April 19
1897: The first of Boston Marathons was run. While many Jews have run in the race, none is more famous than the team from the Jewish Special Education Cooperative. Team JSEC ran in the 108th Boston Marathon. Runners included Dan Rosen, Amira Rosenberg, Josh Rosenberg, and David Katz.
1897: The Civil Service Commission is scheduled to conduct tests for foreign language interpreters including those fluent in Hebrew.
1898: The new temple that is to be built by Congregation of Adath Israel of West Harlem will used plans drawn by Solomon D. Cohen.
1903(22nd of Nisan, 5663): 8th day of Pesacj
1903: Riots broke out after a Christian child is found murdered in Kishinev (Bessarabia). The mobs were incited by Pavolachi Krusheven, the editor of the anti-Semitic Newspaper Bessarabetz and the vice governor Ustrugov. Vyacheslav Von Plehev, the Minister of Interior supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters. The Jews were accused of ritual murder. During the three days of rioting, 47 Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded, 500 slightly wounded and over 700 houses destroyed. Despite a world outcry, only two men were sentenced to seven and five years in prison, and twenty-two were sentenced for one or two years. This pogrom was instrumental in convincing tens of thousands of Russian Jews to leave to the West and to Eretz-Israel. The child was later discovered to have been killed by a relative.
1941: Robert F. Wagner, Sr. introduced a resolution in the U.S. Senate stating that U.S. policy should favor the "restoration of the Jews in Palestine." The resolution was supported by 68 Senators.
1973: Barbra Streisand recorded "Between Yesterday & Tomorrow"
1974(27th of Nisan, 5734): Yom HaShoah
1974(27th of Nisan, 5734): Yigal Stavi was killed today when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down today by the Syrians.
1974: Benny Kiryati was taken prisoner when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down today by the Syrians.
1975(8thof Iyar, 5735): Seventy-six year old French author and historian Robert Aron passed away on the night before he was scheduled to be formally inducted into Académie Française
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2929246?uid=3739640&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101919359323
1976: Birthdate of Rivka Galchen “a Canadian-American writer and physician. Her first novel, ‘Atmospheric Disturbances, was published in 2008.’” She has served as an adjunct professor in the writing division of Columbia University's School of Art
1978: Yitzhak Navron was elected 5th President of Israel.
1978: Fourth and final episode of “Holocaust” an NBC miniseries was broadcast this evening.
1978: Following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon after Operation Litani, the South Lebanon Army (SLA) shelled NIFIL headquarters.
1978: Birthdate of James Franco “an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, teacher, author and poet.”
1981(15thof Nisan, 5741): Pesach is observed for the first time under President Ronald Reagan.
1985: In a joint ceremony, President Ronald Reagan presented the Congressional Gold Medal to Elie Wiesel and on signed the Jewish Heritage Week Proclamation.
http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/resources/reagan.html
1987: Lieutenant General Levi ended his term as IDF Chief of Staff. The Tel Aviv native joined the army in 1954 and took part in the parachute drop into the Mitla Pass during the 1956 Sinai Campaign. He passed away on January 8, 2008 (Shevat 1) at the age of 72.
1993: Fifty years after the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Lillian Lazar describes the fight against the Nazis.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/19/us/memories-live-of-warsaw-ghetto-battle.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
1994:In Riverside Park, as a small group gathered to remember the 51st anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Ruth W. Messinger's thoughts turned to what was happening in Gorazde. "Remembering what happened in Warsaw helps us express our outrage at what is now happening in Bosnia," said the Manhattan Borough President, referring to the siege of the Bosnian town. Benjamin Meed, another New Yorker, was living just outside the ghetto walls when the rebellion began on April 19, 1943, a Jew with Aryan papers. "For weeks I saw the ghetto burn," said the man who is now the president of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Organization in America. "It was terrible. I remember how I watched my neighbors go about their normal lives. There was a carousel outside the ghetto walls that kept going. I cannot forget the bystanders. Now, I cannot believe that after that the world could allow such a thing today." By the time the handful of ghetto fighters had mounted their valiant but hopeless uprising, there were 40,000 Jews left inside the ghetto facing the fatal deportation that had already carried hundreds of thousands to their deaths. Then, news of what was happening did not make its way easily from Warsaw. Word comes more speedily from Gorazde, where there are reportedly 65,000 people huddling in flight from Serbian forces advancing into the city, and United Nations officials have warned of a potential humanitarian catastrophe.
1994: A Tenement Building at 97 Orchard Street, New York City, NY was designated as a National Historic Landmark. “Built between the years 1863-1864, the tenement building at 97 Orchard Street is representative of the first surge in tenement construction in New York City propelled by the need to accommodate the large influx of immigrants that were settling in the Lower East Side during this period. The late nineteenth century saw a precipitous increase in Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe, many of whom settled in the Lower East Side. The building at 97 Orchard Street housed numerous ethnic groups including Germans, Irish, Greek and Spanish, however, the ethnic make-up of the tenement building between 1890 and well into the 1920s consisted entirely of Eastern European Jews. With its upper four floors remaining virtually untouched for sixty years, the building readily conveys to the present-day observer the harsh and confining living conditions experienced by many immigrants in New York City during the latter part of the nineteenth century, and Eastern European Jews in particular. During its period of highest use, as many as 10,000 people may have inhabited the tenement building at 97 Orchard Street.”
1996: Boļeslavs Maikovskis, the Latvian Nazi collaborator who lived undetected in New York for 36 before fleeing back to Europe died today without ever answering for his crimes.
1997: Amid a ballroom filled with local notables, and political dignitaries, the JewishChautauquaSocietyhonored former U.S. Senator Harris Wofford with its National Champion of Interfaith Award. For the JewishChautauquans, who promote public service and interfaith dialogue, the award was especially relevant. Wofford, a Democrat who represented Pennsylvania in the Senate, is the Clinton administration's standard-bearer for volunteerism, the chief executive officer of the Corporation for National Service.
1998:In an article entitled “The World; 50 Years Ago in Israel: Trying to Imagine the Future,” Marc D. Charney traces the history of the Jewish state.
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/19/weekinreview/the-world-50-years-ago-in-israel-trying-to-imagine-the-future.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
1998: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including“The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision” by Henry Kamen,''The Discipline of Hope,'' by Herbert Kohl, and“Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women” by Elizabeth Wurtzel.
2001(27th of Nisan, 5761): Ninety-year old Obie award winning playwright Lionel Abel “the son of Alter Abelson, a rabbi and poet, and of Anna Schwartz Abelson, a writer of short stories” passed away today.
2001(27th of Nisan, 5761): Forty-five Ornan Yekutieli, a sixth-generation Israeli on his father's side and a second generation Holocaust survivor on his mother's side who was born in Haifa in 1955 and was head of Jerusalem Now faction in the Jerusalem City Council, passed away in New York while waiting for a liver transplant.
2001: President and Mrs. Bush participated in the “Days of Remembrance” Observance in the U.S. Capitol. The President declared, “We are bound by conscience to remember what happened, and to whom it happened.” Mrs. Bush participated in the lighting of candles with a Holocaust survivor.
2006: Haaretz reported that a sixteen-year-old tourist from the United States who sustained critical wounds in Monday's suicide bombing was still in serious condition.The teenager was fighting for his life after doctors operated on him most of the night. His injuries were mostly to his stomach and internal organs and his aorta was torn, she said.The American boy's family did not want any details about him released to the media.
2006(21st of Nisan, 5766): Members of Portugal's Jewish community said prayers in a downtown Lisbon square to mark the 500th anniversary of a massacre of thousands of Jews in the Portuguese capital's streets. Chronicles from the time recount that when Catholic crowds, incited by a small group of priests, ran amok for three days in 1506 at least 2,000 Jews were butchered and burnt alive. The violence was said to have broken out after a local Jew questioned the validity of a supposed miracle. Lisbon at the time was gripped by hunger amid a prolonged drought and was threatened by an outbreak of the plague. Locals, encouraged by the Inquisition, sought divine help. About 50 members of Lisbon's Jewish community, estimated to number around 1,000, gathered at dusk in a square next to the Maria II National Theater, which was built on the site of an old Inquisition court. Participants declined to speak to reporters, citing a religious prohibition. Portugal's King Manuel I forced all Jews in his country to convert to Catholicism in 1496. Some fled, but those who stayed were subjected to humiliating public baptisms. They were designated "New Christians" or "Marranos," Iberian slang for pigs. Even then, they remained at risk from religious persecution and lived in designated Jewish quarters. In 1988, Portugal's then-president Mario Soares formally apologized to Jews for the persecution.
2007: The Israel Opera presents the season’s first performance of Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos.”
2007: A four day long International Conference entitled “Children Hidden in Belgium during the Holocaust meeting in Israel comes to an end.
2007: Rosh Chodesh Iyar, first day of the month of Iyar.
2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that a Bible that a condemned member of the pre-state underground gave to his British prison guard minutes before he and a fellow Zionist fighter killed themselves is to be returned by the guard's son in Jerusalem today, six decades later. The saga dates back to 1947, when Meir Feinstein, 19, and Moshe Barazani, 21, were sentenced to death by the Mandatory authorities. Feinstein, of the Irgun, was condemned for his part in the bombing of the Jerusalem train station, and Barazani, of Lehi (the Stern Gang), was arrested with a grenade in his pocket while attempting to kill the city's British military commander. The two men became friends in the Jerusalem Central Prison and decided to blow themselves up rather than be hanged. Feinstein and Barazani formed a connection with a British police guard at the prison, Thomas Henry Goodwin, whom they dubbed "the good jailer." Right before their deaths, Feinstein presented Goodwin with a personally inscribed illustrated Bible. The Hebrew inscription read: "In the shadow of the gallows, 21.4.47. To the British soldier as you stand guard. Before we go to the gallows, accept this Bible as a memento and remember that we stood in dignity and marched in dignity. It is better to die with a weapon in hand than to live with hands raised. Meir Feinstein" A separate, similar English inscription was written below. Minutes later, after asking the guard for a moment of privacy to say a few prayers - thereby saving his life - the two men killed themselves with two booby-trapped oranges they'd hidden in their cell. Goodwin only realized later that there was an inscription for him in the Bible. "There is no doubt that they did not want to injure the guard. This is unequivocal," said Underground Prisoners Museum director Yoram Tamir in Jerusalem. Goodwin returned to the United Kingdom after Israel gained its independence in 1948 and kept the Bible for the next half century. Before his death, he asked his family to return it to the Feinstein family. Several months ago, Goodwin's son Dennis contacted the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem seeking to track down Feinstein's family and return the Bible. The Underground Prisoners Museum was able to locate Meir Feinstein's nephew, Elazar Feinstein. Today, Dennis Goodwin will return the Bible to Feinstein at the museum. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attends the ceremony, which is conducted in cooperation with the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, and under the auspices of the Jewish Agency and the Prime Minister's Office. The Bible will be put on display at the Underground Prisoners Museum. Feinstein and Barazani are buried on the Mount of Olives.
2008: Diversity of Devotion: Celebrating New York’s Spiritual Harmony, an exhibit of photographs on display at the Brooklyn Public Library celebrating Faith in its many forms comes to a close. The Brooklyn Public Library show includes a photograph of Rabbi Levy and Rabbi Eliyahu of Congregation Beth Elohim in Queens taken by photographer and Forward contributor Julian Voloj. The work was drawn from Voloj’s series of photos on black Jews in America.
2008: Palestinian suicide bombers from Gaza drove three explosives-laden vehicles into the Kerem Shalom goods crossing on the border with Israel early today.
2008(14th of Nisan, 5768): Just as it did 65 years ago, the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising falls on the same day on both the secular and Jewish calendars.
2008(14th of Nisan, 5768): In the evening, the first Seder marks the start of Pesach.
2008:The last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising paid silent tribute to the young Jews who launched the doomed revolt against Nazi troops 65 years ago. Marek Edelman, 89, handed yellow tulips and daffodils to his grandchildren, Liza and Tomek. He watched as they placed them at the foot of the gray-and-black Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto, located in a barren square at the heart of the former ghetto. Accompanied by a crowd of a few hundred people in wet weather, Edelman, in a wheelchair, moved on to nearby monuments to leaders of the ghetto revolt, before ending in a square where the Nazis put more than 300,000 Jews on trains to Auschwitz and other death camps. At a separate ceremony, members of the Jewish community read out the names of some of those killed in the uprising and then formed a human chain in front of the ghetto heroes' monument, as sirens wailed and military guards fired three rounds of gunfire as a sign of mourning. The uprising was the first act of large-scale armed civilian resistance against the Germans in occupied Poland during World War II. The Nazis walled off the ghetto in November 1940, cramming 400,000 Jews from across Poland into it, under inhuman conditions. On April 19, 1943, German troops started to liquidate the ghetto by sending tens of thousands of its residents to death camps. In the face of imminent death, several hundred young Jews took up arms in defense of the civilians. They held off German troops for three weeks with homemade explosives and a cache of smuggled weapons. The uprising ended when its main leaders - rounded up by the Nazis - committed suicide on May 8, 1943. The Nazis then razed the ghetto, street by street. Today’s commemorations followed official events held Tuesday, to avoid coinciding with the Jewish Sabbath. President Lech Kaczynski of Poland and President Shimon Peres of Israel led those observances.
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readings including “Shadow and Light” by Jonathan Rabbn, “How Free Is Free? The Long Death of Jim Crow” by Leon F. Litwackand the recently released paperback edition of “Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands” byMichael Chabon.
2009: At NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish life people from all over New York City join in “Sing Out Israel,” an event featuring familiar Israeli and Jewish tunes.
2009:A.B. Yehoshua, the award-winning Israeli author, reads from and discusses his most recent novel, “Friendly Fire,” and chats about his life as a writer and his thoughts on Israel in a conversation with Leon Wieseltier, at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C.
2009:The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center opened today under rainy skies, with several thousand people seated beneath large tents, their enthusiasm shown in a standing ovation for survivors.
According to one web-site, April 19th is one of the blackest days on the Jewish calendar. From the 11th century (1014) through the 20th century (1943) this date is remembered for the atrocities which took place. Below are a few: )
1014: During a civil war that had broken out between Arabs and Berbers in 1013, the Jews of Cordoba experienced their first massacre today.
1283: Following an accusation of ritual murder (the blood libel) thirty-six Jews were murdered in Mayence (Mainz), Germany,
1283: On the second day of Easter which coincided with the penultimate day of Passover, a Christian mob attacked the Jews of Mayence (Germany) killing ten and pillaging their homes. The mob was responding to the discovery of the body of a Christian child and acting out the consequence of the blood libel. Archbishop Werner tried to stop the mob before they attacked. His intervention kept the blood bath from being even worse. The Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph, conducted an investigation into the affair, confirmed the judgment the mob had passed on the Jews and acquitted the citizens of Mayence of all blame.
1306(4th of Iyar, 5066): The body of Rabbi Meir Ben Baruch was released by the authorities 13 years after his death so that he could receive a Jewish burial Maharam of Rothenburg
1343: A massacre of the Jews in Wachenheim, Germany which had begun before Easter spread to surrounding communities.
1506: During a service at St. Dominic’s Church in Lisbon, Portugal, some of the people thought they saw a vision on one of the statues. Outside, a newly converted Jew-turned-Christian raises doubts about the "miracle." He was literally torn to pieces and then burnt. The crowd led by two Dominican monks proceeded to ransack Jewish houses and kill any Jews they could find. During the next few days, countrymen hearing about the massacre came to Lisbon to join in. Over two thousand Jews were killed during a period of three days ending on April 21.
1566: Pius V issued “Romanus Pontifex. After being in office for three months, Pope Pious rejected the lenience's of his predecessor and reinstated all the restrictions that Paul IV had placed on the Jews. These included being forced to wear a special cap, the prohibitions against owning real estate and practicing medicine on Christians. Communities were not allowed to have more than one synagogue and Jews were confined to a cramped ghetto.
1539: Eighty-year old Catherine Zaleshovska was burned at the stake on the order of Bishop Gamrat and with the approval of Queen Bona Sforza for having denied the basic tenants of Christianity after having converted to Judaism. She had been held as a prisoner for ten years before being murdered. (As reported by The History of the Jewish People)
1670(29thof Nisan, 5430): Moses Samson Bacharach, the chief rabbi at Worms passed away.
1670(29thof Nisan, 5430): Solomon Ben Isaac Marini, “the only rabbi at Padua who survived the plague of 1631” and who wrote a commentary to Isaiah entitled Tikkun Olam in 1652 and who was the brother of Dr. Shabbethai ben Isaac Marini, passed away today.
1771: Maria Theresa granted two Sovereign Licenses to the Jews of Trieste, licenses that constitute real improvement in their economic conditions.
1772: Birthdate of economist David Ricardo. Raised as a Sephardic Jew, Ricardo eloped with a woman who was a Quaker. He later converted and became a Unitarian.
1775: The Battles of Lexington and Concord with the “Shot heard round the world” marked the start of the American Revolution. Besides the famous Hyam Solomon, “there were hundreds of Jewish soldiers and sailors who fought in the Revolution and patriots who supported it. There was Phillip Russell, a surgeon at Valley Forge; Col. David Franks an aide to George Washington; a “Jew Company, " which fought in South Carolina; Moses Myers, who fought in Virginia; the Sheftall family, which fought and were captured in Savannah. In Manhattan's Chatham Square cemetery, 22 Revolutionary Jewish soldiers lie. Many had sacrificed their lives for their new country. Just like the approximately 500 Americans who were killed or wounded during the three British assaults at Bunker Hill in 1775. (New evidence has surfaced that a Jewish soldier, Abraham Solomon, participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill as a member of Colonel John Glover's 21st Regiment from Gloucester.)”
1776(30th of Nisan, 5536): Rabbi Jacob Israel Emden [Jacob ben Tswi] passed away. Born at Altona, Germany in 1697 was a scholar and when it came to technology, a modernist since he owned a printing press which he used to print Jewish texts. For a while he earned a living by deal in jewelry. He finally agreed to become Rabbi for the community in Emden. The town supplied his last name in the secular world. Emden's real claim to fame has to with an inter-communal conflict that seems quite trivial by modern standards. He passed away at the age of 78.
1810(15thof Nisan, 5570): Pesach
1819: Birthdate of S.L. Schwabacher, the future Rabbi of Odessa, Russia.
1824: Lord Byron, the English poet, passed away.Byron and Isaac Nathan produced Hebrew Melodies,“a both book of songs with lyrics written by Lord Byron set to Jewish tunes by Isaac Nathan as well as a book of poetry containing Byron's lyrics alone. It was published in April 1815 with musical settings; though expensive at a cost of one guinea, over 10,000 copies sold. In the summer of the same year Byron's lyrics were published as a book of poems. The melodies include the famous poems She Walks in Beauty, The Destruction of Sennacherib and Vision of Belshazzar.”
1825(1st of Iyar, 5585): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1839: The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom. Jews reportedly had first come to Belgium with the Roman Legions in the first century of the Common Era. Written evidence dates backs to the 13th century. The community disappeared in the 14thcentury during the Black Death, only to return again in the 16thcentury when those fleeing from the Spanish Inquisition found refuge there. Brussels and Antwerp were the main centers of Jewish settlement when Belgium gained its independence. The guarantee of an independent Belgium was a given among European powers. It would be the Kaiser’s disregard for Belgium’s independence that would seal British entry into World War I which…well we all know where that led.
1848: Anti-Jewish violence broke out in Budapest, Hungary.
1856(14th of Nisan, 5616): Shabbat HaGadol
1859(15thof Nisan, 5619): Five weeks after the Dred Scott Decision strengthened the stranglehold of slavery in the United States, Jews observed Pesach.
1861: 1861: A week after the Civil War began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, "Joseph Friedenwald, a member of a leading Jewish family in" Baltimore, MD was among the six people arrested for attacking Union troops marching through the city on their way to Washington, DC. Baltimore was a hot-bead of Southern supporters whose attacks on the troops verged on being a riot.
1861: Colonel Henry K. Craig wrote to Major Alfred Mordecai that he "'thought well' of his request for a transfer." Mordecai was a prominent Jewish officer serving in the U.S. Army who was born in the South. He was seeking a way to stay in the Army without having to fight against his family and friends. Before Craig could act, he fell ill and Mordecai's chance for a transfer would go no further.
1864: Before recessing, the New York Assembly passed a bill “relative to the New-York Hebrew Benevolent Society.”
1865: The Sephardim in New York held a special prayer for President Abraham Lincoln who was assassinated as he watched a play at Ford's Theater in Washington DC just five days earlier.
1865: Rabbi Sabato Morais delivered an address at Mikve Israel in Philadelphia following the death of President Abraham Lincoln. “The stillness of the grave reigns abroad. Where is the joyous throng that enlivened this city of loyalty? Seek it now, my friends, in the shrines of holiness. There, it lies prostrate; there, it tearfully bemoans an irretrievable loss, Oh! tell it not in the country of the Gauls; publish it not in the streets of Albion, lest the children of iniquity rejoice, lest the son of Belial triumph. For the heart which abhorred wickedness has ceased to throb; the hand which had stemmed a flood of unrighteousness, is withered in death.´ (As reported by the Jewish Virtual Library)
1865: Birthdate of Chaim Zhitlowsky, Russian born Jewish nationalist, author, critic and champion of Yiddish language and culture.
1866: Jacob and Amalia Freud give birth to Alexander Gotthold Ephraim Freud, a younger brother of Sigmund Freud.
1866: An article published today entitled “Laying the Corner Stone of a New Jewish Synagogue in Thirty-ninth Street” described the ceremonies that took place at the future home Adas Jeshurun, an 80 member congregation which will be housed on a lot measuring 99 feet by 75 feet.
1871: In New York, the Assembly passed an appropriations bill tonight designed to assist a variety of charitable organizations throughout the state including allocations of five hundred dollars each to the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Albany and the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Brooklyn
1872: Birthdate of Alice Salomon, German born pioneer social worker, who was forced to flee her native land because of her “German origins.”
1872(11thof Nisan, 5632): Herman Frenkel, who served in the Galician Diet, passed away today.
1872:Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, the U.S. Counsel wrote to the Secretary of State “tahat all the foreign representatives at Bucharest, except the Russians, had signed an address to the government of Prince Charles” expressing their displeasure with the fact that the several Jews had been severely punished while those “who were charged with the gravest excesses and crimes against the Jewish population of Vilcoon” had been acquitted. “We see in this double verdict an indication of the dangers to which the Israelites are exposed in Romania”
1873(21stof Nisan, 5633): Seventh day of Pesach – 6th day of the Omer
1873(21stof Nisan, 5633): Forty-seven year old British actor and theatre manager, the father of August Harris passed away today and was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London
1876(25th of Nisan): Rabbi Chaim Halberstam of Zanz, author of “Divrei Chaim” passed away today.
1880: It was reported today that the Rabbi Morias has published a paper in the April edition of Penn Monthly about the Falashas, “a small nation of Jews in Abyssinia who do not speak Hebrew.”
1880: Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman was elected first lieutenant in the Veteran Corps of the First Regiment of the Pennsylvania National Guard was formed, Hyneman. Three years later he would be promoted to the rank of Captain and serve as the quartermaster.
1881: “His Strange and Great Career” published today traces the life of Benjamin D’Israeli starting with the Inquisition and Expulsion from Spain in the 15thcentury.
1881: Benjamin Disraeli, former Prime Minster, 1st Earl Beaconsfield and famous novelist passed away. Born Jewish, Disraeli was converted to Christianity by his father. The elder Disraeli was angry with the Jewish community and marched his children to the baptismal font in protest. The elder Disraeli did not convert. Disraeli was proud of his Jewish heritage and certainly suffered many anti-Semitic attacks during his career. In one exchange, he reminded a political opponent that while his ancestors had been drinking blood out skulls, Disraeli’s ancestors had been singing the Psalms of David in the Temple of Solomon.
1882(30th of Nisan, 5642): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1882: Sarah Lavanburg, the daughter of Hannah (Seller) Lavanburg and Louis Lavenburg married Oscar Solomon Straus who as Sarah Straus would the life companion of one of the great leaders of pre-War Jewish community.
1882 Rabbi Dr. Henry W. Schneeberger married Sarah Nussbaum in New York City. The couple had six children - Fannie, Sigmund, Charles, Philip, Josephine, and Irvin. Sigmund, Charles, Fannie and Josephine never married and were buried in plots adjoining their parents
1882: In response to a suggestion from the Morning Post, large numbers of English men and women wore Primoses today as a way of marking the anniversary of the death of the Earl of Beaconsfield, better known as Benjamin Disraeli. The flower was a favorite of the famous author and Prime Minister and it was a fitting way of paying tribute to his many contributions.
1882: A private meeting in Berlin raised 70,000 marks which will provide assistance to Jews seeking to leave Russia. The attendees were urged to show a sense of moderation in the resolutions they adopted on the subject since it appeared that meetings in New York and London held to support the Russian Jews had done “more harm than good.”
1884: In Leadville, CO, Lottie, Eva and Abe Schloss participated in a production of “Patience” at the Tabor Opera House.
1885: “Afghans and Their Home” published today asks if these Asiatic mountain warriors are descendants of the ancient Israelites.
1886(14th of Nisan, 5646): Fast of the first born
1886 (14th of Nisan, 5646): The City and Suburban News column reports that “the Jewish community throughout the world will this evening begin the celebration of Pesach, or the Feast of the Passover. This festival is also known as the Feast of Unleavened Bread…”
1890: Immigrants, including thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe, arriving in New York began using the Barge Office as a processing center today
1891: Ira Leo Bamberger defeated Ernst Nathan in an election for the presidency of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society of Brooklyn
1891: It was reported today that the Hartford Theological Seminary has issued the new Practical Hebrew Grammar by Professor E.C. Bissell.
1891: It was reported today that the Russian government is planning “a fresh campaign against the Jews.”
1891: Based on material that first appeared in the Fortnightly Review, E.B. Lanin described the crumbling economic conditions in Russia. In response to claims that Jews are at fault for the usurious rates paid by peasants, he writes “Who are the usurers? The Jews? They are not for the misery of the peasants is not with the accursed pale.” The usurer “is not a Jew; he is as orthodox as the Metropolitan Isidore; as loyal as an official of the secret police.” (The fact that the Jews were not responsible for the suffering of the peasants did not keep the Czar and his cadres from using them as scapegoats.)
1892: As of today, the city of New York is legally bound to furnish water to the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society free of charge.
1896: Herzl's The Jewish State was published. This is the seminal piece of literature for the modern Zionist Movement. Known to many by its more famous German title, Der Judenstaat(The Jewish State), is one of the seminal pieces of literature for the modern Jewish Zionist Movement. "We are a people — one people." "Palestine is our unforgettable historic homeland. . . Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who will it shall achieve their State. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and in our own homes peacefully die. The world will be liberated by our freedom, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind."
1896: As of today most of the tickets for the upcoming concert being held for the benefit of the United Hebrew Charities at the Metropolitan Opera House have been sold.
1896: The Union Hebrew Veterans’ Association met at the Grand Opera House in New York City.
1897: The first of Boston Marathons was run. While many Jews have run in the race, none is more famous than the team from the Jewish Special Education Cooperative. Team JSEC ran in the 108th Boston Marathon. Runners included Dan Rosen, Amira Rosenberg, Josh Rosenberg, and David Katz.
1897: The Civil Service Commission is scheduled to conduct tests for foreign language interpreters including those fluent in Hebrew.
1898: The new temple that is to be built by Congregation of Adath Israel of West Harlem will used plans drawn by Solomon D. Cohen.
1903(22nd of Nisan, 5663): 8th day of Pesacj
1903: Riots broke out after a Christian child is found murdered in Kishinev (Bessarabia). The mobs were incited by Pavolachi Krusheven, the editor of the anti-Semitic Newspaper Bessarabetz and the vice governor Ustrugov. Vyacheslav Von Plehev, the Minister of Interior supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters. The Jews were accused of ritual murder. During the three days of rioting, 47 Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded, 500 slightly wounded and over 700 houses destroyed. Despite a world outcry, only two men were sentenced to seven and five years in prison, and twenty-two were sentenced for one or two years. This pogrom was instrumental in convincing tens of thousands of Russian Jews to leave to the West and to Eretz-Israel. The child was later discovered to have been killed by a relative.
1908: The New York Times reported that the observance of Holy Week and Passover had cut into the city’s social season. Activities had been limited to “affairs for charity, and some private bridges and luncheons.”
1908(18thof Nisan, 5668): Sixty-nine year old Charles Hallgarten, one of the four principle partners at Hallgarten & Company passed away.
1908: Organization of the Sons of Zion fraternal order
1908: An article published today entitled “Ceremonies and Customs of the Easter Season” examines the origins and customs of Easter reminding its readers that “our Easter is a successor to the Jewish Passover.” The article pointed out that “the two are the same in their root; but the opposition of the Christians to the Jews led to a change” in the Christian celebrations.
1911: On the day on which the completed portions of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine were consecrated The Board of Jewish Ministers sent a congratulatory telegram to Episcopal Bishop Grier.
1912: In New York events scheduled for tonight celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Free Synagogue are canceled as a sign of mourning for those who were died when the Titanic sank.
1917: During World War I, as the maneuvering continued to try and gain British support for a Jewish homeland, Sir Ronald Graham wrote to Mark Sykes expressing his concern that the Zionist movement was relying too heavily on the hope that British would be annexing Palestine and making it part of the British Empire after the War.
1917: Founding of the Jewish Welfare Board which was designed “to meet the religious and cultural needs of Jewish personnel in the U.S. military
1919: On the fifth day of Pesach which was also Shabbat Chol Hamoed, the Polish army occupied Vilna and attacked its Jewish community.
1919: The Hebrew Scouts Movement is founded.
1920: In New York City, Harry and Beatrice Kaplan Reinhardt gave birth to Sheldon Reinhardt and his twin brother, Burton “who as the detail-minded, taciturn television executive behind his more extroverted boss, Ted Turner, played a crucial role in the formative years of CNN and the 24-hour cable news cycle. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1920: Birthdate of Kazimierz Smolen, a Roman Catholic Pole who survived Auschwitz survivor and who after World War II became director of a memorial museum at the site.
1922: Birthdate of New York born American actress Marian Winters
1924(15thof Nisan, 5684): Pesach
1925(25th of Nisan, 5685):Sir David Lionel Goldsmid-Stern-Salomons passed away. Born in 1851 he “was a scientific author and barrister.” The son of Philip Salomons of Brighton, and Emma, daughter of Jacob Montefiore of Sydney, he succeeded to the Baronetcy originally granted to his uncle David Salomons in 1873. He married Laura, daughter of Hermann Stern, 1st Baron de Stern and Julia, daughter of Aaron Asher Goldsmid, brother of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid by which he had one son and three daughters. He assumed the additional surnames and arms of Goldsmid and Stern in 1899. He studied at University College, London and at Caius College, Cambridge, gaining a B.A. in 1874. In the same year he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple. He went on to produce several scientific works and pamphlets. He was a J.P., D.L. and High Sheriff of Kent, mayor and alderman of Tunbridge Wells, County Councilor for the Tunbridge division of Kent for 15 years and J.P. for London, Middlesex, Sussex, and Westminster. His home north of Tunbridge Wells, Broomhill, is preserved as the Salomons Museum. It is also a part of Canterbury Christ Church University, and is a center for postgraduate training, research and consultancy”
1928: Birthdate of William Klein, the New York of “an impoverished Jewish family” who gained fame as French photographer and filmmaker.
1930: New York Yankee 2nd baseman Jimmie Reese played in his first major league baseball game.
1933: As an expression of Nazi anger over Churchill’s speech warning that the Jews of Poland could suffer the same fate as the Jews of Germany, “a correspondent of the Birmingham Post reported from Berlin that ‘today newspapers are full with ‘sharp warnings for England’ with one headline referring to ‘Mr. Winston Churchill’s Impudence.’”
1934: According to a report by Morton Rotehnberg, President of the Zionist Organization of America, 11,000 German Jewish refugees had entered Palestine from April 1, 1933 through January 1, 1934. As co-chair of the United Jewish Appeal, Rothenberg is contributions totaling three million dollars to aid the refugees from Germany.” At the same time, Dr. Arthur Hantke, director of the Palestine Foundation Fund reported that “there is no unemployment.” There is an “insistent demand for workers” throughout the country meaning that the influx of immigrants will be a net economic gain.
1936 (27th of Nisan, 5696): As Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Palestine Arabs killed nine Jews in Jaffa. Among the victims was Eliezer Bugitsky who was murdered by Sales Hassan and Abu Aabahi. The riots lasted until 1939. The end product is the White Paper which was intended to put an end Jewish immigration and new land purchases.
1937: Time magazine publishes an article an article about the origins and growth of Hart, Schaffner and Marx as the clothing firm marks its fiftieth anniversary.
1939(30thof Nisan, 5699): Isaac Carasso passed away today in France. Born in 1874, in what is now Thessaloniki but was then part of the Ottoman Empire, Carasso was part of a promienent Sephardic family. He practiced medicine in Spain before beginning his studies of the effects of Yogurt on digestion. In 1919 he founded the company that many Americans recognize as Danon Yogurt
1939: The Mizrachi Women’s Organization of America raised $20,000 at a luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria
1939: The Women’s League of Palestine raised $30,000 at a luncheon at the Hotel Astor.
1940: In Sofia, Bulgaria, the governments of Bulgaria and Romania signed an agreement creating an airline which will operate between Sofia and Bucharest with connecting flights to Tel Aviv.
1941: Robert F. Wagner, Sr. introduced a resolution in the U.S. Senate stating that U.S. policy should favor the "restoration of the Jews in Palestine." The resolution was supported by 68 Senators.
1943: Members of Belgium Jewish underground aided by Christian railroad men derailed a train filled with Jewish deportees bound for the extermination camps. Several hundred Jews were saved.
1943(14th of Nisan, 5703 ) - PASSOVER, WARSAW Ghetto UPRISING; The Jews were determined not to be moved without giving up a fight. 2,100 Germans, fully armed, enter the Ghetto. The Jews fighting force consisted of about 700 men and women. They were armed with 17 rifles, 50 pistols and several thousand grenades and Molotov cocktails. A small group of Jewish fighters open fire on the entering German troops. After an hour of skirmishing, the Germans retreated. The final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto began on the Eve of Passover, April 19, 1943. The deportation did not come as a surprise. The Germans had amassed a military force to carry it out, but did not expect to engage in a confrontation that included street battles. Armed German forces ringed the ghetto at 3:00 a.m. The unit that entered the ghetto encountered armed resistance and retreated. The main ghetto, with its population of 30,000 Jews, was deserted. The Jews could not be rounded up for the transport; the railroad cars at the deportation point remained empty. After Germans and rebels fought in the streets for three days, the Germans began to torch the ghetto, street by street, building by building. The entire ghetto became a sizzling, smoke-swathed conflagration. Most of the Jews who emerged from their hideouts, including entire families, were murdered by the Germans on the spot. The ghetto Jews gradually lost the strength to resist. On April 23, Mordecai Anielewicz the ZOB commander wrote the following to Yitzhak Zuckerman, a member of the ZOB command who was stationed on the "Aryan" side: "I cannot describe the conditions in which the Jews are living. Only a special few will hold out; all the others will perish sooner or later. Their fate is sealed. None of the bunkers where our comrades are hiding has enough air to light a candle at night.... Be well, my dear, perhaps we shall yet meet. The dream of my life has risen to become fact. Self - defense in the ghetto will have been a reality. I have been a witness to the magnificent, heroic fighting of Jewish men of battle". The rebels pursued their cause, even though they knew from the outset that they could not win. The Jewish underground would continue to fight the Nazis until the middle of May. The Polish underground only gave minimal help because of anti-Semitism prevalent among many. Although the Allies will neither publicize events nor try to help, even before the war ended, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising became a symbol of Jewish resistance
1943: The Bermuda Conference of Great Britain and the U.S., held in Hamilton, Bermuda, takes no meaningful action to help Jews in Europe. Before the meeting, representatives of both countries had agreed not to discuss immigration of Jews to their nations nor to ship food to Jewish refugees in German-occupied Europe.
1943(14thof Nisan, 5703): Rabbi Menachem Ziemba conducted a Seder tonight in the Warsaw Ghetto days before he would be gunned down the Wehrmacht.
1943(14thof Nisan, 5703): Members of the military attended a Seder at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.
1944: Birthdate of Yehuda Weinstein, the Tel Aviv born lawyer who became the Attorney General of Israel.
1945: General Bedell Smith, Ike’s Chief of Staff, telephones Churchill to describe the horror that American troops found when they liberated Buchenwald. Smith assures Churchill that it was worse than the scenes Ike had described in his telegraph of the previous day.
1945:For a second time, General Eisenhower cabledMarshall, Army Chief of Staff, with a request to bring members of Congress and journalists to the newly liberated camps so that they could bring the horrible truth about Nazi atrocities to the American public.
1945: General Marshall received permission from the Secretary of War, Henry Lewis Stimson, and President Harry S. Truman for these delegations to visit the liberated camps
1945: During an afternoon speech in the House of Commons, Churchill describes the horrors discovered by Allied troops at places like Buchenwald and calls for Parliament to send eight representatives to view the camps as the first step in bringing those responsible for these atrocities to justices.
1945: The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Carousel" opened on Broadway.
1945: Dr. Rudolf Kastner crossed the Swiss border today.
1946: Bouquets of gladioluses and other flowers from Palestine were present to wounded American soldiers at Halloran General Hospital in Staten Island as a gift of Palestine war veterans in appreciation of the aid the American military gave in the liberation of Europe’s Jews. The gift was timed to coincide with the Festival of Passover.” The flowers were grown in Mishmar Hasharon a settlement mid-way between Tel Aviv and Haifa.
1946: New York Yankees Pitcher Herb Karpel appeared in his first major league baseball game.
1947: This evening, The Shanghai Jewish Youth Community Center opened its Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration week with a Yizkor service.
1948: A Palmach unit used Al-Kafrayn for a training base before blowing it up
1949(20th of Nisan, 5709): Reform Rabbi and Zionist leader Stephen Samuel Wise passed away.
1950: At speech given to the Commerce and Industry Association in New York City, Harry A. Shadmon, director of the export division of the Chamber of Commerce of Tel Aviv and Jaffa said that “Israel stands a good chance this year of doubling the $4,500,000 in exports which it sent to the United States in 1949.” The figure for 1949 is especially impressive considering the military challenges the Jewish state was facing for the first six months of that year.
1952: St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Herb Gorman played in his first major league baseball game.
1952(24th of Nisan): Yiddish poet Moses David Gisser passed away in Santiago, Chile
1953(4th of Iyar, 5713): Yom HaZikaron
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that torches and ceremonies on Mount Herzl had signaled the start of Israel's sixth year of independence.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Yasha Heifetz, the world-famous violinist, whose countrywide concerts schedule included a Richard Strauss violin sonata, cancelled his next recital, as his right hand, struck by an unknown person who opposed playing Strauss and Wagner in Israel, had become painful. Prime minister, David Ben-Gurion expressed his deep regret over this unfortunate incident.
1953: The Jewish Labor Committee adopted a comprehensive program for this year that included a greater effort to obtain fair employment legislation in states and cities, as well as intensified activity to achieve drastic revisions of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act.
1961: In Manhattan, Borscht Belt comedian Freddie Roman and his wife gave birth to Alan Kirschenbaum a television producer and comedy writer who worked on such shows as "Raising Hope,""My Name is Earl" and "Yes, Dear" (As reported by the LA Times obit staff)
1962(15thof Nisan, 5722): Pesach
1965: Funeral services for the late Mendel Osherowitch are scheduled to take place this morning at 11 am in Manhattan.
1966(29th of Nisan, 5726): Eighty-year old “prize-winning poet, author, translator, historian, and communal leader Emily Solis-Cohen” passed away.
1967:The head of the Zionist Organization of America declared today that Israel's hope for increased Western immigration, particularly a large influx of technically skilled young American Jews, could be realized only if Israel "creates the social and economic conditions" to attract it.
1967: Konrad Adenauer former Chancellor of West Germany passed away. Born in 1876, Adenauer remained in Germany during the war. He was imprisoned by the government for his anti-Nazi sentiments. In 1949, he was named Chancellor of the democratically elected West German Government. Adenauer worked to reshape the role of Germany which included accepting responsibility for de-Nazfication and the role that Germany had played during the war. He agreed to a program of reparations for the Jewish people and worked to establish harmonious relations with the state of Israel. He did this in the face of pressure from Arab governments that had a lot more to offer the struggling German economy.
1972: The late Diane Arbus's photographs were chosen to appear in the Venice Biennale, marking the first time an American photographer was honored at the event.
1973: Barbra Streisand recorded "Between Yesterday & Tomorrow"
1974(27th of Nisan, 5734): Yom HaShoah
1974(27th of Nisan, 5734): Yigal Stavi was killed today when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down today by the Syrians.
1974: Benny Kiryati was taken prisoner when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down today by the Syrians.
1975(8thof Iyar, 5735): Seventy-six year old French author and historian Robert Aron passed away on the night before he was scheduled to be formally inducted into Académie Française
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2929246?uid=3739640&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101919359323
1976: Birthdate of Rivka Galchen “a Canadian-American writer and physician. Her first novel, ‘Atmospheric Disturbances, was published in 2008.’” She has served as an adjunct professor in the writing division of Columbia University's School of Art
1978: Yitzhak Navron was elected 5th President of Israel.
1978: Fourth and final episode of “Holocaust” an NBC miniseries was broadcast this evening.
1978: Following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon after Operation Litani, the South Lebanon Army (SLA) shelled NIFIL headquarters.
1978: Birthdate of James Franco “an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, teacher, author and poet.”
1981(15thof Nisan, 5741): Pesach is observed for the first time under President Ronald Reagan.
1985: In a joint ceremony, President Ronald Reagan presented the Congressional Gold Medal to Elie Wiesel and on signed the Jewish Heritage Week Proclamation.
http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/resources/reagan.html
1987: Lieutenant General Levi ended his term as IDF Chief of Staff. The Tel Aviv native joined the army in 1954 and took part in the parachute drop into the Mitla Pass during the 1956 Sinai Campaign. He passed away on January 8, 2008 (Shevat 1) at the age of 72.
1993: Fifty years after the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Lillian Lazar describes the fight against the Nazis.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/19/us/memories-live-of-warsaw-ghetto-battle.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
1994:In Riverside Park, as a small group gathered to remember the 51st anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Ruth W. Messinger's thoughts turned to what was happening in Gorazde. "Remembering what happened in Warsaw helps us express our outrage at what is now happening in Bosnia," said the Manhattan Borough President, referring to the siege of the Bosnian town. Benjamin Meed, another New Yorker, was living just outside the ghetto walls when the rebellion began on April 19, 1943, a Jew with Aryan papers. "For weeks I saw the ghetto burn," said the man who is now the president of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Organization in America. "It was terrible. I remember how I watched my neighbors go about their normal lives. There was a carousel outside the ghetto walls that kept going. I cannot forget the bystanders. Now, I cannot believe that after that the world could allow such a thing today." By the time the handful of ghetto fighters had mounted their valiant but hopeless uprising, there were 40,000 Jews left inside the ghetto facing the fatal deportation that had already carried hundreds of thousands to their deaths. Then, news of what was happening did not make its way easily from Warsaw. Word comes more speedily from Gorazde, where there are reportedly 65,000 people huddling in flight from Serbian forces advancing into the city, and United Nations officials have warned of a potential humanitarian catastrophe.
1994: A Tenement Building at 97 Orchard Street, New York City, NY was designated as a National Historic Landmark. “Built between the years 1863-1864, the tenement building at 97 Orchard Street is representative of the first surge in tenement construction in New York City propelled by the need to accommodate the large influx of immigrants that were settling in the Lower East Side during this period. The late nineteenth century saw a precipitous increase in Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe, many of whom settled in the Lower East Side. The building at 97 Orchard Street housed numerous ethnic groups including Germans, Irish, Greek and Spanish, however, the ethnic make-up of the tenement building between 1890 and well into the 1920s consisted entirely of Eastern European Jews. With its upper four floors remaining virtually untouched for sixty years, the building readily conveys to the present-day observer the harsh and confining living conditions experienced by many immigrants in New York City during the latter part of the nineteenth century, and Eastern European Jews in particular. During its period of highest use, as many as 10,000 people may have inhabited the tenement building at 97 Orchard Street.”
1996: Boļeslavs Maikovskis, the Latvian Nazi collaborator who lived undetected in New York for 36 before fleeing back to Europe died today without ever answering for his crimes.
1997: Amid a ballroom filled with local notables, and political dignitaries, the JewishChautauquaSocietyhonored former U.S. Senator Harris Wofford with its National Champion of Interfaith Award. For the JewishChautauquans, who promote public service and interfaith dialogue, the award was especially relevant. Wofford, a Democrat who represented Pennsylvania in the Senate, is the Clinton administration's standard-bearer for volunteerism, the chief executive officer of the Corporation for National Service.
1998:In an article entitled “The World; 50 Years Ago in Israel: Trying to Imagine the Future,” Marc D. Charney traces the history of the Jewish state.
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/19/weekinreview/the-world-50-years-ago-in-israel-trying-to-imagine-the-future.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
1998: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including“The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision” by Henry Kamen,''The Discipline of Hope,'' by Herbert Kohl, and“Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women” by Elizabeth Wurtzel.
2001(27th of Nisan, 5761): Ninety-year old Obie award winning playwright Lionel Abel “the son of Alter Abelson, a rabbi and poet, and of Anna Schwartz Abelson, a writer of short stories” passed away today.
2001(27th of Nisan, 5761): Forty-five Ornan Yekutieli, a sixth-generation Israeli on his father's side and a second generation Holocaust survivor on his mother's side who was born in Haifa in 1955 and was head of Jerusalem Now faction in the Jerusalem City Council, passed away in New York while waiting for a liver transplant.
2001: President and Mrs. Bush participated in the “Days of Remembrance” Observance in the U.S. Capitol. The President declared, “We are bound by conscience to remember what happened, and to whom it happened.” Mrs. Bush participated in the lighting of candles with a Holocaust survivor.
2001: At Colgate University’s Saperstein Jewish center Barry Strauss, director of peace studies and a professor of history at Cornell University, delivers a talk entitled “Massacre and Memory," followed by a discussion of the 1914 massacre in a small Russian-Polish village, and its after-effects.
2002:This afternoon 250 Jews and 350 Palestinians shouted at each other across Michigan Avenue in Chicago as the Arab-Israel conflict comes to the Windy City.
2004(28th of Nisan, 5764): Yom HaShoah
2004(28th of Nisan, 5764): Samuel Ralph "Subway Sam" Nahem a journey-man pitcher who began his career with Brooklyn in 1938 and finished it with the Phillies in 1948 passed away today at the age of 88. Nahem came from a Jewish baseball family since his uncle was outfielder Al Silvera.
2004: The Jewish Theological Seminary Board of Overseers organizes a fund raiser that features a rare exhibition of original copies of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, owned by Dorothy Tapper Goldman. Proceeds from the event will enable JTS to make new acquisitions.
2006: Haaretz reported that a sixteen-year-old tourist from the United States who sustained critical wounds in Monday's suicide bombing was still in serious condition.The teenager was fighting for his life after doctors operated on him most of the night. His injuries were mostly to his stomach and internal organs and his aorta was torn, she said.The American boy's family did not want any details about him released to the media.
2006(21st of Nisan, 5766): Members of Portugal's Jewish community said prayers in a downtown Lisbon square to mark the 500th anniversary of a massacre of thousands of Jews in the Portuguese capital's streets. Chronicles from the time recount that when Catholic crowds, incited by a small group of priests, ran amok for three days in 1506 at least 2,000 Jews were butchered and burnt alive. The violence was said to have broken out after a local Jew questioned the validity of a supposed miracle. Lisbon at the time was gripped by hunger amid a prolonged drought and was threatened by an outbreak of the plague. Locals, encouraged by the Inquisition, sought divine help. About 50 members of Lisbon's Jewish community, estimated to number around 1,000, gathered at dusk in a square next to the Maria II National Theater, which was built on the site of an old Inquisition court. Participants declined to speak to reporters, citing a religious prohibition. Portugal's King Manuel I forced all Jews in his country to convert to Catholicism in 1496. Some fled, but those who stayed were subjected to humiliating public baptisms. They were designated "New Christians" or "Marranos," Iberian slang for pigs. Even then, they remained at risk from religious persecution and lived in designated Jewish quarters. In 1988, Portugal's then-president Mario Soares formally apologized to Jews for the persecution.
2007: The Israel Opera presents the season’s first performance of Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos.”
2007: A four day long International Conference entitled “Children Hidden in Belgium during the Holocaust meeting in Israel comes to an end.
2007: Rosh Chodesh Iyar, first day of the month of Iyar.
2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that a Bible that a condemned member of the pre-state underground gave to his British prison guard minutes before he and a fellow Zionist fighter killed themselves is to be returned by the guard's son in Jerusalem today, six decades later. The saga dates back to 1947, when Meir Feinstein, 19, and Moshe Barazani, 21, were sentenced to death by the Mandatory authorities. Feinstein, of the Irgun, was condemned for his part in the bombing of the Jerusalem train station, and Barazani, of Lehi (the Stern Gang), was arrested with a grenade in his pocket while attempting to kill the city's British military commander. The two men became friends in the Jerusalem Central Prison and decided to blow themselves up rather than be hanged. Feinstein and Barazani formed a connection with a British police guard at the prison, Thomas Henry Goodwin, whom they dubbed "the good jailer." Right before their deaths, Feinstein presented Goodwin with a personally inscribed illustrated Bible. The Hebrew inscription read: "In the shadow of the gallows, 21.4.47. To the British soldier as you stand guard. Before we go to the gallows, accept this Bible as a memento and remember that we stood in dignity and marched in dignity. It is better to die with a weapon in hand than to live with hands raised. Meir Feinstein" A separate, similar English inscription was written below. Minutes later, after asking the guard for a moment of privacy to say a few prayers - thereby saving his life - the two men killed themselves with two booby-trapped oranges they'd hidden in their cell. Goodwin only realized later that there was an inscription for him in the Bible. "There is no doubt that they did not want to injure the guard. This is unequivocal," said Underground Prisoners Museum director Yoram Tamir in Jerusalem. Goodwin returned to the United Kingdom after Israel gained its independence in 1948 and kept the Bible for the next half century. Before his death, he asked his family to return it to the Feinstein family. Several months ago, Goodwin's son Dennis contacted the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem seeking to track down Feinstein's family and return the Bible. The Underground Prisoners Museum was able to locate Meir Feinstein's nephew, Elazar Feinstein. Today, Dennis Goodwin will return the Bible to Feinstein at the museum. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attends the ceremony, which is conducted in cooperation with the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, and under the auspices of the Jewish Agency and the Prime Minister's Office. The Bible will be put on display at the Underground Prisoners Museum. Feinstein and Barazani are buried on the Mount of Olives.
2008: Diversity of Devotion: Celebrating New York’s Spiritual Harmony, an exhibit of photographs on display at the Brooklyn Public Library celebrating Faith in its many forms comes to a close. The Brooklyn Public Library show includes a photograph of Rabbi Levy and Rabbi Eliyahu of Congregation Beth Elohim in Queens taken by photographer and Forward contributor Julian Voloj. The work was drawn from Voloj’s series of photos on black Jews in America.
2008: Palestinian suicide bombers from Gaza drove three explosives-laden vehicles into the Kerem Shalom goods crossing on the border with Israel early today.
2008(14th of Nisan, 5768): Just as it did 65 years ago, the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising falls on the same day on both the secular and Jewish calendars.
2008(14th of Nisan, 5768): In the evening, the first Seder marks the start of Pesach.
2008:The last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising paid silent tribute to the young Jews who launched the doomed revolt against Nazi troops 65 years ago. Marek Edelman, 89, handed yellow tulips and daffodils to his grandchildren, Liza and Tomek. He watched as they placed them at the foot of the gray-and-black Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto, located in a barren square at the heart of the former ghetto. Accompanied by a crowd of a few hundred people in wet weather, Edelman, in a wheelchair, moved on to nearby monuments to leaders of the ghetto revolt, before ending in a square where the Nazis put more than 300,000 Jews on trains to Auschwitz and other death camps. At a separate ceremony, members of the Jewish community read out the names of some of those killed in the uprising and then formed a human chain in front of the ghetto heroes' monument, as sirens wailed and military guards fired three rounds of gunfire as a sign of mourning. The uprising was the first act of large-scale armed civilian resistance against the Germans in occupied Poland during World War II. The Nazis walled off the ghetto in November 1940, cramming 400,000 Jews from across Poland into it, under inhuman conditions. On April 19, 1943, German troops started to liquidate the ghetto by sending tens of thousands of its residents to death camps. In the face of imminent death, several hundred young Jews took up arms in defense of the civilians. They held off German troops for three weeks with homemade explosives and a cache of smuggled weapons. The uprising ended when its main leaders - rounded up by the Nazis - committed suicide on May 8, 1943. The Nazis then razed the ghetto, street by street. Today’s commemorations followed official events held Tuesday, to avoid coinciding with the Jewish Sabbath. President Lech Kaczynski of Poland and President Shimon Peres of Israel led those observances.
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readings including “Shadow and Light” by Jonathan Rabbn, “How Free Is Free? The Long Death of Jim Crow” by Leon F. Litwackand the recently released paperback edition of “Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands” byMichael Chabon.
2009: At NYU’s Bronfman Center for Jewish life people from all over New York City join in “Sing Out Israel,” an event featuring familiar Israeli and Jewish tunes.
2009:A.B. Yehoshua, the award-winning Israeli author, reads from and discusses his most recent novel, “Friendly Fire,” and chats about his life as a writer and his thoughts on Israel in a conversation with Leon Wieseltier, at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C.
2009:The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center opened today under rainy skies, with several thousand people seated beneath large tents, their enthusiasm shown in a standing ovation for survivors.
2010: As part of its Graduate Seminar Program, The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present a program entitled “‘Gentleman's Agreement’ and ‘Crossfire’: Anti-Semitism at the Movies”
2010: Terminal 5 is scheduled to host New York’s community-wide Yom Ha'Atzmaut celebration honoring Israel's fallen and celebrating 62 years of independence at what is described as the largest Yom Ha'Zikaron/Yom Ha'Atzmaut gathering in the world outside of Israel!
2010(5th of Iyar, 5770): Yom Hazikaron
2010(5th of Iyar, 5770):Felicia Haberfeld, a native of Poland who fought to reclaim her husband's ancestral home in Auschwitz decades after it was seized by the Nazis, died today at the age of 98 in Los Angeles. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/01/local/la-me-felicia-haberfeld-20100501
2010: The State Department summoned the senior Syrian diplomat in Washington to accuse his government of "provocative behavior" in supplying scud ballistic missiles to Hezbollah.
2011(15 Nisan, 5711): Second Day of Pesach
2011: In the evening Second Seder. Somewhere a person with roots in the Gibraltar Jewish Community will say “Todo el que tenga hambre, venga y coma, todo el que tenga menester, venga y pascue” (Anyone who is hungry come and eat; all who have need, come and celebrate) as they follow that community’s custom of reciting the Haggdah in Ladino for the Second Seder.
2011: In the third such attack in Greece in less than 2 years, arsonists break into Corfu island synagogue and damage at least 30 prayer books.
2011: Steve Soboroff was hired by Frank McCourt to be the Vice Chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. (Soboroff was Jewish)
2012(27th of Nisan, 5772): Yom Hashoah
2012: “Spoken Word and Music Performance” a Holocaust Remembrance Day observance co-sponsored by La Maison Francaise is scheduled to take place at the Embassy of France in Washington, D.C.
2012: Holocaust survivor and Director of the ADL, Abraham Foxman is scheduled to appear at the Illinois Holocaust Museum’s Yom Hashoah memorial event.
2012:Yad Vashem will publish thousands of new documents today gleaned from national and KGB archives from the former Soviet Union on this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.
2012:” Remembrance” a film that depicts a love story between a German Jew and a
Polish Catholic that blossomed amid the terror of Auschwitz in 1944 is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.2012: The world’s most wanted living Nazi collaborator is Laszlo Csatary, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said in its annual report today (As reported by Gil Shefler)
2012:Left-wing extremists defaced three monuments to Israeli terror victims and fallen members of the security services in the Jordan Valley, police discovered today, just one week before Israel honors its war dead.
2012: Irwin M. Jacobs “was named the W. P. Carey School of Business Dean’s Council of 100 Executive of the Year, which honors change-making business leaders who serve as models for today’s business students”
2012: Yad Vashem is scheduled to publish “thousands of new documents gleaned from national and KGB archives from the former Soviet Union on this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. The new archival material – totaling approximately one million new documents – is available following several international agreements made in the past four years with national archives and those with the KGB from the former USSR.”
2013: The Maccabeats are scheduled to perform at a Shabbat Event at the University of Illinois sponsored by Chabad.
2013: “No Place on Earth” is scheduled to premiere in Portland, Oregon and Chicago, Illinois.
2013(9th of Iyar, 5773): Ninety-two year old Francois Jacob, the recipient of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Medicine passed away today.
2013(9th of Iyar, 5773): Eighty-year old computer and math wizard Kenneth I. Appel passed away today.
2013(9th of Iyar, 5773): Ninety-five year photographer turned actor Allan Arbus best known for his role as the quirky psychiatrist on “M*A*S*H,” passed away today.
2013(9th of Iyar, 5773): Eighty-three year old children author and illustration E. L. Konigsburg passed away today.
2013: A dinner to help raise funds for research on treating Glycogen Storage Disease, a rare Ashkenazi Jewish liver disorder is scheduled to be held at the Coral Springs Marriott.
2013: On the secular calendar, 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
2013: A complex $10 billion arms deal in its final stages would strengthen two key Arab allies – the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia - while maintaining Israel's military edge, US defense officials said today.
2013: Following the public outrage over a debt arrangement between Bank Leumi and tycoon Nochi Dankner’s Ganden Holdings Ltd., the bank announced this afternoon that it was backing out of the arrangement.
2014: “The Last Act of Lilka Kadison” is scheduled to have its final performance today at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank
2014: In Poland, observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day which coincides with the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
2014: “Paris-Manhattan” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC Rockland International Jewish Film Festival.