July 25
306: Constantine I was proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops. Under the rule of Constantine, Christianity would in effect become the official religion the Roman Empire. This was the beginning of a downward spiral in the life of European Jewry. No century was more decisive for Jewish-Christian relations than the fourth century. The Edict of Milan issued by Emperor Constantine in 313 CE granted freedom of worship to all religious groups, including Jews. But Christianity quickly was to become the chief beneficiary of this decree, while Jewish fortunes were to sink to a new low. In 323 CE Christianity was granted a special position within the empire. Judaism theoretically continued as a legal religion, but it was frequently abused by Christian preachers and people without any action being taken by the imperial government. By the time Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity on his deathbed in 329, the imperial government had already begun to institute restrictive measures against Jewish privileges. By the end of the fourth century the civil status of Jews was in serious danger and their image had greatly deteriorated. The Jew was now seen as a semi-satanic figure, cursed by God, and specially set apart by the civil government.
404: “Emperors Arcadius and Honorius repeal an earlier law which prohibits the Jewish patriarchs from collecting their own taxes.” (As reported by Austin Cline)
864: Charles the Bald orders defensive measures to be taken against the Viking marauders. Regardless of whatever others may think of him, Charles the Bald, who was King of France, comes up on the plus side in Jewish history when compared to other monarchs since he resisted enforcing the anti-Semitic edicts of the Archbishop of Lyon. Charles motives were political and economic, not religious.
1100: Jewish residents of Haifa joined with the Fatimids of Egypt in defending the city. Tancred, who unsuccessfully attacked Haifa, was reprimanded for his lack of success and told that he made "a mockery of the God of the Christians." Once the city fell, the remaining Jews were massacred by the crusading forces.
1196: Al Mohades despoiled the Jewish community of Castille, taking the Codes Hilleli, a 600 year old Biblical manuscript considered to be the oldest Hebrew copy of the Bible in Spain. (Other sources date this to August 14, 1197)
1215: Frederick II, under whom the Jews prospered because he recognized them as “a separate ethnic and religious group, and were not bound to the laws that targeted the Christian population” had a second coronation as King of Germany at Aachen today.
1261: The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos. As head of the Byzantine Empire, Alexios followed the pattern of toleration towards the Jewish people started by his father despite pressure from leaders of the church to do otherwise.
1312: In Worms, Bishop Emerich “ordered that the Jew-bishop (the name the gentiles gave to the leader of the Jew they chose to lead the community) should no longer be confirmed in his office by the emperor, but by the bishop of the diocese; and also that a Jew-bishop once appointed should retain his title until his death, although his official duties should each year devolve on another member of the council.” (This was more about money than theology since the Jews had to pay the Catholic Bishop an annual fee under the new arrangement.)
1360: Anti-Jewish riots in Breslau resulted in many deaths and the expulsion of those that remained alive.
1492: In Toledo, “eight days before the expulsion, 5 Maranos were led to the stake, and many others were condemned to imprisonment for life” today.
1492: The book of Proverbs with commentaries of Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides) and Menham Meiri was published in Leira Portugal by Abraham d’Ortas
1492: Innocent VIII passed away. The Pope’s Jewish doctor had made a last ditch attempt to save Innocent’s life by providing him with a transfusion of human blood. This was an experimental operation and all three attempts failed. The Jewish doctor fled when it did not work.
1554: Charles V, who was known for his “intolerant treatment of the Jews” “formally abdicated the throne of Naples.
1547: Coronation of King Henry II of France to whom Italian Rabbi Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno dedicated his commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes and to whom he sent a copy of Or Ammim which he had translated into Latin.
1572 (5 Av 5332): Isaac Luria the foremost rabbi and Jewish mystic in the community of Safed in the Galilee region passes away.. He is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah. He is known for the interpretation of his teachings in Kabbalah known as Lurianic Kabbalah. There is no way that this simple blog can do justice to his writings and their effect.
1603: James VI of Scotland, son of Mary Queen of Scots is crowned first king of Great Britain and becomes King James I. During his reign Jews were still not allowed to return publicly to England, but there was an active community of Marranos living in the British Isles. Kings James is most famous for the King James Bible, a translation commissioned during his reign completed in 161l. Most Americans, including a large number of Jews, only know the words of this translation of the Bible.
1670: The Jewish community of Vienna was expelled.
1720: A Cuban named Jose Dias Piamena was burned at a grand auto-de-fe in Seville. A pirate, Piamena had been imprisoned in Cadiz. In his cell he wrote an anti-Christian tirade on Isaiah 53. When he escaped from jail, he left a message saying he, "desired to live and die for Judaism." He was sentenced because he had converted to Judaism while in Curacao, and married a Jewish girl.
1721(1stof Av, 5481): Rabbi Aaron ben Benjamin Wolf, the son of Isaac Benjamin Wolf ben Eliezer Liebman, author of Naḥlat Binyamin passed away today at Frankfort-on-the-Oder.
1739: Fifty-six year old Johann Christoph Wolf the “German Christian Hebraist” who authored the 4 volume Bibliotheca Hebræa which “brought together almost all the accessible information relating to Jewish authors and their works, as well as to the writings of Christians on Jewish subjects.”
1775: In Zwolle, Holland, Joseph Simon Magnus and Bele Eliaser Cohen gave birth to Elimelech (Elias) Magnus.
1778: Moses Dobruška, “the first cousin once removed of Jacob Frank” who had converted to Catholicism and taken the name Franz Thomas Schonfeld “was elevated to the nobility in Vienna along Ephraim Joseph Hirschfeld who had not converted.
1799: At Aboukir in Egypt, Napoleon defeats 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha. This was part of Napoleon’s opening gambit to fulfill his imperial designs which would include promises during the siege of Acre about the creation of a Jewish home in Palestine.
1804 Jacob Abraham de Mist, the Dutch commissioner-general issued a proclamation in Cape Town instituting religious equality for all which allowed for the Jews, among others, to practice their religion openly in public.
1804: David Davis married Elizabeth Lazarus in the Great Synagogue today.
1808: A day after she had passed away, Deborah Proops, the wife of Nathan Vallentine, with whom she had four children was buried today
1818: In Baghdad, David and Hannah Sassoon gave birth to Sir Albert Abdullah David Sassoon.
1819: In Battenberg, Germany, Herz Seelig Langsdorf and Bina Biene Bienchen Langsdorf gave birth to Morris Langsdorf, the husband of Hannah Hessel Langsdorf with whom he had had nine children.
1823: Birthdate of Hildesheim, Germany native Henriette Leon, the wife of Abraham Leon and the mother of Golda and Joseph Leon.
1835: The Jews of Hebron were attacked.
1839: In Canterbury, England, Abraham Abrahams and Elizabeth Levi gave birth to Jacob Abrahams.
1841: In Grunberg, Silesia, Schiee Jaffe, the son of Simon Abraham Jaffe and Johanna (Cohn) Jaffe, and his third wife Ernestine (Neumann) Jaffe gave birth to Dr. Max Jaffe/
1848: Birthdate of Arthur Earl Balfour. Balfour will serve as Prime Minister in the first decade of the twentieth century. But his real claim to fame came during World War I with the issuance of the British policy statement that bears his name – The Balfour Declaration.
1851: In London Barnett Phillips and his wife gave birth to Sidney Phillip Phillips the physician who served as “lieutenant colonel in RAMC during World War I.
1853: In San Francisco, Abraham H. Belasco and Reyna Belasco (née Nunes), Sephardic Jews who had moved from London’s Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community during the California Gold Rush”gave birth to the highly prolific theatrical producer and writer, David Belasco who was involved in the production of almost 400 plays during a career that spanned one of the most dynamic periods in American theatrical history.
http://www.broadway.tv/broadway-features-reviews/haunting-broadway-the-ghost-of-david-belasco
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Belasco.html
1853: Birthdate of Russian-American archaeologist and linguist Immanuel M. Casanowicz, the holder of a Ph.D from Johns Hopkins who taught “Hebrew and Church History at the German Theological School of Newark in Bloomfield, NJ” before becoming the “assistant curator of the Division of Old World Archaeology at the U.S. National Museum in Washington, D.C.” while writing several works including “Paranomasia in the Old Testament”
1854: In Frankfurt am Main Dr. Moritz Schiff and Caludia Trier gave birth to “Dr. Robert Schiff” who was “appointed professor of chemistry at the University of Modena in 1879” and then moved on to the same position at the University of Pisa in 1892.
1855: Birthdate of Edward Solomon, the English composer, pianist, and orchestra conductor. Solomon was the composer and first night conductor of two works at the Savoy:The Nautch Girl in 1891 and The Vicar of Bray in 1892.
1855: Louis Lumley married Eliza Slowman at the Great Synagogue today.
1857: The New York Times carried a report that an English paper, The Advertiser, says there will be a new election for the city of London because Baron Rothschild had explicitly promised to resign if the bill for the removal of Jewish disabilities was not carried during this session of Parliament.
1858: After a five-and-twenty years' wrangling the admissibility of the Jews to Parliament has been conceded.
1861: In Russia, Abraham Bernstein and his wife gave birth to Samuel Bernstein who served as a rabbi at Pottsville, PA before assuming the leadership of Congregation B’nai Israel in Ansonia, CT.
1861(18th of Av, 5621): Fifty-eight year old Sophia Goldsmid passed away today in Birmingham, UK.
1862: Birthdate of Austrian native Pepi Eidelstein, who was buried at Hong Kong in the Happy Valley Jewish Cemetery when he passed away at the age of 37.
1866: In Dayton, Ohio Isaac Pollack and his wife gave birth to Hattie Pollack who became Hattie Rauh when she married Leopold Rauh under which name she served as President of the Hebrew Ladies’ Relief Association, treasurer of the Council of Jewish Women and Director of the National Jewish Home for Consumptives in Denver, CO.
1867: In Moscow, David Katzenelenbogen and Lina Meerowitz gave birth to Boris D. Bogen, a “teacher at the Baron de Hirsch Trade School in New York and “the principal of the Baron de Hirsch Agricultural School in Woodbine, NJ” and author of Psychology of Teaching Foreign Languages and Born a Jew who was the husband of Elisabeth Scholtz.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0003/ms0003.html
https://www.amazon.com/Born-Alfred-Segal-Boris-Bogen/dp/B00COBYN3S
1875: Sir Moses Montefiore arrived in Jerusalem.
1876: Birthdate of Louis Thomas McFadden the Pennsylvania Congressman who was the first to insert excerpts from the Protocols of Zion into the Congressional Record” [Editor’s Note – McFadden was an outspoken foe the Federal Reserve Board. He blamed the board for the Great Depression and saw it as part of a Jewish conspiracy to control the economy. McFadden also wanted to impeach President Hoover.]
1878: It was reported today that “some officers of a Jewish synagogue in Liverpool” have recently been “tried for cruelty to animals” because they allowed a bullock to bleed to death “instead of slaughtering him in the usual way. Professional experts testified that there was no cruelty…and the charge was dismissed.”
1879: A report published today described the desperate conditions in Russia brought on by an extended heat wave and an infestation of locust. Towns in Poland and Lithuania towns “are swarming with…a large…unemployed Jewish population” that has caused the government to establish “more agricultural colonies in the various Provinces” because those created several years ago for the Jews surprisingly enough “have shown signs of prosperity.”
1879(1stof Av, 5739): Rosh Chodesh Av
1880: It was reported today that the Southeby’s has just completed a showing and sale of the works of George Cruikshank whose works include an illustration of Dickens’ “Fagan” – “the foiled Jew sitting in his cell more like an evil bird of prey than any human thing.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cruikshank_fagin_cell.jpg
1881: It was reported today the estate of the late Earl Beaconsfield was valued at approximately £76.687 and after deducting for debts and funerals a net value of £63,312. His executors include Sir Philip Rose, a prominent gentile lawyer and Sir Nathaniel Mayer de Rothschild.
1882(9thof Av, 5642): Tish’a B’Av
1882: “Louis Berkowitz and Ignatz Mueller were appointed assistant teachers” at Hebrew Union College.
1882: The Turkish government added to the list of “bad things” that happened to Jews on the 9th of Av when it barred immigration of Russian and Romanian Jews and forbade the sale of land in Eretz Israel to Jews. The irony is that the Turks feared the Jews because they were Russians. Russia had cast covetous eyes on Turkish territory as it sought a warm water port.
1883: Birthdate of Lithuanian native Henry B. Cohen who came to the United States in 1901, settling in Minneapolis, MN where he was an officer of the Jewish Sheltering Home and worked with Leo H. Frish, Benjamin Zalkind and Rabbi S. I. Levin as part of the Minneapolis Federation for Jewish Service.
1883: In Baccau, Rumania, “Nathan and Mollie (Greenberg) Falick gave birth to Abraham Falick who came to the United States in 1903 as political refugee and began working in the furniture business where he formed and led two of his own companies – Bauman and Falick, Inc. and Windsor Furniture Company – while becoming a leader in the Jewish community as can be seen in his membership in the “First Rumanian Congregation of New York,” serving as treasurer of the United Rumanian Jews of America and President of the Beuzeur Rumanian Benevolent Society and his repeated visits to his homeland since 1916 “to plead for the betterment of the conditions among Rumanian Jews.”
1883: Among those arriving aboard the SS Persian Monarch from England were a Hungarian Jew named Anton Simony along with his wife and two children and Russian Jew named Nathan Smilansky along with his wife and six children. The Hebrew Relief Society of London had paid for their tickets. Both families were destitute. [This is an example of what appears to be a pattern – European Jewish agencies buying tickets for eastern European refugees to make sure they would not settle in English and other cities.]
1883: Maria Kozorswska, a Jewish immigrant who had arrived in the United States from Russia in June, was swindled out of 25 dollars today. For some inexplicable reasons she gave a stranger the money so that he would buy her a ticket on a steamship that would take her back to Europe.
1884: It was reported today the conspirators who had tried to kill the Czar on his visit to Warsaw planned to start a rebellion in Poland and Western Russia that would include a plundering of the Jews.
1885(13thof Av, 5645): Parashat Vaetchanana; Shabbat Nachamu
1885(13th of Av, 5645): On Shabbat Nachamu, Sir Moses Montefiore passed away at the age of 101. Although he was an English man, Jews celebrated his 100th birthday around the world and his passing was marked in the same way. Born in 1784, Montefiore was a successful businessman and civic leader. He was recognized as a leader of the Jewish community and was knighted in 1837. He was a brother-in-law to the head of the English branch of the House of Rothschild. Montefiore was an observant Jew and a frequent visitor to Eretz Israel. He donated large sums of money for the development of agricultural settlements and built the first modern Jewish housing complex outside the walls of what is called the Old City. In other words, he started the expansion of what is Jerusalem today. He also provided funds for a windmill for grinding corn which is now known as “Montefiore’s Windmill.” It still stands today in Jerusalem as a testament to a man who supported the Jewish homeland and worked to alleviate the suffering of European Jewry.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/montefiore.html
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/112353/jewish/Sir-Moses-Montefiore.htm
http://www.teachittome.com/seforim2/seforim/diaries_of_sir_moses_and_lady_montefiore_1.pdf
1886: “Baron de Worm’s Suit” published today provides details of the divorce action brought Baron Henry de Worms. He sued his wife Baroness Fannie de Worms (nee Von Todesco) on grounds of adultery and named Mortiz von Leon as correspondent. The Baron is a member of a prominent Jewish family and a Member of Parliament. His wife was an Austrian Jewess. At the end of the hearing the President of the court granted the petition and awarded custody of the children to the father.
1886: Jacob Novek and Samuel Sturmak two Russian Jewish peddlers went to the police station in New York and asked when the balloon would be leaving for Hamburg. They explained that any single person who made the trip would be paid five hundred dollars and married travelers would be paid one thousand dollars. The two said they were willing to go since they were starving. The police made inquiries and discovered that the two immigrants were the victims of a hoax perpetrated by a boy who ran a soda water stand on Canal Street.
1888: “Put Salt in the Water” published today described a scheme to victimize poor east side Jews seeking relief on excursion to Raritan Beach.
1889: Birthdate of New York native Jerome Schneiderman, the Bayonne, NJ insurance agency who was a leader of the New Jersey Federation of YM and YWHA’s and “a director of the Hebrew Home for the Aged.
1889: Herzl married Julie Naschauer in Reichenau. The young couple traveled to Switzerland and France and awaited the completion of their home in Vienna.
1889: Ohaveth Sholum (lovers of peace) was founded today in Seattle, Washington, making it the first Jewish congregation in the state’s largest city.
1890: “For Charity’s Sake” published today described the upcoming fund-raiser that B’nai Brith is sponsoring for the benefit of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews at Yonkers.
1891: All but two of the members of the United States Immigration Commission returned to London from Liverpool today where they have been investigating the involvement of the steamship companies and railways in sending “pauper immigrants” to the United States including Jews who had originally lived in Russia.
1892(1st of Av, 5652): Rosh Chodesh Av
1892: In Russia, “Isaac and Rachel (Lipcovitz) Chagy gave birth to Cantor Bert (Beryl) Chagy, the husband of Esther E. Feinsien, who after coming to the United State in 1913 “sang for the Columbia Gramophone Record and the Victor Company” while performing at such venues as Madison Square Garden, Carnegie Hall and Town Hall and serving as a cantor for a congregation in Newark, NJ.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1954/04/26/83752645.pdf
1892(1st of Av, 5652): Washington Nathan died today in Boulogne, France. Nathan was the son of Benjamin Nathan, the prominent New Yorker, whose murder 12 years ago has never been solved. There are those who are still convinced that Washington Nathan was involved in his father’s murder.
1892: Modest Aronstam arrived in Pittsburgh intending to finish the botched attempt on the life on Henry Clay Frick but panicked and went back to New York when newspaper articles identified him as a possible assassin
1893: A crowd of about 2,000, a third of whom were Jewish immigrants listened to the band concert tonight at Paradise Park.
1893(12thof Av, 5653): Forty three year old Paul d’Abrest, born Friedrich Kohn in Prague, the husband of Fanni Sulzer and the son-in-law of Cantor Salomon Sulzer and who pursued a career as a journalist in Paris and Vienna passed away today.
1893(12thof Av, 5653): Eighty-four year old Asher Kursheedt passed away in New York City.
1894(21st of Tammuz, 5654): Fifty-two year old Dr. Isidor Cohnstein, the husband of Ida Cohnstein, who was an author as well as a physician passed away today in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany
1895: The Sanitarium for Hebrew Children’s rail excursion is scheduled to leave this morning at 9:20.
1895: It was reported today that out of the nearly five million people in Belgium only 4,000 are Jews.
1896: On Shabbat, striking Jewish tailors and those who had not yet joined the strike, attended a mass meeting at Walhalla Hall
1896: The Chairman of the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration offered his services to the General Executive Committee of the Brotherhood of Tailors, most of whom were Jewish in an effort to end their strike with their employers.
1897: Two days after he had passed away, Michael Greenstone, the husband of Leah Greenstone and the father of George Greenstone was buried today at the Wolverhampton Old Jewish Burial Ground
1897: The funeral services for Lewis May are scheduled to be held at 11 A.M. this morning at Temple Emanu-El the congregation he served as President up until the time of his death.
1897: A party of thirty young Jewish men and women who were enjoying “some refreshments” after having visited the New Mount Sinai Cemetery at Woodside were accosted by a man claiming to be a police officer who said he would arrest them “unless he was paid to leave them alone.”
1898: In Hoboken, NJ, during a dispute over landownership, workmen arrived at the Moses Montefiore Congregation and used jack-screws to raise the building thirty feet in the air.
1900: Percy George de Worms married Sir Harry Simeon Samuel’s only daughter, Nora, today. Although he was an English barrister and philatelist he was descended from Austrian nobility; his great-grandfather having been made a Baron by Emperor Franz Joseph.
1903(1stof Av, 5663): Parashat Matot-Masei: Rosh Chodesh Av
1903(1stof Av, 5663): Fifty-two year old Ralph Lazarus of Columbus, OH, “a member of the firm of F and R Lazarus, a trustee of the Cleveland –Columbus Jewish Orphan Asylum” and the owner of the Southern Hotel, passed away today leaving a large fortune to be distributed among currently unnamed heirs since he never married.
1903: “Theodor Herzl arrived in St. Petersburg, Russia to intervene with the Russian government to life the prohibition of Zionist activities and stop the persecution of Zionists.”
1903: At the Sun-Rise Hill Climb near Edgehill in Warwickshire Dorothy Levitt was the official passenger of S.F. Edge because her Gladiator was a non-starter. Levit was born Dorothy Elizabeth Levi, the daughter of a tea dealer named Jacob Levi.
1905: In Ruse, Bulgaria, Jacques Canetti and Mathilde née Arditti gave birth to Elias Canetti who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981.
1906(3rdof Av, 5666): Seventy-one year old Isabella H. Pollock, the wife of Abraham Rosenbach and the mother of Abraham Simon Wolf Rosenbach, her 8thchild known as a “collector, scholar and seller of rare books and manuscripts.”
1907: Birthdate of Jacob Gillman the New York City native who gained fame as actor Jack Gilford whose "rubber-face" led him to play numerous character roles in films, televisions and commercials. One of his most famous roles was in “Cocoon” where he played the role of a gravelly voiced "doubting Thomas.”
1909: Birthdate of Hudson, NY native and University of Virginia graduate Harry Eugene Elmlark, the “president and editor of the Washington Star Syndicate” which published the nation capital’s last evening newspaper and the husband of Lillian Rosenthal Elmlark with whom he had a daughter – “Mrs. Walli Kellert.
1913: “Mr. Maurice Salzman, a prominent lawyer, delivered the first Friday night sermon at Eagle’s Hall in Venice, CA at services which were arranged by Rabbi Hecht of Los Angeles.
1913: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Clemmie Nahm Ware, the “wife of Oscar W. Ware” and the mother of Sidney, Aimee and Leona Ware at the “Anshe Maariv Cemetery.”
1913: Rabbi Israel Klein is scheduled to lead Friday evening services at the Zion Temple in Chicago.
1914(2ndof Av, 5674): Parashat Matot-Masei
1914: This morning “Mr. A.H. Silver, a senior at the Hebrew Union College, conducted services for Jews staying at the resort at Cedar Lake, Wisconsin.
1914: As Jews observed Shabbat, the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire signed the mobilization that included orders to start offensive actions against Serbia “within 72 hours” which war was inevitable but the question still hung in the air if it would be a Balkan War or a World War.
1915: Sephardic Bikur Holim Synagogue opens in Seattle, Washington.
1915: In Chicago, a special summer course sponsored by HUC came to a close today.
1915: Pictures taken by Hal Reid showing Leo Frank in “prison garb” and showing his “life in jail” will start appearing “on the screen in all Marcus Loew’s theatres in New York as an addition to the regular program on view in these houses.”
1915: After visiting Leo Frank today and seeing his wounds, Governor Harris expressed the opinion that “Leo Frank’s days are numbered” despite what the doctors have said about his recovery.
1915: Birthdate of solicitor Sir David Napley.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12671206.Sir_David_Napley/
1916: Russian Cossacks and Dragoons continued their Pogrom at Lokachi for a second day.
1916: “Dr. Judah L. Magnes, the Acting Chairman of the American Jewish Relief Committee and a member of the Joint Distribution Committee” is scheduled to set sail for Europe today where will “investigate the condition of the Jews in the war zones and the machinery used for the distribution of the large sums sent from the United States for relief work.”
1916: Reinforcements for No. 1 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps, a unit which played a critical role in the campaigns to liberate Palestine from the Turks, were photographed today aboard the P & O “Malwa” on their way to Egypt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_and_Palestine_Campaign#/media/File:AWM_P00588.006AFCreinfmts.jpeg
1917: The appeal for funds by the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War published read “Was there ever sorrow like unto their sorrow? Their countless voices cry to us Jews in America. No man can escape this duty; rich and poor alike must give.”
1917: Benny Leonard (Dov Ber ben Avraham Gershon) won a non-title bout by a TKO at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, Pa.
1918: After five days, on the Western Front, fighting along the Ourcq River during which Artilleryman Louis Henry served with such bravery that he was twice decorated, came to an end today.
1918: It was reported today that Americans will follow the practice of other allied nations and use the double triangle to mark the graves of soldiers killed in combat.
1918: Louis N. Hammerling, President of the of Association of Foreign Language Newspapers was arrested today on a charge of him criminally libeling Vaclav G. Hajek a former investigator for the Department of Justice.
1919: Funeral services were held today for Louis Marx, the husband of Rose Marx with whom he had two daughters and two sons – Milton and Harry – followed by burial at the South Side Hebrew Congregation Cemetery.
1919: “The Canonsburg Jewish Community” published today in the Pittsburgh Jewish Criterion opened with a sentence “Thirty years ago [c. 1890] Morris Bernstein came to Canonsburg and his is the distinction of being the first Jewish settler of that thriving and progressive community.”
1920(10th of Av 5680): Tish’a B’Av
1920: French forces captured Damascus, forcing out King Faisal who would be made King of Iraq as a consolation prize for the British not keeping their promise – a move that would help to sow dissension in the Middle East that is felt to this day.
1921: Birthdate of Murray Handwerker, “who transformed his father’s Brooklyn hot dog business, Nathan’s Famous, into a celebrated national fast-food chain.”
1922: In Los Angeles, CA, attorney Benjamin Lewis and pianist Pauline Kallin gave birth journal Flora Lewis, the wife of New York Times correspondent Sydney Gruson who eventually joined that same papers as foreign and diplomatic correspondent in 1972.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/02/world/flora-lewis-astute-observer-of-world-affairs-for-the-times-and-others-dies-at-79.html
1923: In New York City, Polish-Jewish immigrants “Sarah and Charles Scher, the owner of a glass store” gave birth to Estelle Scher, who gained fame as Emmy-Award winning actress Estelle Getty best known to most for her role in the sitcom “Golden Girls.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/arts/television/23getty.html
1923: Birthdate of “David Gerber, an Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning television producer who brought forward-thinking series like “Police Story” and “Police Woman” to prime time in the 1970s and produced more than 50 television films and mini-series during a four-decade career.”
1924: “Die Stadt ohne Juden (The City Without Jews) an Austrian Expressionist film based on a book of the same name was released today in Austria.
https://www.lbi.org/events/city-without-jews/
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-city-without-jews
1924: Birthdate of Hans Arnold Wangersheim who fled to the United States from Nazi Germany as a 13-year-old and as Arnold Hans Weiss returned as an American soldier during World War II, becoming a principal in the investigation that led to the discovery of Hitler’s last will and political testament.”
1925: In Ohio, the Sandusky Star Journal ran “an uncredited illustration of Louis Wolheim.
1926: Birthdate of Ray Solomonoff, the son of Julius and Sarah Solomonoff, “the inventor of algorithmic probability, and founder of algorithmic information theory, who was an originator of the branch of artificial intelligence based on machine learning, prediction and probability.”
1927: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency announced that “Nathan Straus will build a $75,000 health center” at Tel Aviv. Straus has already funded a similar clinic in Jerusalem.
1927: “His Dog,” a silent film starring Joseph Schildkraut was released today in the United States.
1928: Birthdate of “Igor Birman, a Russian émigré economist who virtually predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union years before its fall.”
1928(8thof Av, 5688): Sixty-three year old Monia Mathers, the sister of Henri Bergson passed away today.
http://www.golden-dawn.org/biomoinam.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moina_Mathers#/media/File:Picture_of_Moina_Mathers_from_her_performance_in_the_Rites_of_Isis_in_Paris.jpg
1929:Ahdut HaAvoda and Hapoel HaTzair, the two major labor parties in Eretz Israel officially merge.
1929(17thof Tammuz, 5689): Tzom Tammuz
1929: In New York City, Solomon and Cecelia Farb gave birth to Vanderbilt University Phi Beta Kappa graduate Peter Farb, the linguist and author of such books as Man’s Rise to Civilization and Word Play: What Happens People Talk who was the husband of the former Oriole Horch with whom he had two sons – Mark and Thomas.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1980/04/09/111149566.pdf
1929(17thof Tammuz, 5689): Seventy-two year old Morris Gusdorf, the husband of Pauline “Lena” Peyser, the father of Melvin and Florence Gusdorf and the son-in-law of Philip Peyser and Natalie Ann Kilinksi passed away today after which he was buried in the Hebrew Cemetery in Washington, DC.
1929: Jackie Fields (born Jacob Finkelstein) won the Welterweight Championship today when his opponent whom he had knocked down twice in the second round “delivered a foul blow which left Firelds incapable of continuing the fight.”
1929: Birthdate of Yosef Alon, an Israeli Air Force officer, who was murdered in suburban Maryland while serve as Air Attaché. The murder has never been solved.
1929: Anna Rachel (Berman) Asimov and Judah Asimov gave birth to Stanley Asimov, a younger brother of author Isaac Asimov “who was vice president of New York Newsday.”
1929: In Los Angeles, Nathaniel Shenberg, who “owned a business that specialized in beveled glass” and his wife Hortense gave birth to Mildred Shenberg who gained fame as “Mildred Friedman, a curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in the 1970s and ’80s.” (As reported by William Yardley)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/arts/design/mildred-friedman-design-curator-dies-at-85.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
1930: In Green Bay, WI, Morris and Fanny Saidel gave birth to Lillian Saidel who gained as comedian Mitzi Shore, “the co-founder of the Comedy Store.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/obituaries/mitzi-shore-whose-comedy-store-fostered-rising-stars-dies-at-87.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
1931(11th of Av, 5691): Dr. Lee K. Frankel passed away.
1931: “The Magnificent Lie” with a script by Leonard Merrick and Samson Raphaelson was released today in the United States.
1932: Hermann Pressman wrote in his diary today that “the people are all waiting for the voting on the new Reichstag,” which “would be a contest between the Social Democrats and the Nazis.” 1934: In Manhattan investment banker Marcos F. Hellman and the former Ruth Koshland gave birth to Frederick Warren Hellman the great-grandson of “Isaias W. Hellman, a Jewish immigrant from Bavaria who became one of California’s leading financiers and served as president of Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank, which later became Wells Fargo” who became a president of Lehman Brothers. (As reported by Peter Lattman)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/business/warren-hellman-dies-at-77-ex-lehman-president-and-music-festival-founder.html
1934: The Nazis attempted to overthrow the Austrian government. Chancellor Dollfus was assassinated, but the putsch failed and Kurt von Schuschnigg was appointed Chancellor. He in turn tried his best to curtail Nazi influence in Austria.
1935: New York born Dartmouth graduate and Time Magazine Moscow Bureau Chief Richard Edward Lauterbach, “the son of Morton Edgar and Hazel Augusta (Kronthal) Lauterbach” today married the former “Elizabeth S. Wardell” with whom he had three children – Jennifer, Ann and David”
1935: Birthday of Larry Sherry. Along with his brother Norm, they formed an all Jewish battery combo that led the L.A. Dodgers to the World Series Championship in 1959.
1936: In Palestine, “military planes today again dropped leaflets printed in Arabic over Arab villages…pleading with the villagers to cease acts of violence and call of their strike” since as the leaflets also stated, “the royal commission will not come until order is restored.”
1937(17thof Av, 5697): Sixty-seven year old Jacob Diner, the Russian born son German Jews who went on to become the “first president of the New York Academy of Pharmacy” and “founder and first dean of the Fordham University College of Pharmacy” and who was the husband of Hilda Diner with whom he had two children – Milton and Irene – passed away today.
1937: Representative Hamilton Fish, the New York Republican stated today “that the proposed partition of Palestine by the British Government was ‘a deliberate breach of trust’” which “smacks of duplicity and double dealing.”
1937: Hyman Safran, the Detroit born son of Elias and Freida (Mendelsohn) Safran, married the former Leah Yoffee before going on to serve as U.S. Navy Lieutenant during WW II and founded Safran Printing Company
https://myjewishdetroit.org/2018/02/lchaim/
1938: Fifty three persons were killed and fifty-eight were today as a bomb exploded at the entrance of the Arab market in the heart of Haifa. While Arabs rioted in response to the violence, Jewish newspapers called for an investigation to find out who was responsible “demanding that the guilty parties, whether Jew or Arab, be brought to justice.”
1938(25th of Tammuz, 5698: A Jewish farmer was killed by a land mine planted near Ein Vered and Jewish guard was killed at Kfar Haroesh when he was attacked by a band of 25 armed Arabs.
1938: A group of Jewish laborers were fired on this morning as they worked in quarry in Tiberias. One worker was killed and another was wounded.
1938: Tonight, the National Council of Palestine Jews issued a proclamation holding the Arabs accountable for the horrific outbreak of violence in Haifa saying that “the outrages” were an attempt to bring about a civil war in Palestine.
1939(9th of Av, 5699):Tish'a B'Av
1940: French army officer and rabbi, David Feuerwerker was demobilized today following France’s defeat by Germany. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre with a bronze star for his service as chief of artillery communications during which he showed “drive, courage”…and contributed to maintain “the fighting spirit” of those around him.
1940:A cable from Simon Davidovitch Kremer, Secretary to the Soviet Military Attaché in London specifically identified Ivor Montagu as the head of the X Group spy ring “Ivor Montagu (brother of Lord Montagu) sic, the well-known local communist, journalist and lecturer.”
1941: In London, cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky and his wife gave birth to Peter Suschitzky who followed in his father’s professional footsteps and is best known for his work on The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Empire Strikes Back,
1941: “Immediately after the Germans occupied the city of Lvov, Ukrainian militia commanders proclaimed Petliura Day (in memory of the Ukrainian nationalist hero who was assassinated in 1926 during his exile in Paris by a Jewish avenger) and embarked on a three day pogrom that massacred 6,000 Jews.
1941: After two day killing spree in Liepaja conducted primarily by the Arajs Kommando, “a unit of Latvian Auxiliary Police, approximately 900 Jews lay dead.
1941: In five separate incidents, Jews in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, threw gasoline bombs at Nazi cars.
1941: A two day long Pogrom began in Kovno, Lithuania which would claim the life of 3, 800Jews.
1942: In Belgium, The Jewish Council completed a comprehensive list of the names and addresses of approximately 56,000 Jews living in the country. The SS ordered the creation of the list which was no available through existing governmental channels since Belgium did not track citizens by their religious affiliation. The SS told the Jews they needed the list so they could organize labor groups to be sent East to work. When the Jewish Council did not produce the list quickly enough, the SS threatened to start grabbing Jews off the street and shipping them East regardless of age, sex or physical description. What the Jewish Council did not know was that the SS was implementing the first steps of the Final Solution that had been agreed to in January, 1942. This list of Jews would in fact be used to prepare the transports for Auschwitz.
1943: Mussolini was dismissed from office. It was hoped that his downfall would ease the situation for Italy's Jews. In point of fact, things would actually get worse as the Nazis seized control of the Italian mainland.
1943: John Garfield and his wife Roberta Seidman gave birth to their second child and only son David Garfield whose middle name was Patton in honor of the famous general.
1943: Birthdate of actress Janet Margolin. Born in New York City, she first gained popular acclaim for her role in the 1962 film David & Lisa.
1944: Three tankers carrying more than 1600 Jews from the Italian-held island of Rhodes stop at the island of Kos, where 94 additional Jews are forced aboard
1944: Thirty-one faked postcards from deportees arrive at the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto. The writers claim to have been happily resettled, when in reality they have been gassed at Chelmno.
1944: Lord Walter Moyne, chief British official in the Middle East, finally approves British military training for Jewish Palestinians who are being sent on suicide missions into Occupied Europe. He writes: "The scheme would remove from Palestine a number of active and resourceful Jews.... The chances of many of them returning in the future to give trouble in Palestine seem slight."
1945(15thof Av, 5705): Tu B’Av
1945: Following duty in England and on the Seine River, the SS President Warfield arrived at Norfolk, Virginia. After deactivation and re-sale, the President Warfield would gain fame as the SS Exodus.
1945: Kurt Gerstein, the former head of the Waffen-SSInstitute of Hygiene in Berlin and an advocate of euthanasia hangs himself in prison.
1946: Birthdate of Nicole Farhi, “a French fashion designer and sculptor” who “is the daughter of Sephardic Jews from Turkey” and who is married to author David Hare.
1946: Theodore Levin was confirmed by the United States Senate to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan vacated by Edward Julien Moinet.
1946: Dean Martin (the Italian crooner) and Jerry Lewis (the Jewish clown) perform together for the first time. During the next ten years, Martin and Lewis would move from clubs, to movies to a hit television program.
1947: Birthdate of Moroccan native Victor Drai, the “Franco-American nightclub owner, entrepreneur and film producer” whose credits include “The Woman in Red” and “Weekend at Bernies.”
1948: During Operation Shoter, Israeli forces renewed their attack on an area south of Haifa known as the “Little Triangle.”
1949: As the war with Israel wound down “Mohsen el Barazi, Premier and Foreign Minister of Syria, said today that the Syrian Government would welcome a United States plan for settlement of the Palestine problem and that Syria would study it with greatest interest.”
1950: The government of Lebanon protested to the United Nations claiming that an Israeli fighter plane had crossed into its territory and fired on a civilian airliner. According to the Israelis, the airliner had violated Israel’s airspace when it flew over the northern Galilee. When the plane failed to obey signals to land, the Israeli fighter fired warning shots. The Israelis said they also planned to file a protest with the UN.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported from Poland that former SS General Jurgen Stroop and Captain Franz Konrad were sentenced to death in Warsaw for the extermination of the Jewish population of the Warsaw Ghetto. In Jaffa, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, addressing a crowd of 10,000, mostly new immigrants, insisted that food and other government controls were necessary to fulfill the aim of reaching a population of two million and to establish 1,000 new settlements, even if this meant a temporary shortage of food and housing. "The newcomers will build their own homes and will grow their own food," he concluded.
1952: Birthdate of Ephraim “Effi” Eitam, the native of kibbutz Ein Gev whose political career has included membership in the Knesset from 2003 until 2009
1965: Actress Ruth Roman was one of those aboard the Andrea Doria who was rescued when the liner collided with the MS Stockholm.
1956(17thof Av, 5716): Seventy-four year old New York native and NYU trained attorney Elias D. Cohen, a leader in “the wallpaper, paper box and graphic arts industries” who raised a daughter, Estelle, with his wife “the former Anna Brandenburg” passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/07/27/86662977.pdf
1956: The Jordanians attacked UN Palestine truce keepers.
1956: In Los Angeles, Mona (Weichman) Bilson and Bruce Bilson, the director of such sitcoms as “Bewitched” and “Get Smart” gave birth to writer, director and producer Daniel “Danny” Bilson, the father of actress Rachel Bilson, Hattie Elizabeth Bilson and Rosemary Bilson.
1957: The Republic of Tunisia is proclaimed. Despite the fact that Jews like André Barouche had played an active role in Tunisia’s struggle for independence and the fact that it was a Pierre Mendes France, the Jewish Prime Minister of France, who granted Tunisia her independence, the conditions for Tunisia’s Jews deteriorated rapidly. The newly chosen President, Habib Bourguiba “ordered the dissolution of all Jewish organizations into one body known as the Jewish Religious Council, the members of which were appointed by the President... Under an order for slum clearance, the ancient Jewish quarter was razed to the ground, thereby demolishing the oldest and most historic synagogue in Tunis.” Things were so bad that 40,000 Jews (about 40% of the 1948 Jewish population) left for Israel. (This is the Refugee Problem that nobody talks about)
1958(8th of Av, 5718): Movie mogul, Harry Morris Warner passed away. Along with his three brothers, Harold Warner founded Warner Brothers Studio in 1923. These Jews made American movies. There first major star was a dog, “Rin Tin Tin.” The canine hero made 26 films for them and these hits were a big help in providing cash for the brothers. Warner Brothers took a gamble in 1927 and produced the first talking motion picture, The Jazz Singer. Harold apparently was not originally enthusiastic about the project since one of his most famous quotes is, "Who wants to hear actors talk?"
1959(19thof Tammuz, 5719): Parashat Pinchas
1959(19th of Tammuz, 5719: Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog who had been serving as the second Chief Rabbi of Israel since 1936 passed away today. Born in Poland 1888, the son of a rabbi, Herzog spent his childhood in England and France. A brilliant student, he completed the study of the Talmud at the age of 16. He pursued secular academic excellence as well, earning a doctorate from London University. His thesis was uniquely Jewish – "The Dyeing of Purple in Ancient Israel." Herzog served as the Chief Rabbi of the Irish Free State before moving to Palestine to succeed the great Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. Herzog worked diligently to try and save Jewish children trapped in Europe. After the creation of the state of Israel, he was faced with the challenge of applying halachah to life in a modern Jewish state, something nobody had done since the fall of Jerusalem in 70. His two most famous works are Main Institutions of Jewish Law and his responsa entitled Hekhal Yitzhak. Herzog’s life is life is a testament to the best in combining Orthodoxy and Zionism.
http://www.jta.org/1960/07/11/archive/first-anniversary-of-death-of-chief-rabbi-herzog-observed-in-israel
http://www.archives.gov.il/ArchiveGov_Eng/Publications/ElectronicPirsum/RabbiHerzog/
1960(1st of Av, 5720): Rosh Chodesh Av
1964: Birthdate José Joaquín Bautista Arias who may have been the only Jewish baseball player from the Dominican Republic to pitch in the Major Leagues.
1964: In Washington, DC, Harvey M. Applebaum, a Covington and Burling partner, and Elizabeth Applebaum of the Corcoran Gallery of Art gave birth to Pulitzer-prize winning author Anne Elizabeth Applebaum.
1965: Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman) goes electric as he plugs in at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major change in folk and rock music.
1966: Four months after the merger of the AFL and NFL, when Al Davis found he would not be commissioner of the new league, Davis resigned as Commissioner of the AFL rather than stay in the figurehead position until 1970.
1967(17thof Tammuz, 5727): Tzom Tammuz
1967: In Los Angeles, producer and director Irwin Winkler and his wife Margo gave birth to NYU trained attorney Adam X. Winkler, “a professor of constitutional law at the UCLA School Law.”
1967: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this afternoon at “The Riverside” for Jacob Frankel the father of Emmy Rosenstein with whom he raised three children and “a founder and president of the American Friends of ORT.”
1969: As Operation Boxer continues, IAF aircraft pounded Egyptian positions.
1969: In Highland Park, Illinois, Elise and Henry Loeb gave birth to screenwriter and producer Allan Loeb
1972(14thof Av, 5732): Seventy-seven year old Lodz Poland native Zalman Zylbercweig, who followed in the footsteps of his father, author and publisher Tsvi, Hirsh Zylbercweig and became an authority on Yiddish literature and thespians while living in Palestine, New York and Los Angeles passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/07/27/80798633.pdf
http://yiddish-sources.com/cumulative-index-zalman-zylbercweigs-leksikon-fun-yidishn-teater
http://www.jewish-music.huji.ac.il/content/zalman-zylbercweig
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zalmen_Zylbercweig
1973: “The Mackintosh Man” a cold war thriller starring Paul Newman and featuring Wolf Morris was released in the United States today by Warner Bros.
1973(25thof Tammuz, 5733): Ninety-two year old NYU trained attorney Isaac Allen, “a founder of the of the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress,” an organizer of “the Federation of American Zionists” and “a founder of the Mizrachi Organization of America who “wrote regularly for the Yiddish Tageblatt” passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/07/27/archives/isaachallen-lawyer-led-zionist-council.html?searchResultPosition=1
1973: Birthdate of Israeli champion Paralympic swimmer Keren Or Leibovitch
1974(6thof Av, 5734): Ninety-two Dr. Nima H. Adlerblum, a promoter of the works of John Dewey as well and active member of the world’s Jewish community as can be seen in her role as “a founder of the national cultural and educational program of Hadassah and her authorship of such works as A Perspective of Jewish Life Through Its Festivals passed away today at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, her original hometown.
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/08/02/archives/nima-adlerblum-philosopher-92-interpreter-of-dewey-deadwriter-and.html
https://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Childhood-Approach-Jewish-Philosophy/dp/0765760126
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nima-adlerblum
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/adlerblum-nima
1974(6thof Av, 5734): Seventy four year old real estate develop Joseph Eichler passed away today.
https://www.eichlerforsale.com/joseph-eichler.php
1975: Marvin Hamlisch’s “A Chorus Line” opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre tonight.
1975: “The Other Side of the Mountain” a skiing biopic with a screenplay by David Selzer and music by Charles Fox was released today in the United States
1976:The Jerusalem Post reported that the Asian Games Federation resolved that it was in the interest of Israel and for the safety of other nations' athletes that Israel should not participate in the 1978 Asian Games. [In the early days of the War on Terror, this is an easy victory for the forces of terror.]
1976 (27th of Tammuz, 5736): One soldier was killed and three more were wounded when a terrorist set off a bomb in a restaurant in Batala.
1976: The first performance of the Philip Glass opera Einstein on the Beach
1977: Funeral services are scheduled to be held at noon today at Temple Beth Israel for eighty-four year old Kiev born Abraham Feldman who 1906 where he “graduated from HUC and the University of Cincinnati and was ordained in 1918 after which he Temple Beth Israel in West Hartford and served as “president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and Synagogue Council of America while raising three children – Daniel, Joan and Ella – with “his wife, the former Helen Bloch.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/07/23/archives/abraham-feldman-jewish-leader-dies-nationally-known-as-an-ecumenist.html
1979: Another section of the Sinai Peninsula is peacefully returned by Israel to Egypt.
1981: On the second day of The Battle of Bint Jbeil Brigadier General Gal Hirsch prematurely announced that the town had been taken.
1981(23rd of Tammuz, 5741): Former MK Yosef Goldschmidt passed away today. Born at Frankfurt in 1907, he was certified as a high school science teacher before he made Aliyah in 1935. After leaving the Knesset, he served as Deputy Mayor Jerusalem.
1983(15thof Av, 5743): Tuba Av
1983(15thof Av, 5743): Sixty-nine year old composer Jerome Moross passed away today in Miami.
http://jeromemoross.com/bio.html
1986(22ndof Tammuz, 5646): Five days before his 73rd birthday, Walter Bergman the refugee from Nazi Germany who arrived in 1936 arrived in South Africa where he joined the Army, fought his way across North Africa and Italy and returned to Cape Town where he became a leading numismatist.
1990: Roseanne “Barr performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" before a baseball game between the San Diego Padres and Cincinnati Reds at Jack Murphy Stadium.”
1991(14thof Av, 5751): Eighty-three year old Pennsylvanian Paul Friedlander, the Carnegie Tech quarterback who led his 6th ranked team to play No. 1 Texas Christian University in the fifth annual Sugar Bowl passed away today.
1991(14thof Av, 5751): Ninety-seven year old Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich, one of the last of the original Bolshevik revolutionaries passed away today. (As reported by Francis X. Clines)
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/27/obituaries/l-m-kaganovich-stalwart-of-stalin-dies-at-97.html
1993: The IDF crosses into Lebanon in Operation Accountability. The week long incursion was brought on by Hezbollah’s rocket attacks on Israeli settlements and the PLFP’s a killing of Israeli soldiers.
1994: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein signed a declaration at the White House ending their countries' 46-year-old state of war.
1994(17thof Av, 5754): “Border policeman Sgt.-Maj. Jacques Attias, 24, died of his wounds after being shot by Palestinian policemen during the riots at Erez checkpoint on July 17.”
1996: Yakov Kreizberg performed the United Kingdom premiere of Berthold Goldschmidt's Passacaglia op.4 today in the presence of the composer just months before he died.
1996(9thof Av, 5756): Tish’a B’Av
1996: In “Jewish Studies: Part of the Canon,” published today Jonathan Mahler warns that “the quarrel at Queens College over the selection of a non-Jewish professor to lead the school's Jewish studies program provides a lesson in the dangers of combining academic disciplines with identity politics. “http://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/25/opinion/jewish-studies-part-of-the-canon.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
1997: In Jerusalem, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years After Their Discovery a conference organized by Emanuel Tov came to an end.
1998(2ndof Av, 5758): Parashat Matot-Masei
1998:Selma Jeanne Cohen's "Encyclopedia of Dance"
http://jwa.org/thisweek/jul/26/1998/selma-jeanne-cohen
1999: The New York Times featured an article entitled “Streetscapes /Giorgio Cavaglieri; Near 88, a Preservationist Is Still a Maverick describing the importance of the Jewish, Italian born, architect.
1999: The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg by Christopher Ogden and recently released paperback edition of The Process: 1,100 Days That Changed the Middle East by Uri Savir
1999: “The Chicago Jewish Historical Society, in cooperation with the Dawn Schuman Institute are scheduled to offer a tour that includes a stop at Ligonier “a special Indiana community where the Jewish population made a significant impact from the 1850’s well into” the 20th century and a stop at South Bend, “an active Jewish community with a rich history.”
2000: The Trilateral Statement on the Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David was issued today.
http://2001-2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/22698.htm
2000: The INS Tkuma was commissioned today.
2001: The SS Regent Sun formerly the SS Shalom of the Israeli Zim line, sank off the coast of South Africa.
2001(5th of Av, 5761): Ninety-one year old “Lillian Kiesler, artist, art patron and the widow of the sculptor and avant-garde architect Frederick Kiesler” passed away today in Manhattan. (As reported by Holland Cotter)
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/03/obituaries/03KIES.html
2001: “Issues in Jewish Philosophy,” a colloquium sponsored by The European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) came to a close today.
2001: After four hours of searching for the body of Chandra Levy under a broiling summer sun in Rock Creek Park, 28 police candidates break off the hunt not knowing that that missing interns body was a mere 79 yards below the trail where they had stopped.
2002: In Amsterdam, the seventh conference of The European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) under the presidency of Professor Albert van der Heide came to an end.
2003(25thof Tammuz, 5763): Seventy-seven year old film director John Schlesinger passed away today.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/jul/26/guardianobituaries.filmnews
2003: Gesher gives its last performance of “Shoshah” a play based on a novel of the same name by Isaac B. Singer at the Lincoln Center in New York City.
2004: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of When Hollywood Had a King: The Reign of Lew Wasserman, Who Leveraged Talent Into Power and Influence Connie Bruck’s ''fascinating book which is a methodical portrait of an often secretive mogul whose vindictiveness, cunning and temper matched his shrewdness and prescience.''
2005(18th of Tammuz, 5765): Eighty-two year old Sonny Hertzberg, the CCNY guard who was a leading player for the New York Knicks in their first season, passed away today. (As reported by Richard Goldstein).
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/29/sports/basketball/sonny-hertzberg-82-a-knick-from-the-very-beginning-dies.html
2005: Starting today the Zabriskie Gallery began showing a selection of watercolors of Isadora Duncan by Abraham Walkowitz, the Siberian born Jew who came to the United States with his mother
2006: In “…No, It’s Survival” published today Richard Cohen defends his controversial comments about the existence of the state of Israel.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/24/AR2006072400808.html
2006(29th of Tammuz, 5766): Seventy-eight year old Professor Ezra Fleischer, an Israeli poet whose scholarly work re-defined views on the antiquity of prayer, passed away today.(As reported by Ari L. Goldman)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/arts/01fleischer.html
2006: Eliot Spitzer took part in a gubernatorial debate at Pace University prior to the Democratic primary which is scheduled for September.
2006: At Jerusalem’s Confederation House, the third and last concert in the series based on baskot (requests), songs of supplication traditionally sung during the early hours of Shabbat morning in Middle Eastern Jewish communities.
2006: The following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers were killed in the Israel-Hezbollah war: Doua Abbas, 15, of Mughar; David Mazen, 75, of Haifa.
2006: Blu Greenberg, best known for her work on behalf of feminism within Orthodox Judaism, was honored with Hadassah's highest honor, the Henrietta Szold award for outstanding leadership in the Jewish community. Greenberg, who shared the award jointly with her husband, Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, thus joined a list of prominent world leaders—from Elie Wiesel to Yitzchak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Golda Meir—to be so honored. (As reported by JWA)
2007: CBS distributed the last of episode of “Clark and Michael” produced and directed by Max Winkler.
2007: In Jerusalem, a celebration of International Jewish Music entitled “Come to the Jewish Music Marathon,” features Jewish musicians from around world including, Daniel Kahan of Germany, PSOY of Russia, DJ Yonatan from Oi Va Voi of England, Trio Karfion of Israel, and Oy Devision of Israel.
2007: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's traveling exhibition Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Bookburning opens in Baltimore, at the Enoch Pratt Free Library.
2008: A powerful explosion ripped through a car on a busy Gaza City killing four and wounding 23, Hamas security officials said.
2008: At Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, an exhibition that tells the story of Jewish refugees who took Trujillo up on his offer and settled in the town of Sosua, on the Dominican Republic’s northeastern shore comes to an end.
2008: Larry Leiber was presented the Bill Finger Award today “during the 2008 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards ceremony at Comic-Con International.”
2009: A screening of “Rachel.” a controversial film that purports to investigate the death of anti-Israel activist Rachel Corrie, is scheduled to take place the Castro Theatre in San Francisco.
2009: In “Shabbat special for C.R. congregation,”published today Molly Rossiter of the Gazette describes upcoming events at Temple Judah.
The Shabbat service on Aug. 1 at Temple Judah will have triple significance for the congregation there. The Shabbat is the first for the congregation’s new rabbi, Todd Thalblum. The day also marks the Shabbat Nachamu, the Sabbath of Consolation, which follows the Jewish fast of Tishah B’Av, the first of seven services leading up to Rosh Hashanah. And for the third year, it is also the Raoul Wallenberg Sabbath, a day marked by Gov. Chet Culver in 2007 to remember the man who helped the Jews in Budapest avoid the concentration camps. Thalblum joins the congregation after being named rabbi last month. Thalblum, 41, last served a congregation in Texas. He said last month that he was “looking forward” to returning to the Midwest and to serving as rabbi at Temple Judah. “The first priority is going to be getting to know the congregation, that’s going to come first,” he said. But he plans to get actively involved fairly early in community interests, as well. “The congregation has talked very much about what they’ve enjoyed about the rabbi being involved in the community,” he said.
2009: This year’s “World Outgames,” a festival of sports and culture hosted by the gay community in a different city every four years opens in Copenhagen where it pays tribute to Tel Aviv’s Centennial celebration by converting on of Copenhagen’s canal into a Tel Aviv Beach and hosting leading Israeli artists, Israeli music and beach games.
2009: In Jerusalem“Beit Avi Chai's Saturday night music line, directed by Shaanan Street, presents Amir Lev in a new concert marking the release of his album Hakol Kan. The concert features familiar and new songs about the lives of ordinary people, with their laughter and tears. The concert will include a special piyyut for Tisha B’Av.”
2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or special interest to Jewish readers including The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman and Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century by Ruth Harris
2010: Hadassah 95th annual convention opened today.
2010: “Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story” premiered at the Stony Brook Film Festival
2010: During the afternoon session of the annual Hadassah Convention, Deborah Rosenbloom, Jewish Women International (JWI) program director, was a presenter at a workshop that will provide resources and a Jewish context for parents to help their daughters identify and develop healthy relationships entitled “Dating, Sex and Love: How to Help Our Daughters Develop Healthy Relationships,” based on two national curricula—Love Shouldn’t Hurt and Strong Girls, Healthy Relationships.
2010: Israel and the United States signed an agreement today under which the Defense Ministry will receive full funding for the development and production of the Arrow 3 ballistic missile defense system. The agreement was signed in Tel Aviv by head of the ministry’s MAFAT Research and Development Directorate, Brig.-Gen. Ofir Shoham, and the head of the US Missile Defense Agency, Lt.-Gen. Patrick O’Reilly.
2010: The ninth congress of The European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) opened today in Ravenna
2010: First Annual New York Sephardic Jewish Book Fair presented by ASF opened at noon today.
2010: Rabbi Manfred Gans announced his retirement after 60 years behind the pulpit that now stands in Forest Hills.
2011: The Silver-Garburg Piano Duo is scheduled to perform at Mannes College The New School for Music. “Sivan Silver, born in Israel in 1976, and Gil Garburg, born in Israel in 1975, studied with Prof. Arie Vardi at Tel-Aviv University and at the “Musikhochschule” in Hanover, Germany.”
2011: Israeli born dancer and choreographer Dana Ruttenberg is scheduled to conduct a Contemporary Dance Workshop at the Peridance Capezio Center in New York City.
2011: The chairman of the Israel Medical Association, Dr. Leonid Eidelman, announced that he was going on a hunger strike today to protest the state of the health care system in Israel, after exhausting all efforts to reach a negotiated agreement with the Finance Ministry
2011: After 5 protesters were arrested for blocking traffic in Jerusalem this morning, at least 200 protesters demonstrating against soaring rent prices gathered in Kikar Paris outside the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem today, blocking traffic on Aza Road.
2011: Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph “Stiglitz participated in the "I Foro Social del 15M" organized in Madrid (Spain) expressing his support for the 2011 Spanish protests.”
2011: The first ever reunion of the Ritchie Boys, a unique intelligence unit that served in Europe from D-Day to VE-Day came to a close today at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
2012: The North American Premiere of “Ameer Got His Gun” and the West Coast Premiere of “Just 45 Minutes from Broadway” are scheduled to take place at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2012: In New Orleans, Gates of Prayer and Beth Israel are scheduled to present part 2 of Tevye’s World, their combined continuing education program. (For more about Jewish life in the Big Easy, seehttp://www.crescentcityjewishnews.com/
2012: Israel’s gas mask distribution centers are reporting a significant rise in the number of civilians seeking protection against chemical weapons.(As reported by Stuart Winer)
2012: “Mogul’s Latest Foray Courts Jews for G.O.P.” published today described Sheldon Adelson’s mulit-million dollar effort to gain Jewish votes for Mitt Romney.
2012: White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan arrived in Israel today for talks with several senior officials, according to a statement from the National Security Council spokesman. (As reported by Sam Ser)
2012: Under the Lone Star another the Star of David is blessed when Abbie and Feivel Strauss gave birth to their first child this evening in Houston, TX. Mother and son are doing well as is the dad and the proud maternal grandparents Dr. Bob & Laurie Silber.
2012: Former Citigroup chairman Sanford Weill publicly changed his views on banks as the financial supermarket, when he told CNBC that “what we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking, have banks be deposit takers, have banks make commercial loans and real estate loans, have banks do something that’s not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that's not too big to fail."
2012(6th of Av, 5772): Sixty-four year old Suzy Gersham the author of 16 “Born to Shop Guides” including Born to Shop New York passed away today in San Antonio, TX. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
2013: “Next Stop, Greenwich Village,” “a semi-autobiographical account of Paul Mazursky’s life” is scheduled to be shown this evening as part of the Only In New York Summer Film Series
2013: The 17th annual Jerusalem 3x3 Streetball tournament at Safra Square is scheduled to come to an end today.
2013(18th of Av, 5773): Ninety-year old “decorated World War II veteran, attorney and judge, Arthur Edwin Lasker,” the second son Philip and Hannah Lasker and the nephew Emmanuel Cohen, a former president of Paramount Pictures, passed away today.
2013: After a busy year that has included a trip to Jerusalem and a move to Columbus, Ohio, Jacob Strauss celebrated his first birthday.
2013: In the southern Russian state of Dagestan, Rabbi Ovadia Eisekoff, a Chabad “emissary in the city of Derbent who was shot in the chest by an unknown assailant was taken to a hospital for emergency treatment at 1 a.m. this morning.
2013: Following an increase in violence that has included a double homicide two days ago and a stabbing last week, authorities in Jerusalem are stepping up their patorls in the Israeli capital. (As reported by Daniel Eisenbud)
2014: Following services at Riverside Memorial Chapel, Madeline Amgott, one of the female pioneers in the field of television news production is scheduled to be interred at Beth Israel Cemetery in Norwalk, CT.
2014: When a unit of the Nahal infantry brigade was “targeted by a terror cell with an anti-tank missile” 22 year old Staff Sgt. (res.) Yogev Ofir, responded “to the sounds of blasts, rushed to the site and returned fire, using ammunition from other soldiers when his own ran out and provided cover so the wounded could be evacuated and helped treat them while returning fire despite sustaining an injury himself during the battle” – actions for which he received “the Chief of Staff Decoration.”
2014(27th of Tammuz, 5774): Eighty-six year old financial mogul Alan C. Greenberg passed away today.
2014: “A French Jewish activist whose address was published in anti-Israel forums online was ambushed outside his home by several men who caused him minor injuries.”
2014(27th of Tammuz, 5774): Bel Kaufman, author of Up the Downstairs passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
2015:“My Report to the World: The Story of Jan Karski” is scheduled to be performed for the last time tonight.
2015: Dan Bern, the son of Marianne Bern, is scheduled to perform at a special kid’s show in Mt. Vernon, IA at the First Street Community Center.
2015:“Israel’s national soccer team faces slim chances against two of the world’s best soccer teams in order to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia after being picked in the same group as titans Spain and Italy” today.
2015: The Museum of Jewish Heritage and Lab/Shul are scheduled to host “a curated night of innovative performances, discussions, gallery tours, and candlelit contemplation as we mark Tisha B'Av”
2016(19th of Tammuz, 5776): Ninety-four year old James M. Nederlander “the American Jewish theater impresario” passed away today. (As reported by Bruch Weber)
2016: Today, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority announced today that the L. Train “will stop running in Manhanttan for 18 months beginning in 2019 “which could make life tougher for the Satmar Hasidim who rely on Williamsburg’s booming real estate industry for jobs and income.”
2016: The American Dance Festival featuring Dafi Atabeb and LeeSaar, the company established in Israel in 2000 by Lee Sher and Saar Harari is scheduled to open in Durham, NC.
2017: The San Francisco Historical Association is scheduled to host an appearance by Lynn Downey who will talk about her latest book, Levi Strauss: The Man Who Gave Blue Jeans to the World
2017: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “New and Journalism in the Age of Trump” presented by Wall Street Journal Editor in Chief Gerard Baker.
2017: “After years of backing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the free daily Israel Hayom castigated the premier’s “display of feebleness” and his “helpless” response to the Temple Mount crisis on its front page, in a large above-the-fold headline.”
2017(2nd of Av, 5777): One hundred three year old high jumper Margaret Bergman Lambert who was kept from competing in the 1936 Olympics because she was Jewish pass away today. (As reported by Ira Berkow)
2017: “Israel ministers decided that the metal detectors set up outside the Temple Mount in Jerusalem — in the wake of a terror attack at the holy site in which two Israeli police officers were killed — would be removed, and replaced with security measures based on “advanced technologies.” (As reported by TOI)
2017: “The Young Karl Marx” is scheduled to be shown this evening at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2018: In Memphis, TN, Rabbi Feivel Strauss is scheduled to lecture on “How Playfulness Can Get You Out of a Rut” at the JCC’s Shainberg Art Gallery.
2018: Diarna, The Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life is scheduled to present the Passport to Jewish History lecture describing the results of a recent expedition to Egypt featuring Josh Shamsi.
2018: The Nefesh B’Nefesh Aliyah Ceremony is scheduled to take place at the Ben Gurion Airport.
2018: In Beachwood, Ohio, “The Matlz Museum of Jewish Heritage is scheduled to host its ‘Panel Discussion on Cleveland African-American Heroes.
2018: The photographic exhibition “Bedouin and Arab Israeli Communities in the Negev” which is part of the “Home: Lens on Israel” is scheduled to come to an end today at the Streicker Center.
2019: Clare Bronfman, an heiress to the Seagram's liquor fortune, who “pleaded guilty to conspiracy to conceal and harbor people who were not in the United States legally for financial gain and fraudulent use of identification” and who was “part of an alleged pyramid scheme that involved sex trafficking and racketeering” is schedule to be sentenced in a New York federal court.’
2019: Today the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of the documentary “You Only Die Twice” and “Latter Day Jew” which tells the tale of Mormon comedian H. Alan Scott’ conversion to Judaism.
2019: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to host Dovid Braun as he talks about “What Yiddish Is That?” part of the Yiddish Civilization Lecture Series.
2019: In Des Moines, IA, at Tifereth Israel Synagouge, Jonathan Schachter, a “former advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu” is scheduled to speak at “The 2019 AIPAC Iowa Annual event.