July 30
762:Caliph Al Mansur founded the city of Baghdad. By the start of the 10th century wealthy Jewish merchants were playing the role of “court bankers” and were reportedly lending funds to the caliphs and his their minister.
1192: The forces of Saladin successfully stormed the walls of Jaffa forcing the remaining Crusaders to take refuge in the town’s citadel.
1286: Gregory Bar Hebraeus a bishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church whose name serves a reminder that he was the father of Jewish physician passed away today.
1360: A butcher’s license for a carniceria was issued to a Christian named Bernard Arlouin. In Spain, Jews were not allowed to have butchers licenses. In other words, they operated butcher shops, but were not allowed to own them. In this case, a Spanish Jew named Jafudenus Amilus operated the shop.
1488: Sixteen Jews were burned at the stake in Barcelona.
1492(9thof Av, 5252): The entire Jewish Community, numbering 200,000 souls was expelled from Spain.
1492: Don Isaac Abravanel gave up his power, wealth and prestige to join his fellow Jews on their perilous road out of Spain.
1494: In Toledo, an especially large auto da fé was held today with 16 persons from Guadalajara, Alcalá de Henares, and Toledo burned to death and 30 more condemned to life imprisonment.
1549: Birthdate of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany who “invited Jews, including Marranos, to settle in Pisa and the free port of *Leghorn, which before long became one of the great Jewish centers of the Mediterranean area.” (Jewish Virtual Library)
1729: Baltimore, Maryland is founded. Jews were already living in the colony of Maryland when Baltimore was founded. The Jewish community in Baltimore is one of the oldest in the country. However, the first building that was built as a synagogue, the Lloyd Street Synagogue, was not constructed until 1845.
1756: In London Elie and Hana Pinto Vega gave birth to Abraham Furtado the President of the Assemblee des Notables and the assistant of the Mayor of Bordeaux.
1794: As part of the Second Partition of Poland, Russian forces “occupied Vilna” a city with a large Jewish population many of whom had supported Kosciuszko’s Uprising and most of whom dreaded the change given their past experience with the Russians during the 17th century. (As reported by Abraham Bloch)
1819: One day after she had passed away, 56 year old “Rosy Isaacs, the widow of Abraham Isaacs” was buried today at the Brady Street Cemetery.
1825: Birthdate of Ignaz Gorssman, the Hungarian born Rabbi who came to the United States in 1873 to lead Congregation Beth Elohim.
1825: Birthdate of Chaim Aronson, a Lithuanian Jew, who was inventor and academic. Aronson's inventions, which included several machines for mass producing cigarettes, a clockwork calculator, a prototype for an early movie camera, and the microdiarama, were, for their time, ground breaking. Aronson, however, is better remembered for a series of memoirs he wrote, published long after his death in the book A Jewish Life Under the Tsars This is an autobiography of Aronson's own difficult life, but it also describes insightfully, the life of ordinary society in Imperial Russia.
1829: Daniel O’Connell best known for his work in favor of the Emancipation of Catholics but who also supported Emancipation for Irish Jews and the repeal of the British law "De Judaismo", was elected to Parliament today
1830: In “York Place Queens Elm,” Nathaniel and Sophia Levy gave birth to Jonas Levy today.
1832: Three days after she had passed away erev Shabbat, seventy year old Rachel Elias, the wife of Godfrey Elias” was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.
1833: Joshua Leavitt and Sarah Williams Leavitt gave birth to James Taylor Leavitt the husband of Sarah Bancrot Leavitt and the father of William, James and Samuel Leavitt.
1836: Birthdate of Gustav Solomon Oppert, “German Indologist and Sanskrist who was the brother of Julius Oppert.
1841: One day after she had passed away, “Jane Davis, the widow of Moses Davis” was buried today at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.
1851: Rabbi Lyons officiated at the wedding of Mr. Solomons from Savannah, GA and Frances Joseph from Charleston, SC
1856: In New York Asher Kursheedt and Abigail Kursheedt gave birth to Lionel Judah Kursheedt
1860: The New York Times reported that The Fast of Ab. -- Yesterday was the fast of the month of Ab, the anniversary of the destruction of the temple of Solomon by Nebuchadnezzar, and of the second temple by Vespasian, among the Hebrew population all over the world; and was fully observed in the synagogues of this City. The fast of Ab is really one of abnegation. No meat is eaten, and but very little bread is broken. The synagogues yesterday were hung with black, and the Book of Lamentation was read in the original Hebrew.
1861: Philadelphian Augustus Hassler enlisted for a three year hitch in the Forty-First Regiment where he rose to the rank of Sergeant in Company F.
1861: Philadelphian Abraham B. Harris began serving a three year hit in the 65thRegiment also known as the 5th Cavalry during which he rose in rank from Sergeant, to Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant to Second Lieutenant.
1862: During the American Civil War, General William T. Sherman wrote a letter from Union-occupied Memphis, Tennessee stating, "I found so many Jews and speculators here trading in cotton, and secessionists had become so open in refusing anything but gold, that I have felt myself bound to stop it. The gold can have but one use - the purchase of arms and ammunition... Of course, I have respected all permits by yourself or the Secretary of the Treasury, but in these new cases (swarms of Jews), I have stopped it."
1863: The New York Times reported that “a Jew broker, made his appearance in Westchester, Penn., accompanied by a dozen others, whom he represented as anxious to serve as substitutes, for a consideration. Although some of the men, it is said, boasted of having taken part in the New-York riots, yet they were eagerly caught up by drafted men, and engaged at various prices as substitutes.” [The Times did not report on the ethnic or religious origins of any of the other participants in this scheme. This story was part of a series on the Draft Riots that racked New York in the summer of 1863. Did the Times identify the rioters as “Catholics” or Irish Catholics? ]
1863: In Dublin, Ireland, Isabella Davis and “dentist turned portrait photographer Hyman Davis” gave birth to Julia Davis who became Julia Frankau when she married “cigar importer Arthur Frankau who gained fame writing under the name of “Frank Danby.”
1863: Birthdate of American automaker Henry Ford. For Americans, Ford is the man who made the Model-T. For Jews, he is the man who popularized the "Protocols of the Elders Of Zion." Towards the end of his life, Ford apologized for his involvement with this anti-Semitic literature that still infects the world today.
1863:Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler consecrated the new building housing the Bayswater Synagogue.
1864: In Dublin, portrait photographer and dentist Hyman Davis and his wife gave birth to Julia Davis who became Julia Frankau in 1883 when she married Arthur Frankau and gained fame as a novelist under the penname Frank Danby. (Editor’s note – there seems to be some conflict as to the year in which she was born. Wiki says 1859. The Jewish Encyclopedia and “The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer”, a trade journal that carried a contemporaneous obituary used the 1864 date.
1864: During the American Civil War, Union Army Sergeant Major Abraham Cohn distinguished himself at the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, VA. Cohn would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his fighting during the Wilderness Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg.
1865: In Philadelphia, PA, the Benjamin Lodge of the Free Sons of Israel which conducted its proceedings in German was chartered today.
1870: Birthdate of Emil Schiff who was shipped from Leipzig to Terezin where he was murdered at the age of 72.
1870: Newspapers carry full accounts of what is called “A Horrible Murder” – the murder of prominent New Yorker Benjamin Nathan – and the so far fruitless efforts of the police to solve the crime.
1871: It was reported today that “the industrious Jews” are “annoying Christians.” In New York, the Alanson M.E. Church on Norfolk Street occupies a building adjacent to a tenement house that is “occupied almost exclusively by” Orthodox Jews. The Jews go to the synagogue on Saturday and work on Sunday. Many of them work as tailors “and the ceaseless whirr of their sewing-machines has proved very annoying to the worshipers in the church.” One of the Jews offered to stop working if the church members would pay him for his lost time. The trustees have declined his offer and are considering taking legal action against the Jewish worker.
1874: In San Francisco, CA, founding today of “Chebra Ohavai Shalom which offer members, who included Jose Morris, David Cohen, Adolf Morris and Julius Israelsky, “sick benefits and endowments.”
1876(9th of Av, 5636): Tish'a B'Av
1876: “A Jewish Festival,” published today, reported that Tish’a B’Av, “a Jewish festival” commemorating “the destruction of Jerusalem was begun at 9 o’clock last evening in many of the synagogues” in New York City “and will be generally observed today at the various Jewish temples of worship, notably those of the orthodox Jews. In the churches of the latter, the services will consist of chants and prayers for the re-establishment of the Jewish hierarchy.” In addition to praying and singing, “the festival is…observed…by a fast of twenty-four hours duration.” [Ed. Note – It is worth noting that this brief but detailed description of a minor Jewish fast day appeared in the New York Times.
1878: Birthdate of Adolf Guttman, the native Kleinstinach who served in the German Army during WW I.
1878: German elections resulted in the reactionary element having a dominant voice in the Reichstag. This date is considered the birthday of modern German anti- Semitism.
1880: Birthdate of Colonel Robert R. McCormick who gained famed as the editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune in an era when newspapers were the dominant voice of the media in the United States. He was a founder of the American First Committee, a powerful organization dedicated to keep the United States out of World War II which took on a decidedly anti-Semitic viewpoint.
1880: Birthdate of Bernhard Weiss, the German born lawyer who served as a top ranking police official during the Weimar Republic and fearlessly confronted the Nazis.
1880: “Resting at Schooley’s Mountain” published today provided a brief history of this famous New Jersey resort area. The area had become so popular with Jewish vacationers that two of the cottages, Heath House and Belmont Hall, effectively banned Jewish guests. The ban was lifted when the locals saw its negative impact. (This was one of only of series of bans instituted at hotels, etc. following the Civil War.)
1881: Birthdate of Paterson, NJ, native Meyer Barnett, WWI veteran and holder of a degree in Electrical Engineering from Columbia.
1881: “Foreign Topics” published today described the nightly anti-Semitic demonstrations taking place in Hammerstein, West Prussia. The riots are similar to ones that have already taken placed in Baerwald, Pomerania.
1881: It was reported today that troops fired on rioters in Poltava who have been attacking Jews, killing four and wounding two.
1884: Theodor Herzl is admitted to the bar in Vienna.
1884: Two New York detectives apprehended Samuel Barnett, a Polish Jew who reportedly has been committing a series of robberies over the last three months in Harlem.
1884: In Nashville, TN, the jury hearing the case of Meyer Moskowitz and “Zeke” White was discharged this evening. Moskowitz, a Jew and White had been charged with murdering Meyer Fried of Nashville. The jury had acquitted White but was deadlocked on the issue of Moskowitz‘s guilt.
1885: Myer S. Isaacs presided over a meeting of the Board of Delegates of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations which had been called to determine how to respond to the death of Sir Moses Montefiore. The board decided to recommend that all Jewish congregations hold special memorial services on Friday night and Saturday morning in honor of the late philanthropist. Plans will be made a later date for a more formal memorial service to be held in September.
1885: “Two young gentlemen of Hebrew extraction who were engaged selling bullet-like green apples from a wagon at the rate of one cent per quart” unsuccessfully tried to escape Dr. Cyrus Edson, Chief of the Secondary Sanitary Division, and his officers during a raid on the lower east side as part of Edson’s drive to put an end to the sale of unsanitary produce.
1886: Among the institutions that received money from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment today was the Hebrew Guardian Society in the amount of $2,858.29
1886: “Jew and Gentile Wedded” published today described the elopement of Nellie Goodwin and Meier Weil. Goodwin the 16 year old daughter of Reverend W.R. Goodwin of the Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church and Weil, the son of prominent Jewish merchant, have left Jacksonville, Illinois for parts unknown.
1886(27thof Tammuz, 5646): Shlomo Ganzfried, the Hungarian rabbi who created the “Kitzur Schulchan Aruch” which may be viewed as a “summary” or abbreviation of the larger work by Joseph Karo which makes Jewish ritual, customs and laws available to the “average” Jew.
1887: “Wealthy Hebrews Worried” published today described Isidor Freedman’s inability to gain membership in the Utopia Club, a social club for wealthy Jews living in New Haven, CT. Freedman, part of the firm of Mendel & Freedman had been blackballed by Isaac Ullmann. (Not exactly the kind of story they taught us in Hebrew School)
1888: Forty-five year old Irish-American playwright Barley Campbell author of “Siberia” a drama about the persecution of the Jews of Russia passed away
1888:In Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d'Oise, dramatist Tristan Bernard and his wife gave birth to French playwright Jean-Jacques Bernard
1888: In Paris Louis Lehmann Berr and Henriette Alice Berr gave birth to Maurice Berr.
1889: In Philadelphia, David Julius, “a bookbinder,” and his wife gave birth to Emanuel Julius who gained gamed as socialist and published Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, “the head of Haldeman-Julius Publications.”
1890: “The Juvenile Band of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum” will play at today’s concert sponsored by B’nai B’rith for the benefit of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews in Yonkers. 1892: Waldemar Mordecai Wolff Haffkine, a Russian born Jewish bacteriologist, reported the results of his test of his cholera vaccine to the Biological Society in London.
1890: The Times of London reported that the Russian government has ordered the enforcement of the edicts of 1882 which were aimed at limiting the economic opportunities for Jews and forcing them to live “in certain towns.”
1890: The New York Times will forward a check for $30.50 that it received from Mrs. S.J. Nathan to the Hebrew Sanitarium, the charity for which the people of Sucassunna, NJ collected the money.
1891: Morris Goodhart of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society was among those who testified as to the harmful effects of the Standard Gas Company works on the riverfront at east 114th Street.
1891: The Russian immigrants who arrived at Boston yesterday from Liverpool will not be admitted into the country are because “they are deemed likely to be a pubic charge.”
1892(6thof Av, 5652): Parashat Devarim and Shabbat Chazon
1892(6thof Av, 5652): Eleven month old Adrian Calisch, the son of “Gussie Woolner Calisch” and “Rabbi Edward Calisch of Congregation Anshai Emeth,” passed away today after which he was buried at the Springdale Cemetery in Peoria, Illinois.
1892: John Collins chaired the meeting of Fourth Assembly District Republicans held at the Hebrew Institute Hall.
1892: Dr. C.H. Goodman and Mrs. Goodman set sail today aboard the SS Gallia for Liverpool.
1892: Dr. Michael Singer’s denial of charges that he had “absconded” with funds from the Baron Hirsch Fund published today stated that “Mrs. David Bischitz, who is a million has charge of the fund and is the only person who handled any of its money. We had a disagreement and she gave a certificate of character and 1,500 gulden in place of the usual notice of dismissal.”
1892: “Divided Against Itself” published today described a dispute about the spending of funds by K.H. Sarasohn, the President of Society of the Hebrew Sheltering Home, which was founded “about eighteen months ago to provide temporary home” for Jewish immigrants for from Russia.
1893(17thof Av, 5653): Seventy-six year old Solomon Heyman who operated a successful dry goods business and was one of the Directors of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum passed away while on vacation in Long Branch.
1893: “Sir Richard Burton’s Life” published today provided a detailed review of The Life of Capt. Sir Richard F. Burton, the author of The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam
1894: Two days after he had passed away, thirty-four year old Joseph Levy was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery” on Buckingham Road.”
1894:“On the Upper West Side of New York City, Julius Wolf and the former Bertha Samuel, “the daughter of Lehman Samuels who co-owned Samuels Brothers which was at one point the largest exporter of cattle in America” gave birth to Blanche Wolf who gained fame as Blanche Wolf Knopf, “the wife of publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Sr.” who was in her own right “president of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.” “Although her name and work have been overshadowed by those of her husband, Blanche Wolf Knopf carved out her own place in the publishing industry as vice-president and president of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Blanche Knopf was raised in New York, where she met Alfred Knopf in 1911. They were married in 1916; the year after Alfred Knopf launched his eponymous publishing firm. Blanche Knopf was involved in the firm from the start, and in 1921, she became a director and vice-president. In addition to running the office, Blanche Knopf's duties included frequent travel to meet with and recruit new authors for the press. By all accounts, she excelled in establishing relationships with writers on three continents. Under her leadership, Knopf published translations of French writers Albert Camus, André Gide, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre; South American writers Jorge Amado, Gilberto Freyre, and Eduardo Mallea; and the first American edition of Sigmund Freud's Moses and Monotheism. Knopf published American classics, but under Blanche Knopf's urging the firm also published such new American writers as H.L. Mencken, Willa Cather, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler. For her work in support of French literature in America, she was named a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the French government in 1949 and made an officer in 1960. Similarly, she was honored by the Brazilian government in 1950 with the Order of the Southern Cross. In 1957, Alfred Knopf became chairman of the board, and Blanche Knopf took over as president. However, in 1960, the firm was sold to Random House, which maintains the Knopf imprint as an independent entity. Blanche Knopf remained involved at the helm of the Knopf imprint until her death in 1966. Her New York Times obituary said that her "alertness and perspicacity in recruiting writers ... and her driving energy as an executive contributed immensely to the success of the house of Knopf." In a field dominated entirely by men, in which she was virtually the only woman in her time to take a leading role, Blanche Knopf had a lasting impact on Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., on the world of publishing, and on American letters.
1894: “Socialist Leaders Went Too Far” published today described the conflict among the Cloakmakers nearly all of whom are Jewish which was resolved when they chose Socialist Joseph Barondess to serve as their president. One of the points of contention was the Socialist demand that the Union Zeitung which is published in Hebrew with a circulation of 10,000 paid subscribers should be replaced with the Arbeiter Zeitung, “a Hebrew Socialist organ.”
1894: “Five jurors were impaneled” today “in part I. of the Court of General Sessions to try Policeman Jeremiah S. Levy” who is Jewish, “of the Thirty-first Precinct for bribery.
1894: Max Lefkowitz signed an affidavit today saying that Officer Jeremiah Levy was not the man who had cheated him out of $25 in a scheme to provide testimony that would have freed his brother Ignatz who was facing charges of grand larceny.
1895(9th of Av, 5655): Tisha B’Av
1895(9thof Av, 5655): New York banker Simon Wormser passed away today.
1895: The strike of the Brotherhood of Tailors, most of whom were Jewish, seemed to be coming to an today as could be seen by Meyer Schoefield that “at least seventy contractors had already signed an agreement to give the strikers what they demanded” and that another twenty were prepared to sign.
1895: Samuel Gompers addressed a group of strikers tonight at Cooper Union.
1895: Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor who was responsible for the unification of Germany passed away. A complex person, Bismarck’s views changed from the 1840’s when he “could not accept Jews serving in the name of his ‘holy majesty’” to serving as Chancellor when Jewish emancipation came in 1869. For more see Were They Good for the Jews?by Elliot Rosenberg
1897: In Olean, NY, founding of the Hebrew Relief Association which met on the second Sunday of each month for the purpose of urging “the founding of a City Hospital” whose members included Max L. Cohen, Benjamin Ruttenberg, Morris Cohen and H.I. Gloss.
1898: Moses Montefiore Congregation in Hoboken, NJ is contesting the claim by David Engler that he actually owns the surface rights to the lot on which the synagogue sits and that he has the right to lift the building off of its foundation so that he can build a store on the property.
1899:”The United Hebrew Charities acknowledged” today that it had received a total of $180.50 to help resettle a family of four in the country. The parents have become chronic invalids from their work in the city and seek to support themselves in a rural area.
1900(4thof Av, 5660): “Political economist Samuel Cohn” the native of Bromberg, Germany passed away today in Berlin.
1901: Fifty-one year old historian Herbert Baxter Adams who wrote “valuable papers on the services” contributed by the “patriotic Jew” Chaim Salomon when others challenged his accomplishments, passed away today.
1901: Those attending the “Conference of Chazanim” which ended today in Vienna “decided to establish a General Cantors’ Association.”
1902: Over 50,000 mourners followed the casket of Rabbi Jacob Joseph during his funeral in New York today.
1902: Dr. Paul Kaplan and A.H. Sarahson, an attorney were among those attending a meeting in the office of Dr. Julius Halpern tonight where the police were denounced “an a committee was appointed to investigate and formulate charges against the officers in charge” at the funeral of Rabbi Jacob Joseph.
1902: “At a meeting of the John Steibling Republican Association of the Twelfth Assembly District a resolution was passed denouncing the employees and heads of departments of the R. Hoe & Co during the funeral” of Rabbi Jacob Joseph when they threw “hot water and missiles on the mourners.”
1905(27thof Tammuz, 5665): Tobacconist Solomon Wallenstein passed away. Born 1831, he married Esther Hellman Wallenstein, the founding president of the Hebrew Infant Asylum, in 1865.
1905(27thof Tammuz, 5665): “Two female Bundists” – Ester Riskin and Gitial Zakhajm – were killed today by a bomb that “anarchists threw…into a patrol that stood near the Bundist exchange on Surazer Street which led to an attack on the Jews by the military which lasted into the night and left at least Jews dead and an untold number wounded.
1905: In Bialystok, during the anti-Jewish riots, physicians were prevented from treating Jewish victims.
1908: Dr. Franz Kafka walked into the building housing the Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague and began working as an assistant in the legal department. He would retire in 1922 because of complications from a lung disease.
1909: “The first number of The Temple, a Louisville Jewish weekly edited” by Hyman Gerson Enelow appeared today.
1911(5thof Av, 5671): Moritz Pinner, the father of Rogers Pinner, who was known as ‘Captain Mortiz Pinner’ passed away today.
1912(16thof Av, 5672): Sixty-two year old author and publisher E.P. Goodman passed away today in Philadelphia, PA.
1913: “According to the appraisal filed today in the Surrogates’ Court” the estate of “Jacob Wolfgang Mack, the President of the Raritan Woolen Mills” which “which consisted largely of securities in companies manufacturing steam pumps” “was valued at $277,269”
1913(25thof Tammuz, 5673): Five days after his 73rd birthday German born, South African WW II veteran and numismatist Walter Bergman passed away today in Cape Town.
1914: In a move the results of which resonant throughout the Middle East and beyond to this day, two days after the outbreak of WW I, the Ottoman Empire formed a secret alliance with Germany aimed specifically at Russia.
1915: Lt. Charles Becker of the NYPD was executed by the state of New York today for his role in the murder of Jewish gamble Herman Rosenthal.
1916: As of today, the American Jewish Relief Committee of which Felix M. Warburg is the treasurer “has collected since its organization about $4,500,000.”
1916: It was reported today that among the contributions received by the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War included $41 from the Jews of Ironwood, Michigan and $150 from the Canada-Jewish Alliance.
1916(29thof Tammuz, 5676): Dr.Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser passed away.
1917: It was reported today that Rabbi G.W. Margulies, the director of the United Hebrew Community, “one of the leading Orthodox rabbis” in the United States had said on Tish’a B’Av said that “the Jews will reach Zion” in only a few years – perhaps not more than seven years” and that “there were prophecies” in the Zohar “led him to believe that the Germans might win the war.
1917: It was reported today that Rabbi “G.W. Margulies, director of the United Hebrew community and one of the leading orthodox rabbis in this country said that he hoped to see Palestine restored to the Jews within the next seven years.”
1918(21st of Av, 5678): Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik, the son of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik and author of the Chiddushei Rabbeinu Chaim, a commentary on the teachings of Maimonides, passed away today. Born in 1853, he was known as Reb Chaim Brisker because of the methodology he developed for studying Talmud.
1918: In Paris, Rabbi Hyman Gerson went to the burial of a soldier with whom he had spent several hours during the day as he lay dying.
1918: The Jewish Press Bureau in Stockholm described “a great sensation” that “has been caused among the Jewish workmen in Warsaw by the sudden disappearance of nineteen members of the executive committee of the Jewish trade unions.”
1919: The Chicago Hebrew Institute is scheduled to host on of its semi-monthly concerts this evening which will include “community singing.”
1920(15thof Av, 5680): Tu B’Av
1920: It was reported today that Dr. Juilus Hochfelder, the patent lawyer, “organizer of the Seaman’s Evening College and husband NYU trained attorney Anna Weiner Hochfelder “has received a communication from Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, in which Baker says he keenly appreciates the service rendered by Dr. Hochfelder in suggesting the ‘University in Khaki’ which instituted among” the A.E.F.
1920: It was reported today that “for the first time in the history of Palestine, postage stamps are being printed in Hebrew, English and Arabic.”
1921: Birthdate of U.S. Army Alvin David Ungerleider who as a 23 year old lieutenant stormed Omaha Beach during the Normandy landings and helped to liberate the Concentration Camp at Nordhausen in 1945.
1922: Birthdate of Henry W. Bloch, the co-founder and (since 2000) the chairman emeritus of H&R Block. Henry and his brother, Richard Bloch, founded H&R Block in 1955 in Kansas City, Missouri. Bloch was born in Kansas City. He attended Southwest High School, and was an undergraduate at University of Missouri–Kansas City and the University of Michigan, graduating from Michigan in 1944. Through the Army Air Corps he received graduate training at the Harvard Business School. Bloch and his wife Marion married in 1951 and live in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The Henry Wollman Block fountain in front of Union Station in Kansas City is named in his honor, as is The Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the Bloch Building, a major addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Mr. Bloch was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2001.
1923: In London, Auguie Rantner, a New York Jewish box, “defeated Ted (Kid) Lewis, the former middleweight champion, on points in a twenty-round bout.
1925(9thof Av, 5685): Tish’a B’Av
1925: Birthdate of Jakob Josef Petuchowski a native of Berlin, Germany. He was brought from Germany to London, in a children's transport, prior to the outbreak of World War II. After receiving a B.A. with honors in psychology from the University of London in 1947, Petuchowski moved to the United States in 1948 and earned his rabbinic ordination, master’s degree and Ph.D. from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. Petuchowski served in the congregational rabbinate in Welch, West Virginia and Washington Pennsylvania. He was also the High Holiday rabbi of Temple B'nai Israel, Laredo, Texas, from 1956 through 1991.
1927(1stof Ave, 5687): Parashat Masei; Rosh Chodesh Av
1928: Claims by Frieda and Goldina Rubinson, two sisters born in Hamburg now living in Tel Aviv that they are the authors of the opera now known as “Turnadot” and that Puccini plagiarized the score from them were greeted with scorn and ridicule by sources in New York including William J Guard of the Metropolitan Opera Company and G. Ricordi & Co, the music publishers.
1929: In Zurich, at the second session of the sixteenth Biennial Zionist Congress, statistician and agricultural expert Dr. Arthur Ruppin of Tel Aviv delivers an address in which he described the negative impact that conversion, intermarriage, decreasing birth rate and an unchanged mortality rate were having on the survival of the Jewish people.
1930: In Brooklyn, Leon Kretchamr, who “worked with his family’s Catskills hotels” and “Lilyan (Alperstein) Kretchmar gave birth to Elain Kretchmar who gained fame as Elaine Markson, one of “the first women to own a literary agency” which she used “to further the careers of fledgling feminist authors.” (As reported by Sam Roberts)
1932: In Hamburg Germany, Dr. Hans Bruno and pianist Lotte Bruno gave birth to Michael Peter Bruno all of whom moved to Haifa a year later where young Michael began the education that would lead to him becoming him “a governor of Israel’s central bank and a World Bank Chief Economist.”
1932: The 1932 Olympics opens in Los Angeles. Attila Petschauer a gold medal winning swordsman was part of the Hungarian Fencing Team. The 1999 film Sunshine is a multi-generational study of Petschauer’s family and vividly depicts his death at the hands of the Nazis in 1943. Jewish Gold Medal winners includedIstvan Barta, Hungary water polo, Gyorgy Brody, Hungary, water polo; Lillian Copeland, USA, athletics, discus throw; George Gulack, USA, gymnastics, flying rings; Endre Kabos, Hungary, fencing, team saber; Miklos Sárkány, Hungary water polo.
1933: “The editor of Der Surmer, Julius Streicher, newly appointed Reich Commissar for Franconia, gave orders that 250 Jewish tradesmen in Nuremberg should be arrested, and ‘set to plucking the grass out of a field with their teeth.’”
1933: Catcher Harry Danning made his major league debut with the New York Giants.
1934: The Rabbinical Advisor Committee of Fifty, which “was appointed by Aldermanic President last week to advise New York City on Kashruth” held its first meeting and “adopted resolution” calling for “strict rabbinical supervision of poultry markets.”
1934: In Milwaukee, Ben Selig, an immigrant from Romania and the owner “of a car leasing company” and is wife gave birth to University of Wisconsin graduate and U.S. Army veteran Alan Huber “Bud” Selig, the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.
1934: In Lodz, Poland, Eljasz (Edward) and Natka Skornicki gave birth to Paulina Skornicka.
1936: It was reported today that at the meeting of the Second World Congress of Jewish War Veterans in Vienna, a resolution had been adopted “calling for the establishment of a village in Palestine in honor of the 12,000 German Jews killed in the World War.”
1936: The Palestine Post reported on the appointment in London of the Royal Commission for Palestine, chaired by Earl Peel. Other members were Sir Horace Rumboldt, Sir Laurie Hammond, Sir Morris Carter, Sir Harold Morris and Professor Reginald Coupland. The commission's terms of reference were "to ascertain the underlying causes of the disturbances... to inquire into the manner in which the Mandate was implemented in relation to the obligations of the Mandatory towards the Arabs and Jews... to study legitimate grievances and make recommendations for their removal and for the prevention of their recurrence."
1936: General Franco declared his Fascist government and the Spanish Civil War broke out. During the Second World War, Spain officially remained neutral, yet Franco sent troops to fight against the Russians, and Spain later served as a refuge for fleeing Nazis.
1937(22ndof Av, 5697): Forty-three year old Jacob L. Zucker, the optometrist, former “secretary to the Public Service Commissioner” and “an examiner for the estates tax division of the State Tax Commission” who “was secretary and a founder Temple Shaari Israel of Brooklyn” and the father of “Sidney, Estelle, Mortimer and Mildred” Zucker passed away today “in the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn.”
1937: Pierre-Marie Gerlier who would be posthumously awarded the title Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1981 was named Archbishop of Lyon today.
1937: In Memphis, TN, Lewis Glick and Sylvia Kleinman Glick gave birth to Milton D. Glick, nationally renowned academic leader who served as the 15th president of the University of Nevada, Reno
1937: “London by Night” a murder mystery produced by Sam Zimbalist was released today in the United States by Lowe’s Inc.
1937: In Geneva, “The League of Nations Mandates Commission began its session on Palestine today, hearing in private along statement on British policy by W.G.A. Ormsby-Gore, the Colonial Secretary” who put the British Government” as publicly and officially favoring partition.
1938: Today, “the most surprised people in the world were Italians when a report drafted by several anonymous but allegedly eminent fascist university professors warned them of all sorts of grave, though unspecified dangers” threatening them due to the presence of the Jewish minority “in their midst.”
1938: Today Mussolini took is with the speech by Pope Pius on “racism” denying that Italy is following the policies of Germany while “The Tribuna said that racism must not be confused with anti-Semitism.”
1939: Birthdate of movie director Peter Bogdanovich.
1939(14th of Av, 5699): Dutch sculptor Joseph Mendes da Costa passed away.
1939: In a private letter Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain described Germany's jealousy of the Jews' superior cleverness and states: "No doubt Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself; but that is not sufficient to explain the Pogrom."
1939: Reacting to German anti-Jewish policies and reflecting the attitude of many other officials in Great Britain and Western Europe, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain writes: "No doubt Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself. But that is not sufficient to explain the pogrom."
1940: Birthdate of producer Stanley Jaffe, the man who gave us Fatal Attracations.
1941(6th of Av, 5701): At Ponar, outside of Vilna, approximately, 150 Jews are shot. Most of the victims are elderly.
1941: Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June, the Russians which had agreed to the dismemberment of Poland did an about-face by signing the Sirkorski-Mayski Agreement in which Stalin repudiated his previous treaties with the Germans that had made WW II possible.
1941: “Today the Aktion Klostersturm (Operation Monastery) was ended by a decree of Hitler, who feared the increasing protests by the Catholic population might result in passive rebellions, harming the Nazi war effort at the eastern front.”
1942: “Five hundred and fifty-seven refugees from Nazism who had been stranded in Portugal and unoccupied France, arrived” in Baltimore last night “aboard the Portuguese liner, S.S. Nyassa.” (JTA)
1942: German industrialist Eduard Schulte, whose company has mines near Auschwitz, reveals to a Swiss colleague that Hitler and the German Reich have decided to round up the millions of Jews of Occupied Europe, concentrate them in the East, and murder them using prussic acid starting in the fall of 1942. The information is soon communicated to Swiss World Jewish Congress representative Gerhart Riegner.
1942(16th of Av, 5702): German SS kills 25,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia
1942(16thof Av, 5702): Seventy-eight year old George Moses Pirce, the native of Poltava who came to the New York City in 1882 where he earned an MD from New York University after which he combined his medical work with a career as an author in his field.
1942(16thof Av, 5702): Fifty-four year old Bessie (Kaplan) Hage, the wife of Bernt Hage and “ex-wife of Maurice Copeland passed away today.
1942:Esther "Etty" Hillesum was transferred to Westerbork.
1942: The U.S. government established the Navy WAVES, or Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service, program. Though Navy women would not be allowed to serve outside the continental U.S., or even to go to sea, the military hoped that the recruitment of 10,000 women, who would work in onshore bases, would free sufficient numbers of men to fight overseas. Although women had served as nurses in the navy as early as the Spanish-American War, and officially in the Navy Nurse Corps since 1908, the WAVES program was by far the largest-scale effort to recruit women to active duty in the Navy. In the WAVES program, thousands of women performed nearly every possible job at over 500 naval stations through the Second World War. As military leaders had hoped, they enabled male officers and enlisted men to staff the ships that were responsible for the Allied victory in the Pacific theatre. Among the earliest group of women to enlist in the WAVES was Miriam Miller. Although her parents felt that military nursing "wasn't the life for a nice Jewish girl," Miller enlisted soon after her graduation from the Wilkes-Barre General Hospital School of Nursing, in Pennsylvania. She was assigned first to the Great Lakes Naval Station and then to the San Diego Naval Hospital. Later, when the Navy relaxed its prohibition on women serving outside the continental U.S., she worked in Guam, where she cared for soldiers injured in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Active in veterans' affairs after the war, Miller was elected President of the Jewish War Veterans National Ladies Auxiliary in 1961.
1943: First publication of Mishmar, a newspaper owned by Hashomer Hatzair that would be re-named Al HaMishmar
1944(10th of Av, 5704): Since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat, Tish'a B'Av is observed today.
1944: Three tankers, carrying some 1750 Jews from the Italian-held islands of Kos and Rhodes, arrive at Piraeus, Greece, where the Jews are bullied onto trucks and driven to the Haidar detention camp near Athens
1944: More than 100 Jews are deported from Toulouse, France, to Auschwitz.
1944: Edi Weinstein, his father and his friend Berl Goldberg, all of whom who had escaped from Treblinka were discovered by German soldiers. They killed Goldberg. Weinstein and his father survived and Edi Weinstein actually joined the Polish Army in 1945 helping to fight the Nazis in the waning days of the WW II.
1945: The administration of Germany is assumed by the Allied Control Council.
1946: A three-day pogrom begins in Miskolc, Hungary.
1946: Birthdate of two time Oscar winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple.
1947: It was announced at a press conference in New York today, that “official confirmation that the Parliament of Surinam, in Dutch Guiana, and the Netherlands Government have both approved the proposal of the Freeland League to settle 30,000 homeless European Jews in Surinam, was received by the Freeland League last week.” (As reported by JTA)
1948: “Escape” directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by William Perlberg was released in Los Angeles today by 20th Century Fox.
1949(4thof Av, 5709): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon
1949(4th of Av, 5709): Sixty-eight year old Henrik Galeen, the actor, screenwriter and director from Lemberg whose first major film was “The Golem” a 1915 silent movie depiction of the Jewish character and who was forced to flee Europe when the Nazis came to power passed away today in Randolph Vermont.
1950: James G. McDonald, the U.S. Ambassador to the state of Israel has submitted his resignation. McDonald is coming to the end of a normal two year posting at Tel Aviv.
1950(16thof Av, 5710): Fifty-nine year old Richmond born dentist Harry Bear, “the first graduate of the VCU School of Dentistry to serve as the school’s dean who “earned a national reputation in the field of dental education and was president of the American Association of Dental Schools and the American Society of Oral Surgery and was a Fellow of the American College of Dentists” passed away today.
1950: “The tankers committee of the American Merchant Marine” today requested the “National Federation of American Shipping” to call for the U.S. State Department protest the new regulations regarding use of the Suez Canal which are intended “to present passage of oil tanker though the canal” that are either going to or coming from Israel.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that more than 1,500 polling stations opened to admit an estimated 880,000 voters for the Second Knesset. There were 17 lists of political parties contesting for the election of 120 Knesset members. About 75,000 Arabs were eligible to vote.
1951: Voter turnout for today’s elections for the 2nd Knesset reaching 75.1%
1951: Birthdate of Indian born, British artist and designer Gary Judah. For a look at his work go to
1952(8thof Av, 5712): Seventy-nine year old Rebecca Weintraub, a native of Russia who was a 60 year veteran of the Yiddish theatre and the widow of Yiddish actor Sigmund Weintraub passed away today in New York.
1953: Senator Robert Taft of Ohio passed away. Most people do not remember Senator Taft. But in his day he was a political power. Known as “Mr. Republican” Taft was considered a “shoe-in” for the Republican nomination for President in 1952. However, his plans were upset by the surprise entry of Ike Eisenhower into the battle for the nomination. Ike won and the rest is history. As a Conservative Republican, Taft opposed most the social legislation that was popular among the Jews of his day. The Taft-Hartley Act was seen as a piece of anti-labor legislation that limited the power of labor and therefore the influence of many Jewish leaders. However, Taft joined Senator Wagner of New York (his political opponent on most domestic issues) in introducing a resolution supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The resolution was introduced in October of 1945 and demonstrated the changing attitude towards Jews and the increasingly broad support for the Zionist cause among non-Jews.
1956:In Tashken, Avner and Chana Leviev gave birth to Lev Avnerovich Leviev the businessman and philanthropist who served as president of the World Congress of Bukharian Jews.
1959: “Blue Denim,” the cinema version of the Broadway play of the same name featuring Warren Berlinger as “Ernie” and with music by Bernard Herrmann was released today in the United States.
1963(9thof Av, 5723): Tish’a B’Av
1963: In Los Angeles, Nedra (née Stern) Kudrow, a travel agent, and Dr. Lee N. Kudrow , a physician who specialized in the treatment of headaches gave birth to Lisa Kudrow the youngest sister of Helene Marla Kudrow and neurologist David B. Kudrow who “has received ten Emmy Award nominations, twelve Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and a Golden Globe Award nomination” during her acting career.
1965: US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid. Wilbur Cohen, a man whose active career ran from the New Deal through the Great Society and was serving as Under Secretary of H.E.W. in 1965 was considered to be the driving force behind this landmark legislation that removed the fear of ill health for senior citizens and their families. Johnson would later name Cohen, the Wisconsin born son of Jewish immigrants, to the position of Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
1969(15thof Av, 5729): Tu B’Av
1969:Barbra Streisand opens for Liberace at International Hotel, Las Vegas
1969: A memorial service for 64 year old Carlos L. Israels, the son of architect Charles Israels and Belle Linder, the graduate of Amherst and Columbia University Law School, “a specialist in securities law” and “former president of the United Hias Service” who was the husband of “the former Ruth Goldstein” with whom he had three children – Charles, Michael and Elizabeth – is scheduled to held this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El.
1970: Israeli airmen shot down four MIGs flown by Russian pilots over the Suez Canal. This marked the first military encounter between Israeli and Russian forces
1976: Two French tourists were wounded when a bomb went off on a Jerusalem sidewalk.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Britain severed relations with Uganda after Idi Amin's regime failed to provide information on the fate of Dora Bloch, the British-Israeli dual national dragged from a Kampala hospital after her fellow hijacked Air France hostages had been rescued from the Entebbe airport by Israeli commandoes
1976(2ndof Av, 5736): Seventy-five Emile Solomon Sachs, the Lithuanian born South African labor leader passed away today.
http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/emil-solomon-solly-sachs-south-african-socialist-dies-london
1976: Yuri Vudka was “released from a labor camp” today “after serving a seven year sentence for ‘anti-Soviet activities.’”
1978: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this afternoon for Edward A. Cohen, the husband of Ann Cohen and the brother of Joseph Cohen.
1978: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning at the Riverside Chapel, for Bee S. Cohen, the “wife of the late Dr. Jacob Cohen” and “sister of Julius Smolen.
1980(17THof Av, 5740): Seventy-eight year old Denver born Esther Greenblatt Quiat, the wife of Ira Louis Quiat and the mother of Marshall and Gerald Marin Quiat passed away today after which she was buried at the Congregation Emanuel Cemetery in Denver, CO.
1980: The Knesset passed the “The Jerusalem Law” establishing Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel.
1982: “Night Shift” a comedy produced by Brian Grazer, written by Lowell Ganz, with music by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager and co-starring Henry Winkler was released in the United States today by Warner Bros.
1982(10thof Av, 5742): Sixty-seven year old Philadelphia born and University Pennsylvania honor graduate Samuel Lewis Gaber the former “Pennsylvania-West Virginia-Delaware regional director of the ADL” passed away today in West Palm Beach, FL.
1982: After opening in Japan four days ago “The Last American Virgin” directed by Boaz Davidson who also wrote the script, produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan and filmed by cinematographer Adam Greenberg was released in the United States today.
1983(20th of Av, 5743): MGM executive Howard Dietz passed away.
1990: Today Linda Lavin took over the role of “Rose” in the 1989 Broadway Revival of “Gypsy” the musical created by Jule Syne, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents
1992(29th of Tammuz, 5752): Ken Meyer, the son of Australian entrepreneur and businessman Sidney Myer, and his wife died today in plane crash.
1992(29th of Tammuz, 5752): Seventy-eight year old Joe Shuster, co-creator of Superman, passed away.
1993: “Rising Sun” an American murder mystery with a Japanese twist directed and produced by Philip Kaufman who co-authored the script and co-starring Harvey Keitel was released today in the United States by 20th Century Fox.
1997(25th of Tammuz, 5757): Double suicide bombings to place in Jerusalem that would eventually claim the lives of fourteen Israeli victims.
1997(25thof Tammuz, 5757):Lev Desyatnik, 60, of Jerusalem; Regina Giber, 76, of Jerusalem; Valentina Kovalenko, 67, of Jerusalem; Shmuel Malka, 44, of Mevaseret Zion; David Nasco, 44, of Mevaseret Zion; Muhi A-din Othman, 33, of Eilabun; Simha Fremd, 92, of Jerusalem; Gregory Paskhovitz, 15, of Jerusalem; Leah Stern, 50, of Jerusalem; Rachel Tejgatrio, 83, of Jerusalem; Liliya Zelezniak, 47, of Jerusalem; Shalom (Golan) Zevulun, 52, of Jerusalem and Mark Rabinowitz, 80, of Jerusalem were murdered by Hamas today at Mahane Yehuda Market.
1999: The INS Dolphin was commissioned today.
1999: Russian born American conductor led Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of Peteris Vasks's Symphony No. 2 at the Royal Albert Hall
2000: The African American/Jewish Coalition for Justice hosts a picnic at Seward Park in Seattle, Washington.
2000: Bruce Fleisher carded a three day score of 198 to win the Lightpath Long Island Classic.
2000:The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America With Einstein's Brain by Michael Paterniti, Inside the Halo and Beyond: The Anatomy of a Recovery by Jewish born author Maxine Kumin and Millicent Dillon's new novel entitled Harry Gold about Harry Gold, the American Jewish chemist who acted as a spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930's and 40's.
2002(21st of Av, 5762): Five people were injured by a suicide bomber on Hanevi’im Street in Jerusalem
2002: Simon and Shuster published a paperback edition of Harry Kemelman’s 1964 novel Friday the Rabbi Slept Late,“the first in Rabbi Small mystery series.”
2003(1st of Av, 5763): Rosh Chodesh Av
2004: In “Hyam Maccoby” Lawrence Joffe examines the life an accomplishments of this Jewish scholar who was the grandson and namesake of “Rabbi Hyam (or "Chaim") Maccoby better known as the "Kamenitzer Maggid," a passionate religious Zionist and advocate of vegetarianism and animal welfare.”
2004: Following its premiere 4 days ago, “The Village” a horror film produced by Scott Rudin with a cast that included Adrien Brody and Jesse Eisenbeg was released throughout the United States today by Buena Vista Pictures.
2004:“Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” with a script by Jon Hurwitz and featuring Dov Yosef Tiefenbach and David Krumholtz was released today in the United States.
2006: Jewish golfer Corey Pavin won the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee.
2006:The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Freud's Requiem: Mourning, Memory, and the Invisible History of a Summer Walk by Matthew Von Unwerth. “This elegantly meandering look at Sigmund Freud's life and the intellectual world he moved in examines an obscure 1915 essay, "On Transience," in which Freud records a conversation with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé.”
2006: Hezbollah fired a record 140 Katyusha rockets at targets in northern Israel today wounding at least eight people, including a Haaretz correspondent.
2006(5thof Av, 5766): One hundred and six year old Philip Montagu D’Arcy a pioneer in the field of Tuberculosis Research who was the son of solicitor Henry D’Arcy Hart, the husband of Ruth Meyer, the father of Harvard University economics professor Oliver Hart and the brother of engineer James D’Arcy Hart passed away today.
2006(5th of Av, 5766): Murray Bookchin, American libertarian and socialist, passed away.
2007: In Jerusalem, Peretz Eliyahu and Victoria Chana collaborate to perform original music tied to ancient texts about love at a Tu B’Av event.
2007: Award winning news anchor for KTLA and published author Hal Fishman’s “last broadcast” took place this evening, “eight days before his death.
2007: Victoria Redel, author of The Border of Truth based on the experiences of Jewish refugees aboard the SS Quanza, presents a reading at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, NY.
2007(15th of Av, 5767): Tu B'Av. The 15th Day of Av, is both an ancient and modern holiday. Originally a post-biblical day of joy, it served as a matchmaking day for unmarried women in the second Temple period (before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.). Tu B'Av was almost unnoticed in the Jewish calendar for many centuries but it has been rejuvenated in recent decades, especially in the modern state of Israel. In its modern incarnation it is gradually becoming a Hebrew-Jewish Day of Love, slightly resembling Valentine's Day in English-speaking countries. There is no way to know exactly how early Tu B'Av began. The first mention of this date is in the Mishnah (compiled and edited in the end of the second century), where Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel is quoted saying, "There were no better (i.e. happier) days for the people of Israel than the Fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, since on these days the daughters of Israel/Jerusalem go out dressed in white and dance in the vineyards. What were they saying: Young man, consider whom you choose (to be your wife)…"( Taanit, Chapter 4). The Gemara (the later, interpretive layer of the Talmud) attempts to find the origin of this date as a special joyous day, and offers several explanations. One of them is that on this day the Biblical "tribes of Israel were permitted to mingle with each other," namely: to marry women from other tribes (Talmud, Taanit 30b). This explanation is somewhat surprising, since nowhere in the Bible is there a prohibition on "intermarriage" among the 12 tribes of Israel. This Talmudic source probably is alluding to a story in the book of Judges (chapter 21): After a civil war between the tribe of Benjamin and other Israelite tribes, the tribes vowed not to intermarry with men of the tribe of Benjamin. It should be noted that Tu B'Av, like several Jewish holidays (Passover, Sukkot, Tu Bishvat) begins on the night between the 14th and 15th day of the Hebrew month, since this is the night of a full moon in our lunar calendar. Linking the night of a full moon with romance, love, and fertility is not uncommon in ancient cultures. For almost 19 centuries--between the destruction of Jerusalem and the re-establishment of Jewish independence in the state of Israel in 1948--the only commemoration of Tu B'Av was that the Morning Prayer service did not include the penitence prayer (Tahanun). In recent decades Israeli civil culture promotes festivals of singing and dancing on the night of Tu B'Av. The entertainment and beauty industries work overtime on this date. It has no formal legal status as a holiday-- it is a regular workday--nor has the Israeli rabbinate initiated any addition to the liturgy or called for the introduction of any ancient religious practices. The cultural gap between Israeli secular society and the Orthodox rabbinate makes it unlikely that these two will find a common denominator in the celebration of this ancient/modern holiday in the foreseeable future.
2008(27th of Tammuz, 5678): Eighty-seven year old RAF veteran, naturalist and television presenter John Gordon Miller, the cousin of violinist Yehudi Menuhin passed away today.
2008:Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, embroiled in a high-profile corruption investigation, announced that he would resign his office after his party chose a new leader in September elections.
2009(9th of Av, 5769): Tish'a B'Av
2009: Randi & Bruce Pergament Jewish Film Festival presents a screening of “Max Minsky & Me,” a delightful comedy set in contemporary Berlin in which Nelly, a bookish bat mitzvah candidate, who wants to be on her school basketball team so she can meet her prince charming recruits a reluctant coach who offers her athletic training and ultimately, his respect.”
2009: In an interview today the head of the Israel Defense Forces' ground troops during the Gaza disengagement said the decision to evacuate Gaza Strip settlements in 2005 was "utter nonsense." Israel Defense Forces General (Res.) Yiftach Ron-Tal made the comment during an interview on Army Radio, a day before the fourth anniversary of the disengagement on the Hebrew calendar
2010: Two days after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held at Rodef Sholom Temple in Hampton, VA for 79 year old Stanley W. Drucker, the Newport News born son Loraine and Louis Drucker and University of Virginia trained attorney who raised three daughters – Karen, Laurie and Ann – with his wife Margo, followed by burial “at the Jewish Cemetery of the Virginia Peninsula.
2010:A Grad-type Katyusha rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip struck close to an apartment building in a residential area of Ashkelon today, while two mortar shells exploded in the western Negev just a few hours later.
2010:An Israeli Air Force Boeing aircraft carrying the coffins of six IAF servicemen killed in Monday's Yasour helicopter crash in the Carpathian Mountains landed at the Tel Nof air base. The funerals of the fallen soldiers will be held at various military cemeteries throughout the day today. Lt.-Col. (Res.) Avner Goldman will be buried at 12:15 p.m. in Modi'in; Lt.-Col. Daniel Shipenbauer will be buried at 3:00 p.m. in Gdarot; Maj. Yahel Keshet will be buried at 1:00 PM in Sharona; Maj. Lior Shai will be buried at 2:00 p.m. in Hod Hasharon; Lt. Nir Lakrif will be buried at 12:30 p.m. in Haifa; and St.-Sgt. Oren Cohen will be buried at 1:00 p.m. in Rehovot.
2010;It was reported today that the three bidders still in the mix to buy Newsweek magazine, according to the New York Times, are audio equipment tycoon Sidney Harman; tastefully named hedge fund guy Marc Lasry; and Mort Zuckerman chum Fred Drasner. All three are Members of the Tribe
2010: “Mother’s Savior: A Revelation” published today chronicles the misfortunes of the Peltzman family and Norbert Stern, “a piano prodigy” whose musical skills were just one more victim of the Nazis.
2010: After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, “The Kids Are All Right” an award winning comedy directed by Lisa Cholodenko and written by Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg and co-produced by Gary Gilbert and Jordan Blumberg was released in the United States today.
2010: “With Curious George” published today the plans for “Illumination Entertainment, the animation company founded by former Fox Animation President Chris Meledandri and whose movies Universal finances and distributes, is developing a new version of ‘Curious George,’" the creation of the Jewish team of Hans and Margret Rey.
2011: Gefen Books is scheduled to releaseConfidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan, by brothers-in-law Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, which “tells the story of an Israeli nuclear intelligence agent who found his way into the film business.”
2011(28thof Tammuz, 5771): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum of Uhely, Hungary, author of Yismach Moshe and patriarch of the Hungarian Chassidic dynasties who passed away on the 28th of Tamuz, 5601 (July 17, 1841).
2011: “Blood Relation” and “77 Steps” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2011:Those who are protesting the spiraling cost of living in Israel are planning to hold five marches tonight, in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Be'er Sheva, Haifa and Nazareth. Each is expected to end in a mass assembly. Organizers expect tens of thousands of people from all over the country to participate.
2011: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was expected to put together a team to examine the burden of indirect taxes on the public in the coming days, Army Radio reported today."
2011:An explosion was reported at a depot along the Egyptian natural gas pipeline in Sinai that normally supplies Israel with gas, Army Radio reported today. The attack on the pipeline was the third this month and the fifth since the beginning of 2011. It also followed a shootout between Egyptian security forces and apparent Islamic militants yesterday.
2011:Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took part in protests held in cities across the country tonight, the largest collaborative protest yet in a popular movement over social issues that has swept the country in the past two weeks.
2012: The Northern California Premiere of “Papirosen” is scheduled to take place at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2012: “Yossi,” a sequel to “Yossi and Jagger” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan.
2012:Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud) today slammed proposals calling for IDF conscription of Arabs. “You don’t have to be a genius to realize that it’s impossible to draft the Arab public. Any initiatives of this sort smack of hypocrisy and even malice,” Rivlin said at a Ramadan Iftar feast at Kafar Qara
2012:Following a day of mostly disappointing results for Israel at the London Olympic Games, two Israelis advanced to the semi-finals in their events in swimming and judo this morning. Amit Ivri set a new Israeli record in the 200 meter women's medley relay this morning. Ivri finished the race in 2:13:29, putting her in 12th place and allowing her to advance to the semi-finals this evening.
2012: (11th of Av, 5772): Ninety-one year old philanthropist Fred Worms passed away today.(As reported by Greer Fay Cashman)
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/anglo-file/philanthropist-was-amazing-example-of-a-world-jew-1.455681
2012: “In what appears like a clear endorsement of a presidential candidate, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said tonight that Barack Obama has been the most supportive president on matters of Israeli security throughout the two countries’ diplomatic relations.” (As reported by Yaakov Katz)
2012:The climactic denouement of the Daf Yomi seven-year study cycle of the Talmud was staged in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem tonight, with tens of thousands of haredi men crowding into venues in the two cities to celebrate their having completed the study of the ancient work of Jewish law.(As reported by Jeremy Sharon)
2013: A conference on “The Bible in the Iberian World: Fundaments of a Religious Melting Pot is scheduled to open at Leipzig, Germany.”
2013: “Sukkah City” and “Neil Diamond: Solitary Man” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2013: Dancers from the Paris Opera are scheduled to appear at Haifa’s Rappaport Hall.
2013: The Maccabiah Games are scheduled to come to an end.
2013: Ninety-nine year old Berthold Beitz, the head of ThyssenKrupp who “was remembered for his efforts to save hundreds of Jews and Poles from the Nazis while stationed in Poland during World War II” passed away today. (As reported by Melissa Eddy)
2013: “President Obama announced his intent to nominate Noah Mamet to be the U.S. ambassador to Argentina despite the fact that Mamet has never been to Argentina.”
2013: Josh Zeid pitched in his first major league game as a member of the Houston Astros.
2013:Senator Dianne Feinstein of California introduced a bill tonight that would have the Senate resolve itself to supporting Secretary of State John Kerry's push for a two-state solution. (By Michael Wilner)
2013(23rd of Av, 5773): Ninety-four year old Ottie Schecthman, one of the pioneering stars of the NBA passed away today. (As reported by Richard Goldstein)
2014: Historic 6th& Synagogue is scheduled to host Trivia Night sponsored by B’nai B’rith.
2014: The Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host another night of Coen brothers’ films.
2014: Hamas continued its attack on Israel with rockets being fired towards Ashkelon, Ashdod, Rishon, LeZion, Rehovot and Tel Aviv.(As reported by Matzn Tzuri)
2014: “Conservative Jews” were photographed today praying “at the temporary egalitarian Robinson’s Arch prayer pavilion at the southern end of the Western Wall.”
2014(3rd of Av, 5774):St.-Sgt. Matan Gotlib, 21, from Rishon Lezion, St.-Sgt.Omer Hay, 21, from Savyon, and St.-Sgt. Guy Algranati, 20, from Tel Aviv “were killed this morning in Gaza in an explosion at a booby-trapped UNRWA health clinic that housed a tunnel entry shaft.” (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)
2015: The Annual Karmiel Dance Festival is scheduled to come to an end.
2015: “Only three weeks after being released, Yishai Schlissel stabbed six marchers during the Jerusalem gay pride parade.”
2015(14th of Av, 5775): Lasker Award winning physician Dr. Louis Sokoloff, pioneer of the PET scan passed away at the age of 93. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2015(14th of Av, 5775): Seventy-eight year New York real estate lawyer Charles Goldstein who turned his legal efforts to recovering looted art for Holocaust victims and their families passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2015: In Mountain States Spotlight published today “ADL Board Chair-Elect Jim Kurtz-Phelan” shared “his passion for Israel, the law and working to ensure fair treatment for all.”
2015: Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in New Hampshire.
2015: “In Poland, Searching for Jewish Heritage” published today Joseph Berger described “Jewish Poland” that has virtually no Jews.
2016: “Minister-without-portfolio Tzachi Hanegbi of the Likud party asserted today that hundreds of Yemenite children were kidnapped from Israeli hospitals in the 1950s in connection with the so-called “Yemenite children affair.” (As reported by TOI)
2016: At the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theatre, in Washington, D.C., the curtain is scheduled to come down on the final performance Jonathan Munby’s version of “The Merchant of Venice” which for some has reignited “questions of whether this tragicomedy about a Jewish moneylender exacting a terrible revenge is a credible portrait of Jewish persecution, or something more like an antique, anti-Semitic tract.” (As reported by Peter Marks)
2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a survivor talk by Matus Stolov who was saved in part by an aunt who “arranged for false papers for him and his mother through the underground.”
2016(24th of Tammuz, 5776): Shabbat Pinchas
2016(24th of Tammuz, 5776): Sixty-three year old weather meteorologist Dave Schwartz passed away today. (As reported by William McDonald)
2016: Noam Banai, a member of the Banai musical dynasty is scheduled to begin a concert tour with a performance in Tel Aviv.
2017: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of JACKSON, 1964: And Other Dispatches From Fifty Years of Reporting on Race in America by Calvin Trillin and The Inseparablesby Stuart Nadler.
2017: “The Prudential Ridelondon-Surrrey 1000, a World Jewish Relief Challenge Event is scheduled to take place today.
2017: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “The Zookeeper’s Wife.”
2017: Final showing of “Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross” is scheduled to come a close at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
2018: “Ambiguous Places” and “Leto, a musical drama based on the life of Soviet musician Viktor Tsoy” are scheduled to be shown today at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
2018: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Tracking Edith” in London
2018: The family of Yotam Ovadia, the husband of Tal Ovadia and father of two children who was murdered by a terrorists last week, continue to sit shiva.
2018: As the stock market opens this morning, investors will find out if the value of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook continues its precipitous fall.
2018: In “Remembering – and rereading – Stanley Cavell,” published today, Jill Radiskin examined the life and work of Stanley Cavell, the Atlanta born, Harvard educated academic
2019: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker is scheduled to host the Orchestra of St. Luke as part of 114 year old Naumburg Concerts for which it is serving as a temporary home while the bandshell in Central Park is being renovated.
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love” a biopic about Leonard Cohen and his Norwegian muse Marianne Ihlen.
2019: In St. Louis, MO, The MUNY is scheduled to host a performance of Lerner and Loewe’s “Paint Your Wagaon.”
2019: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “The Dancing Dogs of Dombrova” and “My Polish Honeymoon.