JUNE 24
586 BCE (9th of Tammuz, 3174): King Nebuchadnezzar’s army broke through the walls of Jerusalem and entered the City of David.
1182: Phillip II, the seventeen year old French monarch “decreed the total expulsion of Jews from all royal possessions within two months. This was due in part to debts owed to Jewish moneylenders. The debtors were exempted from all payment to the Jews but had to pay a tax of 20% of their debt to the Treasury. This only served to force those Jews who were considered an asset into other French provinces not directly under the King's control. The Synagogue in Paris was converted into the Church of St. Madeleine, while the one in Orleans was changed into the Chapel of St. Sauveur. This expulsion - with the confiscation of land and property - was a strong factor in Jews leaving agriculture as a profession in favor of moveable property and trade.” (As reported by Eli Birnbaum)
1190: Philip II Augustus of France and Richard the Lionheart of England break camp at Vezelay and head off for the Holy Land, officially launching the Third Crusade. Phillip was openly anti-Semitic. Richard was protective of his Jewish subjects. His absence during the Crusade left them to “the tender mercies” of Prince John and the local Anglo anti-Semites. And of course, as always, the Jews suffered wherever the Crusading Christians marched.
1241: Ivan Asen II, the Czar of Bulgaria also known as John Asen II who in 1230 “defeated Theodore Ducas Angelus of Epirus and after which threw two Jews off of a cliff for refusing to put out his eyes passed away today.
1298: Massacre of the Jews of Ifhauben, Austria.
1322: Charles IV of France expelled all the Jews from France without the promised one year's warning. This marked the second expulsion of the Jews from France.
1339: A party commissioned by Pope Benedict XII to go to China that included Giovanni de' Marignolli left Constantinople and sailed across the Black Sea to Caffa. In 1342, following his arrival in China, Marginollia told of having engaged "in glorious disputations" in Beijing with both Muslims and Jews. This was one several reports of Jews living in China during the 14thcentury. These included Andrew of Perugia’s complaint in 1326 that “the Jews of Quanzhou obdurately refused to accede to his pleas that they undergo baptism” and the Muslim traveler ibn Battuta description of entering Hangzhou in 1346 “through a gate called the Jews’ Gate and statement that among the inhabitants of the city there were “Jews, Christians and sun-worshipping Turks.”
1386: Birthdate John of Capistrano, a Franciscan friar who played a key role in having forty Jews burned at the stake in Breslau and sought to have King of Poland abolish the special privileges accorded to his Jewish subjects.
1441: King Henry VI founded Eton College. While there were no Jews in the Eton’s first class (there were no Jews living in England, King Henry would be surprised to find out that by 2009 Mr. Jonathan Paull was Head of Jewish studies at Eton and that Jewish students were putting on tefillin under the guidance of local Chabad representatives.
1509: Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon crowned King and Queen of England. There were no Jews living in England at this time. Henry’s father (Henry VII) had promised Catherine’s parents (the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella) that Jews would never be allowed the realm of the English monarchs. Thanks to the turmoil that Henry would create when he went to shed Catherine as his Queen and royal mate, small numbers of Marranos and crypto-Jews would be living in England by the end of the century.
1519: In Burgundy, “Pierre de Beze, royal governor of Vézelay” and Marie Bourdelot gave birth to French Protestant theologian Theodore Beza, the successor to John Calvin at Geneva and who like Luther was a believer “that Christian churches were largely responsible for the current unbelief among the Jews and “that there would a large-scale conversion of the Jews” while still acknowledging “the Justice of divine anger the Jewish people”
1648: In Tulczyn, Poland, an agreement between the 2000 Jews and 600 Christians to defend the town at all costs succeeded in preventing the Cossacks from capturing the town. The Cossacks persuaded the Christians that they would let them go free if they would give them the Jews. The (furious) Jews were persuaded by the Rabbi that if they took revenge on the Poles other Jews would suffer. The gates were opened and most of the Jews killed. The Cossacks then turned on the Poles and killed most of them as well. For the most part, during the entire war the Poles and the Jews were uneasy allies against the Cossacks.
1692: Founding of Kingston, Jamaica. By now, Jamaica was an English colony and Jews can only practice their religion as opposed to their secret observance that had been the norm during the Spanish rule. There were enough Jews living in Kingston that synagogues were reportedly opened in 1744 and 1787.
1699: A committee that had been formed to find a larger place for the growing Congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews “leased from Lady Ann Pointz (alias Littleton) and Sir Thomas Pointz (alias Littleton) a tract of land at Plough Yard, in Bevis Marks, for 61 years, with the option of renewal for a further 38 years, at £120 a year.” This would be the location for the famed Bevis Marks Synagogue which was more than a house of worship. It was the center the center of the Anglo Jewish world when that world encompassed the British Empire.
1702: In Great Britain an “Act to oblige Jews to maintain and provide for their Protestant children” took effect. This act of Parliament grew out of case involving Jacob de Mendez Berta and his daughter Mary who became a Protestant. According to one source, the father refused to continue to support his daughter after she converted and her newly adopted Protestant community did not want to shoulder the burden of her support. Hence, this legislation was adopted and would stay in effect until the middle of the 19thcentury.
1725: Over the next 12 months, starting from today, 26 of the entries for shipments from the port of New York involved Jewish merchants. This was 6.7% of the total. Of these entries, 6 were credited to Moses Levy, one of the colony’s leading merchants.
1763: Nathan Raphael and his wife gave birth to Raphael Raphael, the husband of Julia Asher with whom he had nine children.
1781(1st of Tammuz, 5541): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1781: George Washington wrote to Comte de Rochambeau as plans are made to move South and engage the British in Viriginia.
1785: In Savannah, GA, Jacob de Pass and his wife gave birth to Ralph de Pass.
1785: In Savannah, GA, Jacob de Pass and his first wife Leah gave birth to their daughter Sally.
1761(14th of Sivan): Moses Brandeis Charif the chief rabbi of Mayence and cabalist who was the son of Jacob Brandeis passed away
1793: As France continues to be embroiled in a Revolution that among other things removed the restrictions against the Jews of that country, the National Convention adopted that country’s first “republican constitution.
1794: Bowdoin College was founded in Brunswick, Maine. Today about ten percent of Bowdoin’s 1,650 students are Jewish. The school has ten Jewish Studies courses and a Hillel Chapter.
1803: In London, Judith (Barrow) Montefiore and Eliezer Montefiore, a prominent English merchant gave birth to their youngest son, Joseph Barrow Montefiore who made his fortune in Australia before returning to his native England.
1806: Áron Chorin “a Hungarian rabbi and pioneer of religious reform” who had been censured and punished by an Orthodox tribunal appealed to the Imperial Government for relief. The government “annulled the judgment and condemned the leader of his adversaries at Arad to pay the expenses of the lawsuit…Chorin declared that he forgave his adversary, and declined his claims for compensation of the expenses. To avoid further trouble, he determined to give up writing.
1807: Jacob Keyser married Harriet Jacobs at the Great Synagogue in the UK.
1807: Joseph Phillips married Sarah Elizabeth at the Western Synagogue in the UK.
1809: In Zülz, Prussian Silesia, Gittel and Marcus Jacob Loewe, Rabbi of Rosenburg gave birth to Louis Lowe who became a leading Orientalist and principal and director of Judith Lady Montefiore College at Ramsgate.
1826(19th of Sivan, 5586): Parashat Baeha’aloctcha
1826(19th of Sivan, 5586): Seventy-year old Israel ben Solomon Wahrmann, who had served as the rabbi at Bodrogh-Keresztur passed away today.
1826: Eliezer and Esther Symons, natives of Holland, gave birth to Henry Eliezer Symons, the husband of Emma Myers.
1832: Birthdate of Austrian native Jacob Fleishner, the husband of Fanny Fleischner and father of Isaac N. Fleischner who had settled in Portland, OR.
1834: Two days after she passed away, fifty-four year old Harriet Gompertz, the unmarried daughter of Abraham Wiesel Gompertz was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery today.
1838: In Goldingen in the Duchy of Courland in the Russian Empire, Martin Sass Eder and Dorina Kaiser gave birth to James Martin Eder who was known as Santiago Martin Eder Kaiser don Santiago Eder in Columbia where he was a pioneer in the sugar industry and a leading businessman.
1839: Birthdate of Solomon H. Sonnenschein, the Hungarian born American Rabbi who served Congregation Temple Israel in St. Louis and Temple B’nai Yeshurun in Des Moines, Iowa before his death in 1908.
1840: Birthdate of Émile Duclaux, the French chemist and microbiologist who “was a vocal support of Alfred Dreyfus.”1842: In Sidney, Australia, The Voice of Jacobreported that the Sultan of Turkey had called for an audience attended by all religious leaders which included the Hahambashi (Chief or Grand Rabbi) where he issued a firman protecting "all religious denominations" in Syria.
1843: “In in spite of the fact that the Jews of the city had contributed 12,900 scudi to do honor to the pope during his visit in 1841, an old decree was revived by Fra Vincenzo Soliva, Inquisitor of Ancona and other districts, forbidding Jews to reside or do business in any place where there was no ghetto, to employ Christian journeymen, to hire Christian servants, wet-nurses, or apprentices, to deal in books of any sort or in ecclesiastical robes, etc.”
1846: In Hungary, the residence tax was officially abolished. In order to have it cancelled the Jews had to pay a one-time fee of 1,200,000 florins.
1846(30th of Sivan, 5606): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1846: Isaac Harris married Rebekah Jacobs at the Western Synagogue in the UK.
1859: In County Kerry, Lt. Col. Henry Horatio Kitchener and Frances Anne Chevallier-Cole Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the great British military leader known simply as Lord Kitchener. His first step on the road to glory came in 1874 when the 24 year old Kitchener led a mapping and survey expedition to parts of “the Holy Land” under the direction of the Palestine Exploration Fund. The effects of the mapping expedition are still felt today since, among other thing, they provided the basis for delineating the border between the state of Israel and Lebanon.
1856: In Rome, a contingent of papal carabinieri “acting at the orders of the local Inquisitor, Father Pier Gaetan Feletti, took six year old Edgardo Mortara from his parent’s apartment because church officials discovered that Edgardo had been secretly baptized by a servant girls five years ago and that he could no longer “be raised in a Jewish household.” Thus began the scandal known as the Mortara Affair.
1861: Herman Makower helped to prepare “The General German Commercial Code” introduced in Prussia today.
1863: Almost two years after becoming naturalized, Samuel (Isaac) Henry Gluckstein began working as a “cigar manufacturer.”
1865: Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman, was mustered out as a soldier in the Union Army. He had enlisted in the Union Army in 1862 and had participated “in the battles of Chancellorsville, Brandy Station (where he was wounded), Gettysburg, Mine Run (where he was again wounded), Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor, Five Forks, Petersburg, and Appomattox Court House. He was also present at the surrender of Lee
1865: Philadelphian Henry Fr. Birnbuam who had enlisted as a Private in Company H completed three years of service in the Union Army as a Sergeant in the 65thRegiment of the Fifth Cavalry.
1868: Saul Henriques Valetine married his second wife Sarah Ornstein, the daughter of Phineas Ornstein and Adelaide Samuel who was born in 1845 at Middlesex.
1870: In Chicago, “Joseph B. and Clara (Wolfner) Greenhut gave birth to Benedict Joseph Gottlieb, the husband of Minnie Gottlieb who worked for his father, “the head of the Whiskey Trust after which he served as Treasurer of Siegel-Cooper Company and President of Monmouth Securities.
1873: In a sermon, Reverend Henry Ward Beecher gave the first public warning of rising anti-Semitism in the U.S. Beecher was a fighter for social justice, an abolitionist and the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
1877: According to reports published today, Judge Hilton is receiving more letters, calls and telegrams approving of his action (banning Jews from the Grand Union Hotel) than he has time to answer. Jewish leaders appear willing to let the matter die since they feel they have been supported in the court of public opinion.
1878: It was reported today that it appears as if there are no Jews spending the summer at the resort hotels in and around Longbeach, NJ. According to one source, the absence of Jewish guests can be explained by the downtown in the New York real estate market which has caused great economic hardship. Other sources attribute the absence to a desire on the part of the Jews to avoid being humiliated in an incident similar to that which had occurred last year at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY.
1882: It was reported today that in Russia, Count Tolstoy, the Minister of the Interior published a circular stating that officers who do not “prevent outrages against Jews” will be dismissed immediately.
1882: M.A. Kursheedt, the Managing Secretary of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society sent a letter to Secretary Jackson of the Board of Emigration that “the society will not take charge of any Russian refugees or other Jewish immigrants who may hereafter arrive in this city.”
1882: “Aid Need For Hebrew Refugees” published today described the desperate conditions facing the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society which lacks the funds to meet the needs of the growing stream of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe. Presently, the society can only provide shelter for only 500 of the 3,000 immigrants that include men, woman and children. To help meet the shortfall in funds, Jacob Schiff has contributed $10,000, Kuhn, Loeb & Co has given an additional $5,000 and Jess Seligman has also contributed $5,000. But Secretary Kursheedt said that others much follow the example of these donors if the society is going to be able to provide assistance to these immigrants let alone the thousands who are on their way.
1882: At the sanity hearing of his brother-in-law Samuel Obreight, Bernard Tausick described Obreight’s attempts at suicide “and his peculiar behavior at a party given in honor of his engagement to another young lady” whom he chose not to wed.
1883: Birthdate of Friedrich Löwy, the native of Bohemia, who gained famed as the librettist and lyricist Fritz Löhner-Beda. His fame was not enough to save him from being beaten to death at a camp near Auschwitz. While at Buchenwald he wrote Das Buchenwaldlied ("The Buchenwald Song"): O Buchenwald, I can’t forget about you, because you are my fate. Who leaves you, only he can appreciate how wonderful freedom is! O Buchenwald, we don’t cry and complain and whatever may be our destiny, even so we shall say "yes" to life for once the day shall come when we shall be free!
1883: Three days after he passed way, David Marcus Davis, the husband of Sarah Marcus and the father of Alice and Ernest Davis was buried today at the Balls Pond Cemetery.
1883: Birthdate of Victor Francis Hess, Austrian-born American physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize. Hess was not Jewish but his wife was. When the Nazis came to Austria, Hess came to America to protect his wife from persecution.
1884(1stof Tammuz, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1885: Joseph Cohen married Naomi Lipkie in the United Kingdom.
1885: It was reported today that the Pall Mall Gazette has printed “a hitherto unpublished proclamation of the Emir of Afghanistan” which he issued to his subjects in 1882. “It reviews the history of the Afghans, claiming that they are descended from the 10 lost tribes of Israel. It traces their descent from Adam though Jacob, their subjection in Egypt, their deliverance therefrom by Moses, their wanderings in the desert and their settlement in Syria under…Saul and Solomon, to their Babylonian captivity, their release, their wanderings on the hills of Ghour and their final settlement in Afghanistan.” The proclamation includes with an exhortation for his subjects “trust in God, who will preserve them from their terrible enemy, Russia” [Editor’s Note – Read in light of what has happened in Afghanistan since 1980, this is a fascinating little item.]
1886: As a sign of how accepted Jews were in New York, Rabbi Weiss and J.H. Hoffman, President of the Hebrew Technical Institute were among the dignitaries seated on the platform at the graduation ceremonies for the Normal College of the City of New York, an institution of higher education for women.
1887: “Probable Case of Suicide” published today described the last days of Joseph Freedman a Russian Jewish peddler who died in New Haven, Conn. After marrying Rittie Polrovideh a month ago, he left his child from an earlier marriage with her and went to Montreal. She refused to join him there, even when he came back to New Haven to plead his case. The failure of his personal and financial lives may have led him to poison himself. [Editor’s note – This is consistent with reports in the 21st century where there has been a major increase in suicides among the financially desperate in several southern European countries.]
1888: Youngsters under the charge of the Orphan Asylum of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society participated in a two hour long ceremony today that demonstrated their knowledge of Jewish history and Judaism. The children go to public school starting at the age of 6 and receive their training in Judaica at the asylum. PIncus Spiro received a box of tools for placing first in the exams and Samuel Levi received drawing instruments for placing second. Both boys have already passed the entrance exams for CCNY and will enter there in the fall. Jennie Berdinger was the leading female student.
1891: At their state convention, Iowa Democrats adopted a platform with a plank that reads “We abhor the persecutions of Russia toward the Jewish people and we believe that all civilized nations should protest against such barbarism and inhumanity.”
1891: Birthdate of Irving PIchel, the native of Pittsburgh and 1914 Harvard University graduate who began as stage actor before shifting to films with the advent of “talkies.”
1892: The Marquis de Mores, an anti-Semitic French officer, has been arrested for killing Captain Mayer, a Jewish officer whom he forced into facing him in a duel.
1894: New York lawyer Edward Jacobs, the brother of the late Joseph A. Jacobs who was Deputy Clerk of the City Court for fourteen year, received a telegram from the Governor of New York “summoning him to Albany” so that he can be appoint a Quarantine Commissioner.
1894: It is reported that the Czarevitch is visiting England accompanied by the Czar’s Court Chaplain, Janicheff, “a very prominent and active Jew-baiter.”
1894: It is reported today that population of Hungary includes 9 million Catholics, 3 million Protestants and 5 million others that include Jews, Orthodox Serbs and Romanians
1894: It was reported today that there are 12 Jews serving the Hungarian Chamber of Deputies and one serving in the upper legislative chamber. The Hungarian Diet had first recognized Jewish equality before the law in 1848 but was forced to rescind it following anti-Semitic riots. In 1867, the rights were restored which has resulted in the current electoral mix.
1894: The officers of the newly formed Jesse Seligman Literary Circle were listed today as George M. Hommell, President; Miss Nellie Gotthaimer, Vice President; Harry Hammell, Secretary and Miss Ella Stein, Treasurer.
1896(13thof Tammuz, 5656): Seventy-six year old Morris Langdsdorf, the Battenberg born son of Herz Seelig Langsdorf and Bina Biene Bienchen Langsdorf and husband of Hannah Hessel Langsdorf with whom he had had nine children passed away today in St. Louis after which he was buried in the New Mount Sinai Cemetery in Afton, MO.
1897: President James H. Hoffman delivered the opening address at the graduation exercises for the Hebrew Technical Institute which were held tonight at Cooper Union.
1897: At Temple Emanu-El, Rabbi Gustav Gottheil is scheduled to officiate at the funeral of Mayer Lehman, a native of Germany who moved from Alabama to New York where he was a member of Lehman Brothers who was the husband of Babetta Newgoff of New Orleans with whom he had four sons and three daughters.
1897: The will of Jacob Seholle, the banker who passed away at Orange, NJ was filed for probate today.
1897: The following bequests were reported today to be included in the will of the late Mortiz Cohn – $1,000 for Temple B’Nai Jeshurun; $750 for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Mt. Sinai Hospital; from $100 to $200 to eight other Jewish schools and charities; $30,000 to his granddaughter Ethel Klopfer. The residue of the estates is to be divided between his son Julius M. Cohn and his daughter Klopfer.
1897(24th of Sivan, 5657): Seventy-eight year old Sir John Law, the native of Jamaica who wanted to be a rabbi but became a successful lawyer instead which led to a seat in the House of Commons as a member of the Liberal Party, passed away today.
1898: The funeral for Moses Stein, a resident of Bath Beach who had been a successful wholesale butcher in Manhattan will take place this afternoon followed by interment in Washington Cemetery.
1898: It was reported today that Abraham Richter was the valedictorian of the 1898 Hebrew Technical Institute graduating class.
1898: In Boston, Julius B Rottenberg and Fannie Rottenberg gave birth to Viola Josephine Rottenberg, the graduate of Wellesley who became Viola Rottenberg Pinanski when she married Harvard Law School graduate and future judge, Abraham E. Pinanski
1898: During the Spanish American War, Adolph Rebenstisch of San Antonio, TX was wounded today while serving as a Private in Troop F.
1899: At Las Vegas, NM, Governor Theodore Roosevelt addressed a re-union of his “Rough Riders,” the regiment he created and led in the war against Spain. In an appeal for national harmony, Roosevelt reminder the listeners that his was a typical American regiment that included Jews as well as Protestants, Catholics, Easterners, Westerners Northerners and Southerners.” (This mention of Jews put the lie to claims being made at the time that Jews did not fight in American wars and were unpatriotic. It also was a shrewd move on T.R’s part since Jews were an important of his constituency in New York)
1899 “Burns and Scott Heroines” published today featured a comparison of the works of Robert Burn and Sir Walter Scott whose “masterpiece Ivanhoe” includes “villains…who bleed a Jew” and a description of Rebecca watching the deeds of the Black Knights from the lattice window of Torquilstone.
1899: “Religious New and Views” published today described the plans of Temple Sinai Congregation to purchase the building belong to Calvary Presbyterian Church on 116th Street near Lenox Avenue. After 18 years, the church is disbanding. The congregation is Reformed, “as are the majority of the New York Jewish congregations.”
1899: Attorney Max Cohen, the Vice President of the Orthodox Hebrew Society said today that “the society did not object to mission churches…but did object to the methods that have been employed.”
1899: Max Cohen said today that the Orthodox Hebrew Society is working to encourage “a more general observation of the Sabbath” and to that end is trying “to secure a modification of the legislation in regard to opening stores on Sunday.”
1899: “Religious News and Views” published today described the differences between the practices of the Reform congregations in New York. In some, like the one on Hester, the men sit downstairs and the women sit upstairs and they pray with their hats on. In other congregations, men and women sit together and men do not wear hats. Finally, there are those where the men and women sit together, but the men pray with their hats on.
1900: In the village of Bezwodne, Joseph and Bella (Pomerantz) Lemkin gave birth to Raphael Lemkin a lawyer who fought against genocide, a word he coined in 1943 by coming the Greek “genos” (Family) and the Latin “cide” (Killing).
1901: Birthdate of New York City native and Barnard College graduate Edith Mendel who gained fame as Edith Mendel Stern the author of four novels the first of which was Purse Strings and the wife attorney William A. Stern II.
1901: Start of the Jewish National Fund. The JNF or Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael was established at the Fifth Zionist Congress, which declared that "the fund shall be the property of the Jewish people as a whole". The purpose of the Fund was to collect money from Jews throughout the world to buy land in Palestine. Because of the nature of the purchases, the land belonged collectively to all of the Jewish people. The JNF became famous for its "little blue boxes" and for its Tree Purchase Program. For more about this amazing organization see www.jnf.org/site
1903: “Interior Minister Plehve ordered the police to suppress ‘the propaganda of the ideal of Zionism’” because the movement had abandoned “its aim of settling Jews in Palestine in favor of organizing Jews ‘in places of their present domicile.’”
1903” Birthdate of Moritz Meyer Bodd, the “retail clerk” who was arrested in 1942 which was the first step on his trip to Auschwitz where he was murdered.
1903: Russia prohibited Zionist meetings.
1906(1stof Tammuz, 5666): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1906(1stof Tammuz, 5666): Joseph “Joe” Strauss whose baseball record is so murky that he either began his major career at the age of 26 or 40, was Jewish or was not Jewish and played the outfield, the infield, catcher and pitcher, passed away today.
1908: Rabbi Martin Zielonka of El Paso, Texas, helps the Jews of Mexico organize their community.
1908: President Grover Cleveland died of heart failure. As President, Cleveland appointed Oscar Solomon Strauss envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Turkey in 1887. In 1897 Cleveland vetoed an immigration bill that included a literacy test. The literacy test was a thinly veiled attempt to close the doors to immigrants including the wave of Jews coming from Eastern Europe. In 1903, Cleveland, who was by now former President, was the featured speaker at the New York City rally protesting the Kishinev Pogroms.
1910: Birthdate of Judge Irving Kaufman, the presiding judge in the Rosenberg Spy Case. He was the one who sentenced them to death after they were both found guilty. Of course the anti-Semites who used the involvement of the Rosenbergs in a Soviet spy ring to further their claims of Communism being a Jewish conspiracy conveniently overlook the fact that Jews were involved in the prosecution and sentencing of the Rosenbergs. Kaufman passed away in 1992 at the age of 81.
1912(9th of Tammuz, 5672): Julia Richman the first Jewish woman to serve as principal in the New York Public School system and the first woman district superintendent of schools in the City of New York died in Paris as result of an infection that developed after an emergency operation.
1913: In Springfield, Illinois, the annual conference of the American Association of Officials of Charities and Correction which Henry Solomon of New York was a delegate opened today.
1913: In Chicago, “the monument in memory of Mrs. Mark T. Goldstine (nee Sadie Richter)” is scheduled to “be dedicated” this afternoon “at Graceland Cemetery.”
1914(30thof Sivan, 5674): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1914: Four days before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in what would be an example of the Alliance System that helped to bring on WWI, Austria-Hungary prepared a letter calling for the creation of an alliance against Russia that would include the Austro-Hungarians, Ottomans, Germans and Bulgarians
1914: Birthdate of Jan Karski, “a Polish World War II resistance movement fighter who in 1942 and 1943 reported to the Polish government in exile and the Western Allies on the situation in German-occupied Poland, especially the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the secretive Nazi extermination camps.”
1915: Benjamin “Benny” Snyder was attacked by three fellow inmates at the Tombs this morning just before he was to appear in court plead guilty to manslaughter in the death of “Joe the Greaser” Rosenzweig. The plea meant he got off with a ten year sentence but it earned him the reputation for being a rat and a squealer.(Yes, there are Jewish gangsters; but they are not the pride and joy of the community)
1915: Birthdate of Sophie Falkenstein, the wife of German-Jewish immigrant Arthur Caan and the mother of famous actor James Edmund Caan whom many know as “Sonny” the oldest of the Godfather’s three sons.
1916: It was reported today that plans for “the great federation for the support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York City which have been under consideration for a long time have been approved by the Special Committee on Preliminaries” and been printed pamphlet form so it may be submitted for consideration prior to a final vote next month.
1916: It was reported today that “while the Jewish population” of Romania which numbers about 250,000 “are not threatened with physical danger, they are persecuted…under civil laws” and “have never been admitted to general citizenship.”
1917: Delegates are scheduled to register today as part of the opening session of the Twentieth Annual Convention of the Federation of American Zionists.
1917: Mrs. Sam C. Klein presided over the June Social sponsored by the Ashe Emes Sisterhood.
1917: “A plaque was awarded to the Hebrew Educational Society as the winner of a series of debates with the South Brooklyn Y.M.H.A.”
1917: At Zion Temple on Ogden Avenue, Samuel Druck is scheduled to deliver a talk on Henri Bergson a today’s last regular meeting of the Jewish Literary Society.
1917: “Felix M. Warburg entertained one hundred of the most prominent and active workers in the news local federation of charities at a lawn party on the grounds of his summer home at White Plains, NY.
1918: In Pittsburgh, the 21st annual convention of the Federation of American Zionists continued for a second day.
1918: The fifth annual convention of Hadassah opened today in Pittsburgh, PA.
1918: Dr. Aaron Schaffer of Johns Hopkins University presided over “the fourth annual convention of the Intercollegiate Zionist Association.”
1918: Jacob Schiff of New York City protests against the Red Cross which has discriminated against Jews from Bulgaria and Turkey, as well as Germany and Austro-Hungary. Red Cross stated Jews from these lands, or children who have fathers who were born in these lands cannot serve in the Red Cross.
1919: In the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, Polish Prime Minister Ignacy Paderewski signed the Minorities Treaty that “awarded full civil, religious and political rights to all citizens of the new Poland, with the term ‘citizen’ applied broadly to all person either born or ‘habitually’ resident on Polish territory.” This meant that the Jews of Poland were guaranteed full citizenship in the newly reconstituted Poland. Louis Marshall, a prominent American Jew who had been part of Wilson’s delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, was responsible for this language; language would be incorporated in other treaties that grew out of the Versailles Conference which, on paper at least, opened the path to full citizenship for the Jews of Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey.
1920(9thof Av, 5680): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av
1920: In London, Stephen Winsten and his wife gave birth to Ruth Winsten who gained fame as the “animal welfare campaigner” the Ruth Harrison.
1920: In Cologne, German “painter Max Ernst and Luise Straus, a well-known art historian, journalist and a victim of the Nazis at Auschwitz gave birth to Hans-Ulrich Ernst who gained fame as artist Jimmy Ernst.
1921: “The House in Dragon Street” a silent film directed and produced by Richard Oswald was released today in Germany.
1921: At Friday evening services, Rabbi I. Mortimer Bloom is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Scapegoats” at the Hebrew Tabernacle on Broadway and 158thStreet.’
1921: At Friday evening services, Rabbi B.A. Tintner is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Organized Labor” at Temple Mount Zion on West 119th Street.
1922(28th of Sivan, 5682: An anti-Semitic nationalist assassinated Walter Rathenau, the Jewish German Foreign minister. Ironically, Rathenau was a German patriot who had been responsible for maintaining the German industrial might that enabled it to fight on for four years despite the Allied blockade.
1922: The Literary Digest published Harvard ‘Talk’ About Jews today which described Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell’s views about Jewish attendance at his elite institution.
1922: In Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, Harry Chakrin and the former Anna Borofsky gave birth to Jack Chakrin who gained fame as Jack Carter, a comedian whose career spanned almost forty years. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1923: Premiere of Kurt Weill’s “String Quartet, Op 8” today by the Hindemith-Amar Quartet.
1924: In New York City, Fay (née Resenthal), a secretary and bookkeeper, and Oscar Perl, a stationery salesman who founded a printing and advertising company gave birth Martin Lewis Perl who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1995.
1927: Birthdate of American Physicist, Martin Lewis Perl. The son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Perl won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1995.
1928: The New York Times reports on mass meetings held in Tel Aviv protesting the unwarranted deportation of Jewish immigrants from Palestine. A cable protesting the deportations sent by the citizens of Tel Aviv to the Colonial Office in London stated that “every Jew who enters Palestine is returning to his home. He cannot, therefore, be expelled under any law…The expulsions are an insult to the entire Jewish population…and…cause despair in the minds of the masses in the Diaspora, undermining every hope for entering Palestine.”
1929(16th of Sivan, 5689): Seventy year old Joseph Prag, the graduate of Queen’s College who was a member of the Anglo-Jewish Association and the Conjoint Committee for Foreign Affairs as well as a Warden of the North-West London Synagogue passed away today.
1930(28thof Sivan, 5690): Rabbi “Ben Zion Perl” passed away today in New York City
1930: Ceremonies began today marking the opening of the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva.
1932: In Karlsruhe, Germany Leo Traub who was a banker before the rise of the Nazis and Mimi Nussbaum gave birth to their only son Joseph Frederick Traub “who founded the computer science department at Columbia University and who helped develop algorithms used in scientific computing in physics and mathematics as well as on Wall Street.” (As reported by Steve Lohr)
1933: On the day of her return from a three-month trip through Palestine, Russia and other countries Jewish theatrical star Molly Picon, said that a new culture, made up of elements of the cultures of many peoples, is being built up in Palestine by Jews.
1933: Rabbi and Mrs. Morris Ginsberg gave birth to Sir Ian Derek Gainsford who served as Dean of King’s College of Medicine and Dentistry, Vice Principal of King’s College London and President of the Maccabaeans, a leading Anglo-Jewish charitable organization dating back to the 19th century.
1934: An advertisement for “Rosebrae Guest House, the only Jewish Boarding House on the Isle of Jersey which was Kosher” appeared in today’s Jewish Chronicle.
1935: Premiere of “Die schweigsame Frau” (The Silent Woman) for which Stefan Zweig provided the libretto
1936: As Arab violence continued to escalate unabated, The Palestine Post reported that Arab snipers killed one Jew and wounded four others on a bus close to Rosh Pina. The Arab Strike Committee threatened and punished Arabs who refused to join the general strike or refused to contribute to their strike funds. Five Arab villagers were killed by the railway military patrol after trains were ambushed twice. Jewish damages since April 19, the day on which the Arab disturbances began, were estimated at some quarter of a million pounds.
1937: Comedian Henny Youngman performed on the “Kate Smith Bandwagon” a variety show broadcast by WABC.
1937: Arthur Fiedler conducted a performance by the Boston Pops Orchestra broadcast by WJZ.
1937: After visiting with Benito Mussolini, Generoso Pope, a prominent New York City Italian American contractor, returned to the United States with a message from the Italian leader intended to reassure Jews in the United States that they had no reason to be concerned about the conditions of Italian Jews.
1937: New Yorker Paul Safro presided over the opening of the fourth annual convention of “Massada, the youth section of the Zionist Organization of America” being held at the Roosevelt Hotel where attendees heard Isaac Imber recommend “the launching of a movement to train pioneer groups for Palestine.”
1938: The outbreak of violence in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv area that began yesterday continued today with episodes of bomb-throwing and stabbing. In one incident an as yet unidentified Jew from Tel Aviv who was out walking with his wife and brother-in-law was stabbed by a group of Arabs who fled before the authorities arrived.
1938: The mutilated body of Father Mario Rozzine, head of an Italian convent near Jerusalem was discovered by the side of the road. While the Italian Consulate claimed the priest was killed by unidentified personal enemies, others believe that he had fallen victim to Arab terrorists.
1938: Today “movie-maker” Emeric Pressburg “married Ági Donáth, the daughter of Andor Donáth, a general merchant” in what would be a short, childless union.
1939: Brazil admits three thousand Jewish refugees from Germany.
1939: At the World’s Fair in New York City, The Café Tel Aviv at the Palestine Pavilion offers Kosher Cuisine including Palestinian specialties ranging in price from $.50 to $.85, lunch for $.65 and a complete dinner for $1.25.
1940: Margret and Hans Rey made telephone calls and wrote letters from Lisbon letting friends and family know that they were safe.
1940: Portuguese Prime Minister and “strongman” sent a message recalling Portuguese Consul Aristides de Sousa Mendes because the diplomate would not half his efforts to help Jews and others escaping from the Nazis who were sweeping their way across France and headed for the Iberian Peninsula.
1941: As it invaded Lithuania, the Wehrmachtoccupied Kovno where 10,000 Jews will be murdered by the end of July and Vilna and killed the Jews of Gorzhdy. (Please note; with some of the military activity in WW II there is a variance of dates by one or two days according to different sources. This can be accounted for in several ways including discrepancies between when an event may have begun and when it reached its height or the difference between the date an event happened and the date it appeared in the newspaper or other journals.)
1941(29th of Sivan, 5701): Seventy-three year old attorney and former acting Mayor of Rochester, NY, Isaac Adler, the son of Levi and Theresa Wile Adler “died this afternoon while at tending a city planning meeting at the Chamber of Commerce” in Rochester.
1941: Birthdate of Arthur Bruce “Art” Heyman, the 6’5” New Yorker who led Duke University to its first appearance in the Final Four before being drafted by the Knicks of the NBA. (As reported by William Yardely)
1942: Thousands Jews from of Lvov in the Ukraine, are killed at Janówska, Ukraine, and Piaski, Poland.
1942: In Los Angeles, CA, Sylvia Helen (née Silverstein) and Jack Dusick gave birth to Michele Lee Dusick who gained fame as the multi-talented Michele Lee whose career spanned television, Broadway and cinema.
1942: “Star and Garter” a musical revue produced by Mike Todd “opened at Broadway’s Music Box Theatre.”
1944: The United States Military Air Operations declares that bombing rail lines to Auschwitz is "impracticable" because it could be achieved only by diverting air support from "decisive operations" in progress; i.e., bombing German synthetic-oil plants. The fact is that many of these plants are located near Auschwitz.
1944: Lovers Edward Galinski, a Polish gentile, and Mala Zimetbaum, a Jew, escape from Auschwitz-Birkenau in purloined SS uniforms and remain at liberty for two weeks.
1944: At Birkenau, a Pole and a Jewish girl escaped. The girl, Mala Zimetbaum, escaped through an airlock in the gas chamber waiting room. She became the camp interpreter and fell in love with a Polish man. They managed to escape only to be eventually caught and brought back to Auschwitz where they were tortured. They then were to be hung in public view by thousands of prisoners. Instead she produced a razor blade and slashed her wrists in front of the onlookers. Incensed, the SS shot her dead.
1944: Chaim Barlas sent a copy of the ‘Auschwitz Protocols’ to his friend Giuseppe Rocalli – the future Pope John XXIII- and Rocalli immediately sent a summary of the protocols by telegraph to the Vatican. This undercuts the Vatican’s claim that it did not know about Auschwitz until October of 1944
1945: The U.S.S.R. captures the Free Republic of Schwarzenberg. The Free Republic of Schwarzenberg (German: Freie Republik Schwarzenberg) was a de facto independent entity that existed for several weeks after the German capitulation on May 8, 1945. The term Free Republic of Schwarzenbergactually derives from the 1984 novel Schwarzenbergby Stefan Heym. As the novel is based on actual events, the term has become used as a convenient short-hand for them. Stefan Heym was a German Jewish writer born in 1913 in Chemnitz. Heym’s works included TheKing David Report, The Wandering Jewsand Schwarzenberg. Stefan Heym was actually the pen name for Hellmuth Fleig who won the Jerusalem Prize in 1933. He died in Jerusalem during the Heinrich Heine Conference.
1946: As of today, “the British have at least three divisions” in Palestine, five thousand police and a number of naval units in Palestine whose primary mission is thwart attacks by various Jewish groups who are opposed to Britain’s decision to put further limits on Jewish immigration while allowing the return of the Grand Mufti who spent part of WW II in Berlin.
1947: Judge Simon Rifkind of New York, who had served on Ike’s staff, sent General Eisenhower a memo contending that establishing a Jewish state in Palestine would be in America’s best political and military interests. Ike sent copies of the memo to Secretary of State George Marshall and General Tom Handy who would take it to the Secretary of War.
1948: As Israel fights for its very existence, the Soviet blockade of Berlin began today on the same day that the Selective Service Act (America’s first peace-time military draft) went into effect. (Editor’s note – As always Jewish history takes place on the wider mosaic of world history and it necessary to understand the interaction of the two. In this case, President Truman was confronted with the challenge of stopping Soviet imperialism which limited his range of action during the creation of the Jewish state.)
1949: Daniel Frisch, the President of the ZOA who arrived in Israel yesterday, said “The small businessman is the forgotten man in Israel” and that he plans on asking Prime Minister Ben Gurion “to approve moves by the ZOA to undertake the rehabilitation of disabled Israelis and to offer economic assistance of the Israeli middle class.”
1950: In the UK, Annette Krarup and Walter Freud gave birth to David Anthony Freud, the great grandson of Sigmund Freud who went from a career as a journalist and businessman to as political leader.
1950: An Italian ship filled with 300 Torah scrolls, 2,000 prayer books and other religious items that had been left in Yemen by Jewish refugees docked at Elath after having sailed up the Gulf Aqaba, making it the first ship to use this route to reach the Jewish state. Up until now, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who controlled the east and west sides of the Gulf had not allowed passage of any ships bound for Israel. Nobody knows why the two Arab states did not stop the vessel or if the waterway would remain open.
1950: In Kiryat Haim, David Smilansky and Batya Silber gave birth to Moshe Smilansky who as Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon served as Chief of Staff of the IDF before joining Likud and serving in the Knesset “as well as the country's Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs.”
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that despite all the recent Iraqi threats, six aircraft arrived from Baghdad with 574 immigrants, and the seventh was expected shortly. It was estimated that some 4,000 Jews waited in Baghdad for transportation to Israel.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Council of Kibbutz Meuhad met at Givat Brenner with only Mapam members participating, following the Mapai members' decision to leave the movement.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Ffunerals took place of four Israeli soldiers killed in a clash with the Arab Legion near Kiryat Anavim.
1952(1st of Tammuz, 5711): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1952(1st of Tammuz, 5711): Sixty-four year old Wax Gordon died at Alcatraz where he was serving a twenty-five year sentence.
1952: Tel Aviv police were detaining two people suspected of stealing gold objects from the National Museum valued at $70,000 and then melting them down for sale as gold bullion. The objects in question have been missing for over a month.
1953: “Robot Monster” a black and white sci-fi film with music by Elmer Bernstein was released in the United States today.
1955: With Brooklyn Dodgers trailing the Milwaukee Braves 7 – 1, Sandy Koufax made his major league debut in the fifth inning facing Shortstop Johnny Logan who “hit a bloop single” off the man who became one of the greatest pitchers of all-time.
1956: Twenty-four year old Syracuse University trained chemist, Charles Gelman, the son of Fay Gleman and the founder of Gelman Instrument Company married Rita Gelman with whom he had four children - Rebecca, Nina, Steve and Eric Gelman.
1957: In Roth v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. Roth is Samuel Roth, the Polish born Jew who began a literary career after moving to the Lower East of New York.
1962: In Mexico City “chemist Carlos Sheinbaum Yoselevitz and biologist Annie Pardo Cemo gave birth to “Mexican politician, scientist and author” Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo who “has been the head of the government of Mexico City” since December, 2018
1962: In Pittsburgh, Rabbi A. Irving Schnipper presided over Congregation Beth El’s groundbreaking ceremonies which included speeches by Milton Sussman and Rabbi Kenneth Bromberg.
1962: After 16 performances at the New York City Center, the curtain come down a revival of “Fiorello!” the Jerry Bock musical with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and a book co-authored by Jerome Weidman
1966: A week after first being shown in London “Cul-de-Sac” a “comic thriller” directed by Roman Polanski and co-starring Lionel Stander, was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival.
1968: Birthdate of Israeli chess grandmaster Boris Gelfand.
1973: In Sioux City, Iowa, Laurie Goldblatt becomes Mrs. Bob Silber in a ceremony that joins together two future pillars of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa Jewish Community.
1974: “Soviet police arrested Professor Alexander Voronel, principal organizer of refusenik scientists’ seminar following an unsuccessful attempt to induce him to cancel the seminar.”
1974: “Andrei Sakharov urged President Nixon and Brezhnev to give more emphasis to human rights during their Moscow talks, including the release of Soviet political prisoners and free emigration.”
1976: Today at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue Rabbi Emanuel Rackman presided at the funeral services for “Dr. Maurice Sage, the President of the Jewish National Fund of America, the Russian born, French trained rabbi who father was “a chief rabbi of Paris.”
1976: Premiere of “Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson” co-starring Paul Newman and Harvey Keitel.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli pound was devalued by another 2 percent to IL7.97 to the dollar. This was the 10th creeping devaluation, begun as a policy in June 1975.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Gush Emunim announced that it would resist moving out from Kaddum, unless the resettlement was part of an overall plan for establishing Jewish settlement throughout Judea and Samaria.
1976: At a dinner hosted by Brandeis University, Elliot Richardson received the second annual Louis Dembitz Brandeis medal for distinguished legal service. Richardson was the Attorney General dismissed by President Nixon for his courageous refusal to participate in the Watergate Cover-up. The first recipient of the medal named for the distinguished Jewish lawyer and jurist, was Leon Jaworski who was a key player in the Watergate Investigations
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had asked Israelis to consume less and work more, and to accustom themselves to the realization of the country's difficult economic situation.
1979(29th of Sivan, 5739): Eighty-eight year old Lessing J. Rosenwald, who succeeded his father as Julius as President and later Chairman of the Board of Sears, Roebuck and Company passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)
1979: “Two Palestinians were killed while driving a truck bomb near a bus station in Tel Aviv.
1980(10th of Tammuz, 5740): Seventy three year old Oscar and Golden Globe Award winning cinematographer Boris Abelevich Kaufman, the native of Bialystok and the brother of filmmakers Dziga Vertov and Mikhail Kaufman passed away today in New York.
1981: Moshe Dayan announced that Israel has the capacity to make an atomic bomb.
1983: “Twilight Zone: The Movie” based on the Rod Serling television series produced by Steven Spielberg and co-starring Vic Morrow and Albert Brooks was released in the United States today.
1983: Yasser Arafat was banned from Damascus. Arafat had more enemies among the Arabs than he did among the Israelis. He was thrown out of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
1983: TheNew York Times reported on Mathilde Krim's newly established AIDS Medical Foundation.
1985: Birthdate of Michael Steven “Mike” Brown the native of Northbrook, Illinois who played hockey for the University of Michigan before going on to a career in the NHL.
1991(12th of Tammuz, 5751): Eighty-one year old Natie Brown, the native of Washington, DC, who fought Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis twice, reached the rank of Sergeant in WW II and lived in Charleston, West Virginia for 26 years where he worked for Mackie Incorporated Wholesale Company and attended B’nai Jacob Synagogue passed away today.
1992: In “Lee v Weisman” the U.S. Supreme Court protected the concept of separation of church and state by holding that “Including a clergy-led prayer within the events of a public high school graduation violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.” In this case, a Jewish family objected to a prayer at a graduation even though, in this case, it was led by a Rabbi.
1993: Yale computer science professor Dr. David Hillel Gelernter lost the sight in one eye, the hearing in one ear, and part of his right hand after receiving a mail-bomb from the Unabomber. Gelernter is classified variously as a conservative in the true sense of the word and/or an iconoclast. There was no apparent connection between his political beliefs and this evil deed.
1993: In Los Angeles, “Sharon Lyn (née Chalkin), a costume designer and fashion stylist, and Richard Feldstein, a tour accountant for Guns N' Roses” gave birth to actress Elizabeth Greer “Beanie” Feldstein the Wesleyan University graduate and sister of “music manager Jordan Feldstein” and “actor Jonah Hill.”
1994(15th of Tammuz, 5754): Eighty-six year old Sir Anthony Baruh Lousada, “a member of a prominent Anglo-Sepharid family who followed in the footsteps of his father Julian George Lousada, the solicitor and collector of impressionist paintings, passed away today.
1995(26th of Sivan, 5755): Esther Rome, creator of the “Women and Their Bodies” and author of Our Bodies, Ourselvespassed away.
1995(26th of Sivan, 5755): Meir "Zarro" Zorea passed away. Born in Bessarabia in 1923, he made Aliyah in 1925. During his service with the Jewish Brigade during World War II he received the Military Cross for bravery. His service with the IDF included leading a battalion during the War of Independence, aiding in the capture of Eichmann and commanding a tank corps in the Sinai during the Six Day War. After retiring with the rank of Major General he served as a member of the Knesset.
1999: “The Department of the Navy Board for Correction of Naval Records the ultimate arbiter of whether or not Admiral Jermey Boorda was entitled to wear the Combat "V", determined that despite the additions to Boorda's personnel file, he was not” marking an end to this tragic moment in the career of an illustrious naval officer.
2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Edward the Caresser: The Playboy Prince Who Became Edward VIIby Stanley Weintraub and Frontiers of Legal Theory by Richard Posner.
2002:”President Bush demands that the Palestinian Authority’s first step to peace begins with democratic accountability, economic reforms, and immediate cooperation in ending terrorist acts.”
2002: President Bush unveils his “vision of two states living side by side in peace and security as the key to peace, and to the roadmap as the route to get there.”
2004(5th of Tammuz, 5764): Ninety-seven year old Olga Rubinow Lurie “a child psychologist and specialist in the emotional health of children,” the wife of Walter A. Lurie and the daughter of “Dr. I. M. Rubinow, noted authority on and advocate for Social Security” passed away today.
2004: Elie Wiesel was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit of the Republic of Hungary by the nation’s president today. (Eight years later the Jewish Holocaust survivor and author would repudiate the award after accusing Hungary of “whitewashing tragic, criminal episodes.”
2005: Closing session of Security Israel - The 19th annual International Homeland Security Exhibition.
2005(17th of Sivan, 5765): Paul Winchell passed away at the age of 82. Born Paul Wilchin had a successful career as a ventriloquist and “voice actor.” Television audiences from the 1950’s will remember him and his two wooden-headed sidekicks – Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smif. Winchell never moved his lips. One of his best comic bits was drinking a glass of water while Jerry Mahoney kept “talking.” (As reported by Adam Bernstein)
2005: Release date for “Bewitched” directed and co-produced by Nora Ephron with a script by Salk Saks, Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron.
2005(17th of Sivan, 5765): Ninety-six year old Yedida Shofet the former Chief Rabbi of Iran passed away in Los Angeles.
2006: In an article entitled “Another Page from an Epic Chapter,”Danny Rubinstein reviewed Mihutz laofek, mi'ever larehov (Beyond the Horizon, Across the Street) by Hanoch Bartov.
2007: The opening game of the Israel Baseball League’s season takes place with the Modi’in Miracle facing the Petach Tikva Pioneers at Yarkon Sports Complex in Petah Tikva. This is not just the first game of the season, it is the first professional baseball game played in Israel.
2007: The Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of Travis Holland’s first novel, The Archivist’s Story which revolves around the fate of the Russian-Jewish short-story master Isaac Babel, author of the inimitable Red Cavalry tales. The New York Timesalso reviewed The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer. This is the second volume of Friedlander’s two-volume history of “Nazi Germany and the Jews.” The first volume, published in 1997 was entitled The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939. In these volumes, Friedländer convincingly challenges the view that the Holocaust was simply the result of bureaucrats doing what they were told.
2007: The Los Angeles Times reviewed Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger.
2008: In Washington, D.C. at the National Press Club Attorney Ted Sorensen, a trusted adviser to President John F. Kennedy, discusses and signs his new memoir, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History. When asked about his religious, this native of Lincoln, Nebraska this son of a Unitarian lawyer of Danish lineage and a mother of Russian-Jewish descent responded that “under Jewish law I am Jewish, but I consider myself Unitarian.”
2008(21st of Sivan, 5768): Ninety year old Leonid Hurwicz, the Nobel Prize winning economist passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)
2008:Sotheby's in Israel conducted an auction that was a fund-raiser for IsrALS, the local organization benefiting sufferers of the degenerative disease ALS.
2008: The Jewish Agency for Israel wrapped up a meeting of its boards of governors facing a shortfall of $20 million to $30 million in the current fiscal year and a gap of $45 million for next year’s budget caused by the steady decline of the value of the American dollar.
2008: Three Kassam rockets hit the western Negev this afternoon, in a second violation of a cease-fire between Hamas and the Israeli government. One of the rockets damaged a house in Sderot.
2009: Canadian born actress Neve Campbell returned to television in a starring role on NBC's The Philanthropist. The descendant of Sephardic Jews who converted to Catholicism, Campbell has said, "I am a practicing Catholic, but my lineage is Jewish, so if someone asks me if I'm Jewish, I say yes"
2009: David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, signs copies of his new book, Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East which was written with Ambassador Dennis Ross, special adviser to the secretary of state for the Gulf and Southwest Asia) at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.
2009: Bernard-Henri Lévy posted “a video on Dailymotion in support of the Iranian protesters who were being repressed after the contested elections.”
2010: The sixth season of “Futurama” starring Katey Sagal as “Leela” began airing today.
2010: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present a book signing and discussion feature Eric Metaxes author of the newly released Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.” Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
2010: Seventy-three year old Ben Sonnenberg the founder of the literary quarterly Grand Streetpassed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)
2011: Downtown Shabbat featuring Robyn Helzner and Cantor Larry Paul is scheduled to take place at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, DC.
2011: Stephen M. Saland, “a Republican member of the New York State Senate, representing the 41st District voted for New York’s Marriage Equality Act today providing the decisive vote in the passage of the legislation – legislation he had opposed in December of 2009.
2011: “Ghost the Musical” for which Cassie “Levy originated the role of Molly Jensen” transferred “London’s West End at the Piccadilly Theatre.”
2011: The Hebrew Educational Alliance is scheduled to sponsor “Nashira! Let Us Sing” followed by a community Shabbat Dinner.
2011: Congregation Shaarey Zedek and the Alliance for Jewish Education are scheduled to sponsor Shabbat in the Park in Birmingham, Michigan.
2011: The Obama administration is stepping up pressure on activists planning to challenge Israel's sea blockade of the Gaza Strip, warning that they will face action from Israeli authorities and that American participants may also be violating U.S. law. The U.S. State Department said today that attempts to break the blockade are "irresponsible and provocative" and that Israel has well-established means of delivering assistance to the Palestinian residents of Gaza.
2011: The first Citizenship Ceremony was held in Dublin Castle. The ceremon “where new citizens swear an oath to the state and obtain their certificate of citizenship” was the creation of Irish political leader Alan Joseph Shatter.
2011: According to today’s New Jersey Star Ledger, “Last week, the fledgling group,” Better Education For Kids co-founded by David Tepper, “launched a one million dollar campaign to advertise its mission and solicit donations.”
2012: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including HHhH, Laurent Binet’s novel about the Nazi monster Reinhard Heydrich and the two Czechoslovakian war heroes who set out to assassinate him – “Jozef Gab¿ík, a Slovak, and Jan Kubiš, a Czech, both soldiers who made their way to England after their nation was overrun by Hitler.”
2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Mission to Paris by Alan Furst, The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery by Witold Pilecki, Hitler by A. N. Wilson and As Consciousness Is Harnessed To Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980 by Susan Sontag.
2012: The American Conference of Cantors-Guild of Temple Musicians' Convention is scheduled to pen in Portland, OR.
2012: HAZAK is scheduled to sponsor a docent led tour of the Columbus Museum of Art which will include a visit to the Lod Mosaic Exhibit. “The Lod Mosaic was unearthed in 1996 as a group of workmen were in the process of widening a road in Lod. An extraordinarily detailed and large mosaic and exceptionally well-preserved, it dates from around 300 CE and is believed to be from a large villa of a wealthy Roman family. The mosaic is in the United States for a limited time before it travels to the Louvre in Paris, the Altes Museum in Berlin and then return to Israel.”
2012: The League for Yiddish and YIVO Institute are scheduled to sponsor a program in memory of Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter Z"L. during which Dr. Kalman Weiser of York University, Toronto, will speak on "Max Weinreich's Attitude to American Jews and the Beginnings of Yiddish Studies at American Universities in the 1940s.".
2012: Israeli cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform at solo recital in Teaneck, NJ as part of the Classical Sunday Concert series.
2012: Dr. Bob & Laurie Silber celebrate 39 years of wedded bliss
2012: Five mortar bombs landed in the Eshkol Regional Council, ending several hours of rare calm in the south. One of the bombs fell near a community dining room and another other two in an open area. No damage and injuries were reported. Earlier today Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to hit back at Gaza for any infraction of the truce.
2012: French police said they were investigating death threats made against the country’s chief rabbi. Polices said that they are looking for people connected to a photomontage disseminated through Facebook which shows Rabbi Gilles Bernheim with a revolver pointing at his head. The picture shows Bernheim wearing a Star of David on his forehead. (As reported by Times of Israel staff)
2012: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said tonight that Israel would respect the democratic process and the results of the vote in Egypt. Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi was declared a winner of a run-off vote for president of the country today, the first civilian and democratically elected person to hold the title. Israel had expressed fears that an Egypt ruled by the hard-line Islamist Brotherhood would undo the peace treaty between the countries and lead to frostier relations with Cairo. Netanyahu’s statement seemed designed to iterate the importance of keeping to the three-decade old peace agreement.
2012: “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” which opened in January is scheduled to have its final performance today at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in Manhattan.
2013: The Center for Jewish History and the Jewish Women’s Archives are scheduled to present “Bread and Roses, Too” a panel discussion about the role of Jewish women in the early labor movement.
2013: In San Diego, CA, the Center for Jewish Culture is schedule to host “The Merchant of Venice: What is it About Shylock and the Jews?” featuring Barry Edelstein, Artistic Director of the Old Globe and Associate Producer of NYC’s Public Theatre’s recent Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino
2013: The 29th Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies is scheduled to open today in Los Angeles, CA
2013: Friends and family celebrate the 40th Wedding Anniversary of Dr. Bob and Laurie Silber.
2013: The hotly debated “Prawer bill,” regulating Beduin settlements in the Negev narrowly passed in its first Knesset reading Monday, with 43 in favor and 40 opposed. (As reported by Lahav Harkov and Ariel Ben Solomon)
2013: At least 6 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards southern Israel very early this morning. Two of the rockets were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. The other rockets landed without causing any injuries. The areas that were hit include Rahat, in the Bnei Shimon Regional Council, Be’er Sheva and the Lachish Regional Council. Three more rockets were fired toward the Ashkelon area. (As reported by Lori Lowenthal Marcus)
2014: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host Marina Cantacuzino who will talk about The Forgiveness Project and “forgiveness, reconciliation and conflict resolution.”
2014: “Big Bad Wolves” which was nominated for 11 Israeli Academy Awards is scheduled to be shown at the Portland (OR) Jewish Film Festival.
2014: “A draft of one of the most popular songs of all time, Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” sold today for $2 million, which the auction house called a world record for a popular music manuscript.”
2014: “Four rockets were fired from Gaza Strip at Israel this evening, prompting the IAF to return fire and attack Gaza terror targets.” (As reported by Matan Tzuri)
2014: “Rachel Fraenkel, the mother of kidnapped teen Naftali Fraenkel, pleaded for international assistance to secure the release of her son and fellow captives Eyal Yifrach and Gil-ad Shaar, at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva” today. (As reported by Marissa Newman)
2014: Dr. Michael Steinlauf is scheduled to leave JFK today as he leads a tour of “Jewish Poland” sponsored by Gratz College.
2014: As he sought to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives from New York’s 1st district, Lee Zeldin won the Republican Primary today.
2014: A French court drops its lawsuit against Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, ruling the French comedian’s video mocking the Holocaust doesn’t constitute hate speech. (Europe’s notoriously strict hate speech laws regulate Holocaust denial as well as “racially or religiously discriminatory expression”.) (As reported by Stephanie Butnick)
2014(26th of Sivan, 5774): Ninety-eight year old actor Eli Wallach whose sixty year acting career on both stage in screen encompassed a wide variety of roles including, oddly enough, the role of the villainous Mexican bandito in the macho cult classic “The Magnificent Seven.”
2015: Today, President Obama signed an Executive Order, in the presence of the” family of Steve Sotloff of blessed memory “and other hostage families, for a broad overhaul regarding how it handles U.S. hostages held abroad by groups such as ISIS,”
2015: “Israel canceled permission for hundreds of residents of Gaza to enter Jerusalem to pray during Ramadan in Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, after rocket fire from the coastal enclave, Israeli officials said” today.
2015: In Cedar Rapids, IA, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet at Temple Judah where attendees will discuss The Midwife of Venice by Roberta Rich.
2015: Hadassah Associates of Hadassah Greater Washington is scheduled to host a charity Golf Outing in support of Hadassah’s Men's Health Initiative.
2015: Steve Gimble, author of Einstein: His Space and Times is scheduled to talk about the famous scientist at the National Museum of American Jewish History.
2016: This evening Shoshana Dembitz and Abigail Grafton “hosted a Shabbat dinner, during which their extended families met for the first time.”
2016: The “6th Annual International Cybersecurity Conference, also known as Cyber Week…organized by Tel Aviv University’s Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center, together with the Israeli National Cyber Bureau and Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs” is scheduled to come to an end today.
2016: “Three Kinds Words,” a “dramedy about three Jewish Israeli siblings” is scheduled to be shown at the Lincoln Plaza Cineman.
2016: “Septembers of Shiraz,” “a film about a prosperous Jewish family in Iran caught up in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah, based on Dalia Sofer’s well-received 2007 novel of the same name and which used her own family’s experiences as source material” is scheduled to “officially open a commercial run in New York and Los Angeles” today.
2017(30th of Sivan, 5777): Parashat Korach; Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
2017(30th of Sivan, 5777): Seventy-three year old Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, the founder of ArtScroll Mesorah, the dominate force in Jewish texts and husband of Rachel Zlotowitz with whom he had eight children including Ira, “the founder and President of Eastern Union Funding,” passed away today. (As reported by Joseph Berger)
2017: “Several mortar shells exploded in an open area in the Golan Heights near the border with Syria” this afternoon “leading to retaliatory air strikes.”
2017: Today “three women were kicked out of the Chicago Dyke March for carrying rainbow flags emblazoned with Jewish stars.”
2017: In Marseille, “a group of half a dozen women read the Torah at the Fleg Jewish.
2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Shabbat lunch following service for those “still around in 9th week.”
2017: “The Sounds,” a four week long classical musical festival is scheduled to end today in Israel.
2018: “The American Sephardi Federation and Caminos De Sefarad: Red de Juderías de España are scheduled to present a pop-up photographic exhibition on Spain’s formerly Jewish Quarters” during an evening that will also feature a presentation by Doreen Alhadeff, a member of Seattle’s Sephardic community, who was one of the first to be recognized under Spain’s Sephardic citizenship law, as well as a Spanish kosher wine tasting.”
2018: In Manchester, UK, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Zuzana: Music is Life” a film based on the life of harpsichordist Zuzana Ruzickova, who survived “three concentration camps, including Auschwitz.”
2018: In a testament to the vitality of small-town Jewish life, in Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to hold its Sisterhood Mitzvah Brunch.
2018: The Yotam Ben-Or Quartet is scheduled “to celebrate the release of their debut album in NYC” at the Cornelia Street Café.
2018: “Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World,” an exhibit featuring black and white portraits of human rights defender from the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist” is scheduled to close today at the Illinois Museum and Education Center.
2018: The photographic exhibition “Bedouin and Arab Israeli Communities in the Negev” which is part of the “Home: Lens on Israel” series, at the Temple Emanuel Streicker Center is scheduled to come to an end today.
2018: The United States government continues to sort out the issue of re-uniting the children of illegal immigrants with their parents following a change in a policy reportedly championed by White House official and Trump supporter Stephen Miller, whose Yiddish speaking family had come to the United States in the early 20th century “to escape the anti-Semitic pogroms in the Russian Empire.”
2018: “The Maimonides Scholars Program is scheduled to open at Yale University/
2018: “The 2018 Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremonies are scheduled to take place this afternoon, at American Jewish University in West Los Angeles.”
2019: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present “In the ‘Freud Laboratory’: The Yiddish Translation and Reception of Psychoanalysis” a talk that “explores the intersection between the linguistic architecture of modern Jewish psyche, in which Yiddish and other Jewish languages lie "deeper" than European tongues, and Freud's stratified notion of the psyche.”
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of the documentary “Inside the Mossad.”
2019: Turkish Film Week is scheduled to come to an end at the Jerusalem Cinematheque