April 22
404:Emperors Arcadius and Honorius limit the opportunities of Jews to serve the Empire when they issue the following: "We decree that the Jews and Samaritans who flatter themselves with the privilege of being in the secret service will be deprived of all employment with imperial service."
1073: Pope Gregory VII begins his twelve year reign. While history may remember him for his role as a reformer and for his “battles” with the Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, others may also remember him as “The Jewish Pope” since he was reportedly “descended from an Italian Jew named Baruch” who started a bank in Rome and converted to Christianity in 1030.
1213:Pope Innocent III issued the papal bull Quia maior, calling all of Christendom to join what became the Fifth Crusade. The Crusades were a period of intermittent disaster for the Jews of Europe and Palestine.
1451: Birthdate of Isabella I of Castile, the queen who played a key role in the destruction of a seven century old civilization when she cruelly expelled the Jews from Spain
1490(1st of Iyar): Leo, Jewish court physician to Grand Duke Ivan II, was executed today.
1509: Henry VIII ascended the English throne following the death of his father, Henry VII. While Jews were officially banned from living in England, evidence exists that a small congregation of Marranos had settled in London by 1540. Henry’s contact with Jews and Judaism was indirect but somewhat pivotal in the events surrounding his various wives. Henry’s older brother had married Catherine of Aragon in a state marriage designed to guarantee peaceful relations between England and Spain. When Henry’s older brother died, the English sought to keep the amicable relations alive by arranging a marriage between Henry and Catherine. The English got the Pope to approve of the marriage by invoking the Biblical law concerning the Levirate Marriage. Years later, Henry sought to have the marriage annulled so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. He claimed that the marriage was a nullity because he had coveted his late brother’s wife and their marriage was a product of sin. Henry sought support from those most learned in these matters, a group of Italian rabbis. Regardless of the Halachah involved, the Italian rabbis were loathe to anger the Pope who was their “neighbor” in a clash with a monarch living in a distant land in which Jews were forbidden to live.
1585(23rd of Nisan): Rabbi Moses (Trani) of Safed, author of “Kiryat Sefer” passed away today.
1593: The first group of Marranos led by Jacob Tirado arrived in Amsterdam, Holland. This group was the first Jews to settle in Amsterdam after the Spanish Expulsion. Moses Uri Halevi soon joined them and helped arrange for prayer services.
1610: Birthdate Alexander VIII. During his papacy, Alexander was confronted with an unusual request. Instead of demanding that Jews be banished from their town, the priors of Perugia appealed to Alexander to overrule Pope Innocent X and allow Jews to return to their city. The absence of Jews from the city’s fairs was a having a negative impact on the area’s economy.
1625: Urban VIII issued “Sedes apostolica,” a papal bull concerning “heretical Portuguese Jews.”
1724: Birthdate of German philosopherImmanuel Kant. Kant may have been one of the giants of the Enlightenment, but from a Jewish point of view, he was an intellectual pygmy. As Michael Mack of Hebrew University wrote, “Kant consistently equated Jewish identity with a host of undesirable traits, including superstition, dishonesty, worldliness and even cowardliness.‘Every coward is a liar; Jews for example, not only in business, but also in common life,’ Kant noted in a lecture on practical philosophy… All the positive traits of Kantian philosophy (freedom, autonomy, reason) are formed by being contrasted with a negative image of unenlightened humanity, usually taking the form of an anti-Semitic or some other racist caricature. For Kant, motives could only be good if they were not aimed at any material benefit. He saw Judaism as an inherently materialist religion, based upon a quid pro quo between God and His chosen people .In order to fully define the formal structures of his philosophy (autonomy, reason, morality and freedom), Kant almost unconsciously fantasized about the Jews as it’s opposite. He posited Judaism as an abstract principle that does nothing else but, paradoxically, desire the consumption of material goods."
1762: In Prague, Jonas Jeiteles and his wife gave birth to Talmudist Baruch Ben Jacob Benedict Jeitles, the father of Ignaz Jeiteles.
1770(17th of Nisan): Israel Ben Moses Zamsoc of Brody, author of “Nezah Yisrael” passed away today.
1777(15th of Nisan, 5537): Celebration begins of the first Pesach in the recently declared independent United States of America.
1783: The Jews sent a petition to Emperor Joseph II which “expressed their gratitude…for his favors and reminding him of his principle that religion should not be interfered with, asked permission to wear beards.
1792: Birthdate of Uriah Phillips Levy, Commodore of the United States Navy. Born in Philadelphia, his mother was a descendant from the Nunez family that arrived in Charleston in 1733.
1834: Dr. Albert Moses Levy and his wife moved back to Virginia after he had completed his medical training at the University of Pennsylvania. After his wife’s death. Levy would make his way to Texas where he participate in the rebellion against Mexico and become a leading member of the new republic
1842: Birthdate of Alexander Kohut the Hungarian born American rabbi and orientalist.
1845(15th of Nisan, 5606): Pesach
1850: Birthdate of anatomist and embryologist Gustav Born who was the father of Max Born.
1853: In the House of Commons, following a third reading, the bill removing Jewish disabilities was carried by a majority of 58.
1860: Dr. George B. Cheever delivered an anti-slavery speech tonight at The Church of the Puritans in which he compared slaveholders to the anti-Semitic King John of England who “who, to extort money from a Jew, pulled a tooth every day from out the Hebrew's head until he complied with his demands.”
1863(3rd of Iyar, 5623): Gabriel Riesser the first Jewish judge in Germany and an advocate of the emancipation of the Jews in Germany passed away today.
1863(3rd of Iyyar, 5623: Soro Chano Szatan, the mother of Chanokh Heynekh Lewin (Rebbe Reb Heynekh of Aleksander) passed away. Born in 1779, her husband was Pinchas Lewin who passed away in 1837.
1864(16th of Nisan, 5624): Second day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1864: Captain Ezekiel Levy, his brother Isaac J. Levy and other Jews serving with the 46th Virginia Infantry observed Pesach at their camp in Adams Run, South Carolina, outside of Charleston. On the first day of the holiday they feasted on a “fine vegetable soup” which contained “new onions, parsley, carrots turnips and a young cauliflower … a pound and a half of fresh [kosher] beef, the latter article sells for four dollars per pound in Charleston.”
1865: In Philadelphia, 16 German boys reportedly beat a Jewish named Bernadotte Glischman. Following the beating, the boys took Glischman to his room where they stuck him with pins. Glischman said the boys did this to him because he was Jewish and they said that the Jews had killed Christ.
1868: Birthdate of Friedrich Münzer the “German classical scholar” known “for his demonstrations of how family relationships in ancient Rome connected to political struggles.”
1870: Birthdate of Vladimir Lenin, who led the Bolshevik Revolution. Contrary to popular misconception, Lenin was not Jewish. Also, Lenin and the Communists did bring down the Czar. They overthrew the Kerensky government, the democratic socialists, who had actually ended the three hundred years of Romanov rule. Many people who were born Jews were followers of Lenin. The most famous was Trotsky. But Lenin’s impact on the Jewish people far transcended the presence of these individuals. History would prove that Communist Russia was no more hospitable for those who wanted to practice their Judaism than Czarist Russia had been.
1871(1st of Iyar, 5631): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1871: Bavaria grants equal rights to its Jewish citizens completing the process of emancipation in the German Empire.
1872(14th of Nisan, 5632): Ta'anit Bechorot; Erev Pesach
1872(14th of Nisan, 5632): “The Feast of Passover: Celebration of Israel’s Delivery From Bondage – Jewish Traditions and Observances” published today states that “At sundown today the people of Israel, wheresoever dispersed over the fact of the earth will begin the celebration of the feast of Pesach or the Passover, one of the most important festivals in the Jewish Calendar.”
1880: In Leadville, CO, the Bush-Trimble Building collapsed. The building Kaskel & Co, clothing business co-owned by Caesar J. Kaskel and Jacob Michaelis of New York City and managed by Julius W. Kaskel one of the first Jews to settle in Leadville.
1881: It was reported today that an anonymous Jewish donor had sent a basket of flowers to Reverend William A. Barltett of Indianapolis’ Second Presbyterian Church as a token of appreciation for the speech he gave on “the Jewish question.”
1881: Birthdate of Alexander Kerensky, the most prominent leader of the Provisional Government that replaced the government of the Czars. Kerensky was not Jewish but the failure of the democratic forces that he led certainly had a major impact on the Jews of what would become the Soviet Union. This short guide does not provide the space for further comment on this major episode in Jewish History.
1881: Visitors at the Hebrew Cemetery at Cypress Hills on Long Island heard shots emanating from the house of the groundskeeper, Max Blecker. Further investigation led to the discovery of Blocker’s body which had a large wound on the right side of his head and a revolver grasped tightly in his hand. Reportedly, he had been in ill health and he “told his friends that he would be better off dead.”
1881: It was reported today that Tunisia with a population of about 2 million is of little financial value to the French who seem determined to annex the territory. The little commercial activity that does exist is primarily in the hands of the 25,000 Jews who make up about a fifth of the population of Tunis.
1882: It was reported today, that in Berlin, a committee composed of leading citizens belonging to all religious denominations has raised 100,000 marks to provided assistance for Jews seeking to leave Russia.
1882: It was reported today that reports have reached Vienna confirming the attacks on Jews in towns near Odessa. In Balta, the riots lasted for two days leaving at least 2,000 Jewish families in ruin. “The riots almost assumed the character of a struggle for the annihilation of the Jews…”
1883(15th of Nisan, 5643): On the first day of Pesach an article entitled “The Feast of the Passover” reported that “the morning services at” the Jewish “places of worship…will be peculiarly interesting.”
1884: In Nashville, TN, John Schoffner made a full confession to police concerning the murder of Meyer Friedman, a Jew living in Nashville. According to Schoffner, Meyer Morris organized the killing and that Mrs. Friedman wanted her husband dead because “she did not love him” and he “treated her badly.”
1884: Birthdate of Austrian-born psychoanalyst, Otto Rank. He wrote the first psychoanalytic book by a disciple of Freud. Rank moved to the United States in the 1930’s. He died at the age of 55, one month after Freud passed away.
1884: New York dentist and founding member of B’nai Israel Dr. Lyon Berhard was laid to rest at Cypress Hill this morning.
1885: Ninety-six year old Reverend Leonard Withington, the oldest Congregational Clergyman in the United States passed away today. Withington was a scholar well versed in Hebrew who had written a book entitled “Solomon Songs.” He was a prime example of the reality that in 19th century America some of the people who were the most knowledgeable about Hebrew as a language were Protestant ministers.
1886: Jess Seligman presided over tonight’s celebration of the second anniversary of the Hebrew Technical Institute which was held at Temple Emanu-El in New York City. Among the dignitaries attending the event was Carl Schurz, the famous German-American journalist and social reformer who gave the evening’s main address. (The school would remain open until 1939)
1887: It was reported today that two Englishman carrying an American flag recently imprisoned a Jewish merchant from Alcazar Morocco on charges of not paying a debt. The prisoner was paraded through various towns in chains as hje was taken to Tangier. The event, which took place during Passover, has been condemned by the leading Jews of Tangier who have sought the aid of the local British, French and Portuguese Consuls
1889: The Literary Notes column reported that “The Jew in English Fiction” by Rabbi David Philipson will soon be issued by Robert Clarke & Co of Cincinnati, Ohio. Among the characters discussed are Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, Shakespeare’s Shylock, Cumberland’s Jew, Scott’s Jew in “Ivanhoe”, Dickens’ Jew in “Oliver Twist’ and “Our Mutual Friend”, Disraeli’s in “Coningsby” and “Tancred and George Eliot’s “Daniel Deronda”. (At the time, Philipson was a young Reform rabbi from Wabash, Indiana)
1889: At high noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Run of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000.
1891(14th of Nisan, 5651): An article entitled “The Festival of Pesach: It will begin at Sunset To-Night and Last For A Week” reports that “all the reform temples and orthodox synagogues will be open for services this evening…and appropriate sermons will be delivered by the spiritual heads of the communities.
1893(6th of Iyar, 5653): Chaim Aronson passed away at the age of 77. Born in Lithuania in 1825 when it was part of Russia, Aaronson was a gifted linguist (Hebrew, German, and Russian) with a penchant for invention who went from being a clockmaker to developing a variety of machines including one for making cigarettes and one that was a prototype for a movie camera. Aronson was a better scholar and engineer than he was a businessman since none of his work brought him commercial success. His most long lasting contribution was a literary work entitled A Jewish Life under the Tsars: The Autobiography of Chaim Aronson, 1825-1888 that provides a picture of life in the final century of Czarist Russia.
1893: Rabbi Raphael Benjamin delivered a sermon this morning on the subject of the recent blackballing of Theodore Seligman by the Union League.
1893: “Max Judd Objected To” published today described the reasons that the government of Austria provided for refusing to recognize the appoint of Max Judd as Consul General for the United States at Vienna. The Austrians claim that the refusal is based on that fact the Judd had been born in Austria and “is engaged in the emigration business.” The Austrians claim that the objection has nothing to do with Judd’s religion which is just as well because the U.S. government has said that Mr. Judd’s replacement will not be of Austrian descent, but he will be Jewish.
1894: Hyman Blumenthal was arrested on charges that he had deliberately tried to burn down the tenement at 28 East Broadway.
1894: Birthdate of Max Weinreich, the Russian born American linguist and a founder of the Yiddish Institue (YIVO) and author of who was “the father of the linguist Uriel Weinreich, who edited the Modern Yiddish-English English-Yiddish Dictionary.”
1894: Rabbi Joseph Silverman delivered a lecture at Temple Emanu-El in New York entitled “The Jewish Passover and Its Modern Message to Jews and Christians” in which he described that observing Passover was “the celebration of the anniversary of the Jewish Independence Day.”
1895: It was reported today that the Hebrew Orphan Asylum is providing housing for 700 children at its building at 137thStreet and Amsterdam Avenue. Trustees Theodore Seligman, Edward Lauterbach and Emanuel Leyman are considering a propels to raise $250,000 to expand the facility to meet increase demand for its services.
1896 (9th of Iyar, 5656): Gustave May passed away today in New York City. Born in Paris in 1845, he served as Quartermaster General with the forces fighting to protect the Commune at the end of the Fanco-Prussian War. When the Commune forces were defeated he fled to America with his brother where they started May Brothers, a firm of commission merchants that “was the first to import cigarette papers into the United States. Although born Jewish May saw himself as a “Freethinker” and was active in the French Exile community. His brother Elie had served as a General in the forces of the Commune.
1896: Herzl began a two day journey to Karlsruhe where he was received in audience by Grossherzog (Grand Duke) Friedrich of Baden. Herzl was heartened by the meeting saying ("Jedenfalls nahm der Grossherzog meine Staatbildung von Anfang an vollkommen ernst." - "In any case, the Grand Duke took my proposed formation of a state quite seriously from the beginning.")
1897(20th of Nisan, 5657): Sixty-seven year old Simon Alexander passed away today having lost his 9 month long battle with asthma and heart sickness. He was an editorial writer for The Hebrew Journal and member of Temple Emanu-El
1897: In New York City, the world's largest Jewish daily newspaper, "The Forward," was first published. Abraham Cahan, 43, one of its founders, became editor of the paper in 1903, remaining until his death in 1951. The Forward began as a Yiddish paper. By the 1930's it was one of the nation's leading dailies with a readership of 275,000 supplemented by a radio audience listening to WVED. One of its most famous features was the Bintel Briefs, a Yiddish Dear Abby. The paper shifted its formant and became English weekly in the 1980's. Later it added a Russian language edition for the new wave of Jewish immigrants. For more information see http://www.forward.com/.
1898(30th of Nisan, 5658): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1898(30th of Nisan, 5658): Simon Kayserling passed away. Kayserling was a German born teacher and author. He was the brother of Meyer Kayserling. Both brothers were historians. But Meyer also pursued career in the Rabbinate while Simon followed a more secular career serving on the faculty of the Jewish Free School while writing or translating books about the history of Poland and the history of the Jews living in Spain and Portugal.
1898: N.S. Roenau of the United Hebrew Charities was one of the speakers who addressed a group Yale University students studying Sociology under the direction of Professor William T. Blackman who visited New York City today.
1899: The sixth annual reunion banquet of the Hebrew Technical Institute Alumni Association was held this evening at the Broadway Central Hotel.
1899: Minnie Jacobs and her lawyer Joseph Moss appeared before William J. Youngs, Secretary to the Governor of New York to plead for a pardon for her father, Saul Jacobs.
1889: At high noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Run of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000. ‘Jewish settlers began coming to Oklahoma and Indian Territory as early as 1875. The Jewish population grew as Oklahoma blossomed into a boom area, after the famous Land Run of 1889 and statehood in 1907. The early settlers came as peddlers and salesmen and later became shopkeepers and retail merchants. According to the American Jewish Year Book, there were 1,000 Jews in Oklahoma Territory in 1901.” (courtesy of the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City)
1889: At high noon, thousands rush to claim land in the Land Run of 1889. Within hours the cities of Oklahoma City and Guthrie are formed with populations of at least 10,000. ‘Jewish settlers began coming to Oklahoma and Indian Territory as early as 1875. The Jewish population grew as Oklahoma blossomed into a boom area, after the famous Land Run of 1889 and statehood in 1907. The early settlers came as peddlers and salesmen and later became shopkeepers and retail merchants. According to the American Jewish Year Book, there were 1,000 Jews in Oklahoma Territory in 1901.” (courtesy of the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City)
1902(15th of Nisan, 5662): On the first day of Passover The New York Times took exception to a letter that Mayor Seth Low had sent to Police Commissioner John N. Partridge advising him not to enforce “blue laws” on Sunday April 20 because Jews needed to shop and conduct such activities as killing chickens as they prepared for their holiday which would begin on Monday evening, April 21. The Times said that the Mayor’s ruling “was uncalled for” and “was wrong in principle and conclusion. [Editor’s Note: Those of us living in the 21st century with its 24/7 schedule probably have difficulty that power of Sunday closing laws; laws that were enforced well into the closing decades of the 20th century.”
1903: Herzl meets Lord Rothschild who tells him that Edmond de Rothschild is delighted with his plan.
1904: Birthdate of Robert J. Oppenheimer. Born in New York, Oppenheimer was the son of a prosperous German-Jewish textile importer and an artistic Baltimore Jewess who died when Oppenheimer was a child. A renowned physicist, Oppenheimer bordered on the brilliant and enjoyed a wide range of intellectual pursuits. His claim to fame is the Manhattan Project. He was the scientific overlord of the American race to develop and build the Atomic Bomb. After the war, Oppenheimer had reservations about additional military uses of science. He opposed the building of the Hydrogen Bomb, a project that was brought to a successful conclusion by yet another Jewish scientist, Edward Teller. Oppenheimer fell victim to the post-War Red Scare and lost his security clearance. Oppenheimer's security clearance was regained during the Kennedy years and his reputation was publicly rehabilitated. He passed in 1967 at the age of 62. As to the Jewish influence in his life, consider the following. Prior to the 1930's, Oppenheimer had led the cloistered life of the privileged and the scientist in his ivory tower. During the 1930's Oppenheimer became involved in liberal and social justice causes. According to him, the change came about, in part became, "I had had a continuing smoldering fury about the treatment of Jews in Germany, I had relatives there, and was later to help in extricating them and bringing them to this country...I began to participate more fully in the life of the community."
1909: In Turin, Italy, Adamo Levi, an engineer, and Adele Montalcini, a painter, both Italian Jews who traced their roots to the Roman Empire gave birth to Rita Levi-Montalcini, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. (As reported by Benedict Carey)
1910: Today Rabbi Haim (Henry) Pereira Méndez, President of the Union of Orthodox Congregations wrote a letter to New York Mayor William Gaynor on behalf of the Orthodox congregations in the United States and Canada thanking him for his letter rejecting the request of Rev. Thomas M Chalmers for a license to “preach for the conversion Jews” on street corners in some of the city’s most heavily “Jewish” communities. Mendez expressed his appreciation for the tone of the letter which was sympathetic to the Jewish people and said that he would work with the Christian ministers to lift the level of modern society to a level closer to that expressed by Judaism and Christianity.
1912: The Wage Earner's League for Woman Suffrage held a major rally at New York's Cooper Union. Clara Lemlich, Rose Schneiderman, and three others founded the League which sought to encourage working women to join the political process as well as to agitate for the right to vote. Lemlich, a shirtwaist maker, became the League's vice president. Drawing on their background in the Socialist movement, the founders of the Wage Earners' League emphasized the special concerns of working women. They argued in speeches and pamphlets that women needed the vote in order to secure basic human rights like safe working conditions. In doing so, League leaders came into conflict with both Socialist men and middle-class women. The men who counted on female allies in Socialist causes bluntly suggested that suffrage activists return to their kitchens. Middle-class women showed their class bias in suggesting that their wealth and education made them more capable activists than these working women. Wary of having their specific concerns sidestepped, League members agreed that any woman could join their group, but that only workers could vote, ensuring that working women would remain in control of the League's agenda and tactics. Today’s rally at Cooper Union brought together thousands of cheering women to listen to arguments for women's suffrage. The location was symbolic; Cooper Union was the site of the rally that had kicked off the "Uprising of the 20,000," one of the first and most influential strikes of industrial garment workers, just three years before. Despite a large and enthusiastic turnout at the rally, the League dissolved soon afterward. Lacking a full-time organizer and a steady source of funding, the League ceased to be active. Schneiderman went on a speaking tour for another suffrage organization; her colleagues likewise turned their energies to other groups. Ultimately, the fight for suffrage would depend on alliances across class and gender lines.
1913(15thof Nisan, 5673): Pesach
1916: Birthdate of Yehudi Menuhin famed violin virtuoso and conductor. He passed away in March, 1999 at the age of 83.
1918: Birthdate of Solomon Aaron Berson, the New York born physician who worked with Rosalyn Yallow on “major advances in clinical biochemistry.”
1920: During the San Remo Conference, Chaim Weizmann has a private meeting with Lloyd George and Lord Balfour during which he presses the British leaders “for a civil administration in Palestine, run by the British under a League of Nations mandate. This stood in stark contrast with the French leaders who did not want the Balfour Declaration to be part of the peace treaty with the Ottomans.
1922: The national board of Hadassah voted "no confidence" in the leadership of ZOA President Louis Lipsky.
1928: Birthdate of Aaron Spelling, TV executive producer who gave us “Charlie's Angels.”
1928: Following Hadassah President Irma Levy Lindheim’s recent declaration that the administration of the ZOA was "not an effective instrument for the achievement of world Zionist aims for the up-building of Palestine" today the National Board of Hadassah registered a vote of no confidence in the leadership of ZOA President Louis Lipsky.
1930: Release date for the all-star revue “Paramount on Parade” written by Joseph Mankiewicz and co-produced by Jesse Lasky, Adolph Zucker, Albert S. Kaufman and B.P. Schulberg.
1931:JBI International was founded as the Jewish Braille Institute of America
1933(26th of Nisan, 5693): A Jewish merchant, Salomon Rosenstrauch was shot dead in Wiesbaden, Germany.
1936(30th of Nisan, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1939: Birthdate of Uri Orr, the native of Kfar Haim who rose to the rank of general in the IDF before pursuing a political career that included serving as an MK and Deputy Minister of Defence.
1939: “The Greek cattleboat Assimi which attempted to land 263 illegal Jewish immigrants” in Palestine “twelve days ago was ordered to leave Haifa tonight.” When the police announced the decision, “the passengers tore off their clothing and screamed that they would rather be killed than be sent back to sea. Some prayed and recited psalms. When the Jewish residents of Haifa heard the screams and prayers aboard the Assimi” they spontaneously proclaimed a strike that took hold throughout the city. Protesters carried signs reading ‘Open the gates to the Jewish illegals’ and ‘Down with the barbaric attitude toward illegals. The captain had been fined and imprisoned for his role in bringing the Jews to Palestine. To add insult to injury the captain had been fined and imprisoned for his role in bringing the Jews to Palestine.
1940(14th of Nisan, 5700): The Sommer family sits down to their first Seder in Liechtenstein. How this family of German Jewish refugees from Munich came to be there was chronicled by Susi Pugatsch-Sommer in an article entitled “A Pesach Miracle in Nazi Germany.”
My family - my parents Binyamin and Friedl Sommer, myself (13) my sister Ella (10), my brother Alfred (7), and my grandmother, Rachel - lived in temporary quarters in Munich, after our home had been confiscated by the Nazi daily newspaper, Völkischer Beobachter in 1939. My father had been arrested and incarcerated in the Dachau Camp in 1938 for a short time. Once he was released, he realized that he and the family had to leave Germany as quickly as possible, but he could not find a way to get out. In November 1939, my father left home for a few days, and hid the forest near Munich, since he was informed that the Nazis would arrest all male Jews again and send them to a concentration camp. By chance, he met a man in the forest who identified himself only as an engineer. This man told him that he could arrange an entry permit into neutral Liechtenstein only if he had enough money to open a building materials factory and pay salaries to 100 workers, since unemployment was high in Liechtenstein. My father agreed immediately, since he had no other option to save our lives. Miraculously, we received visas for Liechtenstein in the beginning of April 1940, in the middle of World War II, our passes to relative safety. We had 14 days to leave Germany, and each person was allowed to take one suitcase and 10 reichmarks. We boarded the train in Munich three days before Pessah. We were frisked at the German border and after the Nazis didn't find anything forbidden, were allowed to cross the border to Liechtenstein on foot. We were completely exhausted when we arrived in Vaduz, Liechtenstein, and went to sleep in a simple hotel. We did not know if there were any Jewish families in Liechtenstein, and we had no idea how we would keep Pessah properly and buy matzot. Then our next miracle happened. The following morning, as we wandered around town, a young girl stopped us and asked if we were Jewish and if she could help us. Immediately, she introduced us to her parents and some other Jewish families. The Schönwalder family invited us into their home, to their Seder and we continued to have all our meals and prayers there during the week of Pessah. We continued to reside in Liechtenstein for 10 years. At this time, only 40 to 50 Jews lived there. I met with the Schönwalders' daughter, Edith, almost every day, and she is still a very good friend of mine. Today, we both live in Israel. I'll never forget the miracle that happened to us - my father's chance meeting with the engineer, an emigration visa in the midst of the war, and the wonderful families who helped us celebrate Pessah as religious Jews.
1940: SS official Odilo Globocnik announced a plan to increase the use of Jewish forced labor and to establish separate work camps for Jewish men and women.
1940: Detroit Tigers Pitcher Dick Conger appeared in his first major league baseball game.
1940: Ten members of the staff of Ben Shemen Youth village, including the director are sentenced to serve prison terms of up to seven years. The British had raided Ben Shemen in January and found weapons belonging to the Haganah. The prison sentences were for their role in hiding the weapons.
1941: Birthdate of Israeli Amir Pnueli an Israeli scientist who developed a “critical technique for verifying the reliability of computers.”
1943: “We Will Never Die” was performed in Philadelphia's Convention Hall, with guest stars Claude Rains and Edward G. Arnold in the lead roles. More than 15,000 people attended--it was the largest Jewish public event in the city in many years — and it received extensive coverage in the local press.(As reported by Jewish Virtual Library)
1943: The Nazis deported the Jews of Amersfoort, Holland.
1943: Birthdate of poet Louise Gluck.
1945: Six hundred of the remaining inmates at Jasenovac Concentration Camp rose up against their Croatian killers. The Croatians killed over five hundred of them. This camp was located in a breakaway republic from Yugoslavia called Coratia. The Croatians ran the camp for their Axis allies and were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews. For those of you who remember the fighting in the 1990's in Yugoslavia, you will now understand that genocide is no stranger to the Balkans. Only a thousand Jews and Serbs remained. Tens of thousands of them were killed over the past five years. Six hundred rose in revolt. The Germans killed 520 of them.
1945: The Soviet Army liberated the Concentration Camp at Sachsenhausen in Germany. The camp was about 35 kilometers from Berlin and was established in 1938. Approximately thirty to thirty-five thousands people including Jews perished in the camp.
1945: Birthdate of Donald E. Graham, the grandson of Eugene Meyer and the son of Katherine Graham
1946: Opening of Kibbutz Beitar in Bruna.
1946: Composer Ezra Laderman was discharged from the U.S. Army today. He then studied composition under Stefan Wolpe of New York and Miriam Gideon of Brooklyn College where he earned his B.A.in 1950. He then went on to study under Otto Luening of Columbia University where he earned his M.A. in 1952.
1947(2nd of Iyyar, 5707): In Jerusalem’s central prison, Moshe Barazani and Meir Feinstein beat the hangman when they used a grenade smuggled into death row to blow themselves up. The two had planned to detonate the device when they were on the scaffold thus taking the British appointed executioner with them. But when the Rabbi who visited them earlier in the day said he would return to be with them at the moment of execution, the two decide to act earlier so as to kill the Jewish cleric.
1947: Another 769 illegal Jewish immigrants arriving on board the Galata in Eretz Israel were trans-shipped to Cyprus.
1948: Operation Misparayim (scissors) was launched by the Haganah as part of the Yishuv’s attempt to assume control of Haifa after British withdrawal and attacks had been made by Arab forces to control this port city. By the end of the day, Haifa was in the hand of the mainline Zionist forces.
1949: Writing in Haaretz, Arye Gelblum described immigrants from North Africa as dirty, disease ridden and prone to drunkenness and prostitution.
1949: Hebrew University reopened in temporary quarters in west Jerusalem
1950: Tonight, after the end of Shabbat, Israel began the celebration of her second year of independence. In his address to the nation, President Weizmann called upon Israelis “to celebrate in joy and happiness the great salvation wrought to our people after centuries of exile and affliction.” In Jerusalem, Joseph Sprinzak, Speaker of the Knesset, lit a torch on Mt. Herzl which lit from fire provided by veterans of the Masada Battalion which had defended Jerusalem from attacks by Egyptians and Arab Irregulars during the dark days of the siege of the City of David. Similar festivities took place throughout the country including open air performances, torch light parades and the sounding of sirens by ships of many nations docked in Israel’s major ports.
1951: Philadelphia Athletics first baseman Lou Limmer played in his first major league baseball game.
1952(27th of Nisan, 5712): Yom HaShoah
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the "past seven days was the bloodiest week along Israeli borders for a long time." Two Israelis were murdered at Mevuot Betar, the marauders were active in the South, in Galilee and Jerusalem. There was a general outcry when General Bennet L. de Ridder, the U.N. Chairman of the Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission refused to comply with the Israeli request to call an emergency meeting of the Commission to discuss the latest developments and, in particular, the murder of Zvi Genauer and his niece, Dvora, in Jerusalem. This incomprehensible U.N. decision was taken despite the fact that the tracks of the three marauders, responsible for this murder, were discovered by an U.N. observer and an Israeli officer who noted that they led to the Jordanian-occupied village of Beit Iksa. The General claimed that it was not the duty of his Commission to deal with incidents "of this type."
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel's three-years-long land survey, conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture, was almost completed.
1953: Birthdate of Steve Bond. Born in Haifa Israel, the actor gained fame in the soap opera General Hospital.
1954: Leo Lerman, the Jewish editor and writer for such glossy fashion magazines as Vogue, Mademoiselle and Vanity Fairmet famed American author William Faulkner for the first time.
1954: The so-called Army-McCarthy Hearings began. These hearings, which helped bring an end to McCarthy’s abuse of power was triggered by two of his Jewish supporters. One was the powerful Roy Cohn, the McCarthy Committee’s chief counsel. The other was Cohn’s close friend, G. David Schine. :
1960: In Quebec, Dr. Harry J. Stern led the services dedicating the new home of Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, the oldest Reform or Liberal congregation in Canada.
1961: Lucille Ball collapsed while performing in “Wildcast” the musical with lyrics by Carolyn Leigh and music by Cy Coleman.
1963(28th of Nisan, 5723): Yom HaShoah
1971(27th of Nisan, 5731): Yom HaShoah
1973:Birthdate of Ofer Talker, the native of Ashdod who gained fame playing football for several teams the last of which was Hapoel Kfar Saba from which he retired in 2009.
1974: Israeli political leader Amir Peretz was severly injured in accident at the Mitla Pass.
1975: Barbara Walters signed a five-year $5 million contract with the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), becoming the highest paid television newsperson.
1977: Shimon Peres became premier of Israel.
1978: In Paris, France, Izhar Cohen &;Alphabeta won the twenty-third Eurovision Song Contest for Israel by singing "A-ba-ni-bi".
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that an agreement was reached to end the 18-days-long El Al lockout which had already cost the national airline more than IL100m, and the tourist industry hundreds of millions more.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel won the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time with an entry called "A-Ba-Ni-Bi". Israel scored 157 points, Belgium 121 and France 119.
1979(25th of Nisan, 5739): Shamir Kuntar was part of a cell that raided the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, fatally shooting a civilian, Danny Haran, while his daughter Einat, 4, watched, then smashing the girl’s head, killing her as well. Mr. Haran’s wife, Smadar, hid with their 2-year-old daughter, accidentally suffocating her in an effort to stop her from crying out.
1982(29thof Nisan, 5742): Eighty-two year old Irish film director and actor Harold Goldblatt passed away today.
1984: In Israel Al HaMishmar published the first report of allegations that the hijackers of Bus 300 had been shot after being captured.
1985: According to Israeli businessman Yaacov Nimrodi, today was the day when a chartered merchant ship, the Westline, was scheduled to leave Eilat filled with weaponry for Iran as part of a deal that Americans would come to know as Iran-Contra.
1985: The United States Trade Representative and the Israeli Minister of Industry and Trade signed a Free Trade Agreement today that “eliminated all duties and virtually all other restrictions on trade in goods between” their two respective countries.
1991: Shalom America (Jewish cable network) was launched in Brooklyn & Queens.
1993: The Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated in Washington, D.C. There is no way to do this justice. For more information see http://www.ushmm.org/.
1993: Miles Lerhman served as chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Museum from its opening today until 2000, eight years before his death in 2008 at the age of 88.
1994: Dr. Lewis Barth, Professor of Midrash and Related Literature at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles delivered the 1994 Rabbi Max Nussbaum Memorial Lecture.
1994: Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States passed away. Nixon's relations with Jews and the Jewish community ranged from uneven to stormy. In his first campaign for the U.S. Senate, Nixon supporters smeared his opponent with the tar brush of anti-Semitism. Nixon did have Jews working on White House Staff. He was frustrated by is inability to gain support among Jewish voters and some of his comments on the White House tapes about Jews are, to be charitable, less than complimentary. At the same time, in 1973, he came through for Israel. Thanks to Nixon, the Americans conducted a mammoth airlift of supplies that enabled the IDF to turn the tide after the Arab sneak attack and gain a military victory in the Yom Kippur War.
1995: Yagil Amir, who had sworn to kill Prime Minister Rabin, unsuccessfully tried to enter a hall in Jerusalem where Rabin was present as the guest of honor.
1995(22ndof Nisan, 5755): 8th Day of Pesach
1995(22ndof Nisan, 5755): Ninety-two year old Sir Horace Kadoorie, scion of the Kdoorie family that migrated from Baghdad to Mumbai to Hong Kong passed away today.
1997(15th of Nisan, 5757): Pesach
1999: In Manhattan, jurors awarded a patient of Dr. Pamela Lipkin, an East Side plastic surgeon $600,000 in damages.
2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Country Matters: The Pleasures and Tribulations of Moving From a Big City to an Old Country Farmhouse by Michael Korda, Teacha!: Stories From a Yeshiva by Gerry Albarelli and Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestraby Shareen Blair Brysac.
2001(29th of Nisan, 5761):Dr. Mario Goldin, 53, of Kfar Sava, was killed when a terrorist detonated a powerful bomb he was carrying near a group of people waiting at a bus stop on the corner of Weizman and Tchernichovsky streets. About 60 people were injured in the blast. Hamas claimed responsibility.
2002: “Mideast Turmoil: American Jews; Unusually Unified in Solidarity With Israel, but Also Unusually Unnerved” published today describes the feelings an action of the Jewish community in the wake of attacks on Israel and anti-Semitism in the United States.
2002(10th of Iyar, 5762): Ninety-three year old Victor Frederick Weisskopf’ an Austrian-born Jewish American theoretical physicist, passed away today.
2002(10thof Iyar, 5762): Twenty-two year old Sgt. Mag. Nir Kirchmann of Hadera was killed when the IDF entered a village north of Nablus to arrest Hamas terrorists.
2004: In North Korea, a freight train exploded killing technicians from Syria who had come the country to take possession of fissionable material which they were to take home as part of nuclear program that could lead to the creation of warheads for the Assad regime
2005: Jews of Omaha, Nebraska celebrate Israel’s 59th year of Independence as the Jewish Community Center hosts the Jewish Arts Festival and Yom Ha’Atzmaut activities designed for the whole family. This year’s Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration is a unique and exciting compilation of an Arts Festival with more than 25 vendors, plus the usual exciting assortment of carnival games, first-class entertainment, and delicious foods from a variety of Omaha restaurants.
2006: On Shabbat, thousands of police were positioned around the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in east Jerusalem on Holy Saturday, hoping to prevent confrontations between various groups of worshippers making their way to the church on Saturday afternoon. Holy Saturday is the sacred day between Good Friday and Easter. Easter rites at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher have been marked by violence in the past. Since the Crusades, three major denominations have controlled the church - Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and (Latin) Roman Catholic - with the rights and privileges of all of the communities protected by the Status Quo of the Holy Places set up in 1852. According to Dep.-Cmdr. Asher Ben- Atrzi, head of the Israel Police Interpol and Foreign Liaison Section, almost every year a dispute erupts between the Armenians and the Greeks over who enters the cave where Jesus is believed to be buried first. The different denominations also argue over prayer times. In the end, it is the police force of the Jewish state that keeps peace between the warring Christian factions. The next time some Christian politicians wonders how Sunnis and Shiites can fight over religious matters from by-gone centuries, they might want to take a look at the antics of Christian groups in the so-called Holy Land.
2007: At the Yeshiva University Museum the exhibition entitled “Reuben Kadish’s Holocaust Sculpture” comes to an end. “
2007: Yom Hazikaron begins tonight in Israel with a special memorial ceremony at Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem.
2007: The Sunday New York Times Book Section featured reviews of The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman, edited by Stephen Pascal, Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time by Chuck Schumer (the Jewish Senator from New York) with Daniel Squadron, Black and White a novel by Jewish author Dani Shapiro and The Lady Upstairs: Dorothy Schiff and The New York Post by Marilyn Nissenson. Schiff was the granddaughter of the German Jewish banking magnate Jacob H. Schiff.
2007: The Sunday Washington Post Book Section featured a review of The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein by Martin Duberman. This “rich and revelatory biography of one of the crucial cultural figures of the twentieth century” provides another example of an American Jew who has had a major impact on our culture.
2008: Earth Day; Third Day of Pesach – suggested date for Street Seders designed to address the Global Climate Crisis.
2008: The Jerusalem Cinematheque presents “Refusenik” \ רפיוזניק”, the first retrospective documentary to chronicle the thirty-year movement to free Soviet Jewry between the early 60s and the fall of the Iron Curtain.
2009: At YaleHagai El-Ad, Israeli civil rights activist, founding director of Jerusalem Open House and director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, delivers a talk entitled “Civil Rights in Israel.”2009: The Tribeca Film Festival opens with the world premiere of Woody Allen’s “Whatever Works.”
2009: Holocaust Survivor Irene Furst speaks at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa and Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2009: In Cedar Falls, Iowa, Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum presents “The Holocaust and Contemporary Ethics: Legal, Religious, Political and Medical Ethical Implications of the Holocaust,” the inaugural address for the Norman Cohn Family Holocaust Remembrance and Education Lecture Series at the University of Northern Iowa. Berenbaum is a writer, lecturer and teacher consulting in the conceptual development of museums and the historical development of films. He has written more than a dozen books, scores of scholarly articles and hundreds of journalistic pieces. His most recent books include “A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of Its Survivors” and “After the Passion Has Passed: American Religious Con sequences.” He also has received numerous awards for his work in film and journalism. Berenbaum was the former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Research Institute and president of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation.
2009: “Author Jared Diamond Sued for Libel” published today described the litigation face by the Pulitzer-Prize winning author.
2009: Five hundred Jews who were making their monthly visit to Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus arrived at the shrine this evening and found that it had been subjected to anti-Semitic vandalism including being painted with swastikas. According to the Oslo Accords, the tomb is under Israeli control, but that has been rendered as nothing more than a legal fiction since the outbreak of Arab violence in 2000.
2010:Professor Jason Rosenblatt, author of Renaissance England's Chief Rabbi: John Selden is scheduled to speak at the Washington DCJCC as part of the Distinguished Scholar Series
2010: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host the reception marking the opening of the Annual NoVa International Jewish Film Festival.
2011:On the 41st annual Earth Day and the first anniversary of the BP oil spill Reform congregations and their rabbis are scheduled to implement “tried-and-true Earth Day ideas, innovative programs in education and advocacy, and ways to continue our service and commitment to the Gulf Coast” some of which had been presented in a workshop that featured Margo Wolfson of Temple Shalom, Aberdeen, NJ (a GreenFaith Pilot Program congregation), Stephen Fox of Temple Isaiah, Los Angeles, CA, Rabbi Andy Koren, Temple Emanuel, Greensboro and Rabbi Daniel Swartz, Temple Hesed, Scranton, PA.”
2011:The Maccabee Queen is scheduled to be performed 12 noon at Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem. “Written and directed by Lauri Donahue, the play chronicles the rule of the last queen of Judea.”
2011:The Beit Yisrael synagogue in Netanya has been pelted with rocks, allegedly by ultra-Orthodox youths waging a battle to scare the congregants into leaving.
2012: Amy Irving, star of “Crossing Delancey” is scheduled to take part in a Q&A following a showing of this Jewish romantic comedy featuring “Sam, the pickleman” at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2012:The Iowa Jewish Historical Society and the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines are scheduled to host a special event to recognize and honor Iowa’s Jewish men and women who serve and have served in all branches of the United States military, during times of both war and peace.
2012: Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the Northern Virginia’s 2012 Holocaust Observance at Gesher Jewish Day Schoo
2012(30th of Nisan, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
2013:The American Jewish Historical Society and Yeshiva University Museum are scheduled to present a performance by The Momenta Quartet featuring the music of Stefan Wolpe, Aaron Copland and Darius Milhaud.
2013: “Portrait of Wally” and “A Bottle in the Gaza Sea” are scheduled to be shown at the Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival.
2013:” Dressing America: Tales from the Garment Center” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Fesitval.
2013: Daniel Mendelsohn, author of the international bestseller The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, is scheduled to join award- winning journalist Leslie Maitland, author of Crossing the Borders of Time: A True Love Story of War, Exile and Love Reclaimed in a discussion of their true stories of lives and loves lost in the Holocaust at the Washington DCJCC.
2013: Twentieth anniversary of the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
2013: The Histadrut labor federation today threatened to shut down Ben-Gurion International Airport as a show of solidarity with Israeli airline employees, who are striking against Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz's Open Skies agreement with the European Union that was approved by the cabinet yesterday
2013: Jordan has allowed Israel to fly military drones over the country en route to Syria in order to monitor the situation there and, should the need arise, target chemical weapons caches in the civil war-torn country, the French daily Le Figaro reported today.
2014: In New York, Temple Shaaray Tefila is scheduled to host the Yom HaShoah Screening of “No Place On Earth.
2014(22ndof Nisan, 5774): 8th day of Pesach – Yizkor
2014: In Serbia, Holocaust Remembrance Day
2014(22nd of Nisan): Circumcision of Isaac (Rosh Ha-Shannah 10b)