April 18
383: The Roman Emperors ended the exemption Jewish religious leaders enjoyed from compulsory public service. "The order which Jewish men flatter themselves with and and which gives them immunity from the compulsory public services of decurions shall be rescinded. Not even the clergy are free to deal with divine service until they have dealt with municipal service.”
1025: The Coronation of Bolesław Chrobry at Gniezno as King of Poland marks the beginning of Poland as an independent country. Boleslaw’s first contact with Jews may have come when he conquered the town of Przemysl in 1018. According to some records, the town was already home to a group of Jewish traders. Jews were welcome to settle in Poland at this because the rulers so them as an economic and cultural asset. Jews would find Poland a welcome refuge from the depredations that began with the Crusades 70 years after coronation of Poland’s first independent monarch.
1165 (4 Iyar, 4925): Maimon ben Maimon and his family leave Fez for Eretz Israel.
1279: Pedro III ordered his bailiffs to take control of the property of Jahuda Cavalleria until "proper heirs can be determined." Though in this case Jahuda's family ended up getting his estate, the Jews essentially owned nothing, and were essentially considered, "simply holding property for the Crown."
1389: A priest of Prague, hit with a few grains of sand by small Jewish boys playing in the street, insists that the Jewish community purposely plotted against him. Thousands were slaughtered, the synagogue and the cemetery were destroyed, and homes were pillaged. King Wenceslaus insisted that the responsibility rested with the Jews for venturing outside during Holy Week.
1521: At the Diet of Worms, German reformer Martin Luther proclaimed that a biblical foundation supported the theological position of his "Ninety-Five Theses." Luther ended his defense with the famous words: 'Here I stand! I can do nothing else! God help me! Amen.' Luther had a profound effect on Western history in general and Jewish history in particular. His inability to convert the Jews led him down the path of virulent anti-Semitism. At the same, his split with the Catholic Church led to centuries of religious warfare and conflict that found the Jews caught in the middle. Luther is not considered infallible by the church that bears his name. His attitude toward the Jews is not official doctrine of the Lutheran Church. In Germany, the Lutheran Church proved to be an early opponent of Hitler.
1577(1st of Iyar): Rabbi Nathan Shapiro of Horadno, author of Mevo Shearim passed away
1590: Birthdate of Sultan Ahmed I of the Ottoman Empire. During his reign Solomon Eskenaz,i Avraham Levi Migas, and Naftali Ben Mansur all served as physicians at the palace. When Solomon Eskenazi passed away, his wife, Buha Eskenazi replaced. When Ahmed contracted smallpox, a disease that was often fatal at this time, his regular physicians could not help. So he summoned Buha Eskenzai and she was able to save him. The Sultan passed away in 1617.
1599: Phillip III who supported the policy of making his realm Jew free and who gamed a free hand to the murderous Inquisition married his cousin, Margaret of Austria, toda.
1735(26th of Nisan): Rabbi Ephraim Navon of Constantinople, author of “Mahaneh Ephriam” passed away today
1753(14thof Nisan, 5513): Jews in England observe the Ta’anit Bechorot; and sit down to their Seder under the reign of Philo-Semitic King George II.
1756(18thof Nisan, 5516): Fourth Day of Pesach
1756: In Philadelphia Mathias Bush and his first wife Tabitha Mears gave birth to Nathan Bush
1764(16thof Nisan, 5524): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer is counted as Boston endures a smallpox epidemic.
1767(19thof Nisan, 5527): Fifth Day of Pesach and Shabbat
1772(15thof Nisan, 5532): Pesach
1772: In London Abigail Delvalle and “her husband, stockbroker Abraham Israel Ricardo” a “Sephardic Jew of Portuguese origins who had moved to England from the Dutch Republic gave birth to English economist David Ricardo, the successful speculator who along with Malthus and Adam Smith, Ricardo was one of the Big Three of Classical Economists and who was disowned by his family for eloping with “a Quaker, Priscilla Anne Wilkinson and converting to Christianity.
https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Ricardo.html
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/david-ricardo.asp
1773: In Tunis, Shalom Belais and his wife gave birth to Rabbi Abraham Belais.
1775(18thof Nisan, 5535): Fourth Day of Pesach
1775: Tonight, as Jews recited the blessing for the fourth day of the Omer “British troops were marching from Boston, headed toward Concord where they were to confiscate the weapons and leaders of the rebel movement.
1778(21stof Nisan, 5538): Seventh Day of Pesach and Shabbat
1778: In Darmstadt, Germany, Guetel and Huna Mormelstein gave birth Micahel MOrmelstein, the hus band of Adelheit Fuchs and the father of Babe, Henry and Manuel Marblestone.
1786: Abraham Florentine, the New Yorker who had moved to Nova Scotia and later returned to New York submitted his second application for indemnification for the house in New York and the horses, dry goods and household goods taken from him by “Rebels” during the war
1791(14thof Nisan, 5551): Ta’anit Bechorot; erev Pesach
1791: As Jews sit down to their Seders to celebrate their liberation from bondage, France continues to be rocked by the Revolution which was the Gallic attempt to free themselves from Royal Bondage that began two years ago as can be seen by today’s move by the National Guard to keep the royal family from leaving Paris to celebrate Easter, probably because they feared the King would try and leave the country and organize a counter-revolutionary force.
1793: In Savannah, GA, Sarah Sheftall and Abraham De Lyon, who had been married in their home town in 1785 gave birth to Abraham De Lyon, Jr, the husband of Esther Nunes Ribeiro.
1797: Eighth Day of Pesach: Yizkor is recited for the first time during the Presidency of John Adams
1801(5thof Iyar 5561): Parashat Tazria-Metzora read for the first time during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson.
1805(19thof Nisan, 5565): Fifth Day of Pesach
1805: As Jews munch on their Matzah, Lewis and Clark met with the family Toussaint Charbonneau, the French Canadian trapper and trader who was reported to the husband of Sacagawea, the guide who was the eyes of the Corps of Discovery.
1806(30thof Nisan, 5566): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1806(30thof Nisan 5566): Seventy-year old Doctor Jonas Mischel Jeitteles who was born in Prague and who was buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague after he passed away today. “He studied medicine in Leipzig and Halle. He became the public health officer of the Jewish community. He was nominated chief supervisor of the guild of Jewish healers in Prague. In 1784 he obtained from the emperor Joseph in Vienna permission that not only he himself but also other Jewish doctors could pursue unrestricted medical practice. He suffered from periodic depressive disorders with several exogenously provoked attacks.”
1810(14thof Nisan, 5570): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach
1810: Leah Rachel De Leon, a native of the West Indies and Abraham Quixano Henriques gave birth to Sarah Henriques.
1812(6thof Iyar, 5572): Parashat Tazria-Metzora
1816(20thof Nisan, 5576): Sixth Day of Pesach
1816: In Prussia, birthdate of English “Produce Merchant” Alfred Benjamin Baumann, the husband of Priscilla Phineas Isaacs and the father of Rebecca, Benjamin, John, James and Adela Bauman.
1818(12thof Nisan, 5576): Parashat Achrei Mot; Shabbat Hagadol
1818: Birthdate of Salvatore de Benedetti, the native of Piedmont whose works included Vita e Morte di Mose,published in 1879 in which “he gathered and translated the legends concerning the great Jewish leader.
1825(30th of Nisan, 5585): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1831: The University of Alabama is founded. The Psi chapter of ZBT founded in 1916 was the first Jewish organization on campus. A Hillel chapter was founded in 1934. According to recent figures the schools graduate and undergraduate population of 28,000 students includes 450 undergraduates and 75 grad students.
1833: In Vienna, Moritz Moses Jacob von Goldschmidt and Nanette von Goldschmidt gave birth to Julius von Goldschmidt
1845(11thof Nisan, 5605): Seventy-eight year old merchant Simon Von Lämel, the native of Bohemia who was elevated to the hereditary nobility in recognition for his aid in provisioning the Austrian Emperor’s Army and lending him large sums of money, passed away today in Vienna, a city in which he and his family were among the legally limited number of Jewish residents.
1848(15thof Nisan, 5608): As Jews observe the first day of Pesach, U.S. Forces under General Winfield Scott defeat the forces of Santa Anna at the Battle of Cerro Gordo during the Mexican-American War.
1857: Birthdate of famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow one of whose most famous cases involved the Jewish thrill killers Leopold and Loeb. Anybody who has seen “Inherit the Wind” has a pretty good understanding of Darrow’s view of religion and the Bible. However, Darrow represented the ACLU and those it supported at a time when the cause of civil liberties was quite unpopular. This work with the ACLU gave him a shared interest with many Jewish leaders of his day. He was a foe of anti-Semitism as could be seen by his signing of “The Perils of Racial Prejudice” which denounced “The International Jew” which was funded by Henry Ford.
1857: In London Adelaide and Ellis Abraham Franklin gave birth to Arthur Ellis Franklin, a senior partner at Keyser & Co, a merchant bank, the son of banker Ellis Abraham Franklin and Adelaide Franklin and the husband of Caroline Franklin with whom he had six children.
1857: In Jackson, CA, “a meeting was held” today at which “it was decided to build a synagogue” which was the first such structure “erected in the mining districts.”
1860: Louisa de Samuel married Baron George de worms, the son of Baron Solomon Benedict de Worms and Henritta Samuel after which she was known as Louisa de Worms
1860: Birthdate of Fernand-Gustave Gaston Labori, the native Rheims, France who courageously defended Emile Zola in 1898 and Alfred Dreyfus at the court martial in Rennes during which he effectively proved his client’s innocence and for which he was wounded by an assassin’s bullet.
1861: This evening the 26th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers whose members included Dr. Jacob Da Silva Solis Cohen “started from Philadelphia under orders requiring it to be taken through Baltimore ‘at or before daylight.’”
1863(19thof Nisan, 5623): Parshat Shmini
1863: War knows no day of rest as can be seen by the Battle of Fayetteville which was fought during the Civil War in the town that became the home of the University of Arkansas and is today the home Chabad of Northwest Arkansas.
1865: In Cedar Falls, IA, “William P. and Mary (Taylor) Taubman, gave birth to Iowa State Normal School (University of Northern Iowa) graduate Tom Taubman the husband of Minnie Samuels who was a newspaper editor, Democratic politician and U.S. Marshall in the state of South Dakota.
1865(22ndof Nisan, 5625): As Jews observed the eighth and final day of Pesach General Sherman and General Johnston met to finalize the terms of the surrender of the largest remaining Confederate force remaining in the field following the surrender of Lee at Appomattox.
1866: Today, in Manhattan, Rabbi Adler laid the cornerstone for a new synagogue that will be the home of Adas Jeshurun. The building is located on 39thStreet between 7th and 8th Avenues. A tin box was placed in the cornerstone. Among the items in the box were the Charter of the Congregation, a copy of the U.S. Constitution, a list of the congregational officers, copies of several papers including the New York World and the New York Times and photo of Moses Montefiore.
1869(7th of Iyar, 5629): Adam Spielmann the son of Judah Spielmann and the husband of Marian Spielmann with whom he had eight children passed away today.
1873(21st of Nisan, 5633): The New York Times reported that “the closing holiday of the feast of the Passover commenced yesterday evening. Today and Saturday will be kept as strict holidays and at sundown tomorrow the festival will terminate.” [Editor’s Note: Based on the Times story, the Orthodox observance was considered normative since it is describing the 7thand 8th days of the festival.]
1874: Birthdate of Abraham Pflaum, the Chicago born lawyer and an officer with the United Hebrew Charities and the Jewish Aid Society whose wife was the Recording Secretary of the Chicago Woman’s Aid which met at Sinai Temple in Chicago and had been organized in 1882.
1875: The New York Times reported that “To-morrow evening the Israelites throughout the world will commence the celebration of the important festival of "Pesach," or Passover, also known as “Hag Hamatzos," or the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The festival was instituted by divine command to commemorate the miraculous deliverance of the Children of Israel from the captivity which, for hundreds of years, they had endured in the land of Egypt.”
1875: In Syracuse, Solomon Silverstein and Esther Shevelson gave birth to Dr. Albert Silverstein who graduated from Yale and Gross Medical College of Denver where practice medicine and taught with the exception of a one year stint with Medical Department of the United States Army which he served in the Philippines during the Spanish American War and the insurrection that followed.
1875: “The Feast of Passover: Interesting Religious Ceremonies” published today described the celebration of Pesach including the fact that during the Seder “any Jewish servants in the employ of” a Jewish family “have on these occasions the privilege of sitting at the table on a footing of perfect equality with their employers.”
1875: In Eichstein Leopold and Babette Bloch gave birth to Julie Bloch who became Julie Moses after she married Moses Moses, the son of Abraham and Rosa Moses.
1876: In New York City, “Sigmund and Linda Mainster Galston” gave birth to NYU trained lawyer and federal judge Clarence G. Galston who raised two children with his “the former Estelle Elkus.”
1878: Birthdate of Kovno native Hyman Aaron who in 1900 came to the United States he formed “his own construction firm in Brooklyn while serving on the board of directors of Beth El Hospital and the Stone Avenue Talmud Torah and raising two sons Bernard and Dr. Jules Aaron and one daughter with hiswife Mollie Spillie.
1878(15thof Nisan, 5638): Pesach
1880: Two days after he had passed away, Isaiah Joshua Simmons, the husband of Caroline Benjamin with whom he had had twelve children was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1880: It was reported today that the Governor of Morocco has ordered the destruction all houses belong to Jews facing Mosques.
1880: An article published today about the nature of Armenians includes the following quip attributed to Lord Rothschild. “Shut up all the Jews and all the Armenians of the world together in one exchange and within half an hour the total wealth of the former will have passed into the hands of the latter.”
1881(19thof Nisan, 5641): Fifth Day of Pesach
1881: In Indianapolis, Indiana, an unnamed Jewish citizen sent a basket of flowers to the Second Presbyterian Church with a note saying, “that it was ‘a token of respect for the liberal sentiments that Reverend William A. Bartlett had expressed in a talk on “the Jewish question.”
1881(19th of Nisan, 5641): Fifth day of Pesach
1881(19th of Nisan, 5641): Sixty-one year old Hungarian born American physician and chemist Joseph Jacob Goldmark who was “credited with the discovery of red phosphorous” passed away today in Brooklyn.
1881: In Bialystok, “Morris and Julia (Getz) Weber gave birth Pratt Institute and Julien Academy trained painter, the husband of Frances Abrams, whose works were described as "fauvist and then cubist inspired." From 1917 on he began introducing Jewish subjects into his work. Starting in the 1920's his work became increasingly abstract and he included contemporary social themes as subjects for his painting. Weber's can be found in leading galleries throughout the United States including the Whitney Museum and the Jewish Museum in New York City. He passed away in 1961.
1884: Theodore Hoffman was hung in New York today after having been convicted of murdering Zife Marks, a Jewish peddler whom he had robbed on the road near Port Chester.
1886: In New York City, over 500 women came to Mrs. Rosendorff’s home on Eldridge Street to receive aid for the upcoming holiday of Passover. Each of the women, many of whom were accompanied by children of all ages, was given a yellow ticket which they could exchange for supplies at local meat market. Mrs. Rosendorf is active in many causes designed to assist the less fortunate including membership in the Downtown Hebrew Ladies’ Benevolent Society and the Passover Relief Society while serving as the Directress of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.
1886: It was reported today that Lawrence Oliphant has discovered to ruined synagogues on the northeast shores of the Sea of Galilee.
1887: In New York City, Joseph and Babette Seligman gave birth to Joseph Lionel Seligman.
1887(24thof Nisan, 5647): Hungarian teacher and author Ignaz Reich who taught for forty years at the Jewish communal school for the blind and “ was the first Jew to translate the Bible into Hungarian passed away at Budapest.
1889: Birthdate of Budapest native George Vajan who “founded a bookstore and publishing in his hometown in 1920” before coming to the United States in 1939 where he founded Transatlantic Arts.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/05/23/76947985.pdf
1890: After 35 years of New York State officials overseeing the arrival of more than 8 million immigrants (many of whom were Jews from Eastern Europe) at Castle Garden the United States Government “assumed control of immigration” today “and Congress appropriated $75,000” to build the first facility at Ellis Island which would the entry point for untold numbers of Jewish immigrants.
1892(21st of Nisan, 5652): Seventh day of Pesach
1892(21st of Nisan, 5652): Seventy year old Isaac Hirsch passed away while visiting his daughter Mrs. Selig Meinhold in New York City. A native of Germany, he had lived in Kingston, NY for the last 43 years where he was a successful paper dealer. Hirsch had served in the same army company as famed reformer and political leader Carl Schurz.
1892: The newly dedicated home of Temple Israel in Brooklyn was built in the style of “the famous Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople.” The ground on which the building sits cost $20,000 and the building itself cost $75,000. A.H. Geismar is the rabbi of what is considered to be Brooklyn’s leading reform congregation.
1892: The body of Jacob Marks, a peddler who had last been seen a month ago with Isaac Rosenswig and Harris Blank was found “beneath a pile of rubbish in a deserted barn with two bullets in the head” on Dutch Mountain
1893 (2nd of Iyar, 5653): Abraham Pereira Mendes, a prominent English Rabbi, author and the father of two other Rabbis, Frederick de Sola Mendes and Henry Pereira Mendes, passed away.
1893: Birthdate of Jessaja Granach, the native of Galicia who became the popular German film actor Alexander Granach during the 1920’s and early 1930’s. Forced to flee with the rise of Hitler he spent the last years of his career playing “German bad guys” in several Hollywood films.
1893: “Converts For Revenue Only” published today described the aggressive efforts by Protestants to gain Jewish converts and the indignant response of the Jewish community which object to the methods as much as it does the effort itself. For example, Christian churches bribe “Jewish children to go to their ‘conversion’ schools by gifts of cake and candy…as well as with bribes of shoes and clothing” while workingmen are offered jobs in turn for conversion.
1893(2ndof Iyar): Author Moses Eisman passed away today.
1894(12thof Nisan, 5654): Lewis Cohen the son of Sierlah and Barnett Cohen, the grandson of Judah Cohen and he husband of Sarah Cohen passed away today
1895: Dr. Maurice H. Harris delivered a lectured on Shylock at a meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association which was followed by a series of recitations and the performance of musical selections.
1895: As the price of beef continues to rise, it was reported that kosher butchers are charging fourteen cents a pound for chuck steak, a popular cut of meat that had had been selling for five or six cents a pound. This has forced many of those living on the lower east side to turn to fish and eggs which are more plentiful and less expensive.
1895: Birthdate of Latvia native Yiddishist Zalman (Salman) Yefroiken who in 1921 came to the United States where he eventually became the education director of the “Workmen’s Circle High School,” editor of “Culture and Education and the author of Jews Do Not Surrender while raising two children with his wife ‘the former Amy Goldberg.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/10/02/82905985.pdf
1896: The late Leonard Friedman made the following bequests: $2,500 each to the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum and Mt. Sinai Hospital; $1,500 to the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids; $1,000 each to the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum and Sanitarium for Hebrew Children.
1897: Israel Zangwill, author of Children of the Ghetto will deliver a lecture today in Jerusalem
1897(16th of Nisan, 5657): Second day of Pesach
1897: Three days after he had passed away, Nathan Jacob De Jongh, the husband of Henriette De Jongh and the father of James and Benjamin De Jongh was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1897(16thof Nisan, 5657): Rabbi Rudolph Grossman will officiate at the funeral of August Seligman who died of pneumonia. Interment will be in Cypress Hills Cemetery
1897: “Making Passover Bread” published today reports that three companies in New York “practically monopolize” the manufacture and sale of Matzoth in the United States. While Matzah is baked in other cities, many Jews rely on the trustworthiness of the New York firms to manufacture a ritually acceptable product. The demand has gotten to be so great that the firms start baking right after New Year’s in January and do not start until the start of Pesach.
1898: Approximately 5,000 people attended the opening night of a fair at the Grand Central Palace which is being held “for the benefit of the building fund of Congregation Adath Israel of West Harlem.”
1900: In his quest for governmental support for the creation of Jewish home, Herzl met with Grossherzog Friedrich of Baden receives Herzl. The Germans are reluctant to get involved but there is hope that the Austrians will help him get an audience with the Sultan.
1900: The first public meeting of the Sabbath Observance Association of New York was held this evening at Shearith Israel in New York. The newly formed group already has at 300 members. It was formed to combat what its leaders view as a growing disregard for the observance of the Sabbath. According to two of the speakers, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Dr. Mark Blumenthal, the observance of the Sabbath “has preserved Judaism though all the centuries of persecution” and has made “the Jewish home and the Jewish woman an emblem of sanctity and purity which has been held up to the admiration of people of every religion.”
1901: Birthdate of lyricist Al Lewis whose most famous work was “Blueberry Hill.” Written in 1940, it gained everlasting fame when it was recorded by Fats Domino in 1956.
1902(11th of Nissan, 5662): Birthdate of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as “the Rebbe” who was the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe. [Editor’s Note: There is no way that any entry here could even begin to do justice to his gifts and accomplishments, but readers are encouraged to the innumerable sources available to examine the life of this indomitable figures as well as to read his writings. His most famous and long lasting impact may be his outreach program. Anybody who has spent time with one of his “Lamplighters” such as Rabbi Pinchas Ciment will understand the meaning of this statement.]
1902(11th of Nisan, 5562: Seventy-two year old German businessman and politician Marcus Wolf Hinrichsen passed away today in Hamburg.
1903: Apparently “the bread of affliction” has taken on a new cache since The New York Times reports that “Matzo, or Passover bread” can be found in small piles in the city’s “bon-bon shops.”
1904: Cyrus Adler of the Jewish Historical Society was among those sitting at “the guests’ table” tonight at the annual banquet of Empire State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution where the Japanese Consul General spoke about “some of the reasons why Japan is now fighting Russia.”
1905: Today is the last day on which the First American Romanian Congregation is scheduled to distribute Matzoth to the poor Jews living on the Lower East Side.
1906: In St. Paul, MN, “Jacob and Mollie (Balkind) Ginsberg gave birth to University of Minnesota trained physician and WW II Stewart Theodore Ginsberg, the “Clinical professor of psychiatry at Emory University and husband of Ada Leach Leach with whom he raised three children – Barbara, Janet and Mark.
1906: On the day after the end of Pesach, “San Francisco and the entire Bay Area was struck by an epic earthquake, followed by a fire which lasted almost three days and utterly destroyed most of the city. Consumed in the flames were more than 3500 souls and hundreds of millions of dollars in buildings and other property. The Jewish community lost Emanu-El's great Sutter Street synagogue building, which burned to the ground. In addition, much of Adolph Sutro's collection of Hebraica and documents of the Spanish era in California were destroyed. Among the Jewish institutions that responded to the city-wide emergency was Mount Zion Hospital, which was safely located beyond the perimeter of the fire in the Western Addition. Jewish doctors and nurses worked tirelessly in the days after the conflagration to help injured citizens. In Golden Gate Park, where tens of thousands of homeless citizens were temporarily housed in tents for months following the conflagration, a Jewish couple named Victor and Anna Rosenbaum won a city-wide award for having the tidiest domicile. Jewish merchants played a leading role in getting San Francisco back on its feet, setting up a new commercial district along Van Ness Avenue and making Fillmore Street a substitute for Market Street for several years while the Downtown District was rebuilt. The Chicago architect Daniel Burnham had proposed a progressive new street design for San Francisco, modeled after those of Paris and Washington D.C. But Jewish and other merchants were anxious to get back in business and the Burnham Plan was dropped. San Francisco's rabbis were tireless in their relief efforts, and the Jewish community pledged large sums to the city's reconstruction, figuring prominently in its fulfillment. The reconstruction of the San Francisco was also symbolized by the erection in 1912-1915 of a magnificent new Beaux Art neo-Renaissance City Hall, designed by Arthur Brown, who would later design the new Congregation Emanu-El in 1925. The legendary, long-serving Mayor "Sunny Jim" Rolph would attend and speak at the dedications of both buildings.
1907: In San Francisco Jewish businessmen were among those celebrating this morning when the Ferry Building clock which had stopped at 5:12 a.m. a year earlier was started up again.
1908(17thof Nisan, 5668): Third Day of Pesach and Pesach Shabbat Chol HaMoed
1908:”From interviews given today to a correspondent for the New York Times by Lords Rothschild and Swaythling on the controversy between the strictly orthodox Jews and the more liberal adherents of the Jewish faith in England as to the divine origin of the Decalogue and the Pentateuch…it seems plain enough that the participants in the quarrel are rallying these two pillars of faith and financial giants as their leaders” with Swaythling (Samuel Montagu) “representing the ultra-orthodox section…”
1909: Tonight, at the Pilgrim Church on Madison Avenue, Reverend Frederick Lynch preached a sermon on “Christians and Jews in New York City: A Warning” in which, among other things he “condemned bills, which he said, the Jews were introducing at Albany to conduct secular business on Sunday, as selfish and as tending to break down the great American institution of Sunday for the benefit of a few.” i.e. the Jew.
1910: For a second day, the United Hebrew Community was giving out supplies to the poor people of the lower east side for the upcoming Passover Holiday.
1911: Birthdate of Maurice Goldhaber, the native of Vienna ,a physicist who delved into the intricacies of atoms and headed the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island for more than a decade and was the father of physicist Alfred Scharff Goldhaber and the grandfather of physicist David Goldhaber-Gordon.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/25/local/la-me-maurice-goldhaber-20110525
1912: Three days after the sinking of the Titanic, The RMS Carpathia, carrying hundreds of the Titanic survivors including journalist Edith Rosenbaum and Elizabeth and Martin Rothschild, the aunt and uncle of Dorothy Parker, arrived in New York.
1913: “Jacob Furth, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Seattle National Bank” was found guilty today of aiding and abetting in a conspiracy to accept deposits from a banker whose bank he knew to be insolvent.
1913(11th of Nisan, 5673): Julius Neumark, the President of the Jewish Community in Kortshin, a town in central Poland passed away today.
1913(11thof Nisan, 5673): Fifty-eight year old merchant Sigmund L. Bendit, the Bavaria born son of “Lippmann and Jeannette Bendit passed away today in New York City.
1913: In Richmond, VA, the Southern Educational Convention which Rabbi Max Raisin of Meridian, Mississippi was attending as a delegate came to an end today.
1914(22ndof Nisan, 5674): Eighth Day of Pesach; Shabbat; Yizkor
1914: Columbia trained physician Adolph Stern a specialist in the treatment of nervous and mental disease who studied with Freud and who was the Hungarian born son of Herman and Rosalie Stern married Mamie Hallow today.
1914: German Jew-Baiter Dead” published described the recent death of “Hermann Ahlwardt, once celebrated as a German Jew-Baiter” who had one time had participated in a nationwide lecture tour in the United States
1915: “Over 200 delegates representing 177 Jewish labor organization with a membership of over 300,000 attended” tonight’s first ever convention of the National Women’s Committee for Jewish Rights in Belligerent Counties which has been formed “to agitate for equal Rights for Jews, especially those living in Russia.”
1915: It was reported today that Funk & Wagnalls have published “John Foster Fraser’s new work, The Conquering Jew which contains the results the author’s studies of the Jew, his adaptability and vitality” and well as the views on the future of the Jews.
1915: “To-night’s the Night, a musical comedy composed by Paul Rubens” with two songs composed by Jerome Kern opened at the Gaiety Theatre in London for the first of 460 performances.
1915: In New York, Joseph Davidman and Jeanette Spivack who had married in 1909, gave birth to “child prodigy” poet and author Joy Davidman
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/davidman/bio.htm
1916(15thof Nisan, 5676): Pesach
1916: According to previously published reports Jews in Russia will not have to worry about violent attacks based on “blood accusation of ritual murder’ because “this year there will be neither Seder nor pogrom” in Russia because the homes of Jews “are wrecked and deserted and their inhabitants have been scattered an driven far away before the successive tidal waves of war.”
1916: Because today is Passover, “collection of bundles and bags for the United Hebrew Charities Bundle Day” will not take place today.”
1916: In New York, approximately 175 Jewish soldiers and sailors from Forts Totten, Wadsworth, Slocum, Hancock Terry and Wright and battleships Delaware, Wyoming, Missouri and Maine who are here by special permission of the Secretaries of War and Navy” are scheduled to attend services at several synagogues today following which they will attend a second Seder this evening.
1916: According to a report published today, S.S. Rosenstamm, the Chairman of the Y.M.H.A. there are 6,000 Jews serving in the army and navy for whom “Seders have been arranged all over the United States.
1916: According to a letter written by John Reed, he said that reports that he had accused “all Jews of being traitors to Russia” were wrong since “as a matter of fact, they are astonishingly loyal.”
1916: It was reported today that “the Israelite Alliance of Vienna will undertake the collection and forward of letters” from Jews living in Galicia trying to contact people in the United States “at its own expense.”
1917: It was reported today that the “chief business discussed at the first congress of the Jewish Social Democrat was the disabilities suffered by the Jews of Finland.”
1918: During WW I with Jewish soldiers on both sides of the line the Germans tried to seize the heights at Kemmelberg as part of the Great Spring offensive designed to end the war before the Americans could make up for the loss of Russia.
1919(18thof Nisan, 5679): Fourth Day of Pesach
1919: In London, Lithuanian refugee Rachel Litvin and her husband gave birth to Natasha Litvin who gained famed as pianist and author Natasha Spender the wife of Sir Stephen Spender.
1920: The Twelfth Conference of the Bund, the Jewish labor organization, continued to meet in Gomel.
1921(10th of Nisan, 5681): Sixty-four year old French author and politician Joseph Reinach passed away. Born in Paris in 1856, he had two famous siblings - Salomon and Theodore – who would become well-known in the field of archaeology. After studying at the Lycée Condorcet he was called to the bar in 1887. He attracted the attention of Léon Gambetta by writing articles on Balkan politics for the Revue bleue and joined the staff of the Republique française. In Gambetta's grand ministère, Reinach was his secretary, and drew up the case for a partial revision of the US Constitution and for the electoral method known as the Scrutin de Liste. In the République française he waged a steady war against General Boulanger which resulted in three duels, one with Edmond Magnier and two with Paul Déroulède. Between 1889 and 1898 he sat for the Chamber of Deputies for Digne. As a member of the army commission, reporter of the budgets of the ministries of the interior and of agriculture he brought forward bills for the better treatment of the insane, for the establishment of a colonial ministry, for the taxation of alcohol, and for the reparation of judicial errors. He advocated complete freedom of the theatre and the press, the abolition of public executions, and denounced political corruption of all kinds. However, he was indirectly implicated in the Panama scandals through his father-in-law, Baron de Reinach; as soon as he learned that he was benefiting by fraud, he made appropriate restitution. Reinach is best known as the champion of Alfred Dreyfus. At the time of the original trial he attempted to secure a public hearing of the case, and in 1897 he allied himself with Scheurer-Kestner to demand its revision. He denounced in the Siècle the Henry forgery, and Esterhazy's complicity. His articles in the Siècle aroused the fury of the anti-Dreyfus party, especially as Reinach was himself a Jew and accused by some of taking up Dreyfus's defence on racial grounds. He lost his seat in the Chamber of Deputies, and, having refused to fight Henri Rochefort, eventually brought an action for libel against him. Finally, when the "Dreyfus affair" was resolved and Dreyfus was pardoned, he wrote a history of the case, completed in 1905. In 1906 Reinach was re-elected for Digne. In that year he became a member of the commission of the national archives, and the following year a member of the council on prisons. Reinach was a prolific writer on political subjects. On Gambetta he published three volumes in 1884, and he also edited his speeches. For the criticisms of the anti-Dreyfusard press see Henri Dutrait-Croyon, Joseph Reinach, historien (Paris, 1905), a violent criticism in detail of Reinach's history of the "affaire."
1921: In New York, Russian-Jewish immigrants Jacob and Fanny Cahn gave birth to Miles Cahn who,
with his wife Liilian” founded the Coach Leatherware Company in 1961.
1923: In Savannah, GA, Elinor Grunsfeld and Sam G. Adler, the son of Leopold Adler, the founder of Adler’s Department store gave birth to Georgia Bulldog and WW II Naval Air Corps veteran Lee Adler who was an award winning champion of historic preservation and an advocate for “providing safe affordable housing for low-income” occupants.
1924(14thof Nisan, 5684): Ta’anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach
1924: “A number of Jewish students at Harvard” are scheduled to participate in a Seder this evening at the home of Professor Harry K. Messenger, the Latin and Greek scholar who along with his wife converted to Judaism.
1926: “In Komorow, near Lublin, Poland, Hersz Trost, “a butcher” and his wife Chaja gave birth to Frima Trost who gained fame as Holocaust survivor and the driving force behind Café Edison Frances Edelstein. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)
1926: David A. Brown, the National Chairman of the United Jewish Campaign said today that the organization would exceed its goal after “the Association of Reform Rabbis” unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the campaign.
1926: “The completion of the first stage in the development of Palestine as the Jewish homeland was announced” today “by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the Chairman of the United Palestine Appeal following the receipt of a cablegram from Dr. Chaim Weizmann” which said that “immigration figures just compiled show that 100,000 new Jewish settlers entered Palestine from 1919 to 1925.”
1926: Release date of “Madame Mystery” co-starring Theda Bara (born Theodosia Burr Goodman)
1929: Clarence Galston, the son of Sigmund and Linda Galston “was nominated by President Herbert Hoover today, to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, to a new seat authorized by 45 Stat. 1409.”
1931(1stof Iyar, 5691): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1931: “City Streets” a mystery film starring Sylvia Sidney and Paul Lukas was released today in the United Sates.
1933(22ndof Nisan, 5693): Eighth Day of Pesach
1933: In Berlin, “the special court imposed a nine months’ term upon Herman Beer, a Polish Jew,” because he told “friends that the bodies of three mutilated Jews had been found in the streets of Berlin and that twenty eight Jews were dragged out of a synagogue and beaten until blood flowed” “without taking into consideration whether Beer’s information was accurate or not.”
1933: The Jerusalem YMCA, directly opposite the King David Hotel, was opened by Field Marshall Lord Allenby.
1934: A tea and musicale sponsored by The Palestine Lighthouse under the leadership of the president Mrs. Samuel D. Friedman is scheduled to take place “this after afternoon at the Waldorf Astoria to celebrate the completion of the New Shelter for Blind Children in Palestine”
1934: During today’s debate in the French Parliament over offering Albert Einstein a professorship at the Sorbonne both Premier Daladier and right wing leader Louis Marin spoke in favor of the action and praised the famed scientist who could not return to Germany
1934: Reverend Dietrich Bonhoeffer appeared to recognize the threat posed by the Nazis when he wrote to a friend today that National Socialism has “brought an end to the church in Germany.’
1935(15thof Nisan, 5695): Pesach
1935: Birthdate of Paul A Rothschild record producer who helped to build the Elektra record label.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/03/obituaries/paul-rothchild-record-producer-59.html
1936: After 233 performance, the curtain came down on “Jumbo,” a musical produced by Billy Rose with music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz with a book co-authored by Ben Hecht at the Hippodrome Theatre.
1936: “Bury The Dead” an anti-war play written by Irwin Shaw opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City.
1936: The Chief Rabbi of Vienna, Dr. Feuchtwag” issued “a strongly worded answer” in response to recent anti-Semitic attacks.
1936: In what may have been part of the attempt to improve Germany’s image prior to this summer’s Olympic games, “The German Calisthenics Association appears to have reversed the ruling of the Reich Sport League no Jew may belong to a German sport organization” but at the same time it empowered the directors of all local sport groups to expel any one for any reason.”
1937: Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika are scheduled to address the Free Synagogue in Carnegie Hall today.
1937: Rabbi Louis I. Newman is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at Temple Rodeph Sholom.
1937: Rabbi Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at the Jewish Science Society.
1937: Birthdate of Ed Parish (E.P.) Sanders the New Testament Scholar whose works include Paul and Palestinian Judaism in which he “argued that the traditional Christian interpretation that Paul was condemning Rabbinic legalism was a misunderstanding of both Judaism and Paul's thought,” Jesus and Judaismin which “he argued that Jesus began as a follower of John the Baptist and was a prophet of the restoration of Israel” and Judaism” Practice and Belief.
1937: “Top of the Town” a comedy directed by Sam White and featuring Gregory Ratoff and Mischa Auer was released in the United States today.
1938(17thof Nisan, 5698): Third Day of Pesach
1938: Plans for an upcoming “exhibition and sale of paintings at the Studio Gallery for “the benefit of the Joint Distribution Committee” were reported today.
1938: Today, Hadassah reported contributions totaling $60000 and pledges amounting to an additional $20000 had been made to the YouthAliyahFund
1938:The Palestine Postreported that 16 Arab terrorists, including their leader, Aref Abdul Razzak, had been killed in a battle and scores were wounded. The fighting between the British soldiers and Arab terrorists lasted more than six hours in the notorious "Triangle of Terror" - the hilly region between Nablus, Tulkarm and Jenin. Four Arab prisoners were taken. Only one British soldier was slightly wounded.
1938:The Palestine Postreported that four young Jews, Joseph Rotblatt, 19, Abraham Danielli, 23, David Ben Gaon, 25, and Ze'ev Anav, 24, died in an Arab terrorists ambush attack, while returning in a taxi from Hanita to Nahariya.
1938:The Palestine Postreported that a bomb was thrown into an Arab cafe in Haifa, one person had been killed and eight wounded.
1938:The Palestine Postreported that Eliahu Dawer, 58, was hurt by a bomb thrown at him while leaving the synagogue in Rehov Mea She'arim in Jerusalem.
1938:The Palestine Postreported that the new high commissioner, Sir Harold MacMichael, paid his first official visit to Tel Aviv.
1938:The Palestine Postreported that the public and the press were highly enthusiastic about the visit and the series of festive concerts conducted by Arthuro Toscanini.
1938: Superman, the creation of two Jews from Cleveland – Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster – appeared for the first time in Action Comics No. 1
1939: Anti-Jewish legislation in Slovakia defines Jews by religion.
1939(29th of Nisan, 5699): Just four weeks before her 65th birthday, American Yiddish theatre star Bertha Kalich passed away today.
http://jwa.org/thisweek/may/17/1874/bertha-kalich
1939(29th of Nisan, 5699): Seventy-seven year old Sir Matthew Nathan a British soldier and diplomat who “served as the Governor of Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, Hong Kong, Natal and Queensland” passed away in Somerset, UK.
1940: In Kingstree, SC, Fannie (Alpert) and Isadore E. Goldstein, who owned a clothing store gave birth to University of Texas at Dallas trained M.D. and molecular geneticist Joseph Leonard Goldstein, the Prize Winner who worked as a biomedical researcher at the National Heart Institute and Washington University before returning to the Southwestern Medical School of the University of Texas at Dallas as professor. Goldstein and colleague Michael S. Brown researched cholesterol metabolism and discovered that human cells have low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors that extract cholesterol from the bloodstream. The lack of sufficient LDL receptors is a major cause of cholesterol-related diseases. In 1985, Goldstein and Brown, both of whom are Jewish, were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1985/summary/
http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/moleculargenetics/pages/brown/biogold.html
1940: President Roosevelt met with David Lasser, the science fiction writer turned labor activist who was serving as the President of the Worker’s Alliance of America today in the White House.
1941: During World War II, the first British troops from India arrived at Basra. They were part of the military force that would remove the recently installed pro-Nazi government in Iraq. The rise of the pro-Nazi Arab government and the subsequent military action taken by the British would literally have deadly consequences for the ancient Iraqi Jewish community
1941(21st of Nisan, 5701): Seventh Day of Pesach
1941(21st of Nisan, 5701): Sixty-seven year old Hungarian native Charles Gelman who in 1892 came to the United States where he settled in Glens Falls, NY where owned and operated “the dry goods firm of Merkel and Gelman” while raising his two daughters Elsa and Babette passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/04/20/85306832.pdf
1942(1st of Iyar, 5702): In the Warsaw Ghetto, 52 people on a wanted list were dragged from their beds and killed. This will become known as "The Night of Blood."
1942: One thousand Jews who left the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia, by train for a ghetto at Rejowiec, Poland, were diverted to the death camp at Sobibór
1942(1st of Iyar, 5702): The death camp at Sobibor went into operation. To mark the opening 2,500 Jews from Zamosc were transported there and sent to their deaths. Only one was chosen to work and lived.
1942(1st of Iyar, 5702): Eighty-three year old Moses Montefiore Kursheedt, the husband of Jennie Kurdsheet and the son of Asher and Abigail Kursheedt passed away today.
1942: Pierre Laval became Prime Minister of the French government of Vichy. The Vichy Government was really little more than a German puppet state. Laval like many associated with Vichy was an anti-Semite who was only too willing to turn French Jews over to the Nazis even before they asked for them. Laval was executed at the end of the war.
1943(13thof Nisan, 5703): Sixty-four year old Johns Hopkins and Columbia trained attorney Joseph N. Ulman the jurist and Jewish communal leader who raised “two children – Joseph, Jr. and Eleanor –“ and his wife “the former Ella Guggenheimer” passed away today.
http://www.mdhs.org/findingaid/ulman-joseph-nathan-collection-1887-1960s-ms-1914
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/04/19/88525222.pdf
1943: Word leaked into the Warsaw Ghetto of German plans for the ghetto's destruction. This information enabled the ZOB leadership to marshal their pathetic defense force to meet the oncoming might of the Nazi military machine.
1944: Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins' ballet "Fancy Free" premiered in New York City
1944: Congressman Arthur Klein entered into the Congressional Record a report by Laura L. Margolies, a representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Shanghai on the conditions of “Refugees in the Far East.”
http://archives.jdc.org/assets/documents/shanghai_refugees-in-the-far-east.pdf
1945: General Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces telephoned Winston Churchill to describe the horrific sights that greeted his troops when they entered a concentration camp at Ohrdruf near Gotha.
1945: A list of 801 Jews, that came to be known as “Schindler’s List” was typed today. The people whose names were listed on the 13 page document were spared from a trip to the gas chamber. In 2009, employees at the New South Wales State Library found the list in boxes containing German news clippings and manuscripts by the Australian author Thomas Keneally, who wrote the bestselling novel “Schindler's Ark,” which was the basis of the famous film about Oskar Schindler and his efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust.
1945: Birthdate of Joseph Bernstein, the native of Moscow who became a leading Israeli mathematician.
1945:Robert Limpert, the leader of the anti-Nazi underground in Ansbach, was hung by the Germans for his attempts to get the garrison to surrender to the advancing Allied armies.
1945: Following their liberation inmates Langenstein-Zwieberge, a sub-camp of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp were taken by ambulance to Halberstadt where barracks had been turned into a hospital.
1945: As World War II comes to an end, and concentration camps were being liberated “an opinion survey” taken today “suggested that 81 percent of the British population would answer ‘yes’ to the question ‘Do you think the atrocity stories are true,’ whereas in December, 1944 the proportion had been only 37 percent.”
1946: The Broadway production of “Call Me Mister” a revue with music by Harold Rome opened at the National Theatre.
1946: The League of Nations dissolved itself. Its services, mandates, and property were transferred to the newly founded United Nations. Among the mandates transferred was the British Mandate of Palestine. Dealing with the issues of Palestine would become one of the first major tests for the newly formed UN. Within two years, the Mandatory Government of Palestine created by the defunct League of Nations would give way to the State of Israel and Arab zone governed by a variety of nations and groups including Egypt, Jordan and the PA.
1947 (5thof Iyar, 5707): Natan Alterman, Israeli poet, playwright, and future winner of the Biliak and Israel prizes wrote,
“Yes, the death cell soared that night.
At its sight
The heads of a conquering nation
Caught by the light, like a mouse were drawn back into their holes
Like a thief caught in the act.”
1947: Birthdate of Karen Lehmann, who as Kathy Acker gained fame as author of “Blood and Guts In High School before she passed away in 1997
1947 (5thof Iyar, 5707): Boxer Benny Leonard passed away at the age of 51. Born in 1896, Leonard was the lightweight boxing champion from 1917 to 1925. This was the heyday of Jewish pugilism with as many as seven Jews holding the championship of different weight categories. Leonard lost his fortune in the Stock Market Crash.
1948: “Representatives of Jewish organizations from twenty countries joined the Central Committee of Polish Jews today in honoring the memory of 500,000 Jews who perished in the Warsaw Ghetto” by opening “a museum recalling the Jews who fought in the final ghetto battle of April, 1943.”
1948: Following a failed attempt by the Arab Liberation Army to isolate the Jewish community in the lower quarter of the town of Tiberius, the Haganah went on the offensive and secured the town for the as yet un-born Jewish state. Most of the local Arab population left with the assistance of British troops and crossed into Transjordan. The events in Tiberius are part of a tragedy that has been repeated over the decades in Eretz Israel. Prior to the appearance of the Arab Liberation Army, the local Jewish and Arab populations had worked out a pattern of peaceful co-existence. Today, commentators would say that outside militants sabotaged local efforts to maintain communal harmony
1948: Operation Harel continued for a third day.
1949(19th of Nisan, 5709): Leonard Bloomfield passed away. Born in 1887, Bloomfield was a graduate of Harvard and the University of Wisconsin. He began his career as Professor of German. But he gained his greatest fame as a linguist, a field populated by a disproportionate number of Jews. His most famous work was “Introduction to Language” which was re-titled “Language” in subsequent editions. For many decades, most linguists considered themselves disciples of Bloomfield even if they had not studied with him.
1949(19th of Nisan): Mizrachi leader Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan passed away today
1950(1st of Iyar, 5710): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1951(12th of Nisan, 5711): Seventy-three-year Etta Schatzkey, the Lulling, TX born daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Joseph Amolksy and the wife of Albert Scahtzkey passed away today after which she was buried at Jefferson City, MO.
1953: Birthdate of Actor Rick Moranis, star of Honey I Shrunk the Kids.
1953: After 540 performances, the curtain came down on a revival of the Rogers and Hart hit musical "Pal Joey.”
1954: Colonel Gamal Abdal Nasser seized power and became head of the government of Egypt. Nasser had masterminded the coup that overthrown King Farouk. Up until now Nasser had been content to play the role of the “power behind the throne” in the new government created by the military. At this point in time, he was ready to complete his plans and make himself supreme ruler of Egypt. He would never succeed in his ultimate goals of destroying Israel which would be his steppingstone to creating a Pan Arab “nation” that would stretch eastward from Morocco.
1954: “THE DRAMA OF THE HYDROGEN BOMB -- AND DR. OPPENHEIMER'S KEY ROLE; Security Case Focuses Attention on Disputes That Preceded First Successful Test of H-Bomb at Pacific Proving Ground” published today.
1954(15th of Nisan, 5714): The Levin family observed its first Pesach as residents of Washington, DC
1955: Birthdate of banker Amschel Rothschild.
1955(26th of Nisan, 5715): Albert Einstein passed away. Born in Ulm, Germany in 1879, Einstein received the Nobel Prize in 1921 but not for relativity rather for his 1905 work on the photoelectric effect. In 1920 Einstein's lectures in Berlin were disrupted by demonstrations which, although officially denied, were almost certainly anti-Jewish. During 1921 Einstein made his first visit to the United States. His main reason was to raise funds for the planned Hebrew University of Jerusalem. However he received the Barnard Medal during his visit and lectured several times on relativity. During 1923 he visited Palestine for the first time. Einstein had planned to come to Princeton in 1932 as visiting lecturer. With the rise of Hitler, this became a permanent position. Einstein sent his famous letter to Roosevelt in 1939 warning of the impact of the German's developing the Atomic Bomb. The result was the Manhattan Project. Einstein became a U.S. citizen in 1940. In 1952, Einstein was offered the Presidency of the state of Israel, an offer he declined, in part due to his failing health. Einstein left his scientific papers to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a university which he had raised funds for on his first visit to the USA, served as a governor of the university from 1925 to 1928. The week before he died, Einstein wrote to Bertrand Russell joining him in call for all nations to give up nuclear weapons. Einstein saw himself as an advocate for international peace and understanding, notwithstanding his support for building the bomb during World War II.
1956: “The Swan,” a re-make of the 1925 silent film directed by Charles Vidor and produced by Dore Schary was released in the United States today.
1958(28thof Nisan, 5718): Eighty-four year old builder Joseph Gilbert, “who erected more than 18 skyscrapers in Manhattan before 1925 and who raised two children – Victor and Helen – with his wife Beatrice passed a way today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/04/19/81989007.pdf
1959(10thof Nisan, 5719): Parashat Metzora
1959(10thof Nisan, 5719): Seventy-three-year-old Russian born Temple University Professor of English Literature Dr. Hayim Fineman who at the age of one came to the United States where he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, married “former Queena Pollock, with whom he had three sons – Daniel, David and Gabriel – and became an active leader in the Zionist movement as can be seen by his role in founding American Paole Zion and writing What is Paole Zionism? Passed away today.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/fineman-hayyim
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/04/19/170430862.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1961: In New York Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter gave birth to University of Chicago graduate and editor of Commentary John Mordecai Podhoretz the speech writer for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
1963(24th of Nisan, 5723): Former New York Congressman Meyer Jacobstein passed away.
https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/15741
1964: Sandy Koufax became the first pitcher to strike out the side on 9 pitches
1964(6th of Iyar, 5724): Seventy year old playwright and author Ben Hecht passed away. Born in 1893 in New York to Russian Jewish parents, Hecht moved to Wisconsin where he went to high school. Hecht then moved to Chicago where he worked for several newspapers. His experiences provided the source material for his most famous work, The Front Page which has been made into a movie on three different occasions. Hecht's criticism of British policies in Palestine and support of the Jewish resistance movement caused that his credits were removed from all films shown in England for some years. In his honor an illegal immigrant ship was named "Ben Hecht". A passionate believer in an independent Jewish state, Hecht advocated swift action to attain this.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007040
http://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/The_Times_(20/Apr/1964)_-_Obituary:_Mr_Ben_Hecht
1965(16th of Nisan, 5725): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of Omer
1965: A funeral will be held this morning in New York City for “Mendel Osherowtich, a prolific writer of books in Yiddish and a former city editor of The Jewish Daily Forward.”
1966(28thof Nisan, 5726): Yom HaShoah
1966(28thof Nisan, 5726): Seventy-three year old Yiddish author and editor Leon Goldin passed away today.
http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2015/05/osher-arye-goldin-leon-goldin.html
1966: A fire was discovered at the Jewish Theological Seminary Library when smoke was seen pouring from one of the small upper windows of the JTS library tower at Broadway and 122nd Street in New York City.
1968(20thof Nisan, 5728): Sixth Day of Pesach
1967: “The Tiger Makes Out,” based on the book by Murray Schisgal who also wrote the screenplay, starring Eli Wallach and featuring “Dustin Hoffman in his film debut” was released today in the United States.
1970: “Spirit in the Sky” written and originally recorded by Norman Greenbaum “reached number three in the U.S. Billboard chart.
1972: Birthdate of film director Eli Roth.
1973(16thof Nisan, 5733): Second Day of Pesach
1973: In a phone call today “with Spiro Agnew said Jews were holding American foreign policy ‘hostage to Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union’” adding that “Some of the Jews picket can raise hell, but the American people are not going to let them destroy our foreign policy – never!”
1974(26thof Nisan, 5734): Yom HaShoah observed.
1975: After having first been shown on television in December of 1974, Jacob the Liar,” an East German-Czechoslovak Holocaust film based on the novel of the same name by “ concentration camp survivor Jurek Becker was shown in GDR cinemas today for the first time.
1975:“Basic Dresses In Sexy Prints And Washable” published today descried Diane Von Furstenberg latest triumph in the field of fashion.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F20817FC385E157493CAA8178FD85F418785F9
1978(11th of Nisan, 5738): On the Hebrew calendar, birthday of the Rebbe.
1978(11th of Nisan, 5738):Education and Sharing Day was inaugurated today by President Jimmy Carter to honor the efforts of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s “efforts for education and sharing for Jews and non-Jews.
1978: NBC broadcast “The Final Solution,” the third episode in the mini-series “Holocaust.”
1978:The Jerusalem Post reported that in accordance with the Cabinet's decision, the foreign minister, Moshe Dayan, ordered Israeli envoys to explain that Israel regards the UN Security Council's Resolution 242 as a basis of negotiations with all Arab States, including Jordan.
1978:The Jerusalem Post reported that four soldiers were wounded when an Arab assailant threw a Molotov cocktail into a bus on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem.
1978:The Jerusalem Post reported that “Holocaust,” NBC's new nine-and-half-hour TV drama series was reported to have captured the imagination of the American public.
1978: Birthdate of Amanda Sthers the director of “Holy Lands,” a film set primarily in Israel that tells the tale of (ready for this) a dysfunctional Jewish family,
1981(14thof Nisan, 5741): Shabbat Hagadol; in the evening Jews sit down to the first Seder during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.
1982: “Two Decades of a Russian Giant” featured reviews of “Tolstoi in the Sixties” by Boris Eikenbaum and “Tolstoi in the Seventies” by Boris Eikenbaum.
1983(5th of Iyar, 5743): Yom HaAtzma'ut
1983: The Nożyk Synagogue which the Nazis had partially destroyed during WW II was officially reopened today in Warsaw.
1983: Hundreds of Polish policemen, gathering around the spot from which 400,000 Jews were sent to Nazi death camps in World War II, today blocked an unofficial march called to mark the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising. But more than 1,000 people gathered anyway at a nearby monument.
1984(16thof Nisan, 5744): Second day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer’
1984(16thof Nisan, 5744): Seventy-eight year old French Torskyite Pierre Frank passed away.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1984/04/frank.htm
1985(27thof Nisan, 5745): Yom HaShoah
1987: Annette Greenfield Strauss won a run-off to become the first elected woman mayor of Dallas, Texas.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/18/1987/annette-greenfield-strauss
1987(19thof Nisan, 5747): Fifth Day of Pesach and Shabbat
1987(19thof Nisan, 5747): Ninety-six year old Austrian born California jurist and prison reform advocate Isaac Pacht passed away today.
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-04-21/news/mn-25_1_prison-reform
1987: Eighteen members of the pro-Iranian Shiite Moslem Party of God militia were killed early today when they tried to overrun a position jointly manned by Israel and its ally, the South Lebanon Army, north of Israel's border with Lebanon. Four Israelis were wounded in the incident.
1988: Barbra Streisand recorded "Warm All Over”
1988: The trial of Ivan Demjanjuk which had begun in the Jerusalem District Court on November 26, 1986, before a special tribunal comprising Israeli Supreme Court Judge Dov Levin and Jerusalem District Court Judges Zvi Tal and Dalia Dorner came to an end.
1989(13thof Nisan, 5749): Sixty-three year old Brooklyn Melvin Annenberg, a loan officer with Merchants Bank in Syracuse passed away today.
1990:Following today’s Niebuhr Lecture at Elmhurst College, Franklin Littell wrote that
“Niebuhr's style as a churchman was vigorous: esteemed for his intellectual leadership, he also worked with labor leaders and liberal and Socialist politicians on many battlelines. He was the leading — and at some points the sole — American theologian to understand the crisis posed by Nazism and to intervene on behalf of the survival of the Jewish people. His sources in Germany — including strong contact with Dietnch Bonhoeffer, and in Europe — including close relations with Visser't Hooft, as well as his excellent network (in good part through his wife, Ursula) with British political and church leaders kept him well informed and deeply concerned. He interpreted the issues in the German Church Struggle (Kirchenkampf) and the Shoah as no other American of his generation, and did so along theological lines that are exciting participants in seminars and conferences fifty years later. He championed the creation of a Jewish state in 1943, publicly criticized the targeting of Jews for Christian conversion in 1958, and maintained lifelong friendships with Jewish peers such as Abraham Joshua Heschel.”
1992(15thof Nisan, 5752): Pesach is observed for the last time during the Presidency of George Bush.
1993:Thousands of Holocaust survivors and their families, many of them sobbing audibly, observed the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising with a memorial service at Madison Square Garden that also honored the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Nazi concentration camps.
1994: Roseanne Barr filed for divorce today in Superior Court of Los Angeles County.
1996: During “Operations Grapes of Wrath” Israeli artillery mistakenly shells a UN position killing 102 Lebanese civilians. The Israelis expressed regret for the loss of life which occurred during an operation intended to destroy Hezbollah bases from which rocket attacks had been launched against Israeli towns in the northern part of the country.
1996: Ninety-two year old Boleslavs Maikovskis, who took part in the mass execution of 200 Latvian villagers during WW II died today.
1998: ABC broadcast the first screnning“Since You’ve Been Gone,” a made-for-TV movie directed by David Schwimmer and co-starring Schwimmer, Jon Stewart and Joey Slotnick.
1999; The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Mercy: Poems”by Philip Levine.
1999: An exhibit styled “Sigmund Freud: Conflict and Culture”opens at the Jewish Museum in New York City.
1999: The statue of Saint George fighting a serpent was re-erected in St. Stephen's Park. Many gathered under a sea of umbrellas for the unveiling, on the rainy Sunday morning. Speakers included Holocaust survivor and poet, Gyorgy Somlyo who was saved by Raoul Wallenberg.
2000: A long-awaited study of assets seized from Jews in wartime France begun three years ago by the Matteoli Commission “said today that the Nazis and French collaborators stole far more than previously assumed” but “that efforts to return the property or to reimburse Jews after the war were extensive.” (As reported by Suzanne Daley
The report was by the Matteoli Commission
2001: On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Bush and his wife Laura toured the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
2001:At Colgate University Barry Strauss, director of peace studies and a professor of history at Cornell University delivered a talk titled "My Grandfather's First World War, and my search to rediscover it," which focuses on the Jewish experiences in the United States army and raise such issues as memory, identity and military service.
2002: Judy Chicago's monumental sculpture "The Dinner Party" was acquired by the Brooklyn Museum.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/18/2002/judy-chicago
2003(16thof Nisan, 5673): Second Day of Pesach – 1st day of the Omer
2003(16thof Nisan, 5673): Sixty-one year old French television executive Jean Drucker passed away at Mollégès, France
2003: A display of Marshmallow Peeps at McCaffrey’s Supermarket in Southampton, PA, help to mark the 50th anniversary of this all-American confectionary concoction. Peeps, which originally were in the form of Easter chicks, are a product of Just Born, a candy company started by Russian Jewish immigrant Sam Born who was followed in the business by his son Bob Born and grandson Ross Born.
2004: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including 'Stalin' by Simon Sebag Montefiore.
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/books/the-fourth-greatest.html
2004: An exhibition entitled “Gate of Death” opens at the Jewish Museum in New York City.
2005: Today, David Littman helped to organize “a major Parallel NGO Day Conference.”
2006: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with his Cabinet to decide on the response to the previous day suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. The Israeli government response would have to be measured against the fact that the PA government is now controlled by Hamas, an organization that has publicly approved the attack.
2006: Six of the nine victims of the Tel Aviv terrorist bomb were laid to rest including:David Shaulov, 29, of Holon,. Philip Balasan, 45,. Benjamin Haputa, 47, of Lod, Victor Erez, a 60-year-old taxi driver from Tel Aviv, Lily Yunes, 42, of Oranit, and 31-year-old Ariel Darhi. The two Romanian victims of the bombing, Rosalia Basanya, 48, and Boda Proshka, 50, will be laid to rest in their native country. Their bodies will be returned to Romania after the Passover holiday. There are as yet no details on funeral arrangements for the ninth victim of the attack, named by Israel Radio as French tourist Marcelle Cohen, 75.
2007: Haaretz reported today that Members of the Reform movement accused the former Sephardic chief rabbi of slander for allegedly stating that the Holocaust happened because of the activity of Reform Jews in Germany.
2007: In Chicago, WBEZ broadcast a program “billed as a vision of peace” but in which the participants engaged “in one-sided propaganda against Israel.”
2008(13thof Nisan, 5768): Ninety-one year old William Frankel, the barrister and general secretary of the Mizrachi organization who served as the editor of the “Jewish Chronicle and was the author of several books including Friday Night’and Israel Observed passed way today.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/20/AR2008042002077.html
2008: “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” a romantic comedy directed by Nicholas Stoller, co-produced by Judd Apatow and written by Jason Segal who also starred in the film and featuring Mila Kunis was released today in the United States.
2008: Ben Stein’s pseudo-documentary “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” attacking Darwin’s Theory of Evolution arrives in movie theatres throughout the United States. The film is being marketed by Motive Entertainment, the same company that promoted Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ.”
2008: During his first papal trip to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI visited a synagogue led by a rabbi who survived the Holocaust. Benedict made a brief stop at Manhattan's Park East Synagogue, whose leader, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, lived under Nazi occupation in Budapest and immigrated to the US in 1947. The pontiff, 80, is a native of Germany whose father was anti-Nazi. Benedict was enrolled in the Hitler Youth as a teenager against his will and then was drafted into the German army in the last months of the war. He wrote in his memoirs that he deserted in the war's last days. It will be the pope's second visit to a synagogue as pontiff. On his first papal trip abroad in 2005, Benedict visited a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, that had been rebuilt after it was destroyed by the Nazis.
2009; In Maryland as part of the Columbia Jewish Congregation’s (CJC) - Seventeenth Season of Movies a screening of “Jellyfish” a Hebrew language film with English subtitles which was a prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival
2009: A revival production of “Ragtime,” a musical based on the novel by E.L. Doctorow “opened at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
2009: The Metro Library Network Author Series presents “a conversation” with famed mystery writer, Sarah Paretsky, a native of Ames, Iowa who has talked about what it was liked to grow up Jewish in Kansas, at the Theatre Cedar Rapids in Lindale Shopping Center.
2009(24th of Nisan, 5769):Louis Lowenstein, an influential business law professor and former corporate executive who for nearly three decades dissected the excesses of Wall Street and warned of the dangers of short-term investing, died at his home today at the age of 83. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/business/26lowenstein.html
2010: A Broadway revival of Jerry Herman’s “La Cage aux Folles” officially opened at the Longacre Theatre
2010: “Alon Nechustan” (A Way In) a modern dance show, whose text and concept were inspired by the Kabbalistic story of the Orchard featuring members of the Avodah dance company, is scheduled to be performed at The LABA Festival 2010 at the 14th Street.
2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 by Kai Bird
2010(4thof Iyar): M. Edgar Rosenblum, an arts executive who helped steer the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven to prominence in the American theater landscape, developing work that traveled to Broadway and elsewhere and that won Pulitzer Prizes and Tony Awards along the way, passed away today at the age of 78. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
2011: A Kassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip fell in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council this afternoon. Warning sirens sounded prior to the rocket being landing. No injuries or damage were reported.
2011(14thof Nisan, 5771): Fast of the First Born; Erev Pesach; in the evening, the first Seder Zissen Pesach - זיססען פסח Chag Samayach - חג שמח
2011: The Immigrant Absorption Ministry will try to set a Guinness World Record tonight by organizing – together with charity Aviv Hatorah – the world’s largest Pesach Seder for some 1,300 recently arrived Ethiopian immigrants living in Tel Aviv.
2011: Noble Energy has awarded the Expro company a $27 million contract to conduct well-testing and provide sub-sea services and equipment aboard the Transocean Sedco Express oil rig for the Tamar natural gas field – and for a deepwater exploration program for the Pride North America – Expro announced today.
2012: “Charles Rosen, the pianist, polymath and author whose National Book Award-winning volume The Classical Style illuminated the enduring language of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven” gave his last lecture today in the series Music in 21st-Century Society, at the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation of the CUNY Graduate Center.
2012: Dr. Daniel Rynhold is scheduled to begin teaching Judaism and the American Legal Tradition at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning
2012: “Standing Silent” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival
2012: Miriam Kelemen Solis, who grew up in Budapest, Hungary during the 1930s, is scheduled to speak at tonight’s Yom HaShoah Service at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2012(26thof Nisan, 5772): Hila Bezaleli, a “20-year-old soldier from the Jerusalem suburb of Mevaseret Zion was killed this afternoon when a light rigging system collapsed onto soldiers rehearsing for the Independence Day celebration at Mount Herzl.
http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=266815
2013: Voca People, the Israel based company, is scheduled to perform at Strathmore Music Hall in Rockville, MD.
2013: Rabbi Hayyim Kassorla is scheduled to officiate at the funeral of Jake Alhadeff at Greenwood Cemetery in Atlanta, GA.
2013: Daniel C. Kurtzer, the career diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to both Egypt and Israel is scheduled to speak at the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation.
2013: Adam Burstain, one of the finest young members of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community is scheduled to appear in the opening night performance of “Urinetown”
2013: The IPO is scheduled to begin its “Patron Trip To Poland,” “an extraordinary musical and historical experience commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
2013: 75thanniversary of the first appearance of Superman, the man of steel created by two Jews from Cleveland.
2013: Paula “Abdul appeared on the Top 5 results show of season 12 of American Idol to compliment contestant Candice Glover on her performance of Straight Up.”
2013: “U.S. Arms Deal With Israel and 2 Arab Nations Is Near” published today described “a $10 billion arms deal with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”
2013(8thof Iyar, 5773): Ninety-six year old “Orville Slutzky, who with his brother founded the Hunter Mountain ski resort in upstate New York, known in the 1960s for its celebrity clientele and in the 1970s and ’80s for its unmatched number of snow-making cannons” passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)
2014: Penultimate day for The International Photography Festival at the Carmel Winery in Rishon Lezion
2014: Etan Morel is scheduled to conduct “Jerusalem of Gold” a walking tour of Israel’s capital inspired by the song of the same name.
2015: Parashat Shemini and Chapter I of Pirke Avot
http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2015: Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the Peace Center Concert Hall in Greenville, SC.
2015: Poet and activist Elly Gross is scheduled to share her experiences during the Shoan at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum
2015: Lou Reed is scheduled to be inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame today.
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-lou-reed-20131028-story.html#page=1
2015: “Clouds of Sils Maria” and “While We’re Young” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2015: A body matching the description of Max Maisel, the son of Mobile, AL born ESPN sportscaster Ivan Maisel was found today in Lake Ontario.
2016(10th of Nisan, 5776): Ninety-two year old Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold, the native of Radom, Poland “who came to America in 1947 and settled in Cambridge, MA, where he became Director of the Hillel at Harvard.
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bostonglobe/obituary.aspx?n=ben-zion-gold&pid=179663411&fhid=8784
2016: The Jewish Music Forum of ASJM, American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Center for Traditional Music and Dance are scheduled to present “New sounds of Old Judeo-Spanish Songs,” a talk by Edwin Seroussi, “about some of the oldest recordings of Sephardic music (c.1906-1913), which have recently resurfaced in London. Recorded in a variety of locations, they feature the voices of legendary performers of the Judeo-Spanish song in the early 20th century.”
2016: Members of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center are scheduled to enjoy a week’s worth of free viewing of “Lincoln’s Undying Words” starting today.
2016: 2016: At Cornell College, in Mt. Vernon, IA, The Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund under the leadership of Dr. Robert Silber and the Inter-Religious Council of Linn County are scheduled to host a presentation be Magda Brown, who was 17 years old in 1944 when she and her family were deported on one of the final transports to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In March 1945, Ms. Brown was sent on a 3-day death march from Birkenau Concentration Camp. Magda and several other prisoners in her group escaped and hid in a barn. A few days later they were discovered and liberated by two American Armed Forces. Only Magda and her brother survived from her immediate family and only six cousins survived from her extended family of 70.
2016: “The Kind Words” and “The Grüninger File” are scheduled to be shown for the last time at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2016: This evening, “at least 21 people were injured in bus bombing in Jerusalem” which was “the first such attack in years.
2016: The IDF revealed today it had “discovered a ‘terror tunnel’ inside Israeli territory” that had been dug by Hamas in Gaza.
2017: John Osoff led the blanket primary election for the 6th Congressional District with 48.1% but since he had failed to get fifty percent he faced a run-off with one of his Republican opponents.
2017(22nd of Nisan, 5777): http://www.timesofisrael.com/navy-joins-search-for-3-missing-on-sea-of-galilee/Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor -
2017: In Jerusalem, the Abraham Hostel is scheduled to host Mimouna, “the traditional North African celebration that marks the end of Passover typically marked with music and tasty, not-kosher-for-Passover treats.
2017: After two weeks, The Art of Banksy Exhibition in Herzliya is scheduled to come to an end.
2018: “J.K. Rowling, the non-Jewish author of the Harry Potter series, decided to weigh in today, defining anti-Semitism for her 14.4 million Twitter followers.
2018: Ninety year old Howard Morley, the St Louis born son of historian and professor Abram L. Sachar and Thelma Horwitz, who followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming an author and History Professor at George Washington University while raising “three children – Sharon, Michele and Daniel – with his wife Eliana Steimatzky passed away today.
https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Eminent-historian-Howard-Sachar-passes-away-at-home-at-age-90-552524
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/author/howard-sachar/
2018: “Itzhak” a biopic about the world famous violinist is scheduled to open in Tunkhannock, PA.
2018: The Jewish Center and Park Avenue Synagogue are scheduled to co-sponsor a celebration of Israel’s birthday featuring Cantor Chaim Dovid Berson, The Jewish Center; Cantor Azi Schwartz, Park Avenue Synagogue and Cantor Mo Glazman, Temple Emanu-El
2018: The Temple-Tifereth Israel is scheduled to celebrate Israel’s 70 anniversary with a party at the Ritz Carlton in Cleveland.
2018: Holocaust survivor Michael Bornstein who was only four years old when liberated and his daughter Debbie Bornstein Holinstat are scheduled to speak at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids and at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon as part of the Yom HoShoah memorial which is being sponsored by The Thaler Holocaust Education Programming Committee chaired Dr. Robert Silber
2018(3rdof Iyar, 5778): Yom Hazikaron – Israel Remembrance Day (which like all Jewish Holidays begins on the evening before the date on the secular calendar)
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the last two screenings of “Holy Lands”
2019: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to host a presentation by Margit Meissner as part of the First Person Holocaust Series.
2019: As Prime Minister Netanyahu begins the work of forming a new government, Jews in general and Israelis in particular are faced with the growing measles epidemic.
2020(24thof Nisan, 5780): Parashat Shemini: in the afternoon study Pirke Avot Chapter One’
2020(24thof Nisan, 5780: On the Jewish calendar yahrzeit of Rabbi David Ha-Kohen of Jerusalem and Yiddish poet Moses David Gisser
2020: The political deadlock which had drawn thousands of protestors to Habima Square on April 16, is scheduled to continue without resolution.
2020: As Israelis mourn the rising number of coronavirus fatalities, they take special notice 88 year old Arie Even, the Holocaust survivor who became Israel’s first coronavirus fatality.
https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/S19HeTU00I
2021: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Rock Me On The Water:1974 — The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics by Ronald Brownstein and the recently published paperback edition of Warhol by Blake Gopnik.
2021: The ASF Institute of the Jewish Experience is scheduled to present “Western Sepahardi Synagouge Tours” that will include lectures about the Jewish experience in the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, and St. Thomas.
2021: In Des Moines, IA, the Jewish Federation is scheduled to host Chef Uri Jeremias, owner of the famous Uri Buri restaurant in Akko's old city, for Israeli cooking session, in honor of Israel's Independence Day.
2021: In Israel, the mandate requiring outdoor mask-wearing is scheduled to be lifted today.
2021: Having been closed for a little over a year, today in Atlanta, the Breman Museum is scheduled to reopen its doors to visitors.
2021: Temple Emanu-El of Westfield, New Jersey is scheduled to host conversation with Eshkol Nevo, one of Israel’s most successful writers during which he will discuss his newest book, The Last Interview
2021: The Contemporary Jewish Museum is scheduled to present “Chutz-Pow! Superheroes of the Holocaust” during which lead artist Marcel Walker will talk about the creation of American comic book heroes by first-generation U.S. Jews whose parents had fled antisemitism.
2021: Through the use of pre-recorded remark Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to address J Street’s national conference today on the first days of the virtual event for which more than four thousand people have registered.