August 21
1157: Alfonso the Emperor died. His kingdom was divided between his two sons with Sancho III the receiving Castile and, Ferdinand II, “who granted the Jews special privileges” receiving León.
1165: Birthdate of Philip II Augustus, the French king who first imprisoned his Jewish subjects; then extorted ransom from them before banning them from Paris and its environs.
1321: Jews in France were accused of encouraging lepers to poison Christian wells. This directly led to the graver accusations of the same kind during the Black Plague. This time, five thousand Jews were killed. At Chinon, 160 Jews were burned in a pit on an island outside of town. Eventually the King, Philip the Tall, admitted that the Jews were innocent. The island is still known as Ile de Juifs (Island of the Jews).
1379: In Spain, Fernan Martin, King John’s executioner accompanied by Don Zulema Solmon and Don Zag Isaac, went to the home of Joseph Pinchon, Martin beheaded Pinchon per the order of the king. Because of the scandal surrounding the event it led to the repeal of Jewish jurisdiction in criminal cases in Castile
1486: Volume II of a Mahzor, using the Roman Rite was printed for the first time at Casal Maggiore, Italy.
1569: Cosimo I de' Medici, who had invited the Jews to settle in Tuscany but who also gave in to pressure from the Pope to burn the Talmud, became Grand Duke of Tuscany today.
1669: “The priest of the Russian church made a complaint against the Jews of Brest for reconverting to Judaism a baptized Jewess of the name of Judith, whose baptismal name was Anastasia, a daughter of Shemuel, at one time leaseholder of taxes.”
1684: In response to a letter from the Dutch commander of Essequibo and Pomeroon explaining that the trade in vanilla had come to an end because of the death of a Jew named Salomon de la Roche, representatives of the Dutch West India company wrote “As to the vanilla trade, which we recommend you carry on for the company, where you answer us saying this trade has come to an end through the death of a Jew, Salomon de la Roche...a meager and poor excuse.” This correspondence is one example of the important role that Jews played in the vanilla trade.
1770: Marcus Herz, the German Jewish physician and philosopher traveled to Berlin to Königsberg so he could as respondent when Emmanuel Kant presented his inaugural dissertation at the University of Königsberg
1775: Daher el-Omar who ruled the Galilee as an autonomous region during the days of the Ottoman Empire passed away today.
1785: In Denmark Isac Hartvig Ree, the Danish born son of Hirsch Isac Philip Rée and Mirjam Marie Rée and his wife Sara Wulff von Essen gave birth to Berend Isaac Ree
1811: Birthdate of Joseph Derenbourg, or Joseph Naftali Derenburg, Franco-German author, historian and a prime mover in the rehabilitation of Jewish education in France
1811: Barnet Joseph married Elizabeth Emanuel at the Great Synagogue today.
1811: In London, Abigail Montefiore and Benjamin Gompertz gave birth to Justina Lydia Gompertz, the wife of Jacob Montefiore.
1820(11thof Elul, 5580): Haim Farhi who known as the Hakham Haim, a prominent Palestinian Jewish leader in the days of the Ottoman Empire passed away.
1822: In Badan, marriage of Marx and Henriette Oppenheimer.
1823: Birthdate of “Rosa Hanne.”
1829: Birthdate of Otto Moritz David Goldschmidt “a German composer, conductor and pianist, known for his piano concertos and other piano pieces” who “married the ‘Swedish Nightingale’, soprano Jenny Lind.” He passed away in 1907.
1835: Parliament passes the Sheriff’s Declaration Bill which allowed Jews to hold the ancient and important office of Sheriff, position that David Salomon would hold making him the first Jew to serve in this capacity.
1837: In Wollstein, Dr. Marcus Mosse, the son of Salomon Moses and Henriette (Jette) Marcus Levin and Ulrike Mosse gave birth to Salomon Mosse
1837: “Mr. Hart Lyon presented a Sefer Torah to the Kaal today.”
http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/library/events/EventsCalendar/Pages/docutext-04.aspx
1839(11thof Elul, 5599): Sixty-year old to Zalegman Phillips the son of Jonas Phillips and Rebecca Machada, a successful lawyer and husband of Arabella Solomon whom he married when she was nineteen years old passed away today.
1840: Persecution of the Jews of Damascus brought together Congregation B'nai Jesheran in New York City to declare: "Resolved, that we do most emphatically and solemnly deny, as well in our own name as in that of the whole Jewish people, that murder was ever committed by the Jews of Damascus, or those of any other part of the world for the purpose of using the blood or any part of a human being in the ceremonies of our religion." U.S. President Van Buren instructed his officer at Constantinople to help the persecuted Jew of Damascus
1841(4thof Elul, 5601): Parashat Shoftim
1850: David Cohen married Julia Nathan at the New Synagogue today.
1850: John and Adelaide wed today at the West London Synagogue.
1852: Birthdate of British historian Arnold Toynbee. Toynbee was baffled by the continued existence of the Jewish people whom he described as a fossil of history. Not only was he baffled by the Jews continued existence, he did not approve of it either.
1852(6th of Elul, 5612): Marchand Ennery passed away. Born at Nancy in 1792 he studied Talmud under Baruch Guggenheim and at the rabbinical school of Herz Scheuer, in Mainz. He went to Paris, became teacher in the family of a wealthy coreligionist, and in 1819 was appointed director of the new Jewish school at Nancy. At this time he published his Hebrew-French lexicon, the first of its kind to appear in France. In 1829 he became chief rabbi of Paris; in 1846 chief rabbi of the Central Consistory; in 1850 chevalier of the Legion of Honor. He was succeeded as chief rabbi by Salomon Ulmann.
1852: “Bohemia: A Visit to Prague” published today included a description of the current conditions and history of the Jews living in this ancient central European City.
1859: In “Rose Law Cottage Kennington Oval,” Rebecca Crawcour and Aron Hart gave birth to Bernard Hart.
1859: Birthdate of Westmorland Davis who in 1919, while serving as Governor of Virginia “designated October 14 through October 24 as the days for the Jewish relief campaign and urged “citizens, irrespective of race or creed, to contribute liberally” to the Jewish relief campaign – a move that surely was not motivated by the “large number of Jewish voters in the Old Dominion.
1860: The “Hebrew Son” is scheduled to be performed tonight at the New Bowery Theatre in New York City.
1861: According to a report placed on board the the steamer Saladin which is sailing from Kingston, Jamaica tonight for New York City, Commercial matters seem to become worse every day. Fresh failures are announced before people have time to recover the shock occasioned by previous ones. The greatest of all has been that of Mr. Lucas, a prince among the Jews, whose books, it is said, show a very unpleasant state of things for his creditors, and whose self is now non est inventus. There will, doubtless, be very great depression for a time in the trade of the country; but a conviction is felt that a crisis like the present was necessary to correct the fictitious and corrupt business that was for some time done here by a certain class of merchants, and that when the country has passed over the trials of the present ordeal, there will be a healthy state of things, and the prosperity indicated by our agriculture will be permanent and lasting.
1862: Philadelphian Samuel B. Salsburg began serving a three year hitch with Company C of the 138th Regiment during which he was wounded during fighting at Monocacy, MD.
1863: In describing his uneventful trip down the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans, the New York Times correspondent offers as proof the peaceful conditions that "This circumstance is shown by the crowds of civilians -- Jews and others -- who may be seen besieging the authorities at every point from Cairo to the Gulf, asking only the permission to bring in clothing, drugs, staples, to buy cotton, or, in short, do anything whereby they can realize quick sales and a thousand per cent profits. There are many long faces and much cursing, but all uselessly, for Gen. Grant will, so long as he can influence the matter, refuse to open trade at any point in his Department."
1864(19th of Av, 5624): Isaac J. Levy (CSA) was killed in the trenches at Petersburg, He was 21 years old. Isaac is buried in the Hebrew Cemetery on Shockoe Hill in Richmond, in the Levy family plot.
1864: “Turkey: The Missionary Difficulty at Constantinople” published today recounts the failure of the European missionaries to convert the locals. Citing information supplied by the Times of London correspondent in the Turkish capital the article reports that the efforts of missionaries - both English and American -"The influence of these preachings among the Jews and Greeks, with the exception of isolated cases, some of which do not bear much examination as regards the conviction and good faith of the proselytes, has been comparatively a failure."
1865: As evidence of how the Jew’s Hospital is now serving the general population, a maid named Ellen Murray was rushed to the hospital for treatment after she was burned when trying to start a fire in a stove. Unfortunately, “she suffered mortal injuries” and died at the hospital. The hospital, which would be re-named Mt. Sinai, came into general use during the Civil War when it was used to treat the Union soldiers wounded during McClellan’s ill-fated Peninsula Campaign in 1862.
1866: In New York City, Esther Hellman Wallenstein and Solomon Wallenstein gave birth to Jennie Wallenstein Kohstamm, the oldest of their four children.
1866: In New York City, Solomon and Jael Belais gave birth to David Belais
1867: At the residence of the bride's parents, John Hart of 7 St Paul's Rd., Canonbury, son of Isaac Hart, married Maria Hannah, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Moses Angel of 1 King St., Finsbury. Moses Angel was the headmaster of the Jews Free School (JFS)
1868(5thof Tishrei, 5629): Sixty-two year old Louis Loew Leopold Affelder, the Bavarian born son of Samuel Lazarus Affelder and Nanni Nanette Affelder and the husband of Regine Rosalie Affelder passed away today in Furth.
1870: One day after he had passed away, three month old Frederick Louis Makower, the son of Moritz Makower and the former Jessie Isaac was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1870: It was reported today that of the 31 chaplains serving with the Army of the Rhine, 3 of them are Jews.
1871: It was reported today that Rabbi Elkan Herzman has been fired from his position at an Orthodox synagogue in Chicago for eating ice cream on the Jewish fast day of Tish’a B’Av. According to the report first published in the Jewish Times, the issue was not so much one of violating the law about the fast as one of hypocrisy.
1871: It was reported today that of the 21 chaplains serving in the Army of the Rhine, 3 of them are Jews.
1872: In New York City, Louis B. and Katie (Barnett) Davis gave birth Columbia alum and NYU Law School trained attorney Harry Benjamin Davis, the husband of Sarah Barnett who a member of Sinai Temple in Mount Vernon and the Republic Party nominee for a judgeship in 1907.
1873: The Grand lodge of the Kesher She Barzel reopened this morning at Pythagoras Hall under the leadership of Grand Saar Rosenthal.
1874: It was reported today that Sol Mortiz, a prominent Jewish merchant from Indianapolis, Indiana has denied all the charges that he had an improper relationship with the 18 year old daughter and wife of George C. Harding. Harding and Mortiz were friends but this did not keep the enraged newspaper proprietor from shooting the merchant several times. Moritz said he will prove his innocence once he has recovered from his wounds.
1875: Birthdate of Karl Neubauer, the Czech born son of Adolf and Klara Neubauer and Helene Neubauer, who died at Treblinka some time “after October 1942.”
1876: Birthdate of Elizabeth, NJ native and NYU trained attorney Abe J. David who served as district court judge and country prosecutor and who was the husband of Anna Kampner David.
1878: The London World published a commentary about the Earl of Beaconsfield’s (Benjamin Disraeli) religious beliefs and his plans for his burial. According to a Jewish source, Beaconsfield will pull of the greatest surprise of his life by having himself buried beside his father at the “graveyard of the Jews at Mile-end.” After all he had been baptized by trickery and “no Jew is ever sincere in renouncing” his religion. The correspondent for the World takes the opposite view and is sure that he will be “true to the religion of his knighthood” and will be content to be buried beside his wife instead of beside his father.
1878: In Washington, DC, Simon Wolf served as chairman of a meeting attended by Jews who had gathered to raise money for southerners suffering from the current Yellow Fever Epidemic. The meeting was poorly attended because of a lack of notice so only $180 was raised.
1879: Justice Flammer sent 5 year old Liba and 2 year old Louis Wildever to a Jewish charitable institution after they were discovered along with their mother Sarah starving in a room on Franklin Street. According to Mrs. Wildever, an immigrant from Russia, the children’s father (and her husband) and had deserted them.
1879: An assignment for the benefit of creditors by Nathan Mayer, to Isaac D. Einstein, with $16,110 preferences was filed in the County Clerk’s office today
1881: It was reported today that the Young Men’s Hebrew Union is planning to sponsor a concert in New York’s Washington Park.
1881: In Savannah, GA, Edmund H. and Cecilia Solomons Abrahams gave birth to Edmund Hezekial Abrahams, the husband of Mildred Guckenheimer Abrahams and the father of Marion Cecile Abrahams Mendel who “was a descendant of Benjamin and Perla Sheftall who were among the 41 Jews whom General Oglethorpe welcomed to settle in the Georgia Colony in July 1733.
1882: It was reported today that Florence Templeton, the daughter of the banker John Templeton is engaged to marry Jack Springfield the adopted son of an Anglo-Jewish financier.
1884(30thof Av, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1884: Alexander Labotsky, a Polish Jew was arrested today after his Frieda had charged him with abandonment.
1884: It was reported today that Annie Lifcawitz, a young girl living in an apartment above the store owned by Solomon Ellinsohn was the first one to discover the fire that local ruffians had started. Ellinsohn had complained to the police about these young ruffians terrifying people living on the Lower East Side, but the authorities had taken no action.
1885: Dr. Cyrus Edson, Chief of the Second Sanitary division made another raid on the Jewish owned truck stores on the Lower East Side. Edson and his staff seized “a half ton of bad fish and some unwholesome meat” along with seven boxes of fruits and vegetables.
1887(1stof Elul, 5647): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1887: Birthdate of Levie Van Praag, the native of Zaandam, Holland and husband of Sabiena Cohen both of whom were murdered at Sobibor.
1887: Three days after she had passed away, 78 year old Miriam Spyer, the widow of Lawrence Spyer with whom she had three children – Rachel, Frederick and Nathaniel – was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1887: Abraham Trombitsky’s right leg was fractured during a melee that resulted when Patrolman John Etterick moved to disperse a crowd of Polish and Russian Jews at the corner of Hester and Ludlow Streets.
1887: Three year old Ella Hortense Alberga, the daughter of Eugene Alberga and the former Celia Morrice was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1887: “The Treaty of Berlin” published today described the multiple violations of this agreement including the persistent persecution of the 400,000 Jews of Romania “with the connivance of the Romanian Government”
1887: “Old World News By Cable” published today described a letter from George Blyth, the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem in which he reports that the Jewish population in Palestine has grown from 15,000 to 42,000 in the past few years and “that they are very friendly to him and his church.”
1887(1stof Elul, 5647): In London, Israel Lipski whom some confused with the killer “Jack the Ripper” was hanged at Newgate Prison after having been convicted of murdering Miriam Angel.
1888: Congressman Ford’s Immigration Committee completed its hearings in New York and made plans to move on to Boston. The thrust of the hearings is that immigrants, especially Jews from Russia and other parts of eastern Europe, are responsible for depressing wages for American workers.
1888: Henry Russell married Hannah de Lara at Paddington, London.
1888: Funeral services will be held at one o’clock this afternoon for Marks Laski, a prominent Jewish merchant who had passed away unexpectedly with internment in Cypress Hill Cemetery. The 52 year old Laski arrived in New York from Poland in 1850 and entered into the wholesale dry goods business where he enjoyed enough success to become a prominent philanthropist.
1889(24th of Av, 5649): A man thought to be Adolph Cohn a resident of the Hebrew Home for the Aged in New York City appeared to have jumped overboard as the Hoboken ferryboat Hopatcong was pulling into the slip at Christopher Street. The identification is based on papers and memos that the man placed on the cabin floor just before jumping.
1889: The 9th free excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children is scheduled to leave this morning at 9 o’clock.
1889: Birthdate of Russian native Jacob J. Heller, “a vice president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and author of two volumes of poetry – My Union, My Life and Moments of Meditation who was the husband of Rose Heller and father of Mrs. Gertrude Adler.
1890(5th of Elul, 5650): Albert (Aaron) Siegfried Bettelheim, Hungarian born American Rabbi died at sea while returning to the United States from a visit to Europe. Born in 1830, he led a rather colorful life before coming to the United States in 1867 where he had pulpits in Philadelphia, Richmond, San Francisco and finally in Baltimore, MD. While in Richmond, he studied medicine but accepted a position in San Francisco rather pursue a medical career. According to one source he was buried at sea under the supervision of two Catholic priests that Bettelheim had met on the voyage. The clerics reportedly recited the Kaddish as the body was consigned to the depths. (As reported by Isidore Singer, et al)
1891: The United States Commissioner of Immigration Owens visited the SS Slavonia at Lower Canton outside of Baltimore and examined the baggage and tickets of the fifty-one Jews detained by order of Inspector Davis. He decided that twelve of them could land because they had tickets to other parts of the United States and “a few dollars” (which meant they would not become public charges).
1891: At the Barge Office, the Acting Superintendent of Immigration refused to honor the bond that Coroner Levy had come to post for ten Russian Jews who had been detained because it was believed “that they were liable to become public charges.”
1892: The first train belonging to the Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway reached Jerusalem today.
1892: “The Old Dutch Farmhouse” described the fate of agriculture in Holland including that “enterprising Jews” have bought up the “heirlooms of the old “agricultural” families.
1892: “Agriculture in Russia” published today reported that in Russia, “the Jews are blamed for avoiding agriculture and not wishing to live by the sweat of their brow;” but they are not allowed to settle outside of the Pale where there is arable land.
1893: “Literary Notes” published today described plans for the upcoming publication of The Settlement of the Jews in North America by Judge Charles P. Daly which will soon appear in Hebrew.
1893: The Park Department has issued a permit allowing mass meeting of unemployed Jews to be held tonight in Union Square
1893: “Light On Bible Records” published today provides a detailed review of The Sacred Books of the Old Testament including a Hebrew text and English translation edited by Paul Haput, a Professor at Johns Hopkins University.
1893: Following last night’s meeting of the United Hebrew Trades during which a fight broke out between socialists and anarchists a saloon keeper at 162 Broadway in New York sent out circulars offering free food to unemployed workers.
1893: Twenty-five-year-old Sigmund Maier, the German born son Jacob Maier, “a cattle dealer” and his wife Dina, the manger of Mill Brothers married married Charlotte Lowenstein with whom he had four boys and one girl.
1893: Emma Goldman “spoke to a crowd of nearly 3,000 people in Union Square, where she encouraged unemployed workers to take immediate action.”
1893: Joseph Peel was held by authorities today while the veterinarian examined two dead horses owned by his former business partners, Feinberg and Cooper, to determine if they had been poisoned. The three had been partners in Feinberg, Cooper & Peel, a vegetable peddling firm. The two Orthodox Jews claimed that Peel threatened to poison the horses after they ended their relationship with him; a relationship that had begun when the two men let Peel join them even though he lacked any capital.
1893: According to the New York Times the custom of throwing a slipper at wedding stems from a custom “ancient Jews had of handing over a shoe to complete a bargain” as demonstrated in the Book of Ruth.
1894(19thof Av, 5654): Twenty-three year old Julius Marcus “a handsome and romantic young” Jews shot 17 year old Juliette Fournier, a French Protestant, through the heart and “then put a bullet in his temple.”
1895: A list of bequests of the late Joseph Lewis published today included $100 for each of the following: Mount Sinai Hospital, Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and the United Hebrew Charities.
1896: “Successful Festival of District Grand Lodge No. 1 of Free Sons of Israel” published today described the successful fundraiser which raised several thousand dollars “to enlarge the fund of the order devoted to sick and distressed members.”
1897: “In an article on an old Jewish Treasure House” that appeared in today’s issue of The Time’s Saturday Review, “an account was given of what might have been considered a charnel house of decayed literature.” In fact it was a description of the Geniza “of the old synagogue in Cairo.
1897: “The Trouble At Jerusalem” published today described a dispute in that city over the distribution of funds from America. The amount in question is approximately $500 which Rabbi Salant can given to “worthy poor Jews” regardless of their nationality. The problem comes from the fact that American Jews living in Jerusalem incorrectly think that the money should be used to help them since it comes from the United States.
1897: Birthdate of Berdichev native Albert Milton Mallin, who came to the United States in 1908 where he earned a bachelor’s degree at CCNY before going on to do post-graduate work at Columbia and teach in the New York City public schools.
1899: Rehearsals of “The Children of the Ghetto” by Israel Zangwill will begin today in New York.
1899” “For A Hebrew Sanitarium” published today described the successful package arranged by the guests of the Cedars that included a “surprise auction” which raised funds for the Hebrew Sanitarium of Rockaway, NY.
1899: A summary of the report showing the July activity of the United Hebrew Charities published today showed 1,623 applications for aid had been received which affected the lives of 5,410 people. The society received donations of $8,640.55 but spend $11,085.58 in providing aid and assistance.
1900: Birthdate of NYC native and NYU trained attorney Chester Rohrlich, the husband of “the former Edith Wacthel with whom he raised two daughters and the author “Organizing Corporate and Other Business Enterprises who endowed the Chester Rohrlch chair in corporate law and finance at NYU and who was the “president of the Jew Child Care Association of New York” for three years.
1901(5thof Elul, 5661): Fanny Brooks, the wife of Julius Gerson Brooks and the mother of George, Eveline, Edgar and Milton Brooks passed away today in Salt Lake City after which she was buried
“Bnai Israel Cemetery.”
https://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/21/1901/this-week-in-history-death-of-pioneer-fanny-brooks
http://www.jmaw.org/brooks-jewish-slc-utah/
1902: It was reported today that that the public hearings being held by the committee appointed by Mayor Low to investigate the recent riot surrounding Rabbi Joseph, for which three policemen have been indicted for misconduct, have been concluded.
1903: Herzl reported on the Uganda offer and the Russian journey to the Greater Actions Committee at Basle
1904: “The United States Government has again formally proposed to Russia the opening of negotiations for the unrestricted recognition of American passports. In accordance with the law of the empire only foreign Jews of specified classes -- merchants having business connections in the country, -- are allowed to enter Russia, but quite a liberal policy has been pursued in making exceptions to the rule where legitimate reasons therefore are given.”
1905(20th of Av, 5665): French-German Assyriologist Julius Oppert passed away. Born in 1825 at Hamburg, he studied at Heidelberg, Bonn and Berlin, before graduating at Kiel in 1847. In 1848, Oppert went to France, where he was teacher of German at Laval and at Reims. In his spare time he continued his Oriental studies which he had begun while living in German. In 1851, he joined the French archaeological mission to Mesopotamia and Media under Fulgence Fresnel. On his return in 1854, he was naturalized as a French citizen in recognition of his services. He occupied himself with analyzing the results of the expedition, with special attention to the cuneiform inscriptions he had collected. During 1855, he published Écriture Anarienne, advancing the theory that the language spoken originally in Assyria was Turanian (related to Turkish and Mongolian), rather than Aryan or Semitic in origin, and that its speakers had invented the cuneiform writing system. Although the classification of the "Casdo-Scythian" inscriptions as Turanian would later be rejected by scholars, research would confirm Oppert in his identification of the distinctness of the Sumerian language (as he renamed it in 1869) and the origin of its script. During 1856 he published Chronologie des Assyriens et des Babyloniens. During 1857, he was appointed professor of Sanskrit and comparative philology in the school of languages connected with the National Library of France, and in this capacity he produced his Grammaire Sanscrite (1859). But his attention was chiefly given to Assyrian and cognate subjects. His account of the Fresnel mission and the results of his consequent study were published as Expédition Scientifique en Mésopotamie (1859-1863), with the second volume entitled Déchiffrement des inscriptions cunéiformes. During 1865 he published a history of Assyria and Chaldaea (Histoire des Empires de Chaldée et d'Assyrie) in the context of new archaeological findings. His Assyrian grammar, Éléments de la grammaire assyrienne, was published in 1868. During 1869 Oppert was appointed professor of Assyrian philology and archaeology at the College de France. During 1876, Oppert began to focus on the antiquities of ancient Media and its language, writing Le Peuple et la langue des Médes (1879). During 1881, he was admitted to the Academy of Inscriptions and in 1890, he was elected to its presidency.
1906(30thof Av, 5666): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1906: Birthdate of Kansas City native Fritz Frelang one of the great cartoon animators who worked at Warner Brothers for over thirty years and was the man behind such icons as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Yosemite Sam to name but a few and was also the husband of Lily Freleng
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-friz-freleng-1621602.html
1907: Dr. David Wolffsohn of Cologne, Germany “delivered the closing speech” today at the final session of the eighth International Zionist Congress in The Hague.
1909(4thof Elul, 5669): Parshat Shoftim
1909: “Rabbis for Palestine Colony Plan” published today described plans for an upcoming meeting, the object of which is to start a movement to enlist the co-operation of the Jews” in the United State in the establishment of colonies in Palestine.”
1910: It was reported today that “the entry of Russian Jew immigrants at the port of Galveston, Texas will be regulated more closely in the future” because Department of Commerce and Labor officials “are convinced “the laws had been loosely enforced at the port where “three shiploads of Russian Jews have landed since June 24.”
1911: Following the outbreak of anti-Semitic riots in New South Wales, the British Home Secretary assured local Jewish leaders that no precautions would be overlooked by the civil and military authorities to prevent a recurrence of such outbreaks.
1911: Dedication of Temple Ahavath Israel in Trenton, NJ.
1911: The invitations for the wedding of John Nathan Levine of Waterville, Maine, a former Yale football player “were received” in New York City today.
1913: Closing arguments in the Leo Frank case began today.
1914: In Vienna Dora Angel and her first husband Otto Soyka gave birth to Hedwig Soyka
1915: Birthdate of Sir Joshua Abraham Hassan, the first mayor and chief minister of Gibraltar.
1915: According to a report received in London from Petrograd, “owing to the occupation by the Germans of a great part of the pale of Jewish settlements and the inclusion of the remainder in the sphere of military operations, the condition of the Jews is critical.”
1916: The Jewish Academicians of America whose members included Bernard Drachman, David I. Macht, Georges Bacarat, J.D. Eisenstein and Meyer Waxman was organized today in New York City.
1917: After winning his two professional bouts featherweight Danny Frush lost for the first time today.
1917: It was reported today that the “Committee of Dutch Jews that has been formed in Amsterdam under the Chairmanship of Frederick Solomon Van Nierop, President of the Amsterdamsche Bank in Amsterdam” will work with Dr. Boris Bogen and Max Senior, American representatives the Joint Distribution Committee to distribute funds “transmitted from America for the relief of Jews in the warring countries. (Editor Note – the Netherlands was neutral in WW I which made them a good conduit for sending money to European Jews from the United States now that the U.S. was a belligerent)
1917: Birthdate of Leonid "Leo" Hurwicz the Polish born American economist and mathematician who won the Nobel Prize at the age of 90 – making him the oldest person to do this.
1918: The Second Battle of the Somme, the offensive that would lead to the end of WW I and in which Sir John Monash played a leading role began today.
1918: It was reported today the Secretary of Navy has issued a general order granting furloughs to Jewish sailors so that they can observe the high holy days which fall on September 7, 8, 14 and 15 which “a similar order has been issued by the War Department granting furloughs to Jewish soldiers in this country, in the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Panama and when possible on the Western Front.
1919: Today, The Committee on Public Information for which Walter Wanger made short propaganda films designed “to combat anti-war or pro-German sentiment in Allied Italy” and for which Edward Bernays served of its Latin News Service “was formally disestablished by an act of Congress”
1920(7thof Elul, 5680): Parashat Shofteim
1921: Birthdate of Reuven Feuerstein the Romanian born Israeli clinical, developmental, cognitive psychologist who is renowned for his theory of intelligence which states “it is not ‘fixed’, but rather modifiable”.
1921: Birthdate of Ruth Charlotte Barcan Marcus, “a philosopher esteemed for her advances in logic, a traditionally male-dominated subset of a traditionally male-dominated field…” (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1921: A Sephardic organization which was to include all Sephardic Jews from around the world was founded in Madrid. It planned to defend Jewish interests everywhere.
1922: “Luise Millerin” a “silent historical film” featuring Fritz Kortner (born Fritz Nathan Kohn) and Reinhold Schunzel was released today in Germany.
1922: An appeal signed by Samuel Gompers, President, and eight Vice Presidents of the American Federation of Labor was issued today to organized labor, urging the fullest moral and financial support of the railroad shopmen now on strike.
1924: Birthdate of County Cork native David Marcus, “the Irish Jewish Editor” and husband of Ita Daly who described their life in I’ll Drop You a Line: A Life With David Marcus.
1925:“Tumultuous scenes occurred at the Zionist Congress when Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of the Jewish Legion, which fought together with the British Army in Palestine during the war, took the floor. When the majority gave Jabotinsky permission to continue his speech after his time limit had expired, the Labor groups renewed their protest.”
1926: In Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Dawid Buschell and Miriam-Manya Zuckermann gave birth to Ben-Zion Büschel who has family moved to Palestine in 1933 where he gained fame as Israeli composer Ben-Zion Orgad
1928: Twenty-five year old banker Herman F. Hahn, the Chicago born son of “Harry W. and Daisy (Kohn) Hahn” married Louise Getz with whom he had four children – Mary, Peter, John and Ann Hahn.
1928: “The Big Pond” the first play to be produced by Edwin H. Knopf” with a cast that included Kenneth MacKenna was scheduled to open at the Bijou Theatre today.
1928: Two days after they had passed away, Fanny (Jacobs) Michaels and her husband Max Michaels were buried at the Wilesden Jewish Cemetery.
1929: “A funeral cortège, taking the form of a public demonstration for the dead Jewish boy, wound its way through the old city, with the police blocking attempts to break into the Arab quarters.”
1932: Birthdate of Menashe Kadishman, the native of Tel Aviv who became a renowned, award winning sculptor and painter.
http://new.menashekadishman.com/
http://www.timesofisrael.com/famed-israeli-artist-menashe-kadishman-dies-aged-82/
1933:Dr. Nahum Sokolow, president of the World Zionist Organization, asserted in opening the eighteenth world Zionist congress in Prague tonight that as a result of the persecutions in Germany the Jewish question must be brought before the international forum and fugitives must find a refuge in Palestine.
1935: Speaking in Lucerne, Switzerland, David Ben-Gurion, Palestine labor leader, accused the British Government today of having committed "robbery" by artificially cutting the immigration quota of Jews seeking to enter Palestine.
1935: The “swing era” of the Big Band Sound starts when Jewish Jazz clarinet player performs at the Palomar Theatre in Los Angeles.
1936: “Sing, Baby, Sing” a musical staring Gregory Ratoff, Tony Martin and the Ritz Brothers was distributed today in the United States by 20th Century Fox.
1936: “Synagogues and Jewish Temples in St. Paul announced special prayers would be said tonight” for the recovery of Governor Floyd B. Olson who has been hospitalized at Mayo Clinic.
1936: It was reported today that “the whole story of the sudden death of Captain Wolfgang Fuerstner has come to light and that contrary to the original reports he had actually committed suicide in his home “after he had been informed of his dismissal from active military service because he had Jewish Blood.”
1936: Tel Aviv Mayor Meier Dizengoff charged the British government with “playing a ‘diabolical game’ in handling its mandate over Palestine. He told the British High Commissioner for Palestine that evidence showed the (British) administration was blocking the Jewish National Home.” He was especially critical of the government’s behavior during the latest wave of Arab violence which has “introduced demoralization, anarchy and lawlessness into the country…”
1936: Thirty-nine year old Louis Billig a native of London, “a noted Islamic scholar and lecturer in Arabic was found shot to death at his home where authorities believe he was murdered “by terrorists as he sat as his study table.”
1936(3rd of Elul, 5696): Arab gunmen attacked a car filled with five Jews traveling towards Tel Aviv. Seventeen year old Shoshana Laznicki was wound in the attack and three other Jews were killed by the Arabs.
1937: The Toronto Daily Star reported that Lou Herman will be appearing on a new program, the “Jewish Variety Hour” along with his three sisters who perform as a trio.
1937: The General Zionist Council Executive meeting in Zurich composed of both Zionist and non-Zionist members authorized the Jewish Agency's Executive to seek the establishment of a Jewish state and to try to arrange a Jewish-Arab conference to discuss the matter.
1937(14th of Elul, 5697): Parashat Ki Teitzei
1937(14th of Elul, 5697): Sixty-eight-year-old Polish born, Ohio State University graduate, Myer Applebaum who in 1885 came to the United States where “he maintained a real estate and insurance office in Cleveland” and served as “first secretary of the Hebrew Immigrants Aid Society” while raising a son, Saul who is a rabbi in Bradford, PA, passed away today.
1937(14th of Elul, 5697): Sixty-six year old Élie Halévy the French historian who was part of a distinguished Franco-Jewish family passed away today.
1937: A watchtower was built at Sha’ar Ha-Golan today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Gur#/media/File:Sha%27ar_Ha_Golan_003.jpg
1937: The Hon. Cyril Asquith, in a letter to The Times of London wrote that the pledges given to Jews by the British government explicitly promised to establish a Jewish state in the whole of Palestine. He explained that after the separation of Transjordan, the offer made to Jews under the Royal (Peel) Commission Report granted them less than 10 percent of the country's territory.
1938: Italy banned Jews from teaching in public and high-schools.
1938: Thirty Jewish refugees from Austria arrived in Shanghai today, amidst reports that untold numbers more were on their way which would swell the Chinese city’s growing refugee population that include a large number of Jews from “Greater Gerrmany.”
1939: As Stalin maneuvers between the Germans on the one hand and the Poles, Brits and French, he ended talks with the latter about military cooperation and secretly agreed to the German’s “proposed non-aggression pact that would place half of Poland (east of the Vistula river), Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Bessarabia in the Soviets' sphere of influence.” (The War and the Shoah were almost upon us.)
1939: When the World Zionist Congress reconvened its plenary session this morning Joshua Suprasky, leader of Group B of the General Zionists, one of the minority parties, announced that his party had decided to abstain from further participation
1940: Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger, the son of Ashkenazi Jews who would become Archbishop of Paris was baptized today.
1940: Junior Hadassah, the Young Women's Zionist Organization of America will award gold keys to forty-one members at the seventeenth annual convention which begins this evening in Chicago
1940(17th of Av, 5700): Leon Trotsky dies as a result of wounds suffered on August 20that the hands of an assassin working for Stalin. Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein in 1879, Trotsky was the son of a Jewish farmer from Odessa (Russia). Believing there was no future for the Jewish people as a people, he became a contemporary of Lenin's, helping him with his publication of Iskra (Spark). He was exiled and arrested many times before the revolution. Trotsky played an important role in the Communist government and only after Lenin's death did Stalin expel him from the party. He was exiled in 1928 first to Turkey, then Norway, and finally Mexico. Trotsky’s Jewish origins helped buttress the claims of anti-Semites that Communism was part of Jewish conspiracy. At the same time, Trotsky Jewish origins were used by Stalin to demonize his opponents in the Soviet Union.
1940: Those being held at Gurs because they were sympathetic to the Nazis were released today, the same day on which the German inspection team arrived at what would become a French concentration camp for Jews.
1940: Étienne Szabo, an officer with the Free French married Violee(Bushnell) Szabo, an agent with SOE who would eventually be murdered at Ravnsbruck, a fate met by many non-Jewish as well as Jewish women.
1941: In Brooklyn, Abraham Block, a certified public accountant, and Ruth Block, a paralegal, gave birth to economist Walter Edward Block who holds a Ph.D. from Columbia and “is best known for his 1976 book Defending the Undefendable.”
https://mises.org/library/defending-undefendable
1941: The authorities send 5,000 Jews to Drancy, the detention camp outside Paris. This will be their last stop as the move to “the East” for “Re-settlement.”
1941: The German Army occupied the Black seaport city of Kherson which had a large Jewish population since the 19th century.
1941: “The Jadovno concentration the “first of 26 concentration camps operation by the Independent State of Croatia in which thousands of Serbs and Jews were imprisoned was closed today and turned over to the Italians.
1941(28th of Av, 5701): The Nazis murdered 3500 Jews from Minsk Mazowiecki, Poland, at Treblinka.
1941(28thof Av, 5701): Sixty-three year old Hadassah leader and Zionist Bella Pewsner leader passed away today.
http://www.jta.org/1941/08/22/archive/bella-pewsner-noted-zionist-dies-after-accident
1941: “Sun Valley Serenade” a musical produced by Milton Sperling and starring Milton Berle
1942(8th of Elul, 5702): The Jewish community at Ozorków, Poland, is destroyed.
1942: At Siedlce, Poland, “400 Ukrainians, joined by the Polish police and SS troops, surrounded the ghetto” as they prepared to ship the Jews to Treblinka and/or slaughter the rest of them. (Yad Vashem)
1942: Etty Hillesum returned to Westerbork.
1943: While serving in the U.S Army, Ed Koch, the future Mayor of New York, snapped after being taunted with the anti-Semitic epithet ‘Yiddy’ by a fellow soldier named LaRue. He challenged the bigot to a fight, which went down in full view of the entire company. According to Koch, “(The lieutenant) wanted to stop the fight but I wouldn’t let him. Even though I took the beating, I’m glad I fought.” (As reported by Forwardstaff)
1943: “The Seventh Victim” a horror film directed by Mark Robson and produced by Val Lewton was released in the United States by RKO.
1943: “Someone to Remember,” directed by Robert Siodmak and with music by Walter Schart was released today in the United States.
1944: “Song of Norway” a musical with a book co-authored by Milton Lazarus and featuring a performance by Siegfried “Sig” Arno opened today at the Imperial Theatre in New York where it ran for 860 performances.
1944: Rudolf Kastner “travelled from Budapest under German escort to the Swiss frontier and acted as intermediary for the first conversation between Kurt Becher and Saly Mayer, Swiss representative of the Joint D.C to discuss the price of abandoning the gassing.
1944: Photo-journalist Julia Pirotte participated in the Marseille Uprising which began today.
http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/1134/features/faces-and-hands/
1944(2nd of Elul, 5704): Sarah Vasen, first Jewish woman doctor in L.A. and first superintendent and resident physician of Kaspare Cohn Hospital (later Cedars-Sinai Hospital) passed away.
http://home.earthlink.net/~nholdeneditor/Sarah%20Vasen.htm
1944(2ndof Elul, 5704): Private Irwin Handled “perished” today “when U.S. Army Air Corps YB-29 Superfortress #41-36966 flew into ground 25 miles northeast of Alamagordo Army Airfield, New Mexico, on a training flight during
World War II.
1945: At the urging of Lt. Colonel Judah Nadich, the rabbi serving as senior Jewish chaplain in Europe, General Eisenhower issued an order reversing the policy that would have required Jewish displaced persons to return to their native countries.
1946: The cornerstone for Beit Berl, which has named after Berl Katznelson, was laid today.
1947: Today, 295 of the large number of Jews and part Jews, who left Berlin for Shanghai in 1939 after “having been told by the Nazi regime to get out” returned to Berlin today.
1948: Mitchell “Mike” Flint, a WW II naval combat pilot who had volunteered to fly with the IAF transferred out of squadron 101 to a dive bombing squadron where he would be the most experienced pilot in this form of aerial combat.
1949: Gertrude Samuels describes the story of one group of participants in the seventh aliyah to Israel who are traveling from Munich, the home of Nazism, to Haifa. Of all the aliyot -- waves of immigration to Palestine -- the present is the most dramatic and, in terms of numbers and ultimate goals, perhaps the most important. To the desperate and the idealistic streaming in the new State of Israel is a miracle born of years of longing
1950: “My Daughter Joy” a film version of a novel by Irène Némirovsky, produced and directed by Gregory Ratoff and starring Edward G. Robinson was released today in the United Kingdom.
1959(17th of Av, 5719): Eighty-one-year-old Publisher and businessman Salman Schocken passed away.
http://forward.com/articles/7288/man-of-the-book-reading-a-life-of-salman-schocken/
1959(17thof Av, 5719): Seventy-eight year old Sir Jacob Epstein, the American born British sculptor passed away.
http://www.academia.edu/732537/Carving_a_Legacy_The_Identity_of_Jacob_Epstein_1880-1959_
1959: President Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union. Today Hawaii has a Jewish population of 10,000 out of a total population of about 1.2 million people. In 2002, Linda Lingle, 49, won the Hawaii governor's race. Lingle was the first Republican to win the job in forty years and she was the first Jewish governor of the state. “Lingle says her Jewish heritage has aided her political career in Hawaii because it has given her a better understanding of diversity, helping her connect with citizens of different religious and ethnic backgrounds. Lingle is a member of a Jewish congregation on the island of Maui and attends Lubavitch services in Honolulu on the island of Oahu. There also are a Reform synagogue and a Conservative synagogue in Honolulu.”
1960(28th of Av, 5720): Seventy-four year old CCNY and Columbia educated award winning structural engineer David Barnard Steinman, the husband of Irene Hoffman and New York born son of “Louis Kelvin and Eva (Scollard) Steinman” passed away today.
https://www.asce.org/templates/person-bio-detail.aspx?id=11213
https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9623_11154-126386--,00.html.
1961: In what may have been some sort of record two Jewish hurlers, Sandy Koufax and Larry Sherry, pitch their team to defeat as the Giants beat “the Bums.”
1964: In New York, Rabbi Seymour Fox who would become a professor of Jewish education at Hebrew University and Sara Kaminker-Fox who would become head of the Jerusalem City Council gave birth to Israeli director Eytan Fox who made Aliyah at the tender age of two.
1969: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today for Rabbi Simon Federbush, the former chief rabbi of Finland.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/08/21/89023110.pdf
1969, Michael Dennis Rohan, a tourist from Australia and a member of the "Church of God," a Protestant sect, set fire to the mosque on the Temple Mount in an attempt to hasten the coming of the Messiah. He was judged insane and deported by Israel.
1971(30th of Av, 5731): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1971(30thof Av, 5731): Sixty-seven year old St. John’s University trained attorney Milton J. Goell, the holder of a BA from Harvard and Ph.D. from Yeshiva University and son Jacob Goel and Mary Samowitz who raised two children – James and Martha – with his wife Amy passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/23/archives/milton-j-goell.html
1973: In Moscow, Evgenia and Mikhail Brin, both graduates of Moscow State University (MSU) gave birth to Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google.
1974(3rdof Elul, 5734): Sixty-three year old Dr. Edward R. Schlesinger, who earned his M.D. at Columbia and Masters of Health Degree from Johns Hopkins before going to “head the maternal and child health programs at the University of Pittsburgh and who was the husband of Sylvia Schlesinger and the father of Doctors Stephen Schlesinger and Ann Louise Silver, passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/08/22/archives/e-r-schlesinger-63-child-health-expert.html
1974: Today, Abraham Hirschfeld, one of three candidates in the Democratic primary seeking to unseat Senator Jacob Javits in November, “attacked President Ford’s nomination of Nelson A. Rockefeller for the Vice Presidency.”
1977: A small group of young West Bank intellectuals tried to set up a political faction aimed at challenging the Palestine Liberation Organization’s claim of being the sole representatives of the Palestine Arabs in the administered territories. The group vehemently opposed Yasser Arafat and blamed him for plunging Palestine into bloody strife and for the failure to safeguard the Arab people's political interests. (Sounds an awful lot like what some of Arafat’s critics are saying 25 years later.)
1977: In Washington the US State Department announced that the current disagreements on the question of the settlements in the administered areas did not harm the long-standing Israeli-American friendship.
1977: Moshe Dayan met secretly with King Hussein in London marking the first time that any member of the Begin government had direct talks with any Arab leader.
1979(28th of Av, 5739): “Department store executive” David W. Davidson passed away today.
1980(9th of Elul, 5740): Ninety-six year old Walter E. Sachs, who has been a partner in Goldman-Sachs since 1910 and who married actress Katharine Williamson in 1939 passed away today.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=990CE1DF1E3BE732A25750C2A96E9C94619FD6CF
1981: “An American Werewolf in London,” a “horror comedy film” directed by John Landis, with music by Elmer Bernstein was released in the United States by Universal Pictures.
1981: “Honky Tonk Freeway” a comedy directed by John Schlesinger, with music by Elmer Bernstein and co-starring Daniel Stern was released in the United States today by Associated Film Distribution.
1982: Palestinian terrorists are dispersed from Beirut.
1983 La Cage aux Folles opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre today. It could be seen as “Jewish affair” since the book was by Harvey Fierstein, the music and lyrics were by Jerry Herman and the director was Arthur Laurents
1983: Eighty-six year old Sir Francis Edward Evans, the Belfast native who served as the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to Israel from 1951 to 1954, passed away today.
1987: In Santa Monica, Jody and Taylor Kasch gave birth to actor Cody Kasch the brother of Max Kasch.
1987: “The Big Easy” a crime movie set in New Orleans starring Ellen Barken was released today in the United States by Columbia Pictures.
1988(8thof Elul, 5748): Seventy-eight year old H.G. Adler who survived three different concentration camps, escaped from the Communists and became an award winning author passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/24/obituaries/hans-g-adler-78-survived-nazis.html
1988(8th of Elul, 5748): Eighty-seven year old Lena Shimshak, the wife of Morris J. Clurman and the mother of Bernice and Herman Clurman passed away today after which she was buried in the Montefiore Cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens.
1990(30th of Av, 5750): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1991: As violence continued for another day following a traffic accident that had resulted in the death of a seven year old boy, hundreds of marchers led by Al Sharpton gathered at 770 Eastern Parkway--Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, carrying anti-Semitic signs, attacking police with bricks, bottles and bullets while burning an Israeli flag. Lubavitchers took to the streets in response. Groups of blacks and Jews assailed each other with bottles.
1991: After premiering at Cannes in May, “Barton Fink” directed, produced and written by ty Joel and Ethan Coen and starring Michael Lerner was released today in the United States.
1992: “Lightsleepers” featuring Victor Garber as “Tis Brooke” was released today in the United States by Fine Line Features.
1994(14thof Elul, 5754): Seventy-two year old legal scholar Albert P. Blaustein passed away today.
1994(14thof Elul, 5754): German born American sociologist Rose Laub Coser passed away.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_04652.html
1995(25thof Av, 5755):Five Israelis – 26 year old Rivka Cohen, 56 year old Hannah Naeh, 46 year old Joan Davenney, 35 year old Police Chief Superintendent Noam Eisenman - were killed and at least 100 injured including 38 year old Yona Peter Malina who would die ten years later, when an Arab bomb ripped apart a bus in a residential neighborhood of Jerusalem.
1996: “Waiting for Guffman” with a screenplay co-authored by Eugene Levy who also co-starred in the comedy along with Bob Balaban premiered today at the Boston Film Festival.
1998(29th of Av, 5758): Ninety year old Wanda Toscanini Horowitz, the daughter of Conductor Arturo Toscanini and the wife of pianist Vladimir Horowitz passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1998/08/22/473278.html?pageNumber=13
1998: “The Blade” a film based on the Marvel comics character created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, produced by Avi Arad, written David S. Goyer and co-starring Stephen Dorf whose father was Jewish was released today in the United States.
1999(9thof Elul, 5759): Ninety-one year old Leo Castelli, the son of a Jewish family from Trieste, who became a leading New York art dealer passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/23/arts/leo-castelli-influential-art-dealer-dies-at-91.html
2000: “Remembering Kunianksky, A Loyal Friend” published today provided a tribute to Harry P. Kuniansky, a standout on the University of Georgia Bulldog football team.
http://onlineathens.com/stories/082100/dog_0821000032.shtml#.V7fJS4-cF9B
2001: Hamas claimed responsibility for today’s bombing in downtown Jerusalem during which one person was injured.
2001: Palestinian terrorists exploded at least one bomb in the Russian Compound neighborhood in Jerusalem.
2003: “Because Roy Moore, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, refused to remove his Ten Commandments monument by the August 20th deadline, the associate Justices of Alabama Supreme Court unanimously overrule Moore and order the monument removed by the building's manager.” (Anybody who remembers Governor Wallace and his ilk know that officials in Alabama have a lot of trouble with the Constitution and obeying the law)
2005: The Sunday edition of the Washington Postfeatured a review of A History of the Jews in the Modern World by Howard M. Sachar that covers events from the 18th century to present times.
2005: The New York Times featured a review of The Tatoo Artist by Jill Ciment and Redemption: The Life of Henry Roth by Steven G. Kellman. Roth is best known as the author of Call It Sleep which is now considered a classic in Jewish-American Literature.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/books/review/the-tattoo-artist-an-illustrated-woman.html
2005: Israeli poet Dahlia Ravikovitch was found dead in her apartment. Initial reports speculated the cause of death to be suicide, but the autopsy determined the cause to be sudden heart irregularities.A literary celebrity in Israel, Dahlia Ravikovitch who was born in 1936 is barely known in the United States, and far too small a presence in the English-reading world. Ravikovitch is not only one of the towering figures of 20th-century Israeli poetry, but also one of the strongest female poets in the history of Hebrew verse; she was so present here that she used to make frequent appearances on television, in which she was asked for her views on political or military developments. Long active in the peace movement, she often mixed the contemporary with the ancient and the biblical in her poetic responses to the news. While Ravikovitch is not an easy poet or a simple one, there is an approachability to the best of her work, and also, fortunately, to the best of a new translation entitledHovering at a Low Altitude: The Collected Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch; translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld. One of her strongest poems “Like Rachel” is quoted below.
Like Rachel
To die like Rachel
when the soul shudders like a
bird,
wants to break free.
Behind the tent, in fear and
dread,
Jacob and Joseph speak of her,
a-tremble.
All the days of her life
turn head over heels inside her
like a baby that wants to be
born.
How grueling. How
Jacob's love ate away at her
with a greedy mouth.
As the soul takes leave now,
she has no use for any of that.
Suddenly the baby screeches,
Jacob comes into the tent -
but Rachel does not even sense
it.
Rapture washes over her face,
her head.
* * *
Then did a great repose descend
upon her.
The breath of her nostrils would
not stir a feather.
They laid her down among
mountain stones
and made her no lament.
To die like Rachel,
that's what I want.
2006 (27 Av, 5766): Yahrzeit of Mathilde Schechter,”the United States founder of the US National Women's League of Conservative Judaism in 1918. She was married to Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schechter, a prominent rabbi who was Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. She founded and taught at the Columbia Religious and Industrial School for Jewish Girls. After assisting Henrietta Szold in creating Hadassah, Schechter later served as its national chairwoman of education. The Mathilde Schchter Residence Hall (MSRH), named for Schechter, contains undergraduate housing for students of the Jewish Theological Seminary's List College.” She passed away in 1924.
2006 (27 Av, 5766): Yizhar Smilansky passed away. Known by his pen name S. Yizhar or Samech Yizhar, he was an Israeli writer and a great innovator in Modern Hebrew literature. His pen name S. Yizhar was given to him by the poet and editor Yitzhak Lamdan, when in 1938 he published Yizhar's first story Ephraim Goes Back to Alfalfa in his literary journal Galleons. From then on, Yizhar signed his works with his pen name.
2006: On the 100th anniversary of the birth of Friz Feleng, Dan Miller remembered the great animator in “Puttin’ On the Friz.”
http://danmiller.typepad.com/dan_millers_notebook/friz-freleng.html
2006: The New York Times reported that Dina Najmin aged 38, a wife; mother of three and an expert in Jewish bioethics will become the spiritual leader of Kehilat Orach Eliezer. As the Times said, “The appointment is a milestone for advocates of an expanded role for women Orthodox Judaism, but one bursting with the kind of contradictions and tensions that come with trying to reconcile modern egalitarian impulses with fidelity to ancient religious texts that often defy them.” “Kehilat Orach Eliezer is a non-denominational synagogue on Manhattan's Upper West Side
2006: Starting today, Max, Kellerman did at least two nights of audition shows at 7 PM for WEPN (1050) 1050 ESPN Radio in New York City, hosting one night with Sid Rosenberg
2007: The man accused of stalking Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and dragging the Holocaust scholar out of a hotel elevator earlier this year was ordered to stand trial for hate crimes. A San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled there was enough evidence to try 23-year-old Eric Hunt on six felony charges including attempted battery, stalking, kidnapping, false imprisonment, elder abuse and false imprisonment of an elder. Each charge carries a hate crime allegation.
2007: Fatah’s armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades announced that it would no longer honor understandings reached with Israel and called on its members to carry weapons to defend themselves against the IDF.
2008: The New York Timesincluded a review Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power by Jonathan Mahler managing editor of The Forward
2008 (20 Av 5768):President Shimon Peres is spending his 85th birthday in southern Israel's Negev desert as part of his crusade to promote growth in the sparsely-populated arid region. Peres is celebrating his birthday based on the Hebrew Calendar, not the secular calendar. He was born on August 2, 1923 which was 20 Av.
2008:Today the state of Israel informed the High Court of Justice that it will shift the route of the separation barrier in the Judean desert so that 4,000 dunams of the roughly 70,000 dunams that were until now to be located on the "Israeli" side will now be on the West Bank side. At the same time, it made clear that the settlement of Kedar would remain on the "Israeli" side of the barrier in accordance with the original route.
2008: The Beaux Arts Trio with Menahem Pressler on piano performed its final American concert today at Tanglewood.
2009: In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah hosts a Special Welcoming Friday Night Service for Rabbi Todd Thalblum as he settles in to his new pulpit.
2009: Today, The London Beth Din ordered the board of an Orthodox synagogue in Sydney to make a six-figure payout to a prominent rabbi it tried to lay off. The ruling by the rabbinical court ends a bitter dispute between the Mizrachi Synagogue in Bondi and Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, who won an injunction in the New South Wales Supreme Court in March to stop synagogue members from voting on a resolution to lay him off..
2009(1st of Elul, 5769): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2009(1st of Elul, 5769):Edward René David Goldsmith widely known as Teddy Goldsmith, an Anglo-French environmentalist, writer and philosopher passed away. The eldest son of Major Frank Goldsmith, and elder brother of the financier Sir James Goldsmith, Edward Goldsmith was the founding editor and publisher of The Ecologist. Known for his outspoken views opposing industrial society and economic development, he expressed a strong sympathy for the ways and values of traditional peoples. His father was Jewish. His mother was not.
2009: “My One and Only” a comedy biopic starring Logan Lerman was released in the United States today.
2009(1st of Elul, 5769): Ninety-three year old Robert Bendheim, “the former president and chairman of he textile company M. Lowenstein Corporation and the president of the Leon Lowenstein Foundation, a charity named for his uncle passed away today after having led a full life that included graduating from Princeton, attending the Harvard Business School and serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy during WW II.
2010: A revival of Ira Levin’s “Deathtrap” opened at the Noel Coward Theatre in London.
2010: Adam Burstain, son of Todd and Jennifer Burstain, was called to the Torah as a Bar Mitzvah at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2010:During today’s national elections in Australia, Joshua Frydenberg, becameAustralia’s first Jewish lawmaker for the federal Liberal Party.
2011: Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria, VA, is scheduled to host its Perspective Members Brunch
2011:Israeli and New York-based choreographer Deganit Shemy& Company are scheduled to present a Work-in-Progress Performance of 2 Kilos of Sea at LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island.
2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Submission by Amy Waldman
2011:Members of Knesset from Israel's leading opposition party, Kadima, urged the cabinet today to launch a military campaign in the Gaza Strip, following the barrage of rockets that struck Israel over the weekend and the deadly terrorist attack that had taken place on August 18.
2011:The escalation in southern Israel continued this morning when six rockets and a barrage of mortars hit near the city of Ashkelon.
2011:Over a thousand people crowded a Kfar Saba cemetery today, to bid farewell to four people gunned down during Thursday’s combined terror attack near Eilat that left eight Israelis dead. Moshe Gez, 53, and Flora Gez, 52, as well as Dov Karlinski, 58, and Shula Karlinski, 54 were on their way to Eilat for a holiday on August 18 when they came under fire from terrorists who had infiltrated Israel from the Sinai Peninsula.
2011: Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly was among those who spoke at the funeral of Sally Goodgold, the civic leader who lobbied for affordable housing. (As reported by David Dunlap)
2011: The annual ceremony commemorating “George Washington’s famed letter to the Jews of Touro Synagogue was held today in Newport, RI.
http://forward.com/articles/141627/pressure-grows-to-display-george-washingtons-famed/
2012:Shlomo Bar, Dan Shtag, Sharona Elimelech and the Desert Drummers are scheduled to perform songs by Uzi Hitman, Yoni Rechter, Nurit Hirsh, Miriam Yellin Shteklis, Nahum Vardi and Leah Goldberg in Hazan Hall as part of the Oud Festival.
2012: Fifty-seven year old legal scholar Cass Sunstein completed his three years of service as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
2012: “Israel is “troubled” by the entry of Egyptian tanks into the northern Sinai Peninsula without coordination with Israel, a violation of the terms of the 33-year-old peace treaty between the two countries, and has asked Egypt to withdraw them, an Israeli government official said today.”
2012:For the first time, criminal charges have been pressed against a German rabbi for performing circumcisions, a Jewish weekly reported today.
2012:More than 600 rabbis displayed their support for US President Barack Obama's reelection bid today joining a campaign initiative called Rabbis for Obama. Obama for America announced today that Rabbis for Obama is designed to “engage and mobilize grassroots supporters.”
2013: A letter, of questionable authenticity which describes the transportation of 5,000 Jews daily to the Treblinka extermination camp is scheduled to be auctioned off today in London (As reported by JTA)
2013: The Washington, DC JCC is scheduled to host “Atonement: Stories about Confession, Redemption and Making Amends” in which 8 “morally challenged individuals tell true stories about holding themselves accountable for their mistakes and wrong-doings.
2013(15th of Elul, 5773): Ninety-five year old Sid Bernstein who played a key role in the early American visits of the Beatles passed away today.(As reported by Allan Kozinn)
2013(15th of Elul, 5773): Seventy-two year old Eddie Goldstein – “little Honest Joe King Edward” – who “opened the first swap shop in Dallas, TX passed away today.
http://andersonclaytonbrosterrell.tributes.com/our_obituaries/Eddie-King-Edward-Goldstein--96298719
2013: In “Hasidic Jews Turn Up Pressure on City to Accommodate Their Traditions” published today, Joseph Berger examines the growing power of the Ultra-Orthodox in New York City while offering no differentiation in the use of the term “Hasidic.”
2013: “Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Israel’s chief envoy to peace talks, met clandestinely this morning with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, Israeli officials said. A second meeting, which took place Tuesday evening at an undisclosed location in Jerusalem, included Washington’s point man Martin Indyk, the officials said.
2014: L.A.’s Yiddish Tango Club which “infuses klezmer with the fresh sensuality of Argentine tango” is scheduled to perform this evening in Los Angeles.
2014: Two days after the latest cease fire was broken Hamas rockets, “Israel approved the call-up of 10,000 IDF reservists today.”
2014(25th of Av, 5774): Eighty-nine year old Helen Bamber, “the comforter of torture victims” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
2014:The armed wing of Hamas announced today that three of its senior commanders - Mohammed Abu Shamalah, Raed al-Attar and Mohammed Barhum - were killed in a pre-dawn Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.(As reported by Uzi Barach)
2015: In Atlanta, Timothy Frilingos the Berman Museum’s Director of Exhibitions is scheduled to lead a tour of the museum’s latest Southern Jewish History Exhibition “Eighteen Artifacts: A Story of Jewish Atlanta.”
2015: “Jewish American singer Matisyahu confirmed his participation in a Spanish music festival” today “two days after organizers apologized for canceling his appearance following an uproar by pro-Palestinian groups.”
2015: “A former Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, revealed new details to his biographers about how close Israel came to striking Iran’s military facilities in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and why it did not despite his and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to do so, according to interview excerpts aired on Israeli television” tonight. (As reported by Jodi Rudoren)
2015: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the funeral of Joan Lipsky is scheduled to take place at Temple Judah followed by burial at Eben Israel Cemetery.
http://www.cedarmemorial.com/Obituary/2015/Aug/Joan-M-Lipsky/
2016: “From The Deep” a play “inspired by the story of Gilad Shalit and Ilan Shaliach” is scheduled to be performed for the last time at The New York International Fringe Festival FringeNYC.
2016: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europeby Joseph E. Stiglitz
2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center a performance by Dwight Sora who is playing the role Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara saved thousands during the Holocaust by issuing visas that allowed them to leave Lithuania.
2016: The UKJF is scheduled to host a screening of “We’ll Never Have Paris” directed by Simon Helberg at the JW3 Cinema.
2016: “One Crown Heights,” a neighborhood festival “sponsored by civic groups and elected officials including the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Children’s Museum” but disapproved of by Norman Rosenbaum whose brother Yankel was killed during the riots is scheduled to be held today to commemorate the 25thanniversary of what one source euphemistically described as “the racial unrest that tore through the Brooklyn neighborhood.”
2016: The Chicago production of “War Paint, a “musical focuses on the lives and rivalry between Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein” came to an end today.
2016: In Newport, RI, The Annual Meeting of the Touro Synagogue Foundation is scheduled to be held this morning at the Levi Gale House followed by the annual reading of George Washington's historic letter "To the Hebrew Congregation at Newport" 1:00 pm.
http://www.tourosynagogue.org/
2017: The Hillel at the University of Iowa is scheduled to host and evening of hot dogs, hamburgers and whole lot more for incoming freshman and returning Hawkeyes.
2017 Five police officers were lightly injured overnight as dozens of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators who do not want to serve in the IDF pelted them with stones and bottles during rioting in Jerusalem, police said in a statement today
2017: In Louisiana, “The East Jefferson Interfaith Clergy Association (EJICA), a group of Metairie and Kenner clergy men and women representing a number of denominations and faith groups including Congregations Beth Israel (Orthodox), Gates of Prayer (Reform) and Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation” is scheduled to hold a prayer vigil tonight “in order to denounce the white nationalists, anti-Semites and neo-Nazis who marched last week in Charlottesville, which resulted in the overflow of violence and the death of a counter protestor as the hands of one of the so-called alt-right.” (As reported by CCJN the source for everything Jewish on the Louisiana Gulf Coast.
2017: In response to poplar demand, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Dough” in London
2017: American University graduate Ross B. Levinsohn, the “son of Joyce (née Salton) and WW II veteran Jay Douglas Levinsohn” “was named the publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times by tronc” today.
2018: Following yesterday’s skirmish on the Gaza border that began when a terrorist fired “live rounds” at IDF troops in Israel, “talks on a long-term ceasefire between Israel and Hamas” appeared to be stalled with no end in sight.
2018: Yad Vashem is scheduled to continue hosting its newest exhibition “Flashes of Memory – Photography During the Holocaust.”
2018: The Penultimate sessionof “the four annual Docu.Text festival” is scheduled to take place at the National Library of Israel.
2019: Two days after he had passed away funeral services are scheduled to held for Sol Maikon, “the dean of traditional Judaism” in Cedar Rapids and one of the last surviving members of Beth Jacob at Eben Israel Cemetery.
2019: Klezkanada is scheduled to host an evening of dancing preceded by the presentation “Yiddish Glory – The Lost Songs of World War II.
2019: Those attending the McGill/Klezkanada Academic Seminar are schedule to being their day study “The Music of the Hasidim” and end with an “interview with Irena Klepfisz.”
2019: In the morning the JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to off Intermediate Bridge Lessons” following in the evening by a dinner theatre performance of “Rogers and Hammerstein’s ‘South Pacific”
2019: “Carry/jump/catch by Club Guy & Roni‘s Poetic Disasters Club” is scheduled to open in Amsterdam.
https://aicf.org/event/carry-jump-catch/
2020(1stof Elul, 5780): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2020: “A team of three Israeli scientists has pioneered a virus testing procedure that they say is faster and more efficient than any now in use, testing samples in pools of as many as 48 people at once.” (As reported by David M. Halbfinger)
2021(13thof Elul, 5781): Parashat Ki Taytzay; For more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2021: Temple Sinai is scheduled host an “Accessible Havdalah Hike” at the Redwood Regional Park in Oakland, CA.
2021: Temple Beth David of the South Shore is scheduled to host and Open House Barbecue and Havdalah service.
2021: “A surge in COVID-19 cases in Israel is fueling a black market for counterfeit coronavirus tests and vaccination certificates, with some selling for several hundred dollars apiece.”
2021: Recent law school Geula Malka spends her first Shabbat as member of law officer after having “officially joined the police on August 19 as to honor the memory of her daughter Hadas Malka, a Border Policewoman who was murdered four years ago during a terrorist attack in Jerusalem.