DECEMBER 14
164 BCE (3597): On the secular calendar date on which Judah Maccabee restored the service in the Temple in Jerusalem.
1243: “King Henry III turned a confiscated synagogue into the chapel of St. Mary. Many other synagogues were also confiscated and turned into churches, including one which became St. Thomas' Hospital.”
1293: The reign of Al-Ashraf Khalil, the eighth Mamluk Sultan best known for driving the Crusaders from Palestine when he captured Acre came to an end today when he was attacked and murdered while “walking with his friend Emir Shihab ad-Din Ahmad.”
1503: Birthdate of Michel de Nostradame, the native of St. Remy de Provence better known as Nostradmus who, according to some sources was born Jewish but later baptized as part of forced conversion commanded by the King of France or who was not born Jewish because his grandfather had converted under duress
https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/historical/biography/nostradamus_prediction.html
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nostradamus
https://www.amazon.com/Nostradamus-Revealer-Lost-History-Prophecy-ebook/dp/B004OA6L3M
1546: Birthdate of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe who spent time with Jewish astronomer David Gans while visiting in Prague and who wrote Path to God which Franz Rosenzweig said “should be considered a ‘Jewish book’” but which said should be called a “Jewishlike book.”
1584: According to a document with this day’s date, “Isaac (Isaiko) Shachovich, a Jew of Brest, visited Moscow on business in 1581, notwithstanding the prohibition of Ivan the Terrible, and en route stopped in Mohilev at the house of his friend, the tax-collector Isaac Jacobovich.”
1655: “Some must have changed concerning the re-admission the Jews to England because today, “John Evelyn wrote in his diary, ‘Now were the Jews admitted.”
1670: In Denmark, “The privilege of 1657,” under which “the Portuguese professing the Hebrew religion" were permitted to travel everywhere within the kingdom, and to trade and traffic within the limit of the law “was specially ratified in an open letter today, at the instance of Gabriel Gomez, who was in the service of the king.”
1754: Mahmud I, Sultan of Turkey, passed away at the age of 58. Under the reign of Mahmud I, the treaty of Belgrade was signed (September 18th, 1739). This gave rights to the Ottoman Jews. Their situation was so good that Austrian Jews applied for Ottoman citizenship.
1760: The Board of Deputies of British Jews was founded. The Board of Deputies was composed of elected Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.
1762(28thof Kislev, 5523): Fourth Day of Chanukah
1763: In New York, Jessie Jonas and Samuel Judah gave birth to Sarah Judo, the wife of Samuel Myers.
1765(2ndof Tevet, 5526): Parashat Miketz; Seventh day of Chanukah
1755: In New York City, Benjamin Myers and his wife gave birth to Benjamin Myers, who married Hannah Hays, the mother of Sarah and Abigail Myers, after having first been married to Rachel Hays.
1773(29th of Kislev, 5534): Fifth Day of Chanukah
1778(25th of Kislev, 5539): Chanukah
1780: Birthdate of Count Karl Robert Nesselrode, the Russian foreign minister who successful thwarted the plan of Jacques Isaac Altaras to settle 40,000 Russian-Jewish families in Algeria.
1790: Two days after he had passed away, Abraham ben Nathan was buried at the “Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery” today.
1792: In New York, Zipporah Levy and Benjamin Mendes Seixas gave birth to Hayman Levy Seixas, the husband of Abigail Nunez Cardozo with whom he had nine children.
1798: Abraham bar Samuel was buried today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”
1798: “Hancah (Hannah) Weil and Hirsch Weil gave birth Sophia Loeser who was married in Kentucky where her parents had moved to from their respective homes in Germany and France.
1799: President George Washington passed away. Washington’s letters of acceptance to Jewish communities in the early days of the United States set the tone for acceptance that has made it possible for the Jewish community to flourish.
1803: In Georgetown, SC, Savanah, GA merchant Isaac Minis married the “eldest daughter of Solomon Cohen.”
1807: In Hamburg, Israel Abraham Meyer and his wife gave birth to Meyer Isler who wrote a these on the Greek poet to earn his doctorate and who was a follower “of the new science of Judaism” as presented by Leopold Zunz and Isaak Markus Jost.
1808(25thof Kislev, 5569): Chanukah celebrated for the last time during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson
1808(25thof Kislev, 5569):Abraham ben Elijah of Vilna the son of Elijah, the Vilna Gaon passed away today in Vilna.
1812: With Napoleon having “abandoned his army on December 5 to deal with the aftermath of an attempted coup d'état in France” the shrunken “the Grande Armée” left Russia – a move that would lead to the downfall of the French Emperor and an to many of the reforms made possible in the aftermath of the French Revolution that were beneficial to the Jews of Europe.
1814: Alexander Solomon married Esther Lyons today at the Great Synagogue.
1816: Birthdate of Ban, Hungary, native Abraham Hochmuth, the “principal of the newly founded Jewish school at Miskolcz who served as the rabbi in Kula and Veszprim while playing a prominent role in the Hungarian Jewish Congress.
1819: Alabama becomes the 22nd state to join the Union. For those of you who think that Jews only made a contribution on the eastern seaboard, please take note. Abram Mordecai came to Alabama in 1785 and is credited by some with the founding of Montgomery, the state capital. He was described as “’an intelligent Jew who lived fifty years in the Creek nation.’” (The Creeks were an Indian tribe made famous by their battles with Andrew Jackson and Davey Crockett.) He traded with the Creeks, married a Creek woman and found what he considered proof positive that the Creeks were descendants of the ten lost tribes. The first congregation in Alabama was formed in Mobile in 1844 and a second congregation was founded in Montgomery in 1852.
1825: A group of disgruntled Russian Army officers begin what is now known as the Decembrist Revolt, an uprising against the newly installed Czar, Nicholas I. The Jews had nothing to do with the revolt. The officers were animated by the tainted road to throne followed by Nicholas and their desire for a more liberal regime. The unsuccessful revolt reinforced the despot’s drive to follow in the reactionary footsteps of his father. Among other things he increased the drive to remove the Jews from Russian society by forcing growing numbers into the Pale of Settlement and by enforcing draft laws that forced young Jewish boys to serve 25 years in the Russian Army.
1827(25th of Kislev, 5588): First Day of Chanukah.
1827: Three days after she had passed away “Rosetta Cowan,” the wife of George Cowan was buried today at the “Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1828(8thof Tevet, 5589): Forty year old Charleston native Isaac Harby, the son of Solomon and Rebecca Moses Harby and the husband of Rachel Harby, the editor of the Charleston Mercury and playwright whose “Alberti” premiered with President Monroe in the audience passed away today while living in New York.
1829: A day after he had passed away, 29 year old Mark Benjamin was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1831: Birthdate of Zevi Hirsch Dainow, the native of Russia and magid (teacher) who settled in London.
1834: Two days after she had passed away, 66 year old Maria Isaacs, the wife of Samuel Isaacs was buried at “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1842: David Woolf Marks married Cecilia Sarah Woolf in London today.
1846(25thof Kislev, 5607): Chanukah is observed for the first time during the Mexican-American War.
1846: Birthdate of Isidor Abisdid, the resident of London and husband of Flora Henriette Raphael.
1849: Following the revolution in Hungary during which he had been arrested Rabbi Judah Leib "Leopold" Löw was pardoned by General Julius Jacob von Haynau
1850: Birthdate of Jean (Jan) Taubenhaus, the native of Warsaw who became a “French chess master.” He was the brother of Godfrey Taubenhaus and Joseph Taubenhaus both of whom would become rabbis in the United States.
1851: Rabbi Isaac Leeser of Philadelphia gave a speech “to more than a hundred people at United Hebrew temple on Fifth Street in St. Louis” in which “he pointed out the absurdity of” the St. Louis Jewish community “maintaining three separate congregations” which led to the merger of B’nai B’rith Congregation, Congregation Emanu-El and United Hebrew in 1852.
1852: In Curaçao, Sarah Jesurun De Leon and Daniel de Leon, the descendant of Spanish-Dutch Jews gave birth to Daniel De Leon the future lead of the Socialist Labor Party of America.
1853: Three days after she had passed away, Hanna Schloss, a native of Bamberg, Bavaria, and wife of Joseph Schloss was buried today at “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1854(23rdof Kislev, 5615): Just 12 days before his 71st birthday Emanuel Baruh Lousada a West Indies merchant and member of prominent Sephardi family that had settled in England in the 17th century who developed Sidmouth, in Devon, as a popular resort passed away today leaving an estate valued at one hundred thousand pounds.
1856: In Syracuse, NY, Zilli Strauss and Jacob Marshall gave birth to Louis Marshall, prominent lawyer and leader of the United States Jewish community.
1862: Following the crushing Union defeat at Fredericksburg caused by the ineptness of General Burnside, Lieut. G.L. Snyder, Company B, of the 104thN.Y. was among the group of Jewish members of the Army of the Potomac who were buried near the hospital that had been set up across the river from the battlefield.
1865(26thof Kislev, 5626): Second Day of Chanukah
1868: A Hungarian Jewish Congress was convened today which created Neolog Judaism a “mild reform movement” that was concentrated in the “Hungarian speaking regions of Europe”
1869: In Pittsburgh, PA, Mina and Louis Israel Aaron gave birth to Marcus the Aaron, the husband of Stella Aaron, the brother of Charles Aaron and the father of Marcus Lester Aaron and Fanny Friedman.
1870: Birthdate of South Carolinian Julius Levin, the husband of Etta Karesh Levin and the father of Sidney L. Levin
1870: A large number of Jews and Christians including several governmental dignitaries attended today’s cornerstone laying ceremony for Ahavath Chesed on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 55th Street in Manhattan In his introductory remarks, Ignatz Stein traced the history of the congregation which began with a few Jews from Bohemia holding High Holiday services at house on Ludlow Street. The congregation’s real growth began in 1848 when large number of Jews fled Europe following the failure of the liberal revolutions.
1873: In Egeln, Germany Selig and Juliane Blumenthal gave birth to Oskar Michael Blumentahal the husband of Dora Blumenthal with whom he had two children – Margot and Ilse – who died at Theresienstadt.
1874: One day after he had passed away, Prussian born Lewis Haines, the wife of Catherine Haines, was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1877: Cesare Porec helped to engineer today’s resignation of the Interior Minister in Italy.
1877: It was reported that the few Jewish families who had fled last summer as the Russian Army crossed into the Balkans last summer have been proven right in fearing the treatment they could expect from the Czar.
1879: Four days after he had passed away, 67 year old French born Lambert Samuel was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1879: Mr. Isaac Rosenwald chaired the annual meeting of the Society of the Home for Aged and Infirmed Hebrews in New York City today. The home is providing shelter for 44 women and 32 men. The election of officers was held which included the re-election of Mr. Rosenwald as President
1880: Mrs. Lizzie Wenke appeared in Essex Market Police Court today to answer charges that she had horse-whipped Isaac Stern, a Jewish tenant living in the same tenement.
1881: Birthdate of Nicholas M. Schenck, the Russian born American movie mogul who headed MGM.
1882: Julius W. Kaskel, an early Jewish settler of Leadville, was an active member of the Reception Committee for the charity ball held today in the Colorado bootown
1883(15th of Kislev, 5644): Ignatz Fischl, a 23 year old German Jewish immigrant was found dead in his room at the Great Northern Hotel, in the Bowery.
1883(15thof Kislev, 5644): Naphtali Mendel Schoor, the “Galician Hebrew writer” who in 1861 founded a Hebrew weekly who wrote a three part history of the Medieval Jews.
1883: In Rochester, NY, for the first time in the history of Berith Kodesh, Rabbi Max Landsberg led the Friday night service using the newly printed English language order of service. (They prayed in \English and not Hebrew. One of the tenants of Reform Judaism was that people should pray in the vernacular – Germans in German, French in French, Americans in English)
1884: The Hebrew Free School Association held its annual meeting today at their building on East Broadway.
1884: Professor Felix Adler delivered an address at Chickering Hall where he condemned the conditions of those living in tenements on the Lower East Side, blamed them on the landlords and called for the establishment of inspection committees as the first step in improving conditions.
1887: It was reported today that of the twenty-eight hospitals in New York represented by The Hospital Saturday and Sunday Association, two of them have “a Jewish connection,” “are of distinctively Jewish origin and depend for their maintenance almost exclusively upon Jewish support.”
1888: Rabbi Gustave Gottheil of Temple Emanu-El was among the clergymen appointed by Elbridge T. Gerry to organize the church services to be held on April 30, 1889 as part of the Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of George Washing as President of the United States.
1888: In New York, Justice Patterson is scheduled to hear evidence on the charges that Telemaque T. Timayneis “doctored” the books of Minerva Publishing Company. The complaining witness in this case of grand larceny is his partner, Emma Dickinson. Timayenis is the author of three very popular books aimed at discrediting the Jewish people - The Original Mr. Jacobs: A Startling Exposé, The American Jew: An Expose of His Career, and Judas Iscariot: An Old Type in a New Form.
1889: Birthdate of Leopold Philipp who was buried at Adath Jeshurun Cemetery in Philadelphia when he passed away in 1982.
1889: “New Departures” published today summarized the views of newspaper editor Moritz Ellinger which included the advocacy of “a departure from many of old forms and ceremonies used by Hebrews for centuries, some of which characterized as superstitions. Mr. Ellinger felt that such reforms were the only to attract the “new blood” needed to strengthen Jewish congregations.
1890: “The Jews In Russia” published today described “the mass meeting recently held in London to protest against the persecution of the Jews in Russia” which was attended by many prominent Christian Englishman who “made speeches denouncing the obnoxious laws” aimed at the Jews which American Jews hope will emulated in this country including outspoken support by prominent Christian Americans.
1890: The residents of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews will be able to attend an afternoon of music starting at 3 p.m.
1890: In Poland, “Abraham Solomon Taxon and Gruna (Hailperin) Taxon gave birth to Morris Nathan Taxon the REIT trained rabbi who got his secular education at CCNY, Ohio State and Omaha University and who held several pulpits starting with Augudas Achim in Columbus, OH, before settling in at Shaareth Israel in Dallas where he also served President of the Texas State Zionist Association and as amember of the directorate of the Jewish Federation for Social Service in Dallas while raising a family with the former Edyth Irene Schotenstein.
1890: In Berlin, the stock marked “closed weak” today due to many chaotic situations in Europe included the “stringent measures” taken against the Jews.
1891: “An Indictment of Russia” described the abusive treatment of the Jews in the Czar’s empire including their recent expulsion from St. Petersburg that came without warning. Among those affected were “Moses Mordechai Feinberg, a gold and silversmith whose right of residence” in St. Petersburg “dated from 1871 and Eidel Solomon Gissing, whose permit extended back to 1868” reducing them and there co-religionist “to beggary.”
1891: Birthdate of Jozef Hecht, the native of Cracow who gained fame as “painter and printmaker” Joseph Hecht.
1892(25thof Kislev, 5653): Chanukah observed for the last time during the Presidency of Benjamin Harrison.
1892: In Decatur, GA, Henry and Mathilda Hamburger Bachrach gave birth to Louis Bachrach, a graduate of Decatur High School who had gone to work in a department store in Philadelphia where died tragically at the age of twenty.
1893: Sarah Polskie, whose three children were turned over to the Hebrew Children’s Guardian Society by order of the court, said that she had been unable to provide for the youngsters since her husband had been sent to the penitentiary and she had been out of work for five weeks.
1894: Birthdate of New York native Barney Pressman, the founder of the famous Barney’s clothing store.
1895: The Allen Memorial Church on Rivington Street played host an overflow crowd that come to protest the visit to American by Hermann Ahlwardt the German anti-Semite who has been delivering speeches in New York.
1895: “Against Cuba’s Rebels” published today described a pamphlet that has been circulated among members of Congress that demonizes their leaders including Carlos Roloff “the most inhuman and ferocious of them all” a Polish born Jew who is “a Nihilist and dynamiter.” (According to Ben Frank, Roloff was “a Ukrainian Jewish adventurer” and “became the first finance minister of Cuba after she gained her independence. For more see “Carlos Roloff:A Cuban Jewish Patriot” by Isidoro Aizenberg in the Judaica Philatelic Journal
1895: After Shabbat, the charity fair sponsored by leading Jewish New York families reopened this evening at 8 p.m.
1895: At the charity fair sponsored by the leading Jewish New York families, the Aguilar Library book was given one of the first copies of The American in Paris by Eugene Coleman Savidge which it would be able to sell to raise funds.
1895: At the Hebrew Charity Fair, Mrs. Joseph L. Buttenweiser has raised $5,650 at the Candy Booth.
1895: Birthdate of King George VI of the United Kingdom, whose reign covered the dark days leading up to World War II and the war itself. According to documents published in the Guardian in 2002, in the spring of 1939 George VI instructed his private secretary to write to Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax: “Having learnt that ‘a number of Jewish refugees from different countries were surreptitiously getting into Palestine’, the King was ‘glad to think that steps are being taken to prevent these people leaving their country of origin.’” Halifax’s office telegraphed Britain’s ambassador in Berlin asking him to encourage the German government ‘to check the unauthorized emigration’ of Jews.” Halifax’s telegraph in 1939 initiating the request that Hitler not allow “unauthorized” Jews to leave Germany was thus a direct result of George VI’s letter to him. “When it came to anti-Semitism, King George VI did not stutter at all!” King George Street in Israel is named for George V not George VI.
1895: A copy of the Hebrew Scriptures is among the items placed in the bronze box which is in a cavity of the cornerstone of the Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science which the mayor will lay this afternoon at 3 p.m.
1897: In Riva del Garda, Tyrol, Austria-Hungary, Austrian General Artur von Schuschnigg and his wife gave birth to Kurt Schuschnigg, the last Chancellor of an independent Austria whose opposition to the Anschluss earned him imprisonment at Dachau until the end of the war.
1898(1stof Tevet, 5659): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; 6th day of Chanukah
1898: Two days after he had passed away, 65 year old Emanuel Thierman was buried at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1898(1stof Tevet, 5659): David Marks, the benefactor of many Jewish charities, passed away today in New York City.
1900: In Romania, the issue of Lazăr Șăineanu's naturalization was also revisited by the lower chamber, and the proposal defeated with 44 votes to 31 (from an insufficient quorum of 75) despite the fact that he had converted to Christianity to facilitate the process.
1900: Six days after she had passed away, the former Sophia Goldsmed, the “widow of David Viscount de Stern” with whom she had had five children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1900: Max Plank publishes his study on quantum theory. His greatness as a scientist is transcended as his greatness as man. He protested Hitler’s treatment of Jewish scientists. At great personal risk he resigned in protest but stayed in Germany.
1901: Birthdate of Cincinnati, OH native and Harvard Ph.D Charles Louis Kuhn, the expert on German art who served with Naval Intelligence during WW II before becoming one of “The Monuments Men.”
1902: Julie Dent Grant, the widow of Ulysses S. Grant, whose general officers during the Civil War included several Jews and who was the first President to attend the dedication of a synagogue (Adas Israel) passed a way today.
1903(25th of Kislev, 5664): First Day of Chanukah
1903: Herzl explains his position on Uganda in a letter to Sir Francis Montefiore, President of the English Zionist Federation.
1903: The United Zionists of Greater New York continued its semi-annual meeting today. The 250 delegates representing 74 Zionist societies were scheduled to deal with “routine business.”
1903: Belle Mandel, the daughter of Simon Mandel who with his brothers Solomon, Leon and Emanuel formed Chicago’s Mandel Brother’s department store married Ben Altheimer, the Arkansas born lawyer and philanthropist who was the driving force behind the creation of Flag Day. (Carolyn Gray LeMaster)
1905: In Lodz, this afternoon “a band of roughs attacked Jewish shops and residences in Zielczna Street.”
1905: During a session of the Reichstag, Adolf Stocker called “the Jews a revolutionary element which is responsible for socialism.
1906(27thof Kislev, 5667): Third Day of Chanukah
1906(27thof Kislev, 5667): Sixty-five year old Ancona native Federico Consolo, the “Italian violinist and composer who created “the national anthem of San Marino” passed away today.
1908: In Chicago, “Max and Jennie (Finder) Amsterdam, Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary” gave birth to Moritz Amsterdam who gained fame as comedian Morey Amsterdam.
1909: Marcus M. Marks, President of the Tuberculosis’ Prevenotrium at Lakewood, NJ met with Samuel Untermeyer, counsel for Max Nathan in an attempt to reach an agreement on the disposition of Mr. Nathan's share of the Lakewood Hotel Property which is valued at $300,000.
1910(13thof Kislev, 5671): Sixty-six year old Aaron E. Greenewald the husband of Sallie Gimbel passed away today after which he was buried at Mount Sinai Cemetery in Philadelphia.
1911: Roald Amundsen, of whom Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the author who described the ill-fated trip of his rival Robert Scott wrote “The truth was that Amundsen was an explorer of the markedly intellectual type, rather Jewish than Scandinavian . . .” reached the South Pole today.
1912(4thof Tevet, 5673): Parashat Vayigash
1912: Dr. Hirsch “spoke at the annual meeting of the Education Alliance of New York” today.
1912: It was reported today, that plans are being made to move the Jews’ College from London to either Oxford or Cambridge so that students may combine university courses with their “rabbinical studies.”
1912: Birthdate of “rubber technologist” and “Labour MP for Bolton and Bolton West” John Lewis.
1912: It was reported today that “synagogue of the Bikur Cholim Congregation in Seattle Washington, on which construction work was stopped two years ago due to lack of funds will soon be completed now that the necessary moneys have been raised.
1913: A very pregnant Myra Lyons Rukeyser was one day away from giving birth to her daughter Muriel.
1914(26thof Kislev, 5675): Second Day of Chanukah
1914: Dr. Nathan Blaustein was unable to save Mrs. Sadie Mager a widow who was brought to the Flower Hospital after having suffered a heart attack, but thanks to his quick thinking was able to save her unborn child by performing a Caesarian operation and then alternately immersing her in basins of hot and cold water for 30 seconds at a time until she was able to breath on her own.
1914: Birthdate of Jack Donald Foner and Philip S. Foner two brothers who were both academics and activists in the labor and social movements.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/15/obituaries/philip-s-foner-labor-historian-and-professor-84.html
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/foner-obit.html
1914: In an address given this afternoon to students of the Atlanta Law, Hooper Alexander, the United States District Attorney and “an authority on constitutional law” said “that Leo M. Franks still has a ground of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States on a writ error.”
1914: Solomon Rabinowitz who writes under the name of Shalom Aleichim and is known as the “Jewish Mark Twain” is scheduled to lecture at Cooper Union where last spoke in 1908 when he his family had come to the United States to escape the anti-Semitic violence in his native Kiev.
1914: Birthdate of Solomon Spiegelman, an American microbiologist and geneticist who discovered that only one of two strands of molecules that make up DNA, carried the genetic information to produce new substances. The carrier was called ribonucleic acid (RNA). In 1962, he developed a technique that allowed the detection of specific RNA and DNA molecules in cells. This technique, called nucleic acid hybridization, is credited for helping to lay the groundwork for current advances in recombinant DNA technology. Much earlier, his Ph.D. thesis (1944) was the first work to establish that genes are activated and deactivated by compounds that he called inducers, which thus radically affect the pattern of proteins that a cell fabricates without actually altering the genes themselves. He passed away in 1983.
1915: The Allies were making preparations to evacuate from Gallipoli, where the Zion Mule Corps had served with distinction.
1915: Having prepared to launch the first gas attack of WW I, the Germans spent today waiting for favorable weather. (Editor’s note – the effect of gas was so horrible that nobody used it in combat during WW II but it was not horrible enough for Hitler, who had suffered from a gas attack, to use it on the Jews)
1916: The Senate voted 64 to 7 in favor of the highly restrictive Burnett Immigration Bill that had sparked a debate on whether Jewish immigrants could be exempted from the literacy requirement.
1917(29thof Kislev, 5678): Fifth day of Chanukah
1917: Abram I. Elkus, the former Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, “issued a special plea for aid for sufferers everywhere, especially in Turkey” in which he said he wished he could find the words to make the plight of the sufferers more “vivid” for those living in New York.
1917: Congregation Temple Rodeph Sholom is scheduled to begin the celebration of its 75th anniversary today.
1917: After Montrose Strassburger spoke at the Palace Theatre “he was showered with silver” to donated to the fund trying to raise five million dollars for Jewish relief.
1917: Today, the Palace Theatre, the Bushwick Theatre in Brooklyn and the Morris Theatre in Harlem gave their total receipts to the Jewish relief fund.
1917: Harry H. Rosenfeld, the assistant executive director of the American Jewish War Relief Committee which is raising ten million dollars across the United States reported that in Tulsa, OK, where oil man Marion Travis has led the campaign, $150,000 has been raised including contributions from Travis himself.
1917: A Reuters’ telegram to Amsterdam reported that the population of Palestine is suffering terribly; and that the population has been reduced to one third because of hunger, sickness and distress. Only 23,000 of the 60,000 Jews are left in Jerusalem.
1917: In Warsaw, “municipal authorities took control of all bakeries and declined to allow Jewish bakeries to close on Saturdays and work on Sundays.”
1917: In Kharkov, “in response to appeals from rabbis,” the local military commander posted guards at Jewish burial grounds “to prevent Bolsheviki and deserters from molesting funerals ton the pretext that Jews bury hidden stores” in their graves.
1917: In Moghilev, peasants who are dividing “pasture ground” allotted “land to Jews possessing cattle with the proviso that Jews work on the land themselves and do not hire” laborers.
1917: Today in Russia, “Jewish communal leaders in many towns appealed to educational authorities to excuse Jewish pupils from writing on Saturday when secondary schools are open.”
1917: the Franfurter Zeitung reported today about preparations “by ant-Semitic organizations for a strong anti-Jewish campaign after the war.”
1917: In Germany hundreds of thousands of copies of “a work entitled A Knife for the Jews are being distributed”
1918: “Rabbi Samuel Schulman preached a sermon” today at Temple Beth-El “in which he point out the American Jewish Congress” which begins its meetings tomorrow “has of uniting the Jews in the United States on behalf of the great work of complete emancipation of their co-religionists in the world by presenting a perfect solidarity of opinion before the” Peace Conference which is going to convene to settle the issues of the World War.
1918: Today, “the Federation of Russian Societies ended the second day of its three day convention” in New York where “the Jews were both reviled and defended.”
1919: Tonight, “at a meeting of the Judeans in the Hotel Pennsylvania,” “Henry Morgenthau, who head President Wilson’s special to Poland to investigate” reports of Pogroms described “the horrors which had been revealed to the commission and also some of the constructive proposals which he had made to the Polish Government in order to save the people, thousands of whom he predicted will die of starvation this Winter.”
1920: In San Antonio, TX, Morris Stern was elected President of the Chamber of Commerce.
1920: In “Bryan on the Protocols” published today, the failed Democratic Presidential candidate and former of Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan wrote “The libel that is being circulated against the Jews, based on the so-called ‘protocols’ is absurd as well as cruel” and that “it is astonishing that anyone would build upon an anonymous publication an indictment against one of the greatest races in history.”
1921: Members of Gdud HaAvoda, “a socialist Zionist work group” went to work at Tel Yosef to help develop the fledgling Kibbuz.
1922(24th of Kislev, 5683): In the evening, kindle the first light of Chanukah
1922: In New York City, “Frieda (née Pike) and Ely S. Hewitt” gave birth to Donald Shepard “Don” Hewitt, the creator of Sixty Minutes.
1922: The Anshe Emes Sisterhood is scheduled to host a theatre party this afternoon at the DeLuxe Theatre in Chicago with all proceeds going to the Building Fund.
1922: In Berlin, Leo and Lotte Jachmann gave birth to their first son Isadore Seigfried Jachman the Baltimore raised U.S. Army Staff Sergeant who killed in 1945 after “defending the town of Flamierge in Belgium” – an action for which received the Congressional Medal of Honor.
1923: Sir William Graham Greene wrote Churchill congratulating him on finally being cleared of charges that he issued misleading reports about the Battle of Jutland that benefited Jewish financiers to whom Churchill owed a greater allegiance than he did to the British people.
1924:Dedication of the Beth El’s new synagogue took place today in Camden, NJ. Participating in the ceremonies were Mayor Victor King of Camden, Dr. A. A. Neuman of Philadelphia's Adath Jeshurun, Judge William M. Lewis of Philadelphia and Rabbi Samuel Freedman of Beth EI in Philadelphia. Rabbi Grayzel and Cantor Mickleman officiated at the service. The Cantor was accompanied by a choir under the direction of Gedalia Rabinowitz.
1924: Martin Henry Glynn, the first Irish American Roman Catholic governor of New York and a staunch defender of the rights of Jewish immigrants living in his state, passed away.
1925: At Atlantic City, in a case of Jew versus Jew Benny Shwartz defeated featherweight Wilbur Cohen
1925: “Wozzeck,” an opera which Alban Berg had completed in 1922, was performed for the first time today in Berlin.
1926: Louis Marshall is honored on his seventieth birthday for his success as a lawyer, a philanthropist who raised millions, supporter of forest conservation and immigration reform, statesman and champion of Jewish causes.
1926: Birthdate of German native Arnulf M. Pins, the “director for the Middle East Region of the Joint Distribution Committee, and associate director of JDC-Israel…”
1927: President Coolidge his express “sympathy with the Zionist movement” in its attempts “to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine” when he met with “Rabbi Uzziel, a patriarch of the Jewish synagogue in Palestine.”
1928: “Nathan Chanin, the Secretary of the Jewish Socialist Ferband of America who has just returned from Russia where he visited the Jewish agricultural colonies said in an address at the Rand School” tonight “that the Jews in Russia were on the verge of starvation.”
1929: After 519 performances the curtain came down at the Casino Theatre on the original Broadway production of “The New Moon,” “an operetta with music by Sigmund Roberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II…”
1930(24th of Kislev, 5691): In the evening, kindle the first light of Chanukah
1930: 74thanniversary of the birth of Louis Marshall.
1930: Dr. Nathan Krass delivered a sermon at Temple Emanu-El “on the significance of the festival of Chanukah and on the problem of human suffering.”
1930: Murray Seasongood, the Jewish former Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio and Rabbi Samuel S. Cohen of Hebrew Union College are two of the speakers scheduled to address tonight’s fourth annual dinner of the metropolitan conference of Temple Men’s Club at the Emanu-El Community House in New York City
1931: In New York, Fay and Rita Gelman gave birth award winning chemist Charles Gelman the holder of a BS from Syracuse and MS from the University of Michigan, who after serving in the United States Army founded Gelman Instrument Company led to being a “recipient of the Michigan Science and Technology Trailblazer Award.”
1932(15th of Kislev, 5693): Dr. Angel Pulido y Fernandez, Spanish researcher of the Sephardim passed away. In 1904 he wrote Espanoles sin Patria (Spaniards Without A Home) which sparked the idea of the Sephardim returning to Spain. He became a member of the Spanish Parliament, and later the King made him a Senator. He spent the latter part of his life writing, holding meetings and passionately advocating for the return of the Sephardim.
1933: Forty-five year old composer Max Steiner and Audree Van Lieu whom had married in 1927 were divorced today
1934: In Nuremberg, Julius Streicher, “the Franconian Nazis leader” “demanded new anti-Semitic legislation” tonight saying that “sexual intercourse between a Jew and a non-Jewish woman must be punched with death.”
1935(18th of Kislev, 5696): Science fiction writer Stanley G Weinbaum passed away.
1935:Lillian Hellman's "The Children's Hour" was banned in Boston1936(30th of Kislev, 5697): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1936: “Crack-Up” a dramatic film written by Sam Minz, with music by Samuel Kaylin and starring Peter Lorre was released in the United States today.
1936: “You Can’t Take It with You” a comedy written by those two Jewish giants of the stage, George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, opened at the Booth Theatre for the first of what would prove to be 837 performance. The play won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
1936:The original production of “You Can't Take It with You” a comedic play in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart opened at the Booth Theater tonight and played for 837 performances. The play won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
http://forward.com/articles/206594/you-cant-take-it-with-you-returns-to-broadway-with/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily_Newsletter_Mon_Thurs%202014-10-01&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_term=The%20Forward%20Today%20%28Monday-Friday%29
1936: Twenty-seven year old Jewish medical student David Frankfurter began serving an 18 year prison sentence tonight after having been found guilty of murdering Wilhelm Gustloff the Nazi leader in Switzerland.
1936: Tonight, “the German press announced” that now that the verdict has been handed down at Chur, Switzerland in which David Frankfurter was convicted of leading the Swiss Nazi leader, “Germany will now undertake an its own investigation of the case” with the aim of doing “something” about “the hidden men behind Frankfurter who are alleged to have been responsible for the murder.”
1936: Dr. Maurice B Hexter “summed up Jewish grievances when testified before the Royal Commission. These include a complaint that survey and settlement of titles to land take too long to be completed are required and a demand to accelerate the pace of the work.
1936: The Palestine Post reported that despite official assurances further instances of violence and arson were carried out by various Arab armed bands throughout the country. There was arson in Tel Aviv port, bus passengers were robbed on roads, and trees in Jewish settlements were uprooted. Moslem youth boycotted the Christian-owned National Bus Company, claiming that it had offered assistance to the British army and police during the Arab strike. But both the Jerusalem Mufti, Haj Amin el-Husseini, and the Arab Higher Committee appealed to both Jerusalem's Moslems and Christians to settle their differences.
1937: It was reported today, that the “American Joint Distribution Committee has said that as of January 1, 1937, there was 39,000 Jewish school children still in Germany” and that “of this total, 23, 670 were attending special Jewish Schools.
1938: “The Novel of Werther” a film based on a 1774 French novel directed by Max Ophuls, with music by Paul Dessau was released in French today.
1939: Raymond Samuel married Lucie Bernard today “after he warned her that it might be dangerous for her to marry a Jew.” He would take the nom de guerre of Raymond Aubrac. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1939: Heydrich issued a modified directive ordering all rural and small-townJews in the General Government (occupied Poland) to be transported to the larger Polish cities where they would be quarantined from the rest of the Polish population and kept under tight SS surveillance.
1939: The League of Nations expelled the Soviet Union for its attack on Finland in what is known as the Winter War which would result in Jewish soldiers fighting on the same side as the Wermacht.
1940: British military intelligence confirmed that the effect of the Patria decision on the Arabs had been “remarkably small.”
1941: The German military commander of Kharkiv, Ukraine ordered the Jewish population to move to the city periphery within 2 days and to occupy the barracks of the works of a machine factory. In the next days, 15.000 Jews were shot at Drobitsky Yar.
1941:Jews by the hundreds are dying from hunger and the cold in the Warsaw Ghetto. Two Jews were shot dead at a funeral for a friend
1941: A Jewish ghetto at Kharkov, Ukraine, is established.
1942: In a letter made public today, “Representative Hamilton Fish told Secretary of State Cordell Hull that he was ‘profoundly shocked’ by statements of the ‘alleged slaughter of 7,000 Jews daily by the Nazis in conquered territories’ and asked ‘Is there not some action that may be taken by the United States Congress and the Administration that will these pogroms of Jews in Poland and Eastern Europe?’”
1943(17thof Kislev, 5704): Fifty-eight year old New York born and Columbia trained gynecologist Samuel H. Geist, the husband of Juliet Beecher Geister and father of Joyce B. Jacobson passed away today.
1944(28thof Kislev, 5707): Fourth day of Chanukah
1944(28thof Kislev, 5707): 1st Lt. Joseph Levine, a bombardier with the 20thAir Force was killed today.
1944(28thof Kislev, 5707): 1st Lt. Chester E. Paul, a co-pilot was killed today while flying with the 20th Air Force.
1944: A funeral service is scheduled to be held this morning for sixty-seven year old Columbia trained lawyer and life-long music aficionado Lewis Montefiore Isaacs, the son of Meyer and Maria Solomon Isaacs and the husband Edith J. Rich “the editor of Theatre Art Monthly, who found time to serve as the Borough President of Manhattan and to write guides to “Koenigskinder” and “Hansel and Gretel”
1944: Birthdate of Mitchel Jay Feigenbaum, a mathematical physicist whose pioneering studies in chaos theory led to the discovery of the Feigenbaum constants. In 1983 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 1986, he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics "for his pioneering theoretical studies demonstrating the universal character of non-linear systems, which has made possible the systematic study of chaos".
1945: Josef Kramer known as "beast of Belsen", and 10 others were hanged for crimes committed at the Belsen and Oswiecim Nazi concentration camps.
1945(10th of Tevet, 5706): Asara B'Tevet
1945(10th of Tevet, 5706): Ten years after her husband passed away, Lucie Hadamard Dreyfus passed away. She had remained in France at the behest of her granddaughter who worked with the Resistance. Ultimately she took refuge in a convent in Valence where her benefactors did not know her identity. Her death so close to the end of the Shoah served as a reminder that the road to Vichy and Drancy had begun a half century before when her husband was convicted because he was Le Juif, the Jew
1945: The Broadway production of “Dream Girl” by Elmer Rice opened at the Coronet Theatre
1945: Ruth (Pincus) Koch and Howard Winchel “Hawk” Koch, Sr. gave birth to movie producer Howard Winchel “Hawk” Koch, Jr.
1946: Birthdate of Michael S. Ovitz, the Chicago native who began as a talent agent and rose to serve as President of the Walt Disney Company.
1946: After almost a month, the curtain comes down on the final performance of “A Flag Is Born” at the Broadway Theatre.
1947(1st of Tevet, 5708): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1947: Oswald Rothuag, the Nazi jurist who sought to provide over the trial of Leo Katzenberg whom he gladly sentenced to death, was sentenced to life imprisonment today after being found guilty of “crimes against humanity.”
1947: Birthdate of entertainment mogul, Michael Ovitz.
1948: At a meeting today with Jordanian commander Abdullah el-Tell, Elias Sasson “recorded el-Tell saying ‘strike the Egyptians as much as you like. Our attitude will be totally neutral.’
1949: In keeping with a resolution adopted by the Knesset, the Israeli government moves from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
1951: Birthdate of Norton A. Schwartz, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, the 19th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force and the first Jew to hold this position.
1951: The Jerusalem Post announced that for the third successive year the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Palestine Archaeological Museum refused to admit the participation of Prof. E.L. Sukenik of the Hebrew University, the board's sole Jewish representative, to its deliberations. Since the museum was located in the Jordanian-occupied part of Jerusalem, Prof. Sukenik suggested that meetings should be held at the Mandelbaum Gate, on the border, but his offer was turned down.
1952: In Little Rock, Arkansas, on the third day of Chanukah, Agudas Achim dedicated its new synagogue.
1952: "Makin' Whoopee!" a jazz/blues song, first popularized by Eddie Cantor in the 1928 musical Whoopee!” with lyrics by Gush Kahn was re-released today.
1952:“Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl” a radio drama written Jewish journalist Meyer Levin who had visited the concentration camps after the war and had contacted Anne's father Otto Frank to request the rights to create a play based on the diary of Anne Frank, appeared on The Eternal Light series, produced by the Jewish Theological Seminary on the NBC network.
1952: In Manhattan, Hugo Levy, who had been a textile merchant before fleeing the Nazis after which owned a hardware store in New York and his wife Alice gave birth to Harold Oscar Levy, the Citicorp executive who served as “chancellor of New York City’s public school system. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)
1953: The Brooklyn Dodgers signed pitcher Sandy Koufax.
1954: Governor Stratton is scheduled to speak at a dinner meeting of the Jewish Federation of Chicago in the Morrison Hotel where 600 people are expected to be in attendance.
1955:Arthur M. Loew, the son of Marcus Loew, succeeded Nicholas Schenck as the President of MGM, although Schenck remained Chairman of the Board
1957: U.S. premiere of a remake of “Farewell To Arms” the cinematic version of the novel of the same name directed by Charles Vidor produced by David O. Selznick with a screenplay by Ben Hecht.
1957: At Adas Israel in Washington, DC, Bar Mitzvah of Avraham Elimelech ben Yosef Dov
1957: The City of Paris awarded the Gold Medal of the City of Paris to David Feuerwerker the French Rabbi and Jewish historian who fought against the Nazis as a member of the French Army at the start of WW II and then joined the Resistance after Petain and Vichy came to power.
1957: “Bridge On The River Kwai” a WW II epic produced by Sam Spiegel with a script co-authored by Carl Foreman was released in the United States, two months after first being shown in the United Kingdom.
1959: “The World of Sholom Aleichem” produced by Henry T. Weinstein was broadcast as “The Play of the Week.”
1960: U.S. premiere of “Esther and the King” an Italian made movie based on the Book of Esther starring Joan Collins whose father was Jewish in the title role.
1960(25th of Kislev, 5721): Chanukah is observed for the last time during the Presidency of Dwight David Eisenhower.
1960(25th of Kislev, 5721): Sixty-three year old Gregory Ratoff, the Russian born American actor and director best known for his role as “Max Fabian” in “All About Eve” and as director for the film “Oscar Wilde” passed away.
1961: Louis Jacobs who had been named the rabbi at the New West End Synagogue in London in 1953 was forced to resign from the staff of Jews’ College.
1961: “El Cid” an epic film produced by Bessarabian born American Jew Samuel Bronston who was a nephew of Leon Trotsky, directed by Anthony Mann and with a script by Yordan was released in the United States today.
1962(17th of Kislev, 5723): Fifty-one year old Robert Clyde “Bob” Katz whose “entire major league career consists of 6 appearances for the 1944 Reds” in a season which he was 0-1 passed away today.
1963: Gustav Machatý, the movie director who gave Hedy Lamar her big break in “Ecstasy” passed away today. He was not Jewish but she was.
1965: Simon and Garfunkel recorded “Homeward Bound” which appeared on the album “Sounds of Silence” in the UK and “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme” in the U.S.
1965: Simon and Garfunkel re-recorded Paul Simon’s “I Am a Rock” which had originally been “recorded and released” the previous August.
1966: “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the Forum” based on the play co-authored by Larry Gelbart, produced by Melvin Frank who also co-authored the screenplay, with music by Stephen Sondheim and starring Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford and Phil Silvers was released today in the United Kingdom.
1967(12th of Kislev, 5728): Fifty year old University of Michigan basketball and baseball player Herman Fishman, the co-founder of Camp Michigama and Director of the Detroit Pistons passed away today.
1967: U.S. premiere of “In Cold Blood” the movie version of the novel of the same name directed and produced by Richard Brooks who also wrote the screenplay and edited by Holocaust survivor Peter Zinner.
1967: The first synthesis of biologically active DNA in a test tube was announced at a press conference by Arthur Kornberg who had worked with Mehran Goulian at Stanford and Robert L. Sinsheimer of MIT. Kornberg chose to replicate the relatively simple DNA chain of the Phi X174 virus, which infects bacteria (a bacteriophage). It has a single strand of DNA only about 5500 nucleotide building blocks long, and with about 11 genes, it was easier to purify without breaking it up. Having isolated the Phi X174 DNA, they used the DNA from E. coli, a common bacterium in the human intestine that could copy a DNA template from any organism. The viral DNA template thus copied was found to be able to infect bacteria - it was error-free, active DNA.
1968: Birthdate of Franklin High (New Orleans) and Brandeis graduate Theodore H. “Ted” Frank the University of Chicago trained lawyer who is “a nephew of author Hurwitz” and who helped launched the national career of Sarah Palin when he wrote the vetting report on her for Senator John McCaian.
1969: “John and Mary” the movie version of a novel by Mervyn Jones starring Dustin Hoffman was released in the United States today.
1969: “La Strada,” “a musical with lyrics and music by Lionel Bart, with additional lyrics by Martin Charnin” and featuring Larry Kert as “Mario” opened today on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatres.
1970: Joseph B. Levin represented the National Assn. of Securities Dealers, Inc. when arguments opened before the Supreme Court in INVESTMENT COMPANY INSTITUTE et al., Petitioners, v. William B. CAMP, Comptroller of the Currency, et al. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SECURITIES DEALERS, INC., Petitioner, v. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION et al.
1971: “Diamonds Are Forever” one of the James Bond movies co-produced by Harry Saltzman with a screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz was released in Germany today.
1971: “The Hospital” directed by Arthur Hiller, a Canadian born Jew for which Paddy Chayefsky won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and featuring Stephen Elliot was released in the United States today.
1973(19th of Kislev, 5734): Composer Yitzhak Edel passed away.
1974(30th of Kislev, 5735): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1974(30th of Kislev, 5735): Eighty-five year old American journalist and political philosopher Walter Lippmann passed away. (As reported by Alden Whitman)
1974: In New York, WNYC is scheduled to broadcast “The Story of Chanukah” adopted by Pearl Klein
1975: “The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother” a musical comedy film with Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn and Gene Wilder who also wrote the script and directed the film was released in the United States and the United Kingdom today.
1975: “A National Council on Soviet Jewry was established at the conclusion of the first National Conference on Soviet Jewry held in Great Britain.”
1976: “Sly Fox” a comedic play by Larry Gelbart premiered on Broadway today at the Broadhurst Theatre with a cast that included Jack Gillford.
1976:The Jerusalem Post reported from Washington that the US State Department, Pentagon and industry were becoming concerned over Israeli use of foreign military sales credits (from the US) not only to obtain US weapons for its inventory, but also to import technical data packages that eventually could be exported in competition with American products. Syrian troops moved into East Beirut where two Christian militias continued to fight each other.
1976: “A new wave of searches and interrogations of members of the organizing committee of the symposium on Jewish culture in Moscow, Kiev, Leningrad, Gorky, Minsk, Tbilisi and other cities” which would last until December 20 began today.
1977: U.S. premiere of “Saturday Night Fever” based on “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” a New York Magazine article by Nik Cohm with a screenplay by Norman Wexler with Donna Pescow as “Annette” and Fran Drescher as “Connie.”
1977: Representatives of Egypt and Israel gathered in Cairo for their first formal peace conference.
1978: “Superman” the movie that brought to the big screen the comic hero created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster and directed by Richard Donner (born Richard Donald Schwartzberg) opened in the United Kingdom today.
1978: After having been first premiered in the United States, “Force 10 from Navarone,” the movie version of the novel by the same name with a story created by Carl Foreman was released today in the United Kingdom.
1979(24thof Kislev, 5740): In the evening, kindle the first Chanukah light
1979(24thof Kislev, 5740): Seventy-five year old Milton Harold Bren, the St. Louis born son of Sadie Simon and Henry Simon the movie producer whose most famous work was the screw-ball comedy “Topper” who was married to actress Claire Trevor passed away today.
1980(17thof Tevet, 5741): Seventy-seven year old Isadore Efron, the son of Morris Efron passed away today after which he was buried in the Sons of Israel Cemetery in Aiken, SC.
1981: Israel annexed the Golan Heights which had been captured from Syria in 1967. The Syrians had shelled Israeli farmers from the Golan Heights for almost twenty years. The IDF took the heights in an amazing exercise of physical courage at the end of the Six Days War.
1981: “Silkwood,” a biopic directed and co-produced by Mike Nichols with a script co-authored by Nora Ephron was released in the United States today.
1984:Howard Cosell retired from Monday Night Football. The Carolina Israelite via Brooklyn was no longer the third man in the booth.
1986: It was reported today that “whatever the fate of day schools among the non-Orthodox” attendance at the afternoon Hebrew schools in the New York City which had reached a high of 96,000 in the 1960’s “was now steadily declining.”
1988: “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” a comedy directed by Frank Oz, with music by Miles Goodman was released in the United States today.
1988: U.S. premiere of “Torch Song Trilogy” written and co-starring Harvey Fierstein, produced by Ronald K. Fierstein with music by Peter Matz.
1989:Joel Brinkley, writing in the New York Times, reported that Soviet Jews are leaving at a record pace, with many of them opting to settle in Israel.
1990: U.S. premiere of “Look Who’s Talking Too” directed by Amy Heckerling
1990: “Captain America” a film based on the Marvel comic super-hero created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby produced by Menahem Golam and Stan Lee and with music by Barry Goldberg was released in the United Kingdom today.
1991(7thof Tevet, 5752): Parashat Vayigash
1991(7thof Tevet, 5752): Eighty-nine year old Hartford, CT native Edward Allen “Ed” Suisman who played as a guard and forward for Yale from 1923 to 1925 passed away today.
1993:As a closely watched target date came and went with no change in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin suggested today that there could be still further delays in withdrawing Israel's soldiers and introducing Palestinian self-rule.
1993: In Pittsburgh, PA, Miron Bisnowaty a Sabra raised in Rishon Lezion “who came to the U.S. at the age of 27” and his wife Randi gave birth Adam Bisnowaty who played tackle for the University of Pittsburgh before going to the NFL with the New York Giants.
1994: Alfred Moses presented his credentials today as the U.S. Ambassador to Romania.
1995: “After a private audience with Pope John Paul II,” Leah Rabin, the widow of Yitzhak Rabin said today that the Pope “had acknowledged Jerusalem's "double role" as capital of Israel and a holy city to Jews, Christians and Muslims”
1997(15th of Kislev, 5758): Seventy-nine year old musical comedy “second banana” Stubby Kaye, passed away. Two of his more famous film credits were “Guys and Dolls” and “Cat Baliou.” (As reported by Myrna Oliver)
1997: The New York Times book section included a review of Gloria Steinem by Sydney Ladensohn Stern
1998: President Clinton stood witness as hundreds of Palestinian leaders renounced a call for the destruction of Israel. Based on what has happened since then, the deeds did not match the word.
1998(25th of Kislev, 5759): First Day of Chanukah
1998(25th of Kislev, 5759): Actor Norman Fell passed away.
1998(25th of Kislev, 5759): Seventy-four year old Annette Strauss, the former Mayor of Dallas, passed away.
1999: U.S. and German negotiators agreed to establish a $5.2 billion fund for Nazi-era slaves and forced laborers.
2000: Marty Glickman underwent heart bypass surgery.
2000: “The Family Man” a comedy directed by Brett Ratner, with a script by David Diamond and David Weissman and music by Danny Elfman was released in the United States by Universal Pictures.
2000: The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation presented the Raoul Wallenberg 2000 Award. This award, which is being offered for the first time, was presented to Oscar Vicente, CEO of Perez Companc Holding and Peter Landelius, Swedish Ambassador to Argentina. This new distinction was created with the purpose of recognizing the exemplary conduct of individuals with rectitude and outstanding performance in their respective occupations as well as their thorough and continuous support of non-governmental organizations.
2001:In what some considered an unusual turn of events, the men who gathered for the funeral of a local boy killed by a Palestinian attack spoke little about revenge or military reprisals. Instead the talk was about God's mysterious ways and about what many saw as a divine signal that Jews had strayed from their faith in their own land.
2002(9thof Tevet, 5763): Seventy-eight year old multi-talented actress and native of Des Moines, IA, Ruth Kobart passed away today in San Francisco.
2003: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about subjects of Jewish interest including Unsettled: An Anthropology of the Jewsby Melvin Konner and The Conspiracy Club by Jonathan Kellerman.
2004: “I, Robot” a sci-fi thriller based on the work by Isaac Asimov, with a screenplay co-authored by Akiva Goldsman and featuring Shia LaBeouf was released today on VHS and DVD.
2004: Molly Tambor gave birth to Mason Jay Moore Jeffrey Michael Tambor’s first grandchild.
2004: Gary Shaprio reviews Ron Rubin’s book on the New York City Marathon's co-founder, Anything for a T-Shirt: Fred Lebow and the New York City Marathon, the World's Greatest Footrace .The book - the first biography of Lebow - has been published on the 10th anniversary of his death.
2005(13th of Kislev, 5766): Israeli archaeologist Ruth Amiran passed away. Born in 1914 she was the author of Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land: From Its Beginnings in the Neolithic Period to the End of the Iron Age and a 1982 recipient of the Israel Prize.
2005(13th of Kislev, 5766): Eighty-one year old“Dr. Herman Roiphe, a psychoanalyst who explored the notion of sexual identity in early childhood development, passed away today.(As reported by Jeremy Pearce)
2005(13th of Kislev, 5766):Nathalie Babel Brown, a daughter of Isaac Babel, the illustrious Russian-Jewish storyteller of the Soviet era, whose literary work she edited, died in Washington at the age of 76. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)
2006: The Jerusalem Post reported that Ha’eda, the official organ of th fiercely anti-Zionist Eda haharedit, characterized those Jews attending the Teheran Holocaust denial conference as a ‘tiny group of insane people, who are liable to incited hatred against Haredi Jews.’ The paper’s editor lambasted them for having ignored the ‘opinion of Torah Sages’ in pursuit of their distorted anti-Zionist zealotry.
2006: In Boston, The Improv Asylum presents its new production, "Andy Warhol's Christmas Special, or, How Hanukkah Stole Christmas." It's a story narrated by Andy Warhol about a sick, young Jewish woman who makes a wish for Hanukkah to replace Christmas. Sadly, it comes true.
2006: The Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of “The Apple Tree” a Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick musical of began today.
2007(5th of Tevet, 5768): Eighty-eight year old Hank Kaplan, an American boxing historian and writer who was the founder and editor of Boxing Digest, passed away today, at his home in Florida. (As reported by Matt Schudel)
2007: In New York City The 92nd Street Y School of Music presents a recital by pianist Laura Barg as part of its series of one-hour faculty concerts in the Weill Art Gallery.
2007: The Washington (D.C.) Jewish Community Center continues “Theater J,” its successful series of informal play readings, with a presentation from “Forgiveness” by David Schulner, directed by Daniella Topol, featuring Tim Getman, Conrad Feininger, Helen Hedman, Kimberly Gilbert and Julia Proctor.
2008: Final performance of The Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater production of “The Very Sad Story of Ethel & Julius, Lovers and Spies, and About Their Untimely End While Sitting in a Small Room at the Correctional Facility in Ossining New York.”
2008: In Washington, D.C., the 3rd Shalshelet International Festival continues for its second and final day when the composers and performers will provide a day of free creative workshops beginning at 10:00 am, also at the Sixth & I historic Synagogue.
2008: At the Chabad House in Little Rock, AR, Rabbi Pinchas Ciment facilitates the beginning of the writing of a Sefer Torah as part of this special year of Hakhel. . This momentous occasion will take place as Mrs. Ruth Itzkowitz will be celebrating her 90th birthday and is being partially underwritten by the Itzkowitz family in loving memory of Bob Itzkowitz (obm).
2008: The Washington Post book section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics uniquely related to the Jewish people including The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler by Thomas Hager Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean byEdward Kritzler and American Priestess: The Extraordinary Story of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalem by Jane Fletcher Geniesse.
2008: Funeral services are held for Holocaust Survivor and long time resident of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Ann Gilbert (Chana Zylberstajn) at Tempe Judah with burial at Eben Israel Cemetary.
2008: Avraham Infeld, President of the Chais foundation confirmed today that the California-based foundation that doles out about $12 million per year was forced to close as a result of the securities scheme orchestrated by Bernard Madoff, The Chais Family Foundation, which gives away approximately $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes in Israel, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, closed Sunday because all of its assets were invested with Madoff. The United Jewish Communities and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee were among its main beneficiaries.
2008: Jack Black hosted the Spike Video Games.
2009(27thof Kislev, 5770): Third Day of Chanukah
2009(27thof Kislev, 5770): Ninety-three year old Sol Price who as the founder of PriceSmart is considered the pioneer of stripped down bargain warehouse store passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/business/16price.html
2009(27 Kislev, 5770): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Harvey David Luber. He will always be missed and never be forgotten.
2009: The Center for Jewish History, American Sephardi Federation and Center for Traditional Music and Dance present: “Ilyas Malayev: Remembering the Poet Laureate of the Bukharian Jews.” Born in 1936 Ilyas Malayev “was an immensely popular musician across Uzbekistan, deeply loved by the Bukharian Jewish community. He was a master of the Central Asian classical music cycles known as "Shash maqâm," and a major innovator of traditional forms through his musical compositions, poetry and theatrical works.” The evening’s program includes a discussion led by Walter Zev Feldman and Evan Rapport with a special performance of Malayev's compositions by Ochil Ibragimov.
2009: Gary Schmitt and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius take part in a discussion of "The Essential Herman Kahn: In Defense of Thinking" with one of the book's editors, Kenneth Weinstein, at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.
2009: Israel's top-ranked player won the 2009 Chess World Cup. Boris Gelfand, a grand master from Rishon LeZion, defeated former world champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in a playoff today in the Russian town of Khanty-Mansiysk to take the $120,000 top prize. Gelfand, 41, was the No. 1 seed among 128 players in the event, which had a prize pool of $1.6 million. Ranked sixth in the world, Gelfand is now eligible to compete in the 2010 World Championships as one of the eight best players in the world. He immigrated to Israel from Belarus in 1998.
2009: Kinky Friedman announced “that he was leaving the gubernatorial race and would the Democratic nominated for Texas Agriculture Commissioner.”
2010: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to present “Food for Thought: Digesting Ethics, Mysticism, and Philosophy” with Rabbi Yosef Edelstein of MesorahDC
2010: In New York, the YIVO is scheduled to present a program entitled “Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in the Aftermath of the Schwarzbard Trial.”
2010: In Hawaii, The Kahului Union Church is scheduled to host a program entitled “A Voice for Israel” featuring Nora Finberg the wife of Pastor Robb Finberg of Grace Church in Pukalani.
2010: Today Israeli officials canceled a ceremony planned to honor the Palestinian firemen who assisted in battling the Carmel fire last week, after a number of crew members were refused permits to cross the border.
2010: It was reported today that Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is off to an early lead in the race for Chicago mayor, but there is plenty of room for other contenders in the crowded field as the fluid contest takes shape, a new Tribune/WGN poll found.
2011: Opening session the Union for Reform Judaism Biennial is scheduled to take place today at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Session in suburban Maryland.
2011: “Yiddle with His Fiddle” is scheduled to be shown today at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Beachwood, Ohi
2011: Arsonists set fire to a deserted mosque in central Jerusalem during the night.
2011: Dozens of right-wing activists clashed with police officers in Jerusalem today, amid attempts to arrest suspects linked to recent so-called price tag attacks.
2012: Ninety-eight year old “Joe Simon, a writer, editor and illustrator of comic books who was a co-creator of the superhero Captain America, conceived out of a patriotic impulse as war was roiling Europe,” passed away today (As reported by Bruce Weber)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/books/joe-simon-a-creator-of-captain-america-is-dead-at-98.html
2011(14thof Kislev): Ninety-eight year old “Norman Krim, an electronics visionary who played a pivotal role in the industry’s transition from the bulky electron vacuum tube, which once lined the innards of radios and televisions, to the tiny, far more powerful transistor” passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/business/norman-krim-who-championed-the-transistor-dies-at-98.html?_r=0
2012(1stof Tevet, 5773): Rosh Chodesh Tevet; Sixth day of Chanukah; Kindle the 7 candles.
2012(1stof Tevet, 5773): Six year old Adam Posner was the youngest of the victims murdered today at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.
2012(1st of Tevet, 5773): Seventy-two year old China scholar and UCLA professor Richard Baum passed away today. (As reported by Meg Sullivan)
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/prominent-china-scholar-richard-241975.aspx
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/world/asia/richard-baum-72-dies-presided-over-chinapol.html?hpw&_r=0
2012: “Call me a Jew,” a documentary about Austrian treatment of Jews during World War II is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2012: Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis is scheduled to bring her unique message to members and guests of Park East Synagogue.
2012: In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is scheduled to host its second Musical Shabbat in the 5773 season.
2012: Report of ’80s Sexual Abuse Rattles Yeshiva Campus
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/14/nyregion/report-of-sexual-abuse-rattles-manhattan-yeshiva-campus.html
2012: Avigdor Liberman announced today he would resign from his position as foreign minister and vice premier in the current government in light of a pending indictment against him for fraud and breach of public trust
2012: Bob “Benmosche announced that the U.S. government and American taxpayers received their full investment in AIG, plus a $22 billion positive return.”
2013: Two days before his 90th birthday, Israeli pianist Menahem Pressler is scheduled to perform on the Tully stage of the Lincoln Center
2013: Weather permitting, “Francis Ha” and “Life Sentences” will be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2013: The Union of Reform Judaism Biennial Convention is scheduled to host a centennial celebration “Extraordinary Women Shaping Reform Judaism: A celebration of the 100th anniversary of Women of Reform Judaism” followed by a concert featuring Neshama Carlebach and Josh Nelson.
2013: As thousands of Gazans suffer from record flooding, Israel relaxes restrictions at the border crossing to allow the shipment of water pumps and gas for heating to relieve the human misery.
2013: Israel faced another freezing night, with fears of icy roads nationwide, but the worst storm in decades was winding down. Late tonight, much of Jerusalem and northern Israel were still deep in snow, the authorities were working to open roads in and out of the capital, and much of the rest of the country was still grappling with stormy conditions. Four Israelis were known to have died since the storms began
2014: Musician David Broza is scheduled to perform in the Mintz Auditorium of the Uptown Jewish Community Center as part of the Community Chanukah Celebration in New Orleans.
2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host a program with Ruth W. Messinger, President of the American Jewish World Service
2014: At the Berman Museum, Emory Professor and WW II veteran Dr. Mort Waitzman is scheduled to speak in third installment of the Bearing Witness series.
2014: After today’s performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” Miriam Isaacs who taught Yiddish at the University of Maryland for 15 years is scheduled to speak on the literary antecedents to the show based on Sholom Aleichem's "Tevye" short stories.
2014: Ambassador Mal Berisha is scheduled to deliver “a talk on the role of U.S. Ambassador Herman Bernstein (1930-1933) in championing positive Albanian Jewish relations and how this set the stage for Albania sheltering its Jews during the war.
2014: “State Aid Formula Said to Hurt in a District Where Most Go to Yeshivas” published today described the behavior of an Orthodox Jewish community in Rockland County.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/nyregion/state-aid-formula-said-to-hurt-in-a-district-where-most-go-to-yeshivas.html?hpw&rref=education&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
2014: “The Labor Party voted unanimously in favor of merging with Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua party this evening, sealing the deal for a rotation premiership in a bid to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a large center-left bloc.” (As reported by Marissa Newman)
2014: In a statement issued today, the Women of the Wall said that Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbinic authority of the Western Wall and holy places, denied its request to hold a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony in the women’s section of the holy. (As reported by JTA)
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/12/14/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/women-of-the-wall-
2014: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Jby Howard Jacobson and Gangsterland by Tod Goldberg.
2014(22ndof Kislev, 5775): Eighty-year old Rabbi Dr. Yitzchok Meyer Abramson, the Chicago native who was the husband of Ruth Abramson passed away today in St. Louis, MO.
2014(22ndof Kislev, 5775): Ninety-one year old Sy Berger, “the father of the modern-day baseball trading card” passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/sports/baseball/sy-berger-91-dies-created-the-modern-baseball-trading-card.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
2014(22ndof Kislev, 5775): Ninety-year old Bess Myerson, the first Jewish “Miss America” passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/nyregion/bess-myerson-miss-america-and-new-york-official-tarnished-in-scandal-dies.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1
2014: Today’s New York Times list of the 10 Best Books of 2014 included Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin and Sadat at Camp David by Lawrence Wright.
2015(2ndof Tevet, 5776): Eighth Day of Chanukah
2015(2ndof Tevet, 5776): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of Rabbi Aharon Kotler.
http://www.aish.com/dijh/Kislev_2.html
2015(2nd of Tevet, 5776): Eighty-eight year old Lillian Vernon, the refugee from Nazi Europe who made her name into a women’s fashion brand passed away today. (As reported by Lynn Povich)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/business/lillian-vernon-creator-of-a-bustling-catalog-business-dies-at-88.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
2015: Today, “just after the new government voided the Argentine pact with Iran to jointly investigate the AMIA attack,” prosecutor Paul Plee “filed a request today to reopen the case with the Federal Criminal Cassation Court” in which “the late special prosecutor Alberto Nisman had charged that former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner covered up Iran’s role in the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing.” (JTA)
2015: The American Sephardi Association is scheduled to host “The Silk Road Experience: a Night of Food, Fashion and Music.”
http://cjh.org/event/2745
2015: Juilliard faculty member and alumnus Itzhak Perlman is scheduled to lead “the Juilliard Orchestra in a brilliant program of iconic Tchaikovsky masterworks for their only Geffen Hall appearance of the season.”
2015: At the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia Susan Barocas, Founding Director of the Jewish Food Experience is scheduled to “share stories of several immigrant families from diverse backgrounds who all lived in the same tenement building — 97 Orchard Street — on the Lower East Side of New York, between 1863 and 1935. Their stories will be told through the foods they ate.”
2015: “The Dove Flyer” and “The Guardians of Remembrance” are scheduled to be shown this evening at the AJS 47th Annual Conference in Boston, MA
2016: In Memphis, TN, Temple Israel, Rabbi Feivel Strauss is scheduled to enlighten attendees with the teachings of Reb Meir.
2016(14thof Kislev, 5777): Ninety-seven year old “Edwin Goldwasser, a physicist who co-founded the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., and helped build one of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator” passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/science/edwin-goldwasser-died-fermi-national-accelerator-laboratory.html?_r=0
https://apnews.com/efef70a5f94a4918af0e61fb825fd248/fermi-lab-co-founder-physicist-dr-edwin-goldwasser-dies
2016: In “Klezmer: Music, History and Memory” Walter Zev Feldman is scheduled to discuss the emergence in 16th century Prague of klezmer which “became a central cultural feature of the largest transnational Jewish community of modern times.”
2016 Alon Oleartchik who “is considered among Israel's most important and inspiring musicians, with an exciting and creative career spanning more than 40 years” is scheduled to “perform his greatest hits from all time including; "Ba La Schuna Bahur Hadash" , "Hi Holechet Badrachim", "Eretz Melach" and many, many more” at the Highline Ballroom.
2017: In Omaha, the Chanukah Art and Soul Festival The Annual Menorah Parade at Boys Town.
2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Educational Center is scheduled to host a screening of “Summer of Love” followed by discussion “led by Michael J. Kramer, Professor of history and American Studies at Northwestern University.”
2017: “Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. said today it plans to cut 14,000 positions globally – over 25 percent of its total workforce – over the next two years.”
2017: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host another session of Peter G. Weintraub’s “Introduction to Judaism.”
2017: Omri Tubi, “a PhD candidate in the Sociology Department at Northwestern University and the recipient of the 2017 Martin and Rhoda Safer/JDC Archives Fellowship” is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “What Can Malaria Eradication Teach Us about the History of Israel?” at the Center for Jewish History in New York.
2017: The professional conference “The Book and the Desert” at which the import of recently discovered Hasmonean era coins, pottery and ritual baths was to be discussed was held today at the Susya Tour and Study Center.”
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/239259
2017(26thof Kislev, 5778): 2nd day of Chanukah
2018: In Georgia, Or VeShalom, a congregation “established by refugees primarily from Turkey and the Isle of Rhodes, is scheduled to host its Congregational Shabbat Dinner.
2018: In Columbus, OH, Tifereth Israel is scheduled to host a “conversation between two feminist theologians, Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ, as they debate the nature of divinity in the world, beginning from the premise that the transcendent, omnipotent, male God of traditional theologies must be re-understood.”
2018: And in one final example showing the ways American congregations make erev Shabbat special, in Chevy Chase, MD Ohr Kodesh Congregation is scheduled to host “USY Friday Night Lights.”
2019(16thof Kislev, 5780): Parashat Vayishlach; for more see http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2019: In Boston, today’s session of the URJ Biennial is scheduled to include a full schedule of Shabbat related activities beginning with a Sabbat Breakfast and end with “Havdalah and a Song Session.”
2019: In San Jose, CA, Addison-Penzak JCC and Silicon Valley Federation are scheduled to co-host “Legacy Project Shabbat,” “a service for a program that aims to strengthen local synagogues, Jewish agencies and the community.
2019: The Boston Synagogue is scheduled to host its “Family Chanukah Party” complete with “latkes, dreidels, donuts, singing, live music and more.” (Editor’s note – never sure what “more” consists of)
2019: In Walnut Creek, CA, Congregation B’nai Shalom is scheduled to host a screening of “Defiant Requiem,” a 2012 documentary that “uses archival footage and animation to tell the story of Terezin inmates learning and performing Verdi’s “Requiem” during the Holocaust.”
2019: In Los Gatos, CA, the Addison-Penzak is scheduled to host “Vodka and Latkes,” a Chanukah party featuring a “7-piece band, dreidel spinning, libations, sufganiyot and latke bar with toppings.
2019: “The Grant Monument Association is scheduled to commemorate the 117thanniversary of the date of Julia Dent Grant today. For more about her husband and the Jewish people see When Grant Expelled the Jews by Jonathan Sarna