June 3 In History
350: Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, proclaims himself Roman Emperor, entering Rome at the head of a group of gladiators. The Constantinian Dynasty took its name from its most famous member, Constantine I, the Emperor who turned the Roman Empire into a Christian entity; a policy followed by his successors much to the dismay of the Jewish people.
1098: During the First Crusade, Antioch falls to the crusaders after an eight-month siege. This would open the road to Jerusalem, where, after another siege, the Christians would capture the City of David and slaughter its Jewish inhabitants.
1361: In Spain orders are given for the construction of a Juderia (Jewish Quarter) in Tarazona. The Jewish Quarter is to be separated by walls from the Christian community. The Christians living where the Juderia is to be built were given property of the same value and relocated.
1140: French scholar Peter Abelard is found guilty of heresy. Abelard may have been a heretic in the eyes of the Catholic Church, but when it came to the Jews, his views were classically Christian. He believed that the Jews were wicked and that God’s grace had passed from them to the Gentiles who had accepted Christ. The grace of God would return to the Jews in the end of time when the Jews will be converted to Jesus. Christ is spoken of as about to be crowned or about to be crucified it is said that He “went forth”; to signify that the Jews, who were guilty of so great wickedness against Him, were given over to reprobation, and that His grace would now pass to the vast extent of the Gentiles, where the salvation of the Cross and His own exaltation by the gain of many peoples, in the place of the one nation of the Jews, has extended itself. Whence, also, to-day we rightly go forth to adore the Cross in the open plain, showing mystically that both glory and salvation had departed from the Jews and had spread themselves among the Gentiles. But in that we afterward returned [in procession] to the place whence we had set forth, we signify that in the end of the world the grace of God will return to the Jews; namely, when, by the preaching of Enoch and Elijah, they shall be converted to Him. Abelard may have been a heretic in the eyes of the Catholic Church, but when it came to the Jews, his views are classically Christian.
1425: Pope Martin V issued “Sedes apostolica,” a Papal Bull that commanded Jews to wear “a distinctive badge.” [Editor’s note – this may have more to do with Pope Martin’s fight against slavery. The badge was intended as a way of deterring the sale of Christians as slaves. For a Pope, his views on the Jews was on the positive side of the scale as can be seen from his “Declaration on the Protection of the Jews” issued in 1419.}]
1621: The Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherlands, which would come to include New Amsterdam. A Jewish merchant named Joseph d’Acosta was one of the company’s shareholders. The fact that the Dutch West India Company had Jewish shareholders would prove to be of critical importance when Peter Stuyvesant would try to expel the Jews from New Amsterdam which was part of New Netherlands.
1658: Pope Alexander VII appointed François de Laval vicar apostolic in New France. Alexander was the pope who seemed to have a great deal of concern about the rights of tenancy in the ghetto since he issued two bulls – Verbi Aeterni and Ad Ea Per Quae- on the subject.
1678(13thof Sivan): Rabbi Ephraim ben Jacob Katz, author of Sha’ar Ephraim, passed away
1752: During the quarrel between Rabbi Jacob Emden and Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz a secular Danish court ruled in favor of Emden, severely censuring the three communities of Altona, Hamburg and Wansbeck and ordering them pay a fine of one hundred thalers. This enabled Emden to return to Altona where he regained possession of his synagogue and his printing press.
1753(1st of Sivan, 5513): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1768: King William V, the Dutch ruler, visited both the German and Portuguese synagogues today. This visit and his attendance at the weddings of Jewish subjects was an acknowledgement by the Prince of Orange of the loyalty Jewish community.
1782(21st of Sivan, 5542): Aaron F. Goldsmid, the London merchant who was founder the famous British Goldsmid family passed. A native of Amsterdam, he “was the son of Benedict Goldsmid, a Hamburg merchant. In 1765 he left Holland with his family to settle in London, where he founded the firm of Aaron Goldsmid & Son, subsequently Goldsmid & Eliason. The firm of Aaron Goldsmid & Son experienced serious reverses through the failure of Clifford & Sayer, one of the principal houses in Holland. Hence only George, the eldest son, entered into partnership with his father. The other sons founded new businesses for themselves in which they amassed large fortunes. Goldsmid left four sons and four daughters. The second son, Asher, was one of the founders of the firm Mocatta & Goldsmid, bullion-brokers to the Bank of England. Benjamin and Abraham were famous as financiers and philanthropists.” (As reported by the JewishEnncylopedia)
1849: In Montgomery, Alabama, the Chevra Mevaker Cholim, with the approval of 30 members, became Congregation Kahl Montgomery which is now known as Temple Beth Or. The congregation built is first sanctuary in 1862.
1850: The traditional founding date of Kansas City, Missouri. Temple B’nai Jehudah, the first Jewish congregation in Kansas City would be formed twenty years later in 1870.The congregation built a temple in 1908. In 1909, United Jewish Social Services opened the Alfred Benjamin Dispensary at 17th and Locust to provide medical treatment to Jewish Immigrants. This institution evolved into Menorah Hospital by 1931.
1853: In Kent (UK), Anne and Will Petrie gave birth to William Mathew Flinders Petrie , the Egyptologist who discovered the Merneptah Stele and identified the word Israel in the writing. This became an important non-biblical proof of the existence of the ancient kingdom of Israel.
1853: An article entitled “The Last Hartford Convention” described the activities of a convention that began yesterday to discuss the Bible. In mocking tones the author assumes that by now “the very existence of the Hebrew law-giver has been pronounced a myth; the Creation a counterfeit; the Deluge a fable; the Exodus a forgery.” The author wonders what “stores of rabbinical learning” including “Talmud, Targums and Commentators” as well as contemporary historians who have corroborated the stories of the Israelites will be discredited by these contemporary philosophers whom he compares to the infidels going back to Roman times who have tried and failed to discredit “the first five books.”
1870: The London Standard denounced the review of Benjamin Disraeli’s Lothairpublished in Blackwood. The Standard did not take issue with Blackwood’s right to make negative comments about the book. The complaint was that Blackwood made the review “the vehicle for a coarse, violent and outrageously personal attack” on Mr. Disraeli. “The critic has used the book as opportunity for indulging his spleen against its distinguished author.”
1870: “A petition by Jews living in Indianapolis, Indiana urging the President of the United States to Intervene on behalf of Romanian Jews was referred the Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations.”
1870: It was reported today that Simon Wolf delivered telegrams for all over the United States asking that the U.S. intervene with the government of Romania on behalf of its Jewish citizens. The U.S. has decided to appoint Adolphe Buchner, who is Jewish, to serve as Consul at Bucharest as a way of expressing its desire that the Romanians stop mistreating their Jewish citizens. [The President who was showing support for the Jews was U.S. Grant, who as Dr. Sarna has pointed out in his marvelous book on the famous General and President, was no anti-Semite.
1870: The United States Senate spent an hour this morning discussing the recent massacre of Jews in Romania during which Senator Morton of Indiana presented a request that the President intervene to “save the Jews of” Romania “from further persecutions.” The Senate passed a motion offered by Senator Sumner of Massachusetts asking the President to provide the Senate with any information in the possession of the State Department concerning the violence. “Mr. Sumner said that the interests of humanity demanded that the fullest information should be had by the Senate on this subject.” According to Sumner, “the massacre was a most terrible affair, the whole enormity of which was not yet made public.” Senator Sprague of Rhode Island said that Jews owned most of the land in Romania and controlled all of the trade in the Principality “while a vast population of Christians” were deprived of the means of support” and that this was the cause of the violence. He said that these facts “furnished food for profound reflection…to affairs here in our country, where the tendency” is rapidly moving “in the same direction. Senator Stewart of Nevada “said he hoped Mr. Sprauge did not mean to imply that when a man gets rich he ought…to be killed.” Senator Sprague “smiled faintly” but made no further reply. [Editor’s note – The concern for the Jews of Romania was the first expression of support for the plight of foreign Jews in the post-Civil War United States. Senator Sumner had been a leading Abolitionist and was a major political power in the dominant Republican Party. The President who would show support for the Jews was U.S. Grant. By the same token the views of Senator Sprague, the son-in-law of Salmon P. Chase, another prominent Republican who served as Sec. of Treasury and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, were the an example of the genteel anti-Semitism which would manifest itself in everything from exclusion at fancy hotels to quotas at the leading ivy league universities.]
1871: “Rome: The Press in the Eternal City” published today reported in the newly united Italy, Jews and Free-thinkers dominate the world of literary opinion. Among the Jews are: Giacomo Dina ‘the patriarch of Italian journalism” and the editor of Florence Opinione;” Carlo Levi, editor of the Nuova Roma; Edward Arib, “the ablest representative of the liberal press” and editor of Liberta; Alessandro D’Acona of Pisa and Luigi Camerini of Milan, “accomplished critics of belles lettres. At the same time, the clerical press which is an inferior journalistic product is filled with anti-Semitic comments. For example, Buon Senso referred to Edward Arib as a “shameless Jew…’following the example of the Jews in the days of Nero who were the real instigators of the Roman Emperor’s persecution of the Christians.” [Editor’s Note – Italy, after the reunification, was one of the best places for Jews to live in Europe. At the same time, there was an undercurrent of anti-Semitism tied to the Papal parties that would flower when Mussolini would become Hitler’s partner.]
1873: Birthdate of German born and educated American pharmacologist Otto Loewi recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He passed away in 1961.
1877: “The Return of the Jews” an article published today reports that the long dreamed of “rehabilitation of Judea” by the Jews might be realized in the not too distant future. While there are only a small number of Jews living in Jerusalem thanks to the advances in modern transportation there has been increasing stream of Jews coming to visit from Poland, Morocco and Russia. Captain Charles Warren, who is best known for the maps he has made of Jerusalem, thinks that that the Jews of Morocco would be the best candidates for restoring Judea to its former glory. They are the only significant Jewish population with agricultural skills. Unlike the Jews of Jerusalem whom Warren described as being “incompetent to revive the glories of the past” because of long years of “indolence and degeneracy” the Jews of Morocco are “patient…and less fanatical than many of their brethren” as well as having a proven track record of being able to use irrigation to raise crops. [The vision of Captain Warren “the agent of the English exploration fund in Pale tine pre-dates Herzl by thirty years.]
1877: It was reported today that there are 152 synagogues in the United States with 33 in New York, 23 in Maine, 14 in Pennsylvania, 9 in Illinois and 7 each in California, Ohio and Vermont.
1877: The Board of Jewish Delegates reported that 174 out of 341 congregations and 99 other organization have responded to its questionnaire. According these responses there are 189,576 Jews in the United States. Based on this admittedly incomplete response, the board estimated that there are 250,000 Jews living in the United States with 60,000 living in New York City.
1879(12th of Sivan, 5639):Lionel Nathan de Rothschild the son of Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Hanna Barent Cohen passed away. Lionel’s was the first Jew to serve as an MP in the House of Commons. First elected in 1847, he was not able to assume his seat until 1858 following a decade long fight to change the rules about the oath of office. Queen Victoria refused to appoint him to the House of Lords. She would later recant and elevate Lionel’s son to the Lords.
1880: As unrest continues to grow in Russia, it was reported that several Jews have been arrested near St. Petersburg on charges that they are connected with the Nihilst (an all-purpose term used by the authorities for revolutionaries seeking to over-thrown the Czar)
1881(6th of Sivan, 5641): Shavuot
1882: As conditions worsen for Jews in the Ukraine, it was reported that Russian Jews who lack passports are being denied the right to immigrate.
1885 (OS May 22): Birthdate of Yakov Mikhaylovich Sverdlov, a leader of the Bolsheviks who also was a leader of the infant Soviet Union. He passed away in 1919, before the Revolution turned sour and anti-Semitism reared its ugly head.
1885: The Board of Directors of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children appealed for contributions to support its upcoming summer program of excursions. Donations should be sent to Nathan Lewis, President of the Board, John J. Davis or any of the other directors. [Editor’s Note – This was the Jewish version of the popular movement to provide trips to the country for children living in the tenements of major cities.]
1885: It was reported today that in Vienna, the Liberals had elected 8 candidates, the Democrats had elected three candidates and the anti-Semites had elected one candidate. It was their poor showing at the polls that caused the anti-Semites to begin rioting in the Austrian capital.
1887: Witnesses continued to testify in the trial of Adolph Reich who has been charged with murdering his wife last April. A former landlady testified that Reich had hit his wife and pulled her hair out while another testified that Reich thought his wife was having an affair with him. The witnesses denied the accusations saying he visited her to pick up the coats which made for his shop. Proceedings were delayed because a Hebrew Bible had to be brought to the courtroom for use by some of the witness.
1888: A convention was held today in Philadelphia that incorporated the American Jewish Publication Society. In a telegram sent to the meeting from Berlin by Jacob H. Schiff, the prominent businessman and philanthropist offered to donate five thousand dollars to an endowment named in honor of Michael Heilprin if the society can raise an additional fifty thousand dollars in the next year.The purpose of JPS was and is to publish in English books of Jewish interest. Among its hundreds of publications are Graetz's, Dubnov's and Baron's History's of the Jews, and Ginsburg's Legends of the Jews. Other important authors included Israel Zangwill, Leo Baeck, Cecil Roth, Jacob R. Marcus, and Louis Finkelstein. Starting in 1899, the JPS has published the American Jewish Yearbook.
1892(8th of Sivan, 5652):Isidore Loeb, a French-Jewish scholar passed away. Born at Sulzmatt (Soultzmatt), Upper Alsace in 1839, he was “the son of Rabbi Seligmann Loeb of Sulzmatt” and “was educated in Bible and Talmud by his father. After having followed the usual course in the public school of his native town, Loeb studied at the college of Rufach and at the lycée of Colmar, in which city he at the same time attended classes in Hebrew and Talmud at the preparatory rabbinical school founded by Chief Rabbi Solomon Klein. In 1856 he entered the Central Rabbinical School (Ecole Centrale Rabbinique) at Metz, where he soon ranked high through his knowledge of Hebrew, his literary ability, and his proficiency in mathematics. In 1862 he was graduated, and received his rabbinical diploma from the Séminaire Israélite de France at Paris, which had replaced (1859) the Metz Ecole Centrale Rabbinique. Loeb did not immediately enter upon a rabbinical career, but tutored for some years, first at Bayonne, France and then at Paris. In 1865 he was called to the rabbinate of St. Etienne (Loire). His installation sermon, on the duties of the smaller congregations (Les Devoirs des Petites Communautés), is one of the best examples of French pulpit rhetoric. Soon, however, he felt a desire to extend the field of his activity. He went to Paris, where he was appointed secretary of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, which position he held until his death. It was largely due to Loeb's labors that this association became an important factor in the progress of Oriental Judaism; and he created the library of the Alliance, which is one of the most valuable Jewish libraries in existence. Meanwhile he continued his historical and philological researches, and developed an extensive literary activity. The chair of Jewish history in the Rabbinical Seminary of Paris having become vacant through the death of Albert Cohn (1877), Loeb was appointed his successor. He held this position for 12 years. His main activity, however, was devoted to the Société des Etudes Juives, which was organized in Paris in 1880. Beginning with the first number, he successfully edited the Revue des Études Juives, the organ of that society, and was, moreover, a voluminous and brilliant contributor thereto.
1890: “Catechising The People” published today described the challenges census takers faced among New York’s immigrant population. Once the Jews understood “the purpose of the questions they became quite cheerful and communicative.”
1891: It was reported today that New York’s 25th police precinct under the command of Captain John Gunner is home to many prominent public buildings and institutions including several synagogues and the Mount Sinai Hospital
1892: Comptroller Myers said today “that the discrepancies he had discovered in the accounts of two public institution,” one of which the Ladies’ Deborah Nursery and Child’s Protectory, “arose from a lack of conformity between the commitment papers of the children made out by the police magistrate’s clers and the papers made out by the officials of the homes.”
1892: “Hamilton College Clark Prize” published today described the outcome of the school’s public speaking competition which was won by Gregory Rosenblum who spoke on “The Jews of Russia,”
1893(19th of Sivan, 5653): Sixty-one year old Joshua Hendricks passed away this evening at his home on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Mr. Hendricks was a fourth generation owner of Hendricks Brothers, a firm specializing in metals (specifically copper) which was founded in 1764.
1893: “Senator Hill Backed Down” published today described a verbal altercation that took place when Senator Hill, a member of the Senate Committee on Immigration asked Colonel John Weber, the former Commissioner of Immigration at the Port of New York (Ellis Island) if he gotten his position as a general agent for the Baron Hirsch Fund “because of the special favors show to Jews on Ellis Island.” Weber, a veteran of the Civil War and a former member of the House of Representatives who had used his experience as an agriculturalist to help the Hirsch Colony at Woodbine, NJ “flushed angrily” at the accusation and told Senator Hill, “You had better put that question again. I hardly understand it.” Hill chose not to repeat the question which was indicative of his anti-Jewish bias when it to immigration.
1894: Approximately 2,000 people attended the annual reception at the Montefiore Home for Incurables which was held this afternoon.
1900: The International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGW) is founded. In its early days, the union was dominated by Jews who made up a disproportionate number of the workers in an industry known for its sweatshop conditions. At the close of the 20thcentury, the Union gained renewed famed for its jingle “Look for the Union label in the clothes you are wearing.”
1904: Herzl leaves for Edlach, Austria accompanied by his wife and his fellow Zionist Yona Kremenetzky.
1904: Birthdate Jacob Pincus Perelmuth who gained fame as Jan Peerce, the Cantor and a tenor performing at the New York Metropolitan Opera.
1906: In Louisville, Adath Israel Temple dedicated its third congregational home. The building was designed by architects Kenneth McDonald and J.F. Sheblessy and was commonly known as the “Third Street Synagogue.” Following it merger with Brith Sholom in 1976, the congregation took the name Congregation Adath Israel Brith Sholom
1911(7th of Sivan, 5671): Second Day of Shavuot
1911: Birthdate of Marion Levy who gained fame as the actress Paulette Goddard known for playing opposite Charlie Chaplin in "The Great Dictator."
1912: Aviation pioneer and Adas Israel congregant, Arthur Welsh prepares for a two-hour test of the Wright military planes.
1913: Birthdate of Yitzhak Berman the native of Berdychiv who made Aliyah in 1920. Following military service he pursued a successful legal career before entering politics where he rose to Speaker of the Knesset.
1913: In Manhattan, Abraham and Ida Krim gave birth to Norman Bernard Krim “an electronics visionary who played a pivotal role in the industry’s transition from the bulky electron vacuum tube, which once lined the innards of radios and televisions, to the tiny, far more powerful transistor…He , did not invent the transistor…but he saw the device’s potential and persuaded his company to begin manufacturing it on a mass scale…” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1916: The British and French declare a state of siege in Salonica and remove all Greeks from official posts due to the possibility they were pro-German.
1917: Following reports of a German bombing raid conducted for the first time by bombers instead of Zeppelin that killed 95 and injured 192, “Albert Einstein wrote a friend in Holland, ‘The ancient Jehovah is still abroad. Alas he slays the innocent along with the guilty, whom he strikes so fearsomely blind that they can feel no sense of guilt.’”
1917: The Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association of Camden, New Jersey purchased 572 and 574 Walnut Street from Smith C. Moore and his wife Elizabeth, for the sum of $4,000 as recorded in Camden County's real estate records, Book 418, pages 296 and 297. On the same the Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association of Camden, New Jersey purchased 570 Walnut Street from Joseph F. and Mary C. Marck for $2100, as recorded in Camden County's real estate records, Book 418, pages 297 and 298.
1921: On the King’s Birthday, Sir Herbert Samuel, the High Commissioner for Palestinemade the first official interpretation of the Balfour Declaration, assuring the Arabs that immigration would be controlled according to the "economic absorptive capacity" of the country - and in fact suspended immigration, though only temporarily. In describing the impact of the speech to Winston Churchill at the end of the month, Samuel said the Jewish population viewed the speech as a “severe set-back” to their aspirations and that it made them feel “very nervous and apprehensive.
1921(26th of Iyar, 5681): German born New York physician Simon Baruch, father of Bernard Baruch, passed away
1922(7th of Sivan, 5682): Second Day of Shavuot
1924(1st of Sivan, 5684): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1924(1st of Sivan, 5684): Franz Kafka, author of The Trial and Metamorphosis, passed away at the age of 40.
1925: Birthdate of Tony Curtis. Born Bernard Schwartz, this actor's most famous performance probably was in the film "Some Like It Hot," where he co-starred with Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemon.
1926: Birthdate of poet and beatnik, Allen Ginsberg.
1928 (14th of Sivan): Samuel Chaim Landau founder of Torah va-Avo-dah, the religious Zionist movement, passed away
1929: Birthdate of Chuck Barris. This Philadelphia
1932: Birthdate of Fischel Lebowitz the native of Transylvania, Romania, who survived the Holocaust, and as Fred Lebow became a successful American businessman, an avid distance runner and the founder of the New York City Marathon.
1936: As the Arab uprising continues, David Vardi, a 27 year old owner of an orange packing house near… Rishon Litzion and Israel Arger, a 31 year old workman, were seriously wounded today when two Arabs who were old friends of theirs shot them in the packing house. Both were shot in the head and there is little hope for their recovery. In Haifa, a bomb was thrown at a Jewish owned bus, wounding three riders.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that the Polish General Consul in Jerusalem told the Va’ad Leumi (The National Council of Palestine Jews) that he was deeply distressed at the recent anti-Jewish disturbances in Poland. He promised to forward, without delay, the Va’ad protest to his government. The Palestine
1939(16th of Sivan, 5699): Fifty year old Sir Philip Sassoon, a member of the distinguished Sassoon family passed away today.
1940: It was reported today that during his commencement address at the Jewish Institute of Religion, Dr. James G. Heller, vice president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis said “When the world is faced with terror, go back to the past of Israel and believe in your people and in yourself.” (He said this as the Jews of Poland feel under the heel of Nazi and Soviet tyranny)
1941: Author Irving Wallace married writer Sylvia Kahn.
1942: The German military commander of occupied France ordered all Jews to wear a yellow Star of David with the inscription "Juif" on it.
1942(18th of Sivan, 5702): In Warsaw, 110 Jews were shot in the prison on Gesia Street. Ten Jewish policemen are among the victims.
1942: Jews revolt in Breslau, Germany.
1943(29th of Iyar, 5703): German troops in the Warsaw Ghetto destroy a bunker on Walowa Street that conceals 150 Jews. It was one of the last remaining bunkers in the ghetto. By September, all that were remaining would be flushed out and destroyed.
1943: Near Michalowice, Poland, Germans kill two Polish farmers who have rescued and hidden three Jewish escapees in a barn.
1944: In response to Rudolf Kastner's plea to let some of the Hungarian Jews remain in Budapest, Eichmann said, "I have to clean up the provincial towns of the Jewish garbage. I must take this Jewish muck out of the provinces. I cannot play the role of the savior of the Jews.”
1944: A train from Lyon arrived in Birkenau. One survivor, Freda Silberberg, stated how it was the French that arrested her, not the Germans. Dr. Mengele selected Freda for his experiment pool.
1948: Four Egyptian aircraft flew over Tel Aviv on what would be the 16th bombing raid over the Jewish city. Numerous civilian casualties had been sustained in the previous attacks and the residents expected more of the same.
1948: In a modern version of David versus Goliath, Modi Alon flew Israel’s one serviceable fighter aircraft across the Tel Aviv skies attack four Egyptian aircraft that were set to bomb the city. Alon shot down the two bombers and forced their fighter escorts to flee. These were the first aerial combat victories scored by the IAF. In one of those strange moments of the war, the people of Tel Aviv actually watched the performance of a combat air arm that they had not known even existed.
1948(25th of Iyar, 5708):Avraham Mordechai Alter passed away. He was also known as the Imrei Emes after the works he authored, was the third Rebbe of the Hasidic dynasty of Ger a position he held from 1905 until his death in 1948. He was one of the founders of the Agudas Israel in Poland and was influential in establishing a network of Jewish schools there. It is claimed that at one stage he led over 200,000 Hasidim.
1953: Professor Otto Loewi, winner in 1936 of the Noble in medicine for the discovery of the chemical transmission of nervous impulses who is now the Research Professor of Pharmacology in the New York University College of Medicine celebrated his 80thbirthday today.
1957: Howard Cosell's television show appeared for the first time.
1960: Four newly deciphered letters of Bar Kochba describing organizational challenges faced by the leader of the revolt against the Roman Empire (132-135 CE) were presented in a lecture given today by Professor Yigal Yadin today at Hebrew University. The letters revealed that the supply route for Bar Kochba’s soldiers was via Ein Gedi and Tekoa. This is the same Tekoa which was home to the prophet Amos. Yigal Yadin was head of the Israeli military during the War for Independence
1963: Pope John XXIII passed away. Born Angelo Roncalli, in 1935 he was made Apostolic Delegate to Turkey and Greece. Roncalli used this office to help the Jewish underground in saving thousands of refugees in Europe, leading some to consider him to be a Righteous Gentile
1967: Shabbat was not a day of rest as the Arab vise squeezed around the state Israel. The people were beginning to feel the psychological pain of being surrounded. The Israeli economy was unraveling under the pressure of continuous mobilization. Dyan continued to review the plans of the General Staff. Israel United States Israel Israel Israel Israel Egypt Egypt Jordan Jordan West Bank and Jerusalem
1968(7thof Sivan, 5728): As Gene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy battle out it in California during the Democratic Presidential Primaries, Jews observe the second day of Shavuot, the last Jewish holiday Kennedy will be alive for.
1970(28th of Iyar, 5730) Yom Yerushalyim
1971: German born mathematician Heinz Hopf passed away. His father was Jewish but his mother was not. For the Nazis, this made him Jewish and he sought refuge in Swiss citizenship during the Hitler period.
1972: In Cincinnati, Ohio, Sally J. Priesand, 25, became the first woman in Reform Judaism to be ordained as a Rabbi.
1974: Aharon Uzan completed his term as Communications Minister.
1974: Yitzhak Rabin, the first native-born Israeli (Sabra) to become prime minister of Israel, assumed office.
1974: Yosef Burg completed his term as Interior Minister
1974: Shlomo Hillel began his term as Interior Minister
1974: Yigal Allon began his term as Foreign Minister
1974: Avraham Ofer, replaced Yehoshua Rabinovitz as Communications Minster
1974: Gad Yaacobi replaced Aharon Yariv as Transportation Minister
1974: Hairm Yosef Zadok replaced Yitzhak Rafael as Minister of Religious Services.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel would not take any steps against Syria until more was known about the extent and purpose of their incursion into Lebanon. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin reported that Syrian soldiers were clashing with and killing terrorists.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that Yigael Yadin, the leader of the new political party, the Democratic Movement for Change, which won 13 seats in the Knesset elections, was offered the deputy premiership in the Menachem Begin's new Likud cabinet.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli Kfir multi-mission combat aircraft was one of the leading stars at the Le Bourget aircraft mart in Paris.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that an annual prize in the field of the coverage of Israel's foreign relations was established in memory of Ted Lurie, the second editor of the Post.
1982: The Israeli ambassador to Britain, Shlomo Argov, was shot on a London street. The failed assassination attempt was under the command of Fatah leader Abu Nidal. Argov survived but was permanently paralyzed.
1982: Israeli planes attack Palestinian camps in Lebanon after Fatah attempted to murder Ambassador Argov in London.
1983(22nd of Sivan, 5743): Harry Lieberman, a primitive-style painter who began his career as an artist in his 70's, died today in North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, L.I., after suffering a cardiac arrest. Mr. Lieberman was 106 years old and lived in Great Neck, L.I. Throughout his 26 years as a painter, Mr. Lieberman completed hundreds of pieces and his work was shown in museums and galleries in Great Neck, in New York and in the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington. His work has also been on display in Houston, Seattle, Los Angeles, La Jolla, Calif., and Rotterdam, Holland. It was the boredom of his retirement after selling his confectioner business at the age of 74 that prompted Mr. Lieberman to try his hand at sketching at an art class at the Great Neck Golden Age Club. Mr. Lieberman soon moved on to watercolors and oil painting, using the two-dimensional primitive style. As a young man Mr. Lieberman studied the Talmud, and stories from that religious work as well as the Bible served as the subject matter for most of his paintings. He once told an interviewer that a man of his age - he was 100 at the time - needed a reason to get out of bed in the morning and that the older he got the better that reason needed to be. Mr. Lieberman was born Naftulo Hertzke Liebhaber in Gnieveshev, Poland, in November 1876. In 1906 at the age of 29 he emigrated to the United States, sending for his wife two years later. The Liebermans, who worked first as cloth cutters, bought a candy store that soon prospered into a wholesale confectioner business.
1995(5th of Sivan, 5755): Erev Shavuot
1995(5th of Sivan, 5755): Seventy-two year old “Arthur K. Shapiro, a psychiatrist whose work at Mount Sinai Medical School advanced the knowledge and treatment of Tourette's Syndrome” passed away today. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)
2001: Mel Brook's won a record 12 Tony Awards for the musical comedy "The Producers."
2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Heinz Kohut:The Making of a Psychoanalystby Charles B. Strozier and the recently released paperback editions of Ravelstein by Saul Bellow,I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1942-1945 by Victor Klemperer, The Human Stainby Philip Roth and Bee Season by Myla Goldberg.
2001(12 of Sivan, 5761): Seventy-seven year old “Harry Zohn, an educator, writer and translator of important works of German literature” passed away today. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)
2001: Yitzhak Vaknin began another term as Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Welf
2002: Ariel Sharon completes his term as Interior Minister.
2002:Eli Yishai begins his term as Minister of Internal Affairs.
2002: David Azulai becomes Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs.
2005: The funeral of Israel Epstein, which was attended by numerous Chinese dignitaries, took place this morning at the Babaoshan Cemetery for Revolutionaries, in Shijingshan District, Beijing
2005(25thof Iyar, 5765):Leon Askin passed away today in Vienna at the age of 97. Born in 1907 as Leo Aschkenasy into a Jewish family in Vienna, Askin already wanted to be an actor as a child. His dream came true, and in the 1930s he worked as a cabaret artist and director at the "ABC Theatre" in Vienna: in this position he also helped the career of the writer Jura Soyfer get off the ground in 1935. Persecuted by the Nazis, Askin escaped to the United States via France, arriving in New York in 1940 with no money and less than a basic knowledge of English. When the U.S. entered the Second World War Askin joined the U.S. Army. While serving in the military he learned that his parents had been killed at Treblinka extermination camp. After the war, Askin went to Hollywood, invariably portraying foreign characters who speak English with a strong accent. He gained wide popularity by appearing as Gen. Albert Burkhalter in the sitcom Hogan's Heroes in the late 1960s.As opposed to other exiled Austrians, Askin never refused to work again in his home country. In 1994 he permanently took up residence in Vienna, where he remained active until his death in cabaret, as well as the Volksoper and Festwochen. He was awarded Vienna's Gold Medal of Honor.
2006(7th of Sivan, 5766): Second Day of Shavuot
2006: A group of neo-Nazis assaulted Croatia's Chief Rabbi Eliezer Aloni on a Zagreb street in front of his synagogue on Shabbat.
2007: In London, the ZF presents Portraits of Israel “a photographic journey through the history of Israel as seen through the lens of Rudi Weissenstein. He dedicated his life to documenting Israel’s growth from 1936 until his death in 1992. He was the official photographer at the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1948.
2007: The Sunday New York Times book section features reviews of two tomes about Jewish comedians, It’s Good to be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks by James Parish and Rickles’ Book by Don Rickles with David Ritz; The Big Questionby Jewish game show host Chuck Barris, Summer Reading by Hilma Wolitzer, A Day at the Beach by Helen Schulman, From A Cause to a Style:Modernist Architecture’s Encounter With the American City by Nathan Glazer,The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander, Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season by Jonathan Eig and Jewish author Joseph Finder’s review of April in Paris by Michael Wallner.
2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section features a review of The Gravediggers Daughter, a novel about a Jewish immigrant who struggles to blot out her past, by Joyce Carol Oates, who discovered late in life her own family's Jewish history. Her grandmother, who immigrated to the United States
2007: In an article entitled “Lower East Side Is Under a Groove,” the New York Timesreports on the role played by Sion Misrahi, the son of Jewish immigrant from Greece, in the rejuvenation of New York’s Lower East Side.
2008:In Cedar Rapids, at Temple Judah, funeral services are held for Abbott Lipsky followed by the internment at Eben Israel Cemetery. Those who knew Abbott B. Lipsky remembered him t as the kind of person you wanted to befriend. Lipsky, well-known in Cedar Rapids Cedar Rapids Public Schools Cedar Rapids
2008:As the race of Grand Rabbi of France heats up with weeks of sniping from both sides, the two main Jewish communal organizations in France — the CRIF and the Unified Jewish Social Fund, or FSJU — issued an unusual joint statement urging both sides to calm down.“
2008: the Ville-Marie council unanimously voted to demolish the building that had been home to Bens De Luxe Delicatessen on condition that the developer must commemorate the deli in the new building.
2009: The Brooklyn International Film Festival, which will feature two Israeli movies, hosts a Kick-Off Party at Delancy restaurant.
2010: A series of programs Jewish including “Identity through Music” in which percussionists and composer David Freeman demonstrates how contemporary musicians incorporate and reinterpret traditional Jewish texts and “A One-Pot Seminar” in which Gabe Goldstein, Associate Director for Exhibitions and Programs at the Yeshiva University Museum discusses what we can learn about an individual's identity and community from a cholent pot are scheduled to be presented at Yeshiva University Museum as part of Limmud NY
2010(21st of Sivan, 5770):Steve Averbach, the former Monmouth County resident who was paralyzed in an attempt to thwart a suicide bomber in Jerusalem in 2003, died suddenly today at his home in Tel Aviv
2011(1st of Sivan, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
2011(1st of Sivan, 5771): One hundred one year old “Harry Bernstein, whose painfully eloquent memoir about growing up Jewish and poor in a northern English mill town earned him belated literary fame on its publication in 2007, when he was 96” passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)
2011(1st of Sivan, 5771): Eighty-nine year old Israeli businessman Sammy Ofer passed away this morning in Tel Aviv (As reported by Isabel Kershner)
2011(1st of Sivan, 5771): Gus Tyler, who had been associated with the Forwards since 1932 passed away today.
2011: The final Musical Shabbat of the year is scheduled to take place at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA. This marks the fourth year that the community has participated in this most popular way of experiencing the Joy of Shabbat.
2011: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue plans on meeting a variety of spiritual needs as it hosts two Shabbat services – the laid back, lay led 6th Street Minyan and Friday Night Shabbat Services with MesorahDC followed by a traditional Shabbat dinner.
2011: Labapalooza is scheduled to present “Planet Egg” by Zvi Saharis, an Israeli who studied directing at the University of Haifa, at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY.
2012: JCCNV is scheduled to sponsor the Israel Street Festival in Fairfax, VA
2012: Temple Emanuel in Kensington, MD is scheduled to host “Tango Comes to the Land of Milk & Honey, Kolot Halev’s annual concert with Hazzan Ayelet Piatigorsky and featuring Emmanuel Trifilio on the original tango folk instrument, the bandoneón performing selections that range from Sephardic ballads to Yiddish songs to Moroccan and Mexican melodies.
2012: The National Museum of American Jewish Military is scheduled to host “Family Stories: Sons, Fathers and Zaydes,” an afternoon long event that will enable participants “to create a lasting tribute to that special male relative or friend through a skit, a scrapbook, a video, a song and dance routine, or whatever the imagination conjures.”
2012: “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisan Avant-Garde,” an exhibit of works collect by Gertrude, Leo, Michael and Sarah Stein is scheduled to come an end at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
2012: “Celebrate Israel,” complete with an 8 o’clock fun run through Central Park and a five hour parade is scheduled to take place today in the Big Apple.
2012: Early this morning, IAF jets attacked three weapons manufacturing facilities in the central Gaza Strip and two tunnels that the Israel Defense Forces say are used to commit terrorist acts against Israeli military patrols in the area. The IAF flights were in response to an attack on June 1 near the security fence with Gaza in which one Israeli soldier was killed. The sites targeted by the Air Force belong to the Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organizations, Israeli military sources said
2013: Justice Minister Tzipi Livni is scheduled to address the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum today.
2013: Just a month before the 150thanniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, The American Jewish Historical Society and Yeshiva University Museum are scheduled to present “Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: Jews and the Battle of Gettysburg.”