April 6
2006: David Bromberg is featured in a Washington Postarticle entitled “In Fine Fiddle” by Paul Schwartzman.
2006: In “A Homecoming, in Los Angeles, for Five Klimts Looted by Nazis,” Sharon Waxman describes Maria Altmann’s fight to regain her family’s art.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/arts/design/06klim.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=Maria%20Altmann&st=cse
1199: King Richard I of England dies from an infection following the removal of an arrow from his shoulder. Richard spent most of his reign fighting to protect his lands in France or on the Third Crusade. While he was in England, he did protect his Jewish subjects. Jews did suffer during his Kingship. Among other things, they were forced to contribute a disproportionate amount towards the ransom collected to free Richard from the clutches of an Austrian duke. Richard’s death put King John on the throne. John openly exploited Jewish subjects. His tyranny brought on the Magna Charta which included a special section on treatment of the Jews.
1233: Pope Gregory IX, who was criticized by some for being too protective of the Jews wrote "Mandate, if facts are established, to the archbishops and bishops of France to induce the Christians in their dioceses to stop persecuting the Jews, who had complained to the pope that they were being maltreated and tortured by certain lords, imprisoned and left to die. The Jews are willing to forsake usury. They are to be set free and are not to be injured in person or in property." A year later, in Decretals, he invested the doctrine of perpetua servitus iudaeorum – perpetual servitude of the Jews – with the force of canonical law. According to this, Jews would have to remain in a condition of political servitude and abject humiliation until Judgment Day. The doctrine then found its way into the doctrine of servitus camerae imperialis, or servitude immediately subject to the Emperor's authority, promulgated by Frederick II. The second-class status of Jews thereby established would last until well into the 19th century.
1443: In a document from King John of Castile on economic conditions, he mentions Jews are prohibited from exercising certain high offices among Christians, and from being employed as judges, farmers, collectors, directors, or stewards of revenue (taxes).
1453: Mehmed II began his siege of Constantinople (Istanbul). His ultimate conquest of the city would be a positive thing for the Jews since, among other things, he opened the city to their settlement
1568:”Elvira del Campo, a young woman, was subjected to her first torture session by the Inquisition of Toledo, Spain.”
1667: The “Old Synagogue” is among the buildings damaged when an earthquake struck Dubrovnik today. The synagogue dates back to the 14th century and is reportedly the oldest Sephardic synagogue in use today.
1766: Birthdate of Israel B. Kursheedt, the native of Sing-hafen Germany who when he arrived in Boston in 1796 became the first rabbi to come to the city.
1720: Manuel San Vicente, a Spanish mercenary turned himself in to the Inquisitional Tribunal after living among the Spanish Jews in Constantinople and Salonica as a Jew for a month. He sought pardon for his sin, and/or to avoid being turned in by another party. While he was in the Ottoman Empire he was circumcised, and learned Jewish prayers.
1808: John Jacob Astor incorporated the American Fur Company.
1809: Jews fled Pressburg (Bratislava) when Napoleon attacked the city
1819: In Chatham, Kent, England Sarah Moses and Lazarus Magnus gave birth to their daughter Elizabeth Magnus.
1822(15th of Nisan, 5582): Pesach
1841(15th of Nisan, 5601): Pesach
1848: "In every part of Germany excluding Bavaria, Jews were granted civil rights. As a result, Gabriel Riesser (a Jew, and an advocate for Jewish emancipation) was elected vice-president of the Frankfurt Parliament, and became a member of the National Assembly.” It must be noted that for the most part these freedoms existed only on paper and were not enforced." This paper emancipation was part of the revolutionary ferment sweeping Europe at this time. The revolts failed in Germany. The result was a migration of German liberals, including many Jews, to the United States.
1853: In Leipzig, Rosalie Bettelheim and Dr. Adolf Jellinek, a leading Rabbi in the Austrian Empire gave birth to Emil Jellink who sat on the board of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft ('DMG') and was responsible for the naming of Mercedes in Mercedes-Benz.
1856:“After a background check” the Board of Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes (the Kane Street Synagogue)“decided by a 10–9 vote” that M. Gershon, its newly hired Cantor, “had never held the position of cantor in any other congregation, and was therefore not ‘sufficiently acquainted with the actual requirements to fill said office’, and was furthermore not ‘a competent reader enough to read the Sefer Torah’. As a result, services were led by laymen, except during the Jewish holidays, when a professional cantor would be brought in from Manhattan.”
1861: According to the “Our Charleston Correspondence” column published today, Benjamin Mordecai was among those who lent the government of South Carolina funds it needed immediately after its declaration of secession. Mordecai’s “free will offering” was in the amount of $10,000. Another un-named “Hebrew gentlemen” from Charleston was pressured by his co-religionists into donating five hundred dollars to the cause. He had just returned from New York where he had made $50,000 speculating as a “Bear” in the stock market.
1862: During the American Civil War, The Battle of Shiloh begins in Tennessee when Confederate forces under Albert Sidney Johnston attack forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant. The Confederate attack surprised the Union troops who literally ended the day with their backs to the river. On the following day, the Union forces would go over to the attack and drive the Confederates back into Mississippi. The 16th Regiment from Iowa was one of the units engaged in the fight. Among the “Hebrew Hawkeyes” engaged in the fight were Jacob Jacobs and Charles Weissman of Company B and Abraham Meyers and Jacob Lehman of Company D. Both Jacobs and Meyers were wounded in the battle.
1864(29thof Adar II): Hebrew author Zebi Hirsch Mecklenberg, passed away at Konigsberg
1866: The Grand Army of the Republic, an American patriotic organization composed of Union veterans of the American Civil War, was founded today. Among other things, the GAR worked to establish appropriate burial sites for Union veterans. When the five Grand Army of the Republic posts in Seattle established a cemetery in 1895, Huldah and David Kaufman donated the land. The Kaufmans were two of the first Jews to settle in Seattle having settled there in 1869.
1870(15th of Nisan, 5631): Pesach
1871(15th of Nisan, 5631): In New York, on the first day of Passover, The Forty-fourth Street Synagogue, the Thirty-fourth Street Synagogue and the Clinton Street Synagogue are the only Jewish houses of worship where rabbis will preach sermons in English. All of the others, with the exception of the Sephardic congregations, will hear sermons preached in German including Temple Emanuel on Fifth Avenue.
1874: Birthdate of Harry Houdini. Houdini was the stage name of Ehrich Weiss one of the premier magicians and escape artists of all times. Born in Hungary, the Weiss family settled in Appleton, Wisconsin. Harry’s “father, Mayer Samuel Weiss, served as rabbi of the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation. After losing his tenure, Mayer moved to New York City with Ehrich in 1887, where they lived in a boarding-house on East Seventy-Ninth Street. Mr. Weiss later called for the rest of his family to join him once he found more permanent housing. The name "Harry" came from a family pet name for Ehrich, Ehrie(rhymes with and sounds like 'Harry').”
1875(1st of Nisan, 5635): Rosh Chodesh Nisan
1875(1st of Nisan, 5635): Moses Hess passed away.
1876(12th of Nisan, 5636):Ta'anit Bechorot
1878: Birthdate German-Jewish anarchist, writer, poet, dramatist and cabaret performer, Erich Mühsam The Nazis imprisoned him in a series of concentration camps following the Reichstag Fire. After months of beatings and torture guards at the Orianberg Concentration camp murdered him in July of 1934.
1879: An article entitled “A Festival of Thankfulness” published today states rthat “To-morrow evening the Jewish feast of Peach, or the Passover, will commence, and will continue for seven days. This festival, which was instituted to celebrate the deliverance of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage, is also called Hag Hamatzoth.”
1879: Future Dreyfusard Ludovic Trarieux was elected to the Chamber of Deputies
1881: “The administrators of the Tunis Railway have seized a case of cartridges sent to the Khoumis by Tunisian Jews.” (The Khoumis were a tribe living on the frontier who had rebelled against Mohammed Bey. So far, I have not been able to find a reason for the Jews to be sending them aid since Mohammed Bey had made amends for executing a Jew named Batto Sfoz on charges of blasphemy.)
1882: Birthdate of Rose Schneiderman, the labor organizer who taught Eleanor Roosevelt everything she "knew about trade unionism." Born in Russian Poland, her Orthodox Jewish family was close but exceedingly poor, despite both her parents' employment as tailors. Her mother insisted that Rachel (who would later change her name to Rose) attend school and enrolled her in a traditional Hebrew school and, when she turned six, in a Russian public school. The family immigrated to the United States in 1890 and made the Lower East Side of New York City their home. Two years later, Samuel Schneiderman died of meningitis, leaving his family in a dire economic condition. Deborah, his widow, took in borders and sewed for neighbors; despite her efforts, however, the family descended into poverty and was forced to rely on charity to help pay the rent and grocery bill. A thirteen-year-old Rose dropped out of school after the ninth grade to help support the family by working as a department store sales clerk. Three years later, despite her mother's objections, Rose left sales for a better paying (but more dangerous) job in the garment industry. By 1903, she organized her first union shop, the Jewish Socialist United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers' Union, where she quickly developed a reputation as an effective leader after she organized a successful strike opposing an open-shop policy. By 1907, Schneiderman devoted most of her time to the Women's Trade Union League, which she later called "the most important influence on my life." Within a year, she was elected vice-president of the New York chapter, and thanks to a stipend provided by a member, she was able to work full-time organizing for the WTUL. After the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, she helped established the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and led its 1913 strike. Determined to outlaw sweatshop labor, she told New Yorkers, "I would be a traitor to those poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. . . . Every year thousands of us are maimed. The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred." Although she was a committed trade unionist, Schneiderman grew increasingly frustrated trying to get male union members to address women's labor issues. By the late nineteen teens, the WTUL was her major focus. As president of both the New York and national WTUL, she concentrated her efforts to lobby for minimum wage and eight-hour-day legislation. In 1921, she helped organize the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers. In 1922, Eleanor Roosevelt joined the WTUL and the two women began a lifelong friendship. Schneiderman tutored ER on the issues confronting women workers, the challenges facing the trade union movement, and the problems inherent in labor-management relations. ER responded to Schneiderman's tutorial by chairing the WTUL finance committee, donating the proceeds from her 1932-1933 radio broadcasts to the WTUL, and promoting WTUL in her columns and speeches. As Schneiderman recalled in her autobiography, ER overcame the trappings of privilege to become "a born trade unionist."President and Mrs. Roosevelt enjoyed Schneiderman's company and often invited her to their homes in New York City, Hyde Park, and, after FDR became governor, Albany. In 1933, FDR named Schneiderman to the advisory board of the National Recovery Administration, a position she held until the Supreme Court declared the NRA unconstitutional in 1935. For those two years, she represented labor's voice on the board, working to see that wage and hour provisions of the NRA codes treated workers fairly. In 1935, she returned to both the New York and the national WTULs, whose presidencies she held until the New York WTUL ceased operations in 1950 and the national WTUL disbanded in 1955. From 1937 to 1943, Schneiderman, balancing her WTUL work with state politics, served as secretary to the New York State Department of Labor. Ninety-year old Schneiderman died in New York in 1972 at the Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged.
1886: Vancouver was incorporated as a Canadian City. Jewish people have been on the Vancouver scene since the city's earliest days. The first to take up residence was Polish born Louis Gold who arrived in 1872. His wife Emma was a businesswoman, and by 1882 she had established the West End Grocery and Royal City Boot and Shoe stores. David Oppenheimer, a German native, was undoubtedly the outstanding citizen in Vancouver's formative period. He promoted incorporation of the city. In June of 1886, Oppenheimer Bros.--today Vancouver's oldest business--built the first wholesale grocery in the city's first brick building, still extant in present-day Gastown. The Great Fire passed over its foundation, then under construction. Upon completion, the building was used as Vancouver's first "city hall." Both David and his brother Isaac were members of the 1887 city council, David being chairman of the finance committee. From 1888 to 1891 David served four terms as mayor, among the most constructive in Vancouver's history.
1886(1st of Nisan, 5646): Rosh Chodesh Nisan
1886(1st of Nisan, 5646): Rabbi Mordechai Aby Serour of Morocco, who was best known for his work as a geographer and explore passed away.
1889: Baltimore Hebrew Congregation which had been variously known as "Stadt-Schul" or "Fell's Point Hebrew Friendship Congregation" erected its new synagogue at Madison Avenue and Robert Street.
1890(16th of Nisan, 5650): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer
1890: “Aid For Immigrants” published today described the finalization of “the plans for the fund which Baron de Hirsch…has established to the amelioration of the conditions” of Jews living in Russian, Romania “and those other countries in Europe where the Jew is persecuted to martyrdom” to find refuge in more civilized places.
1892: “Rabbi Browne on the ‘Talmud’” published today described the speech delivered on this topic at the Central Musical Hall. The lecture entitled "Talmud - Its Ethics and Its Literary Beauties" including his assertion that "What the Congressional Record is to the loyal American citizen, the 'Talmud' is to the Jew - an embodiment of the laws and history of his race. And yet the books of the 'Talmud' so dear to every Hebrew heart have gone through a most trying ordeal. At times they have been banished and burned, plundered and torn, and yet their glory lives.”
1895: Three revenue collectors raided a basement at 119 Division Street where they found 200 galloons of wine that was supposed to be “Kosher.” The illegal still is operated by a Russian Jew known as “Gordon” who was not on the premises when the raid was being made.
1895: The Tidings, a weekly Jewish newspaper published in Rochester, NY has been merged with The American Hebrew published in New York City.
1896: The German anti-Semitic agitator Herman Ahlwardt was accompanied by A.M. Woeller, President of the Anti-Semitic Society and Jacob Hoefnagel, the society’s secretary as he made his way to deliver a speech at Germania Hall in Hoboken, NJ.
1897: Rabbi Joseph Silverman of Temple Emanu El and Cantor William Sparger officiated at today’s funeral for the late Julius Ehrmann.
1897: President Lewis Parmer of the Hebrew School on Stone Avenue said that the Long Island Water Supply Company is refusing to continue to service because “the supply lines are worn out”
1898(14th of Nisan, 5658): An article entitled “The Feast of Passover” published today states that “The Jewish Passover, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread, will be ushered in at sundown to-day. It will be universally observed by orthodox Jews for eight days and by their reformed and Palestinian brethren for seven days. With the former, however, only the first and last two days are actual holidays, and with the latter only the first and last, the intervening days being only semi-festivals, on which all manner of work may be performed.”
1899: Mrs. Samuel Hirsch will sing at today’s musicale and tea sponsored by the Women’s Committee of the Hebrew Technical Institute being held at Sherry’s.
1899: Adolf von Sonnenthal received a standing ovation when he returned to the Irving Place Theatre as Nathan in Lessing’s “Nathan Der Weise.”
1899: In Paris, L’Figaro published “the evidence given by Examining Magistrate Bertulus before the Court of Cassation hearing the Dreyfus Cas
1903(9th of Nisan, 5663): The Kishinev pogrom began. “The Kishinev pogrom was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Kishinev, which was back then part of the Bessarabia province of Imperial Russia (currently Chişinău is the capital of independent Moldova). It started on April 6 and lasted until April 7, 1903.The riot started after a Christian Russian boy, Michael Ribalenko, had been found murdered in the town of Dubossary, about 25 miles north of Kishinev. Although it was clear that the boy had been killed by a relative (who was later found), the government chose to call it a ritual murder plot by the Jews.The mobs were incited by Pavolachi Krushevan, the editor of the Anti-Semitic Newspaper "Bessarabetz", and the vice-governor Ustrugov. They used the ages-old blood libel against the Jews (that the boy had been killed to use his blood in preparation of matzo). Viacheslav Plehve, the Minister of Interior, supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters. During three days of rioting, the Kishinev Pogrom against the Jews took place. Forty-seven (some put the figure as high as 49) Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded, 500 slightly wounded and over 700 houses looted and destroyed.This pogrom is considered the first state-inspired action against Jews of the 20th century. Despite a world outcry, only two men were sentenced to seven and five years and twenty-two were sentenced for one or two years. This pogrom was instrumental in convincing tens of thousands of Russian Jews to leave to the West and to Israel.”
1904(21st of Nisan, 5664): Fifty three year old literary critic Elazar Atlas, the son of David Atas passed away today in Bialystok.
1909(15th of Nisan, 5669): Pesach
1909(15th of Nisan, 5669): Abraham Bengrihan, Chief Rabbi of Marrakech, Morocco, passed away.
1909: Birthdate of Estella Agsterribe, later Estella Blits- Agsterribe, the Dutch Olympic Gold Medal winner who would die at Auschwitz with her children and her husband.
1910: Commanding officers in Constantinople granted Jewish soldiers nine days off for Passover, even though official leave is stipulated only for the first two and last two days.
1910: In Constantinople in response to a request from the Hambashi The Minister of Justice, ordered all Jews in prison for trivial offenses be liberated in preparation for the celebration of Pesach.
1912: In Chicago, more than 15,000 thousand Jews found out today that the Orthodox among them will not be able to participate in the primary election being held on Tuesday, April 9, the last day of Passover. A plan to allow somebody to accompany Orthodox Jewish voters into the booth and mark the ballot for them was rejected “because of the chances of fraud.”
1914:A committee met at the hotel Astor tonight to make final arrangements for the Passover celebration for the Jewish soldiers and sailors whose release on furlough was obtained a few days ago.
1917: "The United States declared war on Germany. Approximately 250,000 Jewish soldiers (20% of whom were volunteers) served in the U.S. army - roughly 5.7% of the servicemen, while 7of Eastern and Central Europe. The aftermath, Communism and Fascism, would prove to be even worse. For American Jews, the aftermath of the war included immigration restrictions and the Red Scare.
1917(14th of Nisan, 5677): Erev Pesach; As Jews sat down to their Seders tonight, they had no idea how much their world was about to change!
1917: One of the British Undersecretaries for Middle Eastern Affairs, Mark Sykes informed his French counterpart Georges-Picot that Britain’s military efforts in Palestine would have to be “taken into account” at the peace conference. This was a polite way of saying that new realities had changed the British view of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and that the British would be pushing for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
1918: The Jewish Administration Commission for Palestine arrives at Tel Aviv. “Dr. Chaim Weizmann, head of the commission, evokes great enthusiasm when he replied in Hebrew to the address of welcome. The British Military Governor of Jaffa, who participated in the reception, expresses his sympathy with the Zionist aims.”
1920: Birthdate of Dr. Edmond H. Fischer. The son of a Jewish father, Fischer shared in the 1992 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
1923: Birthdate of Shoshana Shenburg who moved to Eretz Israel a year later where she would marry Professor Elisha Netanyahu and gain fame as attorney and jurist Shoshana Netanyahu who served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Israel.
1925: During his triumphal tour of Palestine, Lord Balfour, of Balfour Declaration fame, spent tonight at the hotel on top of the historic Mount Carmel, from which he had a superb view of Haifa, on the northeastern slope, and of the bay below.
1929: In Berlin, Charlotte (née Epstein) and Jack Previn, who was a lawyer, judge, and music teacher gave birth to pianist and conductor Andre Previn
1930: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that according to a report submitted by the Zionist Education Council to the Action Committee, “there are 21,031 pupils in the schools maintained in Palestine by the Zionist Organization. The annual budget for the schools is $637,250 which includes…a $37,975 subsidy from the Palestine Colonization Association and $60,000 from the municipality of Tel Aviv.
1930: In an interview on this date “Ittamar Benavi, one of Palestine’s leading journalists” reiterates his support for the creation of a series of Cantons along the Swiss model as a way to govern Palestine.
1931: The first episode of “Little Orphan Annie” Radio Show aired today with a ten-year-old Jewish girl named Shirley Bell playing the lead role.
1937: IN Jerusalem Moshe Baram and his wife Grazia who was born in Aleppo, gave birth to MK and cabinet minister Uzi Baram.
1941: German forces, in alliance with Hungarians and Bulgarians, invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. The invasion was caused by the Italian Army's failure against the Greeks. For the Jews, this meant that the Balkans would come under Nazi domination which later resulted in the destruction of some of the most ancient Jewish communities in the world. According to some, this "diversion" delayed the invasion of the Soviet Union which resulted in the Nazi forces becoming trapped in the Russian Winter. This in turn was a contributing factor to the final defeat of the Nazis.
1941: In New York City, 23 year old Sylvia Lubow Rindskopf married Ensign Maurice H. Rhindskopf – a marriage that would last nearly 69 years during which she played the perfect Naval wife to Rear Admiral Mike Rindskopf.
1941: The Nazis established two ghettos in Radom, Poland. Radom's Jewish community dated back to the Middle Ages. Nine tenths of the Jewish population of 25,000 perished in the Holocaust. According to some reports, the remaining Jews did not return because of the anti-Semitic riots that took place in Poland after the war.
1942: In Baltimore, MD Violet "Vi" (née Krichinsky) and Irvin Levinson, who worked in the furniture and appliance business gave birth to Academy Award winning director Barry Levinson whose works included one the greatest movies ever – “Avalon.”
1944: The Jewish nursery at Izieu-Ain France was overrun by Nazi's
1944: The Jewish nursery at Izieu-Ain France was overrun by Nazi's
1945: The 14th Armored Division liberated the Serbian hospital at Camp Hammelburg whose patients included Captain Abraham Baum who had been shot in the groin while trying to rescue General Patton’s son-in-law John K. Waters who was also in the hospital recovering from his wounds.
1945: After the USS Bush, an American destroyer was struck by a Japanese suicide bomber today, Raphael J. “Ray” Moses was among those who were rescued from the East China Sea.
1946: The British consulate General in Madagascar reported in confidence to the foreign Office in London that while Madagascar might be suitable for 200 colonists of the peasant class, stress should be laid by Britain on providing the right type of colonist in the first instance and not city-bred Jews who were worn and emaciated through long confinement in concentration camps.
1947: As it begins its American tour, The Hapoel soccer team is scheduled to board a plane a Tel Aviv today as it makes its way to New York City.
1947: The first Tony Awards are presented for theatrical achievement.
1948: The Irgun raided the British Army camp at Pardes Hanna killing seven British soldiers and stealing a large quantity of weapons
1948: Operation Nachshon was launched this evening in an attempt to open the road to Jerusalem. At the same time, a convoy left the coast and after a ten hour trip arrived in the beleaguered city. It was the first the first convoy to reach the city in two weeks. They found a city that was under constant bombardment from Arab Legion (Jordanian Army) artillery situated on the high round north of the Damascus Gate. For the next three weeks, the Arabs would use their military might to try and re-gain control of the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Road.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel Air Force planes bombed Syrian entrenchments in the demilitarized zone near El Hamma where seven Israeli policemen were killed and one wounded. The government lodged a complaint with the UN Security Council listing all recent Syrian border violations.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that for the first time since the establishment of the state, Britain announced that it was ready to sell small arms to Israel, on the same terms as had been enjoyed by Egypt.
1954: The body of Baron Edmond de Rothschild was re-interred in Zichron Yaakov, the wine-producing village which had been established with his help.
1954(3rd of Nisan): Yiddish poet Aaron Leib Baron passed away
1955: David Saul Marshal, a descendant of Indian Baghdadi Jews, began serving as Chief Minister of Singapore.
1957: First oil tanker in Eilat arrived filled with Persian Gulf oil.
1958(16th of Nisan, 5718): Second Day of Pesach; First day of the Omer
1959(27thof Adar II, 5719): Sixty-four year old Leo Aryeh Mayer, who worked jointly with Eleazar Sukenik, in connection with the excavations of the "Third Wall" of Jerusalem, built by in 41-44 CE, Agrippa, king of Judea, in 41-44 CE and served as rector of Hebrew University, passed away.
1959: Joseph B. Levin represented the Securities and Exchange Commission before the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals in Columbia General Investment Corporation v. the SEC.
1962: Leonard Bernstein causes controversy with his remarks from the podium during a New York Philharmonic concert featuring Glenn Gould performing Brahms' First Piano Concerto.
1967: Avraham Lanir “scored his first aerial kill in a major skirmish along the Syrian border which ended with the downing of six Syrian jets. Lanir, flying Mirage 60, downed a SAF MiG-21 with cannon fire after closing in to a distance of 200 meters. The MiG exploded and Lanir flew right through the fireball, covering his aircraft with soot. Initially blinded, enough soot was eventually blown off his canopy to afford Lanir a safe landing at Ramat David. The scorched aircraft earned the nickname ‘Black Mirage’".
1968: Romanian Jewish playwright Israil Bercovici adapted a collection of Itzik Manger's poems into a two-act stage piece, Mangheriada, which premiered today at the Romanian State Jewish Theater in Bucharest
1969: Birthdate of actor Paul Rudd
1969: Birthdate of actress Ari Meyers best known for her role as "Emma Jane McArdle" in the television series, “Kate & Allie.”
1969: Gold Meir spoke to 3,000 teenagers in Jerusalem, expressing her absolutefaith that peace would come.
1971: Jews must have felt mixed emotions today when Igor Stravnisky passed away today. On the one hand he was a giant in the world of music and yet he was also an anti-Semite.
1974(14th of Nisan, 5734): Shabbat Hagadol; Erev Pesach
1974(14th of Nisan, 5734): Canadian born poet Rochelle Mass and her family celebrate their first Pesach in Israel at a kibbutz where she had picked oranges during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
1975: Birthdate of actor Zach Braff
1975: Sandy Helberg the American actor who is the son of 2 Holocaust survivors married Harriet Birnbaum.
1976(6th of Nisan, 5736):Sidney Franklin passed away. A Brooklyn born Jew whose name was originally Sidney Frumkin, Franklin was the U.S.’s first successful bullfighter.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that France sold to Egypt Mirage F-1 interceptors, the most advanced French combat aircraft. It is pointless for Israelis, or for Israel friends abroad, to shadow box with PLO, Defense Minister Shimon Peres told the International Conference on Palestinians and the Middle East, since the PLO aspires to liquidate the Jewish State. He added that the PLO had maintained its rigid extremism, and had lined up the entire Arab world behind this position.
1977:The Jerusalem Post reported that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat called upon US President Jimmy Carter to establish "a political entity where the Palestinians can, at long last, be a community of citizens, not a group of refugees." The Israel Press Council decided to form a team to check local papers’ observance of their ban on publication of criminal suspects’ names before they are remanded. Israeli artillery shelled terrorist concentrations in Lebanon. Israeli meat producers obtained a US permit to export kosher meat to America
1982:Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, speaking at the funeral of an Israeli diplomat slain two days ago in Paris, said today that Israeli forces would strike ''without reservation, without end'' at bases and headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon and elsewhere.
1985(15th of Pesach, 5747): Pesach
1986(26th of Adar II, 5746):Pesach Burstein, a Yiddish actor whose singing, dancing and whistling delighted audiences here and abroad for more than 70 years, died today at Lenox Hill Hospital after suffering a heart attack last Monday. Mr. Burstein was 89 years old and a resident of Manhattan and Tel Aviv.
1992(3rd of Nisan, 5752): Molly Picon passed away at the age of 94..Born in 1898, the petite Molly Picon was a star of both the Yiddish theatre and a variety of American entertainment mediums. Her career included 19 years of radio broadcasts and roles on Broadway and film. She performed for American troops during World War II. She was one of the first entertainers to go to Europe after the war to perform for Jewish refugees.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/picon.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/picon.html
1992: Ninety-six an Austrian-American chemist who fled Europe for America because he was the son of Dr. Herman Carl Mark, a Jew who converted to Lutheranism passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/10/us/dr-herman-f-mark-dies-at-96-a-pioneer-in-polymer-chemistry.html
1993(15th of Nisan, 5753): Pesach observed for the first time in the Presidency of Bill Clinto
1994(25th of Nisan, 5754): A Palestinian suicide bomber killed 7 Israelis and himself.
1994(25th of Nisan, 5754): Eight people were killed in a Hamas terrorist car-bomb attack on a bus in the center of Afula. This was the first documented car bombing in Israel. The dead included: “Asher Attia, 48, of Afula, bus driver; Vered Mordechai, 13, of Afula; Maya Elharar, 17, of Afula; Ilana Schreiber, 45, a teacher from Kibbutz Nir David; Meirav Ben-Moshe, 16, of Afula; Ayala Vahaba, 40, a teacher from Afula; and Fadiya Shalabi, 25, of Iksal were killed in a car-bomb attack on a bus in the center of Afula. Ahuva Cohen Onalla, 37, wounded in the attack, died of her wounds on April 25.”
1995(6th of Nisan, 5755): Six Israelis were killed in two suicide bombings at Kfar Darom.
1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Memories of Summer: When Baseball Was an Art
and Writing About It a Game by Roger Kahn.
and Writing About It a Game by Roger Kahn.
2000:The United States Postal Service issued five stamps depicting the work of Jewish sculptor Louise Nevelson.
2000: Habib Bourguiba, President of Tunisia, passed away. Bourguiba came to power when Tunisia gained its independence from France in 1956. By then the Jewish population had shrunk from its 1948 high of approximately 100,000. The Tunisian government enacted a series of anti-Jewish decrees. In 1958, Tunisia's Jewish Community Council was abolished by the government and ancient synagogues, cemeteries and Jewish quarters were destroyed for "urban renewal."The increasingly unstable situation caused more than 40,000 Tunisian Jews to immigrate to Israel. By 1967, the country's Jewish population had shrunk to 20,000. During the Six-Day War, Jews were attacked by rioting Arab mobs, and synagogues and shops were burned. The government denounced the violence, and President Habib Bourguiba apologized to the Chief Rabbi. This apology certainly marked Bourgiba as unique among Arab leaders. His government appealed to the Jewish population to stay, but did not bar them from leaving. Subsequently, 7,000 Jews immigrated to France. Today about 1,000 Jews live in Tunisia.
2001: In an article published today, entitled“Out of the Jewish Ghetto and Into the Mainstream,” Grace Gluek traces the life and times of one of the earliest of Jewish artists, Moritz Daniel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/06/arts/art-review-out-of-the-jewish-ghetto-and-into-the-mainstream.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/06/arts/art-review-out-of-the-jewish-ghetto-and-into-the-mainstream.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
2002: During Operation Defensive Shield the terrorist leader responsible for trying to turn Jenin into a massive booby-trip (including the homes of the civilians) and two of his comrades were killed by Israeli troops as they cautiously made their way through the camp in an attempt to minimize civilian casulaities.
2002(24thof Nisan, 5762): Twenty-six year old Staff Sergeant Nisan Avraham from Lod was killed today and five of his comrades were wounded when Islamic Jihad terrorists attacked them at the entrance of Rafiah Yam.
2003: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including ''The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror'' by Bernard Lewis.
2003(4th of Nisan, 5763): Leon Levy, the co-founder of Oppenheimer & Co who was praised as an “investment genius and prolific philanthropist” passed away.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/08/nyregion/leon-levy-philanthropist-is-dead-at-77.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/08/nyregion/leon-levy-philanthropist-is-dead-at-77.html
2004(15thof Nisan, 5764): Pesach
2005: The New York Times featured a review of “In Satmar Custody.” This documentary written in English, Hebrew, Yemenite and Yiddish describes the fate of Yeminite Jews living in Israel who were brought to the United States to live in the Satmar community in Monsey, N.Y. The Times describes the fate of such Jews as a “nightmare for a Jewish family from Yemen.
2005(26th of Adar II, 5765): Specialist Daniel J. Freeman aged 20, who “had been in Afghanistan for about two months was killed today in a helicopter crash “along with 15 other soldiers. He had not been scheduled to be on board the supply flight to Kandahar, but had volunteered for a friend. “Daniel Freeman was always the boy with the Israeli accent, a remnant of his life on a kibbutz, where he lived until he was 9 years old. Growing up in Cincinnati, he loved playing soccer and rock climbing, and was part of the local fire department’s explorer club, excited to dress up and train like a firefighter. As an older teenager, “Daniel developed a keen sense of right and wrong and would get very upset if he thought something was unfair,” said Shmuel Birkan, Freeman’s stepfather. In high school, Freeman took an enthusiastic interest in military history, a subject he studied in addition to Hebrew. He decided he wanted to enlist in the Army, “because he truly believed it was the right thing to do,” Birkan said. A participant in the Army’s early induction program, Freeman went on to complete his basic and advanced training in Fort Benning, Ga. “Daniel was never particularly in favor of [America’s] reason for being in Iraq and Afghanistan. He just knew that his mission was to keep himself and his friends safe,” Birkan said. (As reported by Maia Efrem)
2006: The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (JRF) of Metropolitan New York/New Jersey recognizes their Vatikim: Those Who Inspire Us with a Lifetime of Contribution with a festive evening of celebration featuring the unique Sephardic spirit and sounds of Gerard Edery and the Bnai Keshet a Cappella Singers
2006: David Bromberg is featured in a Washington Postarticle entitled “In Fine Fiddle” by Paul Schwartzman.
2006: In “A Homecoming, in Los Angeles, for Five Klimts Looted by Nazis,” Sharon Waxman describes Maria Altmann’s fight to regain her family’s art.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/arts/design/06klim.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=Maria%20Altmann&st=cse
2007: “Spots of Light: To Be a Woman in the Holocaust” opens at Yad Sachem’s Exhibitions Pavilion:
2008: David Blatt, the head coach of the the Istanbul-based Turkish Basketball League team Efes Pilsen, “parted ways with the team.”
2008: In Washington, D.C., Jewish authorJonathan Rieder discusses and signs The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me: The Righteous Performance of Martin Luther King, Jr. at Politics and Prose Bookstore.
2008(1st of Nisan, 5768): Rosh Chodesh Nisan
2008: The Sunday New York Times book section featured reviews of two books by Jewish authors - Fidelity by Grace Paley and Please Don’t Remain Calm by Michael Kinsley.
2008(1st of Nisan, 5768: Thirty-six year old MajorStuart Wolfer was killed today when his unit was attacked by insurgents in Baghdad. (As reported by Maia Efrem)
Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/135331/profiles-of-our-fallen/#ixzz1r7KLHWdl
Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/135331/profiles-of-our-fallen/#ixzz1r7KLHWdl
2009: Lubavitch Chabad of Northbrook and CJE Senior Life present the “Yiddish Club.”
2009:Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, professor of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University delivers an address entitled "Iran, Israel and the US: Dissecting the Triangular Relationship’ at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
2009:J. Ezra Merkin, a prominent New York financier whose private clients lost more than $2 billion in the collapse of Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, has been accused of fraud and deception in a civil lawsuit filed today by the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo.
2009:A list of 801 Jews saved during the Holocaust by German businessman Oskar Schindler has been recovered from a Sydney library, News Agencies reported today. The story inspired the novel and Oscar-winning film "Schindler's list," and led to his being named a Righteous Gentile by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. 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, The library's co-curator, Olwen Pyke, described the 13-page yellowing document as "one of the most powerful documents of the 20th Century" and said that the library was stunned to find it among the six boxes containing Kneally's material. Pryke described the 13-page list - a typescript copy of the original - as "one of the most powerful documents of the 20th Century" and was stunned to find it in the library's collection. She told the AFP that she did not know how much such a finding would be worth financially."This list was hurriedly typed on April 18, 1945, in the closing days of WWII, and it saved 801 men from the gas chambers," she told the AFP. "It's an incredibly moving piece of history."Kneneally's 1982 novel, which won a Booker Prize, told the story of how Schindler risked his life to save more than 1,000 Jews from the Nazis. Hollywood director Steven Spielberg adapted the story into a film in 1993, starring Liam Neeson as Schindler and Ralph Fiennes as the head of an SS-run camp. According to Pryke, Schindler had actually compiled more than the one list implied in the film and the book. She said that Holocaust survivor Leopold Pfefferberg, number 173 on the list, gave the document to Keneally in an attempt to persuade him to write the story. Pryke said that Kneally found the list so inspiring, that he acquiesced to the request. Schindler was born in a German-speaking part of Austria-Hungary in 1908. At the start of the war, he was a card-carrying Nazi who used those connections to take over a Polish factory following Hitler's invasion. Over the course of the war, his conscience got the better of him and he persuaded Nazi official that his Jewish laborers were vital to the war effort and should not be deported to death camps. He died in 1974, but his acts were only recognized years later with the release of the book and the film.
2010(22nd Nisan, 5770): Yizkor is recited on the Eighth Day of Pesach.
2010: The Home Minister of Maharashtra State, which includes Mumbai, informed the Assembly that the bodies of the nine Pakistani gunmen from the 2008 attack on Mumbai who had murdered 8 people at Nariman House were buried in a secret location in January 2010.
2010: Model and actress Lisa S. (Lisa Slesner) married David Wu today.
2010:Israeli Author Savyon Liebrecht is scheduled to speak at Yale’s Slifka Center for Jewish life.
2010: David Remnick's biography of President Barack Obama, The Bridge, was released today.
2011: Michael Applebaum began serving as Chair of the Montreal Executive committee.
2011: AlexanderMashkevitch announced his intention to found a Jewish version of Al-Jazeera that will "represent Israel on an international level, with real information
2011:Former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Dalia Dorner as keynote speaker is scheduled to speak today at an event marking the formal launch of The Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israeli Law, Economy and Society at the University of California Law School.
2011:Ruth Messinger, President of the American World Jewish Service is scheduled to speak today during the New CAJE Lehrhaus webinar series.
2011(2ndof Nisan): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of The fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneersohn ("Rashab") who passed away in 1920.
2011(2ndof Nisan): Eighty two year old Igor Yakovlevich Birman, the Russian born American economist who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union passed away today.
2011:Tel Aviv has been ranked No. 34 out of 40 cities in the annual Knight Frank global cities index, which was released today, one place lower than last year and three below Cairo. The Global Cities Survey, which was created by multinational real-estate and property-services firm Knight Frank in 2008 to monitor city-level power shifts, measures 40 major cities in terms of their provision of investment opportunities and influence on global business leaders and the political elite.
2012(14th of Nisan, 5772): Fast of the First Born
2012(14th of Nisan, 5772): Fifty-nine year old Elan Steinberg who was head of the World Jewish Congress passed away today. As reported by Douglas Martin)
2012: Rabbi Greg Wall is scheduled to lead the Seder at The Sixth Street Community Synagogue; an event that will “swing between tradition and utter hipness.”
Chag Kasher v'Sameach!
2013: Tom Arnold who converted to Judaism when he married Roseanne Barr and continues to be a practicing Jew and his fourth wife Ashley Groussman gave birth to their first child Jax Copeland Arnold.
2013: “A Bottle In The Gaza Sea” is scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Festival.
2013: “Joe Papp In Five Acts” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2013: US Secretary of State John Kerry is headed to the Middle East today on his third trip there in just two weeks in a fresh bid to unlock long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
2014: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including three written especially for children and young readers about the Holocaust: Hidden: A Child’s Story of the Holocaustby Loic Dauvillier; Hidden Like Anne Frank: Fourteen True Stories of Survival by Marcel Prins and Peter Henk Steenhuis; The Whispering Townby Jennifer Elvgren
2014: The Jerusalem Post is scheduled to hold its annual conference in New York City.
2014: A special performance of “The Last Act of Lilka Kadison” for the benefit of Yiddishkayt and in memory of NPR radio producer Johanna Cooper is scheduled to take place in Burbank, CA.
2014: In Springfield, VA, Congregation Ada Reyim is scheduled to host a Sisterhood Community Women’s Seder using a special Haggadah honoring “the role of women in Passover tradition.”