Los Angeles Times published a column by Joel Stein under the headline "Warriors and Wusses" in which he wrote that it is a cop-out to oppose a war and yet claim to support the soldiers fighting it. "I don’t support our troops....When you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you’re not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you’re willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism...".
2006:Ehud Olmert, in his first major policy address since becoming Israel's acting prime minister, said at the Herzliya Conference that he backed the creation of a Palestinian state, and that Israel would have to relinquish parts of the West Bank to maintain its Jewish majority.
2006: The Antiquities Authority recommended the Meggido Prison be transferred to a new location, after the remains of an ancient church were discovered on the facility's grounds four months ago.
2007: In what some considered as a major breakthrough in the history of the Holocaust, Haaretz reported that Khaled Abd al-Wahab, a well-to-do Tunisian farmer who died in 1997, was the first Arab to be named as a candidate for a Righteous Gentile award from Yad Vashem. The nomination was based on testimony of Anny Boukris, a 73-year-old Jewish woman from
2007: At the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA, an exhibition entitled “Morris Louis Now: An American Master Revisited” comes to a close. By 1966, kingmaker-critics had anointed Morris Louis, the great Washington abstractionist, the greatest painter since Jackson Pollock.
2008: The New York Jewish Film Festival comes to an end with showings of "Orthodox Stance" a documentary about “Dmitry Salita a twenty-something Russian immigrant equally devoted to the seemingly disparate worlds of professional boxing and Orthodox Judaism”; Villa Jasmin, a film about “Serge, a Tunisian-born Jew living in Paris, who takes his wife to see the country he remembers fondly from his childhood.
2009: The 5th annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival continues with Noodle, a comic drama about an El Al flight attendant and a 5-year-old Chinese boy left behind when his illegal immigrant mother is deported.
2010:Final performance of the The Kosher Cheerleader by Sandy Wolshin at the Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix, Arizona.
2010: “From Verse to Universe: Reading the People’s Torah” is scheduled to open at the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum.
2010:An exhibition entitled: “Hyman Bloom: A Spiritual Embrace at the Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to come a close.” Considered by Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock to be "the first Abstract Expressionist in America," Hyman Bloom never gave up representational art. He began his career by painting rabbis, cantors and Torah covers, using them as a metaphor for his own spiritual questioning. This exhibition of nearly 50 paintings and drawings by the renowned Boston Expressionist painter reveals his recurring interest in these motifs and his exploration of Jewish spirituality and mysticism through a distinctly personal modernist style.
2010: The 19th annual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the United States premiere of the restored print of "Bar Mitzvah," a classic of Yiddish cinema, in which a mother miraculously survives a shipwreck and shocks the family by appearing at her son’s bar mitzvah. The film features “the legendary Boris Thomashefsky in his only film performance.”
2010: The 10th annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present the East Coast Premiere of “The Yankles,” which tells the story of ex-con who is forced to coach an “upstart Orthodox baseball team” as part of the community service sentence imposed by the Judge for a drunk driving conviction.
2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Listener by Shira Nayman
2010: 2010: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom.
2011: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to present a program entitled “2011: Challenges and Opportunities for American and World Jewry” during which Malcolm Hoenlein and John Batchelor are scheduled to lead “a candid discussion of the dangers and issues facing the Jewish community in the coming year, from delegitimization to the peace process to Iran globalization.”
2011: The U.S. Premiere of “Convoys of Shame” / “Les Convois de la honte” is scheduled to take place at the New York Jewish Film Festival. .”
2011: Today, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar defended his decision to approve the military conversions which are undertaken according to orthodox Jewish law. His reaction came in the wake of claims from parts of the Ashkenazi-haredi camp that such conversions should not be considered valid, since the process the candidates underwent was faulty and the converts never really intended on maintaining a Jewish lifestyle, as evident in the fact that many of them do not keep mitzvot in the years that follow.
2011:Rahm Emanuel should not appear on the Feb. 22 mayoral ballot because he does not meet the residency standard, according to a ruling issued by a state appellate court today. Emanuel told a news conference he would appeal the decision to the Illinois Supreme Court and would ask for an injunction so his name will appear on the mayoral ballot.
2011(19thof Shevat, 5771):David Frye, whose wicked send-ups of political figures like Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey and, above all, Richard M. Nixon, made him one of the most popular comedians in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, died today in Las Vegas (As reported by William Grimes)
2012: “Dressing America: Tales From The Garment Center” – a documentary that explores the post-World War II heyday of the garment district in Manhattan” and “pays tribute to the Jewish immigrant roots of the garment industry” – is scheduled to have its New York Premiere at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2012: YIVO is scheduled to present a lecture by Cur Leviant entitled “The Works of Chaim Grade” one of the 20th century’s leading Yiddish authors.
2012: In Mt. Vernon, Iowa, Holocaust survivor and education Irving Roth is scheduled to speak at Cornell College as part of “Standing With Israel Event.”
2012:Israel carried out four airstrikes on the Gaza Strip overnight after Palestinian militants fired about six rockets and mortars over the border over the past week, an Israeli military spokesman said today.
2012: Conflicting reports emerged tonight about an alleged Iranian plot against Israeli and Jewish targets in Azerbaijan. Local media said an Iranian-backed terror cell had planned to kill Jewish teachers at the Or Avner Jewish School just outside the capital Baku. Other reports in the media claimed a group consisting of three people was offered $150,000 by Iran to assassinate Israel's Ambassador to Azerbaijan Michael Lotem.
2013(13thof Shevat, 5773): Eighty-four year old Richard G. Stern, “the best American author of whom you have never heard” passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
2013: Professor Dan Michman is scheduled to deliver a lecture “Jewish ‘Headships’ and Nazi Anti-Jewish Policies” at the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide in London.
2013: Leo Baeck Institute and Center for Jewish History are scheduled to present a screening of “Kinderbloch 66: Return to Buchenwald”
2013: Gerhard Loewenberg, University of Iowa professor emeritus and former dean, is scheduled to read from his new memoir, Moved by Politics, at Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City.
2013: The Wicked Wit of the West featuring Hank Rosenfield on the subject of Irving Brecher is schedule for performance at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival
2013: Four former Border Policemen, accused of abusing a petrified Palestinian man who appeared to be mentally challenged, were in court today to hear the legal arguments over whether or not their actions constituted abuse, Channel 2 reported.(As reported by Stuart Winer)
2013: The nationalist Jewish Home party has risen to become the fourth-largest Knesset faction, with 12 seats, after officials finished counting the votes of soldiers and others this afternoon. The party had been predicted to take 11 seats before the last votes were counted.
2014: TheHarris J. Weingarten Tennis Weekend is scheduled to begin at the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center in Houston, TX.
2014: Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa is scheduled to host its first Musical Shabbat of 2014.