JUNE 21
356 B.C.E.: Birthdate of Alexander the Great. Alexander traveled back forth across Judea; first when he went down to conquer Egypt and then when he came back from his Egyptian conquest and moved east to conquer more of the Persian Empire. There is a tale about him coming to Jerusalem, but it is a myth that illustrates the positive attitude the Jews of that time had towards Alexander. He is treatment of the Jews was tolerant since he left them to practice their religion in peace and Jews found it easy to settle throughout his newly conquered domains.
120 (18 Sivan 3881): This date marked the passing of Rabbi Gamliel II. Rabbi Gamliel was the successor to Rabbi Johanan Ben-Zakkai who had set up the Talmudic Academy in Yavneh after the war against Rome. Gamliel helped establish a new spiritual leadership and designed the foundation for survival in the Diaspora. He played a key role in keeping the peace between the Jewish community and Rome.
1305: King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia died. During the Rindfleisch massacres in 1298, King Wenceslaus II had extorted large sums from Bohemian Jewry for protection.
1377: The reign of King Edward III who had borrowed 140,000 florins from a consortium led by Vivelin of Strasbourg, “an Alsatian Jewish financer” “on the eve of the Hundred Years’ War” came to an end today when he passed away.
1498: Citizens of Nuremberg, Bavaria received permission to expel its Jews from Emperor Maximillian
1527: NIccolo dei Machiavelli, the author of The Prince, passed away today.
1630: Birthdate of Samuel Oppenheimer “Jewish banker, imperial court diplomat, factor, and military supplier for the Holy Roman Emperor” who was the father of Simon Wolf Oppenheimer who established his own banking house in Hanover and Jakob Wolf Oppenheimer under who Mayer Amschel Rothschild served his apprenticeship.
1639: Birthdate of Increase Mather, a member of the famous family of New England ministers who wrote “Dissertation Concerning the Future Conversion of the Jewish Nation” and who “thought the future conversion of the Jews to be both possible and not far distant in time. He opposed John Lightfoot’s argument that a general conversion of the Jews was impossible, and he also attacked Baxter’s thesis that the Jews were converted once and for all after Christ, and that those who did not convert at the time were condemned to remain in the Jewish faith for all time. According to Mather, the “national conversion” of the Jews was a “glorious truth.”
1689: The Maisel Synagogue burned today when fire swept through the ghetto in Prague. Built in the early 1590’s it takes its name from Mordechai and Frumel Maisel, who financed its construction. Today a rebuilt version of the synagogue services a Jewish Museum in Prague.
1727(2nd of Tammuz, 5487): Joseph Jacob van Geldern the banker who was the “Court Jew” for Elector Johann Whilhelm passed away today.
1749: Twenty-eight year old Simon von Geldern returned to Vienna from a journey which he claimed took him to North Africa, Jerusalem and other lands inhabited by Bedouins. The son of Joseph von Geldern, a wealthy German physician with whom he had a falling out, Simon was the great-uncle of Heinrich Heine who kindly referred to him as “an adventurer and Utopian dreamer.”
1749: Founding Halifax, Nova Scotia. Within a year, Jews were living in Halifax and by 1752 there were approximately 30 Jews living in the newly founded city. The Jewish population would grow slowly and sporadically. A congregation would not be formed until the end of the 19th century.
1783:Alexander Hamilton, the native of Nevis who according to some was the son a Jewess Rachel Levine and who attended the island’s Jewish school before leaving for North America, completed his first term as a Delegate to the Congress of the Confederaton from New York.
1787; New Hampshire becomes the 9th state to ratify the United States Constitution which means the Constitution has been ratified by enough states to make it the law of the land. New Hampshire was one of the last states to change its laws so that Jews could hold office. The final change took place in 1877. As can be seen from the attached article about the Jewish community in Bethlehem, NH, life has changed for the better for Jews living in the Granite State.
1791(19th of Sivan, 5551): One month before his sixth birthday Aaron Isaac ben Gershon passed away in London.
1794: Simon von Geldern “a German traveler and author, the great-uncle of Heinrich Heine, who describes him in his "Memoirs" as an adventurer and Utopian dreamer, “arrived in Vienna” after completing his first voyage.
1795: Mungo Park the Scottish explorer who “noted the presence of Jews in the region of Timbuktu” having been told “by an Arab he met near Walata of there being many Arabic speaking Jews in Timbuktu whose prayers were similar to the Moors” reached the Gambia River on his first expedition to find the source of the Niger River.
1798: The proclamation issued by the French governor of Cologne which stated in part "Whatever smacks of slavery is abolished. Only before God will you have to give an accounting of your religious beliefs. Your civic rights will no longer depend upon your creeds. Whatever these are, they will be tolerated without distinctions and enjoy equal protection” was an example of the newly found rights of citizenship that the Jews were to enjoy in a city from which they had been barred until 1794.
1802: Birthdate of Michelangelo Asson, the native of Verona, who overcame the fact that his father died while he was an infant to become a “physician and medical author.”
1812: Birthdate of Moses Hess, an early advocate of a league of nations and a Jewish state in Palestine. His most famous work was entitled Rome and Jerusalem published in 1862. He died in 1875
1819(28th of Sivan, 5579): Forty-six year old Hirschel Eliazer Kann, the founder of Lisa & Kann passed away at Den Haag, Zuid-Holland, Nederland
1821: Isaac da Costa earned his Doctor of Philosophy today.
1821: At Frankort-on-Main, Zerline and Meyer (Mayer) Levin Beyfus gave birth to Gustav Beyfus
1824: At St. Thomas, Jacob Baiz, the native of Bayonne, France and his wife Leah Baiz gave birth to Aron Baiz
1831: Mayer Lyons married Elizabeth Isaacs in Canterbury, UK.
1834: In Ireland William Somerville, 1st Baron Athlumney and Lady Maria Harriet Conyngham gave birth to Elizabeth Jane Somerville, the wife of James Molyneux Caulfeild, 3rd Earl of Charlemont, who, after being styled as the Countess of Claremont in 1863 began attending synagogue services in Belfast leading to her eventual conversion to Judaism.
1838: A day after he passed a way, sixty-seven year old “Woolf Levy” was buried at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.
1841: In Charleston, SC, Mr. Nathan married Ann Cohen, the “third daughter of Aaron N. Cohen.”
1841: In Philadelphia, Fannie and Abraham Dessau gave birth to future communal leader Minnie Dessau Louis. (As reported by Seth Korelitz)
1843: In Alsace, Isaiah Rosenthal and Rosa Walter gave birth to Jonas Rosenthal the husband of Jeanette Weill and Confederate Army veteran who was active in Rapides Parish (county) Louisiana politics and
was appointed as U.S. Postmaster of Alexandria, LA.
was appointed as U.S. Postmaster of Alexandria, LA.
1843: The Gold-Bug, a, short story by Edgar Allen Poe, who “as a boy, hung out with several Jewish friends whose mothers inspired his later work” and whose“famed raven that kept repeating “Nevermore” was a direct quote from one of his Jewish friend’s grandfathers who had just found out that his son purchased a suit at a retail price” began appearing in serialization today in American newspaper. (As described by Mark Miller)
1845: Ralph Bernal Osborne, the eldest son of London Sephardic Spanish Jewish Parliamentarian Ralph Bernal, was the first person listed in the Railway Times as a member of “the provisional committee for the Leicester, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Burton-upon-Trent and Stafford Junction Railway” a railway that was never built.
1846: Michael Gashion married Leah Maria Abraham at the Great Synagogue.
1850(11th of Tammuz, 5610): Seventy-eight year old Jacob Hays, “known throughout his career as Old Hays,” the Westchester Country born son of David Hays and Esther Hetting, whom many consider “the first real detective in New York” because “in 1802 Mayor Edward Livingston appointed him chief of the day police force” and “gave him the title of High Constable of the City of New York, passed away today.
1854: "Gleanings from the Mail" published today cites a report appearing in the Boston Advertiser that "the Jews of the Holy Land are suffering great distress from destitution."
1857: In Charleston, SC, Julius Fiegel married Theresa Klauber.
1861: In Chicago, the Sinai Congregation dedicated its first temple on Monroe Street between Clark and La Salle in which the “Einhorn ritual” was used for the first time in “a Western congregation.”
1863(4th of Tammuz, 5623): Sixty-nine year old Benjamin Golding, the British doctor who founded Charing Cross Hospital passed away today.
1866: Rosa Kahn married Josua Hirschel to become Rosa Hirschel
1868: In Motueka, NZ, John Clervaux Chaytor and his wife Emma gave birth to Major General Sir Edward Walter Clervaux Chaytor who, as a member of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force took part in the campaign to liberate the Sinai and Palestine, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Romani, the assault on Rafa and the capture of Rafa.
1872(15th of Sivan, 5632): Marc Borchard, the native of Mecklenburg who earned his M.D. at Halle and became a forensic physician at Bordeaux before spending his final years writing in Paris where he passed away today.
1873: The committee in charge of the excursions to be taken by the children who are the responsibility of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Free Schools, most of whom are from poor homes, announced their plans for the first outing which is scheduled to take place in two days.
1877: Following publication of Judge Hilton’s explanation of his decision to ban Mr. Seligman from the Grand Union Hotel, the New York Times published a series of letters grouped under the headings of “The Jewish Side of the Question” and the “The Other Side”. The letters under “The Other Side” described the undesirability of Jews as a class and as hotel guests which made Hilton’s decision not only understandable but correct. The letters under “The Jewish Side of the Question” included derisive comments on Hilton’s attempt to differentiate between a “Hebrew” and a “Jew” as well as refutation of his claim that he was willing to admit certain acceptable Hebrews since the daughter of one of those mentioned had, in fact, been turned away from the Grand Union.
1878: Ida M. Frances Erich, the daughter of Lazarus and Seline Babette Morgenthau and her husband William Joseph Ehrich gave birth to William Joseph Ehrich.
1878: Today six speakers took part in an oratorical contest at Yale University in which the contestants were competing for De Forest Medal. The third speaker was H.C. Coe, a Jew who spoke on “The Ancient and Modern Jew.” The sixth and final speaker was Louis Hood of Newark who also spoke on “The Ancient and Modern Jew.” While all of the speakers were impressive, Hood walked off with the prize
1881: Birthdate of Dov Ber Borochov,a Marxist Zionist and one of the founders of the Labor Zionist movement as well as a pioneer in the study of Yiddish as a language. He passed away in 1917.
1879: In Lancaster, PA, Frank Woolworth opened his first successful “Woolworth’s Great Five Center Store” the forerunner of the popular F.W. Woolworth’s which the Nazis mistakenly thought was owned by Jews and which they would target as part of their economic boycott of Jewish businesses in the 1930’s
1880: “Politics of Europe and Asia” published today brought news about the conference being held in Madrid called to deal with the situation in Morocco. Senor Ludolf is schedule to introduce a resolution supported by the United State, Portugal and Germany that calls for religious liberty and better treatment of the Jews.
1880: It was reported today that of the five and half million people living in Belgium only 15,000 are Protestants and 3,000 are Jews while all the rest are Catholics.
1882: A summary of Dr. Goodman’s report on the feasibility of settling large number of Jewish refugees from Russia on agricultural communities which has been presented to the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society of the United States was published today. According to Goodman it would cost $500, not counting the cost of the land, to provide each colonist with the necessities for survival. “To start 2,000 heads of families on farms would require a cash advance of $1,000,000 for materials, implements, stock, seed, food etc. before they could become self-maintaing.” Add in the cost of the land, and, according to Dr. Goodman, “the Jewish people in the United States looking to colonization of their destitute co-religionists must collect and invest…from two to four million dollars” over an extended period of time with no hope of a return on investment.
1884: In the case of Dumas v. Jacquet, the First Chamber of the Civil Tribunal of Paris delivered a judgment today that “enjoined the public exhibition of a picture in which the artist had represented Alexandre Duma, the novelist as “Marchand Juif.”
1887: The Jews of London celebrated the first day of the 51st year of the reign of Queen Victoria over Great Britain at the Synagogue on St. James Place in Aldgate. The crowded sanctuary was decorated for the occasion and the attendees were treated to a choral service.
1888: “Barge Office Prizes” published today described the commercial activities that surrounded the sale and purchase of the “unclaimed, abandoned, and seized goods.” Before Ellis Island, the Barge Office was the point of entry for immigrants arriving in New York. The majority of those involved in the examination and purchase of the goods were reportedly Jews.
1888: It was reported today that a rescript has been published ordering that a eulogy be read in all churches at upcoming Sunday services. The offering of a eulogy by the Jews appears to have been optional. [Given the response of Rabbis in New York, it is safe to assume that many Jews mourned the passing of the first modern Kaiser.]
1890: Mr. Comstock of the Society for the Suppression of Vice recognized a man named Marcus Goldstein who had been arrested for trying to obtain plates with which to make counterfeit lottery tickets as Mordecai S. Blaustein “whom he had arrested just four years ago in Orchard Street for swindling poor people” by selling them “bogus lottery tickets.” After having been convicted in 1886, this Polish Jew had been sentenced to 6 months at Blackwell/s Island. According to Comstock, Blaustein or Goldstein was first found to be swindling people on the lower east side in 1881 but he jumped bail and hid out in Chicago.
1891: “Jew Baiting” published today included a detailed review of Les Juifs De Russie Recueil D’Articles Et D’Etudes Sur Leur Situation Legale Sociale Et Economique (The Russian Jews: Collection of Articles and Studies on Their Legal, Social and Economic Situation) by Leopold Cerf.
1892: The Democratic National Convention which was attended by George Washington Ochs Oakes as a delegate from Tennessee opened today in Chicago.
1892: Birthdate of American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr His views on Jews evolved over time from his early days as a minister in Detroit. He warned against the rise of anti-Semitism in Hitler’s Germany and came to the conclusion that it was wrong to try and convert Jews. He expressed his strong pro-Zionist sentiments in “Our Stake in the State of Israel”
1893: Five days after she passed aboard the SS Kaiboura, fifty-three year old “Dinah” Nathan, “the wife of Joseph E. Nathan of Wellington, New Zealand, was buried at the Willesden Jewish Cemetery
1894: Edward Lauterbach, the Republican Jewish political leader was among those participating in the hearings being held at the Constitutional Convention in Albany.
1894: Two days after he passed away, thirty-eight year old Alexander Solomon, the son of Rosetta and Ralph Solomon was buried at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1895: Birthdate of University of Cincinnati and HUC graduate Samuel Wohl, the long-time rabbi of the Reading Road Temple, founder of the League of Labor Zionism and husband of Belle F. Meyers Wohl.
1896: The St. Louis Republic described the decision to choose Rabbi Samuel Sale to deliver the opening prayer at the Republican Convention. According to the Republic, Sale had not been chosen as a compromise to avoid offending the APA and the Catholics but had been chosen because Baron Rothschild of London had sent a telegram requesting that this be done. However, the reporter for the Republic had not seen the telegram and could not find anybody else who had.
1896: Members of the Young Folk’s League of the Hebrew Infant Asylum are scheduled to enjoy an outing today aboard the SS Bay Queen
1896(10th of Tammuz, 5656): Fifty year old Isaac B. Poznanski, the native of Charleston passed away in the UK where he was burred at the Hammersmith Old Cemetery in London.
1897: “Family Left Destitute” published today described the plight of the Cohen family of New Haven. Mrs. Cohen’s husband disappeared without explanation and she thought he had deserted her. Actually, he had been killed in railway accident in New York City. Authorities shipped the widow and her four children to New York where they are now in the care of the Hebrew Sheltering House Association.
1897(21st of Sivan, 5657): Sixty-seven year old German born American businessman and philanthropist Mayer Lehman who along with his brothers Henry and Emanuel founded Lehman Brothers and who was the father of New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge Irving Lehman and New York and U.S. Senator Herbert H. Lehman passed away today.
1897: “Hebrew School In Chicago” published today described a soon to be opened educational institution in the Windy City where all instruction and conversation will be in Hebrew. While classes will be offered in “the primary scholastic branches,” “the Hebrew Bible will be the principle subject of study.
1897: Herman Warszawiak, the converted Jewish missionary, who had been expelled by the Presbyterians after having been found guilty of performing immoral acts including gambling was not available for public comment even though he had earlier said the conviction had come because some did not want a converted Jew to be a minister in the Presbyterian Church.
1898: Two days after he passed away, fifty-five year old Chaim Kronman, a native of Bialystok, was buried at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1898: At Orange, NJ, 58 year old Getta Scholle, the vice president of the Home For Aged and Infirm Hebrews who was the widow of Jacob Scholle, passed away today.
1899: “Boys in Religious War” published today described events leading up to a public brawl between over one Jewish and Christian boys in Chicago. The Christians, who attend several local parochial schools, have been taunting and attacking the Jewish boys who finally fought back. At first the Christians had the better of the battle, but the Jews found reinforcements and surrounded their attackers. At this point, the police intervened and arrested some of the battlers.
1899: The Jews of Chicago are planning on presenting Captain Dreyfus “with a gold-mounted, diamond-set and richly engraved sword.” They are planning on presenting Emile Zola with an engraved gold pen as token of appreciation for his defense of Dreyfus. They are planning on present Colonel Picquart, the War Minister who befriended Dreyfus and helped to prove his innocence with a gold loving cup..
1900(24th of Sivan, 5660): Sir Charles Oppenheimer, the native of Nastätten, Nassau the successful businessman and Jewish philanthropist who served as the British consul-general at Frankfort-on-the-Main passed away today.
1903: In St. Louis, “Isaac and Rebecca Hirschfeld gave birth to Al Hirschfeld, award winning cartoonist
1903: Today NYU Law School trained attorney and municipal court judge Samuel Strasbourger, the son of Henri and Rachel (Mayer) Strasbourger, married Blanche Gaynor with whom he had three children – Sara, J. Henri and Samuel Jr.
1903(26th of Sivan, 5663): New York Banker Isidor Wormser passed away tonight in his home on Fifth Avenue. Born in Germany he came to the U.S. in at the age of 18 with his brother Simon with whom he sailed around Cape Horn to California where they prospered selling merchandize in the Gold Fields and later at their store in Sacramento. Isidor and Simon came to New York in 1870 where they established the banking firm of I & S Wormser which prospered for over 30 years thanks in part, to the conservative fiscal practices of brothers and to the probity of their business dealings. A member of the New York Stock Exchange and a Democratic Presidential elector in 1892, Wormser’s interest in civic affairs could be seen by his membership in the Metropolitan Museum and his service as a trustee of the Brooklyn Bridge.
1904: Today, Benjamin L Abraham married his nineteen year old wife, the daughter of William and Bessie (Fuchs) Gardner who served as President of the Philadelphia Chapter of Hadassah and was “chairman of the Women’s Division of the United Palestine Appeal…”
1904: Thirty-three year old Rabbi Isaac E. Marcuson, the Cincinnati born son of Marcus and Adele (Marx) Marcuson and graduate of the University of Cincinnati and HUC who was Secretary of the Central Conference of American Rabbis married Rose thornier today in Macon, GA.
1905: Judge Jacob William Mack and Bertha Mack gave birth Theresa Mack, the future wife of Joseph Geffen which would make her Therese Geffen, the mother of Alice Geffen.
1905: Birthdate of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Towards the end of his life Sartre suffered what a critic called a “loss of historical hope.” Ironically, he turned to Judaism and Jewish history to find a source of hope and final philosophic underpinning. “Sartre dealt with his loss of historical hope by painfully acquiring another kind of hope. He replaced both existential dread and Marxist utopianism with a Jewish messianic patience. In the final interview with his friend and associate, the unlikely baal t'shuva, (returnee to Judaism), Benny Levy (formerly Pierre Victor), he reports his discovery that "the messianic idea is the base of the revolutionary idea." For many months before he died, Sartre studied Salo Baron's voluminous, magisterial work on Jewish history and, with Levy, came to a new-old view of the human prospect. As if he had invented Buber and the Bible, Sartre now proclaims, "We belong to a single family." Of course, "the unity of the human enterprise is yet to be created…what I have is yours and what you have is mine. If I need, you give to me. If you need, I give to you. That is the future of morality.” In the end, Sartre became a kind of "Jew." Already in the resistance of 1940-45, he had risked his life against Fascism. In Les Temps Modernes, at the very time of the Six Day War, he published what remains the most balanced and useful collection of essays on Arab Jewish peace and declared his solidarity with Israel. He did not accept the Nobel Prize of literature. But he did accept an honorary degree from the Hebrew University in 1976, reminding the Israelis how deeply he shared their dreams, and telling them that the more he cared about them, the more he cared also about the Palestinian people. "In order to understand the Jew from the interior, I would have to be a Jew," Sartre told Benny Levy and he tried hard enough to achieve that very goal. Studying Jewish history, like many thinkers before him, he caught a vision of the messianic hope: survival, obedience and loyalty to humanity itself. "The Jew lives. He has a destiny. The finality toward which every Jew moves is to reunite humanity....It is the end that only the Jewish people (knows)….It is the beginning of the existence of men for each other." In the last days and in the last words of Jean-Paul Sartre, we find a brother and a teacher in Israel.”
1906: In the United Kingdom, “Mr. Montefiore, President of the Zionist Federation and Israel Zangwill, President of the Jewish Territorial Organization, published a joint appeal through the newspapers this morning to the prominent Jews of Great Britain and the United States on behalf of the oppressed Russian Jews.”
1907(10th of Av, 5667): Tish’a B’Av observed because the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat
1907(10th of Av, 5667): Isidior Wormser, the successful New York Banker who is the father-in-law of Jefferson Seligman, passed away today.
1908: “There is nothing extraordinary in the senior wranglership at Cambridge of Selig Brodestsky, reported in cable dispatches from London to-day” because “to Jew and Gentile alike, irrespective of birth or pecuniary circumstances, the highest honors of the English universities have long been accessible.”
1909: Jerusalem native Salama Du Ghan who “began his career as a guide to tourists in Palestine” committed suicide this “morning by swallowing cyanide of potassium in the cellar of Fourteen Street drug store” in New York
1910: Orders were issued expelling 130 Jews from Solomenka and 173 Jews from Demieffka, after local factory workers complained of rent increases brought on by Jewish refugees from Kiev seeking refuge in these local suburbs.
1911: King George V, during whose reign the Balfour Declaration promulgated, prepared for his coronation which was scheduled to take place tomorrow.
1912: “Claiming that Jews skin living animals, anti-Jewish agitators introduced a bill in the Duma to prohibit” Shehitah.
1912: Birthdate of Newcastle, UK native “Judah Benzion ‘Ben’ Segal”, the “Professor of Semitic Languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies,” the father of Professor Moshe Zvi Segal and the brother of Dr. Samuel Segal” passed away today.
1912: Russkoye Znamya, an anti-Semitic newspaper, warmed “Jews that criticism of the Government by Jewish deputies will be answered by pogroms”
1913: It was reported today that steamer August Kessler had arrived in San Francisco with three million gallons of gasoline from Sumatra” belonging to the Rothschilds.
1913: “Mr. Harvey Franklin, a student at the Hebrew Union College” is scheduled to lead services at K.A.M. in Chicago.
1913: Rabbi Joseph Stoltz led services and delivered the sermon this morning at Isaiah Temple in Chicago.
1913: It was reported today that “the Secretary of the Alliance Israelite Universelle has declared that henceforth the chief concern of his organization will be Jews and Jewish institutions in Palestine” an area that France has declared to be part of its protectorate despite the fact that it was part of the Ottoman Empire.
1914: This morning, at HUC in Cincinnati, President J. Walter Freiberg presided over the semi-annual meeting of the Executive Board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations where Secretary Lipman Levy presented a report that showed an additional seven congregations had joined the Reform organization
“since the annual board meeting last December.”
“since the annual board meeting last December.”
1915: Five day before his term in office was scheduled to end, John M. Slaton, Governor of Georgia commuted the sentence of Leo Frank from death to life in prison. The commutation came a day before Frank was scheduled to be hung. Slaton, who had been a popular governor, left Georgia with the mob and threat of violence baying at his heels. Tom Watson wrote an article calling for the lynching of Frank.
1915: In an interview with Pope Benedict published in La Liberte today the Pontiff talked about the horrors of war including a report “hat the Russians on one occasion pushed before them 1,500 Jews so that they could advance behind this living barrier thus exposed to the bullets of the enemy.”
1915: At a little before 5 o’clock this morning Sheriff Mangum and his party of deputies arrived with their prisoner, Leo M. Frank, at the Georgia State Penitentiary in Milledgeville, GA “just a few minutes after Warden J.N. Smith had been notified by authorities in Atlanta that the prisoner was in the custody of the officers and on the way to the State Prison.”
1915: In editorializing about the commutation of Leo Frank’s sentence by Governor Slaton The Athens Daily Banner concluded with the statement that “Whatever may be the result to him he at least has the consolation of knowing that in the face of strenuous circumstances surround this case he did what his judgment told me was his duty to himself and to the State.”
1915: “There was great relief and much joy at the home of Leo M. Frank’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph Frank at 152 Underhill Avenue, Brooklyn this morning when word came that the Governor Slaton had commuted the death sentence.” Since the parents were in Atlanta, the telephone call from County Judge Harry E. Lewis with the good news was taken by the daughter and son-in-law Mr. and Mrs. Otto Stern.
1915: “Local relatives of Leo M. Frank said today that there was absolutely no foundation for the report which had been circulated early in the case that Mrs. Frank was estranged from her husband.”
1915: “In discussing the commutation of Leo Frank’s sentence, The Rome Tribune-Herald says that in its opinion 80 per cent of the people of Georgia opposed commutation, but it believes that this sentiment arose from fear that Frank would be released in a few years.”
1915: Governor John M. Slaton “is guarded in his country home tonight by the a battalion of the Georgia National Guard because of the strenuous efforts of a crowd variously estimated at from 1,000 to 2,000 persons to get at the Governor to show their disapproval” of the commutation of Leo M. Frank’s death sentence to life imprisonment.
1915: The Atlanta Journaleditorial on the commutation of the sentence of Leo M. Frank concluded by saying that “The Governor has shown wisdom and courage in his performance of an act of simple justice, and time will vindicate his moderation.”
1915: In an interview given today following the announcement of the commutation of Leo Frank’s sentence “Louis Marshall, one of the counsel for Leo M. Frank” said “Governor Slaton has saved the honor of Georgia. He the sentence of death pronounced against Frank been executed, it would have been a crime against justice for I am as firmly convinced of his absolute innocence as I am of my own.”
1916: At a meeting tonight at Carnegie Hall, Nathan Straus, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and other prominent Jews from various cities in the United States spoke in favor of “the calling of a democratic congress of Jews in Philadelphia to demand equal rights for Jews in all lands” – a meeting which the American Jewish Committee led by President Louis Marshall has opposed saying it would be best to wait until after the war.
1916: A message was read to a meeting of Jews at Carnegie Hall “from Secretary of War Newton D. Baker…deploring the prejudice and ignorance that had has resulted in discrimination against Jews.” (Editor’s Note: Baker’s boss, President Wilson is running for re-election and the Jewish vote certainly would help)
1916: The Joint Distribution Committee of Funds for Jew War Suffers “consisting of representatives of the American Jewish Relief Committee, the Central Relief Committee and the People’s Relief Committee met this afternoon “at the office of Felix M. Warburg and appropriated $250,000 for the immediate relief of Jews who through the present movement of troops on the borders of the eastern war zones may be compelled again to evacuate their homes.”
1917(1st of Tammuz, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1917(1st of Tammuz, 5677): Date given in the American Jewish year book for the death of London “restaurateur” Sir Joseph Lyons who according to all other sources passed away on June 22. (Editor’s note – and now you know some of what makes this both confusing and interesting)
1917: Mrs. Henry Morgenthau, who has always been interested in the work of the Red Cross, “left the United States” today “with her husband who was head of the mission sent to Egypt to investigate the conditions of the Jews In Palestine.”
1918: “It was announced” tonight “that the case of Felix Sommerfield, a German subject who was at one time private secretary to the late President Francisco Madero of Mexico” and subsequently the arms supplier for Poncho Villa is still being investigated by agents of the Justice Department who arrested him while he was staying at the Hotel Aster. (Sommerfield was Jewish; Madero and Villa were not.
1919: Birthdate of Norwegian tailor Harry Braude who was arrested in Oslo and shipped aboard the Donau to Auschwitz where he was murdered.
1919: Today, in Basle, Switzerland, the 21st“general conference of delegates of Zionist societies” which was “attended by fifty-five delegates” adopted “resolutions protesting the persecution of Roumanian and Bessarabian Jews.”
1920: Ceremonies marking the consecration “of the Home for the Blind on the estate known as the Pines, in Yonkers under the auspices of the New York Guild for the Jewish Blind” took place today which means that “for the first time in the history of New York, Jewish blind children have a playground of their own” thanks in no small measure to the work of Mrs. E.I. Wilson and Mrs. Joshua Piza.
1920: Following Henry Ford’s statement that “it is impossible for the Jew to be a patriot,” the American Hebrew requested the views on the subject from Secretary of War Newton D. Baker who wrote today, “In all the branches of the War Department service and in the officer personnel and enlisted ranks of our great Army, I have found members of the Jews race doing their duty – loyal, sympathetic, devoted their tasks and intensely patriotic” showing “themselves to be true Americans” of “which no higher praise can be given.”
1920: Dr. Henry Keller, who “has recently returned from Palestine where he served as chief of the Orthopedics Department of the Zionist Medical Unit” is scheduled to deliver a lecture this evening at the Aeolian Concert Hall where his talk will included “a collection of unusual photographs vividly describing conditions in…the Holy Land.”
1921: In New York City Abe and Helen (Gollomb) Tuvim gave birth to Judith Tuvim who gained fame as award winning actress Judy Holiday.
1921: Birthdate of Leon Silverman, the Manhattan born attorney. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
1921: Twenty year old Sara Feder, the Polish born daughter of Benjamin and Shaine (Kumok) Feder, the friend of fellow Milwaukee school mate the future Golda Meir and hold of a Doctorate from the Univesity of Chicago became Sara Feder-Kaeyfit when she married Professor Isidore Keyfitz in Milwaukee today.
1922: During a debate in Parliament, Lord Sydenham contends that the Arabs would not object to immigration if it were done by “well selected Jews” instead of by what describes as Zionist settlers who are” Bolsheviks,” “sinister and “promiscuous people.”
1922: Following a debate in the House of Lords on the questions of continued British commitment to honor the Balfour Declaration, 60 Lords voted against the declaration and only 29 voted for it.
1922: Major Herbert Young, “a senior official” in the Colonial Office writes Churchill that the vote against the Balfour Declaration in the House of Lords will lead to greater Arab obstinacy and imperil Britain’s previous promises to the Jews.
1922: Samuel Bronfman “married Saidye Rosner with whom he had four children -- Aileen Mindel "Minda" Bronfman de Gunzburg, Phyllis Lambert, Edgar Miles Bronfman and Charles Rosner Bronfman.
1922: While meeting in London, the Prime Ministers of Canada, Newfoundland, Australia and New Zealand stated that they shared “Arab suspicions” of plans to ultimately create a Jewish majority in Palestine.
1922: In an address to the Dominion Prime Ministers Churchill described “The Zionist ideal as a very great idea” with which he had great personal sympathy. He further reminded them that the Balfour Declaration was more than an ideal. “It was an obligation made in wartime to enlist the aid of Jews all over the world and Britain must be very careful and punctilious to discharge its obligations.”
1922(25th of Sivan, 5682): Seventy-five year old Louis Stern, the President of Stern Brothers, the New York department store, passed away unexpectedly in Paris. A native of Germany, Stern “learned the rudiments of merchandizing” in a small store owned by his uncle in Petersburg, West Virginia. In 1867 he and his brother Isaac opened a small dry goods and novelty store which was so successful that they opened a larger emporium on West 23rd Street in 1878. After his brother’s retirement, Stern opened an even larger store on 42nd Street. Stern was active in numerous civic and communal organizations including serving as Chairman of the New York Commission to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and President of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1923: A year after graduating from the Naval Academy, Ensign Hyman Rickover “was made engineer officer aboard “the destroyer La Vallette” as a reward for “his hard work and efficiency.”
1925: Birthdate of Woodhaven, NY native Stanley Moss the American poet who “makes his living as a private art dealer.”
1926: Abbot Lawrence Lowell, the President of Harvard University was featured on the cover of Time magazine. Although the cover story did not mention it, 1926 was a year of triumph for Lowell because he convinced the Harvard Board of Overseers to adopt new admission requirements that accomplished his goal of reducing the number of Jews at Harvard. The year before these “non-academic” standards were added, 27% of the freshman class was Jewish. By the time Lowell in 7 years after the standards had been put in place Jews made up 10% of the underclassmen
1927: Two days after she had passed away funeral services are scheduled to be held today Zippporah Alice DeCastro Lazaron, the New Orleans born daughter of Jacob Osoro DeCastro and Hannah Haim DeSola DeCastro, the wife of Atlanta, GA native Samuel Louis Lazaron and the mother of Savannah, GA native Rabbi Samuel Lazaron.
1927: In New York, three Jewish interns at Kings County Hospital were attacked and tied up.
1928: Birthdate of Judith Raskin, one of America's greatest lyric sopranos of the twentieth century. She was not only famous for her voice but also for her acting. Judith Raskin died on December 21, 1984, after a long struggle with cancer. Services were held at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City where she was eulogized as being one of the finest artists of our time who could be emulated by other future Jewish aspirants of the concert and opera stage.
1929: “Broadway Babies” directed by Mervyn LeRoy “premiered at the Central Theatre in New York City.”
1931: In Brooklyn, attorney “Nathaniel H. Kugelmass” and “the former Rose Goldstein, a high school administrator” gave birth to Lawrence Kugelmass Grossman the step-son of attorney Nathan Grossman who served as President of NBC-TV News before becoming President of PBS. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)
1932: In Buenos Aires Luis Schifrin, who “led the second violin section of the orchestra at the Teatro Colón for three decades” and his wife gave birth to Boris Claudio Schifrin who gained as Argentine pianist, composer, arranger and conductor” Lalo Schifrin.
1932: In Paris, FranceDolores Porges (née Neubauer) and Pierre Louis-Dreyfus who headed the Louis Dreyfus Group and French Resistance leader gave birth to Gérard Louis-Dreyfus who as William Louis-Dreyfus became Chairman of the Louis Dreyfus Energy Service the multi-billionaire who is the great grandson of Léopold Louis-Dreyfus, founder of Louis Dreyfus Group and the father of award winning actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
1932: “Chicago-Kent College Law graduate and WW I U.S. Navy veteran William David Saltiel, the “Assistant Corporate Counsel for the City of Chicago, City Attorney and Special Assistant to the United States Attorney General married Cicely Friedman Haas today making her the daughter-in-law of “Leopold and Marie (Friedman) Saltiel”
1933: “The XXXIII Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations” is scheduled to meet for a fourth day today in Chicago.
1933: Birthdate of actor Bernie Kopell who played Doc on the ABC hit television show, The Love Boat
1933: A memorial meeting was held this evening at Beethoven Hall in New York City honoring Dr.Chaim Arlosoroff who had been murdered last Friday. It was attended by approximately 1,000 Jews and the leaders of various branches of the Zionist movement. In his speech, Morris Rothenberg, President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) made reference to reports that Revisionists had been connected with the murder and warned against any “rush to judgment” in determining who was responsible for the crime.
1934:Dr. Frederick B. Robinson, president of City College, and Dr. Bernard Revel, president of Yeshiva College, spoke at the third annual commencement exercises of Yeshiva College, to be held at 4 o'clock this afternoon in the college auditorium, 186th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
1935: Eighty-nine year old Edmond Fitzmaurice, the 1st Baron Fitzmaurice who while serving as the Foreign Office’s spokesman in the House of Lords in 1906 expressed personal sympathy for the plight of the Russian Jews said that the government could not do anything to intervene to improve the situation because it would upset the Russian government and actually might do more harm than good, passed away today.
1935: “North Carolina trained lawyer Angus W. McClean who in 1926 while serving as Governor “issued a proclamation urging all the leaders of public thought, non-Jews as well as Jews, throughout the State to volunteer their services to help raise North Carolina’s quota of $200,000 which is the state’s part in the national United Jewish Campaign passed away today.
1936(1st of Tammuz, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1936: Rabbi Morris Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “What We Should Forget” at the Jewish Science Society on West 85 Street in Manhattan.
1936: “Dr. James G. McDonald of the editorial staff of The New York Times and former league of Nations high commissioner for refugees from general spoke at a meeting of the General Council of Congregational and Christian Church where he that that in German, “not only are the Jews the scapegoat for political and partisan purposes, they are held responsible for all the adversity which the German people have had to undergo.”
1936: In Palestine, Arabs killed Sergeant Henry Sills today and then “dragged his body into a cave.”
1936: “The Jewish Agency Executive, recognized by the League of Nations mandate as the supreme Jewish authority in Palestine” “called upon the Jews of the world to mobilize their forces for ‘well-balanced political effort and strengthened constructive endeavor’ to protect the Jewish position in Palestine.”
1936: It was reported today that Rabbi Charles Raddock of Brooklyn “is planning a literary monthly magazine addressed to the intelligent and non-partisan American Jewish reader” which he plans on calling Consensus and which he expects to start publishing in September.
1936: The Palestine Post reported from London that the House of Commons held a full-dress debate on the Palestine crisis. There had been unanimity of views that stern measures should be taken to restore law and order in the country. Mr. Ormsby-Gore, the colonial secretary, expressed confidence in the High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, but was conciliatory towards the Arabs.
1936: A review of Judaism in Transition by Mordecai M. Kaplan was published today.
1936: An armed band of approximately 60 Arabs attacked a convoy of Jewish owned buses on route to Tel Aviv from Haifa.A British sergeant, Henry Sills, of the Seaforth Highlanders, was killed and three privates of the Royal Scottish Fusiliers were wounded in subsequent fights between the Arab terrorists and the British troops assigned to provide protection.
1937: Dr. Louis L. Mann, the Rabbi of Sinai Congregation in Chicago is scheduled to take part in a “Roundtable Discussion on Minorities in a Democracy” broadcast this afternoon by radio station WJZ.
1938:In the first act of terrorism to take place in Tel Aviv, a bomb was thrown near a movie theatre seriously injuring a child.
1938: In London, “Russian Jewish immigrants Morris and Betsy (née Kersh) Blackstone”gave birth to Donald Blackstone who gained fame as the lyricist Don Black.
1938: In London, “Russian Jewish immigrants Morris and Betsy (née Kersh) Blackstone” gave birth to their youngest child Donald Blackstone who gained fame as Oscar winning lyricist Don Black.
1939: At the World’s Fair in New York, New Jersey Hadassah Day was celebrated with luncheons at the Café Tel Aviv and Toffenettti’s Restaurant while Dr. Albert Einstein and Rabbi Stephen Wise are the scheduled speakers at a luncheon for Rho Pi Phi Fraternity at the Café Tel Aviv.
1940: France surrendered to Germany, a move that would doom the Jews of France as well as Jews from across Europe who had sought refuge in France before the start of World War II.
1940: Prime Minister Winston Churchill “received a telegram from Lord Lothian, the British Ambassador in Washington, stating that the Jews in the United States ‘want Jews in Palestine to be organized under British command to defend Palestine from outside attack and to help the Allies.’ If Palestine were overrun (by the Nazis) and Jews had not been put in a position to defend their country, there would certainly be a most deplorable effect on American Jews’ opinion.’”
1940: Georges Mandel and Pierre Mendes France were among the handful of French deputies who boarded the Massilia for North Africa where they planned on continuing the resistance against Nazi Germany.
1941(26th of Sivan, 5701): Parashat Sh’lach
1941(26th of Sivan, 5701): Sixty-one year old “internationally known dermatologist” Elmore Tauber passed away today in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.
1941: Vichy adopted a statue excluding Jewish students.
1941: Today, “after having been arrested by the Vichy government “and sentenced to six years' imprisonment on a false charge of desertion” Pierre Mendès France”escaped and succeeded in reaching Britain, where he joined the Free French forces of Charles de Gaulle.”
1942: At Tirzt Zevi, Israel, the temperature reached 129 degrees F (54 degrees C)
1942: “The Affairs of Martha” directed by Jules Dassin with a script co-authored by Isobel Lennart was released in the United States today..
1942: The parents of Paul Celan “were taken from their home and sent by train to an internment camp in Transnistria Governorate, where two-thirds of the deportees eventually perished” and where his father probably died from typhus and his mother was murdered by gunfire.
1943: Himmler ordered the destruction of all ghettos in Russia. .
1943(18th of Sivan, 5703): In Lvov, The Germans murdered most of the remaining ghetto population.
1943(18th of Sivan, 5703): All Jewish workers at municipal factories in Drogobych, Ukraine, are killed.
1943: Raymond Aubrac was one of eight senior Resistance leaders secretly meeting in a doctor's surgery in the Lyon suburb of Caluire when Gestapo officers, under the orders of Klaus Barbie, stormed the place and arrested all the eight leaders after having been tipped off by a turncoat member of the Resistance whose identity remains a mystery to this date.
1943: German Professor August Hirt chooses 103 Jewish men and women at Auschwitz to be transported to the Natzweiler-Struthof camp near Strasbourg, France. There they are gassed. The soft tissues of their bodies are removed, and their skeletons are strung up as exhibits in the Reich Anatomical Institute of Strasbourg for the study of the Jewish race
1944: The British Foreign Office informed Prime Minister Churchill that ‘Marshall Tito (the Yugoslav Communist leading the partisans) has consented to facilitate the escape of Jewish refugees through his lines from Hungary with the idea that they should reach southern Italy, via Dalmatia.
1945: Guy Liddell, head of counter-espionage at MI5, dictated a diary entry to his secretary about a visit to his office by a British War Crimes Executive official, and representatives of MI6 and the Special Operations Executive, looking for evidence to support a war crimes prosecution in which he expressed his opinion that instead of formal war crime trials, any people found to have committed crimes should be arrested by the military and punished accordingly.
1946: Birthdate of Conservative Party MP Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind
1947: Birthdate of Dr. Rachel Adato, the native of Haifa who held several public health positions including vice president of Sha’arei Tzedek Medical Center before serving two terms as an MK.
1948: The Rhodes Conference on the Israeli-Arab war opened. Rhodes is an island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Greece where the meetings were held. The negotiations were master-minded by Ralph Bunche. Bunche was an African-American diplomat who was a leader of the newly formed United Nations. The negotiations led to armistice agreements between the different Arab states and the state of Israel. Bunche earned the Nobel Prize for Peace as a reward for his efforts.
1949: It was reported today that Israeli Foreign Minister Sharret “had advised the Lausanne delegates to advocate a plebiscite in Araba Palestine to determine whether the inhabitants desired a separate state or annexation to Jordan. (Arab Palestine is what is called today the West Bank and in 1949 it was occupied by the Jordanians who annex the territory without regard to the inhabitants wishes.)
1949: “Rabbi Ira Eisenstein, leader of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism in New York City, today called for a "common religion" that could, and should, be evolved out of America's "brief but magnificent history as a nation.”
1950: One day after he had drowned while vacationing in Florida, sixty-two year old Georgia businessman Sam Lazarus, the husband of Annie Stein Lazarus with whom he had had five children and a member of both B’nai B’rith the Valdosta Hebrew Congregation (Temple Israel) was buried in the “Valdosta Hebrew Cemetery” with services led by Rabbi Morris Sklar.
1950: “Rabbi Judah L. Maimon, Minister for Religious Affairs” stormed out of a cabinet meeting today, claiming that he was resigning from Ben Gurion’s government. Maimon was protesting the cuts to his department’s budget, the purchase of surplus meat from the United States that “does not conform to religious dietary laws” and what he claims are the failure of the government to enforce the strict observance of the laws of Kashrut in Israeli army kitchens.
1951: Two days after their execution, funeral services were held for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg where Rabbi Abraham Cronbach, a sponsor of the Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case delivered an address in which he asked people “not to lose heart at their defeat.”
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Iraq charged that Jews had stored arms and ammunition in Baghdad and put a stop to Jewish emigration, pending an investigation. But planes carrying enforce the strict observance of the laws of Kashrut in Israeli army kitchens.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Post Office planned to establish its own bank, under the new Postal Bank Law.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that at least 35 political parties put up candidates for the forthcoming Second Knesset elections. (This number was later reduced to 20.)
1954(20th of Sivan, 5714): Eighty-four year old Pittsburgh born Marcus Aaron, the son of Mina and Louis Israel Aaron and the husband of Stella Aaron with whom he had two children – Marcus and Fanny – who served as President of the Homer Laughlin China Company and as President of Rodef Shalom from 1930 to 1941 passed away today.
1955: Perry Como, the crooner who would don a kippa every fall on his television show before singing Kol Nidre, recorded “Teena Marie” written by Bob Merrill (Henry Robert Merrill Levan)
1956: Playwright Arthur Miller appeared before H.U.A.C. and refused to implicate anybody as having taken part in Communists activities
1957(22nd of Sivan, 5717): Banker Ellick Nirenstein, the second husband of social activist Blanche Cohen Nirenstein, the daughter of David and Wilhemina Cohen passed away today.
1960: Birthdate of David Makovskey, the “director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Project on the Middle East Peace Process.”
1962: “The James Bond Theme,” the “signature theme song for the Bond series” which was written by Monty Norman (Monty Noserovitch) “was recorded” today “using five saxophones, nine brass instruments, a solo guitar and a rhythm section.”
1964: Twenty-three year old to University of Pennsylvania trained geneticist and Noble laureate Michael Brown the Brooklyn born son homemaker Evelyn Brown and textile salesman Harvey Brown married Alice Lapin with whom he had two daughters – Elizabeth and Sara.
1964(11th of Tammuz, 5724): Three Civil Rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Cheney and Mickey Schwermer were brutally murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Goodman and Schwermer were both Jewish. Cheney was an Afro-American. Goodman and Schwermer had come South as part of group who were determined to help Blacks register to vote. An all-white jury acquitted their killers, who included local law enforcement officials, of murder charges. They were later prosecuted in federal court and found guilty of having deprived the young trio of their civil rights. Goodman and Schwermer were part of a whole cadre of Jews who participated in the fight for equality for Blacks. This reality makes a sad counter-point to the anti-Semitic speeches of people like Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan.
1967: “Two days after she had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held today at the Park Avenue Synagogue for 55 year old Dorothy Geller, the wife of NY State Supreme Court Judy Abraham N. Geller with whom she had had three children – Bruce, Susan and Judith – and the daughter of Sadye and Oscar Friedlander who was a leader of the United Jewish Appeal of New York and the Park Avenue Synagogue Sisterhood.
1967: “Divorce American Style” directed by Bud Yorkin produced by Norman Lear who co-authored the script with Robert Kaufman and featuring Tom Bosley was released today in the United States.
1969: In response to Egyptian artillery attacks and other hostile acts, Israeli naval commandos attack and destroy the Egyptian radar facility at Ras El-Adabiya. The destruction of the radar complex left the Egyptians “blind” when Israeli jets attacked the artillery bases that had been firing on the Israelis.
1969:In Monmouth County, Beth Miriam, “in conjunction with Rabbi Lefkowitz’s retirement after 25 years of devoted service and the Temple’s 80th Anniversary, held a gala dinner
1970(17thof Sivan, 5730): Seventy one year old historian Cecil Roth whose works included the classic A History of the Jews in England passed away today.
1970: “Catch-22” the movie version of Joseph Heller’s novel directed by Mike Nichols, with a screenplay by Buck Henry and featuring Alan Arkin, Bob Balaban, Martin Balsam, Buck Henry, Richard Benjamin, Norman Fell, Art Garfunkel, Jack Gilford and Charles Grodin was released in the United States today.
1972: ABC broadcast the first episode of “The Super” a sitcom created by Rob Reiner, Phil Mishkin, and Gerry Isenberg.
1972: “Frenzy” Alfred Hitchcock’s penultimate film with a screenplay by Anthony Shaffer was released in the United Kingdom today. (Hitch was not Jewish – Shaffer was)
1974: “One hundred Moscow Jewish activists including Benjamin Levich, Alexander Lerner, Mikhail Agursky and Vitali Rubin wrote to President Nixon urging him not to permit his partners in Moscow negotiations to worsen situation of Soviet Jews.”
1975(12th of Tammuz, 5735): Seventy-four year old Ukrainian born American composer David Tamkin passed away today.
1976:The Jerusalem Post reported that the American navy evacuated 300 foreigners from Beirut.
1976:The Jerusalem Post reported that a $15m. annual propaganda program, designed to swing the American public opinion away from Israel and toward the Arabs was reported in the US.
1977: Menachem Begin became the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. This marked a major shift in Israeli politics. The Labor-Zionists who had dominated the government since the start of the state were out and the Revisionists had gained power. This reversal in fortune had many causes including corruption in the Labor Party and shifting demographics in Israel.
1979: Three Palestinian terrorist were killed while “attempting build a bomb” near Jenin/
1980: On the 41st anniversary of the creation of Camp Gurs, a reunion of hundred former detainees, members of the French resistance and “survivors of the Nazi death camps came to an end. This was the second of what has become annual event thanks, in part, to the efforts of L'Amicale de Gurs, which was formed at this second reunion.
1980: In Arnhem, Netherlands, opening of the Sixth Paralympic Games where Hagai Zamir and Igal Pazi would win a Gold Medal in Volleyball.
1981(19th of Sivan, 5741):Isadore Blumenfeld a Jewish-American organized crime figure based in Minneapolis, Minnesota known as Kid Cann, passed away.
1981: “A Hero, Soviet Style” provides a review of Borodin: Stalin's Man in China by Dan N. Jacobs, a biography of Michael Borodin (born Mikhail Markovich Gruzenberg) who fell victim to Stalin’s “anti-Semitic ‘cosmopolitan’ campaign.”
1982: In London, Charles, Prince of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales gave birth to Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, the second in line to the British throne who in 2017 met with Auschwitz survivor and resistance fighter Freddie Knoller with whom he discussed his visit to “Stutthof, a former Nazi-run camp built in what is now Poland, where 65,000 people, including 28,000 members of the Jewish community, died before it was liberated by the Allies in May 1945.”
1982: Today NBC broadcast the “Ain’t Misbehavin” the musical revue with a book co-authored by Murray Horwitz with the original Broadway cast.
1983: Fifty-eight Sala Burton, the widow of Congressman Philip Burton began serving as a “member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 5th district.”
1984: “The Last Winter” “a joint American-Israeli venture” “directed by Riki Shelach Nissimoff and produced by Avi Lerner” that is set in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War was released today.
1985: U.S. premiere of “Cocoon” a comedic look at aging and resurrection produced by Richard Zanuck co-starring Jack Gilford and Steven Guttenberg
1985: Scientists reported that skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil were Dr. Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death at Auschwitz. Mengele escaped punishment after the war, thanks in no small part to support from his family in Germany.
1985: “Return to Oz” with music by David Shire and co-staring Piper Laure (Rosetta Jacobs) was released today in the United States.
1987(24th of Sivan, 5747): Seventy-nine year old Chicago born Phillip “Phil” Weintraub who played for Lane Technical College Prep High School and Loyola University who played first base and the outfield for several major league teams from 1933 to 1945 passed away today.
1987(24th of Sivan, 5747):Abram Chasins “an American composer, pianist, piano teacher, lecturer, musicologist, music broadcaster, radio executive and author” passed away.
1988: “Backfire” a film featuring a “murderous love triangle” featuring Dinah Manoff and with music by David Shire was released in the United States today.
1990: NBC broadcast the final episode of season one for Seinfeld.
1995: Eighty year old actor Vladimir Zeldin, was awarded the Order of Friendship today - for services to the state, achievements in work and significant contribution to strengthening friendship and cooperation between peoples
1996: Good Morning America film critic Joel Siegel married artist Ena Swansea.
1996: “Eraser” co-starring James Caan and filmed by cinematographer Adam Greenberg was released today in the United States.
1996: U.S. premiere of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” an animated version of the classic novel with a score by Alan Meken who joined with Stephen Schwartz to create the songs for the film which included the voice of Jason Alexander.
1997: At Allessandria, Italy, opening of International Congress of the International Napoleonic Conference at which Dr. Ben Weider, is scheduled to deliver a paper –“Napoleon and the Jews.”
1997: In Sagaponack, NY, Rabbi Joel Zion officiated at the marriage of 29 year old orthopedic resident Dr. Stephen Gregg Silver and 28 year old Melissa Wendy Katz, the senior director of press and publicity at Big Beat/Atlantic Records whose father-in-law is also in the music business serving as the vice president of Abkco Music and Records, Incl.
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Cardozo by Andrew L. Kaufman
2000: “After two years of symptoms and misdiagnoses by eight doctors, Fran Drescher was admitted to Los Angeles's Cedars Sinai Hospital” today where she he had to undergo an immediate radical hysterectomy” as treatment for uterine cancer that doctors just discovered she had.
2001(30th of Sivan, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
2001(30th of Sivan, 5761): Ninety-two year “Yiddishist” and “son of Ruchla Laja and Chaim Haskell Libeskind” Nachman Libeskin, the “self-taught artist” who survived “the Holocaust and Russian Labor Camps” passed away today.
2001: The Dubnow Institute hosted an international conference on “Restitution and Memory” that began today in Vienna.
2002: It was reported today that Federal prosecutors led by James Comey, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York said “that no criminal wrongdoing was committed when President Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of four swindlers from a Hasidic enclave in New York State that voted overwhelmingly for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.” (Randal C. Archibold)
2003: The Martin Beck Theatre in New York was renamed the Al Hirschfeld Theatre.
2003(21st of Sivan, 5763): Novelist Leon Uris passed away. Uris first reached popular and critical acclaim with Battle Cry a novel about Marines fighting World War II. Coincidentally, Uris had served with the Marines. He hit the literary and financial jackpot with Exodus, a novel that depicted the birth of the state of Israel. He followed with other books with Jewish themes including Mila 18, QB VII, The Haj and Mitla Pass.
2003(21st of Sivan, 5763): Eighty-one year old screenwriter, playwright, producer and director George Axelrod, the son of non-Jewish screen star and a Russian Jew, passed away today. (As reported by Rick Lyman)
2004: Wrestler Matt Bloom tore a rotator cuff.
2004: Human rights activist Felice Gaer addressed the United Nations Conference on Anti-Semitism
2004: - A foreign worker, Weerachai Wongput, 37, from the Nong Han District of the northeastern province of Udon Thani in Thailand, died after being hit by shrapnel from a mortar fired into greenhouses in Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip. The mortar was fired by Palestinians trying to divert attention from an attempt to infiltrate the settlement. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack
2007(5th of Tammuz, 5767): Twenty-five year old Private First Class Daniel J. Agami, was killed by an improvised explosive device in Adhamiya, Iraq today. A native of Cleveland who grew up in Coral Springs, Florida, Agami came from a proud military and Jewish tradition. His grandfather served in the Korean War and his father had served with the Israeli Army. He enlisted four years after 9/11. “Agami flew an Israeli flag over his bunk in Schweinfurt, Germany, his home base, and then in Iraq. His rifle had “Hebrew Hammer” written across it, and his friends called him the GI Jew.
2007:In Los Angeles, Mäni’s Bakery of Los Angeles teams up with Camp Max Straus on in a chocolate cake tasting, with 100% of the proceeds benefiting Camp Max Straus.
2007: Severn years after undergoing a radical hysterectomy as treatment for uterine cancer, Fran Drescher “announced the national of the Chancer Schmancer Movement a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all women's cancers be diagnosed while in Stage 1, the most curable stage.”
2008: In Washington, D.C. former New York Times reporter Jane Fletcher Geniesse discusses and signs her new book, American Priestess: The Extraordinary Story of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalem at Politics and Prose Bookstore.
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Digital Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto by Mark Helprin
2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including In Her Own Sweet Time by Rachel Lehmann-Haupt
2009:The Sixth Australian Israel Film Festival, sponsored by AICE, the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange, opens at the Jerusalem Cinematheque with a screening of “Tackling Peace,” a documentary about a joint Israeli/Palestinian team that was established to enter the 2008 AFL (Australian Rules) International Cup soccer competition, which was held in Victoria, Australia, last August..
2009:The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Consulate General of Israel in New York, the Israel Ministry of Tourism, the Israel Government Tourist Office in New York, and the Tel Aviv-Yafo Centennial Administration join together to sponsor The Tel Aviv Beach Party, part of the celebration of Tel Aviv’s 100th Anniversary.
2010:The Sixth Republic Bank Golf Challenge benefiting Jewish Family & Career Services and the Jewish Community of Louisville's Jewish Community Center of Louisville is scheduled to be held today at Chariot Run, a Harrah's Golf Course.
2010: Ten years to the day after having undergone a radical hysterectomy, Fran Drescher announced that she was still cancer free.
2010: The Jewish Agency’s new strategic plan will place the state and land of Israel squarely at the center of Diaspora consciousness, according to a statement Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky made to the Jerusalem Post today.
2011: Family in Captivity, a film that “is an intimate story that follows the day to day efforts of the Shalit family to cope and bring Gilad home” is scheduled to be shown at The JCC in Manhattan.
2011: The Kaye Innovation Awards are scheduled to be presented today during the Board Of Governors Meeting of the Hebrew University. The prizes were established in 1994 by Isaac Kaye – a prominent industrialist in the British pharmaceutical industry – to encourage HU faculty, staff and students to develop innovative methods and inventions with good commercial potential that will benefit the university and society. The winners are Prof. Haim Rabinowitch, Prof. Dan Gazit, Dr. Raanan Fattal, Katy Margulis- Goshen and Yftah Tal-Gan, Prof. Haim Rabinowitch of the university’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment has been named winner of the first prize. Rabinowitch, a former rector, is being recognized for his long-term innovations in genetic and breeding technologies. Over the last 25 years, his team’s novel breeding results have created a lucrative local seed industry. Indeed, the export of tomato, onion and shallot seeds Rabinowitch developed brings in about $50 million annually, with additional royalties going to the university. Today, he is leading the development of a unique garlic-breeding project and plant improvement technology that allows seed producers to easily adapt any plant variety to changing situations. Both projects were recently licensed by Yissum, the HU’s technology transfer company, to start-up companies that were established on the basis of these technologies. The second-prize winner among the faculty is Prof. Dan Gazit, head of the Skeletal Biotechnology Laboratory in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem, for his team’s nearly 20-year research that has led to a breakthrough in the field of stem cell-based tissue engineering. TheraCell Inc., a California-based biotech start-up company, has licensed the bone tissue regeneration technology from Yissum. Dr. Raanan Fattal of the Benin School of Computer Science and Engineering, will be receiving the third prize for the development of second-generation wavelet-based image enhancement, which enhances sharpness of images. Fattal’s invention was licensed by Adobe and is already incorporated in the company’s leading software, Photoshop. Meanwhile, a method for increasing solubility developed by a graduate student at HU’s Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry has yielded promising commercial benefits for industry – particularly in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and agriculture. The method, created by Katy Margulis- Goshen, a doctoral student of Prof. Shlomo Magdassi, produces a rapid conversion of oilin- water microemulsions containing an insoluble substance into a dry powder composed of nanoparticles, which can easily be dissolved in water or other biological fluids. For her work, Marguis-Goshen, who immigrated to Israel from the Ukraine 21 years ago, has been chosen as another Kaye Award winner. The process she developed is of unique industrial importance, the university said, as it leads to a significant increase in solubility and dissolution properties of almost any active ingredient, without a high energy investment. Enhancing solubility is especially important in pharmaceutics, where nearly half of the newly discovered drugs can’t be administered, or are very poorly absorbed, due to their low solubility. Increasing solubility is also important in agriculture, since most insecticides are highly hydrophobic (resistant to mixing with water), and their regular application therefore requires the use of organic solvents, which are harmful to the farmer and the environment. The new process can also be applied to many other fields, such as nutrition and paint and printing-ink manufacture. Finally, Yftah Tal-Gan, a student of Prof. Chaim Gilon and Prof. Alexander Levitzki at the Institute of Chemistry, will receive a Kaye Award for the inhibition of protein kinase B (PKB, also called Akt). Since the activation of PKB is associated with tumors, selective inhibition of this protein becomes a promising strategy for targeted cancer therapy.
2011:Israel runs the risk of losing the battle for public opinion in Latin America if it doesn’t devote more resources to its advocacy efforts there, Jewish officials from that part of the world warned at the World Jewish Congress, which drew to a close today.
2011:Richard Stone, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and conference executive vice president Malcolm Hoenlein expressed dismay and regret today that Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard was not allowed to attend the funeral of his father Morris in Indiana the day before.
2011:Lithuania's parliament passed a long-awaited bill to compensate the Jewish community for communal property taken during the Nazi and Soviet occupations of the country. More than 90 percent of Lithuania's 220,000-strong Jewish community were wiped out during the Holocaust
2011(19thof Sivan, 5771): Eighty-three year old Jewish feminist author E.M. Broner passed away today in New York. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
2012: JSSA (Jewish Social Service Agency) is scheduled to host an open house at the Ina Kay Building in Rockville, MD
2012: The Weiner Library is scheduled to host a special tour as part of Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month, which will include a viewing exhibitions, archives and special collections relating to the 1936 Berlin Olympics and the Gypsy Roma Traveller experience during the Holocaust.
2012: “Going Up: Jerusalem,” part of the Jerusalem Season of Culture is scheduled to open today.
2012: Marianne Lubar is scheduled to receive the Spirit Community Award at a community luncheon at the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee.
2012: Sabra Alon Yavnai and his Big Band are scheduled to perform at Bryant Park.
2012:At least five rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at the southern city of Ashkelon this evening as cross-border violence restarted after a day-long lull.
2012: Professor Peter Beinart and Abe Foxman were among those who spoke at the “What does World Jewry Expect from Israel?” conference.
2012(1stof Tammuz, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
2012: Police detained a female activist at the Western Wall for over three hours today because she was wearing a “male-style” tallit. The incident took place after 65 women from the Women of the Wall organization concluded their Rosh Chodesh prayer service.(As reported by Jeremy Sharon and Melanie Lidman)
2012(1stof Tammuz, 5772): Ninety year old, the composer and lyricist who created “The Pajama Game” and “Damn Yankees” two Broadway musicals that were cinema successes passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
2012: Indian security forces arrested Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Hamza, alleged member of Lashker-e-Taiba (Army of the Righteous) and the Hindi instructor of 10 terrorists who executed the murderous attack in Mumbai in 2008.
2012(1st of Tammuz, 5772): Ninety-Six year old Anna Schwartz, the research economists who collaborated with Milton Friedman, passed away today, (As reported by Robert D. Hershey)
2013: The International Consortium for Research on Antisemitism and Racism, hosted by the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism is scheduled to come to an end at the University of London
2013: Steve Schutzman’s “A Question of Water” under the direction of Tzipora Kaplan is scheduled to be performed as part of the Jewish Plays Project
2013(13th of Tammuz, 5773): A Jewish man was killed this morning at the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem after being shot multiple times by a security guard. The guard told police that 46-year-old Doron Ben Shlush was in a public bathroom onsite, and that he shouted “Allahu Akbar,” an Arabic phrase meaning “God is greater.” The phrase, though common in Muslim parlance, has historically been shouted by terrorists ahead of perpetrating attacks in Israel2013: The US will cut five percent, or $175 million, from its annual military aid package to Israel as part of across-the-board budgetary spending cuts, a Hebrew daily reported today. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had instructed Israeli officials in Washington, DC, to not ask the US government for an exception from the fiscal measures, according to Maariv. US military aid to Israel is currently set at $3.1 billion per year.
2014: Israeli accordion virtuoso Uri Sharlin and his quartet are scheduled to “play original compositions that blend jazz and classical influences with Balkan rhythms, Arabic modes, and Brazilian harmonies” at Harold Square.
2014: National Hebrew Book Week is scheduled to come to an end.
2014: South African jurist Ablie Sachs who was an opponent of apartheid “was awarded Taiwan's inaugural Tang Prize in the Rule of Law for his contributions to human rights and justice globally.”
2014: “Dozens of Jewish demonstrators gathered for a minute of silence today before the Argentina-Iran World Cup game, demanding justice for a still unsolved bombing attack against a Buenos Aires Jewish center 20 years ago that left 85 dead and for which Iran has been blamed.”
2014: After “a rocket hit a road in the Hof Ashkelon Regional this morning” three more rockets were fired into southern Israel from Gaza this evening.” (As reported by Matan Tzuri, Ilana Curiel)
2015: A Palestinian terrorist stabbed an Israeli border police officer today near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem.
2015: “The Berlin Philharmonic members…finally reached a decision in a vote” today and chose Kirill Petrenko, 43, a Russian-born Jew, to be its new conductor.
2015: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Odd Woman and The City: A Memoir by Vivian Gornick
2015: The exhibition “Ordinary Matters" Animations and Paintings by Shelley Jordon is scheduled to come to a close at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.
2015: “Examining Lives with Jewish Eyes” featuring the work of “FotoMacher Frank Barnett” is scheduled to come to a close at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center Holocaust Education.
2015: Florida International University is scheduled to host the opening session of International Research Conference of the Latin American Jewish Studies Association at the Wolfe University Center.
2015: The YIVO Institute for Jew History “in collaboration with the Russian American Foundation and the Russian Museum of Ethnography is scheduled to host “the opening reception for the exhibit “Shtetl: Graphic Works and Sketches of Solomon Yudovin (1920-1940).”
2015: Myron (Mickey) Glazer and his wife, Penina Glazer, are scheduled to read from the newly published collection of twenty-four stories, essays, and vignettes written by Mickey and his late brother, Irving (Itzik) Glasser, Itzik and Mickey, at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA.
2016: “The Last Mentsch” is scheduled to be shown at the Portland, Oregon Jewish Film Festival.
2016: Fifty year old Esti Weinstein, a mother of eight and who had left the Gur Chasidic community in Israel eight years ago disappeared today, six days before her body would be found in her car.
2016: The second annual “Towards a New Law of Conference” sponsored by Shurat HaDin is scheduled to come to an end today in Jerusalem.
2017: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is scheduled to serve as the presiding judge at “A Mock Appeal for Shylock which is a commemoration of the 500th Anniversary of the Venice Ghetto. Sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington.
2017: “Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner, Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, and United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman met today in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his senior advisors.”
2017: “Katherine Dettwyler, an adjunct professor in the University of Delaware’s anthropology department” posted comments on Facebook, saying that Jewish university student “Otto Warmbier got exactly what he deserved.”
2017: At the Center for Jewish History, Thomas Hansen, Professor Emeritus of German at Wellesley College is scheduled to speaking at a reception marking the opening of an exhibition “George Salter: A Legacy of Book Design” highlighting the work of a man whose parents converted him to Christianity at the age of one.
2018(8th of Tammuz, 5778): Sixty-eight year old Pulitzer Prize winning author and political commentator Charles Krauthammer passed away today.
2018: In Lyndhust, “an eastern suburb of Cleveland,” shiva will be observed for Robert L. “Bob” Sill, “a founding member of the Cleveland Chapter of American ORT who went on to serve as national president of American ORT and chairman of the board of World ORT.”
2018: The Center For Jewish History and the YIVO Institute For Jewish Research ae scheduled to present a screening of “An Article of Hope,” journalist Dan Cohen’s documentary about Ilan Ramon’s flight aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia.
2018: In Pittsburgh, PA, the Society For American Baseball Research Convention is scheduled to host a session “Collusion and Collision: Hank Greenberg in Pittsburgh in 1947”
2018: Filmmaker Aviva Kempner is scheduled to show a 24-minute work in progress clip, entitled "Moe Berg: All-Star Espionage?" at the Society for American Baseball Research Convention in Pittsburgh, PA.
2019: This evening, in week eight the Oxford Jewish Society is scheduled to host Kabbalat Shabbat followed by a Friday night dinner.
2019: “The Spy Behind Home Plate” by Aviva Kempner is scheduled to open today at the Quad Cinema in NYC, the West End Cinema in Washington, D.C., the Siskel Film Center in Chicago and the Maple Theatre in Detroit.
2019: Two days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held in Cedar Rapids at Temple Judah for 66 year old Daniel S. Rodgers, the Chicago born highly successful businessman and civic leader and the husband Marcia Rodgers with whom he raised two sons Benjamin and Michael followed by burial at Eben Israel Cemetery. (Editor’s Note – Dan is the son Fred Rodgers, whose parents sent him out of Frankfurt when Hitler came to power, without knowing if they would ever see him again. At a time of increased rising Holocaust-denial, this tragic loss reminds us that had Hitler been successful the world would have been denied Dan Rodgers.)
2020: The Asiyah Jewish Community is scheduled to present online, the “New Moon Circle: Tammuz Edition welcoming the coming of the new lunar month and “the transition from spring to summer.”
2020: Stanford professor Ariel Evan Mayse is scheduled to speak vitually, about his book, Speaking Infinites, in which he argues that the Maggid of Mezritsh was the founder of Hasidism, not the Ba’al Shem Tov
2020: The URJ Eisner Camp is scheduled to present, online, “Nefesh Mountain in Concert.”
2020: As Israelis begin their work week they may be wondering about the implications of reports of rising COVID-19 case and the fact that “The Coronavirus National Information and Knowledge Center, part of IDF’s intelligence unit, said in a report published yesterday that Israel has entered the beginning stages of the second wave of COVID-19. (YNET)