February 8
421: Constantius III becomes co-Emperor of the Western Roman Empire serving as co-Emperor with Honorius. Constantinius only reigned for 7 months, but during his long tenure Honorius was no friend of the Jews as can be seen by his promulgation of “a new law requiring any taxes collected by Jewish leaders from the Jewish community to be sent to the imperial treasury.
1250: During the seventh crusade, King Louis IX of France faces Ayyubid forces at the 3 day Battle of Al Mansurah. The entire crusading period was a debacle for the Jewish people. As to Louis, Fordham University, the Jesuit University of New York says, he “was an ideal medieval king: he was chivalrous, religious, ascetic, and hostile to Jews.”
1265: Hulagu Khan, whose invasion of Persia in 1255 led to the creation of the Ilkhanate, a portion of the Mongol Empire where much to the relief of the Jews “the rulers abolished the inequality of dhimmis, and all religions were deemed equal,” passed away today.
1265: Abaqa Khan succeeded Hulagu Kahn as the ruler of the Ilkhanate, a portion of the Mongol Empire where much to the relief of the Jews “the rulers abolished the inequality of dhimmis, and all religions were deemed equal.”
1291: Birthdate of King Alfonso IV of Portugal who increased the taxes paid by the Jews, load to “reinstituted the dormant requirement that Jews wear an identifying yellow badge, and restricted their freedom to emigrate.”
1349: In Worms, Bishop Frederick ordered that “the Jewish community should pay 20 florins each year on St. Martin’s Day when a new “Bishop of the Jews” – the head of the 12 member council that governed the internal affairs of the Jewish community – each year on St. Martin’s Day.
1596: Despite being tortured today by the Inquisition Louis de Caraval said nothing but later said that “he remembered that Jorge de Almeida and some others ‘believed in the law which God gave to Moses.’”
1640: Murad IV, “during whose reign, the Jews of Jerusalem were persecuted by an Arab who had purchased the governorship of that city from the governor of the province,” passed away today.
1693: The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia is granted a charter by King William III and Queen Mary II. According to recent figures there are approximately 385 Jewish students attending the school with a student population of approximately 7,700. The school offers eight Jewish studies courses and is home to William and Mary Balfour Hillel whose mission is “To inspire every Jewish student to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life and enrich the lives of Jewish undergraduate and graduate students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world.”
1725: Peter The Great, Russian Czar, passed away at the age of 52. Peter’s determination to keep the Jews out of his realm and his treatment of Russian Jews was not the picture of “enlightenment.” But his use of the Velesovsky Brothers showed that he was not above using the services of Jews who converted. From the point of Jewish history, he certainly was not the “Great”
1773:“The Grand Council of Poland meets in Warsaw, summoned by a circular letter from King Stanisław August Poniatowski to respond to the Kingdom's threatened partition between three foreign powers” --- Russia, Prussia and Austria – which would have disastrous consequences for most of the large Jewish population living in Poland.
1744: Birthdate of Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg, the “prince bishop” sovereign of Frankfurt during whose reign Karl Ludwig Börne was appointed a police actuary in 1811 and then forced to resign three years later because he was Jewish.
1787: In Easton, PA, Judith Hart and James Pettigrew gave birth to Hetty Pettigrew, the wife of Adolph Anker with whom she had twelve children.
1792(15thof Shevat, 5552): With France gripped in the turmoil of the effects of the Revolution and Americans living under the leadership of their first President, George Washington, Jews celebrated Tu B’Shevat.
1795: In Baden Handel bat Gumbert and Joseph ben Ephriam Zimmern gave birth to Moses I. Zimmerman, the husband of Sarah Jacob with whom he had eight children.
1795: Birthdate of Hungarian-born journalist and author, Moritz G [Moses] Saphir who moved to Bavaria to further his career. In 1832 he was expelled but was permitted to return by the king later that year. Eighteen thirty-two was also the same year that Saphir became a Lutheran.
1799: In Easton PA, Sarah Hart and Isaac Nunez Cardozo gave birth to Rachel N. Cardozo the wife of Simon Cauffman and the Joseph Phillips with whom she had two children – Ellen and Isaac Cardozo Phillips.
1800(13thof Shevat, 5560): Parashat Beshalah
1806: “In ‘Sur les Juifs’ published today in Mercure de France Louis-Gabriel-Ambroise Bonald “repeated the usual anti-Semitic accusations” including “that the Jews were at war with morality, that they formed an "imperium in imperio," and that the majority of them were parasites.”
1810: Birthdate of Paris native Alphonse Louis Constant, the Roman Catholic who was the great nineteenth century student of the Caballah who did his work as Eliphas Levi, the Hebraized form of his given name.
1818: Moses Moses married Sarah Friedberg today at the Great Synagogue.
1830(15thof Shevat, 5590): Tu B’Shevat
1831: Louis Philippe of France, successor to Charles X, ratified a motion putting Judaism on a par with Christianity, granting State support to Synagogues and their Minister of Religion. This meant that France extended financial support to Jewish religious institutions on par with Christian institutions.
1832: Birthdate of German native Babette Baum, the wife of Samuel Strauss.
1833: Birthdate of Baron Horace Günzburg who was “one of the founders of the Society for the Spread of Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia…”
1833: In England, Iganz Moscheles and Charlotte Emden, “the daughter of a Jewish Banker and a cousin of Heinrich Heine who were married in 1825 in a Hamburg synagogue “gave birth to their second son, painter and advocate for Esperanto Felix Moscheles who appears to have been raised as a member of the Church of England.
1843: Health officers in Frankfort-on-Main issued an order stating “Israelite citizens and inhabitants, must employ the services of competent persons" when having their sons circumcised.
1835: Thirty-one-year-old Clara Kahn married Jacob Neumond, the thirty two year old German born son of Johanna and Louis Neumond.
1858: Birthdate of Pauline Koch, who as Pauline Einstein gave birth to physicist Albert Einstein.
1860(15th of Shevat, 5620): Tu B'Shevat
1860(15thof Shevat, 5620): Sixty-seven-year-old Charlotte Aron, the wife of Alexandre Aron and the daughter of Asser Lion and Gitlé Loëw passed away today in Alsace, France.
1860: “A Mistaken Philanthropist” published today describes the efforts of "‘Captain’ Moses, a gentleman we presume of Abrahamic stock,” to raise funds and outfit a ship that would provide relief for “the Christian and Jewish refugees, who had been constrained to flee almost naked from Morocco to Gibraltar ‘to escape the knife of the savage Bedouin of the desert.’” Unfortunately for Captain Moses, he misrepresented his credentials when he went to Philadelphia to continue his efforts and ended up being be jailed because authorities saw him as a “swindler” and “imposter” rather than “an indiscreet philanthropist.”
1863: “Beauregard and the Jews” published today quoted a letter that the P.G.T. Beauregard had written in 1861 when he was commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in which he explained why could not grant leave to Jewish soldiers to observe the High Holidays. He is sure that “the Hebrews” serving with the army will understand that military necessity makes it impossible to grant a request that he would otherwise comply with quite willingly.
1863: Jeanetta Mallan and Joseph Davis gave birth to George Victor Davis.
http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/gomberg-moses.pdf
1866: At Tabor, Hungary, Judith Klemperer and Juda Markus Klemperer gave birth to Karl Klemperer.
1867: The Ausgleich results in the establishment of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The Ausgleich refers to the compromise document that changed the Austrian Empire into the dual monarchy that put Hungary on level playing field with the previously dominate Germanic (Austrian) element of the Hapsburg Empire. The reform came about as a result of Austria’s defeat at the hands of Prussia. (Yes this gets complicated; but if you want to understand the fate of the Jews of Europe you have to understand European history.) Following the Law of Unintended consequences, The Ausgleich had a profound effect on the Jews living under the rule of the Habsburgs. “With the “Ausgleich” between Austria and Hungary in 1867, Jews finally gained full citizen rights. Vienna was now the city in the Habsburg Empire with the largest Jewish community (40,000 or 6.6 percent). Most of the Viennese Jews were of Bohemian, Moravian and Hungarian origin, while others were from the poor area of Galicia. Jewish communities in other parts of the Empire developed, even in cities that have not had any Jews for a long time, such as Salzburg (part of Austria since 1816).” Today we seem to have forgotten the prominent role that Vienna played in European and Jewish culture. Within a few decades of each other, for example, Vienna was home to Herzl, Freud and Hitler. Imagine what might have happened had Hitler been one of Freud’s patients.
1870: Two days after she had passed away, Mina Davis, the wife of Woolf Davis and the mother of Isaac, Ann, David and Leah Davis was buried today at the Deane Road Jewish Cemetery in Liverpool.
1871: During inquest being held today at Union Hill, NY, to determine the cause of death for Charles Kraft, a Jew named Nathan Berg was identified as one of three men who might have been involved in a fatal beating of the deceased.
1872: Birthdate of Theodor Lessing, the “German Jewish philosopher… known for opposing the rise of Hindenburg as president of the Weimar Republic and for his classic on Jewish self-hatred (Der jüdische Selbsthaß)…in which he tried to explain the phenomenon of Jewish self-hatred - Jewish intellectuals who incited anti-Semitism against the Jewish people, and regarded Judaism as the source of evil in the world. A Zionist, he moved to Czechoslovakia after Hitler came to power. The move did not save him since he “was assassinated by Nazi agents in the summer of 1933.”
1874: Sixty-six-year-old German theologian and author David Friedrich Strauss who was a leader of those studying Jesus as a historical figure, which would have included his Jewish origins, passed away today
1874: In Pittsburgh, Adolph and Rosalia Burkhart gave birth to Curry Institute and University of Southern California alum Lillian Burkhart who married George Goldsmith ad gained fame as Lillian Goldsmith, vaudeville performer turned social reformer who was member of the national board of the Council of Jewish Women and President of the Los Angles Section of the National Council of Jewish Women. (Some sources show her birthdate as 1871)
1878: Birthdate of Martin Buber. Buber almost defies definition. He gained fame as a theologian, philosopher, teacher and Zionist. His life and teachings are too rich and complicated to be encapsulated in this brief item. Born in Vienna, Buber spent his youth living with his grandfather who was a distinguished rabbinic scholar. Buber returned to Vienna for his secular education. He was attracted to Zionism in its earliest days but saw the need to add a uniquely Jewish cultural and spiritual component to Herzl’s political ideas. After dabbling with various forms of mysticism, Buber began to study the works of the Chassidic Masters. Eventually he developed a philosophy based on their lives and teaching which has been described as Neo-Chasidism. Buber moved to Jerusalem in 1938 and joined the faculty of Hebrew University. His most famous work I and Thou which described the I-Thou and I-It relationships was published in 1923. Other works available in English include, but are not limited to, Good and Evil, On Judaism and The Legend of the Baal Shem. Buber understood the relationship between Judaism and Christianity but knew the difference between the two as well. His works and philosophy has had an impact on people of many different beliefs. In the words of Buber: “The God of history and the God of nature cannot be separated and the land of Israel is a token of their unity.” “There is no opposition between the truth of God and the salvation of Israel.” "To him who knows how to read the legend, it conveys more truth than the chronicle.” “The Jew carries the burden of an unredeemed world. He cannot concede that redemption is an accomplished fact for he knows it is not.”
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/martin-buber/
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/martin-buber
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0208.html
1878: In the Pale of Settlement a Hebrew scholar named Ezekiel Baevski and his wife, Koona Dubrusha, née Shur gave birth to Simcha Myer Baevski who would gain fame as Sidney Baevski Myer “the Jewish-Australian businessman and philanthropist, best known for creating Myer, Australia's largest chain of department stores.”
1878: Tonight, marked the final performance at the Opera Comique of “Dora’s Dream” starring Giula Warwick.”
1878: Birthdate of Hungarian native and Columbia trained New York physician Joseph Bieber.
1879(15thof Shevat, 5639): Shabbat and Tu B’Shevat
1880: Rabbi De Sola Mendes officiated at the funeral of John D. Phillips which was attended by several prominent Jewish leaders including Albert Cordozo, Jesse Seligman and Emanuel B. Hart.
1882(19thof Shevat, 5642): Twenty days before his 70th birthday, German-Jewish author Berthold Auerbach passed at Cannes, France.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2112-auerbach-berthold-baruch
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_New_International_Encyclop%C3%A6dia/Auerbach,_Berthold
1883(1st of Adar I, 5643): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1886: Gabriel Lippman the son of a Jewish glove maker and who earned the Nobel Prize in Physics became a member of the French Academy of Sciences which he served as President in 1912.
1889(7thof Adar, 5649): Eighty-three-year-old author and social work Anna Maria Goldsmid who was the daughter of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, passed away today. Born in London in 1805 she first gained fame for her work as the translator of Dr. Gotthold Salomon’s sermons from German into English. She helped from the Jews’ Infant-Schools and took an active role in the Jews’ Deaf and Dumb Home.
1889: Achad ha-am organized the Zionist Order Benei Moshe
1890: In New York City, Morris and Sarah and Miriam Goldstein gave birth to Columbia and JTS graduate Herbert Samuel Goldstein, the husband of Rebecca Fischel and “the only person in history to have been elected president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the Rabbinical Council of America (first presidium), and the Synagogue Council of America.”
1890: While serving with the United States Army, twenty-five-year-old Sergeant Frank Maximillian Steinhart, the Munich born son of Simon and Regina (Levinger) Steinhart who would eventually go on to serve as the General Manager of the Havana Electric Railways, Light and Power Company today married Alice Florene Redden.
1890: Birthdate of Isidore Kaufman, the native of Syracuse, NY who gained fame as singer Irving Kaufman, who along with is brothers Phillip and Jack for the “The Kaufman Brothers.”
http://www.gracyk.com/kaufman.shtml
1891(30thof Shevat, 5651): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1891(30thof Shevat, 5651): Fifty-eight-year-old Bavarian born Grand Rapids mayor and Michigan congressman Julius Houseman passed way in his adopted hometown.
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000820
1891: It was reported today that at the request of Baron Maurice de Hirsch and several well-known leaders of the New York Jewish community have undertaken the management of a philanthropic scheme of “great practical utility.” They have consented to act under a deed of trust, by which Baron Hirsch places in their control the sum of $2,400,000 to be used in improving the condition of the poor Hebrew immigrants that are continually coming here from Russia and Romania.
1891: It was reported today that funds provided by Baron Hirsch and his supporters in the United States four new schools have been opened in New York City to help provide training for the newly arrived immigrants from Russia. These include a technical school, an evening school for girls who work during the day and two schools that prepare youngsters for entering the public schools.
1891: It was reported today that Joseph Klein, the President of Hebrew Cemetery Association received a suspended sentence from a court in Union County, New Jersey, after having been convicted of defrauding a co-religionist out of $60.
1891: “Unleavened Bread,” published in today’s Atlanta Constitution reported that “Cincinnati bakers have been busy for three months preparing for Passover.” (Editor’s note – The story is notable on 2 counts – it was published in a paper in Atlanta, GA, hardly a bastion of Jewish settlement and the matzo was being produced by Manischweitz, which continues to supply a wide variety of Jewish products in the 21st century)
1894: Birthdate of Ludwig Marcuse German-born author and philosopher.
1896: At two o’clock, Henry Steinhal, an actor appearing in “The Russian Jew” who had been accidently wounded when a blank pistol misfired, left the Adler Theatre with a limp and with a question – would he get damages from management?
1896: Benjamin and Rose Briskin gave birth to producer Samuel J. Briskin whose most memorable accomplishments may have been co-founding Liberty Films which made the classics “It’s A Wonderful Life and “State of the Union and serving the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps during WW II for which he received a President commendation.
https://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient.php?recipientid=28189
1896: The Berlin monthly "Zion" publishes a friendly review of Herzl's London article.
1896: Herzl discusses his Zionist ideas after a lecture by Chief Rabbi Güdemann in the "Jüdische akademische Lesehalle" with some Jewish students.
1896: The Jewish community in Vienna wants to prevent the publishing of Herzl's "Der Judenstaat”
1897: It was reported today that Rabbi Kaufman Kohler and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise will co-officiate at the upcoming funeral of Morris Goodhart.
1898: Newspapers in Paris published today provided an account of the way Maitre Fernand Gustave Gaston Labori, Emile Zola’s senior defense council dealt with the government witnesses during the first session of the Seine Assizes.
1898: Birthdate of Philadelphia native Bella Finkel, the sister of director Abe Finkel, who gained fame as actress Bella Finkel Muni, the wife of the famous actor Paul Muni.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1971/10/04/90693586.pdf
1898: Two days after he had passed away, 78 year old Judah Cohen, the husband of the former Caroline Davis with whom he had had eleven children was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery.
1898: It was reported today that firemen who arrived at the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society’s orphanage were not dealing with a serious fire. Four boys had secretly gathered to light a homemade lantern made from a cigar box and a candle. When another boy saw the flame, he told Superintendent Louis Fauerbach and he sounded the fire alarm. The boys involved are awaiting disciplinary action.
1899: During this evening’s meeting of the People’s Club, Reverend Walter Bentley offered to let the group meet at the St. Mark’s Parish House. A young, unnamed Jewish man said that “he was positive that no respectable Jew would belong to a club which met in a building connected with a church.” Several Jews said he was mistaken and Reverend Bentley’s offer was acceptable.
1899: Birthdate of Ralph Steiner, the Cleveland native and Dartmouth graduate who became a leading photographer and documentarian.
http://www.valley.net/~townsend/Steiner/Point.html
1900(9thof Adar I, 5660): Sixty-six-year-old Jacob Mendes Chumaceiro who served variously as the dayyan of the Sephardic synagogue, and acting chakam for the Portuguese Jews of North and South Netherlands, inspector of the Jewish schools of Amsterdam, head and librarian of the bet ha-midrash Ets Haim, and editor of Het Israelietisch Weekblad passed away today.
1901: In the Reichstag, where Konitz was made the subject of an interpellation), the Prussian minister of justice Schönstedt limited himself to a defense of the authorities against the charge of shielding the Jews; but he carefully refrained from uttering one word in condemnation of the ritual-murder charge, and even from stating that there was no reason for assuming such a motive in the case of Ernst Winter.
1902(1stof Adar I, 5662): Parashat Mishpatim; Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1902: It was reported today that Professor Lyon of the Harvard Museum plans on undertaking excavations in Palestine with hopes that they will provide “revelations of immense value to historical and theological students.”
1903: Solomon Barnato Joel and Ellen (Nellie) Ridley gave birth to Stanhope Henry Joel
1904: During the annual meeting of the members of the Hebrew Technical Institute which “was held at the Institute Building” today, Joseph B. Bloomingdale delivered his report as President in which he “said that that the pupils who had been graduated from the Institute had a combined earning capacity of over one million dollars.”
1905: New York State Commissioner of Labor John McMackin “today made public his answer to the charges of the Child Labor Committee that he has failed to enforce the child labor law” including “the charge that ‘six poor Jews of the east side in New York City were the only persons prosecuted during 1902’ for accidents due to unguarded machinery” to which he said that “we have recognized neither race creed nor color in administering the duties of the office.”
1906: Birthdate of Galicia native Henry Roth, author of Call It Sleep.
1906: In London, Laurie and Dora Marian Magnus gave birth to Sir Philip Montefiore Magnus-Allcroft, the husband of Jewell Magnus.
1906: “A deputation of prominent citizens” including at least one rabbi were reported today to have told General Orloff that they had seen “Cossacks and hooligans shooting Jews and setting fire to their rooms” in Gomel.
1906: Birthdate of Arthur Balsam, Polish born pianist, who was an accompanist for Yehudi Menhuin.
1907: The Jewish community of Kingston, Jamaica issues an appeal for help in rebuilding three synagogues laid in ruins by an earthquake. Many Jews were killed during the disaster. The Jewish community in England responded with an offer of assistance.
1908: In Buffalo, NY, Anna and Harry Prinzmetal gave birth to their second son, Dr. Myron Prinzmetal the pioneering cardiologist and the brother of attorney Isadore Prinzmetal.
http://www.prinzmetal.net/myron_prinzmetal.htm
1909: In Pennsylvania, founding of the Canonsburg Hebrew Association the officers of which are Joseph Levine, President; Maurice Levine, vice president; Benny Klee (who along with his wife owned a grocery store that had previously been operated by Markus Blaustein), treasurer; Samuel Rosenberg, trustee and Harry Levine, trustee
1910: The Hahambashi is formally asked if he has any recommendations for the Turkish authorities over the subject of Ottoman Jews in Persia. At the time the Persian ambassador to Turkey, Prince Mirza Riza Khan utilized the Hahambashi as the final decider of Jewish law.
1911: Supporters of Sigmund Freud attack Alfred Adler and his followers at a meeting of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. The Freudians believe “that sexual feelings and sexual repression are the primary motivations of human behavior” while “Adler insists that feelings of inferiority, mostly on the subconscious level, combined with compensatory defense mechanisms (like overcompensation) become the primary forces behind behavior - especially pathological behavior.”
1912: “Hokey Pokey,” a “potpourri of Weber-Field reminiscences” opened tonight at the Broadway Theatre. (Editor’s note: Weber-Field refers to Jewish vaudevillians Joe Weber and Lew Fields)
1913(1stof Adar I, 5673): Parashat Terumah and Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1913: This evening, “the Baron Hirsch Co-Workers” are scheduled to host “their third annual subscription dance in the Florentine Room of the Congress Hotel” under the leadership of “Miss Rose Weinfeld.”
1913: Boris Thomashefsky is scheduled to present “Dvorelle the MIcheses” at the Haymarket in Chicago.
1914: Jacob H. Schiff, Rabbi J.L. Magnes and Joseph Barondess, a Commissioner of the Board of Education addressed the annual meeting of the “officers and directors of Brownsville’s Hebrew Free School” today.
1915: In New York, Meyer Barmett, the Polish born son of Harris and Gittel Baran and his wife Sarah Barnett gave birth to Edna Barnett
1915: It was reported today that a gala event at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel has raised more than $7,000 for the Ladies’ Hebrew Fuel and Aid Society.
1915: In Denver, CO, Harry Lutstig and Jeanette Schamus gave birth award winning graphic designer Alvin Lustig, who studied at the Los Angeles City College and the Art Center College of Design who also taught at Black Mountain College and Yale.
http://www.designishistory.com/1940/alvin-lustig/
1915: It was reported today that plans have been for “a Palestine Pageant and Oriental Exposition” at the St. Luke’s Church in New York which will received support from “fourteen neighboring churches of various denominations.” (Editor’s Note - It would seem that the question of who “owns” Palestine is more complicated than one might already think.)
1916: “The American Jewish Relief Committee has issued a preliminary report of distribution showing that so far $1,085,000 has been sent to Russia, $660,000 to Germany, $430,000 to Austria-Hungary and $109,243 Palestine.
1916: “Alleging that the name of his family was being used to lure hundreds of poor east side Jews into a real estate venture, Jesse I. Straus, the son of Isidor Straus who lost on the Titantic, appeared at the District Attorney’s office” today “and urged immediate investigation of the Chatsworth Industrial Company.”
1916: “Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels notified Leon Sanders, President of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society” today “that the 60,000 pounds of matzoth which the organization is to send to Palestine would be taken on board the collier Sterling which is scheduled to leave Norfolk, VA for Alexandria, VA” in the next eight days.
1916: The concerns of Dr. M.J. Lewis reported today included “the worries of the older generation of Jews that so many of their offspring, in spite of the work of the Educational Alliance, are mistaking liberty for license and feel that their young are going astray. American ideas and ideals are causing a great gulf to spring up between the older and the younger. It is this gulf that is giving them concern.”
1917: Abraham Haim Weldberg, a native of Palestine was among those who applied for their citizenship papers today at the “county Naturalization Bureau” in New York.
1918: In the East of London, garment manufacture Philip Rayne and his wife gave birth to “property developer” and philanthropist Max Rayne whose good works led to him being made a “life peer” known as Baron Rayne.
1918: After completing three weeks of training. Solomon Landman was sent to Camp Hancock in Augusta, GA where he performed many of the functions of a social worker and a chaplain including visiting the sick in hospitals, setting up entertainment for the troops and conducting religious services.
1918: According to reports “from Zurich, in an interview with Rabbis Lipshitz, Treistman and Cahano, the Polish Premier Kucharzewski promised to submit to the Political Department, the rabbinical memorandum on anti-Semitic restrictions still prevailing in Poland and to satisfy the Jewish demands.”
1919(8thof Adar I, 5679): Parashat Terumah
1919: Rabbi Gerson B Levi led Shabbat services at B’nai Shalom Temple Israel on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue.
1919: In statement made public today by the ZOA, “Jacob H. Schiff said he favored the establishment of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine but found himself unable to endorse some of the phases of Zionist propaganda in particular the emphasis on Jewish nationalism at the expense of religion.
1919: After World War, Hugo Guttman the Jewish officer who successfully lobbied for Adolf Hitler to receive the Iron Cross First Class, “was demobilized from the German Army but was still maintained on the Army rolls as a Reserve Lieutenant.”
1920: The Illustrated Sunday Herald, a popular British Sunday newspaper, published an article by Winston Churchill urging the Jews of Russia and beyond to choose Zionism over Bolshevism. In one sense, Churchill saw Zionism as anti-dote for Jews who would otherwise be drawn the Communist cause.
1921: Birthdate of Immanuel Jakobovits, the native of Konigsberg, Germany who became the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.
1922: An auction is being held in Lorimer Hall where Boston realtor and Zionist Julius Nesson “is selling $3,000,000 worth of property” prior to his “departure for Palestine.”
1923: In Paddington, London “Italian actor Victor Rietti and Rachel Rosenay” gave birth to Lucio Rietti who gained fame as English actor Robert Rietti.
1923: The Völkischer Beobachter ("Völkisch Observer") the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party or Nazi Party was published as daily for the first time.
1925: Kaufman and Berlin's "Coconuts" premiered in New York City.
1926: Today, the “national headquarters of the $15,000,000 United Jewish Campaign announced ha A.W. Mclean, the Governor of North Carolina has 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.”
1927: It was reported today that although “financial difficulties have beset the American Zion Commonwealth, the organization responsible for the colonization of Palestine by Jews” it is in no danger of declaring bankruptcy according attorney Samuel J. Rosensohn.
1928(17thof Shevat, 5688): Forty-seven-year-old Lynchburg, VA native and Columbia trained attorney Norvin R. Lindheim and the husband of Hadassah President Irma Levy passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1928/02/09/91471664.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1929 While addressing members of Congregation B’nai Israel and Sheerith Judah which was celebrating its tenth anniversary, Mayor Walker “said Jewish philanthropy was the most inspiring thing he had met in the city and praised the Jews for their care of the young and the aged as well.”
1930: "Happy Days Are Here Again" by Benny Mereoff hits #1.
1931: In Cairo, King Faud opened the Museum of Modern Art which was located in a mansion that had been purchased by Elie Mosseri and donated to the government. Mosseri was a leading member of the Egyptian-Jewish community.
1934: Birthdate of Louis Katz, the long serving Yiddish copy editor of the Forward. (As reported by Paul Berger)
http://forward.com/articles/171250/the-forward-says-good-bye-to-mister-katz/?p=all
1935 (5th of Adar I, 5695): Max Liebermann leading German impressionist painter and graphic artist, passed away at the age of 87. Some of his works are on display at the Jewish Museum in New York. Once you see a Liebermann you want to see more.
http://www.liebermann-villa.de/en/biografie-max-liebermann.html
1935: “Rumba” a musical drama based on a story by Guy Endore was released in the United States today.
1935: In Wheeling, West Virginia, celebration of the 85th anniversary of the Eoff Street Temple is scheduled to continue for a second day.
1936(15thof Shevat, 5696): Parashat Beshalach, Shabbat Shirah, Tu B’Shevat
1936: In honor of the “Sabbath of Jewish Song” (known as Shabbat Shirah) Temple Emanu-El is scheduled to follow a special liturgy developed by the “Board of American Hazan-Minsters” of which Walter A. Davidson is secretary.
1936: “Three peasants were killed and several were wounded” when peasants ‘armed with pitchforks and clubs fought with the police “who were searing for the nationalist ringleaders who organized anti-Jewish riots in Zagorow, Poland.
1936: In Minneapolis, MN, two pharmacists, “Max Sadoff and the former Rose Carroll,” gave birth to pioneering forensic psychiatrist Dr. Robert L. Sadoff. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/us/robert-sadoff-dead-forensic-psychiatrist.html
http://jaapl.org/content/jaapl/36/3/286.full.pdf
1936: A national conference on Palestine at Washington D. C’s Willard Hotel which “is intended to formulate a comprehensive program to link the efforts of the Jews of” the United States “and of Europe in providing for the transportation” German, Polish and other European Jews to Palestine opened today.
1936: At Ann Arbor, MI, the celebration of the 70th birthday of Professor Moses Gomberg, the chair of the Chemistry Department included a gift of five thousand dollars by his “friends and students” in his honor to the school.
1936: In Paris, Andre and Yvonne (Cremieux) Istel gave birth to Princeton educated economist Yves-Andre Istel, who worked with Kuhn Loeb and Company, Lehman Brothers and Rothschild, Inc. and who was the husband of the former Nancy Lazarus.
1937: “The plight of the Jews was forcibly brought to the attention of the world” today with the startling report “that the Polish government planned the immediate ‘evacuation” of all of the more than three million Jews in Poland, “thereby confronting other nations with a migration problem of unprecedented dimensions.”
1937: “The Man Who Could Work Miracles” directed by Lothar Mendes, produced by Alexander Korda, with music by Mischa Spoliansky and filmed by cinematographer Harold Rosson was released today in the United Kingdom.
1937: “Nationalism Casts Polish Jews Aside” published today described a “drive similar to that in the Reich that aims to ‘Polonize’ towns and the country’s businesses” which means the government has thrown its political and economic might on the side of 22 million Poles and to ignore the needs of the Jewish population which it considers to be “surplus.”
1938: In Rome, the Minister for Popular Culture issued an official statement today denying “rumors published in various foreign newspapers” describing “measures taken against the intellectual activity of the Jews” including a ban on Jews speaking on the radio and a ban on all books and plays by Jewish authors.
1938: Today, Tribuna, “one of Rome’s two principal Fascist dailies printed a two-column review of In the Dawn of a World by Franz Werfel.
1939: “Thirty people marched tonight from a wine cellar in downtown Vienna to a near-by Nazi headquarters shouting ‘Down with Roosevelt, Down with Jews, Heil Hitler.’”
1939: “The contention that Palestine is the only country where Jews from Germany and Central Europe can be received on a scale that will solve the refugee was stressed tonight by Dr. Chaim Weizmann” as he started to present the Jewish case at the opening of the hearings in London.
1940: The first ghetto was set up by the Nazis in Lodz. The idea was to bring in all Jews from the surrounding areas in order to make it easier to proceed with the "Final Solution." By the first of May, 160,000 Jews would have been herded into the Ghetto.
1940: Edzia Abbe and her family were among the Jews forced to move into what would become the Lodz ghetto.
1940: Birthdate of Ted Koppel, ABC newsman and host of Nightline. Koppel was born in England where his parents had fled to escape Hitler’s Germany. According to one source, Koppel’s proudest possession is a family Torah Scroll.
https://www.biography.com/people/ted-koppel-9368366
1941: Lord Moyne, the British leader who would be murdered by Lehi in 1944, began serving as Secretary of State for the Colonies in the cabinet led by his friend Winston Churchill. He also assumed the leadership position in the House of Lords per the appointment of Churchill who as commoner served in the House of Commons.
1942: Herman Barron defeated Henry Picard by two strokes to win the Western Open in Phoenix, AZ. This made him the first Jewish golfer to win a PGA Tour event.
1942: Birthdate of actor and comedian Robert Klein.
1942: Fritz Todt, Hitler’s Minister of Armaments died in a plane crash today paving the way for Albert Speer to assume all of his powerful positions in the Third Reich – an assumption of power that should have led him to the gallows at Nuremberg.
1942: Author Hans Gunther Adler was deported along with his wife Gertrude Klepetar to Theresienstadt where he would spend the next three years of his life and she would die.
1942: Much to the disappointment of the Nazis only 359 Jews (137 women) from the Kovno ghetto arrived in Riga. The German Civil Administration in Lithuania had originally requested 1,000 male Jews.
1943: Sixty-seven-year-old Frederick Paul Keppel who Third Assistant Secretary of War during World War I played a role in having “a double triangle placed above the graves of the Jewish soldiers” who died in France “instead of the cross” passed away today.
1944(14thof Shevat, 5704): Seventy-four-year-old Bernhard Rothschild, the German born son of Sibilla Rothschild and the “husband of Henriette (Jetta) Rothschild” passed away today.
1944(14thof Shevat, 5704): Fifty-three-year-old Newark, NJ, native and New Jersey Law School trained attorney, Judge William Unterman, “the chairman of the Ninth Ward Democratic Club” and “President of the Third District of B’nai B’rith who was the husband of Esther Untermann passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1944/02/09/86846234.pdf
1944(14thof Shevat, 5704): Seventy-seven-year-old “Sir Elly (Eleaszer Silas) Kadoorie, Bagdad-born Jewish philanthropist, who was taken prisoner by the Japanese in Hong Kong” passed away today. (As reported by JTA)
1944(14thof Shevat, 5704): Eighty-six-year-old Bernard Sachs, the American neurologist who is the Sachs in Tay-Sachs Disease an honor he earned because he “provided a more comprehensive description of the disease, and in 1887 noted its higher occurrence in Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe” passed away today.
https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/bernard-sachs-1858-1944
http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/403.html
1944: The Nazis deported 1,000 Jews from Holland to Birkenau, including 268 hospital patients.
1945: The Alsos Mission, a sub-set of Robert Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project which was “established to investigate enemy scientific developments involving nuclear weapons chemical and biological weapons, and the means to deliver them” “reopened its forward headquarters in Strasbourg as Alsos Forward South (AFwdS0”
1945(23rdof Tevet, 5705): Twenty days before his 99th birthday, Daniel Harris who 1864 enlisted in the Navy where he served aboard the Saratoga as part of the force blockading Confederate ports and was part of a detachment of five thousand sailors who fought on land at Charleston, SC passed away today meaning that were no more survivors of the “8,000 Jewish soldiers who fought on the Union side during the Civil War.
1946: In Palestine, Jewish newspapers respond to an attack on a British military installation followed by a British rampage aimed at the Jews of Cholon by publishing editorials calling on the Jewish population to reject the tactics of terrorism in their quest to create a Jewish homeland regardless of British or Arab provocations. An editorial in the Palestine Post calls on the Jews to “ferret out extremists” and to remember that “lawless violence will generate lawless violence—from which the innocent invariably suffer more than the guilty. In its editorial, Haaretz“declared these incidents had given the Jewish people an ‘opportunity of reminding itself that forces are being let loose that cannot after be controlled…We have to pursue the difficult struggle against British policy and there many ways of doing it. Our fight is against British policy, not against British soldiers.’”
1947: Birthdate of MIT grad Gerald Jay “Gerry” Sussman who became the Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering at his alma mater where he developed a specialty in artificial intelligence.
1948: Today, at the 19thannual luncheon of the Jewish Teachers Association, M. Maldwin Fertig, the “former Commissioner of Markets’ called for the “lifting of the embargo on arms to Palestine” which would help to put an end to Arab defiance of the U.N. partition plan.
1949: Formation of Shabak or Shin Bet, the Israel security service
1951: Birthdate of Deborah Lynn Friedman, who as Debbie Friedman would change the face of Jewish music in the last half of the 20th century.
1952(11thof Shevat, 5712): Eighty-four-year-old Max W. Wallenstein, one of the four children of Esther and Solomon Wallenstein passed away.
1952: “Lambert the Sheepish Lion” an animated short film featuring the voices of Stan Freberg and June Foray was released today in the United States.
1957(7thof Adar I, 5717): Maurice Finkelstein, the Syracuse, NY born son of Hannah and Simon Isaac Finkelstein, the husband of Naomi Finkelstein and father of Helen and James Finkelstein passed away today in New York City.
1958: Birthdate of actor Barry Miller.
1959(30thof Shevat, 5719): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1959(30thof Shevat, 5719): Sixty-year-old “Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter and columnist” Meyer Berg, the husband of “Mrs. Mae Gamsu Berger” passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/02/09/80760429.pdf
1960: “Tiger at the Gates” co-produced by Henry Weinstein, co-directed by Harold Culman and featuring David Hurst as the “Poet Propagandist” was broadcast today as “The Play of the Week.”
1961: A three day meeting of “B’nai B’rith Youth leaders” during which Herman Edelberg , the Washington Director of the ADL “pointed out that the 1960 Presidential election” in which America elected its first Catholic President was “another evident that prejudice is declining in the United States.”
1962: In Bnei Brak, Professor Yaakov Rand, a winner of the Israel Prize for his contribution to special education who is also a chazzan and his wife gave birth Ophir Award winning Israeli entertainer Shalom “Shuli” Rand who is also a Haredi Jews.
1962: It was reported today that Carl Foreman “of the nation's most successful writer-producers sees little hope that Hollywood can avert almost complete destruction as a moviemaking center” and has said that the movie industry here could be saved only by Federal subsidy and the establishment of an industry-sponsored school to train new creative and technical talents.”
1966(18thof Shevat, 5726): Eighty-two-year-old Russian-born American mathematical physicist Paul Epstein passed away today.
http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=epstein-paul-sophus-1883-1966-cr.xml
http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/pepstein.pdf
1964: After 149 performances “Chips with Everything,” a play by Arnold Wexler finished its Broadway run.
1967(28thof Shevat, 5727): Seventy-three-year-old British publisher Sir Victor Gollancz passed away today.
1967: Falastin, a Jaffa based Palestinian newspaper founded in 1911 “that became one the most influential newspapers in Ottoman and British Palestine” ceased publication today.
1968(9thof Shevat, 5728): Eighty-seven-year old Rabbi Eliezer Silver, the Lithuanian born son of Rabbi Bunim Tzemach and Malka Silver who in 1907 came to the United States where he “worked as a garment salesman” and sold life insurance before returning to the pulpit during which he was part of the delegation that went to see President Taft about voiding the treaty with Russia in an attempt to improve the lot of Russian Jewry and who was founder and president of Agudath Israel, passed away today.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/eliezer-silver
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/02/09/79933172.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1970: “Israeli fighters shot down two Egyptian MIG-21s in an aerial dogfight over the Nile delta this morning” during “a 50-minute raid on Egyptian artillery emplacement and bunkers in the souther sector of the Suez Canal zone.” (JTA)
1970: In an interview published today, Premier Golda Meier told James Reston and James Feron that Israel “would return to the austerity conditions of the early 1950’s if necessary, to pay for the additional Phantom jets and other weapons requested from the United States.
1971: The NASDAQ stock market index, which Bernie Madoff helped to create, makes its debut. According to some, the confidence that Madoff built up in his role with NASDAQ, would become a tool in the creation of the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
1972(23rdof Shevat): Seventy-eight-year-old Samuel Pinanski, the President of the American Theatres Corporation and the Hebrew Free Loan Society passed away today.
1973(6th of Adar I, 5733): Max Yasgur, the owner of the farm where Woodstock took place, passed away.
1974: “Many leading figures in British show business appealed to Soviet authorities to allow Panov to emigrate to Israel with his wife.”
1975: Opening session of the Second National Conference in Solidarity with Chile co-sponsored by Herbert Aptheker, the youngest child of wealthy Jewish family from Brooklyn who became a leading Marxist.
1976: The first recorded meeting of what would become the Women's Rabbinic Network took place.
1976: “The Taxi Driver” produced by Julia and Michael Phillips, co-starring Albert Brooks and Harvey Keitel and with music by Bernard Hermann was released in the United States today.
1978(1stof Adar I, 5738): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1978(1stof Adar I, 5738): Fifty-one German born Arnulf M. Pins the “director for the Middle East Region of the Joint Distribution Committee, and associate director of JDC-Israel” passed away today in Jerusalem.
http://en.sw.huji.ac.il/book/dr-arnulf-m-pins-%E2%80%93-memoriam
1980: “American Gigolo” an oddly plotted crime movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer was released in the United States today.
1981: In a case of Jew on Jew, the curtain came down on a revival of The Five O’Clock Girl, a Harry Ruby and Bert Kalamar musical which Times critic Frank Rich described as"amiably silly" saying it "is not without passing interest as an arcane footnote to theatrical history, but as entertainment in 1981 it's a pretty slim affair,” adding that "the show's book is tiresomely long, and its gags are unshucked corn” meaning that “we're living just for the songs, and very few of them prove to be worth living for."
1982(15thof Shevat, 5742): Tu B’Shevat
1982(15thof Shevat, 5742): Just two days before his 65th birthday, Edward Lawrence “Eddie” Turchin, an infielder for the 1943 Cleveland Indians passed away today in Brookhaven, NY.
1983(25thof Shevat, 5743): Eighty-four-year-old “Alfred Wallenstein, the conductor, cellist, classical music pioneer on radio and former music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic” passed away today. (As reported by Allen Hughes)
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/10/obituaries/alfred-wallenstein-the-conductor-dies-at-84.html
1983: The Kahan Commission released its report today.
1983: Florence Lacaze Gould, the daughter of Maximin and Berthe Lacaze, the wife of Frank Jay Gould and the daughter-in-law of the infamous Jay Gould whose role as a Nazi collaborator was described in Susan Ronald’s A Dangerous Womanpassed away today.
1984(5thof Adar I, 5744): Eight-one year old Mordechai Shapira, the son of Avraham and Liba Rochel Shapira and the husband of Batya Shapira, passed away today in Petah Tikva.
1988: A commission of historians charged by the Austrian Government to look into President Kurt Waldheim's wartime record reported today that he must have been aware of atrocities committed around him and did nothing about them, and that he tried to conceal his military past
1990: Herb Gray, a member of the Liberal Party, began serving as Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian Parliament today.
1991: Victor Erlich, the grandson of Henryk Erlich was informed that according to a decree passed under Russian president Boris Yeltsin, Victor Alter, together with Erlich had been "rehabilitated" and the repressions against them had been declared unlawful. Victor Alter had been a Jewish leader of the Bund who was arrested by the NKVD and eventually executed by Stalin as part of his plan to murder any of those who might work for a non-Communist Poland after the end of the War.
1991: Israeli media reported that three soldiers had been wounded when Jordanian gunmen sneaked across the border and threw a hand grenade at a military bus. A few hours later, an Israeli guard in Jerusalem shot and wounded a Palestinian who attacked him with an ax.
1991(24thof Shevat, 5751): Ninety-five-year-old Irving Maidman, the Ukrainian born son of Jacob and Rose Maidman and the “husband of Byrdie Maidman” passed away today in Queens, NY. (He is not to be confused with the New York realtor of the same name)
1991(24thof Shevat, 5751): Eighty-five-year-old photographer Aaron Siskind passed away today. (As reported by Andy Gundberg)
http://m.theartstory.org/artist-siskind-aaron.htm
1992(4thof Adar I, 5752): Ninety-three-year-old Yiddish Art Theatre actor Baruch Lumet the father of Sidney Lumet the filmmaker responsible for such hits as Serpico and Network passed away today.
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt2199p8q5/
1997(1stof Adar I, 5757): Parashat Mishpatim; Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1997: Tonight, at a dinner party attended by “some of the most loyal Clinton enthusiasts” when Frank Rich “raised the question of Madeline Albright’s sudden discovery of her Jewish roots” his query was greeted with “eye-rolling and sarcasm” which included “one prominent Jewish friend of both the Clintons and the Secretary of State” not hesitating “to characterize Ms. Albright's professed ignorance about her past: ''She didn't want to know from Jewish.''
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace That Is Remaking the Modern Worldby Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw and the newly released paperback edition of Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger by Elizabeth Ettinger
1998(12thof Shevat, 5758): Ninety-five-year-old Joseph Baruch (J.B.) Salsberg who “was a Labor-Progressive member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1943 to 1955” passed away today.
2000: “The conflict in Lebanon continued to heat up today as Shiite Muslim guerrillas killed another Israeli soldier, the sixth in two weeks, and Israeli warplanes retaliated less than 24 hours after their first bombardment shut down civilian life in Lebanon.”
2001(15thof Shevat, 5761): Tu B’Shevat
2001: “A Brazilian production of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Company’ opened today at the Teatro Villa-Lobos in Rio de Janeiro.”
2001: Hamas claimed responsibility for today’s Beit Yisrael Bombing in which two people were injured in Jerusalem.
2001(15thof Shevat, 5761): Eighty-eight-year-old pioneering dancer and choreographer Pauline Koner passed away today. (As reported by Jack Anderson and Lewis Segal)
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/09/arts/pauline-koner-dies-at-88-dancer-and-choreographer.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/feb/10/local/me-23770
2002: The XIX Olympic Winter Games, during which 16-year-old Sarah Hughes won a gold medal, opened today in Salt Lake City.
2002: “Jewish involvement of Patriots' owner extends to Israel” by Jacob Horowitz, reported today that Robert Kraft may or may not have said the Shehechiyanu when his New England Patriots scored the game-winning field goal in Sunday's Super Bowl, but there was no mistaking the elation of this Jewish businessman and philanthropist.
2003: “With his re-election campaign behind him and the task of forming a new governing coalition still incomplete, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has resumed direct contacts with senior Palestinian officials, Israeli and Palestinian aides said today.”
2004(16th of Shevat, 5764): Julius "Julie" Schwartz American comic book and science fiction editor passed away. He is best known as a longtime editor at DC Comics, where at various times he was primary editor over the company's flagship superheroes, Superman and Batman.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Julius_Schwartz
2004:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror
by David Frum and Richard Perle and Someone To Run With by David Grossman; translated by Vered Almog and Maya Gurantz.
2005: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas announced a cease-fire at a summit in Egypt.
2005: “Fateless,” an Hungarian “based on the semi-autobiographical novel Fatelessnessby the Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertész, who also wrote the screenplay” which “tells the story of a teenage boy who is sent to concentration camps at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Zeitz” was released today in Hungary, Germany and the United Kingdom.
2006: Haaretzreported that IDF confiscated a stolen seventh-century synagogue mosaic. An archaeologist said the mosaic seized from Palestinian antiquities thieves appears to have been cut from the floor of a previously unknown synagogue that dates back to the 7th century.
2006: In Hebron international observers end their decade-long presence following attacks by Palestinians.
2007(20thof Shevat, 5767): Ninety-five-year-old Florence Melton “an inventor of the foam soled washable slipper and the mother of Gordon Zacks and Barry Zacks passed away today.
http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/florence-zack-melton-95-invented-foam-slippers/48510/
2007: The 11th annual New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival closed after a week long run.
2008: At the Folger Library in Washington, D.C. Daniel Mendelssohn, author of The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million participates in a PEN/Faulkner event entitled "Imagination as Subversion: The Role of Imagination in Memoir & Nonfiction."
2009: The Sunday New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Jerusalem File“Joel Stone’s adamantly anti-heroic novel about a former Israeli security officer who has lost his will to live,”The Samaritan’s Secret, Matt Beynon Rees’ latest thriller which “finds the protagonist Omar Yussef in Nablus, helping his friend Sami Jaffari, a lieutenant with the national police, investigate the theft of a priceless Torah scroll (said to be the oldest book in the world) from a Samaritan sect’s synagogue” and the recently released paperback version of The Conscience of a Liberal byPaul Krugman.
2009: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann, the English author who is the son of two Jewish immigrants and Is God A Mathematician byMario Livio a Romanian born Jewish astrophysicists who was educated in Israel, served with IDF and is currently the senior astrophysicist at the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore
2009: This evening, Hila Plitmann, the 36-year-old Israeli operatic soprano, won her Grammy for Best Classical Performance as vocalist on a recording of Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan (2000), an original composition for full orchestra and amplified soprano by John Corigliano using the lyrics of Dylan and performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnne Falletta.
2010: The New York premiere of “Salvador: The Ship of Shattered Hopes” is scheduled to take place tonight at the 14th New York Sephardic Film Festival is schedule.
2010: In Washington, the DCJCC is scheduled to present a program entitled “Sanctuary in Israel: The Plight of African Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Israel Today.”
2010: Eleven people were arrested as Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren was repeatedly interrupted while trying to deliver an address tonight at the University of California, Irvine.
2010: Unknown assailants torched a building housing a Conservative synagogue in Arad tonight, a year after a failed attempt to burn the shul.
2010: Chancellor Arnodl Eisen and JTS Provost Alan Cooper met with about 100 students, faculty and alumni to discuss the recent announcement that the position of deal of the JTS cantorial school has been eliminated.
2010(25 Shevat, 5770): Ninety-four-year-old Rabbi Bernard Lander, founder and president of Touro College, passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/nyregion/15lander.html?_r=0
2011: Members of Maryland’s Jewish community are scheduled to meet with the Governor, Lt. Governor and state legislators as part of The Maryland Jewish Community 2011 Annapolis Advocacy Day.
2011: Opening night of the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.
2011: Two Kassam rockets slammed into a field and a parking lot in a kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev regional council at around 11 a.m.
2012(15thof Shevat, 5772): Tu B’Shevat
2012: Based on a previous announcement by Ofer Eini, chairman of Histadrut, a general strike in support of contract workers is scheduled to begin today shutting down banks, the Bank of Israel, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), buses, railways, the courts, national parks, local authorities, and government ministries
2012: LilithEditor in Chief Susan Weidman Schneider and Michelle Brafman, a writer and fiction teacher at GWU and the Johns Hopkins MA in writing program, are scheduled to facilitate an evening devoted to discussing the influences of naming practices on the identities of Jewish women.
2012: Former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan kicked off a new movement calling for changes in the political system today by warning that the current system could result in faulty decision-making on key issues like Iran.
2012: Gilad Schalit, the IDF soldier held in Hamas captivity for five years before being released in October, was welcomed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to the Élysée Palace in Paris on today. 2013: “Excellence” a concert featuring the Young Piano Masters of the Aldwell Institute of the Jerusalem Conservatory of Music and Dance is scheduled to take place at the Eden-Tamir Music Center
2013: An IISHJ (International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism) Seminar, “Matzah Without Dogma: Four Centuries of Secular and Humanistic Judaism,” featuring Rabbi Adam Chalom is scheduled to begin at Silver Spring, MD.
2013: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu today condemned an arson attack at Betar Jerusalem soccer club's offices overnight, calling it "disgraceful."
2013: As snow began falling across the Northeastern US today, ushering in what was predicted to be a huge, possibly historic blizzard — and sending residents scurrying to stock up on food, and gas up their cars — some synagogues announced they would be canceling weekend services. At least two synagogues in Providence, R.I., called off Shabbat services this weekend in light of the expected severe weather. More than two feet of snow were expected in Providence, one of the highest predicted snowfalls on the East Coast this weekend.
2013: A British judge ordered Google to help identify people who may have defamed a London rabbi accused of inappropriate conduct toward women.
2014: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host the “Ninth Annual Comedy” night featuring Monica Piper
2014: “The Attack” is scheduled to be shown at The David Posnack JCC’s 14thannual Jewish Film Festival
2014: “The Girl on the Train” is scheduled to be shown at the 24th annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival
2014: For its Joyce Theatre debut, the company created by talented Israeli choreographers Lee Sher and Saar Harari is scheduled to perform the New York premiere of Grass and Jackals, a dance piece and light spectacle.
2014: “An Israeli activist from the leftist Ta'ayush organization says he was attacked today in the West Bank by a group of masked settlers who beat him with clubs.” (As reported by Eilor Levy)
2014: Former CIA Director James Woolsey told Israeli Channel 10 TV today that “anti-Semitism could be a factor in the US refusal to release” Jonathan Pollard.
2014: For the fourth time this week, Palestinian terrorists in Gaza fired a rocket this evening in southern Israel. (As reported by Matan Tsuri)
2014: In “At Look at a Real Man Portrayed in Monuments Men” Jamie Stengle profiles the character portrayed by Matt Damon -- James Rorimer the museum curator and director of the Metropolitan Museum who Cleveland born Jew, a fact not mentioned in the movie for some strange reason.
http://chronicle.augusta.com/life/2014-02-08/look-real-man-portrayed-monuments-men
2015: The Jewish National Fund of Canada - 2015 Tu Bi'Shevat Telethon is scheduled to take place today.
2015: “At the dedication of the Zelikow School” today Richard Siegel stated, “Now more than ever, Jewish organizations, whether start-ups or legacy institutions, need business-savvy, Jewishly educated, and visionary professional leaders to help them address both the enormous challenges and significant opportunities facing the Jewish world and the broader society.”
2015: Four ultra-Orthodox protesters were arrested today during a Jerusalem protest against IDF enlistment, that featured vandalism including setting fire to trash dumpsters.
2015:“Comedian Joan Rivers won a posthumous Grammy Award” tonight in the category of Best Spoken Word Album for the audio version of her 2014 memoir “Diary of a Mad Diva.” (As reported by Lior Zaltzman)
2015: In Coralville, IA the children of Agudas Achim are scheduled to celebrate Tu B’Shevat by planting herb and vegetable seeds which they will transplant in the Spring.
2015: Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to “mark the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide with a powerful symposium that examines the United States' response to the genocide through the lens of the Near East Relief, the first non-governmental, non-sectarian, ecumenical of its kind.”
2015: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington and Adas Israel are scheduled to co-host “Voices of the Vigil – A Movement in Music” during which Robyn Helzner “shares her experiences as an activist in the Soviet Jewry movement.”
2015: The Eyal Vilner Big Band is scheduled to bring the timeless sounds of the Swing Era to Smalls Jazz Club.
2015: Today, “the all-female Jewish pop-rock group, HAIM was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.”
2015: The “Los Angeles' Musical Theatre Guild performed a one-night engagement of” James Moross’ “‘The Golden Apple’ with full orchestra at the Moss Theatre in Santa Monica.”
2015: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Test: Why Our Schools Are Obsessed With Standardized Testing — But You Don’t Have to Be by Anya Kamenetz and the recently released paperback edition of Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen.
2016: “For You Were Once Strangers” is scheduled to be shown at the Bow Tie Cinemas.
2016: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host an “Insider's Talk with Chief Curator Hetty Berg of Amsterdam's Jewish Historical Museum.”
2016: An unidentified Arab stabbed and wounded an eleven year old boy in Ramle today.
2016: With the memory of last week’s fatal stabbing of border policewoman Hadar Cohen fresh in their minds. “Jerusalem police guarding the Damascus Gate…arrested an Arab woman carrying a large knife.”
2016: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host an evening exploring the life of Hungarian Jewry based on How They Lived: The Everyday Lives of Hungarian Jews, 1867-1940 by Andras Koerner.
2017: In Memphis, TN, Temple Israel’s Barbara K. Lipman Early Learning Center is scheduled to host a carnival style celebration of Tu B’Shevat.
2017: In a testament to the vitality of small-town Jewry, the Agudas Achim book club in Coralville, IA is scheduled to discuss Moonglow by Michael Chabon.
2017: Suzanne Schnieder is scheduled to present the second class on “Separation Anxiety: Religion and the Modern State” which explores the role of separation of church and state in democratic states.
2018: The Illinois Holocaust Commission is scheduled to co-host “If Not Now, When!” a panel discussion on the ‘impace and response to the Rohingya Genocide.
2018: The 28th Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open today.
2018: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the final screening of “Menashe” which is a rarity since it is a full-length feature film in Yiddish.
2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a pub crawl starting at Turf Tavern during the 4th week of Hilary Term.
2018: The New York Times reported today that “insufficient rains in India have led to several years of a reduced chickpea harvest” which could drive up the price of hummus. (Editor’s note – this would be a real problem for Sabra which at one time was the official dip of the National Football League.)
2018: “The Foreign Ministry today appointed a new ambassador to Jordan, Amir Weissbrod, weeks after Jerusalem and Amman agreed to end a diplomatic standoff over the shooting deaths of two Jordanians by an Israeli security guard who Israel said opened fire in self-defense when under attack.” (As reported by Raphael Ahren)
2018: The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to host an evening with Brandeis University art historian Peter R. Kalb and artist Ben Schachter as they discuss issued raised in Schacter’s latest book, Image, Action and Idea in Contemporary Jewish Art.
2018: As part of Black History Month, Albion College is scheduled to host a screening and discussion of “Rosenwald: The Remarkable Story of a Jewish Partnership with African-American Communities.”
2019: Limmud Baltics is scheduled to begin today.
2019(3rdof Adar I, 5779): Ninety-two-year-old Kreminologist and survivor of both the Lodz ghetto Seweryn Bailer, the husband of Joan Afferica passed away today. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)
2019: The annual conference co-sponsored by the Dubnow Institute at the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture that took “a fresh look at the work of Else Lasker-Schuler” on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of her birth is scheduled to come to an end today.
2019: Valerie Hansen is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the “De-Centering the Global Middle Ages” a two-day symposium co-sponsored by The Jean and Samuel Frankel for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan.
2020: In Winthrop, MA, Temple Tifereth Israel is schedule to “celebrate Tu B’Shvat with an Israeli style wine party.”
2020: In Corte Madera, CA, Book Passage Marin is scheduled to host Andy Winberger talking of about An Old Man’s Game, his book about a retired Jewish private eye hired by a temple to investigate a situation.
2020: In San Francisco is scheduled to host an “Émigré Community Gala” during which the S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services hosts fundraiser honoring community members.”
2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a “Walking Tour of Jewish Oxford Past and Present.”
2020: In Cambridge, the Royal Sonesta Boston is scheduled to host “Chai in the Hub 2020.”
2020(13thof Shevat, 5780): Shabbat Shirah; Parashat Beshalach;
2021: The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County is scheduled to begin its online auction.
2021: The Lappin Foundation is schedule to present online “Space Torah” which billed as “a thrilling journey into space with NASA astronaut Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman.
2021: Sha’ar Zahav is scheduled to present Theologian Jonathon Thunderword who will talk about his soon-to-be-published book about his journey from Christianity to Judaism and Eastern traditions, and subtitled “Journey-Making with a Black Transgender Elder.”
2021: The Chabad Center of Natick is scheduled to present “Code to Joy: The World’s Happiest Kept Secret” that “explores a simple premise: Happiness isn’t just something that happens to you; it’s an approach, an attitude, an understanding of the world and your place in it.”
2021: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host Mike Solomonov, the award-winning chef and restaurateur behind Philadelphia’s Zahav, during the first session of “Bringing Israel Home.”
2021: Founding Director of the Clalit Research Institute, and senior advisor to the coronavirus cabinet, Prof. Ran Balicer, warned the ministerial coronavirus Cabinet that lifting the nationwide closure in the midst of an infection surge could lead to rising mortality among the country's younger population” while “Israel's vaccine deniers have noticeably stepped up their efforts in the last few days, both online and on the streets.”