January 8
1169: A year after Maimonides who was living in Egypt completed competed “The Book of the Lamp” or “Sefer Ha-Ma'or" his Commentary to the Mishnah, General Shirkuh entered Cairo with orders from Saladin to defend the city from the Crusaders.
1198: Start of the papacy of Innocent III who was responsible for the Fourth Lateran Council which produced an array of anti-Jewish promulgations.
1297: Monaco gains its independence when Francesco Grimaldi and his men captured the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco. Monaco has been ruled by the House of Grimaldi. Any Jews living in Monaco from the 14th century until the start of World War II were usually Ashkenazim fleeing from France. An organized Jewish community was established in 1948. Almost half of the Jewish community is made up of British Jews living in Monte Carlo.
1324: Venetian traveler Marco Polo, who visited China, then under the Yuan Dynasty, in the late 13th century and described the prominence of Jewish traders in Beijing, passed away.
1414: The Disputation of Tortosa, one of the famous disputations between Jews and Christians of the Middle Ages, which was held in the city of Tortosa, Spain resumed.
1455: Nicholas V issued a “Romanus Pontifex,” a Papal Bull that expressed the Church’s approval of Portugal’s seizure of lands in the New World and Asia. This was part of an attempt to divide the newly discovered lands between Catholic monarchs and freeze out the Protestant nations. Fortunately for the Jews, the Church’s bull was not worth the paper it was written on since the Protestant nations such as the Dutch and the English would provide a place where Jews could practice their religion and engage in commerce.
1478: Birthdate of “German Protestant theologian” and Hebraist Konrad Pellikan who translated a “vast amount” of rabbinical and Talmudic texts including “Ben Asher’s commentary on the Torah.”
1575: Many Marranos were among the victims of the Auto de Fe at Seville
1598: Expulsion of the Jews from Genoa, Italy.
1773:Daniel David Cohen d'Azevedo, the Amsterdam born son of David Cohen d'Azevedo and Hana Jessurun Cohen d'Azevedo, the husband of Sara Cohen d'Azevedo and father of Haham Moses Cohen d'Azevedo and Hanna Jessurun d'Oliveira was buried today in his home town.
1769: In Frankfurt am Main, Moses Gabriel Worms and Henriette Worms gave birth to Benedict Moses Worms the husband of Schönche Jeanette Worms with whom he had seven children including the 1st Baron de Worms.
1771(22nd of Tevet, 5531): London native Mordecai Marks, who came to America in 1726 and “was married first to Elizabeth Yorieu and then to Elizabeth Hawkins” passed away today in Debry, CT.
1786: Henry Lemoine, the English author and bookseller who wrote “He’s Gone! The Pride of Israel’s Busy Tribe” the obituary for his friend David Levi, the Anglo-Jewish Hebraist and poet, was married today.
1790:In France, the Deputies excluded the rights of Jews when considering the rules governing the election of municipal officers.
1792: Beila Wagg, the daughter of Hyman and Mary Wagg was buried today at the Alderney Road Jewish Cemetery.
1800: Aaron Jacobs married Leah Solomons today at the Great Synagogue.
1800: In New York City, Sallie Salomon and Joseph Andrews gave birth to Deborah Andrews, the wife of Jonas Horwitz
1806: Cape Colony became a British colony as the Union Jack replaced Dutch rule. Dutch Jews had been living in the colony since 1652. In 1804, they had finally gained freedom of religion thanks to a proclamation issued by the Dutch commissioner-general Jacob Abraham de Mist that instituted religious equality for all persons (including the Jews) without any regard to creed. One of the first acts of the British was to repeal this proclamation. While a new wave of Jews began arriving in the 1820’s, the first synagogue was not formed until 1841 with the establishment of the Gardens Shul in Cape Town.
1815: American forces under General Andrew Jackson defeat the British at the Battle of New Orleans. The pirate leader, Jean Lafitte provided a large number of soldiers and several cannon that were critical to Jackson’s success. According to some sources, Lafitte’s mother was a Sephardic Jew whose family had fled the Inquisition. He was raised in a home that observed Kashrut and his first wife was Jewish. Like so many other things about Lafitte, we cannot be sure where fact ends and legend begins. There is no question about the Jewish identity of another fighter at the Battle of New Orleans. Judah Touro, of the famed New England Turo family had moved to New Orleans and become a prominent member of the community. He volunteered and fought with Jackson’s forces. He was severely wounded and taken from the battlefield by Rezin Shepherd, a close friend and fellow merchant. Touro walked with a limp as a result of the wounds sustained in the battle. Touro Infirmary (hospital) and Touro Synagogue provide modern reminders of this businessman-philanthropist who answered the call to defend the United States in one of its darkest moments.
1830: The Ohio General Assembly granted Congregation B’Nai Israel in Cincinnati a charter whereby it was incorporated under the laws of the state.
1836: In East Smithfield, Abigail Moss and Marcus Samuel gave birth to Maria Samuel, the wife Joseph Aron.
1840: Stephen Spyer married Rosetta de Metz today in Sydney, Australia
1844: In Bavaria, Ephraim and Lea Koppel Waldstein gave birth to Sophie “Rosalie” Waldstein,
1845: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Rosenfeldt officiated at the wedding of Elias C. Polock of Columbia, SC and Adeline Hayms of Charleston, SC.
1846: Birthdate of Fordon, Prussia, native Alexander Cohn the husband of Lena Marks Cohn and father of Florence, Stella, Solomon and Arnold Cohn, who eventually settled in New Orleans, LA.
1848: Jefferson H. Nones, “the son of Captain Henry B Nones” and a Second Lieutenant in the Second United States Artillery, demonstrated such bravery today during “the siege of Puebla, Mexico,” that he was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant.
1849: Following the failure of the Revolution of 1848, Prague native Isidor Bush arrived in New York City where he briefly published Israel’s Herald before moving to St. Louis where he found fame and fortune.
1851: In Cayuga County, New York, a jury is to be impaneled in the case of People vs. John Baham, Jr. Baham and his brothers were charged in the vicious murder of Nathan Adler, a Jewish peddler from Syracuse.
1851: Moritz Auerbach married Emma Solomon at the Great Synagogue today.
1851: In Meadville, PA, Isaac Kohn, the son of Abraham Kuhn and Bella Kohn and his wife Henrietta Yetta Kohn gave birth to Simon Isaac Kohn
1852: Jacob Lehman, the son of a Jewish peddler living in Philadelphia is seen for the last time. His disappearance will eventually lead to a gruesome murder case.
1854: Two days after she had passed away, 66 year old Sarah Raphael, the wife of Moses Raphael with whom she had had seven children, was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery.”
1855: The sixth anniversary of the German Hebrew Mutual Aid and Benevolent Society was celebrated this evening in Pythagoras Hall on Walker Street in New York City. The dinner, which began at 7 pm, was attended by two hundred members of the society and their guests. Before the meal began, a Hebrew hymn was chanted in memory of the members of the society who had passed away. Among the speakers for the evening were Rabbis Raphael and Isaacs. The guests gave a “liberal contribution” to the poor before departing from the event.
1856:The New York Times published a summary of The Jew: A Story of the Southby the same author who wrote Leaves From The Journal of a Physician's Wife
1859: In London, Catherine Barnett and David Jonas gave birth to Ada Jonas.
1860: Jeanetta Mallan and Joseph Davis gave birth to Augustus Henry Davis.
1861: In Tabor, Bohemia, Julie and Gutmann Gumpel Klemperer gave birth to Leo Klemperer, M.D.
1862: Rabbi Arnold Fischel enclosed a copy of the bill that has been approved which will allow Rabbis to serve as Chaplains in the Union Army in a letter he sent to his supporters in New York. In the letter, Fischel thanked them for their financial support. He assured them that the money had been put to good use in getting the Congressional Committee to approve the change in the law. He also reported that a letter had been published in the Washington newspapers from Reform Rabbis, including Wise, Einhorn and Adler claiming that Fishcel did not have the authority to act for the Jewish community.
1863: Albert Myers, a Sergeant in Company H of the 128thRegiment completed his completed his six-month enlistment today.
1865(10th of Tevet, 5625): As the American Civil War enters its final years, Jews observed Asara B’Tevet.
1869: Birthdate of New York native Hirshfield, the HIAS general counsel from 1923 to 1943.
1870: Birthdate of Pilsen native “Dr. Herman Vogelstein, the former chief of the Liberal Synagogue in Breslau who life left Germany in 1938 and after having spent time in London arrived in New York in 1939 where he was “active in the New York Board of Ministers and Association of Reformed Rabbis” and who was the husband of “former Emmy Kosach”
https://www.amazon.com/History-Jews-Rome-Hermann-Vogelstein/dp/B000PWD16S
https://sztetl.org.pl/en/biographies/6207-vogelstein-hermann
1870: Dr. Ellinger, editor of the Jewish Times addressed the Longfellow Literary Association at the YMCA in New York City on the outcome of the Rabbinic Conference, which was held in Philadelphia, PA. Ellinger provided an analysis of the religious reforms proposed by the Jewish leaders.
1871: In Provincia di Asti Piemonte, Italy Giuseppe and Annetta Luzzati Foz gave birth to Ernesto Ettore Foz, the husband of Leila Orsola Torre Foa.
1871: “The Jews In America” published today points out that “few outside of the Jewish fold have any precise knowledge of “the difference between Orthodox and Reform Jews and then proceeds to described the differences “between the rigid orthodox Jew who repeats a hundred benedictions daily…and the radical reformed Jew…who believes there is nothing supernatural about the Bible but regards it merely as a book written by mortal hands.
1871: Vice President Samuel A. Lewis, chaired today’s annual meeting of the members of Mount Sinai Hospital. The meeting was informal since only fifty members were in attendance the by-laws require 75 for a quorum. Emanuel B. Hart has replaced Benjamin Nathan as President, Nathan having passed away. The hospital, which treats Jewish and Gentile patients, treated 1,787 out-patients during the past year. The hospital admitted 677 patients during the year or whom 609 were designed at “cured or relieved.”
1871: The Hebrew Relief Association which was incorporated in 1831 held its annual meeting this morning at the 19th Street Synagogue in New York City. Officers include President Hendry S. Allen, Vice President A.R.B. Moses and Treasurer E.B. Hart. During this past year, the association distributed $2,500 among the city’s less fortunate Jewish population.
1874: In New York City, Anna Rosenbaum Grossmann and Ignaz Grossmann gave birth to Mary Grossman who married Louis Buxbaum and became Mary Grossman Buxbaum.
1875: In New York City, Mitchell J. Asch, the “son of Clarissa and Joseph M. Asch” and his wife Manuella Asch gave birth to Irina Asch who became Irina Clara Culver when she married Henry Culver.
1875: Caroline Spiers and Hermann Boas gave birth to Edward Benjamin Boas.
1875: The Downtown Hebrew Ladies’ Benevolent Society met this evening and elected a slate of officers.
1878: It was reported today that the Young Men’s Hebrew Union has elected the following officers: President, A. Ottinger; Vice President, William Rothschild; Secretaries, Alfred Steckler and Lewis Heyman; Treasurer, Henry Bausch.
1879: Birthdate of Mt. Clemens, MI, native Clarence Axman, the co-founder of the Eastern Underwriterof which he was the editor for more than 45 years and whose first wife was “Gladys Weil Axman” who served as war correspondent sponsored by the Philadelphia Press during WW I.
1881: Birthdate of Isaac Lowi who would be buried at Beth Israel Cemetery in Gadsden, Alabama in 1952.
1882: Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery and Hanna Primrose, Countess of Rosebery, “the daughter of Mayer de Rothschild and his wife Juliana, née Cohen who upon the death of her father in 1874 became the richest woman in Britain” gave birth to (Albert Edward) Harry Meyer Archibald Primrose, 6th Earl of Rosebery
1882: “Anti-Juif” an anti-Semitic weekly first published at Paris in 1881 is published for the fourth and final time today. (There will be several other publications that will appear using this name.)
1887(12th of Tevet, 5647): Forty-five-year Isaac Margolis, the husband of Hinde Bernstein passed away in New York City.
1888: Judge Nathaniel Rollins, who represented Jacob Schloss in his suit aimed to protect his “placer patent” from the federal government, relished the victory he had scored for his Jewish clients from Leadville, Colorado.
1888: In Lublinitz, Siegmund Courant and Martha Courant née Freund of Oels gave birth to Richard Courant the mathematician who wrote What Is Mathematics and was forced to flee to England and then the United States when the Nazis came to power.
1889: In New York, Stella Corbet and Jules Levy, “perhaps the most celebrated cornetist of the 19th century” gave birth to the third child and only son, Jules Levy, Jr. a fine corentist in his own right who “led his own brass quartet, and made records for Edison, Emerson and Pathé.”
1890(16th of Tevet, 5650): Sixty-year-old Seligmann Heller, the Bohemian born poet who “published ‘Ahasverus,’ an epic poem on the Wandering Jew in 1866” passed away today in Vienna.
1890: Rabbi H. Pereira Mendes of Congregation Shearith Israel presided over the funeral services for Judge Philip J. Joachimsen, which were held at his home on 54th Street followed by internment at Cypress Guardians
1892: It was reported today that Madame Olga Novikoff claims that in an effort to downplay the seriousness of the famine in Russia, the Czar is willing to accept private donations, but no government money. She reports that money has been sent from England “to aid the distressed Jews.” (This famine was but one more reason that so many Jews were arriving in the U.S. and the U.K.
1892; It was reported today that stepsons of the late Bernhard Blumenberg are contesting the will which leave half of his estate to his widow Anna Blumenberg. They claim that she could not have been their father’s wife since she had married Loeb Sigel who was still alive. She claims that they had been divorced.
1893: Thirteen-year-old David Koblenzer delivered an address today in which he recounted the history of the Boys’ Yorkville Charity Society, a philanthropic organization begun Jewish youngsters in June of 1891.
1893: Hyman Blum presided over the annual meeting of the Mount Sinai Hospital Society in New York City.
1893: It was announced today that in September Princeton University will offer a $75.00 prize to the incoming junior who had the highest score on the Hebrew Examination. (They may not have liked the Jews, but they loved their language)
1894(1st of Shevat, 5654): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1894: Funeral services for Adolph L. Sanger, the President of the New York City Board of Education, will take place today at Temple Emanu-El
1894: As the economic downturn in the United States continue to worsen the offices of the United Hebrew Charities on Second Avenue were so crowded that the clerks had to work “briskly” to deal with all of the requests for aid.
1894: In an attempt to help those suffering as a result of the “Depression of 1893” Nathan Straus will begin selling coal at 25 per cent less than before. This means that 25 pounds can be bought for a nickel and 100 pounds can be bought for 20 cents. Straus had already started selling fresh bake bread at reduced prices “at his sterilized milk depot.”
1895: Establishment of the first "Israel Gymnastic Club" in Constantinople (Kushta), Turkey
1895: During a strike by 200 cloakmakers in New York City, the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor withdrew its offer to give $10,000 to the United Hebrew Charities. The money was going to be used “pay” the strikers for their work as streetcleaners.
1895: It was reported today that members of the Union League are not bothered by the fact that their last Jewish members has resigned. Proving that they are snobs, as well as anti-Semites members of the league are opposed to admitting Henry Fricke, a partner of the powerful Andrew Carnegie, because he lives in Pittsburgh.
1896: It was reported today that Rabbi Gottheil was one of several clergyman who responded favorably to the creation of the United Charities, an umbrella, inter-denominational organization meant to help the city’s destitute.
1896: Otto Hermann Kahn, the German born son of Emma and Bernard Kahn who had come to the United States in 1893 married Addie Wolf today and after his honeymoon joined Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in New York City, where his father-in-law, Abraham Wolff, was a partner.
1896: Among those who were reported today to have thanked President Theodore Roosevelt of the Police Board for services rendered was Isidor Struass who sent a letter to TR “thanking the board for” providing a special detail during the recent Charity Fair at Madison Square Garden.
1896: It was reported today that rising shops belong to Dutch, German and Jewish merchants have been destroyed as a result of rising anti-German feeling among those living in London’s east end.
1897: It was reported today that the Educational Alliance received over $25,000 in contributions last year but spent more than $52,000. The deficit was covered by proceeds from a charity fair. According to Isidor Strauss, the President of the Alliance, Jewish people play a dominate role in managing the organization, but it is strictly non-sectarian when it comes to providing services.
1898(14th of Tevet, 5658): Parashat Vayechi
1898(14th of Tevet, 5658): Julius Peyser, the German born son of Isaac and Rachel Peyser and husband of Annie Peyser passed away today in New York City.
1898: It was reported today that among those serving as directors of the newly created Brooklyn Hebrew Hospital Society are Morris Kotlowitz, Frank Baratt, Dora Kotlowitz and Annie Levy.
1898: In Bucharest, Sarah and Bernard Mayer gave birth to Many Mayer who would end his days in China.
1898: It was reported today that Solomon Loeber has purchased a lot on the corner of Second Avenue and 21st Street from the estate of Dr. Aaron wise on which he plans to build a seven story office building which he will give to the United Hebrew Charities as a headquarters.
1898: Graduation exercises were held this evening at the Baron de Hirsch Trades Circles on East 9th Street.
1898: Miss Julia Richman presided over the monthly meeting of the Jewish Religious School Union which was held at Temple Beth-El in Manhattan. The main topic for discussion was providing the proper incentives for students. Miss Richman expressed her opposition to artificial incentives except as expedients. She feels that natural incentives are the key to educational success and that the use of artificial incentives will lead to the ruin of the character of a majority of the students.
1899: It was reported today “that many officers of the French Army have allowed their names to appear in the columns of La Libre Parole as subscribers to the fund intended for the widow of Hubert-Joseph Henry,” the French officer who committed suicide after having been arrested on charges of forging evidence against Alfred Dreyfus and that “the French Minister of has issued a note addressed to commanders reminding officer “that they are forbidden to participate in subscription having a political character.”
1899: A summary of the report issued by The Treasury Department of the South African Republic published today listed among the “negotiable assets” a “loan to the Netherlands Railway Company, paid out of the Rothschild loan, £2,000,000.”
1899: President James H. Hoffman addressed the annual meeting of the “patrons and members of the Hebrew Technical Institute”
1899: Five hundred people attended an evening of entertainment sponsored by the Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s League of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society. One hundred new members joined the league which provides financial support for the charity.
1899: Birthdate of CCNY basketball player Nathan “Nat” Krinsky, the husband of Hilda Krinsky and the father of Paul L. Krinsky, the Superintendent of the United States Merchant Marine Academy and “Edward M. Krinsky, former Director of Operations for the United States Basketball League.”
1900: In Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia, to George Francis Baillieu and Agnes Sheehan gave birth to Margery Merlyn Bailliu who became Merlyn Myer when she married Sidney Myer (Simcha Baevski) the penniless Russian Jew who found the Myer retail company.
1901: In Russia, Morris and Bessie (Chaidenko) Greenberg gave birth CCNY graduate JTS ordained rabbi, Simon Greenberg and husband of Betty G. Davis who had been the spiritual leader of Har Zion in Philadelphia before founding the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and serving as vice chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
1902: The obituary of Adolph Moses appeared in today’s Atlanta Constitution “One of the Most Prominent Rabbis in the United States, Dr. Moses leaves a wife and ten children. His oldest son, Rabbi Alfred G. Moses, has the pastorate in Mobile." Dr. Moses had one brother, Rabbi Isaac Moses, pastor of one of the largest Jewish congregations in New York.
1902: In Berlin, Arnold Schoenberg and Mathilde Schönberg (Zemlinsky) gave birth to Gertrude (Schonberg) Greissle, the wife of Felix Anton Greissle.
1902: On the Upper West Side, Julius and Hilda Karmel Tishman gave birth to Norman Tishman, “the chairman of the board of Tishman Realty and the husband of Rita Valentine Tishman
1903: Dr. Felix Adler was the last speaker at dinner for the Southern Education Board and the General Education Board at the Waldorf which was attended by such notables as the President of Yale, the President of Hamilton College and the United States Commissioner of Education.
1904: It was “semi-officially announced that all is quiet at Kishineff” which is consistent with telegrams received in St. Petersburg from Jews living in that town.
1905: In Berlin, Markus Mosheim and his wife Clara Mosheim née Hilger gave birth to actress Margarete Emma Dorothea "Grete" Mosheim.
1906: Lord Rothschild presided over a meeting in Queen’s Hall where the attendees which included “a very large attendance of all the denominations of Christians in London” expressed “horror and indignation over the massacre and outrages perpetrated upon the Jews in Russia.”
1906: “Jewish philanthropist and Zionist” Carl Stettauer delivered a reported to the Russo-Jewish Committee
1906: U.S. Senator Isidor Rayner of Maryland “received applause and congratulations of Senators from both sides of the Chamber” after he “entered a plea for support of his position in favor of granting aid to the persecuted Jews in Russia” saying “that the Jews would submit to every indignity and wrong rather than abandon their creed” and that the U.S. government should take the lead in demanding the Russians “grant to these people or no longer be allowed to maintain contact or intercourse with civilized governments.
1906: A meeting was held in the boardroom of the Hampstead Synagogue for the purpose of inaugurating a North-West London branch of the Jewish Territorial Organization (ITO).
1907: “Jewish Spirit in Austria” published today described a meeting in Lemberg, Galicia, where a meeting of Jews “resolved to create a provincial organization for the the defense of the political rights and economic interests of Jews” at a time when Austria is on the verge of introducing “universal suffreage.
1909: Three days after she had passed away, Elizabeth Waley Henriques, “the twin daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth Henriques” was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1910(27th of Tevet, 5670): Parashat Vaera
1912:The Chicago Section adopted resolution to withdraw from Council of Jewish Women.
1912: Mrs. Leon Cline is scheduled to co-host a meeting of The Willing Workers this afternoon at Mandel’s Ivory Room.
1913: “Germany May Aid Jews” published today described German efforts to get the Russians to abandon their anti-Semitic policies regarding admitting Jews to Russian medical schools because it has led to demonstrations by German medical students who are opposed to the large number of Russian Jews studying at German medical schools.
1914(10th of Tevet, 5674): Asara B'Tevet
1914: Eugene Foss who had employed Leo Frank in 1906 and who later public lead the fight to gain him a new trial after he was convicted of murder, completed his service as the 45th Governor of Massachusettes.
1915: “Poles and Cossacks Massacre Jews” published today contains a summary of an article written by Dr. Shmaryah Levin, “the noted Zionist leader and member of the first Russian Duma that appeared in The Warheit in which he “reveals the shocking details of massacres of Jews in Poland as a result of the treachery and duplicity of the Poles who caused the most flagrant falsehoods to be circulated impugning he loyalty of the Jews’
1915: Louis Marshall, President of the American Jewish Committee received a telegram from Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan saying that “The State Department has received a telegram from Constantinople in which it is stated that the Sublime Porte has accorded an additional month’s time for foreign Jews to become naturalized and has also decided to exempt the indigent Jews from the payment of the naturalization fee.”
1915: “A German attempt to explain the expulsion of Jewish colonists from Palestine appears in a Constantinople dispatch published in the Frankfurter Zeitung today blamed the action on Djeal Pasha, the corps commander of the troops in Palestine” who acted without the consents of the Central Government which tried to countermand the order.
1916: Alvey A. Adee, the Second Assistant Secretary of State wrote to Simon Wolf acknowledging the President’s request that the Department “use its good offices for the purpose of obtaining permission from the allies to ship several cargoes of whole wheat so that at the coming Passover it can be used to make unleavened bread” and asking “how much wheat you desire to ship, to what places, to whom it is to consigned and how it is to be distributed” since “these questions are certain to be asked of the Department by the Governments from whom the permission to ship the wheat is requested.” (Editor’s Note: Yes, as the World War entered into what would prove to be its most disastrous year, the Jews are worried about Matzah for Pesach. Think about that when you sit down to your Seder this year.)
1916: It was reported today that Felix Warburg received “a cablegram from the committee of German Jews engaged in relief work in Russian Poland, saying that the distress was very great in Lithuania, particularly in Vilna, Kovno, Grodno and Bialystok.”
1916: This evening, at its convention the Knights of Zion is scheduled to discuss its relationship with other organization.
1916: During World War I, Allied forces withdrew from Gallipoli marking the end of this ill-fated attempt to break the stalemate on the Western Front by forcing their way through the Dardanelles and up the Balkans. Among the forces withdrawn were the Zion Mule Corps, a Jewish military unit that was part of the British Army. The Zion Mule Corps was the first Jewish unit to take action since the end of the Second Commonwealth. The Mule Corps was intended to be a supply unit. However, the Mule Corps earned the respect of British army officers because they had to carry supplies to the front line under constant bombardment by Turkish forces. The Zion Mule Corps was one of the progenitors of the modern I.D.F.
1917: “President Wilson decided today…to designate January 27 as the date for collecting funds for the relief of suffering Jews in Europe.”
1917: Congress approved an immigration bill that was opposed by most major Jewish leaders and sent it to the White House where President Wilson was expected to exercise his veto.
1917: Henry Morgenthau was reported today to have told his co-religionists in New York that “One of the reasons the Turks treat the Jews very well now is because they realize that the Zionists generally are not seeking to establish a separate government in Turkey, but only to encourage Jewish colonization in Palestine.”
1917: Dr. Irving Steinhardt is scheduled to deliver the first of “Ten Sex Talks to Girls” “under the auspicies of the Free Synagogue” at 8:30 this evening.
1918: US President Woodrow Wilson who has expressed his support for the Balfour Declaration delivered his "Fourteen Points" speech to Congress.
1918: It was reported today that “the Parliamentary committee of the British Trade Union Congress and the Executive Committee of the Labor” recommended “in their memorandum on war aims” “that Jews in all countries enjoy the common elementary rights of tolerance, freedom of residence and trade and equal citizenship and that Palestine be set free from the oppressive government of the Turk and formed into a free state, under international guarantee, to which such of the Jewish people as to do so may return.”
1919: In Hungary, Bela Kuhn, a communist dictator, was disposed of with the help of Rumania and Admiral Nicholas Horthy. Since Kuhn was a Jew, all the Jews were accused of being communists. During the "White Terror" that followed, an estimated five thousand Jews were killed.
1920: It was reported today that Judge Harry M. Fisher will be leaving New York “for Kiev bearing a gift of thirty-five million for the starving Jews of Poland and Ukraine” which was raised by the Jewish War Relief Fund of America.
1921(28thof Tevet, 5681): Parashat Vaera
1921: It was reported today that the tobacco monopoly in Palestine which “was held by a French concern on the basis of certain special privileges granted by the Turkish Government several years ago” has been abolished by the British Mandatory Government.
1921: “Balfour to Greet Jews” published today described plans by Arthur James Balfour to hold a reception at the British Embassy in Washington “for a delegation of leading” American Zionists.
1923: Birthdate of Joseph Wiezenbaum, a pioneer in the study of artificial intelligence.
1923: In a letter signed by its President, Mrs. Deborah Hirshberg, the Oakland, California Sisterhood asked fellow Sisterhoods to let them know of any Jews moving into this expanding community so “they might extend the hand of friendship” to them and help make the move a successful one.
1923: In New York City, realtor Alfred Storch and Sally Kupperman Storch, “a telephone operator” gave birth to actor-comedian Larry Storch who served with Bernard Schwartz, the future Tony Curtis, aboard the U.S. Proteus.
1924: In Hamburg, a schoolteacher, Julia (née Cohen) and James (or Jakob) Cohn, owner of an import business gave birth to Paul Moritz Cohn, the Astor Professor of Mathematics at University College London.
1924: In New York City, Jesse George Rubenstein and Sarah Fine Rubenstein gave to Richard Rubenstein the Rabbi ordained at JTS who earned a Ph.D. at Harvard and went to lead several congregations before moving on to the world of academia.
http://collections.americanjewisharchives.org/ms/ms0685/ms0685.html
https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/people/richard-l-rubenstein
1924: In Tottenham, Middlesex, England Kate (Ogus) and Bernard (Barnett) Moodnick gave birth to Ronald Moodnick who gained fame as Golden Globe-winning actor Ron Moody.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/actor-ron-moody-best-known-as-fagin-dies-at-91/
1926: “Sid Terris” who was Jewish, won “a 10 round decision over European lightweight champion Lucien Vinez, in New York.”
1926: In Brooklyn Nina (Kwartin), a coloratura, and Nathan Shulman gave birth to Evelyn Shulman who gained fame as operatic soprano Evelyn Lear.
1926: In Franklinton, NC, Irving and Sadie Supman gave birth to Milton Supman who gained fame as comedian Soupy Sales.
1926: Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud becomes the King of Hejaz and renames it Saudi Arabia. The Saudis had been competing with the Hashemites for control over the holy places in Arabia. With the ascendancy of the Saudis, the British were forced to find a “home’ for the Hashemites. The Hashemite got two homes. One son got the throne of the British invention known as Iraq. The other Hashemite son got the throne of that other British invention, the Kingdom of Trans-Jordan later the Kingdom of Jordan. Trans-Jordan was carved out of the British Mandate which was supposed to be part of the Jewish home under the terms of the Balfour Declaration. This explains why some people think that the Arabs already have their state. It is called Jordan and that is the proper Palestinian State.
1926: Birthdate of Evelyn Shulman, the granddaughter of Cantor Savel Kwartin and the daughter of opera singer Nine Shulman, who gained fame as “Evelyn Lear, an American soprano who became a star in Europe in the 1950s and who later won acclaim in the United States for singing some of the most difficult roles in contemporary opera…” (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1927(5thof Shevat, 5687): Parashat Bo
1927: It was reported today that “new evidence that Nicholas II approved of the anti-Jewish pogroms committed during his reign” have been “published by Isvesita, the official organ of the Soviet Government.”
1928: “Violantha” the movie version of the novel with a script co-written by Hans Wilhelm and Walter Supper who took his own life rather than divorce his Jewish wife and co-starring Mathilde Sussin who was murdered at Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.
1928: After premiering in New York City a month ago, “The Private Life of Helen Troy” directed by Alexander Korda and starring his wife Maria as released in the rest of the United States today.
1929: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that Meir Dizengoff has been chosen to serve as Mayor of Tel Aviv. Dizengoff was one of the founders of the city and has previously held the position of Mayor.
1929: “Man with a Movie Camera” an experimental silent documentary film directed and written by Dziga Vertov and filmed by cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman was released today in the Soviet Union.
1931: In New York City, “Clarence Ephraim and Marjorie (Kahn) University gave birth to Princeton (BA) and University Pennsylvania (MBA) educated investment banker Thomas Israel Unterberg, the husband of Susan Appleman.
1931: The jury hearing evidence “in the so-called matzoth trust trial” in which “the question to be answered was whether or not Horowitz Brothers & Margareten, InC. and B. Manishewitz Company of Ohio constituted a combination in restraint of trade as charge by Rabbi Moses Weinberger, Inc.” told the judge today at noon that they are unable to agree on verdict.
1932: In Milwaukee, WI, Harry Cutler, the “son of Elda and Meyer Cutler” and his wife Rose Cutler gave birth to Jerry Culer today.
1932: In Austria, celebration of the 150th anniversary of the promulgation of the Toleration Decree of 1781 issued by Emperor Josef II under which the Jews of Austria were accorded civil and political equality.
1932: In Brooklyn, NY, Pauline and Dr. Jacob Rosenblum gave birth to Morton Edgar Rosenblum who gained fame as “M. Edgar Rosenblum, an arts executive who helped steer the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven to prominence in the American theater landscape, developing work that traveled to Broadway and elsewhere and that won Pulitzer Prizes and Tony Awards along the way…” (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1933(10th of Tevet, 5693): Asara B'Tevet
1933: Birthdate of Warren Kenton, the London native who gained famed as Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi, a leading teacher of Kabbalah who founded the Kabbalah Society which promotes the Toledano Tradition.
1933: A joint committee of the Federations of Yeshivoth and Talmud Torah meeting today at the Central Jewish Institute adopted a resolution calling for “the creation of a special education fund for the benefit of Jewish educational institutions by a small levy on religious articles such as candles as matzoths.”
1934(21st of Tevet, 5694): Serge Alexandre Stavisky passed away. Born in 1886 in the Ukraine, he was a French financier and embezzler whose actions created a political scandal that became known as the Stavisky Affair. In 1927, Stavisky was put on trial for fraud. However, the trial was postponed again and again and he was granted bail 19 times. Faced with exposure in December 1933, Stavisky fled. Today the police found him in a Chamonix chalet suffering from a gunshot wound. Officially Stavisky committed suicide but there was a persistent speculation that police killed him. Alexandre Stavisky was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.
1935 Reinhard Heydrich announced that Konzentrationslager Columbia was to be adopted as the official name, in preference to Columbia-Haus by which the concentration camp founded in 1934 was to be known.
1935: Today, government in Palestine “began erection of a lighthouse in the estuary of the Yarkon River near Tel Aviv as part of the project” to improve the harbor at Tel Aviv and relieve the congestion at the port of Jaffa.
1936: It was reported today that “there are 10,000 adolescents between the ages of 15 and 18 years waiting in Germany to go to Palestine.”
1936: Today, Dr. Stephen S. Wise announced that “a national conference on Palestine” which is being supported by Dr. Israel Goldstein, Maurice Levin, Louis Lipsky, Morris Rothenberg and Nathan Straus will be held next month at the Willard Hotel
1936: Executive Secretary Louis Richman presented the annual report at today’s annual meeting of the Jewish Conciliation Court in the Federation Building after which Dr. Goldstein was re-elected President and Mrs. Rebeckah Hohut, Jacob Panken and Rabbi Moses H. Hyamson were elected vice-presidents.
1937: Eugene Wigner, the Jewish Hungarian American theoretical physicist and mathematician became a naturalized United States citizen.
1937: It was reported today that when David Ben Gurion testified before the Royal Commission in Jerusalem he “denied that Jewish rights clashed with the rights of Arabs,” pointed out that “the Jews were the first welcome the independence achieved by the Arab States of Iraq and Syria,” and reminded the commissioners that “while our national movement was busy with constructive work, the Arab nationals in Palestine were only busy with politics” and that “as soon as they also begin devoting their energies to constructive activities we can meet and assist each other.”
1938: It was reported today that police officers acting under orders from Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis, raided “the cultural section of the Canadian Labor Circle, a Jewish fraternal organization” and removed “eight hundred books of the 950-volume library maintained by the Jewish cultural circle” most of which, according to the organizations officers were “standard Yiddish classics.”
1938: “A Lucerne publishing firm, Vita Nova Verlag, announced today that its collection of speeches and official statements by President Roosevelt and former Premier Stanley Baldwin translated into German had been formally forbidden in Germany” because “the German government has declared this volumeunerwuenscht or undesirable a word commonly used in many German towns to describe their attitude toward Jews.”
1938: “As the Anglo-Italian short-wave radio war opens over the issue of Arabic agitation in Palestine, a rumbling threat of revolt spreads over the borders of France’s possessions in the Near East” specifically Syria and Lebanon.
1938: “Alfred M. Cohen of Cincinnati, the international president of B’nai B’rith, conferred with Secretary of State Cordell Hull today concerning the situation of Jews in Rumania”
1938: Today, in Berlin, “the Ministry of Education banned the teaching of Hebrew in Germany’s Gymnasia (junior colleges) where the subject had been optional.”
1939: In “Solution of Problem Must Be based on Present, Not Past,” published today Anne O’Hare McCormick writes that the one thing that is clear “is that it is impossible to go back twenty years to solve the present problem under the terms of the Balfour Declaration or the promises made to Sharif Hussein in the McMahon correspondence.” Among the changed realities are “the 400,000 Jews now settled” in Palestine and their “push and energy” which “are transforming the country at an astounding rate.” She goes on to describe the modernizing impact the Zionists have had on Jerusalem, the growth of Tel Aviv which “is one of the most extraordinary boom towns on earth.” Finally she cites the creation of the port at Tel Aviv by a “people without experience in seafaring or maritime commerce” when the Arab uprising deprived the use of the port a Jaffa. The Arab response has been one of resistance. Ironically, longtime residents of Palestine “find not only Palestine but also the Palestinians altered in the last five years (the period of greatest Jewish influx) than in the preceding century.” She concludes that the “Arab guerilla war is not independence” but for a halt to Jewish immigration even if this can only be accomplished with a prolongation of British rule.”
1939: Dr. William Jay Schieffelin, the chairman of the Citizens Union, today announced the formation of the Volunteer Christian Committee to Boycott Nazi Germany “whose members will not buy German goods, travel on German ships or visit German territory” which will “supplement the work of existing Jewish and non-sectarian agencies which have striven to develop and tighten the boycott” on the Hitler regime whose “persecution of Jews and Christians violates and threatens every principle which Americans…hold most dear.”
1940: The body of State Supreme Court Justice Alfred Frankenthaler, who passed away yesterday, lay in state today at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.
1941: In the TSN poll for the 1940 All-Star team for the American and National Leagues, the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) named Paul Derringer of the New York Giants as the Catcher.
1942: “A ‘place of honor’ for Jewish Palestine among the United Nations was asked today by Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the Jewish National Fund of America, because it is ‘the only avowed ally in the Middle East of the United States and Britain.’”
1943: “The Thin Man,” produced by Himan Brown, returns to the airways sponsored this time by General Foods.
1943: Eric Vogel petitioned the Kommandant of Theresienstadt Concentration Camp for permission to create an amateur band, “The Ghetto Swingers.”
1943: In Philadelphia, PA, Debbie and Joseph Levin gave birth to Judy Rosenstein (nee Levin), the sister of Mitchell and David Levin, the wife of Larry Rosenstein and the mother of Danny, David and Joel Rosenstein who truly was an Ashit Chayil, “A Woman of Valor.” A devoted wife, loving mother, doting grandmother, faithful friend as well as daughter and sister extraordinaire, Judy is a gift to all who are fortunate enough to be part of her life. “And her children called her ‘Blessed’.”
1944(12th of Tevet, 5704): Eighty year old psychologist Joseph Jastrow passed away.
http://128.104.130.43/Introduction/Jastrow.html
1944: U.S. premiere of “What’s Cooking Doc?” starring Bugs Bunny the cartoon figure given voice by Mel Blanc
1945: The Alois Mission, an Anglo-American intelligence unit investigating the progress of the Germans in creating an Atomic bomb departed Stasbourg today
1946: Joseph Rotblat, the Manhattan Project physicist who had “returned to Britain to become senior lecturer and acting director of research in nuclear physics at the University Liverpool” became a naturalized British subject today.
1947: “The Political Action Committee for Palestine denied “today” that it had supplied financial help to the underground in Palestine.”
1947: As he prepared to leave London to try and bring peace among the warring Jewish factions in Palestine, David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive for Palestine, met with British Colonial Arthur Creech who had requested that the two talk.
1948: “It was announced today by Edward A. Norman, president of the American Fund for Palestinian Institutions which re-presents the Palestine Composers and Authors association in the United States that “Jedediah Gorochov, president of the Palestine Composers and Authors Association has arrived in the United States to set up an interchange of musical information between the United States and Palestine
1948: “A Jewish merchant was stabbed to death” today in Beirut by “three unidentified assailants today only an hour after the police had withdrawn special partrols” from the area.
1949: On the day following RAF intervention in the fighting between Israel and Egypt in which several British planes were shot down “British pilots were issued a directive to regard any Israeli aircraft infiltrating Egyptian or Jordanian airspace as hostile and to shoot them down, but were also ordered to avoid activity close to Israel's borders.”
1951: Today, Rabbi Naftali Landau, the son of a Hungarian rabbi, who led congregations Agudas Achim and Shmore Hadas in Chicago, married 19 year old Minnie Finkelstein.
1953: When Prime Minister Churchill and President Truman dined at the British Embassy, Churchill impressed Truman with his vocal support of Israel and his criticism of Egypt for closing the Suez Canal to ships bound for Israel.
1953: The Jerusalem Postreported that with the last piece of rock blasted away the new 88-km. Beersheba-Sdom road was opened. The road was expected to revitalize the Potash Works which had been inactive since the road north of the Dead Sea was cut during the 1948 war. Despite Israeli protests, Washington announced that it had no objections to the British plans to sell jet planes to the Arab states. 1953: Leo Lerman, the Jewish editor and writer for such glossy fashion magazines as Vogue, Mademoiselle and Vanity Fairhelped discover a new European singing sensation at the Le Fenice opera house in Venice by the of name Maria Callas.
1953: René Mayer becomes Prime Minister of France.
1954 In Los Angeles, premier of “The Great Diamond Robbery” directed by Robert Z. Leonard and filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg.
1957(6th of Shevat, 5717): Forty-eight-year-old Virginia Rich, the New Orleans born daughter of Hilda and Eldon Spencer Lazarus and the wife of Richard H. Richard passed away today in Atlanta, GA.
1958: “Music World Corporation, an American music production and music publishing company” founded by “Academy Award-winning songwriter Robert Sherman” was incorporated today in the State of California.
1958: The filming of “Rock-A-Bye Baby” starring Jerry Lewis who also served as producer and with music by Walter Scharf and Sammy Cahn was completed today.
1959(28th of Tevet, 5719): Fifty-year-old Dr. Joseph Thon, the Polish native who “came to the United States from Geneva in 1941 where he was director of the office for Jewish refugees for two years” and pursued a career as an author writing in Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish while serving as “contributing editor of the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia” and “national director of the tourist department of the ZOA” passed away today in New York.
1959: Today, the day after Meyer Lanksy had fled from Cuba to the Bahamas, “Fidel Castro marched into Havana” taking over the country which among other thing put an end to the gambling empire Lansky had put together on the island for “the mob.”
1959(28th of Tevet, 5719): Seventy-three-year-old New York State Supreme Court Justice Albert C. Cohn passed away. Unfortunately, for Judge Cohn, despite a distinguished career, he will be best remembered as the father of Roy Cohn.
1961: “Howie Carl scored 24 points to lead DePaul past Dayton 75-64” (As reported by Bob Wechsler)
1962(3rd of Shevat, 5772): Sixty-seven-year-old NYU trained attorney Samuel S. Pines “a founder of the law firm of Pines, Sterling and Sterling” and city Judge in Peekskill, NY passed away today.
1962(3rd of Shevat, 5722): Fifty-year-old English professor and poet Hyam Plutzik whose work made him a finalist for the Pulitzer prize and who was the husband of “the former Tanya Roth” with whom he had four children – Roberta, Deborah, Alan and Jonathan - passed away today.
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/hyam-plutzik
1966: Birthdate of Label Katz Award winner Brent Howard Novoselsky, the Skokie, Illinois, native who played tight end for the University of Pennsylvania before playing in the NFL with the Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings.
1968(7th of Tevet, 5728): Seventy-two-year-old Pieter Anthonie Larusse van Passen the native of Gorcum, Netherlands who gained fame as Pierre van Paasen the “Canadian-American” author, the WW I Canadian Army Veteran and Unitarian Minister who was an early constant support of a Jewish homeland in Palestine as can be seen from such works as “the 1939 best seller Days of Our Years and The Forgotten Ally passed away today.
1969(18th of Tevet, 5729): In the week following the death of his wife Kathryn sixty-one-year-old “Davis Wahl” a retired highly decorated lieutenant of detectives, passed away today.
1969: “Mr. Freedom” a satire directed and written by William Klein was released in France today.
1971: Today’s Bulletin described the annual meeting of Congregation Shaar Hasyomyim of Montreal where Dr. Charles Solomon, the President of the Congregation described the shaky financial situation followed by the approval by the Board of Trustees of a special assessment to be paid by each member which would raise $350,000 to be applied against the structural indebtedness
1972: CBS broadcast the last episode of “Help!...It’s the Hair Bear Bunch” an “animated television series featuring the voices of Paul Winchell and Joe E. Ross.
1975: Washington, DC native Ida Rubin, the wife of Judge Leonard Ruben began serving as a Member of the Maryland House of Delegates from 20thdistrict today.
1975: Stanley Steingut began serving as the 115thSpeaker of the New York State Assembly.
1975(25th of Tevet, 5735): Richard Tucker passed away at the age of 61. Born Reuben Ticker, he gained fame as a Cantor and as an operatic tenor.
http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/rtucker-04-cantor.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu45D-5E0ZA
1976: Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award.
1978(29th of Tevet, 5738): Eighty-two-year-old Rose Luria Halprin one of the foremost American Zionist leaders of the twentieth century who served twice as the national president of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, held key posts within the Jewish Agency at critical periods in the history of the Yishuv and the subsequent State of Israel passed away today.
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/halprin-rose-luria
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0008_0_08276.html
1978: The Jerusalem Postreported from Washington the announcement made by US President Jimmy Carter that he was still opposed to the creation of an independent Palestinian state, as it could be used as a base for subversion against Israel.
1978: Terrorists injured three people in a grenade attack at a bus station in Jerusalem.
1978:Temple University trained M.D. Victor Jerome Teichner, the member of the United States Naval Reserve and Columbia University certified psychoanalysis who was President of the Society of Medical Psychoanalysts married Gail W. Berry today.
1978: Harvey Milk began serving as a Member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from District 5.
1978: Isaiah Sheffer “wrote down his idea for a place he had decided to call Symphony Space, in part because that was the name of the theater and in part because its first event was a symphony concert.
After tens of millions of dollars raised and a decade of litigation, it became a complex of two theaters with a cafe, offices and a board of directors.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1979(9th of Tevet, 5739): Seventy-eight-year-old Zionist and educator Sara Feder-Keyfitz, the Milwaukee born daughter of “Benjamin and Shaine (Kumok) Feder and childhood friend of Golda Meir who was the wife of Professor Isidore Keyfitz passed away today in Jerusalem.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/Feder-Keyfitz-Sara-Rivka
1980:Park East Synagogue designated as a New York City Landmark. The structure was built on New York’s Upper East Side in the last decade of the 19th century for a congregation led by Rabbi Bernard Drachman.
1982:As part of the breakup of AT&T, AT&T agreed to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions. Judge Harold Greene, a Jew who fled Hitler’s German with his parents, presided over United States v. AT&T, the antitrust suit that broke up the AT&T vertical market monopoly on the telecommunications industry in the United States.
1983(23rd of Tevet, 5743): Susanna, the daughter of Miklós Nyiszli who described his concentration camp experiences in Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account, passed away today
1984 (4th of Shevat, 5744):In Netivot (southern Israel), Reb Yisroel Abuchatzeira, the Baba Sali passed away. Rabbi Israel Abuchatzera known as "Baba Sali," was born in Tafillalt, Morocco in 1890, to the illustrious Abuchatzera family. From a young age he was renowned as a sage, miracle maker and master Kabbalist. In 1964 he moved to the Holy Land, eventually settling in the southern development town he made famous, Netivot. His graveside in Netivot will become a holy site visited by thousands annually.
1986: New York City teachers elected long-time teacher advocate Sandra Feldman president of the city's United Federation of Teachers (UFT).
1986: Sulayman Khatir, an Egyptian soldier who hadmachine-gunned a group of Israelis, killing three adults and four young children, on the dunes of Ras Burqa in1985, “was found dead in his prison hospital room hanging by a strip torn from a sheet of plastic”
1987(7thof Tevet, 5747): Seventy-eight-year-old New Yorker “Myron Prinzmetal, one of the first cardiologists to actively explore the link between diet and heart disease” passed away today.
http://www.prinzmetal.net/myron_prinzmetal.htm
1991: Four soldiers were injured when terrorists began throwing grenades at bus crossing from Jordan into Israel.
1991(22nd of Tevet, 5751): Harold J. Mason, a seller of rare books and a publishing company executive passed away today at the age of 64.Dr. Mason, a native of Brooklyn, held bachelor's and master's degrees from Emory University and a doctorate in library science form Columbia. He was with the Kraus Reprint Company before co-founding the Greenwood Press in Westport, Conn., in 1966. In 1973 he established a company in his own name in Norwalk, Conn., selling antiquarian journals and magazines. He is survived by his wife, the fomer Selma Werner; two daughters, Lori Reisman of Ventura and Dione Katz of Tel Aviv; a brother, Robert, of Washington and three grandchildren.
1991: Israel deported four Palestinians to Lebanon today, less than 24 hours after they had dropped their final legal appeals. The four, suspected of being leaders of an Islamic fundamentalist group in the Gaza Strip, were flown handcuffed and blindfolded to southern Lebanon, dropped off at the edge of Israel's self-declared security zone and then ordered to march north toward a Lebanese Army checkpoint. There they offered angry, threatening statements to waiting Lebanese journalists and then made their way to Beirut.
1992: Israel and China are expected to establish diplomatic relations for the first time during a trip by Foreign Minister David Levy to Beijing toward the end of the month, senior officials here said today. Although Israel was quick to recognize the People's Republic of China after the Communist revolution in 1949, the countries never developed diplomatic relations. But they have long had trade, scientific and other contacts that include arms sales by Israel to China that are said to total several billion dollars.
1995: At the Mark Beck Theater, after 1,143, the curtain came down on the Broadway revival of “Guys and Dolls” a Frank Loesser musical with a book by Abe Burrows.
1996(16thof Tevet, 5756): Eighty-eight-year-old Howard Taubman the former chief music critic and chief theatre critic for The New York Times passed away today.
1997(29thof Tevet, 5757): Eighty-five-year-old Chemistry Nobel Laureate Melvin Calvin passed away today.
http://www2.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/Melvin-Calvin-obit.html
2000(1stof Shevat, 5760): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
2001(1stof Shevat, 5760): Eighty-year-old Martin Konigsberg the father of Allan Stewart Konigsberg, better known as Woody Allen, passed away today.
2001: Anthony Lewis “received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Bill Clinton.”
2001: Jack Abramoff left Preston Gates to join the Government Relations division of the Washington, D.C. law firm Greenberg Traurig. “With the move to Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff took as much as $6 million worth of client business from his old firm, including the Marianas Islands account. At Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff recruited a team of lobbyists known familiarly as "Team Abramoff". The team included many of his former employees from Preston Gates and former senior staffers of members of Congress.”
2003: Today, Israeli forces killed a gunman in the Golan Heights, Israel Radio reported. The Israeli military said the man was killed and another was captured during a clash with armed men who were crossing into Israeli-controlled territory near the Syrian and Jordanian borders.
2003: Judith Steinberg Dean, who earned her MD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University completed her service as the “First Lady of Vermont” when her husband Howard Dean completed his service as Governor.
2004: “The European Commission agreed today to revive planning for a conference on anti-Semitism that it suspended two days ago after accusations from European and American Jewish figures that some of its recent decisions were anti-Semitic themselves.”
2005: “Saving Jewish Children, but at What Cost?” published today described the reopening of “a raw debate on the World War II role of the Catholic Church and of Pope Pius XII a candidate for sainthood who has been excoriated by his critics as a heartless anti-Semite who maintained a public silence on the Nazi death camps and praised by his supporters as a savior of Jewish lives.”
2006: Pulitzer Prize-winner Ron Suskind, author of The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill, was the special guest speaker at the United Jewish Community of Broward County's annual Major Gifts Event in Fort Lauderdale.
2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster, The Reason I Wont Be Coming: Stories by Eliot Perlman,Busting Vega$: The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees by Ben Mezrich and newly released paperback editions of Seven Types of Ambiguity by Ellot Perlman, The Speakeasies of 1932 and Hirschfeld's Harlem by Al Hirschfeld,
Pragmatism, and Democracy by Richard A. Posner and Amos Oz’s Tale of Love and Darkness a “richly layered memoir that chronicles the life of one of Israel's most acclaimed novelists. Tracing his ancestors back to 19th-century Ukraine, Oz weaves his family's history into the broader story of World War II, the rise of the Israeli state and the death of the socialist-Zionist dream. Oz returns often to his mother's suicide in 1952, when he was 12: the wound shapes his self discovery and the story of how he became a writer.”
2007: New York magazine, published an article entitled “Mall Menorah Smackdown” which told the tale about “dueling rabbis struggling over who gets to spread the faith to newcomers in the gentrifying area around Atlantic Yards.” “A turf war has erupted between two Lubavitch rabbis claiming dibs on the rapidly gentrifying brownstone neighborhoods that surround it. In one corner is Rabbi Ari Kirschenbaum, who showed up in Prospect Heights three years ago to revive a decrepit Orthodox synagogue in the neighborhood, and recently opened what he has dubbed the Brooklyn Jewish Community Center in a donated space over a former laundromat. His rival is Rabbi Tali Frankel, who is backed by his wife’s powerful uncle, Rabbi Shimon Hecht of Park Slope.”
2008: “A scaled down London revival” of the Jerry Herman musica., “La Cage aux Folles, opened at the Menier Chocolate, in London.
2008(1st of Shevat, 5768):According to tradition 1 Shevat, 2488 marked the start of Moshe’s dissertations that compose the Devarim(Book of Deuteronomy).
2008(1st of Shevat, 5768): Lieutenant General Moshe Levy, the 12th Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) passed away. Born in Tel Aviv in 1936, he was person of Misrahi origin to serve as Chief of Staff.
2009: As part of the Spiritual Journeys series, at the 92nd Street Y Rabbi Joyce Reinitz, the spiritual leader of the Society of Jewish Science in Manhattan and psychotherapist facilitates a noon time presentation styled “Feminine Reflections on the Rhythms of Our Lives: Tevet—Illuminating the Miraculous.”
2009 (12th of Tevet, 5769):Two IDF officers and a soldier were killed today as the IDF penetrated deeper into urban centers in the northern Gaza Strip. Maj. Ro'i Rosner of the Kfir Brigade's Haruv Battalion was killed and another soldier was lightly wounded, when a Hamas man fired an anti-tank missile at them as they conducted searches near the Kissufim crossing into the Strip.Capt. Omer Rabinovitch, 23, of Arad, was killed in the close-quarter firefights in Zeitoun. Sgt. Amit Robinson, 21, a tank crewman from Kibbutz Magal, south of Baka al-Gharbiya, was killed by a sniper, also in northern Gaza. His parents made aliya from Argentina.
2009:Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a barrage of at least 30 rockets at southern Israel today, just hours after the United Nations passed a resolution calling for an immediate truce between Israel and Hamas.
2009:Three Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon struck Nahariya, one of which slammed into a retirement home. Two people were lightly wounded.
2009: The comrades of Private David Sher, the 8thAustralian soldier killed in Afghanistan while fighting the Taliban, hung a Star of David above his casket as it was prepared to be sent to Melbourne for burial.
2010: Brit of Nathan Zachary Silber son of David and Rebecca Silber and grandson of Dr. Robert “Bob” and Laurie Silber, pillars of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community and all-around great guys.
2010: An exhibition is scheduled to open at Ben Uri Gallery: The London Jewish Museum of Art that includes “Apocalypse,” the “a previously unknown 1945 gouache by Mac Chagall.” Painted in New York, “Apocalypse shows a naked Christ screaming a Nazi storm trooper below the cross who has a backwards swastika on his arm, a Hitler-like mustache and serpentine tail.” This is one more example of Chagall using “an image of a crucified Jesus…as a metaphor for persecuted Jewry
2010:Israel has taken the upper hand in a new kind of Mideast conflict, one in which bullets are replaced by chickpeas. Using a satellite dish on loan from a nearby broadcast station, chefs in Abu Ghosh today whipped up more than 4,000 kg. of humous, adding a Guinness world record to the Arab town's reputation for hospitality and harmony. The cooks nearly doubled the previous record for the world's biggest serving of humous, set on October 24 by cooks in Lebanon.
2011: The 10th Red Sea Classical Festival in Eilat comes to a close.
2011:Nadav Kohen is scheduled to be called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah at Agudas Achim in Iowa City, IA.
2011:Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum who “fears that without pluralism, Israel will become ‘a state alienated from itself’” is scheduled to give two talks at Congregation Agudath Israel of West Essex, Caldwell, NJ, entitled “Israeli Female Rabbis and the Challenges of 5771” and “Feminine Voices: Halacha and The Public Square.”
2011: As part of the 92nd St Y’s “Out of Israel Program” the following works are scheduled to be presented:
FAME, a work-in-progress - LeeSaar The Company
2280 Pints!, a work-in-progress - Neta Pulvermacher’s Neta Dance Company
Blink (2010) & 2 Kilos of Sea (2010) – Deganit Shemy & Company
A work-in-progress by Netta Yerushalmy
Blush (2009) and Wonderland (2010) – Andrea Miller’s Gallim Dance
Still Life with Seven Stories and a Woman (2010) – Michal Samama
Drang (2009) & a work-in-progress – Lior Schneior
2011:Representative Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords, Arizona’s first Jewish congresswoman,was in critical condition after being shot in the head. “Giffords was outside one of her signature "Congress at your corner" events outside a Safeway in Tucson, the district she represented, when a gunman approached and shot her in the head. The gunman, identified by media as Jared Lee Loughner, shot 17 people, killing six of them, including a 9-year-old boy and a federal judge, John Roll. The gunman was tackled and arrested. Doctors said Giffords was expected to survive, although it was not yet known what her condition would be. Giffords was elected to Congress in the Democratic sweep in 2006. The first Jewish woman elected to Congress from the state, she made her Jewish identity part of her campaign. “If you want something done, your best bet is to ask a Jewish woman to do it,” said Giffords, a former state senator, said at the time. “Jewish women — by our tradition and by the way we were raised — have an ability to cut through all the reasons why something should, shouldn’t or can’t be done and pull people together to be successful.” Giffords, 40, was raised "mixed" by a Christian Scientist mother and Jewish father, but said that after a visit to Israel in 2001, she had decided she was Jewish only. She attended services at a local Reform synagogue. Giffords fought a hard election this year, against the national anti-incumbent, anti-Democratic mood. She tacked to the right of her party on immigration, saying border security was of primary consideration. The election was called in her favor weeks after the vote. Giffords' office had been vandalized in March, after she voted for health care reform. Friends said she had received threats for her positions on health care and for opposing her state's new law allowing police to arrest undocumented immigrants during routine stops. According to preliminary reports, 18 people were shot and six people are dead including a senior federal judge and a nine year old child. So far, no mention has been in the national media of the fact that Giffords is Jewish and no attempt has been made to link her religious beliefs or support of Israel to the deadly assault.
2011(3rd of Shevat, 5711):Gabriel Zimmerman, 30, was killed in the mass shooting at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's Congress on the Corner event. Zimmerman, a former social worker, was Giffords's director of community outreach and the organizer of the meet-and-greet event.Zimmerman was Giffords's point of contact for constituents in the district. It was a great fit: Zimmerman had a degree in social work, natural empathy and an extroverted personality, those who knew him said. Zimmerman was a Tucson native. He had worked for Giffords since her first campaign in 2006. He was engaged to marry a nurse and was an avid runner, friends said. Zimmerman had worked with Giffords since her first congressional race in 2006, the Arizona Daily Star reports, and his friends described him as having a natural talent at working with other people. Gabe Zimmerman in 2009 (Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans) He received a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a master's in social work from Arizona State University. In addition to his mother, he is survived by his father, Ross Zimmerman, step-mother Pam Golden, brother Ben Zimmerman, and fiancée Kelly O'Brien.
2011:Today four mortar shells fired by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza landed in a kibbutz in the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council, wounding three foreign agricultural workers – one of them seriously.
2011(3rd of Shevat, 5771): Eighty-two-year-old “Alexis Weissenberg, a charismatic Bulgarian-born pianist known for his thundering aggressiveness and rational detachment at the keyboard, and for his unapologetic defense of those traits in interviews” passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
2012(13th of Tevet, 5772): Eighty-one-year-old Joe M. Pincus passed away
2012: “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg is scheduled to be shown at the Salisbury Film Festival at Salisbury University in Salisbury, MD.
2012: “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” is scheduled to be shown at the Mobile Jewish Film Festival in Mobile, Alabama.
2012: A display of Chanukah menorahs designed by Bronx-based silversmith Bernard Bernstein which has been part of the New York Historical Society’s Chanukah celebration is scheduled to come to an end.
2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Breakdown” by Sara Paretsky, “Henrich Himmler” by Peter Longerich, “Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich” by Robert Gerwarth, “A More Perfect Heavan: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos” by Dava Sobel and “Kayak Morning: Reflections on Love, Grief and Small Boats” by Roger Rosenblatt.
2012:IDF soldiers captured close to a dozen pipe bombs at the Salem Crossing near Jenin in the northern West Bank today, thwarting what appears to have been a major terrorist attack, possibly against a nearby military court. Four Palestinians were arrested at the crossing and were found to be in possession of 11 pipe bombs, a homemade pistol and a commando knife.
2012: The Jerusalem District Court today indicted five right-wing activists suspected of involvement in the so-called 'price tag' attack on the IDF's Ephraim Division military base last month.
2013:Seth Chernoff is scheduled to have a discussion and signing of his new book Manual For Living: Connection, A User’s guide to the Meaning of Life at American Jewish University in Los Angeles.
2013: Three shorts – Reality Check, Martha Must Fly and Shalom – are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2013: Seventieth anniversary of the birth of Judy Levin Rosenstein זיכרונה לברכה
2013: The Associated Press reported today that "the consensus now among some U.S. officials involved in the case is that despite years of denials, Iran's intelligence service was almost certainly behind the 54-second video and five photographs of Robert Levinson that were emailed anonymously to his family.
2013: Rabbis from the Rabbis for Human Rights-North America board are scheduled to deliver a copy of a letter,expressing concerns about settlement expansion in the E-1 Corridor to the Israeli Embassy in Washington today. The letter contains the signatures of 720 Rabbis and rabbinical students.
2013: Sasson Barashy was found guilty of racketeering conspiracy and was sentenced to four and a half years in prison with credit for time served. He was also ordered to serve three years under supervised release after his release from federal prison.
2013: Traffic resumed in both directions of Tel Aviv’s main highway, the Ayalon freeway, this afternoon, hours after the road was closed along with other major arteries due to heavy rains that caused waters to rise near road-level.
2013:The Israeli Navy was sent into the coastal city of Hadera late tonight to help rescue residents stranded by massive flooding.
2014: Professor Steven Kennedy is scheduled to deliver a second lecture on “Leonard Bernstein: From Jewish Roots To Broadway” which looks at the legacy of the multi-talented musician whose Jewish identity was such that he conducted the symphony in Tel Aviv while Israel was fighting for its independence.
2014: “Wild West Hebron” and “Pulse” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2014: “Protests by African migrants in Israel, unprecedented in their scope, continued for a fourth straight day today as about 10,000 people, many of whom came by bus from Tel Aviv, gathered at the Rose Garden in Jerusalem across from the Knesset.” (As reported by Spencer Ho)
2014: Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon “vehemently condemned extremist Jewish violence” known as price tag attacks of “terror.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)
2014: In a statement released to the Times of Israel today, Karen Lawrence, the President of Sarah Lawrence University spoke out[ML1] against the American Studies Association boycott of Israel writing, “I oppose this boycott. Academic boycotts have the effect of stifling dialogue vital to academic freedom; indeed, Israeli academics themselves are crucial voices in debating the policies of their government. To declare their institutions barred from academic exchange unfairly curtails their academic freedom and limits the possibilities for dialogue to contribute to understanding, affect policy, and even change minds.” (As reported by Debra Kamin)
2014: Vivian Bercovici began serving as Canada’s ambassador to Israel.
2015: The Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism is scheduled to host the second of day “Beyond Camps and Forced Labour.”
2015: In the UK, a conference hosted by the University of Kent that “seeks to examine the significance of topography of the Nazi concentration camps” which is part of the schools way to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz is scheduled to come to an end.
2015: School was canceled in the Golan Heights, West Bank, and around Jerusalem today due to inclement weather
2015: “Schools in Jerusalem were set to open at 10 a.m. today amid a much-heralded winter storm that saw the capital receive a mere five centimeters of snow” yesterday.
2015: California Senator Barbara Boxner announced today that she will not run for a sixth term in 2016.
2015: “Authorities in Uruguay detonated what turned out to be a fake bomb found near Israel’s embassy in Montevideo, officials said today.”
2015(17thof Tevet, 5775): Sixty-five-year-old Bella Ostrovksy who operated the Ostrovsky Fine Art Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ with her husband Mossad agent and bestselling author Victor Ostrovsky passed away today.
2016: “A short-lived but powerful winter storm struck Israel on today, bringing with it torrential rain and tragic consequences after two people were swept away by the floods and killed.
2016: “Our Little Sister” and “Bridge of Spies” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.
2016: The weeklong Yiddish Language and Culture School at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton is scheduled to end today.
2016: The Texas Jewish Historical Society Winter Board Meeting is scheduled to open in Galveston Texas this evening with a Shabbat dinner at Temple B’nai Israel followed by services.
2016: Congregation Beth Tefillah in Scottsdale, AZ is scheduled to host “Mishpachti Mexican Shabbat.”
2016(27thof Tevet, 5776): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch.
http://www.aish.com/dijh/Tevet_27.html
2017(10thof Tevet, 5777): Assarah be-Tevet
2017(10thof Tevet 5777): Today, “four IDF soldiers—three women and a man in their 20s—were murdered and 13 wounded when a Palestinian truck driver deliberately rammed into pedestrians on a popular promenade overlooking the walled Old City of Jerusalem”
2017(10thof Tevet, 5777): Calendar Quirk – The anniversary of the birth of Judy Rosenstein (nee Levin) on the English calendar coincides with her Yahrzeit on the Jewish Calendar providing family and friends a prolonged chance to remember this ayshish chayil of the first order.
2017: The New York Times features books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-1949 by David Cesarani, Why?: Explaining the Holocaust by Peter Hayes, Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films by Molly Haskell, War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918 by Michael Kazin and Ernst Kantorowicz: A Life by Robert E. Lerner
2017: In Atlanta, GA, Helen Weingarten who along with four of her five sisters survived Auschwitz, is scheduled to tell her story as part of The Breman’s Bearing Witness Program.
2017(10thof Tevet, 5777): Eighty-six-year-old “arranger, producer and composer” Louis Isidore “Buddy” Bregman, the nephew of composer Jules Styne, passed away today.
2017: The exhibition — Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven — is scheduled to come to a close at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
2018: The Jewish History Center is scheduled to present a lecture on “The Fate of Bulgarian Jews during the Holocaust” by Dr. Joseph Benatov who teaches at the Universit of Pennsylvania and was the recipient of the 2017 Fred and Ellen Lewis / JDC Archives Fellowship
2018: In Des Moines, Beth El Jacob Congregation is scheduled to conduct a Memorial for Rabbi Marshall and Shirley Berg.
2018: “FBI agents, accompanied by Israeli police officers, visited the Ramat Gan offices of the major binary options platform provider SpotOption” today as part of Washington’s investigation into “binary options fraud.”
2018: The Center for Jewish History, the Leo Baeck Institute and the YIVO Institute are scheduled to present the New York City premier of “Reversing Oblivion.”
2019: Beit Avi Chai is scheduled to host “a tribute to Sasha Argov, one of Israel’s greatest composers and a recipient of the Israel Prize.
2019: Two days after having met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, National Security advisor John Bolton is scheduled to meet with President of Turkey to explain the implications of President Trump’s announcement that American forces are pulling out of Syria immediately and that Iran can do whatever it wants to in Syria.
2019(2nd of Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar yahrzeit of “King Alexander Yanni (Jannaeus)” who reigned “from 103 BCE to 76 BCE.”
http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_2.html
2020: Michael and Shimrit Greilsammer at scheduled to launch a new album at Nocturnon where “they will host the award-winning composer and violinist Yonatan Keren.”
2020: Chesa Boudin is scheduled to begin serving as the District Attorney in San Francisco today.
2020: In Cambridge, MA, the Cambridge Brewing Company is scheduled to host “D’var in the Bar” with Rabbi Michelle Robinson.
2020: Seventy-seventh anniversary of the birth of Judy Levin, who gained fame as Judy Rosenstein – gone but never forgotten
2021: Congregation B’nai Torah is scheduled to present online a “Community-Wide Shabbat of New Beginnings.”
2021: The Lappin Foundation is scheduled to resent a “PJ Library Sing-In Shabbat” “with award winning song writer and educator Eliana Light.
2021: This morning, B’nai Jeshurun Congregation is scheduled to host a Kinder Shabbat in the morning Kabbalat Shabbat services this evening.
2021: The Illinois Holocaust Museum is schedule to host a virtual Lunch and Learn on “Poetry of Psychological Resistance at Auschwitz: The Words of Krystyna Zywulska” during which “Dr. Barbara Milewski, Associate Professor of Music at Swarthmore College, presents her research on the remarkable life and resistance poetry of Krystyna Zywulska, a Polish political prisoner at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland from 1943 until her escape in 1945.”
2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host “Shabbat Under the Stars,” an in-person event in the congregation’s parking lot followed.
2021: In Washington, DC, Sixth & I is scheduled to host “Shabbat: Break Away,” a virtual service led by Rabbi Aaron and musician Aaron Shneyer” that is lighter on prayer and has a less sctructured and more casual vibe than a tradition service.”
2021: As Israelis cope with opening days of its third lockdown they maybe find comfort in yesterday’s announcement by the Prime Minister “that most Israelis will be able to get vaccinated by March” thanks in part to “a new deal with U.S. drug maker” Pfizer.
2021: Seventy-eighth anniversary of the birth of Judy Rosenstein missed by her sons Danny, David Asher and Joel, her brothers David and Mitchell and so many more whose life she touched for the better.