August 9
48 B.C.E.: Julius Caesar defeated Pompey at the battle of Parsalus. This victory helped to cement Caesar’s position and put an end to Pompey. Considering Pompey’s behavior towards the Jews, including his desecration of the Temple, Caesar’s victory was the preferred outcome.
378: Roman Emperor Valens who began his reign in 364, was killed by the Visigoths as he led his large to defeat at the Battle of Adrianople. During his reign Valens followed the course of his predecessors and issued an edict strengthening the Patriarchate. He issued an edict that exempted “officers of communities subject to the ‘illustrious Patriarch (Nasi)’ from service on municipal councils. In 368 he issued an edict forbidding the billeting of troops in Synagogues. Such minor sounding positive notes, makes him better than his imperial peers when it came to treatment of the Jewish people.
681: Founding of the first Bulgarian Empire. Archaeologists have found traces of Jewish communities in the area that pre-dated the formation of Bulgaria. The first major movement of Jews into Bulgaria took place early in the 8th century when Jews fled persecution in the Byzantine Empire.
1471: The Papacy of Sixtus IV began. “In Italy the reign of Sixtus IV marks a high point of tolerance. The pope used Jewish physicians, and perhaps employed Jews for the collection, copying, and translation of Hebrew works. He refused to canonize Simon of Trent, allegedly a victim of Jewish ritual murder. It is clear, however, that the pope's tolerance was offset, outside his own domains, by local hostility. A generous bull of 1479 concerning the Jews of Avignon was questioned and subsequently withdrawn. In November 1478 the pope issued a bull investing Ferdinand and Isabella with extraordinary powers to appoint inquisitors in all parts of Castile.” (Jewish Virtual Library) This was the first step in what would lead to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.
1506: Prince Yaroslavitch established the community of Pinsk. At the same time, he reconfirmed the rights given to the Jews by King Alexander Jagello, King of Lithuania.
1612: Thirty-five year old Count Philip Ludwig II who invited Jews to settle in Hanau, “permitted them to build a synagogue and gave them legal status” in spite of opposition from the Christian clergy passed away today.
1732(18th of Av, 5492): Rabbi Yaakov Culi the Talmudist and Biblical commentator who was the grandson of Moses ibn Habib, passed away in Constantinople.
1753(9th of Av, 5513): Tish’a B’Av
1773: Adoption of the "General-Juden-Reglement" which provided the rules used to govern the newly acquired Jewish subjects that Frederick the Great acquired from the partition of Poland.
1793(1st of Elul, 5553): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1793(1st of Elul, 5553): Jacob Aaron passed away today ervev Shabbat which meant he would not be buried in the Alderney Road Jewish Cemetery until Sunday.
1807(5th of Av): Rabbi Ze’ev Lesh, author of Kedushat Yisrael, passed away
1819: With the mobs crying “Hep, hep!” an anti-Semitic riot broke out in Frankfort.
1821: Birthdate of Austrian poet Heinrich Landesmann.
1826(6th of Av, 5586): Meir Ben Moses Kurnik, “the German rabbi and calendar maker from Glogau” passed away today at Hamburg.
1827: Birthdate of William Morris Stewart, the Senator from Nevada who defended the Jews of Romania from an attack by Senator Sprague. Sprague said the Jews were to blame for their suffering because of the economic success. “Mr. Stewart said he hoped Mr. Sprague did not mean to imply that when a man gets rich he ought to be killed.” Senator Sprague gave a faint smile but made no reply.
1828: At Kent Road, London, Daniel Levy and Amelia Jacobs gave birth to Charlotte Levy.
1828: Birthdate of Joseph Eduard Konrad Bischoff who gained fame as Conrad von Bolanden the author of Judas Makkabaeus, a novella which appeared in Der Gefangene von Kuestrinin 1885
1832: The seconds for James Jones Stark, who refused to apologize for calling Phillip Minis a “damned Jew” and the seconds for Minis met in Savannah to discuss the terms for the duel between the two men.
1836: Birthdate of Hamburg, Germany native August Hamberg, the husband of Mathilda Hamberg.
1836: In New York City, Jacob and Belvidere del Mar, gave birth to their “oldest son Alexander del Mar” “an American political economist, historian, numismatist and author” who “was the first director of the Bureau of Statistics at the U.S. Treasury Department.”
1839: Today “Rabbis Samuel Aba and Pinchas Shapiro, two brothers in charge of a large Chasidic printing plant in Slavuta, Poland, received 1,500 lashes each and were imprisoned for life in a Moscow jail.” (As reported by Abraham Bloch)
1850(1st of Elul, 5610): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1850(1st of Elul, 5610): Miss Rachel Myers Cohen of Philadelphia passed away at the age of 70.
1851: In Mitau, Courland, Russia, Selig Braude and his wife gave birth to Abraham Samuel Braude who served as the rabbi at Mitau before coming to the United States in 1891 where he became the Rabbi of Congregation Ohave Sholem Mariampol at 1347 South Canal in Chicago, Illinois.
1854: John Zachariah Laurence married Miriam Solomon at the Western Synagogue today.
1854: Isaac Mozes Pereira Mendoza married Sara Isaac Monis at the Portuguese Jewish Synagogue in Amsterdam.
1855: As further proof of the existence of a Jewish community from the earliest days of the Lone Star State, The San Antonio Texan reported today on the excitement that has gripped this city during its recent election. "In fact the excitement reached every class of our citizens, old and young, rich and poor, male and female, Protestant, Catholic and Jew..."
1855: Birthdate of author Dorothea Gerard, the native of New Monkland, Scotland near Glasgow whose works include Orthodox, One Year and The Austrian Officer.
1858: In London, birthdate of musician Isidore Lara
1858: Birthdate of Levenworth native Henry Wollman, a senior partner in Wollman and Wollman and a member of Temple Emanu-El on 5th Avenue.
1858: It was reported today that the in Great Britain, the House of Lords, has taken action on two of the pressing issues of the day related to religion. Based apparently on its view of Biblical law, the Lords has expressed its opposition to allowing a widower to marry the sister of his deceased spouse. The Lords has agreed to allow Jews to sit in the House of Commons if they are elected to that chamber. The Lords has opposed this measure for decades, but as in so many other matters including the repeal of the Corn Laws and the Divorce Bill, the “upper house” has given way to the popular will. This latest capitulation in the matter of the Jews is seen as further evidence of the erosion of the power of the Lords. [This issue of the Jews sitting in Parliament was, in some respects, part of a much larger battle that was fought throughout most of the 19th century, between the landed gentry and the rising trading, industrial and professional classes.]
1860: It wasreported today that Baron Alphonse De Rothschild has been appointed Consul-General of Prussia. He is the first Jew who has exercised such functions for that Kingdom.
1861: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Jacob Trautman began 4 years of serving in Company E of the 5th Cavalry.
1861: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Henry Schlosss began 4 years of serving in Company E of the 5th Cavalry during which he would be wounded in fighting a Richmond in 1864.
1862: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Jacob Canter began his service with Company C of the 126thRegiment.
1862: Birthdate of David Phillipson, the native of Wabash, Indiana who became one of the leading Reform Rabbis of the late 19th and 20th centuries.
1864: Birthdate of Roman Dmowski the Polish political leader who, during the inter-war years led a political party that was both anti-Semitic and anti- ethnic Germans. Among other things, he believed the “wealth of the Jews and the Germans” should confiscated and given to Polish Catholics.
1868: In Chicago, a hospital on La Salle Avenue sponsored by the United Hebrew Relief Association opened its doors to patients for the first time.
1871: “France and Algeria” published today described the pitiful conditions of the Jews living in Algeria prior to its colonization by the French. Among the Moslem “races…hatred of the Jew is a tradition and almost a religious duty.” During the Moslem “rule in Algeria, the Jews suffered every kind of torment. They could not walk in the streets after 6 o’clock at night without obtaining a special authorization from the police. If the night was dark, instead of carrying a lantern, like the Turks and Moors, they had a lighted candle, which the wind blew out continually. They were obliged to take off their shoes in passing before a Mosque and to kneel before the Kasba. Jews could only address a” Moslem “with deference and submission.” The Jews “moved off the pavement to allow” the Moslems “to pass and any infraction of these customs was punished with basonado and fines.” The Jews “could not ride on horseback and could not enter the town on a donkey. Any insult toward a “Moslem” was punished by sudden death, inflicted arbitrarily, and often according to the offended Moor’s caprices…” [The idea that all the lands of Islam were hospitable to Jews until the creation of the state of Israel, is obviously not an accurate one.]
1872: Birthdate of Julius Gareché Lay the American diplomat who in 1915, as the American Consul General in Berlin worked with Isidore Hershfield to relieve the suffering of the Jews caught in the war zone of Poland and Galicia.
1874: It was reported today that the London School Board had appointed “Mr. Levy, a Jew…as head master of a school in Whitechapel, in a district where the majority of the inhabitants are Jews.”
1877: In London, Elim Henry d'Avigdor and Henrietta Matilda d'Avigdor gave birth to Elim Henry d'Avigdor and Henrietta Matilda d'Avigdor, the Cambridge educated “Justice of the Peace for Kent and Sussex,” a “member of the Jewish Board of Guardians and Presient of the Jewish Working Lads’ Club who was the “husband of Alice Rose Anne d'Avigdor-Goldsmid” with whom he had four children.
1878: Birthdate of Borsborn, Germany native Abraham Wili.
1878: In Baltimore, MD, “Nathan and Dina (Oppenheim) Ulman gave birth to Johns Hopkins and Columbia University alum Joseph N. Ullman, the lawyer, Baltimore Judge and member of the University of Maryland Law School faculty who was President of the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Baltimore, director of the Associated Jewish Charities of Baltimore and husband of the former Ella Guggenheimer.
http://www.mdhs.org/findingaid/ulman-joseph-nathan-collection-1887-1960s-ms-1914
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/04/19/88525222.pdf
1879: It was reported today that much of Sarajevo, the multi-ethnic capital of the Turkish province of Bosnia has been consumed by fire. Amongst those who have suffered great loss are those living in the Jewish district the home of many of those who dominate the commercial activities of the region.
1880: Samuel Untermyer married Minnie Carl, daughter of Mairelius Carl of New York City today. “They had three children, Alvin, who served in the 305th Field Artillery in France during the Great War; Irwin, a justice of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, and Irene, a philanthropist who married Louis Putnam Myers and, after his death, became the wife of Stanley Richter.”
1881: In Vienna, banker Moritz Bauer and Jeannette Bauer née Honig gave birth to Adele Bloch-Bauer.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/bloch-bauer-adele
1883: “Moritz Scharf, the boy who was the principal witness for the prosecution in the recent trial of a number of Jews at Nyireghyhaza, charged with murdering a girl in order to procure her blood for ritual purposes and who swore he saw the murder committed, has confessed…that his testimony was false.”
1885: In Detroit, Louis Grossman, the tenth person to serve as Rabbi at Temple Beth El organized the Emerson Circle, “a society for the promotion of general culture.”
1885: “Strolling Bands” published today described the various wandering musicians found on the Lower East Side and Coney Island. Membership in the strolling string bands is confined to Polish and Italian Jews.
1886: “The New Books” column described Court Royal: A Story of Cross Currents, the latest novel by S. Baring Gould. The novel which is “conspicuous” for its “exceeding bad taste, features Emanuel Lazarus, a Plymouth pawnbroker who is a Jew “of the most repulsive type” and misses no opportunity to ridicule the customs of the Jewish religion.
1886(8thof Av, 5646): Rabbi Mendes led the Tish’a B’Av services tonight at the 19thstreet Synagogue. The well attended services began with a reading of the 137thPsalm followed by the chanting of Lamentations.
1886: “Solomon At Long Branch” described various reactions to the large number of Jews who spend their summer at this popular New Jersey resort – ranging from the ugliest ant-Semitism to the most enlightened views of the 19thcentury.
1888: During today’s meeting of the House of Representative’s Committee on Immigration which was holding hearings in New York, Henry Zeltner described the manner in which many Polish Jews reach the United States. There are several operatives on Canal Street who “sell steamship tickets to Poles in this country on the installment plan.” “By paying $3 down, they can have a ticket to America sent to a relative in Poland. “The relative then comes” to the United States and “works out the price of the ticket.”
1890(23rdof Av, 5650): Parashat Eikev
1890: “City and Suburban News” published today listed upcoming events in the New York Metropolitan area including a lecture by Dr. Cyrus Adler at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
1890: As of today, the leaders of London’s Jewish community have not been able to “discover the exact truth about the…anti-Jewish crusade in Russia.”
1890: In Pittsburg, Mrs. William Schmidt, Mrs. Sarah Vabelinsky and their two children, all of whom are Polish Jews experienced convulsions and fainting spells which might have been caused by food poisoning.
1890: Mendel Feldstein told his landlord this morning at breakfast that he had seen two men hide a bag of jewels last night and that they had threatened him when they realized he was aware that he had seen them1890: A list of those charities receiving bequests of a thousand dollars from the late Alexander Bach was published today included: Mount Sinai Hospital, Montefiore Home for Incurables, Hebrew Benevolent and orphan Asylum Society, United Hebrew Charities, Temple Gates of Hope, Hebrew Free School Association, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and Temple Israel of Harlem. The Deborah Nursery was on the list but only for $500.1891: It was reported today that “Steve” Ryan of Atlanta, GA “has vowed vengeance upon the whole Jewish race” after he failed to pay the debts he owed to Schloss Brothers & Co according to the attorneys Horowitz and Hirschfield.
1892: “Extradition proceedings in the case of Harris Blank and Charles Roseneigh,” who have been accused of murdering a Jewish peddler, Jacob Marks came to a close today in Toronto, Canada.
1893: Following claims by Reverend Herman P. Faust of the Hebrew Christian Mission that the United Hebrew Charities “often refuses to give aid where it is plainly needed” as exemplified by the case of the late Joseph Korman whose family was left destitute by the Jewish agency, “a reporter for the New York Times found” the family “living in rooms that are neat.” The United Hebrew Charities said that it had offered the family $5 in aid, “which was refused.” It had not given more because the family had three children who were old enough to work and the agency offered, as was its practice, to find each of them jobs.
1896: “East Side Roof Garden” published today described the recently opened facility atop the Hebrew Institute as “one of the greates blessing that could been devised to give the overcrowded population on the east side a chance to breathe a little fresher air than they can get in the stifling streets and tenements.” Ice water is provided free of charge to the eight hundred people allowed on the roof which is also the scene of evening concerts three times a week.
1896(30th of Av, 5656): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1896: Three days after she had passed away, 55 year old Agnes Rosa Samuel “the fourth daughter” born to Rosa and Ralph Henry Samuel was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1896(30th of Av, 5656): Aviation pioneer Otto Lilenthal died when his glider crashed during a test flight. Lienthal is referred to some as the Jewish “Wright Brothers” since he is credited by some with making one of the first flights with a heavier than air craft.
1896: Birthdate of Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget who was treated by Sabina Spiielrein, the Jewish pioneer psychoanalyst who served as his analyst for 8 months in 1921.
1896: Birthdate of Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky.
1896: Due to the “sever heat” the milk depots funded by Nathan Straus will be kept open all day.
1896: “Free Milk For Sick Children” published today described the easing of restrictions by Nathan Straus to make free milk available to the children to New York as well as instructions for the best ways for children to drink it.
1896: Because of the “severe heat” all of the depots dispensing free milk sponsored by Nathan Straus will remain open all day today.
1897: Birthdate of NYU trained attorney, WW I veteran and Republican Party leader Lester Bachner the husband of “the former Margaret Goodman” and the father of Robert Bachner.
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/04/07/archives/lester-bachner-lawyer-78-dead-a-leading-bridge-player-active-in.html
1898: During the Spanish-American War, Mathew N. Levy of Norfolk was mustered into Company H of the 4th Virginia Volunteer Infantry.
1899: Israel Zangwill will go to Southampton, Long Island, “as the guest of James Herne, who is “going to state “Children of the Ghetto.”
1902: Almost a year before they were married Arthur Schnitzier and actress Olga Gussman gave birth to their son Heinrich.
1902: Edward VII is crowned King of the United Kingdom (Great Britain, Scotland and Ireland). When he was Prince of Wales, Edward broke with conventional social notions by including numerous Jews in his “set.” On ascending the throne, Edward earned a lasting position of endearment among the Jewish people. He pressed the Russians to improve the treatment of their Jewish subjects. When he went to Russia, he insisted on raising the issue with Czar Nicholas II even though his advisors pleaded with him not to. Edward’s intervention did not improve the situation but he gets high mark for having made the effort.
1902(6th of Av, 5662): Sixty-six year old Moritz Szeps the editor-in-chief of the Vienna Morgenpost, passed away today.
1903: Today, a meeting of rabbis was held in Cracow that “opened with a solemn oath taken by all present to the effect that Jews had never been guilty of ritual murder and that no Jewish law ever sanction such practices.”
1903: In Cleveland, the first annual picnic hosted by the United Zionists today “was a great success socially and financially.”
1903: “A committee was appointed to canvass for donations and subscriptions for a Jewish publication” during today’s meeting The Chovevi Zion in Scranton, PA.
1905: Today thirty-three year old businessman and philanthropist Herbert Fleishhacker, the San Francisco born “son of Aaron and Delia (Stern) Fleishhacker married “May Belle Greenbaum with whom he had three children – Marjorie, Herbert, Jr. and Alan.
1910: In Camden, NJ, “on opening Sons of Israel Synagogue at eighth and Sycamore Streets” this “morning, it was discovered that two valuable silver cups had been stolen.”
1910: The 16thannual convention of the Independent Western Star Order came to an end today in Cleveland, OH.
1910: Clarence Isaac de Sola, the Canadian born son “of Esther de Sola and Cantor Abraham de Sola” and his wife Belle Maud de Sola gave birth to Esther Leopolda de Sola who became Esther Leopolda Ellerman when she married Sir John Reeves Ellerman.
1911(15th of Av, 5671): Tu B’Av
1911: It was reported today that Boston Rabbi Wolf Margolies has agreed to become the Rabbi for United Hebrew Communion also known as Adas Israel. The congregation has 10,000 members and will reportedly the new rabbi an annual salary of five thousand dollars.
1912: Birthdate of Giora Yoseftal, the native of Nuremburg who made Aliyah in 1938 and became a leader of Mapai.
1913(6th of Av, 5673): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon
1913(6th of Av, 5673): Fifty-year old Solomon H. Bauer, the Polish born son of Abraham Jacob Bauer and the recipient of smicha from Rabbi Israel Jehoszua Trunk passed away today while serving as the rabbi for Congregation Anshe Emet of Chicago
1913: It was reported today that the University of Geneva has conferred an honorary doctorate on French chemistry professor Gabriel Lippmann.
1913: It was reported today that Polish born socialist and journalist Stanislaus Mendelson, the son-in-law of Naham Sokolow and husband of fellow socialist Maria Jankowska has passed away.
1914: Five days after the declaration of war, a war in which 10,000 Jews would sign up to serve in just the first year, The H.M. S. Birmingham, a Royal Navy Cruiser sank the U-15 marking the first time that a German submarine was “lost to a an enemy warship)
1915: It was reported today that the committee chaired by Congressman Meyer which will be raising money to help Jews in war-torn Europe is devising a plan whereby “storekeepers” will “display cards in their windows “both asking for contributions and showing that he merchants themselves have already given.”
1916: In World War I, Italian forces take Gorizia, a battle during which General Roberto Serge showed such courage that he was cited for bravery and a year later “promoted to chief of staff of the Fifth Army Corps.
1917: It was reported today that the officers of the newly formed Jewish Board for Welfare Relief Work in the United States Army and Navy are Chairman, Colonel Harry Cutler of Providence, RI; Vice Chairman, Dr. Cyrus Adler of Philadelphia; Treasurer, S.S. Rosenstamm of New York and Secretary, Sidney Goldstein of New York.
1917: “Through the Intelligence Department of the Mayor’s Committee on National Defense, the Provisional Zionist Committee” tonight “made public a letter describing conditions among Jews in Warsaw under German rule” “the veracity and authenticity of” which “is vouched for by” Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Chairman of the Zionist Committee and Associate Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis who is the committee’s honorary chairman.
1917: London born featherweight won his second bout today in Queens, NY.
1918(1st of Elul, 5678): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1918: The Archbishop of Warsaw met with several Jewish leaders who expressed the hope that “the new Polish state would prove “tolerant to the Jewish communities.”
1918: On the Western Front, three days of fighting during which future Medal of Honor winner William Shemmin was wounded after having “left the cover of his platoon's trench and crossed open space, repeatedly exposing himself to heavy machine gun and rifle fire to rescue the wounded” and then taken command of the platoon “after the officers and senior non-commissioned officers had become casualties.”
1918: It was reported today that the 34th infantry participated in pogroms at “Jarislawa and other Galician towns’ where “the police did nothing to protect the Jews.
1918: It was reported today that “Miss Julie Heineman who is doing relief work overseas has been decorated by King Albert of Belgium with the Queen Elizabeth medal in recognition of her work for” those French people have been wounded or blinded.
1918: During WW I which fighting at Chipilly Ridge Nathan Lieberman, a Corporal in Company of C of the 131st Infantry (which had had been the 1st Infantry of the Illinois National Guard) “displayed unusual gallantry he rushed a machine gun nest whose fire was checking the advance” of the unit and captured 4 prisoners as an added bonus.
1919: Today, “Romanian Jewish refugees made public a memorandum characterizing the stipulation of the Bucharest peace treaty as wholly inadequate and demanding a thorough-going solution of the Jewish question.”
1919: Today, Isaac Babel married Yevgenia Gronfein, the parents of Nathalie Babel Brown who became “the editor of her father’s life and work.”
1920: Those who have attended the conference at Carlsbad, are still “processing” the report that over five hundred pogroms have taken place in Ukraine with at least 138,000 Jews having been killed.
1922(15th of Av, 5682): Tu B’Av
1923: The JTA reported that it would not be publishing the Daily News Bulletin tomorrow in observance of the national day of mourning for the death of President Harding
1924: Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor refused to attend the notification ceremony for John W. Davis at Clarksburg, West Virginia. Davis was the compromise candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President, having been chosen on the 103rd ballot.
1924: A statement from Samuel Gompers that he was "willing to forget and forgive acts of omission and commission resulting from differences of opinion during the war" is contained in a letter made public by Mr. Gompers today incidental to the meeting of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor at the Hotel Ambassador.
1925(19th of Av, 5685): Fifty-nine year old philanthropist Sidney Salzado Peixotto passed away today in California.
1925: A memorial tablet erected to one of its patients by his fellow patients was unveiled today in the Montefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases, at Gun Hill Road and Bainbridge Avenue, the Bronx. Although tablets on hospital walls usually represent benefactions to the institution, this one is a tribute from the 600 patients, who were cheered in his lifetime by Max Messinger. Confined to his wheel chair for twelve years, Max Messinger was the Good Samaritan of the hospital. His busy brain and fingers, the only parts of his body over which he had control, worked to create amusement for the other patients to whom he brought music, vaudeville, moving pictures, books, magazines and a social club, as well as a monthly paper, which he edited. By establishing contacts with performers and film companies, he was able to present a full performance each week to the hundreds who assembled on crutches and in wheel chairs for relaxation. He received literature which he distributed to the others, and traveled about the wards, especially among the children. With a portable victrola perched on his wheel chair he played the records that friends had sent. For ten years he was the editor of the monthly paper, The Montefiore Echo, in which he encouraged the others to write. On the walls, with memorials to such noted benefactors as Sir Moses Montefiore, Jacob H. Schiff, Professor Morris Loeb, has been placed a bronze plaque made possible by the small contributions of the patients, a simple expression of gratitude to Max Meninger.
1926: The Third International Conference of the Ort associations opened in Berlin at a building that formerly housed the Prussian House of Lords. (ORT is an organization that was founded in 1880 to provide assistance and educational opportunities for Russian Jews. The scope has expanded and it currently offers programs for Jews in over a one hundred countries.)
1926: The extent of Jewish participation in the struggle for the independence of Poland, in the early days of the movement, unrecognized by the Great Powers and Polish public opinion at large, was impressed upon the public mind today when Josef Pilsudski, first Marshal of Poland and leader of the Legionaires, kissed publicly a Jewish invalid who fought in the Legion. A highly dramatic scene was enacted when the twelfth anniversary of the crossing by Pilsudski's Legion of the frontier of Congress Poland was celebrated at the Legionaire Congress, opened today in Kielce, the first Polish city to be occupied by the Polish Legion under Pilsudski's command in 1914. Many Jewish Legionaires were present at the celebration. Pilsudski publicly kissed a Jewish Legionaire who lost both his legs on the battlefield. (JTA)
1927: In New York City, “Dr. Henry Minsky, an eye surgeon who was chief of ophthalmology at Mount Sinai Hospital, and Fannie Reiser, a social activist and Zionist” gave birth to Marvin Minsky who has made many contributions to AI (Artificial Intelligence), cognitive psychology, mathematics, computational linguistics, robotics, and optics. In recent years he has worked chiefly on imparting to machines the human capacity for commonsense reasoning. Minsky is on the faculty of MIT and winner of the ACM Turing Award.
1927The Maccabee soccer team of Palestine left New York today aboard the SS Sinaia.
1927:M. Henri Torres, counsel for Sholom Schwartzbard, has addressed a cablegram to Louis D. Brandeis, U. S. Supreme Court Justice, asking him to intervene in favor of Sacco and Vanzetti.
1928: Birthdate of Maximillian Grunfeld the native of Czechoslovakia who gained fame as American master tailor Martin Greenfield owner of Martin Greenfield Clothiers.
1929: “Friend Sues To Free Sculptor As Sane” published today described the efforts De Hirsch Margules to gain the freedom of Alfred Dreyfus. The painter and sculptor has petitioned Chief Justice Alfred Frankenthaler on behalf of Alfred Dreyfuss, the sculptor and writer to overturn the order issued by Justice Lydon that has committed his friend to a sanitarium for the insane. Margules contends that Drefyuss’ mother brought the suit after having been unduly influenced by her other son who is seeking to control the family’s financial affairs.
1930(15th of Av, 5690): Shabbat Nachamu and Tu B’Av
1930: Famed cartoon character “Betty Boop” made her debut in the animated film Dizzy Dishes. Boop and the film were the creation of an Austrian born Jew named Max Fleischer. Fleischer was producing animated cartoons years before Disney’s Steamboat Willie appeared on the screen.
1931: Birthdate of South African native Sir Mark Aubrey Weinberg, the English trained barrister and financier who founded Abbey Life Assurance Company and Hambro Life Assurance
1932: In Berlin, Holocaust survivor Hermann Pressman and his family -- Father Zysia, mother Hinda Leah, brother Hermann and sister Sonia -- went to the zoo today “and then to the Rubenstein kosher restaurant.”
1933: In Vilna, Chamber of Commerce unanimously votes to proclaim a boycott against German goods in protest against the Nazi treatment of the Jews.
1933: Ben Jeby (Morris Benjamin Jebaltowsky) was knocked out in the seventh round today ending his reign as middleweight champion.
1933: Edgar Ansell Mowrer, president of the Foreign Correspondents Association in Berlin, resigned from his post in order to secure the release of Paul Goldman, 68-year-old Jewish correspondent of the Vienna Neue Freie Presse, who was charged with "high treason."
1935: “China Seas,” an adventure moved produced by Irving Thalberg was released in the United States today by MGM.
1936: It was reported today that “among the questions to come before the first Jewish World Congress will be the defense of Jewish equality, re-establishment of the rights of Jews in Germany, the struggle against anti-Semitism and participation in Jewish reconstruction work in Palestine.”
1936: At the opening business session of The World Jewish Congress today in Geneva, Dr. Leon Kubowitski of Belgium made a proposal for a permanent organization that would be ‘elected for four years, meet regularly biannually” and be overseen by “a central council that should meet semi-annually” and an “executive that should have specific administrative duties.
1937: In New York, premiere of “Souls at Sea” featuring Joseph Schildkraut as “Gaston de Bastonet.”
1937: The political resolutions committee of the World Zionist Congress which was elected today began an all-night debate in Zurich on “the Weizmann policy on the partition of Palestine.”
1938: Warner Bros. released “Four Daughters” a musical drama based on a novel by Fannie Hurst directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal B. Wallis with a screenplay co-authored by Jules Epstein, music by Max Steiner and featuring John Garfield.
1938: Today Senator Norris of Nebraska made a recommendation that President Roosevelt appoint Felix Frankfurter, Professor of Law at Harvard University and one of the original New Deal advisers, to the United States Supreme Court to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Benjamin Cardozo.
1938: I “Children Go to Palestine,” published today described the migration of 167 Jewish children from Austria and Germany to Palestine. The youngsters are part of the Third Aliyah and are being settled at Ain Harod and Kfar Jecheskiel.
1938: The situation in Palestine threatened to grow worse when Moslem ecclesiastical authorities issued a fatwa calling for Iraqi participation in the fighting in Palestine which was labeled a Jihad. Thousands of young Iraqis responded by rushing to sign up at recruiting stations set up in Baghdad.
1938: Premiere of “Four Daughters,” a musical directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal Wallis, co-starring John Garfield, with a script by Julius Epstein, music by Max Steiner and co-starring John Garfield who was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
1940(5th of Av, 5700): Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski, author of Ahi’ezer passed away1940: Birthdate of Carl Robert Zelnick, the New York native whose assignments for ABC news included a two year stint as their correspondent in Israel during the 1980’s.
1941: According to reports at the time the Nazis killed 510 Jews Brest-Litovsk and 296 Jews killed in Bialystok
1942: During the Battle of the Savo Island, the U.S.S. Blue, a destroyer that Ensign Nathan Asher had guided to the safety of open waters at Pearl Harbor, helped to rescue sailors from the sinking HMAS Canberra.
1942: Slovakian and Polish Jews were violently removed from the Rejowiec ghetto as the Nazis shut it down.
1942: Teresa Benedicta of the Cross died in Auschwitz. Born Edith Stein, Sister Teresa and her sister converted long before World War II. However, the Catholic Church allowed the Nazis to seize her and thousands of other Jews who had converted to Catholicism and ship them off to the death chambers. According to Canon Law, Sister Teresa was a Catholic. But apparently she was not a real Catholic since the Church let her go up in smoke facing the fate of a Jewess named Stein.
1942: In the first mass deportation to the gas chambers 10,000 Jews were sent from the Borislave ghetto to the Belsen death camp.
1942: In London, world premiere of one of the most popular children’s films “Bambi” based on Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Felix Saltan, “the grandson of an Orthodox rabbi.”
1942: Two hundred Jews escape into the forests of Mir. During that week, another 6,000 would die in Naliboki, Lubcz and Karelicze.
1942: In Winnipeg, Canada Rabbi Yasha Steinberg and his wife Ruth gave birth to director and comedian David Steinberg.
1942: Birthdate of Richard Michael Suzman, the native of Johannesburg who was an anti-apartheid activist before becoming a leading social psychologist in the United States.
1943: Fifty-year old Russian born “expressionist” painter Chaim Soutine died today from “a perforated ulcer” after having spent the last three years dodging the Gestapo in Paris.
1943: Birthdate of French art historian Michel Melot author of The Impressionist Print.
1944: German jurist Karl Sack was arrested today for his part in the attempt to assassinate Hitler on June 20th.
1944: “Leon Kubowitzki (later Aryeh Leon Kubovy), the head of the WJC's Rescue Department, relayed a message from Ernest Frischer of the Czechoslovak State Council to the US State Department urging the destruction of the gas chambers and the bombing of railways lines leading to the Auschwitz death camp. US Undersecretary of War John J. McCloy rejected the suggestion five days later…”
1945: Birthdate of Avraham Poraz, the native of Bucharest who made Aliyah in 1950 and served in the Knesset and as Minister of the Interior.
1945: More than 500 people attended the funeral services for State Senator Carl Pack today who was the honorary vice president of Temple Beth Elohim in the Bronx.
1948: The first envoy from the USSR arrived in Israel today,
1948: In Rissani, Morocco, Rabbi Meir and Simcha Abuhatzeira, gave birth Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira, known as the “Baba Elazar” the grandson of the Baba Sali, Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira, and the brother of Rabbi David Chai Abuhatzeira of Nahariya who moved to Beersheba in 1966.
1949: In New York City, “aerospace engineer and inventor David Kellerman and his wife Sylvia gave birth to mystery writer Jonathan Kellerman, the author of the series featuring Dr. Delaware, the husband of mystery writer Faye Kellerman and father of novelist Jesse Kellerman and author Aliza Kellerman.
1949: Frank Goldman, the President of the B’nai B’rith sent a telegram to Secretary of State Dean Acheson asking that the United States intervene to force the Syrian government protect that country’s ancient Jewish community which is reeling from the effects of last week’s murderous bombing of a Damascus Synagogue.
1949: “Trottie True” a film based on a novel by S.J. Simon and Caryl Brahms, with music by Benjamin Frankel was released today in London, UK.
1957: In New York, Jerry and Sally Solomon gave birth Deborah Solomon the New Rochelle raised “art critic, journalist and biographer.”
1952: In Westport, CT, “The Stronger,” an opera by Hugo Weisgall premiered at the White Barn Theatre a venue created by actress Lucille Lortel, the daughter of Anny and Harris Walder and wife of industrialist and philanthropist Louis Schweitzer.
1955(21st of Av, 5715): Just six days before her 73rd birthday, Walla Walla, Washington native Marion Eugénie Bauer, the composer and music critic, passed away today “in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where a rabbi conducted her memorial service.”
1959: “The Ugly Duckling,” a British comedy starring Bernard Bresslaw was released today in the United Kingdom
1959: Today Marya Mannes panned Archibald MacLeish’s “J.B” which is a modern version of the Book Job saying that it was “boring, pretentious and overproduced.” (So much for Biblical material that does not include the Dance of the Seven Viels)
1960: The Religious Torah Front, an alliance of the Ultra-orthodox parties Agudat Yisrael and Poalei Agudat Yisrael that had been formed in 1955, split today with Poalei Agudat taking two of the Front’s six seats in the Knesset.
1960: Larry Sherry came in to relieve starter Johnny Podres and protect the team’s 3 to 2 victory over the Milwaukee Braves.
1961: Birthdate of John Phillip Key, the 38th Prime Minister of New Zealand and leader of the New Zealand National Party.
1961: “Come September” a comedy with a script by Stanley Shapiro and music by Hans J. Salter was released today in the United States by Universal Pictures.
1962(9th of Av, 5722): Tish’a B’Av
1962: In Brooklyn, “Leonard Bergstein, an engineering professor, inventor and Holocaust survivor” and his wife gave birth gave birth to rogue financier David Rafael Bergstein and husband of Sara Bergstein whom he is currently not seeing since in June of 2018 he was sentenced to eight years in prison after having been convicting of fraud.
1963(19th of Av, 5723): Sixty-eight year old Columbia trained attorney Paul M. Hahn, the New York born son of Richard and Eugenie Hahn, the husband of the “former Nannette Hogan Wells” who gave up the law for tobacco which led to his serving as “President and Chief Executive officer the American Tobacco Company” passed away today.
1964(1st of Elul, 5724): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1964(1st of Elul, 5724): Fifty-eight year old NYU law professor Edmond Nathaniel Cahn, a graduate of Tulane University, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union and an author whose works drew on the lessons of the Hebrew prophets passed away today in New York.
1964: “More than 2,000 American Legionnaires and members of their families witnessed the dedication” today of a wooded area in the Skokie Division of the Country Forest Preserve in Northbrook in honor of the 131st Infantry Division whose members included Corporal Nathan Lieberman which won the battle of Chipilly Ridge 54 years ago today
1965: Singapore seceded from Malaysia and gained independence. The Jewish community in Singapore traces its origins back to the early 18th century. The famous Sassoon family established business operations in the middle of the century. David Marshall, a prominent leader of the Jewish community, was known as the “father of Singapore Independence” for his efforts to gain liberation from Great Britain. Today, Singapore has a small but vibrant Jewish community that supports two venerated houses of worship Maghain Aboth and Chesed El Synagogues.
1967(3rd of Av, 5727): Seventy year old Austrian born British actor Anton Walbrook who did not return to his native land when the Nazis took power because his mother was Jewish passed away today in Bavria.
1967: Hafez Tahoub, a former Jordanian district judge, and Mussa el-Bitar, a insurance agent, were arrested today by Israeli authorities for instigating a general in east Jerusalem that was aimed at crippling the economy in the section of the city that had been occupied by the Jordanians from 1948 until June of 1967.
1969: Birthdate of New York lawyer and politician Andrew Cohen.
1969(25th of Av, 5729): Seventy-seven year old Robert Owen Lehman, Sr. the son of Philip Lehman the cofounder of Lehman Brothers and Carrie Lauer who became head of the investment bank when his father retired in 1925 and guided it through the roaring-twenties, the Great Depression and the era of unprecedented post-war prosperity passed away today.
1969: Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski and four others were murdered in Los Angeles. It would turn out that they were victims of Charles Manson and his gang of killers.
1973(11th of Av, 5733): Ukrainian born, Israeli actor David Vardi, who had Hebraized his name from David Rosenfeld passed away today in Tel Aviv.
1973: Today, Premiere Golda Meir attended the ceremonies marking the opening of the Ivory Coast Embassy in Jersualem.
1973: At a lecture to the Staff College, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan told the officer “the overall balance of forces is in our favor and this is what decides the question and rules out the immediate renewal of the war.” These reassuring words would come back to haunt the Israelis when Egypt and Syria would attack two months later in the Yom Kippur War, which almost had disastrous consequences for the survival of the Jewish state.
1974: In the wake of the Watergate Scandal, Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States. Nixon turned out to be “a mixed bag” for the Jewish people. He began his career on the political right as a fellow-traveler the McCarthy Movement which made him an anathema to many Jews who tended to be moderates and liberals. As President, he appointed the first Jew, Henry Kissinger to the position of Secretary of State. During the Yom Kippur War, he pulled out all of the stops to aid Israel. Yet the Watergate Tapes have him uttering some of the vilest anti-Semitic sentiments that one can imagine coming from the lips of U.S. President.
1974: Following his assumption of the Presidency today, Gerald Ford invited Prime Minister Rabin to come to the White House, promised to honor all commitments that had been made to Israel and later would prove to be a staunch opponent of the UN resolution condemning Zionism as racism.
1975: Today, Samuel Bronfman II “was abducted in New York” after which “his father personally paid $2.3 million ransom” and the FBI and New York City police rescued him from an apartment in Brooklyn where his “abductors” claimed that is was all part of hoax hatched by Bronfman.
1978: Morton Abramowitz began serving as U.S. Ambassador to Thailand.
1980(27thof Av, 5740): Parashat Re’eh
1981(9th of Av, 5741):Tish'a B'Av
1981(9thof Av, 5741): Eighty-nine year old Dartmouth alum Milton Aronowitz, the Albany, NY born son of Max and Dora Ettelson Aronowitz and Albany Medical College trained surgeon Milton Aronowitz who was the husband of Gretchen Aronowitz passed away today after which he was buried at Beth Emeth Cemetery in Loudonville, NY.
1981: At the All Star Baseball Game in Cleveland, Bob Verdi of the Chicago Tribunesits next to Jerome Holtzman, the popular Jewish baseball writer who wrote for the Sun-Times. Holtzman indicated to Verdi that he was ready to move from the Sun Times to the Tribune. Verdi contacted George Langford, the Trib’s sports editor, setting in motion Holtzman’s switch from Chicago’s #2 paper, to the Windy City’s # 1 paper.
1982: Grenade-throwing Palestinians burst into the Jo Goldenberg deli in Paris and sprayed machine-gun fire which killed six, including two Americans, and injuring 21 patrons.
1983(30thof Av, 5743): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1985: Release date for “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” starring Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman
1991: As the Fed expressed its displeasure over Salomon Brothers trading activity, Bond Trader Paul William Mozer was suspended today.
1993: In Belgium, coronation of King Albert II during which Queen Paola wore a yellow coat that was designed by Olivier Strelli, who was born Nissim Israel at Kinshasa in 1946 and developed “a chain of male and female clothing and accessory boutiques in Belgium, Switzerland, France and China.”
1994: Edward P. Djererjian left his post as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
1998: The New York Times features a review of Benjamin Disraeli Letters Volume 6: 1852-1856
Edited by M. G. Wiebe, Mary S. Millar and Ann P. Robson. Disraeli is Britain’s most famous Jew who was not Jewish.
1999: Eighty-five year old, Martin Arrouge, “a former ski instructor” and the man Norma Shearer married after the death of Irving Thalberg passed away today
2000: Clyde Haberman marveled at Joe Lieberman’s run for Vice President, a position that John Nance Garner was not worth a warm of spit’ but has produced four presidents since WWII.
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/09/nyregion/nyc-a-milestone-you-call-this-get-real.html?searchResultPosition=6
2001(20th of Av, 5761): A suicide bomber struck a busy intersection in Jerusalem, blowing up a Sbarro Pizza Parlor, killing 15, 7 of whom were children and wounding 130. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. The dead included Zvika Golombek, 26, from Karmiel; Shoshana Yehudit (Judy) Greenbaum, 31 (5 months pregnant), from Passaic, New Jersey, U.S.;Tehila Maoz, 18, from Jerusalem; Frieda Mendelsohn, 62, from Jerusalem; Michal Raziel, 16, from Jerusalem; Malka Chana (Malki) Roth, 15, from Jerusalem; Mordechai Schijveschuurder, 43, from Neria; Tzira Schijveschuurder, 41, from Neria; Ra'aya Schijveschuurder, 14, from Neria; Avraham Yitzhak Schijveschuurder, 4, from Neria; Hemda Schijveschuurder, 2, from Neria;] Lily Shimashvili, 33, from Jerusalem; Tamara Shimashvili, 8, from Jerusalem; Yocheved Shoshan, 10, from Jerusalem; and Giora Balash, 60, from Brazil
2001(20th of Av, 5761): Seventeen year old Aliza Malka was killed by terrorists “in a drive-by shooting.”
2002(1stof Elul, 5762): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2002(1stof Elul, 5762): Eighty-six year old Marian Pollock, the wife of Louis Pollock passed away today.
2002(1stof Elul, 5762): Seventy three year old Emmy award winning composer Peter Matz passed away today.
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/11/local/me-matz11
2004(22ndof Av, 5764): Ninety-two year composer David Raskin who earned two Oscar nominations while composing over 400 scores for movies and television series including the western “Wagon Train” and medical series “Ben Casey” passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/11/arts/david-raksin-the-composer-of-laura-is-dead-at-92.html
http://www.americanmusicpreservation.com/DavidRaksinCentennialTribute.htm
2004: TNT broadcast the final episode of “The Grid” a miniseries starring Julianna Margulies.
2005: Eric Edelman began serving as Under Secretary of Defense for Polic
2005: The Jerusalem Post reported on The Dry Bones Project which is the brainchild of Yaakov Kirschen, creator of the popular Dry Bones Cartoons and is intended to use humor to fight anti-Semitism. . For more info on the project, go to http://www.drybonesproject.com.
2005: Haaretz reported on the fourteenth meeting of World Jewish Congress of Jewish Studies held this week at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. One of the sessions featured a theoretical debate on the question of "Teaching Mysticism in Academia." Discussion of this topic in an academic form highlights renewed interest among the mainstream Jewish community in the topic of mysticism within the framework of Judaism.
2005(4th of Av, 5765): Eighty-five year old Abraham Jacob “Abe” Hirschfeld, the New York real estate investor and Democratic Party activist passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/nyregion/abe-hirschfeld-a-millionaire-and-an-eccentric-dies-at-85.html?_r=0
2005(4th of Av, 5765): Seventy-year old Judith Rossner, author of Looking for Mr. Goodbar passed away.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081002413.html
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/aug/13/guardianobituaries.books
2006(15th of Av, 5766): Eighty-three year old Melissa Hayden, one of the biggest starts in American ballet passed away.(As reported by Anna Kisselgoff)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/10/arts/10hayden.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1526131/Melissa-Hayden.html
2006(15th of Av, 5766): Fifteen members of the IDF have been killed and another twenty-five wounded in the fight against Hezbollah.
2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Saudi Arabian government continues to bar Jews and Christians from bringing items such as Bibles, crucifixes and Stars of David into the country and is threatening to confiscate them on sight. "A number of items are not allowed to be brought into the kingdom due to religious reasons and local regulations," declares the Web site of Saudi Arabian Airlines, the country's national carrier.
2007: A 23-year-old Jewish woman was attacked in Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris, by two youths who beat her and shouted anti-Semitic slogans, said the French National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism. The attackers shouted "You dirty Jew" at the woman before stealing the mobile phone she was using and beating her violently about the head and body
2008(8th of Av, 5768): Shabbat Chazon; Begin reading the Book of Devarim (Deuteronomy)
2008: Five of Israel's representatives will be competing in the first day of the Olympic Games today. Judoka Gal Yekutiel will be the first Israeli to take part in the Games, facing Athens 2004 bronze medalist Tsagaanbaatar Hashbaatar of Mongolia on Saturday afternoon in the first round of the under-60kg event at the University of Science and Technology Gymnasium. Gymnast Alex Shatilov will compete at the National Indoor Stadium, while Gal Nevo, Anya Gostomelsky and Tom Be'eri will swim for the first time at the National Aquatics Center.
2008(8th of Av, 5768): Seventy-four year old Jack Landau “a founder of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press” passed away today.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-08-17/news/36834525_1_libel-suits-legal-assistance-executive-director
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/us/20landau.html
2008(8th of Av, 5768): In the evening, Fast of Tisha B’Av begins; David Levin chants Chapter Five from the Book of Lamentations - a sweet voice for a sad occasion.
2008: The Washington Post reportsthat nearly three months after a federal immigration raid uprooted almost 400 employees at a meatpacking plant in northeastern Iowa, dozens of Somali immigrants are slowly but steadily filling the depleted ranks left by the arrested workers.
Along Postville's main street, in a storefront that used to hold a mattress store, a dozen Somali men ate dinner and chatted on a recent evening. Some members of the Somali community are renting the room and hope to turn it into a restaurant, said Sadiq Abdi. "They want a place where we can eat Somali food and just to be," he said. Federal officials have said the May 12 raid at Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, was the largest single immigration enforcement effort in U.S. history. As they fill the jobs vacated by the 389 people _ mostly Mexicans and Guatemalans _ who were arrested during the raid, the Somalis are now beginning to form their own community within this town of 2,200. By their own estimates, there are about 100 to 150 Somalis in town. Meanwhile, the Somali presence _ including some women and other family members _ has been more noticeable in recent weeks, as new workers have settled into town. Abdi arrived recently from Minneapolis, which has one of the nation's biggest concentrations of Somali refugees, and he's thinking about applying at the plant, he said. At the former mattress store, he stood next to Ahmed Ahmed, a Somali man who said he worked his first night shift at the plant several weeks ago. Both say they are in the U.S. legally. "When I first come here, nobody knows each other," he said. "After a couple of weeks, we get together to eat and talk." Ahmed works in the plant's sausage department, he said, though he has friends who work in a variety of areas. Though he is Muslim, Ahmed said he saw no difficulty working in a kosher meatpacking plant where most of his bosses are rabbis. "Work is work," he said. "They are nice and they teach me how to do my work." Standards for kosher and halal meat are similar. As a result, practicing Muslims in the United States often buy kosher food because it is easier to find. Chaim Abrams, a manager at the Agriprocessors plant, said the nature of the plant forces employees to work with many different cultures. "There's nothing specific or different about (the Somali workers) that I note," Abrams said during a recent interview at the Agriprocessors plant. "... This is a town that's home to 26 nationalities. We never bothered to do the statistics or research ourselves, but generally speaking, we've always had many different people from many different backgrounds." Abrams said his biggest challenge wasn't cultural. He focused more on filling a workforce with "the right people who could appreciate and enjoy this type of work," he said. The city's mayor, Robert Penrod, said the Somalis were blending into Postville's multiethnic fabric. "They kind of mingle among themselves, and they don't bother anybody," Penrod said. "Some of them have left because they don't like slaughterhouses, but a lot of them have decided to stay for now." Ahmed admitted he is still adjusting to the area. Like Abdi, he came to the town from Minneapolis, where he said he had family and a steady supply of Somali food, such as goat meat. In Postville, Ahmed said, he occasionally eats Latino food in local restaurants, but he hopes an authentic Somali eatery will open soon. Ahmed also said more Somalis were beginning to think about Postville as a long-term option. "We are wanting to bring in families," he said. "But we all need to make sure this is long-term. So far, so good. We came here because they were hiring quickly, and I stay here as long as I can keep my hours."
2009: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics“Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle’s insightful, entertaining and profusely illustrated biographical monograph, which chronicles almost everything Kurtzman accomplished…”
2009(19th of Av, 5769): Seventy year old Lester Glassner whose penchant for “kitsch” turned him into a major collector of pop culture artifacts, passed away. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/nyregion/21glassner.html
2009: Gaza militants fired mortars at a crossing into Israel just as Palestinian patients were being transferred for treatment, a Palestinian official said. "
2009: Fervently Orthodox Jews mobbed Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and threw stones at his car.
The mayor’s car was damaged in this evening’s attack, which occurred as Barkat was leaving a personal meeting with a prominent Jerusalem rabbi in the Ezrat Torah neighborhood.
2010: This is scheduled to be the final night of this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2010:Oscilloscope Laboratories said today that it would appeal the rating by the Classification and Rating Administration for "A Film Unfinished," which explores a Nazi propaganda film taken in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. With an R rating, viewers under the age of 17 must be accompanied by an adult. The rating board explained its decision, saying the movie contained “disturbing images of Holocaust atrocities, including graphic nudity.” “This is too important of a historical document to ban from classrooms,” Adam Yauch, an owner of Oscilloscope and a founding member of the Beastie Boys, said in a statement issued today. The film, which was first screened at the Sundance Film Festival this year, is set to open nationally later this month.
2010(29thof Av, 5770): Eighty-eight year old New York real estate tycoon Paul Milstein passed away (As reported by Douglas Martin)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/nyregion/10milstein.html?pagewanted=all
2010: A New Zealand judge has allowed the kosher slaughter of animals to resume until the lawsuit filed by the Jewish community against the government comes to trial. Justice Denis Clifford of the High Court in Wellington confirmed today that an agreement has been reached between the Jewish community and representatives of the Crown Law Office, which is representing Agriculture Minister David Carter
2010: The synagogue of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, luminary sage and father of modern religious Zionism, was reopened today in southern Tel Aviv 30 years after it closed its doors. The synagogue, Shaarei Torah, is located in the Neveh Shalom neighborhood just north of Yafo (Jaffa). Following the informal re-dedication today amid singing and dancing, the synagogue is now open for daily prayers.
2011(9th of Ave, 5771): Fast of Tisha B’Av
2011: The British Jewish community has expressed its shock over the recent rioting which has shaken the UK over the last few days.
2011: Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, who is a member of the Trajtenberg Committee created to examine the demands of the social-movement protesters, visited the Rothschild Boulevard tent protest this evening where activists explained to him their discontent with the government, and particularly the minister's, inefficiency.
2011(9th of Av, 5771): Eighty-seven year old David Lewis, the British entrepreneur who founded the Isrotel chain of hotels, which is the country’s large hotel chain, passed away today.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/08/16/3089001/the-eulogizer-british-entrepreneur-david-lewis
2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest including The Long Night: William L. Shirer and ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' by Steve Wick
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/books/steve-wicks-long-night-about-william-l-shirer-review.html
2012: Jerusalem’s Hazel Hill String Band is scheduled to perform tonight at Petah Tiqva
2012: Dr. Laibl Wolf is scheduled to deliver a lecture on "The 2012 Secret of Successful Relationships" - Intimacy, Commitment & Exploitation!” at the Chabad Center of Rechavia
2012:An American Jewish woman, Debra Ryder, is demanding NIS 50,000 in compensation from El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) for allegedly switching her seat on a flight from the US, because haredi (ultra-orthodox) men refused to sit next to her. She claims that the flight steward moved her to a seat in the back of the plane, which did not meet her medical needs.
2012:A Brooklyn hardware store clerk pleaded guilty today to charges he abducted and dismembered an 8-year-old boy who lost his way home. The guilty plea, to charges of second-degree murder and kidnapping, guarantees Levi Aron a sentence of 40 years to life in a case that traumatized the victim’s tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community.
2012:Al-Quds also reported that this morning, that Mossad had transferred a list of names to Egyptian Intelligence that contained nine names of terrorists connected to the attack in Rafah. According to the same source, this led Egyptian intelligence to send a request to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, using senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar as an intermediary, to extradite members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ paramilitary wing.
2012: David Kilimnick, Razorback by birth – Israeli by choice, is scheduled to perform The Aliyah Monologues: Tour of Funny through the Holy Land at the Off The Wall Comedy Club in Jerusalem.
2012: Janet Maslin reviewed two books that might be of special interest to Jewish readers--Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spiesby Ben Macintyre and Agent Garbo:The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day by Stephen Talty
2012(21st of Av, 5772): Eighty-three year old Mel Stuart director and producer whose career ranged from the ultra-light (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” to the very serious (The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal) passed away today in Beverly Hills.
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-19210701
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/movies/mel-stuart-willy-wonka-director-dies-at-83.html
2012: The Cleveland Indians fired Scott Radinsky as their pitching coach.
2012(21st of Av, 5772): Forty-seven year old “comic essayist” David Rakoff passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/books/david-rakoff-award-winning-humorist-dies-at-47.html
2012(21st of Av, 5772): Seventy-seven year old Holocaust survivor turned New York political powerhouse Raymond B. Harding, passed away today. (As reported by Robert McFadden)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/nyregion/raymond-b-harding-ex-liberal-party-leader-dies-at-77.html?_r=2&hpw
2013: “Blumenthal” and “Awake Zion” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2013: “Fill the Void,” a film that tells the story an Orthodox Chassidic family from Tel Aviv is scheduled to open at Century 16 in Anchorage, Alaska, making it the second theatre in the state to show the film.
2013 “Former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin warned today that the West's one dimensional perception of Iran's nuclear program, focusing solely on the uranium enrichment path to a nuclear weapon, could enable the Islamic Republic to build a plutonium bomb without detection.” (As reported by the Jerusalem Post)
2013: An Israeli Air Force drone reportedly struck a jihadist rocket launcher in the Sinai Peninsula near the Israeli-Egyptian border, killing four suspected terrorists who were planning to launch missiles at Israel, Egyptian security sources told Reuters today.
2014: "Automonuments", a solo exhibition by New York based Israeli artist Niv Rozenberg is scheduled to come to an end today.
2014(13thof Av, 5774); Sixty year old Joseph Raskin, an Orthodox Rabbi from Brooklyn was gunned down this morning as he walked to Shabbat services at Bais Menachem, a Northeast Miami-Dade Synagogue.
2014: “After nearly two years of campaigning, millions of dollars spent and one tropical storm that delayed voting in this easternmost corner of Hawaii for nearly a week, Senator Brian Schatz won the Democratic nomination for his seat” today.
2014(13thof Av, 5774): Eighty-four New York real estate developer Arthur G. Cohen passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/16/nyregion/arthur-g-cohen-real-estate-developer-is-dead-at-84.html?ref=obituaries
2014: In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to show “The Big Dig,” a “comedy lampooning…the madness of everyday life in Israel.”
2014: “Amid efforts to revive stalled talks in Cairo, Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip traded blows again today, with a volley of rockets fired toward Israel, and the Israeli military striking dozens of targets across the coastal enclave.” (As reported by Laura King and Batsheba Sobelman)
2015: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Days of Awe by Lauren Fox and We’re Still Here Ya Bastards:
How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City by Roberta Brandes Gratz
2015:April Slabosheski , the Holocaust Educator at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to teach “Holocaust Memorials: Context, Interpretation, Memory,” a class “where participants will learn about concepts that underlie widely known Holocaust memorials throughout the world.”
2015: The Jewish Museum of Maryland is scheduled to host a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator.”
2015(24th of Av, 5775): Eight-five year University College London trained British director Jack Gold, the London born “son of Charles and Minnie (Elbery) Gold and husband of Denyse Alexander, who was an “Honorary Associate of the London Film School” passed away today.
2015: Adei Ad, which is part of the Shilo bloc of settlements was among the outposts raided today by police and agents of the Shin Beit security service who “detained at least nine people.”
2015: In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria broadcast today, President Obama “said Israeli interference in internal US affairs ahead of a Congressional vote on the Iranian nuclear deal was unprecedented.”
2015: In Amherst, MA, the Yiddish Book Center is scheduled to host a challah baking demonstration and talk on cuisine by Tina Wasserman, author of Entrée to Judaism: A Culinary Exploration of the Jewish Diasporaand Entrée to Judaism for Families: Jewish Cooking and Kitchen Conversations with Children
2015: The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust is scheduled to host a talk by Betty Cohen the Amsterdam native who “spent two years in hiding” until she and her family “were discovered and sent to concentration camps.”
2016(5th of Av, 5776): Ninety-one year old Russian sculptor Ernst Neizvestny passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/arts/international/ernst-neizvestny-a-russian-sculptor-who-clashed-with-khrushchev-dies-at-91.html?ribbon-ad-idx=2&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article&_r=0
2016: Linda Levi is scheduled to speak on “The JDC Archives and What We have to Offer Jewish Genealogists” at the 36thIAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.
2016: A gag order was lifted today which made public the arrest of 38 year old Wahid al-Bursh, “as senor United Nations engineer” on charges of “abusing his post in order to aid Hamas.”
2016:“The Last Jews Of Baghdad” which “provides a historical and personal view of the persecution, torture, escape, and flight of over 160,000 Jews from Iraq between the years 1940 and 2003” is scheduled to be shown at the Southampton Jewish Film Festival.
2017: “The Caravan Orchestra,” “a collaborative project of Jewish Summer Weimar and the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Weimar” is scheduled tonight in Erfurt “in celebration of Erfurt’s sister partnership with Haifa.”
2017: The Suzanne Dellal Centre is scheduled to present “Dust,” “an ensemble of four male dancers,” as part of Tel Aviv Dance.
2018(28th of Av): Yarhrzeit for Larry Rosenstein, of blessed memory, husband of Judy Levin Rosenstein, of blessed memory. Gone too soon but always remembered!
2018: The Middle Eastern Mixfest” is scheduled to opening with a “Meet the Writers” panel
2018: The Breman Museum is scheduled to co-host “Theatre as Social Change,” “a panel discussion with theatre directors and educators, Mira Hirsh and Patrick McClorey.
2018: In the early morning hours, Israeli time, dozens of rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza wounding civilians and forcing untold thousands to spend the night in shelters while the sound of rockets mixes with the sound of silence from a world that will care when the IDF strikes back at the terrorists.
2019: In New York, The Landmark at 57 West is scheduled to host a screening of Mike Wallace is Here directed by Avi Belkin.
2019: In Santa Fe, NM, the Center for Contemporary Arts is scheduled to host a screening of “The Spy Behind Home Plate.”
2019: As of “Opera in the Park,” “the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality and the Israeli Opera” are scheduled to present Verdi’s “Nabucco,” a musical version of the destruction of the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar (Nabucco) at Ganei Yehoshua Park.