March 24
1244(18th of Nisan): Rabbi Meir Abulafya Ha-Levi (Ramah) an opponent of Maimonides and author of Yad Ramah passed away today.
1267: The government of Barcelona gave the Jews permission to repair their synagogue.
1267: Louis IX, IX who at the request of the Pope Gregory burned “24 cartload of Jewish books in 1242, made plans to expel the Jews after confiscating their property and ordered them to wear a “Jew’s badge” and “to listen to missionary sermons” and his three sons “took up the Cross” for what was to be the 8th Crusade.
1284: Hugues de Lusignan the son of Henry of Antioch and Isabelle de Lusignan, the daughter of king Hugh I of Cyprus, who, in one of those minor ironies of history, was the King of Jerusalem even though the Christian Crusaders had lost control of the city at the end of the 12th century, passed away today.
1488(13th of Nisan): Rabbi Obadiah Bertinoro, author of a popular Mishnah commentary arrived in Jerusalem
1564: The Pope authorized the printing of the Talmud in Mantua on condition that the word Talmud would be omitted from the text. From the opening years of the sixteenth century, Mantua was a leading center of Jewish printing. A husband-and-wife duo, Abraham and Estellina Conat shared equally in printing and promoting Jewish texts. By the seventeenth century, the situation of the Jews of Mantua had worsened as they, like Italian Jews in many other cities, were forced to live behind Ghetto Walls.
1564: The index of Pius IV. of Trent, which appeared today permitted the Jews to use Hebrew and even Talmudic books, provided they were printed without the word "Talmud," and were purged from vituperations against the Christian religion. The expurgation of Hebrew books, thus expressly declared admissible, was henceforth regularly undertaken before printing, either by the Jews themselves or by Christian correctors; and this accounts for the more or less mutilated state of reprints since the middle of the sixteenth century.
1575(3rdof Nisan, 5335): Joseph Caro, author of the Shulchan Aruch, passed away today at Safed.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Caro.html
1603: Queen Elizabeth I passed away at the age of 69, having ruled since 1558. Although Elizabethan England was supposedly Jew-free, there were several small Marrano communities in the British Isles. In 1588, Dr. Hector Nunes, one of these secret Jews provided the English leaders with the invaluable intelligence that the Spanish Armada had reached Lisbon which was its first stop as it headed north to attack England. On the other hand, Dr. Roerigo Lopez was Elizabeth’s physician in 1586 and he ended being accused of being part of a plot to kill the Queen. While the evidence was flimsy, it was thought better to execute him given the many threats against her life. The fate of Lopez gave rise to Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. This in turn inspired Marlowe’s competitor, William Shakespeare to write The Merchant of Venice.
1630(11th of Nisan, 5390): Isaiah Horowitz, Shelah ha-Kadosh (the holy Shelah) passed away in Tiberias.
http://shl2gur.tripod.com/shla.htm
1648(27thof Adar, 5408): Seventy-six-year-old Leon of Modena a Jewish scholar, born in Venice in 1571, of a notable French family which had migrated to Italy after the expulsion of the Jews from France passed away today. He was a precocious child, but, as Graetz points out, his lack of stable character prevented his gifts from maturing. "He pursued all sorts of occupations to support himself, viz. those of preacher, teacher of Jews and Christians, reader of prayers, interpreter, writer, proof-reader, bookseller, broker, merchant, rabbi, musician, matchmaker and manufacturer of amulets." Though he failed to rise to real distinction he earned a place by his criticism of the Talmud among those who prepared the way for the new learning in Judaism. One of Leon's most effective works was his attack on the Kabbala, Ari Nohem, first published in 1840, for in it he demonstrated that the "Bible of the Kabbalists", the Zohar, was a modern composition by Moses de Leon. He became best known, however, as the interpreter of Judaism to the Christian world. At the insistence of an English nobleman he prepared an account of the religious customs of the Synagogue, Riti Ebraici (1637). This book was widely read by Christians; it was rendered into various languages, and in 1650 was translated into English by Edward Chilmead. At the time the Jewish question was coming to the fore in London, and Leon of Modena's book did much to stimulate popular interest. He died at Venice.
1656: After the outbreak of war between England and Spain, Jews living in England petitioned Cromwell to stay insisting that they were not Spaniards but rather Marranos. Although Cromwell chose not to officially reply to today’s request, he permitted the community to establish a Jewish Cemetery, and for protection during prayers. His unwritten agreement was conditioned on there being no public Jewish worship. This is considered by many to mark the official end of the expulsion of the Jews from England.
1664: Roger Williams was granted a charter to colonize Rhode Island. Unlike Massachusetts, Rhode Island was not governed as a theocracy. Rhode Island helped create the atmosphere of toleration that would become the American model thus making the United States a unique place for Jews to live.
1733: Birthdate of British theologian Joseph Priestly who 1786 published “Letter to the Jews” in which he urged them to convert that elicited a length answer from David Levin which led to the publication of his three volume Dissertation on the Prophecies of the Old Testament.
1743(28th of Adar): Rabbi Raphael Immanuel Ricchi author of Mishnat Hasidim passed away
1755: In Binswagen, Germany, Lazarus Liebermann Baldauf and Leopold Loeb Baldauf gave birth to Nathan Baldauf.
1756: Bordeaux, France native Daniel Nones and Ester Alvares gave birth to Sara Nones.
1764(20thof Adar II, 5524): Parashat Shimini; Shabbat Parah
1769(15thof Adar II, 5529) Shushan Purim
1769: On the same day that Jews are reveling in holiday celebrating their deliverance from Haman, the Spanish Inquisition gained new ground as the first two parties set out to build Spanish settlements in Alta California, an area which includes what is now California, Nevada, Utah and portions of four other western states.
1788: In New York, Hannah Isaacks and Jacob Phillips who were married at Newport, RI in 1785 gave birth to Abraham Phillips.
1794: Start of the Kościuszko Uprising. Tadeusz Kościuszko, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, announced the general uprising against the Russian occupiers and assumed the powers of the Commander in Chief of all of the Polish forces. Jews, in a Jewish regiment led by Berek Joselewicz, took part in the failed uprising which led to the third and final partition of Poland in 1795.
1795: Birthdate of Zvi (Zwi) Hirsch Kalischer “an Orthodox rabbi and one of Zionism's early pioneers in Germany.”
1796(14thof Adar II, 5556): Purim observed for the last time during the Presidency of George Washington.
1801: Alexander I became Czar of the Russian Empire. He ruled until his death in 1825. His treated his Jewish subjects poorly at the beginning and at the end of his reign. In the middle years which were marked by the wars with Napoleon, Alexander was impressed by the loyalty of his Jewish subjects in the fight against the French. He received unexpected help from the head of the Chabad Chassidim. Like other Christian leaders, Alexander sought to convert the Jews which was the source of any beneficence he might have shown them. When “killing them with kindness” failed, he went back to killing them with starvation, misery and impoverishment.
1807(14th of Adar II, 5567): Purim
1813: In Argentina, the inquisition was officially abolished. Two months later the Assembly passes regulations allowing freedom of practicing religion if it is observed in one’s home.
1816: Sampson ben Abraham married Pescha bat Shermari Solomon at the Western Synagogue.
1817: Leah and Solomons and Aaron Jacobs gave birth to Edward Jacobs.
1818: American statesman Henry Clay wrote: 'All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All separated from government are compatible with liberty.' No, Henry Clay was not Jewish. But his statement on the relationship between government and organized religion provides a clue as to why Jews have flourished in America and how wrong some modern politicians are in their statements about separation of church and state.
1820: Birthdate of Elizabeth Rachel Felix, who gained fame as Mademoiselle Rachel, the great French Tragedienne
1820: First public performance of Marche Funebre et De Profundis en Hebreu, a funeral march composed by Jacques Fromenthal Halevy that had been commissioned by the Consistoire Israélite du Départment de la Seine, for a public service in memory of the Duke de Berry, in the Jewish community's temple. This liturgical composition which helped launch Halevy’s career was meant to be performed by a vocal trio and orchestra. On its engraved title page, Halevy was described as a member of the Royal Institute of Music and a recipient of the patronage of the King of France at the Academy of Rome. One of France's greatest composers, Jacques Fromenthal Halevy (1799-1862), was also the son of a cantor. His father, Elie Halfon Halevy was the secretary of the Jewish community of Paris and a Hebrew teacher and writer as well. Musically gifted, Jacques was accepted as a student by the Paris Conservatory at age ten and subsequently became a member of its faculty, rising to the rank of professor in 1833. His lasting fame was assured by his grand opera La Juive which premiered in 1835.
1822: Birthdate of Solomon Cohn, the native of Zülz, Prussian Silesia who followed in the footsteps of his grandfather Meshuallam Solomon Cohn of Furth and served as a rabbi of several congregations in Germany.
1824: George Aarons married Elizabeth Davis at the Western Synagogue.
1825(5thof Nisan, 5585): Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heshel of Apt, the son of Chaya Sara and R Shmuel of Neustadt and the founder of the Mezhbizh/Zinkover rabbinic dynasty passed away today.
1829: In Hoorn, Holland, Ribca Eliezer Abendana and Mozes Aron Senior Coronel gave birth to cigar maker Aaron Senior Coronel, the husband of Rebecca “Kitty” Coelho and the father of Rebecca, Moses, Rachael, Samuel, Eleazer and Jacob Coronel.
1830: Joseph ben Moses HaLevi married Esther bat Eliyakum Goetshlik HaCohen at the New Synagogue.
1830: Thirty-nine-year Bavarian native Jesajas Simon Schulein married twenty-nine year old Ann Seuchtwanger.
1841: “Another important step for emancipation was the law adopted today, for Galicia, which promised certain improvements for the Jews of that province who should dress in European costume and acquire a knowledge of either German or Polish”
1843: Birthdate of Sigmund Salfeld, the 1870 graduate of the University of Berlin who in 1880 began serving as a rabbi in Mainz where he passed away in 1926 at the age of 83.
1845: Rebecca Cohen Hart, the New York born daughter of Catherine and Sampson Mears Isaacks, and her husband Abraham Hart gave birth to Catherine (Kate) Hart
1847: In London, Rabbi D.A. De Sola delivered a sermon at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, Bevis Marks, on the subject of the Irish Potato Famine which began with the following statement, “"For devastation has gone forth through the land, Death stalks around, with disease in its train...."
1850(11thof Nisan, 5610): Frances Marks, the English born wife of Humphrey Mordecai Marks and the mother of Alexander, Elia, Frederick and Isaac Marks passed away today after which was buried in the Hebrew Benevolent Society Cemetery in Columbia, SC.
1852: Selig Salomon Philipp married Eveline Albu today in Berlin.
1853: In Jerusalem, English missionaries ended up fighting instead of praying on Good Friday. First, they “were turned out of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher because they behaved in an unseemly manner when the Procession of the Host” passed by. Then “a missionary named Crawford preached a sermon outside the Synagogue while the service was going on…and indulged in invectives against the Talmud. One of the Children of Israel incensed this, hurled a dead cat” in his face. A fight then broke out between the Protestant missionaries and the Jews during which “it rained mud and rocks.”
1857: Boston physician John Warren Gorham who had been nominated by President Franklin Pierce as “the first American consul to serve in Jerusalem” arrived in that city today after which “he set up the consulate in a rented building on Mount Zion near the Jaffa Gate.”
1859: In Savannah, GA, Johanna Peyser became Johanna Wessolowsky when she married Charles Wessolowsky
1859: In Laupheim, Germany, Samuel Heilbronner and Emilie Einstein gave birth to Pauline Heilbronner who became Pauline Heilbronner Hirschfeld when she married Leopold Hirschfeld with she had two children—Laura and Bella.
1860(1stof Nisan, 5620): Parashat Vayikra; Rosh Chodesh Nisan; Shabbat HaChoedsh.
1860: In New York, the Supreme Court granted an “order of the payment of surplus in the case of Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society vs. Fitzpatrick.
1860: An editorial published today that reviewed the current debate over the death penalty stated that the legislature should refrain from discussing “What the law of Moses says on the subject, or how far that law is binding on modern communities; questions which they are not competent to decide” and should stick to the question at hand – should life imprisonment replace hanging as a punishment for murder.
1862: Judah P. Benjamin completed his service as Secretary of War for the CSA.
1862: The Purim Association of the City of New York was organized for the purpose of arranging annual Purim balls. Meyer S. Isaacs, prominent New York Lawyer, civic leader and Jewish activist, was one of the founders of the Purim Association which lasted until 1906.
1872(14th of Adar II, 5632): Purim
1872: In New York City, Jacob and Rosalie (Lebrecht) Wiener gave birth Joseph Wiener Columbia University trained surgeon and author Joseph Wiener who was affiliated with several hospital including German Hospital and Mt. Sinai Hospital and who was the husband of Gertrude Strauss.
1872: Hyman Israel, one of the wealthiest members of Beth Israel Bikur Cholim in New York City hosted a Purim Open house at his home on 25th Street. The party included a large number of masked young men and women including the host’s daughter, Miss Annie Israel.
1873: Following a speech by Benjamin Disraeli, the government of Prime Minister Gladstone was defeated on the issue of the Irish University Bill. Disraeli, who was seen as a “Jew” and Gladstone alternated as leaders of British governments during the middle decades of the 19th century.
1874: Birthdate of New York native and builder Joseph Gilbert, “who erected more than 18 skyscrapers in Manhattan before 1925 and who raised two children – Victor and Helen – with his wife https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/04/19/81989007.pdf
1874: In Budapest Cecilia Stein and Rabbi Mayer Samuel Weisz gave birth to Eric Weisz who gained fame as contortionist, acrobat and escape artist Harry Houdini.
https://www.thegreatharryhoudini.com/
https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3711.html
1878: Proving that Jews can be found all over the world, it was reported today that Parva, a Brazilian city deep in the heart of the Amazon on the Equator has a population of 35,000 that “includes a few Jews.
1878: The Young Men’s Hebrew Union hosted an evening of culture at the Norfolk Street Synagogue this evening that included a lecture by A. Oakly Hall on “The Great Pertersham Will Case” followed by a musical program that included a violin solo David Bimberg.
1878: Birthdate of Moissaye Joseph Olgin “a Russian-born writer, journalist, and translator” who was active in the first three decades 20th century
1878: Birthdate of Moissaye Joseph Olgin, a Russian-born writer, journalist, and translator in the early 20th century who founded the Morgen Freiheit, a New York City Yiddish Newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party, among whose stated aims was the promotion of the Jewish labor movement and the defeat of racism in the United States.
1883: In “Kiviska, Russia, Hersh and Brucha Schriber gave birth to Mordechai “Max” Yohlin, the husband of Esther Pressie with whom he had six children – Betty, Mary Rose, Harry and Sylvia – with whom, in 1925 he “immigrated to Philadelphia where he began serving as a congregational rabbi and cantor.
https://library.temple.edu/scrc/mordechai-yohlin-family-papers
1886(8thof Nisan, 5626): Parashat Tzav; Shabbat HaGadol
1887: President Grover Cleveland appointed Oscar Solomon Strauss ambassador to Turkey. Strauss was the first American Jew to serve as an ambassador. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt would appoint Strauss Secretary of Commerce and Labor, making him the first American Jew to hold a cabinet post in the government of the United States. The year 1887 was a busy one for the Strauss family. That was the year that Oscar's brothers, Nathan and Isidor bought Macy’s Department Store.
1887: Birthdate of Prague native Karl Arnstein the aeronautical engineer best known for being the chief designer for the lighter than air air-craft USS Akron and USS Macon
1889: Meier Selig Goldschmidt Selma Cramer the daughter of Salomon Cramer and Therese (Röschen) Oppenheimer today.
1889: Twenty-three-year-old Frankfurt, Germany native Meir Selig Goldschmidt married Selma Cramer, the daughter of Salomon Cramer and Therese (Röschen) Oppenheimer.”
1891(14th of Adar II, 5651): Purim
1891: In South Carolina, Joseph F. Brannon married Rebecca Cecilia Wolfe today.
1892(25thof Adar, 5652): Fifty-four-year-old Moses Mehrbach, a native of Bavaria and the husband of Carolyn Meyer passed away today in New York.
1894: Birthdate of Brooklyn native Dr. Frederic D. Zeman the Columbia trained physician and WWI veteran who was a geriatric specialist and husband of “the former Madeleine Arnold”
1894: The Don Quixote Club will give a benefit performance tonight at the Manhattan Athletic Club Theatre to raise funds for the United Hebrew Charities.
1894: “Rights of Foreign Jews in Russia” published today described an order issued by the Russian Minister of the Interior to the police that they are not to interfere with activities of foreign Jews who have “proper passports” in their possession. The order was issued in response to pressure from various governments whose Jewish citizens have complaint about ill-treatment and expulsion by the Czarist government.
1894: The New York Times stated erroneously that on Friday, March 23, “with the setting of the sun the Hebrew Feast of the Passover began.” (The first Seder would not come until the evening of April 20, with the first day of the holiday falling on April 21.)
1895(28th of Adar, 5655): Babet Karl, the aunt of wealthy real estate lawyer Abraham Stern passed away today in New York.
1895: Professor Felix Adler delivered a lecture this morning at the Carnegie Music Hall entitled “The New View of Childhood and Its Effects on Education.”
1896: Birthdate of Lower East Side native Moses Polakoff, the WW I Navy veteran and NYU trained attorney who worked in the United States Attorney’s office before going into private practice where some of his most notorious clients were Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky.
1897: It was reported today that during the month of February the United Hebrew Charities had received 3,306 applications for assistance on behalf of 11,020 people. Jobs were found for 611 people and 466 people were seen by either doctors or nurses. The charity raised $19,253.40 during February and spent $11,736.53.
1897: Birthdate of Wilhelm Reich. He was a Jewish-Austrian psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and author, who was trained in Vienna by Sigmund Freud. He passed away in 1957.
1897: “Theatrical Notes” published today described Oscar Hammerstein’s decision revamp his production of “Greater New York.”
1898: Hertig and Seamon have donated the use of the Harlem Music Hall to the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society for tonight’s charity event that will benefit the Society and the Montefiore Home.
1899: It was reported today that Rabbi Joseph Silverman attributes “the long life and freedom from epidemics enjoyed” by the Jews “to their Mosaic laws. “To the Jew his religion is a philosophy of life” and the Jew “is the only real cosmopolitan” who “can live in any country and enjoy health in every climate.”
1899: The Jewish Messenger reported that Congregation Orach Chaim opened its new sanctuary. "An ornament to Manhattan in general and to the inhabitants of E. 51st in particular, is the handsome new edifice of this synagogue. The only thing that mars the beauty of the structure is the $15,000 mortgage. It would be, indeed, permissible even for the most ultra-orthodox to learn from Roman Catholic neighbors not to dedicate a place of worship in the presence of a mortgage."
1900(23rdof Adar II, 5660): Sixty-eight-year-old “Austrian scholar and author Solomon Joachim Chayim Halberstam, the son of Isaac Halbestram, passed away today.
1901: After a half of a dozen speakers including attorney Clarence Darrow and social worker Jane Adams addressed a meeting that heard about the outbreak of anti-Semitic attacks in Chicago, “the Chicago Protective League was organized” today “to demand that the police protect the Jews.”
1902(15thof Adar II, 5662): Shushan Purim
1902(15thof Adar II, 5662): Poet and author Salomon Mandelkern who was born at Mlynov, Volhynian Governorate in 1846 passed away today in Vienna. Mandelkern, whose son Israel lived in New York, had translated the works of several American writers including Henry W. Longfellow into English.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0013_0_13144.html
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10351-mandelkern-solomon-b-simhah-dob
1903: Sarah Alexander, the daughter of Henry Woolf and Sarah Jane Asher and the wife of Oscar Alexander with whom she had had nine children was buried today at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.
1903: Birthdate of “Polish novelist and educator Igor Newerly” who was imprisoned by the Nazis for his efforts to rescue Jews – efforts which earned him commendation from Yad Vashem.
http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=4044056
1904: It was reported today that referee Hamilton Odell has selected the Hebrew Technical Institute will receive the residue of the $600,000 the estate of lace importer Simon Goldenberg following the death of his widow Mary Golden, in part because Goldenberg had consider making a revision of his will so he could leave the institute a large amount of money.
1905: The Constitution Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith ended its weeklong meeting in New Orleans.
1906(27thof Adar, 5666): Parashat Vayakhel-Pekudi
1906: It was reported today that a private funeral is scheduled to be held for 8-year-old Julius C. Morgenthau, Jr. the son of Julius C. Morgenthau and Regina L. Rose.
1906: It was reported today that seventy-seven-year-old Edward Bloch who had passed away on March 22 is scheduled to buried tomorrow at the United Jewish Cemetery in Cincinnati, OH.
1907: A meeting of the Executive Board of the Romanian Central Relief Committee was followed today by two mass meetings in synagogues of the east side at which it was decided to request President Roosevelt to take action to relieve the situation in Moldavia.
1908: Albert Lowy, the husband of Gertrude Lindenthal with whom he had had eight children was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1909(2ndof Nisan 5669): Sixty-two-year-old Bavarian born, Virginia raised political leader Herman Myers, the Mayor of Savannah, GA passed away today.
1909(2ndof Nisan, 5669): Fifty-five-year-old German architect Alfred Messel whose most famous work was the Wertheim Department store on Leipziger Platz and who became a Protestant in 1899 passed away today.
1910: Birthdate of Gyula Ortutay, the anti-fascist political leader who while serving as the country’s Minister of Religion and Education in 1947 “visited Jewish grammar schools and in a brief address to the students, expressed sympathy and understanding for the sufferings of the Jews under previous pro-Nazi regimes, but pleaded for “forgiveness and cooperation in the reconstruction of Hungary.”
1911: Birthdate of Tyler Kent, the anti-Semitic son of an American diplomat who used his position as cypher clerk to steal and share secret documents the anti-Semitic Right Club, that if exposed would have helped destroy efforts by FDR and Churchill to fight the Nazis before America entered WW II.
1911: Reports reached the West of the massacre and looting of Moroccan Jews.
1911: Harry Lapidus, the president of the Omaha (Neb) Fixture Supply Company and Minnie K. Kooler Lapidus Earl A. Lapidus, the U.S. Naval Graduate who rose to the rank of Lieutenant before dying in the South Pacific during WW II.
Seventy-six-year-old Minnie K. Kooler Lapidus, the wife of Lithuania native and Omaha businessman Harry Lapidus, the president of the Omaha Fixture Supply Company and leader of the Jewish community who “was a member of the American Jewish National Council of Americanization and a member of the executive committee of the United Palestine Appeal and the mother of Estelle and Earl Lapidus passed away today after which she was buried at the Fisher Farm Cemetery in Bellevue, Nebraska.
1912: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America held its “Thirteenth Biennial Meeting” today.
1912: Birthdate of Isaac Edward Lending, the son of Bronx owner of a textile trimmings business who reversed the order of his name to Edward Issac Lending – the name he used as a journalist and a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
1913(15thof Adar II, 5673): Shushan Purim
1913(15thof Adar II, 5673): Forty-six-year-old Viennese native Dr. Maximilian Max Reiner the son of Agnes and Dr. Michael Reiner and husband of Paula Reiner passed away today in Italy.
1914: Today, Morris Gintzler, the Hungarian born son of Emil and Saly Gintzler, and his wife Rose Gintzler gave birth to Dorothy Helen Gintzler who became Dorothy Helen Perlberg when she married Charles Perlberg with whom she had two daughters – Rose and Jane.
1915: In Lynn, MA, Ann and Israel Sack gave birth to Albert Milton Sack the “prominent New York antiques dealer and the author of a guidebook to early American furniture that became the bible for a generation of weekend antiquers and a standard for professional collectors.”
1915: Among those listed today as contributors to the fund of the American Jewish Relief Committee were the Calgary, Alberta, Jewish Relief Committee, Congregation House of Israel, Hot Springs, AR; the Sunday School of the Hebrew Bible Class Association, Newport News, VA and the Ladies Temple Sisterhood of B’nai Jeshurun, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
1915: An eyewitness account of the Austrian surrender of Przemsyl to the Russians sent from Petrograd to London today described the destruction of fortification but reported that except for the outskirts, “town itself” most of whose occupants were Jews who had stayed during the fight was “intact.” (Editor’s note – The Jews stayed because they had not place to go and they were subject to anti-Semitic outburst by those on both sides of the fight.)
1915: The Jews are among the many groups fleeing Constantinople today based on a fear of Russian invasion of the Ottoman capital.
1916: Final arrangements were completed today “for the bazaar for the benefit of the Jewish war sufferers of Europe” which opens tomorrow in the Grand Central Palace” and “is one of the largest undertakings yet attempted by the Jews of New York to raise funds for the relief of their suffering co-religionists in Europe.
1916: In New York, “The Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War” received word today that a successful meeting had been held last night at B’nai Emuno Synagogue in St. Louis where “many wept when Rabbi Masliansky and Rabbi Abranowitz described “the sufferings of the Jews in the war zones.”
1917: Based on reports that the political and religious emancipation of the Jews are about to be removed along with “the passport restrictions which have rendered it impossible for American Jews to travel in Russia” the U.S. “State Department has already received a number of applications from American Jews” wishing to go to Russia.
1917: In an interview given today, Dr. Israel Friedlaender, the Professor of Biblical Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary predicted that as a result of the Russian Revolution there would be a “great diminution in the volume of Jewish emigration from Russia to the United States and the return of many thousands of recent emigrants” to Russia “which now offers them the liberty in search of which they had fled” to the United States and “Russian-American Jews” would “play a great part in the industrial upbuilding of their native land.”
1917: According to a letter from Oscar S. Straus published today, “Now that the magnificent uprising of democracy in Russia appears to have opened a new and glorious future for that country with equal rights for the oppressed nationalities, Jewish sentiment in America in favor of the Allied cause may be safely counted upon to become unanimous.”
1917: Birthdate of Brooklynite Alex Steinweiss, the son of women’s shoe designer and a seamstress, who as “an art director and graphic designer…brought custom artwork to record album covers and invented the first packaging for long-playing records.” (As reported by Steven Heller)
1918: At the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall, Dr. Wise is scheduled to speak on “Vies and uses, Right and Wrong, of Friendship and Love.”
1918: Samuel Bayer was elected President today “at a special meeting of the Board of Directors of the Uptown Talmud Torah.
1918: Congressman Julius Kahn is scheduled to address the Institutional Synagogue meeting at Mt. Morris Theatre on “American In and After the War.”
1918: “Resolutions were adopted” today at the annual meeting of the Trustees of Mt. Sinai Hospital “complimenting Geroge Blumenthal, the President, on the successful execution of the duties of the various offices he has held with that institution during the last twenty-five years.”
1918: In Chicago, Ida and Abe "Melech" Levin give birth to Joseph B. Levin.
1918: At Temple Beth-El is scheduled to speak on War and Democracy at 11 o’clock this moring.
1919: On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, North Carolina native Louis Heilbroner, the founder of a successful “chain of men’s clothing stores” and Helen Heilbroner gave birth to American economist Robert Heilbroner, the author of some twenty books, best known for The Worldly Philosophers published in 1953, which is a survey of the lives and contributions of famous economists, notably Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/obituaries/robert-heilbroner-writer-and-economist-dies-at-85.html
1919: Alvey A. Adee, the Second Assistant Secretary wrote to Dr. Pierre Siegelstein, the President of the Rumanian Hebrew Aid Society that the State Department had “received a message…from the Union of Native Jews of Rumania” in Bucharest asking that Rumanian Jews in America do everything in their power to “send money, food, underwear, clothing and shoes” because “misery is very great with all.
1920: Birthdate of Cracow native Mieczyslaw Pemper, the concentration camp inmate who actually compiled what came to be known as “Schindler’s List.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/world/europe/19pemper.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8578020/Mietek-Pemper.html
1920: The annual convention of Sigma Epsilon Delta Fraternity whose member incuded Samuel Hess, Ben Horn, and Milton Bermas to place today in New York City.
1921(14thof Adar II, 5681): Purim
1921: The Chief Rabbinate of Palestine was established under the British Mandate. The first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Palestine was the scholar and sage, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook was one of the leading intellectual and religious leaders during the Yishuv period.
1921: “The Palestine Bazar” organized by the Manchester Branch of the Jewish National Fund Commission for England for which Winston Churchill, MP acted as patron was scheduled to come to an end today.
1921: Winston Churchill’s train arrived in Gaza, the first large town he would visit on his trip to Palestine.
1922: “Ludwig II” a silent biopic directed by Otto Kreisler was released today in Austria.
1922: In Bradford, Yorkshire, Eava Samuel and Abraham Ludman gave birth to Jeffrey Ludman who passed away before he reached the age of three months.
1922: In an attempt to calm Arab fears over Jewish immigration to Palestine, Churchill “approved a proposal from Sir Herbert Samuel that Jewish immigration would be limited by the ‘economic capacity’ of Palestine to absorb newcomers.” Of course, Churchill saw that Palestine would have a growing economic capacity given the improvements brought about the Jewish settlers.
1923: In Baltimore, MD, Robert Debuskey, “a wine salesman” and “Freda (Blaustein) Debuskey gave birth to Basil Merle Debuskey the press agent who was a major influence on the productions of Joseph Papp. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)
1924: In Philadelphia, Samuel Feld and Edna Rosenfeld gave birth to Norman Noah Feld, the native of Philadelphia and WW II veteran who gained fame as actor Norman Fell whose most lasting role came as Mr. Roper in the television hit “3’s Company.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/16/nyregion/norman-fell-74-actor-known-for-tv-role.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-norman-fell-1191859.html
1924: Birthdate of Michael Hamburger the native of Berlin whose family settled in the United Kingdom in 1933 where he attended Oxford, served in the British Army during WW II after he which he pursued an academic career which was noted for his translation of the works of several authors from German into English.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jun/11/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries
1925: Today “the Central Education Committee (Tsentrale Bildungs Komitet or TSBK), the Vilna branch of the Central Yiddish School Organization (Tsentrale Yidishe Shul Organizatsye or TSYSHO) and the Vilna Education Society (Vilner Bildungs Gezelshaft or VILBIG) met to discuss Nochum Shtif’s memorandum,” “in which he outlined and a plan for an academic Yiddish institute and library” which they approved in a brochure entitled, Di organizatsye fun der yidisher visnshaft (The Organization of Yiddish Scholarship, Vilna, April 1925).
1926: “The New York Board of Jewish Ministers” under the leadership of Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach met at Temple Emanu-El today and “endorsed the appeal to raise $50,000 for the New York Public Library” where “a collection of rare material depicting the history of Jews in Oriental countries” is about to go on display.
1926: Mrs. Joffe of the Women’s Branch of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America wrote a letter today to arrange for out-of-town students studying in New York to be placed in homes at no charge where they will “be furnished all meals during the coming Passover holidays.”
1927: “Out of the Mist” a silent film produced by Karl Freund and featuring Vladimir Sokoloff as “Poleto” was released today in Germany.
1927: The “campaign workers for the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities” met at the Unity Club on Bedford Avenue where “Supreme Court Justice Mitchell May, President of the Federation” said “that a recent influx of Jews into Brooklyn had increased the demands on the Federation” and it as announced that so far $125,000 had been raised in the drive to raise $2,500,000.
1928: Birthdate of Bronx native and Iowa Hawkeye alum Melvin “Mel” Rosen who went from being a successful collegiate middle-distance runner to being the highly successful track coach at Auburn University.
http://www.usatf.org/halloffame/TF/showBio.asp?HOFIDs=140
1932: Birthdate of New York native and Yale graduate Lawrence Jerome Schniderman, the Harvard trained physician and husband of pianist Barbara Goldman with whom he had four children –Rob, Claudia Heidi and Tanya.
1933: “The Enabling Act (German: Ermächtigungsgesetz) an amendment to the Weimar Constitution that gave the German Cabinet – in effect, Chancellor Adolf Hitler – the power to enact laws without the involvement of the Reichsta passed in both the Reichstag and Reichsrat today and was signed by President Paul von Hindenburg later that day.
1933: Three weeks after premiering in New York City, “King Kong” with music by Max Steiner premiered on the West Coast today in Los Angeles.
1934: “Once to Every Woman” a movie version of short story by the same name with a script co-authored by Jo Swerling was released in the United States today.
1935: Edward M.M. Warburg, the son of Felix M. Warburg and William Rosenwald of Philadelphia, one of the co-chairman of the UJA addressed “a dinner tonight at which the Jews of Boston began to raise one hundred thousand dollars toward the $3, 250,000 sought by the United Jewish Appeal for the relief of European Jews.”
1936(1st of Nisan, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Nisan
1936: Polish Charge d’Affaires Wladyslaw wrote a letter to Dr. Cyrus Adler explaining that his country’s newly adopted Slaughter Reform Bill, which put an end to kosher slaughtering was really just a way to “adjust the abnormal conditions existing in the Polish cattle meat industry” which are caused by the differences in the way Christians and Jews consumer meat.
1936: Mrs. Leo Sulzberger is scheduled to president over today’s open meeting of the New York section of the National Council of Jewish Women is being held in the synagogue at Welfare Island.
1936(1stof Nissan, 5696): Sixty-five-year-old Maryville, MD native Hattie Kahn, the wife of Adolph Kahn and a national director of the National Council of Jewish Women passed away today in Miami Beach.
1936: The House of Commons discussed a proposal for setting up a Legislative Council in Palestine that would give the Arabs control over the future of Jewish immigration into Palestine i.e. the end of such immigration and the Zionist dream. Churchill delivered a stirring speech against the proposal.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that in London the Secretary for the Colonies, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, was asked in the House of Commons what steps had been taken to prevent any future Arab disturbances and why Palestinian Jews were not allowed the same right of self-defense as enjoyed by the British people.
1937: “The work of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem may help to bring about a better understanding between the two racial groups of the Palestine Population, Professor Hugo Bergman,” the chair of the modern philosophy department and rector of the university “declared” tonight “at a dinner given in his honor by the American friends of the Hebrew University at the Waldorf-Astoria” in NYC.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that The High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Wauchope, visited the Jezreel Valley and discussed matters of security at Merhavia and Balfouria. An announcement was later made that over 700 supernumerary constables would be re-enlisted for service in the north of the country.
1938: “More than 450 persons attended a luncheon today at the Hotel Astor marking the opening of the Greater New York campaign of the United Palestine Appeal, the $4,500,000 national campaign for the settlement in Palestine of Jews of Germany, Austria, Poland, Rumania and other lands.”
1938: “Joseph Buerckel, Nazi leader from the Saar, who is in charge of the Anschluss plebiscite in Austria, April 10, opened the plebiscite campaign tonight with a speech delivered, at the Vienna Konzerthaus” which consisted mainly of an “incitement against the terrorized Austrian Jews.”
1939: “Wuthering Heights” the movie version of the novel by the same name directed by William Wyler, produced by William Wyler, with a script co-authored by Ben Hecht and music by Alfred Newman premiered in Hollywood tonight.
1939: New York Governor Lehman praised Young Judaea “on its thirty-first anniversary celebration” taking place this month.
1939: In response to “Britain’s threat stop land purchases by Jews in Palestine,” “Hadassah…contributed $25,000 today to the Jewish National Fund ‘to assure the immediate purchase of land areas now held under option in the Jewish National Home.’”
1940: An hour-long production of “June Moon” co-authored by George S. Kaufman co-starring Jack Benny and Benny Rubin was presented today.
1941: After receiving a transit visa from the United States, poet Anna Seghers, her husband, László Radványi and their children left France where they could no longer stay because of the Nazi occupation for America today.
1941: In Chicago, Ester Huff and William Masser gave birth to Michael William Masser, the Chicago born stockbroker turned popular music composer.
1942: “To the Shores of Tripoli” a paean to Patriotism featuring Max “Slapsie Maxie” Rosenbloom with music by Alfred Newman was released in the United States today.
1942(6th of Nisan, 5702): Agronomist and journalist Joel Shubin, who was “an alleged Communist International representative to the American Communist Party” and the Soviet Deputy Minister of Agriculture” passed away today either from “lung disease” or as the victim of a political liquidation.
1944(28th of Adar, 5704): In Markowa, a patrol of German police came to the house of Wiktoria and Józef Ulm, where they found 8 Jews, members of the Szall and Goldman families. First the Germans executed all the Jews. Then they shot down pregnant Wiktoria and her husband. When the 6 children began to scream at the scene of dead bodies of their parents, Jozef Kokott, a German policeman (killed them. Markowa was a Polish village near Lancut. During World War II many families hid their Jewish neighbors to help them survive the Holocaust. It is estimated that at least 17 Jews survived the war in Markowa. Seven members of Weltz family were hidden in a barn of Dorota and Antoni Szylar. Jakub Einhorn was hidden by Jan and Weronika Przybylak and the Jakub Lorbenfeld family was hidden by Michal Bar. Two girls from Reisenbach family were initially hidden by Stanislaw Kielar, before joining the rest of 5 members’ of the family in the house of Julia and Józef Bar. Righteous Gentiles came in all shapes and sizes. Some were industrialists called Oksar and others were simple peasants who showed real courage.
1943: In Berne, “a well-informed said today” that “the Vichy regime has resumed the shipment of Jews to Eastern Europe” as can be seen by “a contingent of 2,500 foreign Jews” having been placed in cattle cars without food for the five or six day trip from “a camp near Lourdes” to Poland
1944: An unidentified Turkish Jew who was an eyewitness to the event, reported to the United States government that on this date the Germans had deported all the registered Jews of Athens.
1944: Following the refusal of Elias Barzilai, the Chief Rabbi of Athens, to provide the Germans with a list of Jews, “the Germans lured Jews into Beth Shalom Synagogue” today with an offer of “free matzoth for Pesach.”
1944: Shlomo Venezia and his family were deported from Thessaloniki to Athens before being shipped to Auschwitz.
1944: In occupied Rome, the Nazis executed more than 300 civilians in the Ardeantine Caves Massacre.
1944: As the Nazis assert control over Hungary, President Roosevelt warns the Hungarians “to refrain from anti-Jewish measures.” (As reported by the Jewish Virtual Library)
1944: Two British constables were killed in Tel Aviv and three others were killed in Haifa when a bomb exploded at the Criminal Investigation Department headquarters in Haifa. These and other attacks conducted tonight were believed to be the work of the Stern Gang and were condemned by The Tel Aviv Municipal Council and the Federation of Jewish Labor.
1945: A train carrying 200 Jewish women, exhausted from a death march from Neusalz, Poland, arrived at Bergen-Belsen, Germany.
1945: The Arabs held protest demonstrations at the same time that their leaders rejected a compromise that would have rotated the position of Mayor of Jerusalem among members of the Jewish, Arab and British communities. The Jews had agreed to the compromise even though 61 per cent of the city’s population was Jewish.
1946: New York’s “Governor Dewey gave his full support” today “to the current $35,000,000 camptaing of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York in a special message telephone from Albany to a meeting of the UJA’s Council of Organizations at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.”
1947: Birthdate of Minneapolis native and Northwestern University trained journalist Alan Wiseman, the husband of sculptor Beckie Kravetz.
1947: Dr. Nahum Goldman is scheduled to leave Palestine today for London and New York so that he can begin planning for the upcoming meeting of the special sessions of the United Nations that has been called to deal with the problem of Palestine.
1948(13thof Adar, 5708): Ta’anit Esther and Erev Purim
1948: Seventy-four year old Russian philosopher and author Nikolai Berdyaev whose The Meaning of History “credits the Jews with being the first people to contribute the concept of ‘historical’ to world history thereby discharging ‘the essence of their specific mission’” and further contended that Jews did not merely grasp “the significance of the past and present” but “were also the first people to link these up with the future” as can be seen in The Book of Daniel which “is one of the first well-defined expressions of the true philosophy of history.
1948: It was announced today the Israel “Rogosin, president of the Beaunit Mills, Inc., has been appointed chairman of the $600,000 fund raising campaign of the American Memorial to Six Million Jews of Europe, Inc.” which plans to erect “a memorial as a symbol of brotherhood and peace on Riverside Drive, in New York City.”
1949: Today, “the Israeli Foreign Ministry is making a determined bid to convince the Soviet bloc countries that recent restrictions on the departure of Jews to Israel are incompatible with their strong support for the new state in the United Nations.”
1950(6th of Nisan, 5710): Harold Joseph Laski an “English political theorist, economist, author, and lecturer, who served as the chairman of the Labour Party during 1945-1946” passed away.
1950(6thof Nisan, 5710):Thirty-four year old Brooklyn born NYU basketball star Simon Boardman who was appointed “director of physical education at the Atlantic City Technical High School after his service in WW II passed away today, leaving his wife Harriet and his mother Rose to mourn his passing.
1950: An Israeli government official “said today that Jordan suddenly broke off negotiations on a five-year non-aggression pact” between the two countries which was close to completion. “Earlier today, a high diplomatic source in Beirut reported the break in negotiations had been forced by the resignation last week of Jordan’s Premier Tewfik Abul Huda.”
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that the atmosphere at the opening of the Hague reparations talks between world Jewry and West Germany was "official, cool and tense." The German delegation claimed that their willingness to make reparations was restricted by Allied legislation.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that in Jerusalem a man who escaped from a mental home was shot and killed by an Arab Legion sentry near the Jaffa Gate. Infiltrators murdered Mordecai Harkabi, a watchman from Hadera.
1953(8thof Nisan, 5713): Archie L. Cohn, the husband of Edith Cohn passed away today in New York City.
1954: Birthdate of actress Donna Pescow, the Brooklyn native who played “Annette” in the disco classic “Saturday Night Fever.”
1955(1stof Nisan, 5715): Rosh Chodesh Nisan
1955(1stof Nisan, 5715): Eighty-year-old Polisn native Martha Esther Cahn, the daughter of Rachel and Moses Isaac Binon and the wife of Edward Cahn passed away today.
1955: “Man Without A Star” a movie version of a novel by the same name produced by Aaron Rosenberg and starring Kirk Douglas was released today in the United States.
1955(1stof Nisan, 5715): Rosh Chodesh Nisan
1955(1stof Nisan, 5715): Terrorists threw hand grenades and opened fire on a crowd at a wedding in the farming community of Patish, in the Negev, killing a young woman and wounding 18 others.
1955: United States Customs officials seize copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" because it was obscene.
1955(1stof Nisan, 5715): Three days after celebrating her 80th birthday, Martha Esther Cahn, the daughter of Rachel and Moses Isaac Binion and wife of Edward Cahn with whom she had three children – Alma, Ruth and Joshua – passed away today.
1956: In Brattleboro, VT, Kitty Prins Shmulin and “George J. Shumlin, a third generation American who was Jewish, and descended from Russian immigrants” gave birth to Peter Elliott Shumlin, the 81st Governor of Vermont.
1956: Actress Rita Gam, to Yale Graduate and WW II Marine Corps veteran “Thomas H. Guinzburg, the son of Harold K. Guinzburg, publisher of the Viking Press” began their “European wedding trip.”
1956: In Detroit, Frederic Henry Ballmer, the Swiss born “manager at the Ford Motor Company” and Beatrice Dworkin, whose Jewish family had come from Belarus gave birth to Steve Ballmer, Vice President of Microsoft.
1958: Seventy-eight-year-old Seumas O’Sullivan the husband of Irish artist Estella Francis Solomons the daughter of Maurice Solomons “an optician whose practice in 19 Nassau St., Dublin, is mentioned in Ulysses” and the brother-in-law of Bethel Solomons, a physicians who was a supporter of the 1916 Easter Rising.
1959(14thof Adar II, 5719) Purim
1960: An English production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s “Flower Drum Song” opened today in London’s Palace Theatre where it “ran for 464 performances.
1961(7thof Nisan, 5721): Ninety-year-old Brooklyn born Columbia law school grad Mitchell May whose political career included serving as a member of the House of Representatives and serving 18 years as a Justice of the New York Supreme Court.
https://bioguideretro.congress.gov/Home/MemberDetails?memIndex=M000276
1961: Birthdate of Jamaica, Queens NY native and Yale University Ph.D. Jeffrey I. Herbst, the former President of Colgate University and President of the American Jewish University in Los Angeles who is the husband of Sharon Polansky, the father of Matthew, Spence and Alna Herbst and the brother of Susan Herbst, the 15th President of the University of Connecticut and the first women to hold that position.
1961: “Town Without Pity” starring Kirk Douglas and with music by Dimitri Tiomkin was released in West Germany today.
1961(7thof Nisan, 5721): Fifty-six-year-old New York born Harvard graduate Manfred I. Behrens, Jr., the husband of the former Marjorie Wortman, with whom he had two children – Jill and Manfred, 3rd– who was one of the country’s leading authorities on retailing” and a trustee of the Jewish Board of Guardians passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/03/25/118030498.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1964: “The Fall of the Roman Empire” produced by Samuel Bronston and with a score by Dimitri Tiomkin was released today in the United Kingdom.
1965: In Chicago, “Lynn Straus and news anchor Walter Jacobson gave birth to Brown University trained actor Peter Jacobs best known for his portrayal of “Dr. Chris Taub.”
1965: “The Sucker” a comedy directed by Gérard Oury was released in France today.
1965: Shlomo-Yisrael Ben-Meir began serving as Deputy Minister of Health.
1965: Rabbi Saul Leeman of Cranston and Rabbi William G. Braude were among those marching from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
http://jwa.org/media/what-i-learned-in-alabama-about-yarmulkes
1968: This afternoon Suzie Burger, a 7 1/2-year-old artist, helped dedicate the new Henry Kaufmann Building at the 92d Street Young Men's-Young Women's Hebrew Association.
1969(5thof Nisan, 5729): Seventy-eight-year-old Neville Laski, the British jurist who was the brother of Harold Laski passed away today.
1969: Birthdate of Munir Amar, the Druze general and Head of the IDF Civil Adminsitration whose life was cut short at the age of 47 in a tragic plane crash.
1970: “King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery To Memphis” a documentary produced by Ely Landau and Richard J. Kaplan, directed by Sidney Lumet and Joseph L. Mankiewicz and co-starring Paul Newman was released today in the United States today.
1970: “It Takes A Thief” which had co-starred Malachi Thorne in its first two seasons completed its run in prime time television.
1971: ABC broadcast the final episode of “The Young Lawyers” a legal drama starring Lee J. Cobb and with music by Lalo Schifrin.
1972: An estimated 50,000 mourners accompanied Rabbi Chaim Meir Hager’s aron to its final resting place. He had been revered as Vizhnitzer Rebbe for 35 years.
1972: Nine days after premiering in New York City, “The Godfather” produced by Albert S. Ruddy and co-starring James Caan and featuring Abe Vigoda was released across the United States today.
1973(20th of Adar II, 5733): Seventy-four-year-old award-winning Israeli novelist Haim Hazaz passed away. A native of the Ukraine, he made Aliyah in 1931. His only son, Nahum died during the War of Independence. Hazaz spent the last decade of his life in Talbiya.
1974: Henry Kissinger arrived in Moscow for a four-day visit.
1975: Eliyahu Moyal replaced Jabr Muadi as Deputy Minister of Communications.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that a Haifa Labor Court ordered the striking Haifa and Ashdod port workers to return to work, but they were still debating whether to respond to the court's orders.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that five hundred and eleven out of 566 members of the Herat's Central Committee voted for Menachem Begin to head the party's list for the forthcoming Knesset elections.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that leading Israeli scientists gathered at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot to protest against the latest wave of Soviet persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union.
1979(25thof Adar, 5739): Shabbat HaChodesh
1979(25thof Adar, 5739): Eighty-year-old Sir Jacob Edward Cohen, founder of the Tesco supermarket chain passed away.
1979(25thof Adar, 5739): Sixty-three-year-old British actress Yvonne Mitchell passed away today in London
1979(25thof Adar, 5739): One person was killed, and 13 people were injured, most of them lightly, when an explosive charge blew up in a trash can in Zion Square in Jerusalem.
1981(18thof Adar II, 5741): Eighty-four-year-old Nathaniel Lawrence Goldstein who served as New York State Attorney General from 1943 to 1954 passed away. A Republican, he teamed with Thomas E. Dewey to break the Democratic hold on Albany.
1981: Today Saudi Arabia rejected a suggestion by the Israeli opposition leader Shimon Peres that he would try to explore the possibility of peace with the Saudis if his Labor Party wins the Israeli general elections on June 30.
1981: In “About Education; Nature vs. Nature: Psychologist Urges Active Intervention,” published today Dr. Reuven Feuerstein the clinical psychologist serving as director of the Youth Aliyah Research Institute, professor of psychology at Tel Aviv University and adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University, explains his unique views on mental health including the concept of intelligence. “Heredity, shemeredity! You have to do something” is his answer to the endless argument over whether disadvantaged children do poorly in school because of inherited traits or because of their environment. The human organism is an open system, very plastic. It can be changed and modified. The question is whether educators have the will, the confidence to do something.”
1983: “The City Council committee on consumer affairs held today the second hearing in City Council history on kosher food prices and recommended that the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs and State Attorney General Robert Abrams investigate widespread charges of price fixing in Kosher-for-Passover products. (JTA)
1984(20th of Adar II, 5744): Ninety-three-year-old Sam Jaffe who performed with Cary Grant in Gunga Din, with Marilyn Monroe in Asphalt Jungle and Charlton Heston in Ben Hur (amongst other accomplishments) passed way.
http://www.mtv.com/artists/sam-jaffe/biography/
1984(20thof Adar II, 5744): Seventy-one-year-old Judah Cahn, “the founding rabbi of the Metropolitan Synagogue of New York and past president of the New York Board of Rabbis” passed away today. (As reported by David Bird)
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/26/obituaries/judah-cahn-founding-rabbiof-metropolitan-synagogue.html
1986(13th of Adar II, 5746): Reb Moshe Feinstein, a leading expert on Halachah, passed away 21 days after celebrating his 91st birthday.
1987: In New Haven, CT, Dr. Ira and Karen Zeid gave birth to major league pitcher Joshua Alexander ("Josh") Zeid who played college ball at Tulane University where majored in English.
1988(6thof Nisan, 5748): Fifty-six-year-old artist Mary Ellen Mendes, the daughter of Milton and Muriel Rosenbluth and the wife of Jonathan de Sola Mende with whom she had two children passed away today in Bethesda, MD after which she was buried in Kings County, NY.
1989: A videotape version of the 1960 production of “Peter Pan” a musical by Mark "Moose" Charlap, with additional music by Jule Styne, and most of the lyrics written by Carolyn Leigh, with additional lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green was broadcast today.
1991: Rabi Laurence Kotok officiated at the wedding of Nancy Anne Stein and David Mark Woolf at the North Country Reform Temple.
1991: Mr. and Mrs. Sam Witchel of Scarsdale N.Y. have announced the engagement of their daughter Alexandra Rachelle Witchel to Frank Hart Rich Jr.., a son of Mr. Rich and Mrs. Joel Fisher, both of Washington. A June wedding is planned. Ms. Witchel, 33 years old and known as Alex, is a reporter in the news department of The New York Times. She writes the "On Stage, and Off" column. Mr. Rich, 41, has been the chief drama critic of The Times since 1980.
1992: “Jakes Women” written by Neil Simon and directed by Gene Saks opened at the Neil Simon Theatre.
1993: Award winning author John Hersey passed away. While most of the world remembers the non-Jewish Hersey for his writings about Hiroshima, many Jews remember him for his epic novel, The Wall. It was one of the first and finest books to be written about events during the Holocaust. In this case, The Wall, portrayed the events leading up to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
1993: Ezer Weizman was elected President of Israel. The nephew of Chaim Weizman enjoyed a distinguished military career before entering politics. He flew for the RAF during World War II and was one of the founders of what would become the Israeli Air Force. He played an instrumental role in developing it into one of the finest military units of its kind in the world.
1994(12th of Nisan, 5754): Fast of the First Born observed since the 14th Nisan is on Shabbat
1996: In “The Jew Who Fought to Stay German” published today famed Israeli author Amos Elon uses the recent publication of Victor Klemperer’s "Diaries 1933-1945" to review this unique literary work and to examine the world in which this “disenfranchised German Jew” struggled to survive as he came to grips with the reality the “real” Germany despites his best efforts to deny that reality.
1998: Today Howard Epstein “was elected to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly for the New Democratic Party representing the provincial riding of Halifax Chebucto.”
2000: Pope John Paul’s visit to “the Holy Land which included a trip to Yad Vashem “where he bowed his…in a long silence that filled the cold dark Hall of Remembrance” continued today
2001: “Inherit The Wind” the controversial play co-authored by Jerome Lawrence is scheduled to have its final performance at the Sheffel Theatre of the Topeka (Kansas) Civic Theatre & Academy.
2002(11thof Nisan, 5762): Seventy-four-year-old Noble prize winner Cesar Milstein and husband of Celia Prilleltensky passed away today in Cambridge, England.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1984/milstein-bio.html
2002: The New York Times included a review of The Good, The Bad &The Difference: How to Tell Right from Wrong in Everyday Situations by Randy Cohn, a Jewish author born in Charleston, South Carolina.
2003(20thof Adar II, 5763): Eighty-eight year old Academy award winning screenwriter Philip Yordan passed away today in La Jolla, CA.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/apr/09/guardianobituaries.film
2004(2ndof Nisan, 5764): Eighty –three-year-old former Congressman Joshua Eilberg passed away today.
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/mar/27/local/me-eilberg27
2005: Paula Abdul “was fined $900 and given 24 months of informal probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor hit-and-run driving in Los Angeles.”
2005: Broadcast of a re-union episode of Krovim Krovim an Israeli television sitcom.
2006: The Japanese Foreign Ministry “issued a position paper” today “that there was no evidence the Ministry imposed disciplinary action on Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who defied his government while serving in Lithuania by issuing thousands of transit visas to Jews enabling them to escape the Nazis.
2006: Lily Elstein held the first concert at the former Mivtahim Inn in Zichron Yaakov which she purchased January of 2006.
2006: Hazel Josephine Cosgrove, Lady Cosgrove, completed her service as a Senator of the College of Justice.
2008: Time features an article entitled “Israel’s Secret War” which describes the “invisible battle being waged in the West Bank as Israel uses a mailed fist and a network of Palestinian informers to stop suicide bombers before they can reach their targets.” As one IDF officer said, “Our people sleep comfortably because the IDF is putting in a huge effort in the West Bank to prevent terror.”
2008: The New Yorker published “The Region of Unlikeness” by Rivka Galchen.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/03/24/the-region-of-unlikeness
2008: The 92nd Street Y presents “A Festival of Hebrew Literature,” with David Grossman, Etgar Keret, Meir Shalev and Zeruya Shalev.
2008: Edmund “Levy was elected by the Supreme Court justices to serve on the Judicial Selection Committee in place of the court's Vice-President Eliezer Rivlin.”
2009: The Princeton Program on Judaic Studies presents “A Celebration of Tel Aviv at 100” featuring talks by Todd Hasak-Lowy (University of Florida) on “Tel Aviv's Accelerated History,” and Alona Nitzan-Shiftan (Technion) on “Architecture from the Sand” and a ‘screening of the first two installments of the new Israeli documentary "Tel Aviv," with creators Modi Bar-On and Anat Zeltser.
2009: In an event co-sponsored by the Embassy of Israel, Israeli writer and filmmaker Etgar Keret, author of the short story collections “The Nimrod Flipout” and “The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God and Other Stories,” as well as creator of the award-winning film "Malka Red-Heart," discusses the relationship between the short story and film as part of the Nextbook series at the D.C. Jewish Community Center.
2009: An effort to auction off bankrupt Agriprocessors has been continued to next week after two days of bidding failed to yield an offer acceptable to the largest creditor.
2009: Senior Labor minister Isaac Herzog announced his support for party leader Ehud Barak's bid to bring the center-left Labor into a coalition headed by Prime Minister-Designate Benjamin Netanyahu.
2010: The Knesset's State Control Committee is scheduled to hold a special hearing today to discuss the cabinet's decision to delay proceeding on a rocket-resistant emergency room for Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon while a new location is sought to avoid tampering with old graves.
2010: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “From Black Market to Dinner Table: International Clandestine Aid and Its Hungarian Jewish Recipients in the 1950s” as part of its graduate seminar program.
2010: Israel will continue building in all of its Jerusalem municipality and a construction plan that raised questions during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's current trip to Washington is nothing new, Netanyahu's spokesman said in a statement today.
2010: The Washington Post featured a review of a memoir entitled "Devotion" by Dani Shapiro, a successful writer who’grew up with difficult parents: a father whose devotion to Judaism was the only sustaining force in a disappointing life, and a bitter, angry mother.’
2010(9th of Nisan, 5770): Ninety-three-year-old pharmaceutical executive and patron of the arts Mortimer D. Sackler passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/business/01sackler.html
2011: Prof Mandy Merck, Royal Holloway, University of London is scheduled to deliver a talk entitled “Charlotte loves Harry – Ethnic stereotypes and Jewish jokes in Sex and the City” at the Wiener Library,in the UK.
2011: “The Book of Mormon” the musical that earned Josh Gad a Tony Award nomination as best leading actor in a musical opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre.
2011: Ely Levine is scheduled to give a lecture at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa entitled "Building in the Bible: From Babel to Bathsheba." Levine, a visiting professor at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, "will discuss how the study of ancient architecture has shed light on biblical mysteries."
2011: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not leave for Russia today as planned due to the terrorist attack in Jerusalem yesterday.
2011: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and American Society for Jewish Music presented “The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire.”
2011: The British Foreign Office confirmed today that a UK national, Mary Jane Gardner, died in yesterday's terrorist attack at a Jerusalem bus stop, the Associated Press reported. The 59-year-old woman was critically injured in the blast and succumbed to her wounds the same day at Haddasah-Ein Kerem Medical Center. Thirty-nine others were injured in the attack; two are still in serious condition.
2011: The Israeli Air Force struck targets in the Gaza Strip in the early hours today, a day after Palestinian militants fired about a dozen rockets and mortars across the border
2012: Ricky Ullman’s final performance “as the character Alex in the New Group's production of "Russian Transport" Off-Broadway in New York.”
2012: Shabbat of the “Sabbath Manifesto” is scheduled to end this evening.
2012: “The Syrian Bride” is scheduled to be shown this evening at Tifereth Israel’s Israeli Movie Night in Washington, DC.
2012: “The Flood” is scheduled to be shown at the 16TH Annual Hartford Jewish Film Festival
2013: Join Beyhan Cagri Trock, author of The Ottoman Turk and the Pretty Jewish Girl: Real Turkish Cooking is scheduled to teach a class featuring “authentic, delicious Sephardic and Turkish family recipes” at the Lorinda "Annie" Hooks Demo Kitchen
2013: The Trio Sefardi is scheduled to provide an afternoon of music that focuses on the traditions of Pesach at the Abraham Lincoln Hall.
2013: The Jewish Cardinal, a French television film directed by Ilan Duran Cohen was broadcast for the first time today on RTS Deux
2013: Visitors to the Weiner Library in London will have the opportunity to view the exhibition Wit's End: The Satirical Cartoons of Stephen Roth', a compilation of the works of the “Czech Jewish artist whose cartoons lampooned fascist dictators and put a wry spin on political events during the Second World War.”
2013: IDF soldiers fired a Tammuz missile at a Syrian army position in Tel Fares, from which shots were fired both that day and the previous day across the border into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. The missile destroyed the Syrian post and reportedly wounded two gunmen there.
2013: Ben Zygier, the alleged Mossad agent also known as Prisoner X who committed suicide in Ayalon Prison in 2010, was arrested for passing sensitive information to Hezbollah that led to the arrests of two informants within the ranks of the Shi’ite organization, Der Spiegel reported on today.
2014: Reform Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman, the Barbara and Stephen Friedman Professor of Liturgy, Worship and Ritual at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, is scheduled to be to speak on “Christianity and and Judaism: God’s Double Helix Through Time” at Loyola University in New Orleans.
2014: “Dancing in Jaffa” is scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.
2014: Maestro Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra are scheduled to present a benefit performance at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in Palm Beach.
2014: Majn Alef Bejs, “a book on Yiddish published by a Polish Jewish group has won first prize in the non-fiction category of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair which is scheduled to open today.
2014: “For the second time in as many weeks, Economy and Religious Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett came under fire today over an accusation that he has been using his position to funnel money to associates.”
2014: The results of a new survey of anti-Semitic attidues presented at a news conference today organized by the Action and Protection Foundation headquarters “showed up to 40 percent of respondents accepted some anti-Semitic attitudes. (As reported by JTA)
2014: Today “a woman complained that Silvan Shalom had sexually harassed her at work more than 15 years before” which led to an investigation that was closed because the statute of limitations had been reached even though other women came forward with similar charges
2015: In La Jolla, CA, the Lawrence Family JCC is scheduled to host “Turning Inward: Jews and American Life, 1965-Presentish.”
2015: “London-based attorney Christopher Marinello, who works for the Rosenberg family,” “a Jewish family trying to retrieve a long-lost Matisse painting (Seated Woman) looted by the Nazis said” today that “a deal had been signed with the German government for its restitution.”
2015: The 5thJ Street National Conference is scheduled to come to an end.
2015: William Brumfield is scheduled to deliver at lecture on the “The Jewish Moment in Russia” at Tulane University.
2015: The 16th Street Book Club is scheduled to discuss A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev, translated by Evan Fallenberg
2015: Today, at a Simon Wiesenthal Center Dinner, Harvey Weinstein, the co-founder of Miramax “urged Jews in the fight against anti-Semitism to “stand up and kick these guys in the ass.” (JTA)
2015(4thof Nisan, 5775): Eighty-six-year-old Israeli diplomat and ministerial adviser Yehuda Avner passed away today in Jerusalem.
2016: Ninety-eighth anniversary of the birth of Joseph B. Levin aka Yosef Dov ben Avraham Elimelech without whom, literally, this blog would not exist.
2016: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host “The Music and Life of Irving Berlin.”
2016: The Jews in the American South is scheduled to be in Beaufort, South Carolina visiting with Mayor Billy Keyserling, “the grandson of Lithuanian immigrants” who escaped from Czarist Russia and graudate of Brandies University who has been active in state politics for several decades.
2016(14thof Adar II, 5776): Purim
2016(14thof Adar II, 5776): Sixty-six-year-old television comedy writer Garry Shandling who was best known for “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/arts/television/28stei.html
2016: Ninety-four-year-old former MK Esther Herlitz, the native of Berlin who was Israel’s first female ambassador passed away today.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-first-female-ambassador-passes-away-at-94/
2017(26thof Adar, 5777): Seventy three year old Columbia University grad Paul Novograd, “the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe” and who had reluctantly closed the Claremont Riding Academy ten years ago passed away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2017: In Memphis, TN, Temple Israel is scheduled to turn Shabbat into a family affair with a Ruach Preneg followed a by a “L’dor Vador Shabbat Service.”
2017: Former Penn State President Graham Spanier was convicted today for his role in “hushing up the suspected child sex abuse” by a Penn St assistant football coach.
2017: Approximately 5,000 “Israelis and foreigners got filthy and battled through miles of obstacles” today took part in Israel’s first “Mud Day” race in Tel Aviv.
2017: Kibbutz Beit Oren is scheduled to host “Believe Fairy Festival,” Israel’s first “fairy festival.”
2018: Iowa City author and photographer Ina Loewenberg is scheduled to sign copies today of her new memoir A Life à la Carte at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City.
2018: “The Chop” and “The Cousin” are scheduled to be shown at the New Jersey Jewish Film Festival.
2018: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host a performance this evening of “Irving Berlin: American.”
2018: Members of USY are scheduled to follow in the footsteps of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel by “praying with their feet” as participants in the #MarchForOurLives rally in Washington, DC.
2018: One hundredth anniversary of the birth of Joseph B. Levin, who in one of those calendar coincidences was Bar Mitzvahed on Shabbat HaGadol which is observed today in 2018.
2018(8thof Nisan, 5778): Parashat Tzav and Shabbat HaGadol;
2019: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel by Matti Friedman and Savage Feast: Three Generations, Two Continents and a Dinner Table (A Memoir with Recipes) by Boris Fishman.
2019: The AIPAC Policy Conference, where the self-important gather, is scheduled to open today in Washington, DC.
2019: For the first time since the arrest of Robert Kraft, Pats owner, the NFL owners are scheduled to begin their annual meeting.
2020: In the midst of the darkness of the pandemic, friends and family of Ilan Caplan prepare celebrate that consummate physician and sweet singer of song, Dr. Ilan Caplan who has brought light to so many.
2020: Bidud Beyachad: The London School of Jewish Studies Torah Show with Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum is scheduled to begin on line today at noon
2020: The Streicker Center is scheduled to present on line this evening Martin Kaufman’s discussion of Nachman of Breslov.
2020: Warren Klein (Currator of the Bernard Museum of Judaica at Temple Emanu-El) takes is scheduled to host a virtual tour of the Barbra Streisand Exhibition and answers questions along the way... via Zoom Video Conferencing
2020: Boston Jewish Film is scheduled to present an on-line screening of “Code of the Freaks” this evening.
2020: “The San Francisco Freedom Seder,” the “24th annual multicultural seder hosted by JCRC, JCCSF and Congregation Emanu-El” scheduled for this evening has been canceled due to the Pandemic.
2020: Today Israelis should get some idea of how Yuli Edelstein will respond to the ruling by the Supreme Court that he “must hold by tomorrow to elect a speaker of the Knesset.”
2021: JCCSF is scheduled to present chef and cookbook author Jake Cohen demonstrating his recipe for matzo tiramisu and offering Passover tips, followed by optional 30-minute conversation for 20- and 30-somethings, with loneliness/connection expert Kyla Sokoll-Ward.
2021: Jason Harris of the podcast “Jew Oughta Know” and director of Osher Marin JCC’s Taube Center for Jewish Peoplehood is scheduled to talk, virtually, about whether the Exodus from Egypt is myth or grounded in historical fact.
2021: As part of the Jewish Gateway’s”Torah for Everyone” series, Rabbi Bridget Wynne is scheduled to explain virtually “how and why the traditional Haggadah story differs from the Exodus story.”
2021: In Columbus, OH, Tifereth Israel is scheduled to present Rabbi Josh Warshawsky leading “Music as Midrash; Exploring Passover Through Song.”
2021: The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston is scheduled to present online “Israeli Society and the Holocaust: A Work in Progress” which is “led by Rachel Korazim, will explore the development of the Holocaust narrative in Israel from the early days, still under British Mandate all the way to recent years.”
2021: If the exit polls taken by Israel’s three main television channels are harbinger’s of realty, as of today “Benjamin Netanyahu is on course to form the next government - if he can persuade his former ally Naftali Bennett to join his coalition.
2021: Oshman Family JCC and Bina are scheduled to present Tova Birnbaum and Zoe Fertik leading a learning seder to familiarize people with the texts and rituals.
2021: Boston Jewish Film is scheduled to present, online, a screening of “Rain in Her Eyes.”