April 16
1457 BCE: Egyptian forces under Thutmose III defeated a group of rebellious Canaanite Vassal States at the Battle of Megiddo. This would have taken place while the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. The strategic position of Megiddo would make it the site of many battles including one between Egypt and the Kingdom of Judah in 609 BCE and the British and the Turks in 1918. This is the same Megiddo where Solomon kept horses and chariots and which is thought to be the site of the mythic Battle of Armageddon.
537 BCE (1st of Iyar, 3223): According to the Book of Ezra, the foundation of the Second Temple was laid on this date
69: Otho, Roman Emperor, commits suicide ending his short-lived reign. Otho was the second of the four men to hold the position of Emperor in the Year of the Four Emperors. According to some, it was the instability that Otho and his compatriots brought to the Empire that led to Titus destroying the Temple instead of merely settling for the defeat and humiliation of the Jews of Judea.
73: According to some calculations this is the day that Masada fell to the Romans after several months of siege, ending this Jewish Revolt against Rome. Of course, this was not the final revolt.
778: Birthdate of King Louis I or Louis the Pious France. Louis continued the favorable policies towards the Jews adopted by his father, Charlemagne. Although considered to be a weak ruler (who wouldn’t have been if had to follow Charlemagne) and quite pious, he protected his Jewish subjects from the clergy and the nobles. He continued to allow them settle in any part of his dominion and out of sympathy for his Jewish subjects, changed the Market Day from Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath) to Sunday.
1158: In Genoa, the name of a Jewish trader, Jusuphus Judeos, appeared for the first time on an official deed drawn up “from the public notary Giovanni Scriba.
1203(26th of Nisan, 4963): “German synagogal poet” Menahem Ben Jacob Ben Solomon whose great-grandfather Simson, was living in Worms at the time of the First Crusade and was surnamed "Ha-Darshan," passed away at Worms today.
1319: Birthdate of King John II of France. During the Hundred Years War, John was captured by the English and held for ransom. Desperate for funds, John’s son who was serving as Regent during his father’s imprisonment negotiated a deal with Manessier de Vesoul that would allow Jews to return to France in return for their financial support of the impoverished kingdom. Once John was ransomed, he gave into pressure and reneged on some of his son’s promises.
1641: “Don Lope de Vara y Alarcon, alias Judah the Believer, appeared before the Inquisition to repudiate a previous spurious defense which he had offered to the tribunal against its charge of heresy.” Don Lope was a Christian (not a Convserso) who converted to Judaism. Eventually he would be burned at the stake because he referred to recant and return to Christianity. (As reported by Abraham Bloch)
1669(15th of Nisan): Rabbi Jonah Teomim of Metz, France, author of Kikayon de-Yonah passed away
1729(17th of Nisan, 5489): Seventeenth and 18th century “German rabbi and Talmudic author” Jacob Eliezer Braunschweig passed away today.
1741(30th of Nisan, 5501): Abraham Spitz, “who purchased the freedom of Imprisoned Jews from Buda” passed away today.
1746: An army commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, loyal to the British government defeated Jacobite forces of Charles Edward Stuart at the Battle of Culloden. George Frideric composed “Judas Maccabaeus” a three act oratorio “as a compliment to the victorious Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland.” The oratorio was based on the characters known to all who have celebrated the holiday of Chanukah.
1799: Napoleon defeated the Ottoman Turks in the Battle of Mount Tabor and drove them across the Jordan River. This the same Mount Tabor that was the staging area for the armies of Deborah and Barak, as they faced the assembly of Canaanites and their chariots arrayed below them on the plain to the west. It is also the same Mount Tabor where the Midianite kings killed the brothers of the Judge named Gideon. Both episodes are described in the Book of Judges.
1804: Establishment of The London Board for Shechita.
181730th of Nisan, 5577): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1844: Birthdate of Nobel Prize winning author Anatole France. The non-Jewish France joined his friend Émile Zola in the Dreyfus case and was the first to sign Zola's famous article J'Accuse, condemning the false treason indictment of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer. At a 1904 International Congress of Freethinkers at Paris, France said, "The gods advance, but they always lag behind the thoughts of men.... The Christian God was once a Jew. Now he is an anti-Semite."
1849: “Le prophète” (The Prophet), an opera in five acts by Jewish composer Giacomo Meyerbeer was first performed today by the Paris Opera at the Salle Le Peletier
1850: In Shutesbury, MA, Nathaniel and Harriet Adams gave birth to Herbert Baxter Adams, the Johns Hopkins University who has contributed “valuable papers on the services of” Haim Solomon, “the patriotic Jew.”
1852: In New York, Johan Levy, a merchant and sea captain and Francis Phillips gave birth to Jonas Levy the New York Congressman who was the nephew of Uriah Phillips Levy.
1855: In St. Louis, over 400 hundred people attended that cornerstone laying ceremony for the first synagogue constructed in St. Louis and the first synagogue built west of the Mississippi.
1858(2nd of Iyar, 5618): Sixty-three year old Alois Isidor Jeitteles the Austrian physician who co-founded the Jewish weekly Siona with his cousin Ignaz Jeitteles. Passed away today.
1862(16th of Nisan, 5622): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1862: The New York Timesreported that The Cattle Market the Jewish dealers were present when the market opened on Monday but they were absent the following day because it was Passover; a fact that caused a drop off in market activity.
1864: Copies of “A History of the World” by Philip Smith are now available. The second part of this volume presents the history of Egypt including the “history of the Hebrew Theocracy and Monarchy from the exodus to the destruction of the kingdoms or Israel and Judah, and the Babylonian Captivity of the Jewish nation.” The work includes information based on newly revealed discoveries about the area.
1864: Today’s “Literary Gossip” column reported that a new edition of Reverend Henry Hart Milman’s “History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire by Constantine” by Henry Hart Milman, the noted English clergyman has been published. This work is part of trilogy, the other two works of which are “History of Latin Christianity” and “History of the Jews.” Milman published “History of the Jews in 1829 was unique for its time since it tried to portray the Jews as a historical people and “minimized the miraculous.” This approach, which he used in his later works, made him the target of attacks from Biblical literalists among others. This portrayal of the Jews actually impeded the career of this Christian minister.
1870(15th of Nisan, 5630): First Day of Pesach
1871: All civic limitations imposed on Jews of the German Empire were lifted. It was thought that this would bring medieval anti-Semitism to a conclusion.
1871: An article published today entitled “Hebrew Charity” reported in a most positive way on the various benevolent activities engaged in by the Jewish community to alleviate the suffering of their less fortunate co-religionists. Last fall’s Hebrew Charity Fair raised enough funds to provide over $100,000 for Mount Sinai Hospital and over $33,000 for the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum. The Hebrew Benevolent Fuel Association, the B’nai Brit, the Society of B’nai Abraham and the Society of Kesha Shel Barsel (Order of the Golden Crown) are among other community-wide organizations aiding the needy. This does not include Mt. Sinai Hospital (formerly the Jews Hospital) which now serves Jews as well as the general population or the various aid societies sponsored by the 30 synagogues and temples located in the city.
1872(8th of Nisan, 5632): Moritz Reichenheim, founder of the Orphan’s Home passed away today in Berlin
1876(22nd of Nisan, 5636): 8thday of Pesach
1879(23rd of Nisan, 5639): Leyser Lazarus passed away. He had been elected President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau in 1875 following the death of Zecharais Frankel.
1850: David Smith, a Jewish speculator and cigar dealer who has been a long-time resident of Chicago has disappeared, reportedly leaving behind “fraudulent debts in the amount of nearly $5,000.” It is thought that he may have gone to be with his daughter who lives in Australia.
1880: It was reported that The Young Men’s Hebrew Association held its 6th annual reception last night at the Chickering Hall in New York City.
1880: It was reported today David Smith, a Jewish speculator and cigar dealer, has disappeared in Chicago leaving behind him debts totaling $5, 000. Smith has a daughter living in Australia and it is thought he may have to seek refuge with her.
1881: According to “The Jews In Germany” published today that Prime Minister Bismarck and the Crown Prince Frederick William are not sympathetic to the movement sweeping parts of Germany aimed at limiting the number of and opportunities for Jews in Germany.
1881: Pogroms spread to villages surrounding Elizavetgrad (Russia) where anti-Semitic violence had broken out during Easter observances.
1881: In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle. This happened at the same time that Beersheba, the first of seven agricultural colonies established in Kansas was being started by 60 Jewish families from Russia. Wyatt Earp, one of Masterson’s best friends married a Jewish woman named Josie. Gene Barry, a Brooklyn born Jew, played the title role in a television series about the western lawman called “Bat Masterson.”
1881: In New York, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment made the annual distribution of financial aid to a variety of charitable institutions including a payment of $1,440 to the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews and $240 for the Zion Aged Relief Association.
1881: A review of “Buried Alive: Or Ten Years of Penal Servitude in Siberia” reports that the cast of characters includes a hypocritical “Jew who acts a pawnbroker and money-lender to the other convicts” while observing his religious with a great display of public piety. [The stereotype of the Jewish money lender survived in Russian literature about Siberia only to be joined by another stereotype – the Jewish revolutionary, be he communist, socialist or anarchist.
1883: On the day after his marriage to Pauline Moses, David Holtz endures a “violent lunatic” from his wife
1887(22nd of Nisan, 5647): 8thday of Pesach
1889(15th of Nisan, 5649): First day of Pesach
1889: Birthdate of Silent Screen Star Charlie Chaplin. Many will consider the Little Tramp as his greatest comedic triumph. Others will remember him for The Great Dictator, "a talkie" that poked fun at Hitler and Mussolini when the world was still having trouble standing up to the Nazis and the Fascists. Born in England of Jewish parents, he was forced to retreat to his native soil during the McCarthy Period. He passed away on December 25, 1977.
1890: It was reported today that Jesse Seligman was one of those be considered as the Republican nominee in the upcoming mayoral race. It is felt that in addition to drawing the “full Republican vote” he would also be able to attract a large percentage of the Jewish vote.
1891(8th of Nisan, 5651): Fifty-six year old Joseph H. Hepner, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who came to the United States 8 years ago, took his own life at the grocery store he has owned for the last three years on East Broadway.
1893(30th of Nisan, 5653): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1893: The Reverend Merle St. Croix Wright, pastor of the Lenox Avenue Unitarian Church delivered a sermon condemning the Union League Club’s rejection of Theodor Seligman because of his “race.”
1894: The doctors reported today that four year old Jacob Green, the son of a Jewish peddler had only suffered a broken collarbone when he fell from the fifth floor of his tenement. Before he hit the ground, the boy landed on Morris Eisenberg who was standing in front of the building. Despite great pain from what turned out to be a broken shoulder, Eisenberg got the boy to the hospital where he received prompt medical attention.
1895: The newly incorporated Hebrew Infant Asylum of New York City is publicly committed to provided care for Jewish orphans under the age of five. Among the trustees are Jacob Fleishhauer, Minnie Frank, Jacob B. Seligman and Esther Wallenstein.
1896: Birthdate of Samuel Rosenstock, who gained fame as Tristan Tzara, poet, playwright and founder of the Dada Movement. He passed away in 1963.
1897)14th of Nisan, 5657): Ta’anit Bechorot
1897: The will of Francis Danzig, the widow of Louis Danzig was filed for probate today.
1897: Fifty-nine year old August Seligman passed away today at his home in New York City. A native of Oppenheim, Germany, he came to the United States 45 years ago where he began in the importing business before turning to the manufacture of corsets He was a member of Temple Beth El and was active in Jewish fraternal organizations.
1897: Birthdate of John B Glubb the British officer who was the commander of Jordan's Arab Legion. It was Glubb and those like him who trained the Jordanian Army and made it in effective fighting force against the Israelis. The Arab Legion was the only force to score a meaningful victory over the Jewish fighters which left the Jordanians in control of the eastern section of Jerusalem and what is now the West Bank. No, nobody wanted to set up a Palestinian State in the West Bank in those days.
1897(14th of Nisan, 5657): The New York Times reported that “At sundown this evening the Feast of Passover will begin, and will continue for seven days, ending at sundown on April 22. The feast is celebrated generally by the Jews, with services in the synagogues on the first and last days, and the evenings preceding those days. The "matzoth," or unleavened bread, is used in place of the usual bread during the week…Each family, however poor, manages to live well by some means or other during the Passover week, the poorer ones being assisted by others who are more fortunate.”
1898: The Young Folk’s League of the Hebrew Infant Asylum hosted its third annual reception which included an evening of special entertainment tonight at the Lexington Avenue Opera House.
1900(17thof Nisan, 5660): Third Day of Pesach
1900: Birthdate of Polly Adler Russia, author of A House is not a Home. Long before “Sex and the City” was a television show, this famous Madame was providing the real thing.
1900(17th of Nisan, 5660): Fifty-five year old Dankmar Adler, the architect whose work included Temple Isaiah passed away in Chicago.
1906: “Jessika,” J.B. Foerster’s opera based on The Merchant of Venice premiered at the Prague National Theatre.
1903: During the so-called Melvin Bellis Case, as rumors of pogroms began to circulate, the Russian Minister of Justice telegraphed the Kiev District Prosecutor ordering him to personally investigate the cause of Andrei Yustschinkski’s death.
1905: Peddlers on the east side planned to be out selling their wares today even though it was Sunday. Sigmund Schwartz, President of the East Side Peddlers Assoication had told them that Police Commissioner McAdoo had given them permission to ignore the laws because of the approaching celebration of Passover.
1905: In an article entitled "How Passover Will Be Observed on the East Side; The Beautiful Sentiment of Opening the Door to the Poor with Which This Time-Honored Jewish Festival Is Initiated at the Seder Table,"The New York Times reported that ‘Next Wednesday evening, the first night of Passover, thousands of the Children of Israel on the great east side will sit by their firesides in faith, hope, and contentment. From the dim haze of antiquity hunted from shore to shore, they have at last found peace -- in this country of glorious freedom, where they can at least worship their God in peace, and where their Passover comes without menace of riot and bloodshed”
1906: Twenty Jewish butchers working in Harlem were found guilty of selling meat after midnight on Saturday. The magistrate hearing the case said that he was fining them reluctantly and wished that “the legislature would repeal this absurd law.”
1908(15th of Nisan, 5668): Jews celebrate Passover for the last time under the Presidency of Teddy Roosevelt.
1911: During what would become known as “The Case of Mendel Bellis,” the Russian Minister of Justice ordered the Kiev District Prosecutor to personally investigate the death of Andrei Yustschinski; an investigation that would include a second autopsy conducted by two professors from the Kiev Medical School.
1913: The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Rabbi Kahn, the “former principle of the Jewish school in Camden, NJ,” has accepted the position of assistant Rabbi Herman of Congregation Oheb Zedek in Pottsville.
1913: Lieutenant Junior Grade Albert Morris Cohen, USN was appointed to serve as an aide on the staff of Rear Admiral Charles J Badger, Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet, USN
1914: Sixty-seven year old Hermann Ahlwardt, the anti-Semitic journalist and renowned “Jew-baiter” passed away in Leipzig. His views stand in stark contrast to the statement he had made in 1885, "Antisemitism is illogical; I have always condemned it, and shall continue to condemn religious intolerance until my last breath." Apparently the near-do-well school teacher found it profitable to switch to the extreme right.
1915: Birthdate of Coleman Jacoby, the native of Pittsburg, PA a comedy writer who created the laughter for many famous names including Fred Allen, Phil Silvers, Jackie Gleason and Art Carney. He passed away at the age of 95 in 2010.
1916: Birthdate of “Rabbi Moshe Yehoshua Hager, the leader of one the world’s largest Hasidic sects, the Viznitz Hasidim.” (As reported by Joseph Berger)
1916: France and Britain divided up the Middle East in the Sykes-Picot Agreement. France was assured of Syria and the Mosul, with English gaining control of Northern Arabia and Central Mesopotamia. Pre-state Israel was divided with France controlling the Galilee, Britain the Haifa area and the rest of the region to be under some sort of undefined international control.
1919: Polish soldiers attacked the Jews of Lida, Russia
1920: A union was founded to strengthen and develop friendly relations between Moroccan Jewry and Spain.
1920: Birthdate of Richard Nathaniel Goldman, a native of San Francisco who founded Goldman Insurance Services for co-founded “the Goldman Environmental Prize, which is given to six grass-roots environmental activists every year.” He pass away in 2010 at the age of 90.
1921: Elka Lerner, the young mother who died at Ellis Island after escaping from pogroms in the Ukraine will be buried today at a funeral attended by Joseph Barondess, her cousin who will see to it that the infant and her husband are cared for.
1922: Po'al ha-Mizrachi, the religious Zionist labor movement, founded. Unlike many other Orthodox, the followers of Mizrachi were ardent Zionist from the earliest days. They played a vital role in the creation of Jewish Palestine under the mandate and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
1922: Germany and the Soviet Union sign the Treaty of Rapallo which was effectively a peace treaty between these two parties from WW I. The Russian and German empires that had been warring parties had been replaced by these two national entities. The treaty drew the two “pariah states” of Europe into an embrace that included training of the German Army in the Soviet Union. Yes, in one of those great ironies of history, Stalin would provide the training for the Wermacht that would invade his country; an invasion that resulted in the death of millions of Jews.
1923(30th of Nisan, 5683): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1927: Nathan Straus, New York philanthropist, arrived on the White Star liner Adriatic after a visit to Palestine. He said that he found steady progress there, in spite of the crisis in Tel Aviv, which he said was temporary. Straus praised Lord Plumer, the High Commissioner and reported that “friction between Arabs and Jews was on the decline.
1930: Birthdate of Herbert Jay Solomon who gained fame as Herbie Mann, a leading American jazz flutist.
1931(29th of Nisan, 5691): Rachel Bluwstein Sela passed away at the age of 40. http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/rahel-bluwstein
1935: Birthdate of Steffi Sidney-Splaver, the daughter of famed Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky, who as a young actress appeared in and then gave up acting to become a Hollywood writer, publicist and producer. She passed away in 2010 at the age of 74.
1936: In Offenbach, Austrian-born Jewish feminist Bertha Pappenheim defended herself during a hearing where Nazi officials were investigating accusations made by “a feeble-minded Christian girl”
1938(15th of Nisan, 5698): First Day of Pesach
1938: On the first day of Pesach, Rabbi David de Sola Pool at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue said " The Passover message of freedom is a ringing call to- man to struggle to preserve his civic liberty and his freedom of thought, speech and conscience." Speaking to a crowd o 2,500 at Temple Emanu-El, Rabbi Samuel Goldenson stressed the necessity for Jews “to reaffirm the importance of liberty and freedom.” He also drew a comparison between the plight of the Jews of Egypt and plight of Jews living in totalitarian states in Europe.
1938: Arturo Toscanini conducted the Palestine Orchestra in Tel Aviv. “The program was a repetition of that given in Haifa earlier this week, but tonight’s performance was even more brilliant because the better acoustics at the Tel Aviv Hall.”
1939: Stalin requested the creation of a British, French & Russian anti-Nazi pact. Stalin was not blind to Hitler's ambition. He sought an alliance with the West. However, London and Paris dithered because they were concerned about joining forces with the Communist dictator. Fearing isolation and having to fight the Germans alone, Stalin negotiated a non-aggression pact with Hitler which freed the Nazis to attack Poland and then turn against the West. By the time the Germans attacked the Russians, a new government was in power in London. When Churchill was asked if he would aid Stalin, Churchill said that he would help the Devil if he were fighting the Nazis.
1939: Sensing opportunities with the Soviet Union, Mussolini welcomes the notion of a pact of solidarity with that country
1940: On opening day at Griffith Stadium, the home of the Washington Senators, President Roosevelt accidently smashed the camera of a Jewish photographer. Irving Schlossenberg was a photographer with the Washington Post. After FDR had thrown the ceremonial “first pitch,” Schlossenberg convinced him to do it a second time so that he could get a better picture. Unfortunately, Roosevelt’s second pitch went wild and smashed Schlossenberg’s camera. Schlossenberg went on to serve as a combat photographer with the United States Marine Corps hitting the beach in the first wave at four different landings – a fete that help to earn him four bronze stars.
1941: Germans invade Sarajevo, and with the help of Muslims (whom they had incited) looted and destroyed the main Sephardic synagogue. All Jews were ordered to surrender their radios.
1941: German troops and local Muslims looted and destroyed the main synagogue in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.
1941(19th of Nisan, 5701): Aron Beckermann became the first Jew to be shot by the Germans for resistance in France.
1942: SS officials in the Ukraine informed authorities in Berlin that the Crimea is judenrein (purged of Jews).
1944: Mordechai (Motke) Eldar, a teenager who was one of six children of a Spinka Chassidic family, was among the Jews forced by the Nazis to assemble at a local school in Transylvania.
1944: After forcing the Jews to register, the Hungarian government confiscated the property of the Jewish population.
1944: First group of Jews is sent from Athens to Auschwitz.
1944: In impressive services held this afternoon at the Central Synagogue, Lexington Avenue at Fifty-Fifth Street, three American Jewish leaders including S.W. Baron, J.N. Rosenberg and W. Rosenwald received the honorary degree of Doctor of Hebrew Letters from Hebrew Union College
1945: Soviet forces, which include untold number of Jewish soldiers, begin their final assault on Berlin.
1946(15th of Nisan, 5706): First observance of Pesach following World War II
1946: American journalist Mrs. Margaret Ashton Stimson Lindsley entered Acre Prison so that she could interview imprisoned members of the Irgun. The British had turned down her requests to review the prisoners, so Mrs. Lindsley took advantage of the British practice of allowing family members to visit prisoners on Pesach. Mrs. Lindsley pretended to be a member of the first family of Revisionist Zionism, the Jabotinskys, so she could join them on a visit to jail. There she interviewed Eri Jabotinsky, son of the Revisionist Zionist leader, Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky. a leader of the Irgun's "aliya bet" underground railroad, which smuggled tens of thousands of Jews from Europe to Palestine in defiance of British immigration restrictions and his 17-year-old cousin Peleg Tamir, who was also an Irgun activist
1947: Bernard Baruch the famed Jewish financier and unofficial advisor to several Presidents reportedly coined the term “cold war” to describe the relationship between the U.S. and the Soviets.
1947(26th of Nisan, 5707): The British executed four members of the Irgun – Dov Gruner, Mordechai Alkahi, Hehiel Dresner and Eliezer Kashani – in Acre Prison.
1947: Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss the Nazi commandant of the Auschwitz extermination camp was executed today.
1948: During the Israeli War for Independence a platoon of Palmach soldiers made its way into the city of Safed where the Jewish quarter was under siege from a large Arab force. The appearance of this small but tough group of Israeli fighters stiffened the spirit of the besieged population. With the sanction of the local rabbis, the largely Orthodox population worked to improve the defenses of the Jewish quarter even though the work would interfere with preparations for Pesach. The Palmach arrived just in the nick of time, since the departing British forces turned over the keys to their police fortress and other fortified positions to the Arab military forces. Ultimately, the Jews of Safed would prevail and the Arab military units would be driven out.
1950(29th of Nisan, 5710): A four story building in Jaffa collapsed killing twelve and injuring thirty. Most of the dead were newly arrived immigrants. The cause of the collapse is still under investigation but it is thought to have been the result of the removal of one of the building’s pillars to make room for carpentry equipment being installed in a shop on the ground floor.
1953(1st of Iyar, 5713): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that army engineers had completed a new road, bringing Wadi Ramon within 212 km. of Tel Aviv. The last stage comprised a steep descent of 250 meters along 4.5 km. of the literally vertical wall of the Makhtesh - a great engineering achievement. The road was now planned to reach Eilat. Syria reportedly prepared a list of all Jewish property to be placed in the hands of a custodian, should Israel carry out its decision to sell the property of Arab refugees.
1953: Birthdate of J. Neil Schulman author, screenwriter, journalist, radio personality, and filmmaker who is the son of famed violinist Julius Schulman.
1953:The New York Times reports that “Jack Benny plans to increase his television appearances next fall to once every three weeks, and will film six of the half-hour programs this summer. The six or seven remaining shows for the 1953-54 season will be done "live."
1953: Heinrich Class, the proponent of Pan-Germanism and Anti-Semitism whose philosophy strongly influenced the Nazis died today in Jena.
1955: Birthdate of Ellen Barkin. The Bronx born actress appeared in such films as the big Easy and the Sea of Love. She gained additional fame as the fourth wife of “Cosmetic’s King” Ron Perlemen.
1957(15th of Nisan, 5717): Pesach
1965(14th of Nisan, 5725): Ta'anit Bechorot
1965(14th of Nisan, 5725): Seventy-eight year old Mendel Osherowitch, a former editor “The Jewish Daily Forward” and a leading Yiddish author passed away today in Manhattan
1968(18th of Nisan, 5728): Edna Ferber passed away on the fourth day of Pesach. Born in Michigan in 1885, Ferber's parents were Jewish immigrants from Hungary. Ferber was proud of her Jewish heritage. In her autobiography she described anti-Semitic episodes of her youth. She also recounted the story of a meeting with three of her friends and a New York society matron. When the society lady, boasted about having thrown away a book because it was written by a Jew, Ferber and her friends (all Jewish as well) walked out on her. Ferber won a Pulitzer for So Big. She is also known for other epics including Showboat and Giant, both of which became successful movies
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/ferber-ednahttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/ferber.html
1975(5th of Iyar, 5735): Yom HaAtzma’ut
1978: “The Holocaust,” a four part mini-series premiers on NBC television.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that US president Carter's Administration, which had just sold 50 F-5E jet fighters to Egypt, was prepared to approve the sale of 3,000 US-made armored carriers to Egypt. In Washington, Alfred Atherton, the US Middle Eastern envoy, said that it was up to Israel to make the stalled peace negotiations with Egypt possible
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the number of those making Aliya in March, 1978, increased by 35 percent in comparison with that of March, 1977. The majority of the 1,988 new immigrants who arrived in March came from the Soviet Union.
1979: Zaventem Airport in Belgium was the scene of a failed attack by Palestinian terrorists.
1986: Yitzhak Moda'I switched from serving as Minister of Finance to Minister of Justice.
1989: “In recognition of Rabbi Schneerson's vital efforts, and in celebration of his 87th birthday, the Congress, by House Joint Resolution 173, has designated” today “as ‘Education Day, USA’”
1993: Hamas stages what is believed to be its first suicide bombing.
1995: “The Sarajevo Haggadah,” one of the world's most beautiful illustrated Jewish manuscripts, emerged today from the chaos of the Bosnian war at a Passover ceremony that offered a moment of reconciliation in a shattered city. The fate of the richly illustrated 14th-century Haggadah, or Passover ceremonial book, had been unknown since the war began in 1992. Rumors circulated that the medieval book, perhaps the best known Hebrew illustrated manuscript in existence, had been destroyed, lost or sold. But the Bosnian Government, acting at the request of Sarajevo's vestigial Jewish community, laid the rumors to rest today by bringing the Haggadah from the vaults of the national bank to an unusual Passover ceremony. In a city encircled and bereft of freedom, about 70 people gathered for a feast celebrating the freedom of the Jews through deliverance from Egypt. Addressing himself to Sarajevo's Jews, of whom 525 remain from a prewar total of 1,300, President Alija Izetbegovic said: "I ask you not to leave Bosnia, I ask you to stay here. This is also your country. "Our wish is that this country should be a tolerant community of religions and nations, as it has been for centuries," he added. President Izetbegovic, the leader of Bosnia's governing Muslim nationalist Party of Democratic Action, did not remain in the synagogue for the Seder itself. But his presence at the start of a ceremony also attended by religious leaders of the city's Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim sects was clearly intended to buttress emotional support for a multi-ethnic Bosnia at a time when three years of war appeared to have done irreparable damage to that ideal. "Spend your holiday in peace, and enjoy," President Izetbegovic said, "as much as is possible in these circumstances." In the synagogue, where Jews, Muslims, Serbs and Croats mingled amid quiet conversation and mutual respect, peace appeared possible for a moment. It was as if the frail Haggadah, with its painstakingly beautiful and vivid illustrations of subjects including the creation of the world and Moses blessing the Israelites, had imparted a lesson of patience and tolerance. But outside, the city lived another day of ordinary violence. A French soldier in the United Nations peacekeeping force was killed while trying to set up an anti-sniper barrier outside the Holiday Inn, where many journalists and diplomats stay. He was the second French soldier killed in two days. NATO jets swooped overhead, to no visible effect, and there were regular bursts of machine-gun fire. It had been thought that the Haggadah, created in northern Spain between 1350 and 1400, might have been another victim of this violence. Kept but very rarely shown at the Sarajevo National Museum before the war broke out, the book had disappeared from view completely. Before today, the book was last seen in 1989, on a single afternoon as part of an exhibition called "The Jews of Yugoslavia." Before that, it had only been seen once since World War II, when it was displayed for a few hours in 1966, on the 400th anniversary of the arrival in Sarajevo of the Spanish Jews. The Haggadah (meaning "the telling" in Hebrew) is an account of the Egyptian bondage of the Jews, a thanksgiving to God for deliverance and a prayer for ultimate redemption. The Sarajevo manuscript, consisting of 142 pages of vellum, some illustrated, some blank, belonged to a Jewish family that was probably expelled from Spain in 1492. From there, the exact steps are unknown, but in 1609 it was sold in Italy. After that, it did not resurface until 1894, when a Sarajevo family of Sephardic Jews named Kohen sold the book to the National Museum, then under the administration of Austro-Hungarian officials. The book was then taken to Vienna. Later it was returned to the Sarajevo Museum, where a German officer tried to take it in 1941. But the museum's director contrived to hide it from the Nazis, and the book was returned to the museum at the end of the war. Marked with wine stains and children's scrawls, the book bears the evidence of its peregrinations. It is at once a religious manuscript of unusual beauty and a well-used family prayer book. The Haggadah's value was appraised at $700 million in 1991, when Spain asked for it to be sent there for an 1992 exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of its expulsions of Jews. The book was not lent. Today, Ivan Ceresnjes, the head of the Jewish community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that President Izetbegovic had mentioned the possibility of sending the Haggadah somewhere for restoration, perhaps the United States. "It's 700 years old, but who will take care of it for the next 700 years?" he asked. But President Izetbegovic made no reference in his remarks, and it appeared unlikely that a book so identified with this city could be sent elsewhere at this time. Mr. Ceresnjes said he believed that Bosnia's mixed society was not yet totally destroyed, but that "the longer the war goes on, the more difficult it is because people are losing confidence in each other." He added that the Government was being pushed toward a more radical identification with Islam. At the start of the war, the Jewish community, helped by Muslim, Croatian and Serbian volunteers, established an aid organization called Benevolencia -- named after a society set up by Sarajevo Jews in 1892 to help the poor. The organization has provided medicine, a first-aid clinic, food and postal services. "Our work, it shows us our standpoint," said Mr. Ceresnjes. "We are a small community, but we have set out to show that it is still possible to live like before."
1997: In “Retracing Jewish Steps, Through Haroseth” Joan Nathan traces the origins of this staple of the Seder plate.
1999: A symposium entitled The History of American Jewish Political Conservatism held at American University in Washington, D.C. comes to a close.
2000: Fifty year old Raik Haj Yahia, an Israeli Arab who had served in the Knesset as a member of the Labor Party passed away today.
2000: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Lingua Ex Machina: Reconciling Darwin and Chomsky With the Human Brain” by William H. Calvin and Derek Bickerton,“The Knowledge Factory: Dismantling the Corporate University and Creating True Higher Learning” by Stanley Aronowitz and the recently released paperback edition of “The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America” by Ira Berlin in which “the historian examines the many forms and meanings of slavery between the arrival of the first blacks in Virginia in 1619 and the rise of King Cotton.”
2001: “Roger Clinton Subpoenaed To Testify About Pardons” published today described the U.S. attorney’s plan to have the former President’s brother about pardons granted to several individuals including Marc Rich.
2002(4th of Iyar, 5762): Yom Hazikaron.
2003: In an article entitled “Once Sweet and Heavy, Now Dry and Desirable,” Amanda Hesser describes the change in the nature of Kosher for Passover wine and the growth of it is a commercial operation. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/16/dining/once-sweet-and-heavy-now-dry-and-desirable.html
2006: The New York Times featured a review of Sweet and Low: A Family Story, by Rich Cohen. Yes, it is a Jewish family that is responsible for bring Sweet N Low, that staple of the diet world, to the American dieting consumer. Eat, eat my child gives way to diet, diet my child. The Times also reviewed the recently released paperback edition of “The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life” by Tom Reiss. “Part cultural biography, part literary mystery, Reiss's book chronicles the life of Lev Nussimbaum (1905-42), a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince and became a bestselling author in Nazi Germany. Under the pen name Kurban Said, Nussimbaum wrote "Ali and Nino," a romance novel set in Azerbaijan at the time of the Russian Revolution. His enormously popular books and articles as "Essad Bey" opened a window on the Islamic world. Disentangling fact from fiction in Nussimbaum's life, Reiss also unlocks fascinating details on everything from the rise of fascism to the origins of the Shiite-Sunni split.”
2007: An exhibition entitled “Daring to Resist: Jewish Defiance in the Holocaust” opens at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. “During the Holocaust, Jews throughout Europe, through individual and collective acts of resistance, sought to undermine the Nazi goal of the annihilation of the Jewish people. Jews engaged in a range of resistance activities with the aim of preserving Jewish life and dignity despite unimaginable difficulties. Their efforts powerfully refute the popular perception that Jews were passive victims. Through testimony, archival footage, and authentic artifacts, the exhibition will help visitors to understand the dilemmas that Jews faced under impossible circumstances. Whether praying clandestinely, documenting the experiences of Jews in the ghettos, or taking up arms to fight, these responses took many forms, but each and every one was a courageous act of resistance.”
2007: Time Magazine featured an article by Walter Isaacson entitled “Einstein & Faith.” The article was based on Walter Isaacson”s latest literary effort, Einstein: His Life and Universe.
2007(28th of Nisan, 5767): In one of history’s many ironies, a Holocaust Survivor was murdered on the day after Yom HaShoah. Liviu Librescu aged 76; a Romanian born Israeli teaching at Virginia Tech was killed in a massacre, in which a gunman killed 33 people at the university before committing suicide. This was the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. Students of the Israeli lecturer who said he saved the lives of several students by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the approaching gunman before he was fatally shot. "He himself was killed but thanks to him his students stayed alive," an Israeli student who survived the massacre told Army Radio. Librescu, had known tragedy since childhood. When Romania joined forces with Nazi Germany in World War II, the young Librescu was interned in a labor camp, and then sent along with his family and thousands of other Jews to a central ghetto in the city of Focsani, his son said. Hundreds of thousands of Romanian Jews were killed by the collaborationist regime during the war.
2007: Israeli photographer Oded Balilty working for the Associated Press won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography.This is the award-winning picture of the Amona outpost evacuation
2008(11th of Nisan, 5768): Three IDF soldiers were killed and two others were wounded Wednesday after coming under heavy fire from Palestinian gunmen while patrolling the border with the Gaza Strip. The soldiers who were killed were identified as Sgt. Matan Ovdati, 19, from Patish, Sgt. Menhash Albaniat, 20, a tracker from Kuseife in the Negev and Sgt. David Papian, 21, from Tel Aviv.
2008: In Florida, Rabbi Andrew Baker presents a program entitled “Confronting the Resurgence of Anti-Semitism in Europe.” As the American Jewish Committee's Director of International Jewish Affairs, Rabbi Baker is a leading expert on anti-Semitism in Europe and other challenges including Holocaust restitution. As director of European affairs for 8 years he was instrumental in developing programs to promote tolerance in the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe and was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He is a founding member of a national commission in Romania chaired by Elie Wiesel that examines the history of the Holocaust.
2008: As part of the Israel at 60 Celebration, the 92nd Street Y presents Professor Uri Cohen’s review of the development of Israeli culture from1948 to the Present through an examination of Israeli Film, Music and Literature.
2008: In New York, The Center for Jewish History presents “The History of Jewish Involvement
in Building New York” with the following breakout sessions:
in Building New York” with the following breakout sessions:
- New York 1908: The Apartment House Comes to Gotham...
and Look Who Moves In presented by Barry Lewis, Architectural Historian - Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? Jewish Migration and Ethnicity in New York City presented by Joseph Salvo, Demographer
- The Banker, the Realtor, and the Delicatessen Owner: The Jewish Businessmen of the Lower East Side presented by Annie Polland, Lower East Side Historian
- The Evolution of the Jewish Real Estate Family moderated by Judith H. Dobrzynski, former New York Times Editor and Reporter and Simon Ziff, Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group
2008: The New York Times reviewed The Much Too Promised Land by Aaron David Miller a Jewish native of Cleveland, Ohio who spent most of two decades as diplomat involved in America’s attempts to bring peace to the Middle East.
2009(22nd of Nisan, 5769): Eight Day of Pesach.
2009:Jan Karski was honored by the Polish Government and New York City today. In recognition of Karski’s wartime courage and lifelong commitment to the memory and history of Polish Jews, Poland memorialized Karski with the unveiling of a new street sign in front of the De Lamar Mansion, the Consulate’s residence at 233 Madison Avenue at East 37th Street, which was officially designated Jan Karski Corner during the ceremony. As a courier for the Polish Underground during World War II, Karski was the first person to bring news of the Holocaust directly to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and English Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
2010: A memorial service is scheduled to be held today honoring Steffi Sidney-Splaver.
2010: Altered States of Reality: an Exhibition of Analog and Digital Photography featuring six Israeli artists, Offer Goldfarb, Goodash, Gabriel Leitner, Uri Mahlev, Eli Matityahu and Shifra, is scheduled to open at Agora Gallery in New York City.
2011(12 Nisan, 5771): Shabbat Ha-Gadol.
2011(12 Nisan, 5771): Television and film script writer Sol Saks passed away at the age of 100. Among other accomplishments was his role in the creation of the hit television sit-com, “Bewitched” for which he wrote the first script. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
2011(12 Nisan, 5771): Milton D. Glick, 73, the 15th president of the University of Nevada, Reno and nationally respected figure in higher education, whose academic career spanned more than 50 years, passed away today in Reno.
2011: Yahrzeit for the Jews of York, England: On Shabbat Ha-Gadol (Nisan, 4950) in 1190 the Jews of York were attacked by a mob including crusaders heading for the Holy Land. They gave the Jews the choice of converting or death. Most of the Jews chose death, which meant murder-suicide pacts. A few Jews did surrender to the mob, but they were murdered any way.
2011: “A Late Marriage,” an Israeli film set in the Georgian community of Tel Aviv, is scheduled to be shown at Columbia Jewish Congregation’s (CJC) 2011 - Nineteenth Season of Movies in Columbia, MD.
2011: Gil and Orli Shaham are scheduled to give a recital at the 92nd St Y that will include Achron’s Hebrew Dance, Op. 35, No. 1 and Hebrew Melody, Op. 33 as well as Bloch’s Ba’al Shem for Violin and Piano.
2011: Air Force fighter jets struck two targets in Gaza early today in response to a double-Grad rocket attack on Ashdod that shattered a six-day cease-fire. .
2012: Holocaust survivors John and Michael Schwabacher are among those who are planning on attending the memorial program scheduled to begin today in Wurzburg, Germany – the city from which they fled after having survived the Holocaust.
2012: Some 12,000 victims of Nazi atrocities died over the past year and, according to data published today by the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel, at least one survivor in Israel dies every hour. (As reported by Ruth Eglash)
2012: “Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2012: Rabbi Alfredo F. Borodowski is scheduled to begin teaching “The Maimonides Letters: Leadership at a Time of Crisis” at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning.
2013(6th of Iyar, 5773): Yom Haatzmaut (Israel Independence Day)
2013: “Koch” and “Yossi” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2013: In London, the Wiener Library is scheduled to host a genealogy workshop, at no charge, that “is designed for descendant of refuges and Holocaust survivors, especially members of the second generation.”
2013: The Center for Jewish History and the American Jewish Historical are scheduled to present an evening with Ann Kirschner author Lady at the O.K. Corral, a biography of Josephine Sara Marcus Earp, the wife of the famous western lawman who had him buried in a Jewish cemetery.
2013: The Center for Jewish History and Israel Film Center are scheduled to present “Through His Eyes,” a ” documentary history of Israeli cinema through the eyes of a still photographer, Yoni Hamenahem, who for the past 40 years has photographed the sets of many of Israel's classic films.”
2013: Mathew Nash’s film – “16 Photographs at Ohrdruf” –which tells of the first concentration liberated by the U.S. Army in 1945 is scheduled to be shown at the Boston International Film Festival
2013: Eighty-nine year old Holocaust survivor Renee Firestone is scheduled to speak at Kirkwood Community college this morning and at Mount Mercy University this evening. Her appearance is sponsored by the Joan and David Thaler Holocaust Memorial Foundation.
2014(16thof Nisan, 5774): Second Day of Pesach – First day of the Omer
2014: The Magical Festival is scheduled to open this morning in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park.