JUNE 28
1320: “Pope John XXII issues Bullarium Romanum, ordering that Jews who convert to Christianity must be allowed to keep their property. The implication is that Jews who don't convert won't necessarily have their property rights protected.” (As reported by Austin Cline)
1389: Ottoman forces crush the armies of Christian Europe in Kosovo, opening the way for the Ottoman conquest of Southeastern Europe. This event is known as the Battle of Kosovo. The memory of this battle lingers to this day and has provided fuel for hostility between the different religious and ethnic groups in the Balkans. This victory of the forces of Islam over the Christians made their position in Europe just that much more precarious. And Christian insecurity was never a good thing for the Jewish population.
1443: “The marquis of Mantua, Italy issued favorable regulations, granting Jews freedom of religion, the right to settle internal disputes in rabbinic courts and permission to engage in all occupations.” (As described Abraham Bloch)
1476: In the Cariglia, the Kingdom of Naples, Giovanni Antonio Carafa and “Vittoria Camponeschi, the daughter of Pietro Lalle Camponeschi, 5th Conte di Montorio, a Neapolitan nobleman” gave birth to Gian Pietro Carafa who as Pope Paul VI issued Dudum postquam, the papal bull that expanded a 10-ducat tax on Jewish synagogues to help finance catechumen houses in Rome and Cum Nimis Absurdum, the papal bull that “ordered the creation of a Jewish ghetto in Rome.”
1491: Birthdate of King Henry VIII of England. Isabella of Aragon, the daughter of the Spanish King and Queen was Henry’s first wife. Before allowing the marriage to go forward, Henry had to promise that he would never allow Jews to settle in England. For the most part, Henry was true to his word although a small community of crypto-Jews may have settled in London. Henry’s other contact with Jews also surrounded his marriage to Isabella, only this time it revolved around his attempts to shed his wife. Henry sought to use the texts of what he called the Old Testament to prove that the marriage was invalid and that it was cursed by God. He attempted to get Rabbis in Italy to support his claims made to the Pope in Rome. The Rabbis decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Regardless of what the Bible said, they felt no need to risk their safety in Italy for the sake of capricious monarch living so far away.
1519: Charles V was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Charles was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella. Charles had already been on the Spanish throne for three years when he became Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. As king of Spain, Charles was a worthy heir to his grandparents. He continued the Inquisition and enforced their philosophy regarding Jews and Marranos. But in the Germanic and central European lands that came under his role, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Emperor showed a more benign, tolerant (for his time) attitude towards his Jewish subjects. “He made no attempt to institute the inquisition or even tamper with privileges extended by past emperors. At the Diet of 1544 held at Speyer, “Charles reaffirmed Jewish privileges” to such an extent that “the Speyer document was considered the most liberal and generous letter of protection ever granted to the Jews.” Charles defended the Jews against the anti-Semitic attacks of Martin Luther. “When Spanish troops entered Germany in 1546 during the Emperor’s campaign against rebellious Protestant princes…Charles issued an order to his army not to molest the Jews.” [Editor’s note: If you can find an explanation for this seemingly schizophrenic behavior, please let me know.]
1635: On behalf of the Company of the American Islands, a French owned enterprise Charles Lienard and Jean Duplessis, Lord of Ossonville began the colonization of the Island of Guadeloupe. This did not make the island part of the French Empire which made it possible for the Jews to settle there. Starting with their arrival in 1654, the Jews prospered in the fishing processing business and owned several sugar cane plantations. This would all come to an end when the colony was annexed by the French Empire and the Jews were expelled under the “Black Code.
1626: Vincent II, whom Salamone Rossi served as Concert Master, began his reign as Duke of Mantua.
1712: Birthdate of Swiss philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Unlike some other Enlightenment philosophers, Rousseau did not dabble in anti-Semitism. He may not have been Philo-Semitic but in his limited references to the Jewish people he wrote with unusual understanding and compassion. “We shall never know the inner motives of the Jews until the day they have their own free state, schools and universities where they can speak and argue without fear. Then, and only then, shall we know what they really have to say.”
1725: King Charles III of Hungary announced that he “intended to decrease the number of Jews in his domains” so “the government directed the counties to furnish statistics on the number of” Jewish subjects.
1757: The debate at Kamienice came to an end with the Sabbatians victorious.
1762: Catherine II (whom the Boyars called “the Great”) ascends the throne of Russia. The German born Czarina followed her husband Peter III who died under mysterious circumstances in which she might have had a hand. The Jewish historian Salo Baron described her as possessing a rational attitude. Under the partition of Poland, Catherine became the ruler of Lithuanian with its large Jewish population. At first, Catherine tried to “thread the needle” of not offending the Russian Orthodox by granting her Jewish subjects too much freedom while taking advantage of their professional and business skills. In the end, she succumbed to pressure from Russian merchants who hid behind religion and limited the activities of her Jewish subjects to an area that would become known as “The Pale of Settlement.”
1779: In Philadelphia, PA, Jonas Phillips and Rebecca Machada gave birth to Zalegman Phillips the successful lawyer and husband of Arabella Solomon whom he married when she was nineteen years old.
1805: In Jamaica, Abraham Quixano Henriques and Leah Rachel De Leon gave birth to Abigail Henriques who became Abigail Belinfante when she married Francis Belinfante.
1809: A.M. Rothschild writes from Frankfurt to his son Nathan in London telling him that writing in Hebrew was fine for discussing family matters but not for conveying business information.
1809: Joseph Friederberg married Frances Phillips at the Great Synagogue.
1811: John Pesman and Esther Capua gave birth to Lewis Pesman Capua, the husband of Jane Jacobs with whom he had four children.
1812: In Philadelphia, PA, Ezekiel Jacob Ezekiel and Rebecca Israel gave birth to Jacob Ezekiel the bookbinder turned Jewish leader and political figure who in 1847 introduced “an amendment to the code of the state of Virginia by which the observers of the Jewish Sabbath were placed on the same plane with those who rest on the ‘first day.’”
1815: Lazarus Samuel married Saratse Nathan at the Great Synagogue.
1815: Benjamin Olinde Rodrigues “a French banker, mathematician and social reformer” who had been born at Bordeaux in 1795 “was awarded a doctorate in mathematics today by the University of Paris” which was earned by his dissertation which contained what came to be called the “Rodrigues’ Formula”
1820: As of today it is claimed that “32 unauthorized Jews are living in Pilsen.”
1820: Michael Mordecai married Isabel Benjamin at the Great Synagogue.
1821: Birthdate of Max Maretzek, the native of Austria who became an opera impresario in London and New York.
1825: Twenty-seven year old German poet Heinrich Heine became a Protestant today.
1828: Hyam Harris was the first person interred by "Shaare Chessed," a burial society in New Orleans.
1831: Birthdate of Hungarian/German violinist and composer, Joseph Joachim.
1831: Birthdate of German historian Otto Stobbe who “was appointed to the Historical Committee of the German-Israelite Community Association” and who was a “colleague of Heinrich Graetz. In writing about his work in the field of Jewish history Stobbe said “Works on the history of the Jews are so little known in non-Jewish circles that even scholars, as I have often had occasion to see, are only imperfectly informed about the history of this people in Germany.” (As described by Michael Brenner)
1835: Henry Joel married Amelia Alvers at the Great Synagogue.
1836: Former President James Madison passed away. Madison worked with his mentor Thomas Jefferson to ensure freedom of religion in the state of Virginia in the years between the Revolution and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Madison played in a key role in the ratification of the first ten amendments of the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights. The first of those amendments guaranteed the separation of church and state. Madison was the first President to appoint a Jew to a U.S. diplomatic post.
1838: The coronation of Victoria of the United Kingdom took place today. Victoria was on the throne until 1901. Her long tenure gave an era its name. But under the British system of government she reigned but did not rule which means she had only a limited impact on growing role of Jews in her realm. Early in reign, she sided with Moses Montefiore as he sought to protect the Jews of Syria during the Damascus Blood Libel lending him her royal yacht for his trip to France. On the other hand, in 1869 she exercised her royal prerogative when it came to creating new peerages by blocking the appointment of Lionel Rothschild to the House of Lords. According to Frederick Morton, one of her biographers, “it was not until Suez became British though Jewish money” and she came under the spell of Benjamin Disraeli that she relented and allowed Lionel’s son to enter the Lords. As she aged, Victoria would visit “the French estate of Baron Rothschild.” Despite her lack of political clout, she did attempt to intervene on behalf of the Russian Jews as Tsar Alexander III worked to make their lives increasingly unbearable. On the other hand, she was not pleased with the growing number of Jews who made up the social circle of her son, the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII.
1846: Birthdate of Golčův Jeníkov (Bohemia) native Dr. Ignatz Kornfeld.
1848: Joseph Abrahams married Elizabeth Samuel at the Great Synagogue.
1848: Two days after the “June Days Uprising” had come to an in France, French banker Michel Goudchaux began serving as Minister of Finance in the newly formed government
1849: Levy Jacobs and Caroline Davis gave birth to Alfred Jacobs, the husband of Emily Flatau.
1851: David Salomons stood as a Liberal candidate at a by-election in the Greenwich constituency, and was elected today as one of the constituency's two Members of Parliament (MPs). He was not permitted to serve in the House of Commons, because he had not taken the oath of abjuration in the form established by Parliament. However, he did not withdraw quietly: instead he took the oath, but omitted the Christian phrases, and took his seat on the government benches. He was asked to withdraw, and did so on the second request, but he returned three days later, on 21 July 1851. In the debate that followed, Salomons defended his presence on grounds of having been elected by a large majority, but was eventually removed by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and fined £500 for having voted illegally in three divisions of the House
1852: Ferdinand Hiller’s Im Freien in G major was performed in London.
1853: In New Orleans, Emil Pollak and Caroline Pollak gave back to their second child and first daughter Carrie.
1855: Baron Maurice von Hirsch, the German-Jewish philanthropist who founded the Jewish Colonization Association, married Clara Bischoffsheim (born 1833), daughter of Jonathan-Raphaël Bischoffsheim of Brussels
1858: In Hampstead, London, Joseph and Adel Schloss gave birth to their “eldest son, James Joseph Schloss.”
1865: Henry Marks married Rosetta Jones at the Hambro Synagogue.
1866:Benjamin Disraeli began serving as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader in the House of Commons in the cabinet of the Earl of Derby, the Prime Minister.
1868: In Vienna, Carl Karoly Birnbaum and Sofie Zsofia Birnbaum gave birth to Salomon Birnbaum, the husband of Valerie Birnbaum, both of whom would die at Theresienstadt in 1943.
1870: In Middlesex, Henriette and Henry Lewis Raphael gave birth to Helen M. Raphael who died at the age of 16.
1874: In Dixon, Illinois, German immigrants Emanuel Petersberger and Berta Ochs gave birth to U of Iowa trained attorney Isaac Petersberger, who made his career in Davenport, IA where he raised his children Richard and Louise with his wife the former Hattie Goldstein
1874: It was reported today that in the second-hand clothing trade silk and velvet waistcoats that appear to be worn out can be re-worked and made into skull-caps for German and Polish Jews.
1877(17th of Tammuz, 5637):Tzom Tammuz
1878: B.L. Solomon & Sons one of the largest and oldest of importers and dealers in upholstery and furniture in the country failed today. The business was established was established 45 years ago by B.L Solomon under the name of Solomon and Hart.
1879: Birthdate of Little Rock, AR native Leon Volmer who “served as rabbi of a Reform congregation in Charleston, W. VA before becoming Superintendent of Jewish Orphans’ Home in New Orleans where “he advocated for progressive methods of institutional child care” because he believed that “if the Orphanage had any good reason for existing it must be to take the unfortunate child and provide a home for him, the atmosphere, the activities and the moral and spiritual life of which will the child a Social Force in the Social Construction of Society.”
1880: While “making its regular trip up the East River from Manhattan, the SS Seawanhaka caught fire forcing those on board, many of whom who could not swim, to choose between burning to death and jumping into the swamp water where the ship had come to rest. Among the many Jews on board who perished were Mordecai Manuel Noah Smith and for Assemblyman Joseph I. Stein.
1881(1stof Tammuz, 5641): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1881(1stof Tammuz, 5641): Eighty-two year old Philipp Schey Freiherr von Koromla, “the Hungarian merchant and philanthropist” who was made an Austrian noble by Emperor Francis Joseph I, making him the first Jew to be so elevated and who was the grandfather of Austrian biologist Hans Leo Przibram, passed away today.
1882: It was reported today that Henry Holt & Co is issuing a book about the effects of the American Revolution – America and France: The Influence of the United States on France in the Eighteenth Century by Lewis Rosenthal.
1882: The dedicatory services for the new Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews took place at the new building located a one half mile south of Yonkers on Riverdale Avenue in New York.
1882: In Yonkers, NY, the Home For Aged and Infirm operated by the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith began accepting residents on its opening day.
1882: During his address at the University of Mississippi commencement ceremony in Oxford, famous author George W. Cable called for the graduates to embrace the future, “Let us search provincialism out of the land as the Hebrew housewife purged her house of leaven on the eve of the Passover.” (Editor’s note – It may seem strange to find out that a rural southern audience would understand a reference to the arcane customs of the Jewish people.)
1882: About 7:30 this evening a group of striking freight handlers attacked Russian Jews who had replaced them in Battery Park just outside of Castle Garden. A half hour later the strikers turned their attention to a group of returning Italian workers who proved to be more of a problem since they were armed with armed bars, sticks and dirks. After police intervened the Jews said they would not go back to work on the piers as replacement workers for the strikers.
1882: It was reported that Dr. Samuel Davidson is preparing a new book on Christian eschatology in which he will compare the doctrines of Christianity and Judaism. [This is evidence of the difference between the European and American view of Judaism. In the latter case it was something to be studied not condemned.]
1883: Birthdate of right wing French political leader Pierre Laval who eventually became Prime Minister of the Vichy Government where he aggressively followed pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic policies that would lead to his execution in 1945.
1883: A Russian Jew named Julius Simon, his wife and six children arrived in New York today aboard the steam-ship Egyptian Monarch. Simon who said he was sent to the United States by the Jewish Ladies Board of London claims to be entirely destitute.
1884(5thof Tammuz, 5644): Parashat Tammuz
1884(5thof Tammuz, 5644): Thirty-two year old Isaac Jacob Gans, the Amsterdam born “son of Jacob and Rebecca Mozes Gans” and the husband of Vogeltje Dooseman passed away today.
1885: Birthdate of Norwegian attorney Fritz Cohn who was arrested at Asker in 1942 and died at Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of 57.
1885: “Orthodoxy and Reform” published today described the clash between these two wings of Judaism as personified by Rabbit Kohut on one sides and Rabbis Kohler and Gottheil on the other. Kohler contends that although he disagrees with Kohut on matters related to religion, he considers him a personal friend.
1885: It was reported today that the elevation of Lord Rothschild to a peerage is unique because of his ethnicity it follows the same pattern of other “plutocrats” who have been so honored.
1885: The Jewish neighborhood along Harrison Street suffered some of the worst damage when a rain storm struck Baltimore this morning followed by flooding which was the worst to hit the city since 1868.
1886: It was reported today that the new monthly magazine which will be the official publication of the B’nai B’rith, is to be named The Menorah. The Jewish fraternal organization is thought to represent over 10 per cent of the country’s Jewish population.
1886(25thof Sivan, 5646): Sixty-four year old Chaim Sofer who had been serving as rabbi “of the Orthodox congregation in the newly merged city of Budapest since 1879, passed away today.
1887: Israel Lipski was arrested today after he was found hiding under the bed of Miriam Angel who “had been murdered after being forced to consume nitric acid.”
1890: In Galveston, TX, Samson Heidenheirmer, President of the Standard Oil Mill and Joseph Marx, a local lawyer were arrested today and charged with arson in connection with a fire that destroyed the company last April.
1891: Twenty-two year old Annie Lippkin, the fiancée of a young tailor named Harry Cohen, went missing from her home on Suffolk Street today.
1891: “Twenty-six brigands” are demanding a ransom of £5,000 for the return of wealth Jew whom they kidnapped near Salonica.
1892: The Marquis de Mores who is scheduled to stand trial for killing Captain Armand Mayer has been provisionally released from custody.
1892: Birthdate of New York native Mechel Salpeter who gained fame as Max Gordon, the successful movie and theatrical producer.
1893: In Kiev, Jehiel and Elka Rubin Feldman gave birth to Abraham Jehiel Feldman who in 1906 came to the United States where he graduated from the University of Cincinnati and was ordained at HUC before going on to lead congregations in Athens, GA, Philadelphia, PA and West Hartford, CT while raising thre children – Daniel, Joan and Ella – with his wife the former Helen Bloch.
1893: “Tenements Unfit To Live In” published today described the efforts of the Board of Health to closed down building deemed “unfit for human habitation by reason of their unsanitary condition” including the building at 141 Madison. The ground floor is home to a laundry owned by Max Rosenson and the upper floors are home to five Jewish families who have no place else to go.
1893: It was reported that Herman Ahlwardt the anti-Semitic member of the Reichstag is serving out the sentence imposed on him for libeling Herr von Loewe, the Jewish arms maker and several Prussian officials. (Editor’s note – Libeling Jews was one thing; libeling Prussian military officials was another matter.)
1894: “A.P.A. Man Finally Talks” published today provides the plans the American Protective Society has after it has disposed of the Catholics. According to Charles D.P. Gibson, “Then we’ll look after some other classes that are dangerous to the Republic…the Jews for instance who are constantly dodging their public financial obligations and who are in consequence, laying up great private treasures. By means of their money they are eating into the very heart of the people. They are gradually getting control of everything and if left alone they will in twenty-five years, own all our institutions. We’ll stop them where they are.”
1894(24th of Sivan, 5654): Sixty-eight year old German chemist Moritz Traube passed away in Berlin.
1895: Mrs. Simon Goldberg, Jacob Rothschild and Simon Ottenberg were named as trustees in the will of Simon Goldberg which was signed today
1896(17thof Tammuz, 5656): Fast of Tammuz
1896(17thof Tammuz, 5656): Eighty-year old Adam Gimbel, the founder of Gimbel’s Department Stores passed away today in Philadelphia.
1897: Oren B. Meyer, a native of Texas and a West Point graduate who would cited for gallantry during the Spanish American War was promoted to the rank of 1stLieutenant while serving with the 3rd Cavalry of the United States Army.
1897: The day after he passed away, Harry Hyman Magnus, the son of Joseph and ‘Sarah Magnus was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery on Buckingham Road.
1897: It was reported today that the free entertainment enjoyed by over a thousand public school children at Educational Alliance’s auditorium grew out of an proposal originally championed by Julia Richman, a key figure in promoting quality public and Jewish education.
1897: Mrs. Elsie Schwager (nee Barstheit) and her new-born son converted to Judaism today. Following the conversion ceremony, Elsie and her 24 year old husband Phillip were married in a Jewish ceremony. The couple had been married in a civil ceremony more than a year ago.
1898: Jacques Marie Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac began serving as Minister of War who lied about the authenticity of evidence that would have cleared Alfred Dreyfus.
1899: It was reported today that Menahem M. Eichler, Michael Fried and Leon H. Elmaleh have graduated from JTS. The first two have been ordained as Rabbis and the third has earned a teaching degree.
1899: Birthdate of Samuel Ginsberg, the native of “Podwołoczyska, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Pidvolochysk, Ukraine)” who took the name Walter Krivitsky when he joined the Bolsheviks whom he would serve as a member of the Cheka and the NKVD while working as a clandestine agent.
1900(1stof Tammuz, 5660): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1900: Birthdate of Arthur Levitt, New York lawyer and politician who served as New York State Comptroller and was the father of Arthur Levitt, Jr., the SEC Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
1902: In Vesae, Lithuania, “American citizens Max and Dora (Flaxman) Davis” gave birth to University of Chicago Law School trained attorney Benjamin Bernard Davis and husband of Janice Muller with whom he had one son – Muller Davis – who was a partner in several law firms including Davis, Jones and Baer.
1902: “In Arverne, Queens, NYC, Mamie (Levy) and Dr. William Abrahams Rodgers, a prominent physician who had changed the family name from Abrahams” gave birth to Richard Charles Rodgers who would team with Lorenz Hart and then Oscar Hammerstein in writing numerous Broadway musicals including Oklahoma and Carousel. In reading Mr. Rodgers' obituary in the New York Times one would have no idea that he was Jewish. In fact the only hint comes in a comment that during the early 1920's when he could not get anything on Broadway he "put on amateur productions for schools and synagogues."
1904: “Tried to Burn Synagogue” published today described an investigation by the Camden police into a recent attempt to burn the Jewish house of worship at Eighth and Sycamore Streets which Rabbi Shane began when “someone deliberately threw a lighted roll of paper through the window among a pile shavings while he was conducting services.”
1906: Birthdate of Israeli archaeologistBinyamin Mazar. Besides having a distinguished career that included the excavation at Beth Shearim, Mazar produced a family of archaeologists including son Ory, grandchildren Eilat and Dan and nephew Amihai Mazar.
1906: Birthdate of Maria Goeppert Mayer, German born US atomic physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1963. Mayer was not Jewish. She did come to the United States during the 1930’s where she remained for the rest of her life. Aside from her scientific work, she supported Jewish female colleagues who had immigrated to the USA. This latter selfless act certainly should rate her at least honorable mention as a righteous gentile.
1907(17thof Av, 5667): Sixty-two year old William Van Praagh, a teacher of the deaf and mute passed away today in London.
1907: The “owner of six dwelling-houses in the parliamentary and metropolitan borough of Islington” was ordered to appear today before Joseph H. Polka, Esquire, on the justices of the peace for the county of London
1909: The cornerstone of the first Hebrew gymnasium Herzliah, was laid in Tel Aviv today.
1909: In Whitechapel, London, Judah Bergman and his mother Mildred gave birth to boxer Judah Bergman known as Jack “Kid” Berg or Jackie “Kid” Berg “who became the World Light Welterweight Champion in 1930
1911(2ndof Tammuz, 5671): Sixty-eight year old Abraham Abraham the founder of the Abraham & Straus department stores who learned the retail trade while working alongside other future department store developers Simon Bloomingdale and Benjamin Alton at Hart & Detttlebach passed away this afternoon when “he was stricken with acute indigestion” while fishing “in the vicinity of Kingston” near his summer home on Cherry Island.
1912: After four months of conflict, the entire Council of Jewish Community at Constantinople resigns.
1912: “Jewish booksellers from the Pale” of Settlement were “refused permission to attend the Booksellers’ Conference at St. Petersburg.”
1913(23rdof Sivan, 5673): Parashat Korach
1913: Belle Ringer and Rose Skaller have made arrangements for the luncheon meeting of The Young Women’s Auxiliary of the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society of Chicago scheduled to be held at the Lincoln Park Refrectory.
1913: In Chicago, at Beth El Temple, Rabbi Julius Rappaport officiated at Saturday morning services.
1913: It was reported today “90 percent of the 85 graduates at CCNY were Jews” and that those receiving “the highest honors at the graduation exercises” were also Jews.
1914: Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife were assassinated at Sarajevo by Serbian nationalists. According to at least one source, he was going to view the Sarajevo Haggadah when he was killed. This assassination set in motion the events that started World War One. A reading of Guns of August by Jewish historian Barbara Tuchman World War makes it obvious that war was not inevitable. It actually took more than a month for the war to actually break out.
(Editor’s note – a few random comments about the impact of the war on the Jewish people, not meant in any way to be all inclusive)
Three Austro-Hungarian Field Marshals and eight generals were Jewish. “One of them, Field Marshal Johann Georg Franz Hugo Friedlander, was deported by the Germans in 1943 from Vienna to the Theresienstadt Ghetto and from there in 1944, to Auschwitz, where he died.” While there are no exact figures the best estimates indicate that a million and half Jews served as soldiers in the armies on both sides of the conflict. The horrors of war fell hardest on the Jews of Eastern Europe. American Jews made Herculean efforts to provide aid for their suffering brethren. American Jews also sought to aid their co-religionists trapped in Palestine under the rule of the Ottomans as can be seen by their having the USS North Carolina, an American Battleship, go to Jaffa in 1914 with money and supplies collected by the American Jewish Committee and the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs. When America entered the war, the Jewish response was so strong that the 77th Division was referred to by some as “the Jewish division.” While Jews saw plenty of combat with the AEF with at least six of them winning the Medal of Honor, the most famous soldier may have been Irving Berlin whose musical contribution was patriotic and a real boost to moral. Bernard Baruch may be considered the most powerful Jew during the war. Not only was one of Wilson’s closest advisors on matters of war and he peace, as chairman of the War Industries Board he successfully managed the country economic mobilization which was critical to defeating the Central Powers. Strangely enough, his role, on the economic front mirrored that of Walter Rathenau, the German Jewish industrialist who understood the importance of industrial production to winning a modern war as could be seen by his role with the Raw Materials Department. The disproportionate service of German Jewish soldiers at “The Front” did nothing to quell the anti-Semitism that was apparently endemic to their Fatherland. The Zion Mule Corps, an all Jewish supply unit in the British Army performed in a most distinguished manner at Gallipoli and provided the impetus for the creation of the Jewish Legion an all Jewish combat regiment in the British Army that fought with General Allenby as he liberated Palestine from the Turks thus making it possible for the Balfour Declaration to have a reality on the ground. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Keep reading over the next four years for more specific daily items.
1914: Birthdate of Aribert Heima former Austrian doctor, also known as "Dr. Death". As an SS doctor in a Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen, he is accused of killing and torturing many inmates through various methods, such as direct injections of toxic compounds into the hearts of his victims. Along with Alois Brunner, Heim — who would now be (as of 2008) in his early nineties — is one of the last major Nazi fugitives still at large. However, according to a 2007 publication by former Israeli Air Force Colonel Danny Baz Heim was kidnapped from Canada and taken to Santa Catalina off the Californian coast, where he was killed by a Nazi hunting team code named “The Owl” in 1982. Baz himself claims to have been part of this group. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, as well as the French Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld say this is not true.
1914: Miss Henrietta Szold, Nathan Straus, Dr. J. L. Magnes, and Dr. Stephen Wise of New York arrived in Rochester, New York early this morning to attend a meeting of Zionists. The convention of Zionists will be formally opened by Louis Lipsky of New York, Chairman, who will introduce Dr. Schmarya Levin of Berlin. Levin will address the delegates in behalf of the International Executive Committee, whose headquarters are in Berlin. Dr Levin will speak in Hebrew and German. Max Lowenthal will welcome the delegates in behalf of the Jews of Rochester.
1914: Birthdate of Valerian Trifa, the Romanian Orthodox cleric who helped to foment the pogrom against the Jews of Bucharest who was finally brought to justice thanks to the efforts of Zev Golan. “Zev Golan is the English translator of the wartime memoirs of Stern Group commander Israel Eldad, The First Tithe; the author of the history Free Jerusalem; and the author of the Hebrew history Shofrot Shel Mered (The Shofars of the Revolt). Golan’s God, Man and Nietzsche: A Surprising Dialogue between Judaism and Modern Philosophers examines why Nietzsche both lauded and condemned Jews, and how Jewish and modern thinkers can, together, provide answers to the great problems of philosophy. Golan has also written extensively on economics and has edited several dozen studies of the Israeli economy, as well as the book Meshek BeMashber (An Economy in Crisis). His commentary has appeared in the Israeli dailies Haaretz and Globes. Golan lives in Jerusalem where he directs the Center for Public Policy at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
1915: During WW I, Joseph Hertz, the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire began visiting “advanced stations at the Western Front.”
1915: During a meeting of the Zionist Federation in Boston, a dinner was held in Mechanics’ Hall where 1,400 attendees listened to speeches by Louis D. Brandeis, Nathan Straus and Rabbi Stephen Wise, among others. Brandeis was hailed as the leader of the movement to create a Jewish home in Palestine. Rabbi Wise’s call for additional funds brought the following response. During the evening it was announced that Mr. and Mrs. Julius Rosenwald of Chicago would donate $1,000 per month to the Zionist cause for the duration of the World War and would continue making their donations for a full year after a peace treaty was signed an anonymous donor from New York gave $6,000 while Samuel Untermyer and Eugene Meyer each gave $3,000.
1915: “In the midst of demonstrations and strike demands on the question of "hiring and firing," Benjamin Schlesinger, the president of ILGWU asked the Protective Association to submit the dispute to a committee of unbiased persons. As a result a Council of Conciliation was appointed by Mayor John P. Mitchel and the strike was avoided
1915: The newly dedicated Hebrew Sheltering Society of Harlem home is scheduled to receive its first applicant at eight o’clock this morning.
1915: As of today, the officers of the Hebrew Sheltering Society of Harlem are President Socolow, Vice Presidents Lubelsky and Softin, Treasurer Drosin and Secretary Segel.
1915: As of today, Governor Slaton of Georgia has received about “5,000 telegrams and letters” only which “100 have condemned” his grant of clemency to Leo Frank.
1915: Ex-Governor John M. Slaton who has been under the protection of the Georgia National Guard since commuting Leo Frank’s death sentence and his wife left by train for New York this afternoon without any further incidents.
1915: The Federation of Rumanian Jews “announced the founding of a Home for Convalescents at Grand View on the Hudson and a plan for the establishment on the east side of a bureau to assist Rumanian Jews in obtaining citizenship.
1915: Courses which are part of a training program for Jewish communal workers that include lectures by Felix M. Warburg and Lillian D. Wald are scheduled to begin today at the Heinsheimer Memorial Building of the Y.M.H.A. at 92ndand Lexington
1915: Frank H. Hardison, the Massachusetts Insurance Commissioner addressed the Seventh Annual Convention of the Order of Sons of Zion
1915: The Boston Hadassah held a lunch this afternoon after which they conducted a business meeting.
1915: In Boston, at the Mechanics Hall Louis D. Brandies, Nathan Straus and Dr. Stephen Wise were among the speakers at the dinner attended by 1,400 people who were part of the meeting of the Zionists Federation.
1916(27th of Sivan, 5676: During WW I, Lt. Neville Newman of the Highland Light Infantry was killed today.
1917: In Manhattan, Aaron and Anna Schiff gave birth to Solomon “Sol” Joseph Schiff “whose rocketing, flat forehand propelled him to national and world table tennis championships in the 1930s when he was still in his teens, and who later earned the unofficial title “Mr. Table Tennis” as an ardent advocate for his sport…” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1917: Rabbi William Rosenau delivered the Message of the President to the Twenty-Eighth Annual Convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis at Buffalo, NY.
1917: The funeral of two and half year old Myron Paul Herskovitz, the son of Abraham and Dora Herskovitz is scheduled to take place today in Chicago.
1917: In Baltimore, MD, the Twentieth Annual Convention of the Federation of American Zionists which began on June 24 is scheduled to come to an today following a general business session.
1917: In a change intended to break the stalemate in the Middle East, Lord Allenby “assumed command of the Egyptian Expeditionary force” in the first step of a journey that would lead to Jerusalem and the beginning of British rule of parts of the Ottoman Empire.
1917: Fareynikt Moishe Zilberfarb began serving as Deputy-Secretary of Jewish Affairs in the General Secretariat of Ukraine, the main executive institution of the Ukrainian People's Republic.
1918: The Twenty-ninth Annual Convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis opened in Chicago, Illinois today.
1918: Birthdate of New York native Martin Greenberg the publisher and “editor of science fiction anthologies.”
1919(30thof Sivan, 5679): Parashat Korach; Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1919: The Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, officially ending World War I. The United States Senate would fail to ratify the treaty, which meant the U.S. would not join the League of Nations. Many Germans resented the terms of the treaty. This resentment helped to undermine the Weimar Republic and helped the Nazis in their rise to power. In other words, from the Jewish point of view, the treaty contained the seeds of destruction.
1919: In Chicago, Dr. Gerson B. Levi is scheduled to lead services at Temple B’nai Sholom
1919: In Chicago, at Temple Judea, Seymour Magidson is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah and Dr. Rudolph I. Coffee is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Jewish Types.”
1920: In a move that was aimed at limiting Jewish participation the General Purposes Committee of the London Council Country (LCC) voted by eleven to ten “to recommend to the full Council that, except in the case of teachers of foreign languages or where the Council resolved otherwise, no person other than natural-born British subjects be taken into the employ of the LCC.”
1920: The convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis all of whose attendees have received “a manuscript copy of the new Union Prayer Book” is scheduled to open today in Rochester.
1921; Birthdate of Dorothea Herz who as Dorothea Rabkin joined forces with her husband Leon to build a collection of American folk art noted for the whirligigs and other sculptures made by anonymous carvers in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Starting not long after their marriage in 1958, the Rabkins spent decades scouring flea markets and secondhand shops. They acquired some traditional pieces like quilts and baskets, but they also bought objects few people wanted then — the works by unschooled artisans that are known today as outsider art. Their collection grew to more than 1,200 items, including paintings by self-taught black artists like Sam Doyle and Mose Tolliver. But the Rabkins were best known for figural folk sculpture, amassing one of the finest collections in private hands. Most often carved in wood, sometimes made of metal, the sculptures are typically human in form, depicting men and women at work and at play. Besides whirligigs, articulated pieces designed to move or spin in a breeze, they include tradesmen’s mannequins, ventriloquists’ dummies and dolls. Artwork from the Rabkins’ collection has been reproduced widely in books and exhibited around the country. More than 200 of the couple’s pieces are now in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York. One of the most instantly recognizable is the whirligig “Uncle Sam Riding a Bicycle,” among the most emblematic works of American folk art of any kind. Nearly five feet long and carved of wood, it was made between 1880 and 1920. When a propeller at the front is turned, Uncle Sam, in top hat and tails, pedals his little bike. Behind him, a richly carved American flag (the reverse side is Canadian) seems to ripple in the breeze. Among other notable objects the Rabkins gave the museum is an elaborate sheet-metal farm scene from the early 20th century that, set in motion, is almost Rube Goldbergian in its symphony of contingencies: a man pumps water, and a horse drinks it; a fisherman pulls on his rod as a chicken steals a worm from his bait can. As associates said in interviews this week, Ms. Rabkin had a keen eye for unheralded talent. (She was an early advocate, for instance, of the Pennsylvania folk painter Justin McCarthy.) From the mid-1980s till her retirement in 2007, she served on the collections committee of the folk art museum, advising it on acquisitions. Rabkin was born in Berlin. Her father was Jewish. Her mother was not. After Hitler came to power in 1933, the mother left the family and repudiated her children. In the years that followed, Dorothea and her twin sister, Rose, were shuttled among sympathetic Christian neighbors, sometimes together, sometimes apart, often hidden in closets. They dared not go to school, and their formal education ended. After the war began, the twins, now young adults, found themselves adrift in Berlin. Living separately and furtively, they and an older sister, Elizabeth, passed as Gentiles. (Dorothea dyed her hair platinum blond, her husband said.) During this period, their father, pursued by the Gestapo, killed himself. Their mother survived the war. Rose made her way to New York in 1948. Dorothea arrived the next year, carrying, as she later said, “an empty suitcase.” She found work as a cook in a Schrafft’s restaurant and was later an assistant to a rare-book dealer. In January 1958, Dorothea met Leo Rabkin on a blind date; they married that May. A native of Cincinnati, Mr. Rabkin is an abstract artist whose work is in the collections of major museums; for many years he was also a teacher of troubled adolescents at the Livingston School for Girls on King Street in Manhattan. She passed away at the age of 87, a victim of Parkinson disease cared for by her husband Leo, her sole immediate survivor.
1922: Beginning of the Irish Civil War during which Robert Briscoe, the future Lord Mayor of Dublin, sided with the anti-treaty members of the IRA.
1923: Today Father Joachim Alexopoulos, who in 1943, when Greece was under Nazi occupation, devised a plan for hiding 700 Jewish residents of Volos which saved them from deportation and almost certain death,” “was appointed the first Greek Orthodox Bishop of Boston with the new Annunciation church, which was designated a cathedral, as his seat.”
1924: As the United States experienced an upswing in bigotry including anti-Semitism, the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross on Peavine Mountain in Nevada, following a similar event that had taken place at Reno in April of this year.
1924: In New York City, May (née Cohen) and Samuel Rudin gave birth to Jacob “Jack” Rudin the Bronze Star winning WW II veteran and real estate developer.
1924: “Doctor Stephen S. Wise, the Rabbi of the Free Synagogue delivered the invocation at the opening of the sixth session of the 1924 Democratic National Convention
1925: In Whitechapel, London Moshe Cailingold and his wife the former Anne Fenechel gave birth to Esther Cailingold the school teacher turned fighter who died in the battle for Jerusalem in 1948.
1926: In Brooklyn, James and Kate (née Brookman) Kaminsky gave birth to Melvin James Kaminsky who gained fame as of comedian/actor/director Mel Brooks.
1928: In Manhattan, a year after Benjamin Bass “had opened he Pelican Book Shop,” he and his wifeShirley (née Vogel) gave birth to Fred Bass, the businessman who made the Strand Bookstore a New York institution.
1929: Release date of the first film adaptation of “Showboat” based on the novel by Edna Ferber with music by Jerome Kern.
1929: Just four years before he would flee from Germany, Albert Einstein was one of the first of the two recipient of Max Planck Medals awarded today by the “German Physical Society.”
1929: In a move that would help perpetuate the myth of Germany as an innocent victim and help pave the way for the rise of the Nazis, today “on the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany observed a day of mourning” which including the publishing of “a proclamation signed by President Paul von Hindenburg and the entire cabinet” disclaiming Germany’s responsibility for starting World War I
1930: In London, Charles and Minnie (née Elbery) Gold gave birth to British director Jack Gold.
1932:Sibylle Aimée Marie-Antoinette Gabrielle de Riquetti de Mirabeau a French writer who used the pseudonym GYP passed away. She was “a fanatical anti-Semite & anti-Dreyfusard; in fact, while testifying at a court case in 1899 she gave her profession as "anti-Semite" rather than "writer".
1933: “In a speech to German newspaper publishers, Hitler describes the government’s new journalistic regulations.” (Jewish Virtual Library)
1934: “Of Human Bondage” produced by Pandro S. Berman, starring Leslie Howard with music by Max Steiner was released today in the United States.
1934: Today, Washington University trained lawyer Sam Elson, the holder of JSD from Yale who taught at his alma mater, was a member of the National Conference of Christians and Jews married Gertrude Clemens Palmer today.
1934: Birthdate of Carl Milton Levin a Democratic United States Senator from Michigan and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. He has been in the Senate since 1979 and Michigan's senior senator since 1995. He is the longest-serving US Senator ever to represent Michigan.
1935: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Arnold Asher, the graduate of Yeshiva College who received his MHL from Jewish Theological Seminary where he received his ordination and went to serve two congregations in St. Louis.
1935: U.S. premiere of “Love Me Forever” with a script by Jo Swerling and Sidney Buchman.
1936: The Palestine Post reported that after a train was derailed near Lydda, and one British soldier and an Arab railway man were killed, the town was ordered by the authorities to pay a 5,000 pound collective fine. The mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini again alleged in his statement, mailed to the high commissioner, that Jews planned to restore their ancient holy places on the site of al-Aksa mosque. He had also complained that British Army soldiers disregarded the sanctity of Muslim holy places and searched for arms hidden inside mosques. Two British soldiers were wounded while protecting linesmen repairing sabotaged telephone lines.
1936: At Saratoga Springs, NY, “more than 1,000 delegates at the opening of the annual convention of the Independent Order of B’rith Abraham voted this afternoon to conduct the golden jubilee of the order in connection with the fiftieth convention in New York City next year.”
1936: Sixty-five year old anarchist Alexander Berkman who unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Henry Clay Frick during a strike against U.S. Steel passed away today.
1936: Today, Longmans, Green & Co. is scheduled to published The Jews of Germany by Marvin Lowenthal which “is not merely an account of the events of the past years but the full story of the Jews in Germany from 321 A.D. down to the present time” by the author of A World Passed by that described “the surviving monuments and life of the Jews in Europe and Northern Africa.”
1936: “The Gollantz Saga” published today provided a review of Naomi Jacob’s latest work, The Founder of the House.
1936: It was reported today that “Polish Jews are depressed” over the action of the court at Radom in sentencing ten Jews to anywhere from eight month to eight years in prison in connection” with their role in defending themselves during the “anti-Jewish riots at Przytyk last March” and have closed theatres while they engage in fasting and prayer.
1936: At Asbury Park, NJ, the delegates to the 28th annual convention of the Federation of Polish Jews in America adopted “a group of resolutions deploring the wave of anti-Semitism in Europe” and charging the Polish Government “with having ignominiously surrendered to the forces of anarchy and mob violence.”
1937: During the Spanish Civil War, the Palafox Battalion, which included a company of Jewish volunteers named for Naftali Botwin, was formed today.
1937: Mordecai M. Danzis is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Present Condition of Jews in Germany and Palestine” at a meeting of the New Zionist Organization of America followed by a Johan J. Smertenko speaking on “Divide Palestine.”
1938: The British authorities refused to commute the sentence Solomon ben Yosef, a Jewish youth, who is to be hanged tomorrow for having fired at an Arab-owned bus although he caused no casualties.
1938: CBS broadcast the last episode of “the Ford Motor sponsored series ‘Watch the Fun Go By’ featuring Al Pearce.
1938: In New York City, “composer Arthur Schwartz and 1930s’ Broadway ingénue Kay Carrington” gave birth to New York radio personality Jonathan Schwartz who also has recorded parts of the Great American Songbook.
1938: It was reported today that “a renewed wave of suicides among Jews is sweeping Vienna as the result of Nazi orders that Jewish employees must be released by both ‘Aryan’ and Jewish firms” and that employers are forbidden to give” them “severance pay.”
1939: “Delegates to the forty second annual convention of the Zionist Organization of America heald an outdoor meeting at the Jewish Pavilion at the World’s Fair” after having concluded its regular business sessions. This occasion coincided with the 30th anniversary of the founding of Tel Aviv, the all-Jewish city that has grown from a sand dune to a modern metropolis with 150,000 inhabitants.
1939(11th of Tammuz, 5699): Seventy-year old Samuel Friend, the last Rabbi in Hanover whose wife Minna died at Theresienstadt in 1942, passed away today.
1940: As a result of its non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany that made WW II possible, the Soviet Union began the occupation and annexation of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertza region of Romania
1940: In a letter to Lord Lloyd lamenting the Colonial Sectary’s opposition to arming the Jews of Palestine, Churchill that because of this policy “twenty thousand sorely needed British and Australian troops were tied up in Palestine. This is the price we have to pay for the anti-Jewish policy which has been persisted in for some years…I is little less than a scandal at a time when we are fighting for our lives that these very large forces should be immobilized in support of a policy which only commends itself to a section of the Conservative Party.”
1940: “Dominican Republic Bars All but Sponsored Immigration” published today described changes in the Central American republic’s treatment of those seeking asylum including Jews from Europe.
1941: U.S. premiere of “Underground” a film about anti-Nazi resistance directed by Vincent Sherman,
1941: German forces entered the Polish city of Drohobych which had been in the Soviet Zone. This marked the start of the destruction of the Jewish community of Drohobych.
1941: Chief of Gestapo, Henirich Muller, sent Adolph Eichmann to review the destruction in Bialystok and Minsk.
1941: The Germans reoccupied Przemysl today which would prove to be a death sentence for all but 300 of its 17,000 Jewish inhabitants.
1941: For two days, in the German-occupied town of Kovno, Lithuania, Lithuanian police and released convicts use iron bars to beat hundreds of Jews to death in the city's streets. Thousands more Jews are murdered at Kovno, Lithuania, and another 5000 are killed at Brest-Litovsk, Belorussia.
1942: Following the end of fighting at Minsk 40,000 Jews are now trapped in the Nazi killing machine.
1942: All Jews living in France over the age of 6 are required to wear an armband with a yellow Star of David
1943: In Tunis Lola Bembaron and Siegried Wolinski gave birth to Georges David Wolinski “a French cartoonist and comics writer” who was killed during on a terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
1943: Samuel Levy, former Borough President of Manhattan and chairman of the Board of Directors of Yeshiva and Yeshiva College announced today that Dr. Samuel Belkin, Talmudic scholar and dean of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (Yeshiva) since 1941, has been elected president of Yeshiva and Yeshiva College
1944: As the Red Army approaches the concentration camp at Maly Trostinets, Belorussia, near Minsk, regular SS troops replace the non-German SS-auxiliary guards. All surviving prisoners--Jews and non-Jewish Russian civilians--are herded into a barracks that is set ablaze. Any prisoners who manage to exit the burning building are shot. About 20 Jews who had come to Maly Trostinets from the camp/ghetto at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, escape to the woods;
1945(17th of Tammuz, 5705): As the ashes of the Holocaust settle over Europe, Tzom Tammuz took on an additional level of sorrow.
1945: In New York, Lucille (née Geier) and Adolf N. Lakes, who escaped from Nazi Germany in 1935 gave birth to Jane Margaret Lakes, who as Jane Harman gave representing California’s 36thdistrict in 1993.
1946: Birthdate of Gilda Radner, the Detroit born, comedienne who gained famed for weekly appearances on the television show, Saturday Night Live.
1946: In the United States, premiere of “Dead of Night” a horror film produced by Michael Balcon.
1947: In New York, Morris Helprin, the president of London Films and actress Eleanor Lynn Helprin gave birth to Mark Helprin “an American novelist, journalist, and conservative commentator” who in “2006 Helprin received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award” and in 2010 “was awarded the Salvatori Prize in the American Founding by the Claremont Institute.”
1948(21st of Sivan, 5708): Eighty-three year old Gaston Michel Calmann-Lévy, the husband of Helen Calmann Levy and the father of Nicole Germaine Oulman and Robert Paul Michel Calmann-Levy, passed away today.
1948: “Count Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat appointed as a mediator by the UN” submitted his first plan to end hostilities which if adopted would have “abolished the Jewish state” and created a Kingdom of Transjordan with “a Jewish enclave” which meant the he was voiding Resolution 181 that had created the Jewish state in 1947.
1949: “High Schools for Israel” published today described the plans of Alliance Israelite Universelle to open “new high schools in Israel” and plans “to open additional elementary schools in other countries.
1949: “Irving Tick, the counsel to the Brooklyn Kosher Butchers Association” is scheduled to “be the guest of honor at a dinner tonight at the Belmont Plaza Hotel, given by the meat and provisions division of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.”
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that a modified scheme for national insurance was finally approved by the government and was to be brought before the Knesset. Registration continued for the Four-Year People's Housing Scheme. Twelve thousand housing units were expected to be allocated to needy citizens yearly.
1952: On Shabbat, in Tel Aviv, taxicab drivers pull their vehicles off the road in protest over the government’s new restriction on use of gasoline and restrictions on driving of personal vehicles.
1952: Albert Einstein granted permission for his named to be used for the medical center created by the merger of Northern Liberties Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital now known as the Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, PA which can trace its roots back to eh Jewish Hospital for the Aged, Infirmed and Destitute founded in 1864.
1954: A raid on Arab Legion camp at Azzun, 13 km east of Qalqilya by a seven man squad that included Meir Har-Zion led by Major Aharon Davidi came to a less than satisfactory end when it was discovered that Sergeant Yitzhak Jibli who had been wouned was taken prisoner by the Jordanians.
1955: U.S. premiere of the film version the novel “Not As A Stranger” directed and produced by Stanley Karmer.
1956: A bill designed to abolish the death penalty that had been introduced by Sydney Silverman received overwhelming approval in the House of Commons which was later voted down in the House of Lords.
1958: The curtain came down on the original Broadway production of “Auntie Mame” featuring Marian Winters as “Sally Cato MacDougal.”
1958: “Kings Go Forth,” a WW II movie co-starring Tony Curtis with music by Elmer Bernstein was released today in the United States.
1959: “Man of Vision” published today provided a review of Isaac Mayer Wise: Pioneer of American Judaismby Joseph Gumbiner, a biography for those 14 to 17 years old.
1959(22nd of Sivan, 5719): Seventy-one year old Herman Leopoldi, the Austrian composer and entertainer who survived Buchenwald passed away today in Vienna after suffering a heart attack.
1960: “Murder, Inc.” starring Peter Falk and directed by Stuart Rosenberg and Burt Balaban, the film’s producer was released today in the United States.
1964(18th of Tammuz, 5724): The Fast of Tammuz was observed for the first time during the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson.
1965: In Princeton, NJ, physicist Richard Hecht and his wife “Lenore, a psychotherapist” gave birth to Tony nominated actress and singer Jessica Hecht, the younger sister of Elizabeth Hecht and the step-daughter of psychiatrist Howard Iger.
1966: Port Arthur native Irving Loeb Goldberg, a graduate of the University of Texas and Harvard Law School “was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson to a new seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit created by 80 Stat. 75.”
1967: Several thousand Jews returned to the Hebrew University amphitheater on Mount Scopus, the scene of the inauguration of the university in 1925, cut off from the rest of Jerusalem since 1948.
1967: “Gunn” a movie based on the television detective Peter Gunn featuring Alan Oppenheimer as “Whiteside” was released in the United States today.
1967: Israel removed the barriers that separated occupied east Jerusalem from the rest of the city. This marked the first time that Jerusalem was one city since the illegal occupation by the Jordanians in 1948.
1969: Seymour Pine led the raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. Inspector Pine, who was commander of the New York Police Department’s vice squad for Lower Manhattan when led eight officers into the Stonewall Inn, an illegal club frequented by cross-dressers. Pine later apologized for his role in the raid. The raid touched off the Stonewall Uprising, a major turning point for the GLBT to gain full civil rights.
1969: Birthdate of award winning Israeli actress of Ayelet Zurer
1973: “Mohammad Boudia, the Algerian-born director of operations for Black September in France, was killed in Paris by a pressure-activated bomb packed with heavy nuts and bolts placed under his car seat.”
1973 Among those whose names appeared in the Lists of White House 'Enemies' and Memorandums Relating to Those Named published today were Alfred P. Slaner, Daniel Schoor, Marvin Kalb and Barbara Streisand.
1975: Rod Serling passed away. He gained fame as the creator and opening line presenter of Twilight Zone television series. Serling was born and raised as a Reform Jew. He became a Unitarian while in college in an attempt to mollify his wife's family who were upset at the prospect of having a Jewish son-in-law.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that an Air France jumbo jet was hijacked over Greece with some 216 passengers, including about 70 Israelis, aboard. This was the first instance of the hijacking of an Air France plane. Distraught relatives of Israeli passengers waited all night at Ben-Gurion Airport and the Air France offices in Tel Aviv. (This would prove to be the first act in an adventure that became known as The Raid on Entebbe.)
1976: Air France Flight 139, which had been hijacked by terrorists, arrived at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The four hijackers were joined by several comrades who were supported by Idi Amin, the pro-Palestinian Uganda dictator.
1977: “One On One” co-starring Robby Benson (Robin David Segal) who also co-authored the screenplay was released today in the United States.
1979(2nd of Tammuz, 5739): Eighty-four composer and conductor Paul Dessau passed away today.
1979: “The Holocaust Survivors Film Project (HFSP)” which created the Holocaust Survivors Film Project (HFSP), “a collection of recorded interviews with witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust located a Yale University” was formally launched today.
1979(2nd of Tammuz, 5739): Stuart Schulberg the son of producer and studio executive B.P. Schulberg and younger brother of novelist/screenwriter passed away today.
1980: Molly Picon received a Creative Achievement Award from the Performing Arts Unit of B'nai B'rith.
1984: “Shmuel Flatto-Sharon, a financier wanted in France, today lost a 12-year struggle to stay out of prison.”
1984(28th of Sivan, 5744): Yigael Yadin an Israeli archeologist, politician, and the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, passed away. There is no way to do justice to the life of this fascinating man who did it all from leading Israel in the fight for independence to taking part in some of the most important archaeological digs in history. If you did not know he had lived this life you would have thought it was a product of some famous fiction writer.
1985(9th of Tammuz, 5745): Eighty-six year old Bialysok-born British composer Mischa Spoliansky whose first work in England was creating the music for Sanders of the River, the 1935 cinematic production by the Korda brothers.
1985: “St. Elmo’s Fire,” a dark look at youthful transformation directed by Joel Schumacher who also co-authored the script and co-starring Martin Balsam was released today in the United States.
1986: After 524 performances and 23 previews Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues” directed by Gene Saks closed out its Broadway run at the Neil Simon Theatre.
1986: In Los Angeles, “ormer Geffen Records A&R exec/record producer Tony Berg” and his wife gave birth indie rock vocalist “Elizabeth Anne ‘Z’ Berg.”
1987: A children’s memorial designed by Moshe Safdie and financed by an American Jew named Abraham Spiegel who had lost his two year old son at Auschwitz, opened at Yad Vashem
1988: Dame Shirley Porter (born Shirley Cohen) began serving as Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London.
1988: Iris Margaret Origo, an Anglo-Irish writer who helped to save Jewish children through the kindertransport including the painter Frank Helmut Auerbach passed away today.
1991: “The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear” directed by David Zucker who also co-authored the script for the films on which Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker served as executive producers was released in the United States today.
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 who played “Minnie Fay” in a Broadway revival of “Hello, Dolly” and “Julie Steffans” in the Academy Award nominated comedy “Lady Bird._
1995: Joseph Stiglitz was appointed Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers which made a member of the Clinton Cabinet.
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth by Norman G. Finkelstein and Ruth Bettina Birn.
2001: Ekaterina (Katya) Weintraub, 27, of Ganim in northern Samaria was killed and another woman injured late Thursday afternoon by shots fired at the two-car convoy on the Jenin bypass road.
2001 in New York City, New York, Matt Bloom defeated Kane to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship.
2001: American philosopher Mortimer Adler passed away. Adler was born into a non-observant Jewish home. He began his philosophic quest in his teens. Before his death, Adler converted to Roman Catholicism.
2002: “Mr. Deed” a remake of the 1936 comedy hit starring Adam Sandler and Winona Ryder was released in the United States today.
2003: At the Library of Congress opening of an exhibition entitled Herblock’s Gift: Selections from the Herb Block Foundation Collection
2004: “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” a comedy produced by Judd Apatow and co-starring Paull Rudd premiered in Los Angeles.
2004: Raleb Majadele entered the Knesset on today as a replacement for Avraham Burg, who had resigned.
2004: Mordechai Yosepov, 49, and Afik Zahavi, four, were killed when a Kassam rocket fired by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip struck near a nursery school in the northern Negev town of Sderot.
2005(24th of Sivan, 5654): On the day before his 73rd birthday, Philip Hobson, the British critic and poet who was the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants passed away today in London.
2006: The Popular Resistance Committees, which earlier in the day threatened to “butcher” Eliyahu Asheri “in front of TV cameras” “stated that the 18 year old had been killed.”
2007: Screening of “FromPhiladelphia to the Front” at the Vilna Shul / Boston Center for Jewish Heritage in Boston, MA. For more about this film see www.fromphiladelphiatothefront.com
2007: Israel’s President Moshe Katsav signed a plea agreement under which the rape charges against him will be dropped and he will serve no active jail time.
2007: Bravo began broadcasting “Hey Paula,” the reality television show “which followed Paula Abdul through her day-to-day life.
2007: David Miliband begins serving as Secretary of State of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
2007: Tel Aviv held its three White Night festival. Following the tradition of the French, the cultural institutions of Israel’s largest metropolis keep their doors open until “the wee hours of the night.”
2007(12th of Tammuz, 5767): Rabbi Abraham J. Klausner, a Jewish chaplain in the United States Army who arrived at the Dachau concentration camp a few days after its liberation in 1945 and a strong voice for thousands of Holocaust survivors who remained in displaced persons camps for years after the war, passed away at his home in New Mexico at the age of 92. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
2008: Birkat Hachodesh - On Shabbat, Jews around the world prepare for the saddest month of the year, by announcing that month of Av will arrive on the seventh day of the upcoming week.
2009(6th of Tammuz, 5769): Seventy-nine year old Rabbi Simcha Binem Lieberman, the Gerrer Hasid turned Warsaw Ghetto freedom fighter, turned Talmudic scholar passed away today.
2009: "The Java Jews, an energetic and talented group from Des Moines, IA, with guest artist John Manning, University of Iowa Professor of Tuba perform at the Hillel House at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone” by D.D. Guttenplan
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish reader including “Arthur Miller: 1915-1962” by Christopher Bigsby and the recently released paperback edition of “For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago” by Simon Baatz
2009: Today, Gideon Shalit’s family said that they would no longer respond to ongoing rumors about their son's release. They claimed the rumors were released by Hamas in order to put pressure on the Israeli government to free terrorists. Defense Minister Barak, too, claimed the rumors are harmful to the efforts to achieve the soldier's release.
2009: The Civil Aviation Authority suspended flights to three southern Russian cities today following a dispute with Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency.
2009: Tony Kushner’s latest play, “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures,” is scheduled to have its final performance.2010: Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings began today.
2010:The committee appointed to investigate the flotilla crisis of a month ago held its first meeting today
2011:Philip Roth, the much-lauded author of "Portnoy's Complaint", is scheduled to be officially awarded the biennial Man Booker International Prize in London today. The prize, announced during the Sydney Writers' Festival, is worth 60,000 pounds for the winner, and living authors whose works of fiction are either originally in English or generally available in English translation are eligible. It honors a writer's body of work as opposed to the annual Man Booker Prize for Fiction, which is awarded for a single book.
2011: An opening reception is scheduled to be held this evening marking the opening of an exhibition that will include “Under Destruction” a work created by Ariel Schlesinger, a sabara who studied at Bezalel, Academy for Art and Design, Jerusalem
2011:Justice Ministry officials came out today in defense of Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan, who been under public attack in the wake of Rabbi Dov Lior's arrest a day earlier for allegedly encouraging incitement.
2011: The lower house of the Dutch parliament voted to ban the ritual slaughter of animals, Reuters reported.
2011: Dr. Oliver Wolf Sacks discussed his work and his personal health issues during the BBC documentary “Imagine.”
2011: According to Haaretz, today in his “remarks to the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians, Ronald Lauder scolded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a number of missteps, including lacking a diplomatic plan heading into the September UN vote on Palestinian statehood and setting preconditions for negotiations as part of the peace process in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict,
2011:An estimated hundred thousand people took part in the funeral procession of Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz in Bnei Brack today. Lefkowitz, an admired educational figure in the Lithuanian and general haredi world, passed away at the age of 97 yesterdy. Born in Valozhyn, he arrived in Israel in 1936. For over the past 50 years he headed the prestigious Yeshivat Ponovezh L’Tzeirim for young yeshiva students in Bnei Brak, alongside Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman. Over the years Lefkowitz became one of the sector's leading educators, who rarely was involved in political issues, considered an authority on matters of spiritual guidance.
2011: Shia LaBeouf “reprised his role in the third live-action Transformers film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” which was released today.
2012: The remaining 18 families living at Givat Ulpana are scheduled to leave their homes today and move to temporary housing at a nearby military base. (As reported by Josh Davidovich)
2012: In Portland, Oregon, The American Conference of Cantors-Guild of Temple Musicians' Convention is scheduled to come to a close.
2012: Chris Murphy, Chief of Staff to D.C. Mayor Gray, is scheduled to speak at noontime meeting sponsored by The D.C. Commission of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC)
2012: Israeli cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform at the Peace & Love Festival in Borlange, Sweden.
2012:The IDF is bolstering defenses along the Syrian border and beefing up its forces due to concern that terrorist groups are planning a cross-border attack in the Golan Heights, commander of Division 36 Brig.-Gen. Tamir Hyman said today.
2012:Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned members of the Keshev Committee today that unless mandatory national service for the Arab sector is instituted, he may decide not to bring the committee's recommendations to the Knesset for a vote. The Keshev Committee, tasked with drafting proposals to replace the Tal Law, announced earlier today that the panel had decided instead to institute a recruitment target for national service in the Arab community of at least 6,000 recruits from the sector by 2016.
2012:Dozens of artists, musicians and performers have joined a Facebook campaign calling for a boycott of the Tel Aviv municipality's annual White Night event today, to protest police violence against social justice demonstrators last week.
2013: “Fill the Void,” a film that “tells the story of an Orthodox Hassidic Family from Tel Aviv is scheduled to open in several theatres including the Chez Artiste 3 in Denver, the Camelot in Palm Springs, the Criterion in New Haven and the River Oaks Theatre 3 in Houston.
2013: Marlene Trestman is scheduled to deliver the Donald S. Shire lecture at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. “The speech is timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Department of Labor in addition to recognizing the 75th and 50th anniversaries of the Fair Labor and Equal Pay Acts, respectively, for which Bessie Margolin worked tirelessly. (As reported by Alan Samson, CCJN)
2013: “The Attack,” a film about an Israeli-Arab doctor whose wife is killed in a terrorist attacks is scheduled to be released at theatres throughout the United States.
2013: Marlene Trestman will deliver the Donald S. Shire lecture at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. The speech is timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Department of Labor in addition to recognizing the 75th and 50th anniversaries of the Fair Labor and Equal Pay Acts, respectively, for which Bessie Margolin worked tirelessly. (As reported by Alan Smason)
2013: “The Sexuality Spectrum sponsored by HUC-JIR is scheduled to come to an end.
2013: In the United Kingdom, premiere of “The Act of Killing” a documentary directed by Joshua Oppenheimer.
2013: At the Weiner Library, Filmmaker Alan Reich is scheduled to discuss his latest project, “The Last Boat,” which tells the story of the incredible rescue of seventy Jewish children and their two chaperones out of Poland on a British boat arriving in England three days before the start of World War Two.
2013: The IDF deployed an Iron Dome anti-rocket battery in the Haifa area early this morning, amid heightened tensions in the North stemming from the ongoing Syrian civil war.
2013: The German Federal Administrative Court vetoed a bid to release classified foreign intelligence documents that would reveal western spies knew where Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann escaped to after World War II, British media reported today.
2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior adviser Ron Dermer will be appointed Israeli ambassador to the United States, Army Radio reported today
2014: Jonathan Lethem is scheduled to read from his latest book, Dissident Gardens, this evening at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City.
2014: “The Wonders,” a film about “a bartender who doubles as a graffiti artist in Jerusalem is scheduled to be shown at the Portland Jewish Film Festival.
2014(30th of Sivan, 5774): Ninety-three year old composer Seymour Barab passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
2014(30th of Sivan, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
2014: Trio of Anniversaries of events that still resonate with us today: 625thanniversary of Battle of Kosovo,
100thanniversary of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife and the 95th anniversary of the signing of the Versailles Treaty
2014: “Israelis broke all records of electricity consumption in June as tempertures climbed over 40 degrees Celsisu” means that from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat, the country was in the grip of near record heat wave. (As reported by Ilana Curiel)
2014: “The IAF attacked 3 hidden rocket launchers in the central Gaza stipr tonight in response to the barrage of rockes fired into southern Israel, one of which hit a factory that was burned to the ground.(As reported by Yoav Zitun)
2014: As rocket attacks from Gaza continue to intensify a missle fired from Beit Hanoun hit the "Denber" plastic factory in Sderot's industrial area, causing a large fire to break out which resulted in the destruction of the factory. While some workers were injured there was no loss of life.
2015: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Why Grow Up? by Susan Neiman and The Odd Woman and the City by Vivian Gornick
2015(11th of Tammuz, 5775): Ninety-three year old comedian Jack Carter passed away today.
2015(11th of Tammuz, 5775): Eighty-one year old conservative commentator Ben Wattenberg passed away today.
2015: “Parents in some 70 towns” including Herzliya and Holon keep their children at home today as part of the protest “against overcrowding in classrooms.”
2015: In Amherst, MA, the Yiddish Book Center is scheduled to present “In the Unlikeliest of Places:
How Nachman Libeskind Survived the Nazis, Gulags, and Soviet Communism.”
2015: The Naomi Prawer Kadar International Yiddish Summer Program is scheduled to begin at Tel Aviv University.
2015: “Rabbi Shlomo Riskin's term as Chief Rabbi of Efrat was extended by five years today after a month-long controversy in which the Chief Rabbinate was allegedly planning to retire him at age 75 because of his religious views on the advancement of women in Orthodoxy and an inclusive approach towards conversion.”
2016: “War Paint,” a musical based the lives of “Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden defined beauty standards for the first half of the 20th Century” premiered today.
2016: Professor Hillel Kieval of Washington University in St. Louis is scheduled to deliver at lecture on “Blood Inscriptions: Science, Modernity, and Ritual Murder in Fin de Siècle Europe” at the Birkbeck University of London.
2016: “Following numerous incidents of rock throwing by Palestinians, police today announced that the Mount, which is holy to both Jews and Muslims, would be closed to Jewish visitors and tourists for three days and that extra forces would be deployed to prevent rioting. 2016: “Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt” is scheduled to be shown at the 24thPortland Jewish Film Festival today.
2017: In Tennessee, the Memphis Jewish Community Center is scheduled to host a performance by the members of the Israeli Scout Friendship Caravan.
2017: Today, “Thirty years after his release from Soviet camps, where he was subjected to forced labor as punishment for clandestine Zionist activity, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein became the first Israeli politician to address Russia’s upper chamber of parliament, in a triumphant turnaround for the one-time “Prisoner of Zion.”
2017: Today, during a reunion of “10 American pilots who agreed to deliver jets to the IDF” during the Yom Kippur War “retired US fighter pilot Roy “Bubba” Segars and retired Israeli fighter pilot Jacob “Booby” Daube held a photo they took together during the 1973 Yom Kippur War at the same Tel Nof airbase in Israel”(IDF Spokesperson, courtesy)
2017: In Iowa, the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines is scheduled to host “Thank You for Being Late,” an evening with columnist and author Thomas L. Friedman.
2017: Tom Jones is scheduled to perform at Tel Aviv’s Menorah Arena this evening.
2018: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Keep the Change” directed by Rachel Israel at London’s Phoenix Cinema
2018: Today, Prince William, the future king of England “private visits to various holy sites in Jerusalem’s Old City, including the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre” as well as the “Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, which are located on the Temple Mount.”
2018: Today, “an ultra-Orthodox Knesset member threatened El Al with a consumer boycott should the airline remove ultra-Orthodox passengers unwilling to sit next to women.”
2018: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host “Profiles of Courage” an “interactive event” featuring veterans from WWII, Korea and Vietnam.
2018: JW3 is scheduled to host the final London screenings of “The Boy Downstairs” starring Zosia Mamet and Mathew Shear Shear.
2018: A screening of “Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel” a documentary about the Israeli national baseball’s team trip to the World Baseball Classic Sponsored by the Ed Berkowitz Film Education Fund is scheduled to take place at the Avalon Theatre in Washington, D.C.
2019: “The feature-length documentary ‘The Spy Behind Home Plate’” is scheduled to open today in Boston, San Diego, Denver, St. Louis, Santa Cruz, CA, Grand Rapids, MI, Sarasota, FL, Marion, NC and Los Angeles.
2019: In San Francisco, Magain David Sephardim Congregation is scheduled to begin hosting a young adult Shabbaton which is part of a “two-day Sephardic Shabbat experience.
2019: The Limud Bay Area Festival is scheduled to open today at Sonoma State University.
2019: The seminar “Jews and Political Philosoph” lead by Ruth Wisse, Leora Batnitzky and Yual Levin is scheduled to come to an end today.