May 11
1415: Edict of Benedict XIII: Benedict XIII was enraged by the lack of voluntary conversions after the Christian "victory" at the Tortosa disputation. As a result, he banned the study of the Talmud in any form, instituted forced Christian sermons, and tried to restrict Jewish life completely.
1572(18th of Iyar, 5332): Moses Isserles, “the Rema” passed away today in Cracow, Poland.Moses Isserles, also spelled Moshe Isserlis, who had been born at Cracow in 1520, “was an eminent Ashkenazic rabbi, Talmudist, and posek, renowned for his fundamental work of Halachah (entitled ha-Mapah (lit., "the tablecloth"), an inline commentary on the Shulkhan Aruch ( "the set table"). His work opened up this Sephardic work to the Ashkenazim. “He is also well known for his Darkhei Moshe commentary on the Tur. Isserles is also referred to as the Rema, (or Remo, Rama) (רמ״א), the Hebrew acronym for Rabbi Moses Isserle.” [This brief entry cannot do justice to the life and work of this sage.]
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111847/jewish/Rabbi-Moshe-Isserles-The-Remo.htm
1610: Fifty-seven year old Father Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary living in China whose manuscripts described the existence of ten or twelve Jewish families in Kaifeng that may have been living there for five or six hundred years, passed away today.
1647: Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of New Netherland, the Dutch colonial settlement in present-day New York City. Seven years later, Stuyvesant will be the governor of New Amsterdam when the first Jews arrive in 1654. He will do everything in his power to keep the Jews from settling there and enjoying the full rights of citizenship.
1764: A letter written today from Empress Catherine II opened the way for limited settlement of Jews in Riga
1784: Birthdate of G.B. Depping, the German born French historian author of Les Juifs dans le moyen âge, essai historique sur leur état civil, commercial et littéraire a history of the Jews he wrote in response to a competition sponsored by the Royal Academy in 1821 to write a history describing the life of the Jews living in France during the Middle Ages.
1766: In Enfield, Middlesex, England Benjamin D’Israeli, “a Jewish merchant who had emigrated from Cento in 1784 and his second wife,Sarah Syprut de Gabay Villa Real” gave birth to author and “man of letters” Isaac D’Israeli, the father of the future Prime Minister Benjamin D’Israeli, the Earl of Beaconsfield.
1836: Alexander Levi advertised in today’s issue of the Dubuque Visitor, one of Iowa’s first newspapers. Levi may have been the first Jew to settle Iowa. He settled in Dubuque, shortly after its founding, and played an active role in its commercial, civic and Jewish life until his death in 1893.
1838: Birthdate of Walter Goodman, British painter, illustrator and author who followed in the footsteps of his mother, Julia (nee Salaman) Goodman, who was a famed painter in her own right.
1847: Adolphus Simeon Solomons received a certificate of discharge from Third Regiment of the Washington Grays, which was part of the New York State Militia. Born in 1826, he had joined the Grays when he was 14 and was promoted to the rank of Sergeant five years later. After leaving the military, he would pursue a successful career in business and politics including playing an active role in the inaugurations of all the Presidents from Lincoln to McKinley. He would also serve in a number of important roles in Jewish communal affairs including serving as acting President of the Jewish Theological Seminary Association.
1852: In the House of Lords, the first reading of a bill designed to remove the disabilities imposed upon persons refusing to take the “oaths of abjuration.” Lord Lyndhurst cited the recent case of David Salomons, the Jew who had refused to take the standard oath and sought to be seated in the House of Commons nonetheless.
1853(Iyar 3): Rabbi Isaac Farhi, author of Marpe la-Ezem, passed away today.
1853: A theatre critic for the New York Times pained the performance of “The Merchant of Venice” at Wallack’s Theatre saying that “there is no delineation of internal passion; no metaphysical reading of the Jew’s revengeful soul…”
1858:Minnesota Union as the 32nd state in the United States Minnesota Mt. Zion Minnesota
1860: Sir George Jessel, and Amelia Moses gave birth to British barrister and businessman Sir Charles James Jessel, 1st Baronet, Ladham House.
1863: Otto von Bismarck, Minister President of Prussia, initiated written correspondence with socialist and reform leader Ferdinand Lassalle. (Lassalle was Jewish; Bismarck was not)
1865: General Jeremiah Cutler Sullivan resigned from the Union Army. In 1862, Sullivan was serving under General Grant in Tennessee. He “refused to execute Grant’s Order 11 on the grounds that he thought he was an officer of the army and not of a church.” Sarna 20
1867: The independence of Luxembourg which was originally granted in 1839 is finally recognized by all of the European great powers including Prussia and France. The Grand Duchy’s first rabbi had served from 1843 until 1866 whenLuxembourg Luxembourg
1869(1st of Sivan, 5629): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1869: In New York City, Shaaray Tefila (Gates of Prayer) dedicated its new sanctuary located on 44thStreet, between Broadway and 6th Avenue. During the ceremony Leopold Cohn, chairman of the Building Committee gave the keys for the building to Barnet Solomon, the President of the Congregation. Rabbi Samuel Isaacs officiated at the impressive ceremony. The building, which cost $125,000 is smaller than Temple Emanu-El but compares favorably to it in terms of richness and architectural quality.
1869: Birthdate of Henrich Lowe, a German born Zionist who was known as a journalist, linguist and student of folklore.
1878: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association met for the first time in their new facility at 110 West 42ndStreet in New York City. Most of the members were in attendance at this all male affair. Mayor Ely was the guest of honor. I.S. Isaacs, the association’s president, opening remarks included a brief history of the association. The association, which was formed in 1874, has almost a thousand members and boasts a healthy back account. Rabbis Gottheil, Henry Jacobs and H.B. Mendez all addressed the group briefly.
1879: An article published today sub-titled “The Old Pessimists” notes that while there was a strongly pessimistic tone in a few books of the Bible – Job and Ecclesiastes - the “national religion of the Hebrews was optimistic in a high degree.” This stands in stark contrast to the deeply pessimistic religious utterances and literature of the ancient of the Greeks and the Romans While the Jews said “The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord” they were declaring that “the land and the sea are full of evils”
1879: “Assyrian and Biblical History” published today described unresolved conflicts in the dating used by these two ancient civilizations. While both seem to agree as to the date of the eclipse that took place in the 8th century BCE, there is disagreement for the dates of subsequent events. For example, the Assyrians say that the invasion of Judea took place in 701 BCE while the Jewish version would have set the date at 713 BCE. Some researches indicate that the discrepancies are the result of a propensity among Assyrian monarchs who had a propensity for not reporting defeats and unsuccessful campaigns. This was left to their successors.
1879: Samuel Gobat, who had been serving as the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem since 1846, passed away. Unlike his predecessor, Gobat refrained from trying to convert Jews and Moslems and worked among Christians. He and his wife who had also died while living in Jerusalem are buried in Mount Zion Cemetery.
1879(18th of Iyar, 5639): Lag B'Omer
1879(18th of Iyar, 5639): Bernhard Wolff passed away today in Berlin. Born in 1811, he was editor of the Vossische Zeitung, founder of the National Zeitung and founder of Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau one of the first press agencies in Europe and one of the three great European telegraph monopolies until the World War II-era, the other two being the English Reuters and the French Havas. All three of these famous wire-services had a Jewish connection. The second son of a Jewish banker, Wolff lived and died in Berlin, Brandenburg.
1881:Birthdate of Theodore von Kármán the Hungarian-American engineer and physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics. He is responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics, notably his work on supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization.
1881: Herzl fights his only duel in the fraternity Albia.
1881: As a wave of pogroms race across Russia Czar Alexander III receives a delegation of Jews led by Baron Horace de Gunzburg. He assures them that the government is opposed to the violence which he blames on socialists and elements following the anti-Christ.
1884: In Bucharest, Zara and Leon Feinsohn gave birth to Reba Fesinsohn who gained fame as the American soprano and recording artist, Alma Gluck.
1887: Birthdate of Paul Wittgenstein. The Austrian-born pianist lost his right arm fighting for Austria during World War I. After the war he gained fame for arranging and playing numerous pieces with his left hand. After fleeing the Nazis during the 1930’s he came to the United States where he became a citizen and continued his career.
1941: In theWarsaw
1942: Alter Dworetsky, a member of the Jewish Council at Diatlovo, Belorussia, escapes to a nearby forest, only to be shot to death by Soviet partisans after refusing to hand over his pistol.
1942: Damon Runyon published “Sam Dreben’s Spirit Marches On” a column that uses the career of this Jewish career soldier who won the Distinguished Service Cross to dispel notions of Jewish cowardliness and lack of patriotism. The column was written “on the occasion of the posthumous conferring of the DSC on Lt. Henry D. Mark of Los Angeles. (As reported by Abraham Bloch)
1942: The Biltmore Program is adopted in an emergency meeting (at the Biltmore Hotel inNew York
1942: “Go Down Moses,” the collection of short stories by William Faulkner is published today. The title is based on the spiritual that compares the slavery experience of African-Americans in the United States with the enslavement of the Jews by Pharoah.
1944:HMCS Beauharnois, a Canadian corvette, was launched today. She would be acquired by the Israelis and was renamed Josiah Wedgwood, in honor of Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, the British M.P. who wanted to remove the obstacles to Jewish immigration to Palestine and opposed the British appeasement of Hitler during the 1930’s.
1944: Anne Frank writes in her diary,"I'd like to publish a book called 'The Secret Annex.' It remains to be seen whether I'll succeed, but my diary can serve as the basis
1944: Dr. Salomon Gluck, a French Army veteran who had been honored with the Croix de Guerre for bravery in facing the Nazis on the Maginot Line and a member of the Resistance was deported from Drancy aboard convoy 73. He was number 21530 and the convoy was unusual in that all of the almost 900 prisoners were men. The men did not know that they would meet an ignominious end.
1944: Allied forces begin their final assault on the German lines at Monte Casino, the seizure of which will open the Road to Rome with the concomitant saving of the lives of Italian Jews hiding in and around the eternal city.
1946: Fifty-eight of the 61 defendants in “The Mauthausen Camp Trials” were found sentenced to death today.
1949:Israel Turkey Israel
1950: In a speech given tonight at Madison Square Garden, Governor Dewey declared that Israel must be armed to defend its frontiers against aggression because a strong Israel "is the surest guarantee to peace in the Near East."
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that restitution negotiations were expected to begin shortly between the Austrian government and various Jewish Community representatives. The Israeli Cabinet decided to impose a "special unemployment relief tax" after the number of jobless reached 16,000. The Jerusalem Labor Exchange which had been closed for a week, following an attack by a mob of unemployed, reopened and offered forestation jobs to 30 workers. Over 550 workers were already employed in forestation projects carried out by Keren Kayemet, the Jewish National Fun. In the first decade of the 21st century people seeIsrael Israel
1983(28th of Iyar, 5743: Yom Yerushalayim
1997:IBM 's Deep Blue chess-playing supercomputer defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player. Kasparov claims to be half Armenian and half Jewish. Regardless of his chess playing skills, Kasparov literally embodies the victims of the two most famous cases of genocide in the 20th century.
1997: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interst to Jewish readers including “The American Century” by Norman F. Cantor.
1998:In his column for the Weekly Standard, Charles Krauthammer wrote:
2001: The Austin Chronicle reviews “Silent Heritage: The Sephardim and the Colonization of the Spanish North American Frontier, 1492-1600” by Richard Santos
2002: Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots open their brand new stadium, Gillette Stadium.
2003:The New York Timesfeatured books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The God of Old: Recovering Theological Imaginings” by James Kugel
2004: The Village Voice publishes “The Jesus Landing Pad” in which author Rick Perlstein describes the here-to-for undocumented role of certain Christian groups in forming the Bush Administration’s Middle East Policy. According to Perlstein, the American people “we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's topMiddle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel
2006: At The 92nd Street Y Joseph Telushkin delivers a lecture on his book "A Code of Jewish Ethics", followed by a book signing.
2006(13th of Iyar, 5766): Writer, actor and singer Yossi Banai, one of Israel's most beloved and admired artists passed away at the age of 74 after a serious illness. He is survived by his wife and three children, one of whom is Mashina soloist Yuval Banai. The winner of the 1998 Israel Prize, Banai was celebrated as an extraordinarily talented actor, singer and writer. In addition to performing on stage and screen, Banai wrote and staged numerous performances, including skits for five productions of the Hagashash Hahiver entertainment group, of which his brother, Gavri Banai, was a member. Banai started out his career as an actor at Habima, where he continued to perform for over 50 years. Over time, he performed in every major Israeli theater as well as in numerous other venues. He was also well known for his renditions of French songs by Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, and other French singers, adapted into Hebrew by Naomi Shemer. Banai was born in the Mahaneh Yehuda neighborhood ofJerusalem
2010: Andy Christie's The Liar Show featuring Ophira Eisenberg, Mark Katz, Michaela Murphy and Andy Christie is scheduled to appear at the DCJCC>
2010:Yom Yerushalayim, “For the sake of Jerusalem I will not be silent,” a night of activism on behalf of Israel is scheduled to take place at the Mt. Kisco Hebrew Congregation.
2010:A Prague court has recognized an artist's right to the image he designed of the Golem. Today the Prague Municipal court recognized the right of the daughter of the late sculptor Jaroslav Horejc, who created an image of a burly clay giant for the Czech film "The Emperor's Baker/The Baker's Emperor," to the image of the character, according to Radio Prague. According to legend, the Prague Golem was created by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the chief rabbi of Prague in the late 16th century, to defend the Prague ghetto from pogroms. Horejc's image was the first time that the Golem was shown as a giant, inhuman figure and not a human figure, according to the report.
2010: David Miliband completed his term of office as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs under Prime Minster Gordon Brown.
2011:Rachel Gordan is scheduled to lead a conversation, entitled “Post-World War II American Judaism: How Judaism Became an American Religion,” at the Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture in Boston, MA.
2011:The Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio, is scheduled to hold an informal 10-minute conversation on “Jozef Israëls, The Sewing School at Katwijk which provide more information about this masterpiece painted by the Jewish artist dubbed the 19th-century Rembrandt.
2011: Katherine Scharhon is scheduled to lead the first part of a two part series “A Taste of Sephardic Foods” in which participants willlearn to make (and eat) borekas, those divine filled pies and biscochos, the lovely simple cookies that can be sweet or savory and shaped for a variety of occasions in Seattle, Washington, home to the third largest Sephardic community in the United States.
2011:Hundreds of Jewish World War II veterans marched in the streets of Jerusalem today on the 66th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany.
2011: Following the attack on Moshe Cohen, director of Heichal Hatora, in Buenos Aires,Dr. Angel Schindel, vice president of the DAIA Jewish political umbrella organization, plans to file a lawsuit today in the federal justice department based on a violation of Argentina’s anti-discrimination law, which penalizes with jail time attacks motivated by racial or religious hatred. (As reported by JTA)
2011(7thof Iyar, 5771): Ninety-four year old Leo Kahn, the founder of Staples, passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/business/13kahn.html
2011: In “At 100, Still a Teacher and Quite a Character,” Joseph Berger describes the remarkable life of Bel Kaufman, the granddaughter of Shalom Aleichem who gained fame as an author in her own right.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/nyregion/bel-kaufman-at-100-still-a-teacher-and-a-jokester.html?ref=books
2011(7thof Iyar, 5771): Centenarian Maurice Goldhaber, the physicist who as Director of the Brookhaven National Laboratory oversaw experiments that led to 3 Nobel Prizes passed away today. (As reported by Kenneth Chang)http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/science/18goldhaber.html?_r=1
2012: Amos Kollek’s “Chronicles of a Chrisis” a documentary that includes an examination between the writer/director and his father who was Jerusalem’s most famous mayor finishes its opening week debut at the Quad Cinema in New York City.
2012:In the Western Galilee The Matte Asher and Maale Yosef regional councils are scheduled to host a jeep trip from Lake Monfort to the Tzuriel Crater, Alkosh Forest and Goren Park
2012: Israeli President Shimon underwent surgery for a hernia at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer.
2013: Israeli born pianist Shai Wosner is scheduled to perform at the Kenned Center Terrace Theatre as the Washington Jewish Music Festival comes to an end.
2013: Several thousand people marched around central Tel Aviv tonight to protest the budget plan presented earlier this week by Finance Minister Yair Lapid. (As reported by Ben Hartman)
2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced heavy criticism today after it was revealed he spent $127,000 (over 450,000 shekels) of taxpayers’ money having an El Al plane fitted out with a double-bed in an enclosed bedroom for his five-hour flight to London last month to attend the funeral of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
330: Roman Emperor Constantine I changes the name of the ancient city of Byzantium to Nova Roma (New Rome) as it becomes the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. The city will be known as Constantinople (the city of Constantine). The move is indicative of the growing power of Constantine, the emperor who redefinedrelations between Jews and Christains that exists into modern times. The name New Rome also helped to the schism between the Western (Catholic) Christians and their Eastern (Orthodox) co-religionists since the Christian leader of New Rome thought his powers should be equal to the Christian leader (the Pope) at old Rome.
1175: Thirteen assassins were foiled in their attempt to murder Saladin. Thirteen years later Saladin would drive the Crusaders from Jerusalem and allow the Jews to return. Maimonides provided medial services to the great Muslim leader.
1189: Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor set off on the Third Crusade. He would drown before he reached the Holy Land. On balance, Barbarossa’s reign was a positive one for the Jews since he viewed the Jews as his special subjects, which means he afforded them protection because they were a source of financial benefit to the monarch.
1421: At Styria , Austria
1415: Edict of Benedict XIII: Benedict XIII was enraged by the lack of voluntary conversions after the Christian "victory" at the Tortosa disputation. As a result, he banned the study of the Talmud in any form, instituted forced Christian sermons, and tried to restrict Jewish life completely.
1572(18th of Iyar, 5332): Moses Isserles, “the Rema” passed away today in Cracow, Poland.Moses Isserles, also spelled Moshe Isserlis, who had been born at Cracow in 1520, “was an eminent Ashkenazic rabbi, Talmudist, and posek, renowned for his fundamental work of Halachah (entitled ha-Mapah (lit., "the tablecloth"), an inline commentary on the Shulkhan Aruch ( "the set table"). His work opened up this Sephardic work to the Ashkenazim. “He is also well known for his Darkhei Moshe commentary on the Tur. Isserles is also referred to as the Rema, (or Remo, Rama) (רמ״א), the Hebrew acronym for Rabbi Moses Isserle.” [This brief entry cannot do justice to the life and work of this sage.]
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111847/jewish/Rabbi-Moshe-Isserles-The-Remo.htm
1610: Fifty-seven year old Father Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary living in China whose manuscripts described the existence of ten or twelve Jewish families in Kaifeng that may have been living there for five or six hundred years, passed away today.
1647: Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of New Netherland, the Dutch colonial settlement in present-day New York City. Seven years later, Stuyvesant will be the governor of New Amsterdam when the first Jews arrive in 1654. He will do everything in his power to keep the Jews from settling there and enjoying the full rights of citizenship.
1764: A letter written today from Empress Catherine II opened the way for limited settlement of Jews in Riga
1784: Birthdate of G.B. Depping, the German born French historian author of Les Juifs dans le moyen âge, essai historique sur leur état civil, commercial et littéraire a history of the Jews he wrote in response to a competition sponsored by the Royal Academy in 1821 to write a history describing the life of the Jews living in France during the Middle Ages.
1766: In Enfield, Middlesex, England Benjamin D’Israeli, “a Jewish merchant who had emigrated from Cento in 1784 and his second wife,Sarah Syprut de Gabay Villa Real” gave birth to author and “man of letters” Isaac D’Israeli, the father of the future Prime Minister Benjamin D’Israeli, the Earl of Beaconsfield.
1795(22nd of Iyar, 5555) Seventy-two year old Austrian bankerJoachim Edler von Popper who was “Court Jew” to the Habsburgs and who was the second Jew to be “ennobled” by the Emperor passed away today.
1836: Alexander Levi advertised in today’s issue of the Dubuque Visitor, one of Iowa’s first newspapers. Levi may have been the first Jew to settle Iowa. He settled in Dubuque, shortly after its founding, and played an active role in its commercial, civic and Jewish life until his death in 1893.
1838: Birthdate of Walter Goodman, British painter, illustrator and author who followed in the footsteps of his mother, Julia (nee Salaman) Goodman, who was a famed painter in her own right.
1847: Adolphus Simeon Solomons received a certificate of discharge from Third Regiment of the Washington Grays, which was part of the New York State Militia. Born in 1826, he had joined the Grays when he was 14 and was promoted to the rank of Sergeant five years later. After leaving the military, he would pursue a successful career in business and politics including playing an active role in the inaugurations of all the Presidents from Lincoln to McKinley. He would also serve in a number of important roles in Jewish communal affairs including serving as acting President of the Jewish Theological Seminary Association.
1852: In the House of Lords, the first reading of a bill designed to remove the disabilities imposed upon persons refusing to take the “oaths of abjuration.” Lord Lyndhurst cited the recent case of David Salomons, the Jew who had refused to take the standard oath and sought to be seated in the House of Commons nonetheless.
1853(Iyar 3): Rabbi Isaac Farhi, author of Marpe la-Ezem, passed away today.
1853: A theatre critic for the New York Times pained the performance of “The Merchant of Venice” at Wallack’s Theatre saying that “there is no delineation of internal passion; no metaphysical reading of the Jew’s revengeful soul…”
1858:
1860: Sir George Jessel, and Amelia Moses gave birth to British barrister and businessman Sir Charles James Jessel, 1st Baronet, Ladham House.
1863: Otto von Bismarck, Minister President of Prussia, initiated written correspondence with socialist and reform leader Ferdinand Lassalle. (Lassalle was Jewish; Bismarck was not)
1865: General Jeremiah Cutler Sullivan resigned from the Union Army. In 1862, Sullivan was serving under General Grant in Tennessee. He “refused to execute Grant’s Order 11 on the grounds that he thought he was an officer of the army and not of a church.” Sarna 20
1867: The independence of Luxembourg which was originally granted in 1839 is finally recognized by all of the European great powers including Prussia and France. The Grand Duchy’s first rabbi had served from 1843 until 1866 when
1869(1st of Sivan, 5629): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1869: In New York City, Shaaray Tefila (Gates of Prayer) dedicated its new sanctuary located on 44thStreet, between Broadway and 6th Avenue. During the ceremony Leopold Cohn, chairman of the Building Committee gave the keys for the building to Barnet Solomon, the President of the Congregation. Rabbi Samuel Isaacs officiated at the impressive ceremony. The building, which cost $125,000 is smaller than Temple Emanu-El but compares favorably to it in terms of richness and architectural quality.
1869: Birthdate of Henrich Lowe, a German born Zionist who was known as a journalist, linguist and student of folklore.
1878: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association met for the first time in their new facility at 110 West 42ndStreet in New York City. Most of the members were in attendance at this all male affair. Mayor Ely was the guest of honor. I.S. Isaacs, the association’s president, opening remarks included a brief history of the association. The association, which was formed in 1874, has almost a thousand members and boasts a healthy back account. Rabbis Gottheil, Henry Jacobs and H.B. Mendez all addressed the group briefly.
1879: An article published today sub-titled “The Old Pessimists” notes that while there was a strongly pessimistic tone in a few books of the Bible – Job and Ecclesiastes - the “national religion of the Hebrews was optimistic in a high degree.” This stands in stark contrast to the deeply pessimistic religious utterances and literature of the ancient of the Greeks and the Romans While the Jews said “The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord” they were declaring that “the land and the sea are full of evils”
1879: “Assyrian and Biblical History” published today described unresolved conflicts in the dating used by these two ancient civilizations. While both seem to agree as to the date of the eclipse that took place in the 8th century BCE, there is disagreement for the dates of subsequent events. For example, the Assyrians say that the invasion of Judea took place in 701 BCE while the Jewish version would have set the date at 713 BCE. Some researches indicate that the discrepancies are the result of a propensity among Assyrian monarchs who had a propensity for not reporting defeats and unsuccessful campaigns. This was left to their successors.
1879: Samuel Gobat, who had been serving as the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem since 1846, passed away. Unlike his predecessor, Gobat refrained from trying to convert Jews and Moslems and worked among Christians. He and his wife who had also died while living in Jerusalem are buried in Mount Zion Cemetery.
1879(18th of Iyar, 5639): Lag B'Omer
1879(18th of Iyar, 5639): Bernhard Wolff passed away today in Berlin. Born in 1811, he was editor of the Vossische Zeitung, founder of the National Zeitung and founder of Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau one of the first press agencies in Europe and one of the three great European telegraph monopolies until the World War II-era, the other two being the English Reuters and the French Havas. All three of these famous wire-services had a Jewish connection. The second son of a Jewish banker, Wolff lived and died in Berlin, Brandenburg.
1881:Birthdate of Theodore von Kármán the Hungarian-American engineer and physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics. He is responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics, notably his work on supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization.
1881: Herzl fights his only duel in the fraternity Albia.
1881: As a wave of pogroms race across Russia Czar Alexander III receives a delegation of Jews led by Baron Horace de Gunzburg. He assures them that the government is opposed to the violence which he blames on socialists and elements following the anti-Christ.
1884: In Bucharest, Zara and Leon Feinsohn gave birth to Reba Fesinsohn who gained fame as the American soprano and recording artist, Alma Gluck.
1886(6 Iyar, 5646): Rabbi Isidor Kalish passed away
1886(6 Iyar, 5646): Rabbi James Koppel Gutheim passed away today in New Orleans. Born in Westphalia, Germany, he came to the United States in 1843 and became active in the Cincinnati (Ohio) Jewish community, the home of Reform Judaism in the United States. Guttheim moved to New Orleans where he served as Rabbi at Shangarai Chesed. He left the Crescent City after a dispute about a memorial to the late Judah Touro and his refusal to take the Oath of Allegiance to the Union during the Civil War. After serving as rabbi to congregations in Montgomery, Alabama and Columbus, GA, he returned to New Orleans where he served as rabbi at Temple Sinai until his death.
1887: Birthdate of Paul Wittgenstein. The Austrian-born pianist lost his right arm fighting for Austria during World War I. After the war he gained fame for arranging and playing numerous pieces with his left hand. After fleeing the Nazis during the 1930’s he came to the United States where he became a citizen and continued his career.
1888: Birthdate of Irving Berlin. Born Isadore Balin in Temum Siberia , Berlin
1889:Zadoc Kahn the Chief Rabbi of France who helped to found Société des Études Juives in 1879 delivered an address to entitled "La Révolution Française et le Judaïsme" to help mark the centenary of the French Revolution.
1890: It was reported today that former President Grover Cleveland and his wife have accepted an invitation to attend the upcoming Strawberry Festival, a fund-raiser sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1890: Charles Bernheim was re-elected as President during the annual meeting of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews which began at 10 o’clock this morning.
1890: “Barons Alphonse and Nathaniel Rothschild have warned Emperor Franz Joseph and …the Minister of the Interior, that if oppression of the Jews is continued at Vienna, they will be forced to transfer their business” to Budapest. They claim that the leadings banks will follow them in moving their business.
1891: A fire, which was allegedly set by a Jewish immigrant from Poland name Solomon Crizar, broke out at 222 Johnson Avenue in Brooklyn.
1891: Birthdate of Henry Morgenthau Jr. Morgenthau was a neighbor of FDR. It was this friendship rather than his financial wizardry that led to his appointment as US Germany
1892(14thof Iyar, 5652): Pesach Sheini
1892(14thof Iyar, 5652): Yosef Dov Soloveitchik the great-grandson of Rabbi Chaim Volozhin and author of Beis Halevi passed away today.
1892: Leaders of several congregations met tonight to discuss the possibility of establishing a school that would train men and women to serve as teachers at Jewish Sunday Schools.
1892: “Vaccination Day” published today described the annual springtime program designed to provide vaccination for hundreds of Jewish, Polish and Italian children that takes place at the Health Office on Mulberry Street.
1895: The Young Men’s Hebrew Association hosted a strawberry festival to mark the end of this season’s programs of study and entertainment.
1895: Several Polish Jews were arrested in Kingston, NY on charges of being counterfeiters.
1898: Rabbi Leucht of Newark, NJ, officiated at the wedding of Moses Schloss and Miss Minnie Krieger of Philadelphia. Schloss is the manager of S. Scheurer & Co of Plainfield, NJ.
1899: “De Hirsch Memorial Service” published today described the services held at Temple Emanu-El in honor of the late Baroness Clara de-Hirsch-Gereuth, the widow of the late Baron Hirsch. Among those who address the packed sanctuary were Myer S Isaacs, President of the Baron de Hirsch Fund and William Rhinelander Stewart, President of the State Board of Charities. The service began with Mendelssohn’s Funeral March and ended with a recitation of the Kaddish led by Rabbi William Sparger and a benediction by Rabbi De Sola Menes
1901: Birthdate of Rosalie Beatrice Scherzer who gained fame as the poet Rose Auslander.
1902(4thof Iyar, 5662): Asher Isaac Myer, the managing editor of the Jewish Chronicle passed away today.
1903: The El-Arish project fails. Herzl writes in his diary: "I thought the Sinai plan was such a sure thing that I no longer wanted to buy a family vault in the Döbling cemetery, where my father is provisionally laid to rest. Now I consider the affair so wrecked that I have already been to the district court and am acquiring vault No. 28."
1911: Conservative Young Turks blame Zionists for desecration of the Mosque of Omar.
1912: Birthdate of Phil Silvers. This Brooklyn born comedian appeared in vaudeville and films. But his real fame rests on his portrayal of Sgt. Ernie Bilko, the All-American military con artists with the heart of gold, in the popular sit-com called the Phil Silvers Show.
1914(15thof Iyar, 5674): Sixty-one year old Daniel De Leon, the native of Curacao who became a champion of the rights of the working man and leader of the Socialist Labor Party of America passed away today.
1917: Birthdate of Irving Jay Cohen “who was known as King Cupid of the Catskills for his canny ability to seat just the right nice Jewish boy next to just the right nice Jewish girl during his half-century as the maître d’ of the Concord Hotel…” (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1919: The first Estonian Congress of Jewish congregations held its opening session today. The organization was going to have deal with the new realities of living in an independent Estonia that was no longer part of the old Czarist Russian Empire or its Bolshevik successor.
1921: Tel Aviv became the first all-Jewish municipality under the Mandatory Government.
1922: Birthdate of Tawfik Toubi a Christian Arab politician and who was elected to the Knesset in 1949 when Israel held its first parliamentary elections. Toubi would serve until he retired in 1991. His death in 2011 marked the end of an era since he was the last surviving member of Israel’s First Knesset.
1924: The first conference of the General Zionist movement begins in Jerusalem Palestine
1924: Birthdate of Leonard Garment who served as White House Counsel during the Watergate Scandal.
1924: Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merge their companies to form Mercedes-Benz. The “Mercedes” in Mercedes Benz comes from the daughter of Jewish businessman Emil Jellinek who was known as Mercedes.
1925: In Cleveland, Ohio, Betty and Ben Glasser gave birth to William Glasser, the psychiatrist who was also a successful author on books about mental health.
1926: According to figures released today, 1,650 Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine during the month of April
1927: Birthdate of Mort Sahl. Born in Montréal Canada San Francisco
1927: A cross-section of thirty six leaders in the infant movie industry founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
1928: Morris “Moshe” Baran and his family arrived in the United States. Amongst the three children in the family was Paul Baran, who as an engineer working at RAND Corporation “outlined the basic idea for what has become the Internet.
1928: Birthdate of Joe Schlesinger the Austrian born refugee from Nazi Europe who gained fame as a Canadian television journalist and author.
1928: Birthdate Yaacov Agam. Israeli-born Yaacov Agam was educated at the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem Paris Tel Aviv Museum Paris Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam Museum of Modern Art New York Washington , D.C.
1929: Birthdate of Samuel Charles Cohn. This native of Altoona, PA, would gain fame as Sam Cohn “the powerful talent broker” who founded International Creative Management (ICM) and represented a panoply of top talent including Woody Allen, Robin Williams, Arthur Miller, E.L. Doctorow and Whoopi Goldberg to name but a few. He died in May of 2009 at the age of 79. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1930: A Zionist youth group gathered in Berehovo, Carpatho-Russia, Czechoslovakia today.
1932: During today’s session of the annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the assembly’s President, Rabbi Israel Levinthal of Brooklyn, delivered his annual address in which he said many members were suffering financially and serious thought needed to be given to establishing a permanent relief fund. As further proof of the impact of the Great Depression on Jews and Jewish organization, the seminary is expanding its placement service to help its graduates find work.
1932: Professor Louis Finkelstein, President of JTS, Sol M. Stroock, Chairman of the JTS Board of Directors, Professor Louis Ginzberg, and Rabbi Israel Goldstein of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, were among those who spoke at tonight’s dinner at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
1934(26th of Iyar, 5694): Seventy-five year old Lazăr Şăineanu “a Romanian-born philologist, linguist, folklorist and cultural historian: who was “a specialist in Oriental and Romance studies, as well as a Hebraist and a Germanist, known for his contribution to Yiddish and Romanian philology” passed away today in Paris.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that Hanita beat off another heavy terrorist attack. Arab terrorist gangs continued to enter Arab villages demanding ransom money and valuables. Those villagers who refused such demands were usually kidnapped and their bodies were later found in the neighboring fields. A forest neighboring the Tiberias Hot Springs was set on fire. The Dutch border was closed to refugees after about 2,000 Austrian and 15,000 German Jews succeeded to get in. Holland Europe they were condemned because they were permanent outsiders even though they desperately tried to fit into the social fabric of the various nations in which they lived. In Palestine
1939: Jews are prohibited from working in travel agencies by Nazi Germany
1939: Premiere of crime drama “Blind Alley” directed by Charles Vidor.
1941: In the
1941: During the Blitz, The Great Synagogue on Dukes Place in London is destroyed in an air raid.
1942: Alter Dworetsky, a member of the Jewish Council at Diatlovo, Belorussia, escapes to a nearby forest, only to be shot to death by Soviet partisans after refusing to hand over his pistol.
1942: Damon Runyon published “Sam Dreben’s Spirit Marches On” a column that uses the career of this Jewish career soldier who won the Distinguished Service Cross to dispel notions of Jewish cowardliness and lack of patriotism. The column was written “on the occasion of the posthumous conferring of the DSC on Lt. Henry D. Mark of Los Angeles. (As reported by Abraham Bloch)
1942: The Biltmore Program is adopted in an emergency meeting (at the Biltmore Hotel in
1942: “Go Down Moses,” the collection of short stories by William Faulkner is published today. The title is based on the spiritual that compares the slavery experience of African-Americans in the United States with the enslavement of the Jews by Pharoah.
1944:HMCS Beauharnois, a Canadian corvette, was launched today. She would be acquired by the Israelis and was renamed Josiah Wedgwood, in honor of Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, the British M.P. who wanted to remove the obstacles to Jewish immigration to Palestine and opposed the British appeasement of Hitler during the 1930’s.
1944: Anne Frank writes in her diary,"I'd like to publish a book called 'The Secret Annex.' It remains to be seen whether I'll succeed, but my diary can serve as the basis
1944: Dr. Salomon Gluck, a French Army veteran who had been honored with the Croix de Guerre for bravery in facing the Nazis on the Maginot Line and a member of the Resistance was deported from Drancy aboard convoy 73. He was number 21530 and the convoy was unusual in that all of the almost 900 prisoners were men. The men did not know that they would meet an ignominious end.
1944: Allied forces begin their final assault on the German lines at Monte Casino, the seizure of which will open the Road to Rome with the concomitant saving of the lives of Italian Jews hiding in and around the eternal city.
1946: Fifty-eight of the 61 defendants in “The Mauthausen Camp Trials” were found sentenced to death today.
1948: Haganah took control of the port of Haifa Haifa Israel Lebanon Nazareth Haifa Haifa
1949:
1950: In a speech given tonight at Madison Square Garden, Governor Dewey declared that Israel must be armed to defend its frontiers against aggression because a strong Israel "is the surest guarantee to peace in the Near East."
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that restitution negotiations were expected to begin shortly between the Austrian government and various Jewish Community representatives. The Israeli Cabinet decided to impose a "special unemployment relief tax" after the number of jobless reached 16,000. The Jerusalem Labor Exchange which had been closed for a week, following an attack by a mob of unemployed, reopened and offered forestation jobs to 30 workers. Over 550 workers were already employed in forestation projects carried out by Keren Kayemet, the Jewish National Fun. In the first decade of the 21st century people see
1955: Israel Gaza Gaza Egypt Israel Israel Israel Gaza Israel Israel Gaza
1960: Adolf Eichmann, charged with the implementation of the "final solution", was captured in Buenos Aires , Argentina Hungary
1961: President John F. Kennedy appointed Walworth Barbour as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
1963(17th of Iyar, 5723): Seventy-four year old Dr. Herbert S. Gasser, winner of the 1944 Nobel Prize for Medicine passed away tonight in New York City.
1966(21stof Iyar, 5726): Sixty year old “Monument Man” James Joseph Rorimer, a Jew from Cleveland who was a director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he helped create the Cloisters passed away today after suffering a heart attack. (For more see Survival: The Salvage and Protection of Art in War by James Joseph Rorimer http://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes/the-monuments-men/rorimer-lt.-cdr.-james-j.http://chronicle.augusta.com/life/2014-02-08/look-real-man-portrayed-monuments-men
1967: Abba Eban and his wife tour Israel’s northern border area with General David Elazar, commander of the region.
1969: Sir Harry Charles Luke who served as assistant Governor of Jerusalem in 1921 and was a member of the Haycraft Commission that investigated the May riots in Jaffa and who served as acting High Commissioner to the Government of Palestine for six months during 1928 passed away today
1969: “Singapore officially recognized the State of Israel and diplomatic relations were established between the two countries.” (As reported by JewishVirtualLibrary)
1973: Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg has his charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times dismissed. Contrary to a popular misconception, Ellsberg was not Jewish. His parents had been Jewish but they raised their son as a Christian Scientist. However, the following list of people involved with the Pentagon Papers reads like a who’s-who of Jews during the 1970’s. How many of these names ring a bell? “To name just a few, we have Leslie Gelb, the chief author of the Pentagon Papers; Henry Kissinger, Nixon's national security advisor and Ellsberg's former Harvard colleague; Leonard Weinglass and William Kunstler, two of Ellsberg's attorneys; Max Frankel and Arthur O. Sulzberger of The New York Times which first published the secret papers; Sidney Zion, the maverick reporter who named Ellsberg as the leaker; Seymour Hirsh, the investigative journalist and one of Ellsberg's few close friends; Barbra Streisand, who sang to raise money for Ellsberg's legal defense fund; Louis Marx, the toy tycoon and Ellsberg's father-in- law; Bernard Barker, the Watergate burglar; Noam Chomsky, the hard-Left Ellsberg defender; and Ellsberg's countless Jewish colleagues and acquaintances at Harvard, at the RAND Corporation, in the government and in the anti-Vietnam War movement.”
1975: Israel Israel
1975: Saboteurs derailed a freight train near Jerusalem.
1978(4th of Iyar, 5738): Yom HaAtzma'ut
1982(18th of Iyar, 5742): Lag B’Omer
1982: The initial one-hour installment of ‘‘Oppenheimer,'' a seven-part dramatized biography of the American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer; it stars Sam Waterston as ''the father of the atomic bomb'' will be broadcast tonight as part of the ''American Playhouse'' series. (As reported by Michael Billington)
1983(28th of Iyar, 5743: Yom Yerushalayim
1984: Release date for “The Natural,” the cinematic treatment of Bernard Malamud’s 1952 novel of the same name directed by Berry Levinson.
1985: Amy Eilberg was ordained today by the Jewish Theological Seminary making her the first female rabbi in the Conservative Movement.
1986:Anatoly B. Shcharansky was the featured “speaker at the annual Solidarity Sunday for Soviet Jewry, a rally at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Manhattan.” Sharansky, who has taken the Hebrew name of Natan was released from a Soviet prison in February thanks to a massive, long-term campaign led by his wife Avital. ''My K.G.B. interrogators, my prison guards, they tried to convince me that I was alone, powerless in their hands,'' Mr. Shcharansky told the crowd, some of whom had marched to the plaza near the United Nations along a parade route that began at Fifth Avenue and 64th Street. The police estimated the audience at 300,000. 'All of You Were With Me' ''But I knew I was never alone,'' he added. ''I knew my wife, my people and all of you were with me. They tried their best to find a place where I was isolated. But all the resources of a superpower cannot isolate a man who hears the voice of freedom, a voice I heard from the very chamber of my soul.'' (As reported by Jane Gross)
1987: Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II. In 1941, Barbie was posted to the Bureau of Jewish Affairs and sent to Amsterdam and later, in May 1942, to Lyon - there, he earned the sobriquet "Butcher of Lyon" as head of the local Gestapo. He was accused of a number of crimes, including the capture and deportation of forty-four Jewish children hidden in the village of Izieu and the torturing to death of Jean Moulin, the highest ranking member of the French Resistance ever captured. All told, the deportation of 7,500 people, 4,342 murders, and the arrest and torture of 14,311 resistance fighters were in some way attributed to his actions or commands. For several years after the war, Barbie was protected by British and American intelligence agencies because they thought he could provide information to help fight the Cold War. In the end, Barbie would be found guilty and die in prison from cancer of the pancreas.
1987: Timemagazine published “Essay: Was He Normal? Human? Poor Humanity” by Elie Wiesel.
1991: “Amen,” a sitcom created by Ed Weinberger that included two years of Elsa Raven playing “Inga” was broadcast on NBC for the last time.
1993: Yithak Rabin replaced Aryeh Deri as Minister of Internal Affairs.
1994(1stof Sivan, 5754): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1994(1stof Sivan, 5754): Violinist Leonard Friedman passed away. Friedman was born in London East End , the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He was the father of another generation of performers, Sonia, Maria and Richard Friedman. Richard Friedman is the second generation of violinists in the family.
1997:
1997: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interst to Jewish readers including “The American Century” by Norman F. Cantor.
1998:In his column for the Weekly Standard, Charles Krauthammer wrote:
"Israel is the very embodiment of Jewish continuity: It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Davidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one that today advertises ice cream at the corner candy store."
2001: The Austin Chronicle reviews “Silent Heritage: The Sephardim and the Colonization of the Spanish North American Frontier, 1492-1600” by Richard Santos
2002: Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots open their brand new stadium, Gillette Stadium.
2003:The New York Timesfeatured books by Jewish writers and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The God of Old: Recovering Theological Imaginings” by James Kugel
2004: The Village Voice publishes “The Jesus Landing Pad” in which author Rick Perlstein describes the here-to-for undocumented role of certain Christian groups in forming the Bush Administration’s Middle East Policy. According to Perlstein, the American people “we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top
2005: Observance of יום הזכרון לחללי מערכות ישראל - ד'באייר Yom Hazikaron - Israel Remembrance Day or Israel Fallen Soldiers Remembrance Day. This is a day to remember all those who have fallen in the defense of the Jewish homeland including those who have died at the hand of terrorist. This national day of remembrance always comes one day before Israel Independence Day, which is the fifth of Iyar. However, according to Israeli law, when the fifth of Iyar falls on a Friday or Saturday, as is the case in 2005, the observance of Independence Day is always moved to Thursday. This means that Yom Hazikaron is moved to Wednesday.
2006: At The 92nd Street Y Joseph Telushkin delivers a lecture on his book "A Code of Jewish Ethics", followed by a book signing.
2006: According to “Hevesi's Advice Stirs Questions On the Coast” published in the New York Sun, New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi “faced a conflict of interest allegation in relation to a private capital fund named ‘Markstone’".
2006(13th of Iyar, 5766): Writer, actor and singer Yossi Banai, one of Israel's most beloved and admired artists passed away at the age of 74 after a serious illness. He is survived by his wife and three children, one of whom is Mashina soloist Yuval Banai. The winner of the 1998 Israel Prize, Banai was celebrated as an extraordinarily talented actor, singer and writer. In addition to performing on stage and screen, Banai wrote and staged numerous performances, including skits for five productions of the Hagashash Hahiver entertainment group, of which his brother, Gavri Banai, was a member. Banai started out his career as an actor at Habima, where he continued to perform for over 50 years. Over time, he performed in every major Israeli theater as well as in numerous other venues. He was also well known for his renditions of French songs by Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, and other French singers, adapted into Hebrew by Naomi Shemer. Banai was born in the Mahaneh Yehuda neighborhood of
2007:Jennifer Bleyer is the featured speaker at the Shabbat dinner sponsored by the JCC of Manhattan. “Jennifer is a journalist who founded Heeb Magazine, and became its first editor and publisher. She is currently writing for the City section of The New York Times, and has written about her own personal Jewish journey in Yentl's Revengeand The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt.
2007: In Postville , Iowa United States
2007(23rd of Iyar, 5767): Robert Gordon, the blacklisted writer who was the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia passed away. One of his best known quality screen efforts was 55 Days at Peking. During his “black list” period, Gordon served as one of the writers on “Hellcats of the Navy” starring Ronald Reagan and his future wife, Nancy Davis
2008: Leonard Cohen began his first tour in 15 years at Fredericton, New Brunswick.
2008: As part of Israel Independence Celebrations, The First International Writers Festival opens in Mishkenot Sha'ananim in Jerusalem
2008: “One of a Kind,” a play that Yossi Vassa co-wrote with Shai Ben Attar about his family’s flight from Ethiopia New York City
2008: The Sunday New York Times section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of Jewish interest including How I Learned Geography, a children’s book written and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz, Blood Matters: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene by Masha Gessen, Nixonland by Rick Perlstein, The Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer, The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journalby Lily Koppeland Peace by Richard Bausch of which the reviewer writes, “ One senses some inherited autobiography here. Robert Marson, the novel’s central character is the grandson of German immigrants; his comrade, Asch, is the grandson of a German Jew who fought for the Kaiser in World War I. Bausch has dedicated the book to a father who “served bravely in Africa , Sicily Italy
2008: The Washington Post book section features reviews of Reflections of a Wine Merchant by Neal I. Rosenthal and Audition: A Memoir by Barbara Walters.
2009: Rabbi Denise Eger assumes the leadership of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. She is the first woman and the firs lesbian to head this organization.
2009:The Pope arrives in Israel for a four-day stay, which will include visits to the Palestinian Authority and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as well as meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, who will be his official host.
2009: Sports Illustrated reports on the recent death of Salamo Arouch, the Greek born Jewish boxer who survived Auschwitz by winning fights staged by the camp guards. After the war, he moved to Palestine where he fought in the War of Independence. He was 86 when he died.
2009: Final performance of “The Man That Got Away: After Ira George” at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
2010: Andy Christie's The Liar Show featuring Ophira Eisenberg, Mark Katz, Michaela Murphy and Andy Christie is scheduled to appear at the DCJCC>
2010:Yom Yerushalayim, “For the sake of Jerusalem I will not be silent,” a night of activism on behalf of Israel is scheduled to take place at the Mt. Kisco Hebrew Congregation.
2010:A Prague court has recognized an artist's right to the image he designed of the Golem. Today the Prague Municipal court recognized the right of the daughter of the late sculptor Jaroslav Horejc, who created an image of a burly clay giant for the Czech film "The Emperor's Baker/The Baker's Emperor," to the image of the character, according to Radio Prague. According to legend, the Prague Golem was created by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the chief rabbi of Prague in the late 16th century, to defend the Prague ghetto from pogroms. Horejc's image was the first time that the Golem was shown as a giant, inhuman figure and not a human figure, according to the report.
2010: David Miliband completed his term of office as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs under Prime Minster Gordon Brown.
2011:Rachel Gordan is scheduled to lead a conversation, entitled “Post-World War II American Judaism: How Judaism Became an American Religion,” at the Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture in Boston, MA.
2011:The Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio, is scheduled to hold an informal 10-minute conversation on “Jozef Israëls, The Sewing School at Katwijk which provide more information about this masterpiece painted by the Jewish artist dubbed the 19th-century Rembrandt.
2011: Katherine Scharhon is scheduled to lead the first part of a two part series “A Taste of Sephardic Foods” in which participants willlearn to make (and eat) borekas, those divine filled pies and biscochos, the lovely simple cookies that can be sweet or savory and shaped for a variety of occasions in Seattle, Washington, home to the third largest Sephardic community in the United States.
2011:Hundreds of Jewish World War II veterans marched in the streets of Jerusalem today on the 66th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany.
2011: Following the attack on Moshe Cohen, director of Heichal Hatora, in Buenos Aires,Dr. Angel Schindel, vice president of the DAIA Jewish political umbrella organization, plans to file a lawsuit today in the federal justice department based on a violation of Argentina’s anti-discrimination law, which penalizes with jail time attacks motivated by racial or religious hatred. (As reported by JTA)
2011(7thof Iyar, 5771): Ninety-four year old Leo Kahn, the founder of Staples, passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/business/13kahn.html
2011: In “At 100, Still a Teacher and Quite a Character,” Joseph Berger describes the remarkable life of Bel Kaufman, the granddaughter of Shalom Aleichem who gained fame as an author in her own right.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/nyregion/bel-kaufman-at-100-still-a-teacher-and-a-jokester.html?ref=books
2011(7thof Iyar, 5771): Centenarian Maurice Goldhaber, the physicist who as Director of the Brookhaven National Laboratory oversaw experiments that led to 3 Nobel Prizes passed away today. (As reported by Kenneth Chang)http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/science/18goldhaber.html?_r=1
2012: Amos Kollek’s “Chronicles of a Chrisis” a documentary that includes an examination between the writer/director and his father who was Jerusalem’s most famous mayor finishes its opening week debut at the Quad Cinema in New York City.
2012:In the Western Galilee The Matte Asher and Maale Yosef regional councils are scheduled to host a jeep trip from Lake Monfort to the Tzuriel Crater, Alkosh Forest and Goren Park
2012: Israeli President Shimon underwent surgery for a hernia at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer.
2013: Israeli born pianist Shai Wosner is scheduled to perform at the Kenned Center Terrace Theatre as the Washington Jewish Music Festival comes to an end.
2013: Several thousand people marched around central Tel Aviv tonight to protest the budget plan presented earlier this week by Finance Minister Yair Lapid. (As reported by Ben Hartman)
2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced heavy criticism today after it was revealed he spent $127,000 (over 450,000 shekels) of taxpayers’ money having an El Al plane fitted out with a double-bed in an enclosed bedroom for his five-hour flight to London last month to attend the funeral of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Exodus: A Memoir by Deborah Feldman and Daughter of the King by Sandra Lansky (daughter of Myer Lansky) and William Stadiem.
2014: The 22nd annual Toronto Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.
2014: The National Center for Jewish Film’s 17th annual film festival is scheduled to come to an end.