August 18
1201: Founding of Riga, capital of modern day Latvia. The first Jews appeared in Riga three centuries later and despite Czars, Nazis and Commissars continue to live in the city to this day.
1227: Genghis Khan dies. According to Arthur Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe, Genghis Khan wiped out the Khazar Empire.
1307: Jaime II (James) of Majorca expelled the Jews from the provinces of Rousillon and Montpellier. Many escaped to Barcelona where they were welcomed.
1393: King John I, in an effort to prevent "backsliding" by converted Jews, prohibited them from living in the same quarter or even eating together.
1503: The Papacy of Alexander VI known in history as the most profligate of all the popes who “allowed the exiles from Spain to settle in his states, and whose leniency toward the Jews “was prompted by his greed” came to an end today.
1533: The Queen of Poland granted the Jews of Pinsk all the rights already granted to the Jews of Lithuania.
1559: The Papacy of Paul IV, who issued “Cum Nimis Absurdum”, the Bull that order the creation of the Jewish Ghetto in Rome came to an end today.
1765(1st of Elul, 5525): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1765: Samuel Levy Maduro, son of Moses Levy Maduro married Leah Cohen Peixotto in Curacao
1615: Birthdate English lawyer John Sadler “the Hebraist, politician and master of Magdalene College who “boldly championed the cause of the Jews in his “Rights of the Kingdom” published in 1649.
1670: A church called the Leopoldskirche was dedicated today in Vienna. The church had been a synagogue, but it was no longer used as such because the Jews had all been expelled from the Upper and Lower Austria.
1771: Jacob Pinto, the son of Abraham and Sarah Pinto and his second wife Abigail gave birth to Samuel Pinto
1775: The Spanish established a presidio (fort) and the town came to be called Tucson, Arizona. The first openly Jewish settlers did not arrive in Tucson until the 18th century. They included Nathan Appel, a noted merchant who served as a delegate to the first Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1863 and Chief of the Tucson Police, William Zeckendorf, the Tucson merchant who was the grandfather of the famous real estate magnate and the brewer Alex Levin, founder of Levin’s Park, the three-acre entertainment center that was the site of every important social and communal event in Tucson during Arizona’s territorial days. Country Singer Linda Ronstadt is one of Levin’s descendants.
1778: Richea Hart and Abraham Mendes Seixas who were married at Charleston in 1777 gave birth Isaac Mendes Seixas, the husband of Abigail Valencia and the father of Abraham, Sarah, Benjamin and Caroline Seixas.
1790: George Washington wrote a letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, RI.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-0135
1790(8thof Elul, 5550): Sarah De La Motta, the wife of Isaac De La Motta and the mother of Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Moses, Emanuel and Rachel De La Motta passed away today.
1792: The 6th Duke of Beford and his wife gave birth John Russell, the first Earl Russell, the British Prime Minister who supported legislation removing the “disabilities of Jews.
1793: Aaron Barrow married Rosetta Benjamin at the Great Synagogue today.
1813: Nathan Phillips married Adolphus Esther at the Great Synagogue today.
1815: Twenty-five year old Meno Burg who “for a long time would be the only Jewish Prussian staff officer” was promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant of Artillery shortly after which he became “a company officer in the First Artillery Brigade at Gdansk.
1822(1st of Elul, 5582): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1822: Lipman Myers married Rebecca Mordecai at the Hambro Synagogue today.
1822(1st of Elul, 5582): Joshua Zeitlin passed away. Born in 1742, he “was a Russian rabbinical scholar and philanthropist. He was a pupil of the Talmudist Rabbi Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg who was the author of Sha'agat Aryeh; and, being an expert in political economy, he stood in close relations with Prince Potemkin, the favorite of Catherine II. During the Turko-Russian war Zeitlin furnished the Russian army with various supplies, and managed that business so cleverly that he was afterward appointed imperial court councilor. On retiring from business in civil rank of Court Counsellor, Zeitlin resided on his estate Ustzia, where he was consulted by the rabbis with regard to rabbinical questions. He rendered pecuniary assistance to many Talmudists and scholars, and supported a magnificent beit midrash, in which many Jewish scholars were provided with all the necessaries of life, so that they could pursue their vocations without worries of any kind. Among the scholars who benefited by his generosity: Rabbi Nahum, author of Tosafot Bikkurim; Mendel Lepin, author of Cheshbon ha-Nefesh; and the physician Baruch Schick. Zeitlin was the author of annotations to the Sefer Mitzwot Katan, printed with the text (Kopys, 1820), and supplemented by some of his responsa.”
1823: Birthdate of Phoebe Yates Levy Pember. During the Civil War, Pember served as the chief matron of Richmond’s Chimborazo Hospital. After the War, she wrote her memoirs, which were published as A Southern Woman's Story: Life in Confederate Richmond, in 1879. This book, which details her daily life through anecdotes of the war years, remains one of the best sources for understanding the experiences and ideas of upper-class Southern Jewish women before and during the Civil War. Following the War, Pember maintained her elite social status, and traveled extensively through the U.S. and Europe. She died on
http://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/18/1823/phoebe-yates-levy-pember
1824: Lewis Lazarus married Clara Raphael at the Western Synagogue today.
1826: Birthdate of William Isaac Wolf (Ritter von Gutman) who founded the largest coal company in the Austro-Hungarian empires and served as the President of the Jewish Community of Vienna from 1891 through 1892.
1828: Birthdate of Paris born “pianist, organist, music teacher and composer Ernest Cahen.
1830: Birthdate of Franz Joseph I, the penultimate Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During his long reign, for whatever reason or reason(s), Franz Joseph improved the conditions of his Jewish subjects to the point that “three years after he celebrated his Jubilee the Jewish Chronicles’ Vienna correspondent wrote “the Jews owe a great deal to their Emperor Franz Joseph” and that they do not blame him for any “retrogressive measures” taken against them. At the same Franz Joseph’s enemies derisively referred to him as the “Judenkaiser.”
1830: Birthdate of Henry Strauss, the native of Alsac who moved to Jackson, Mississippi before the Civil War.
1834: Birthdate of department store owner, Marshall Field. Marshall Field was not Jewish but his partner Levi Ziegler Leiter was. In 1865 Field and Leiter bought a dry goods store which they named Field and Leiter. They built and re-built the signature State Street Store. When Leiter retired, the company was renamed Marshall Field and Company.
1835: Birthdate of Amalia Nathansohn Freud, the mother of Sigmund Freud.
1838(27th of Av, 5598): Parashat Re’eh
1838(27th of Av, 5598): Rachel Cohen, the daughter of Jacob Raphael Cohen and husband of Isaac Lyons whom she married in 1803 passed away today in Columbia,SC.
1838: Birthdate of Emil Ganz a Civil War veteran who went West and became a successful businessman and three-time mayor of Phoenix, Arizona.
1838: In Calcutta, R.E. Belilios and his wife gave birth to Regina Sassoon who became Regina Belilos after she married R.E. Belilios of Aleppo.
1839: Birthdate of Edward Lee the “member of the Corporation of the City London” starting in 1886 who chaired the Law and City Courts Committee and the Coal, Corn and Finance Committee and who was named “Chief Commoner of the City Lands Committee” in 1895.
1839: Henry Joel married Sarah Simmons at the Great Synagogue today.
1841: In New York City, Moses Lazarus and Esther Lydia Mary Lazarus, the daughter of Isaac Mendes Seixas Nathan and Sarah Mendes Nathan gave birth to Isaiah Lazarus
1843: Birthdate of Moritz Brasch, the native of Prussia who gained fame as a philosopher and essayist.
1845(15thof Av, 5605): Tu B’AV
1846: The Jewish Oath, originally established by Charlemagne, was abolished in Austria. Until then, a Jew who took oath in a Christian court against a Christian was forced to stand on the skin of a dead animal or be surrounded by thorns and call down the curses of Korach or Naaman if he were not telling the truth. In Romania it was only repealed in the 20th century.
1846: ‘The Religious Opinions Relief Act removed some of minor disabilities which affected British Jews and dissenters from the Established Church; the only state office which still remained closed to Jews was Parliament.”
1854: Starting today M.H. Bresslau began editing The Jewish Chronicle and Working Man’s Friend which under his leadership was re-named The Jewish Chronicle and Hebrew Observer.
1855: The Concordat that went into effect today in Austria led to the exclusion of Jews from such “positions as teachers in elementary and high schools and attempts by the government to exclude Jewish children from the public schools, which were to be exclusively Catholic
1855: The New York Times reported that Solomon Rothschild who died in Paris in July was buried "with a certain degree of financial pomp. The hearse was followed by a large number of artistic and literary celebrities by the old men supported at the hospital endowed by the deceased and by 1,200 children educated at his school. Then, in the procession, was the Grand Rabbi and the Israelite Consistory. The body was buried in the tomb of the Rothschild family, which is in the Jews' corner of Pere La chaise."
1856: In La Porte, IN, Jacob and Henrietta Wile gave birth to Annette Nettie Wile who became Annette Nettie Hamburger when she married Max Mayer Hamburger with whom she had three children – Leon, Amy and Walter.
1856: Birthdate of Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg who gained fame using the Hebrew pan name Ahad Ha'am (אחד העם,). A pre-eminent essayist he was the founder of Cultural Zionism with a vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Palestine. Ha'am strived for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews." In what would appear to have been a detour from his intellectual pursuits Ahad Ha’am managed the Anglo-Asiatic tea company established by Kaloniumus Wolf Wissotzky, the founder of the Wissotzky Tea Company which prior to the Bolshevik Revolution was the largest tea company in the world.
http://www.knesset.gov.il/lexicon/eng/echad_haam_eng.htm
1860: Birthdate of Theodore Lewald, the nephew of “Jewish novelist Fanny Lewald” and loyal servant of the Reich before, during and after World War I who spent his life as a Christian but was removed from leadership role at the 1936 Olympics because his “paternal grandmother was Jewish.”
1860: “Sunday at Newport” published today states that the Jews might teach the current inhabitants “a lesson of reverence; for, although long since departed from Newport, where their social and commercial position was once superior, by ample testamentary provision, their Synagogue and Cemetery are preserved in admirable order -- reproachful to Christian neglect and indifference…It was startling, when the remains of the benevolent Judah Turo were brought here for interment, to hear the Rabbi, who pronounced the funeral discourse -- alluding to his change of abode and the vicissitudes of his life -- say, as a matter of course, "Like his great ancestor, Jacob, he was a pilgrim and sojourner.”
1863: During the Civil War, 1st Lieutenant Michael Rosenstein completed his service with Company K of the 172nd Regiment.
1863: Birthdate of Victor-Guillaume Basch, the native of Budapest who was the son of journalist Raphael Basch and who became a professor at the Sorbonne and a French political leader.
1866: Julie Pollitzer and Henry Morris gave birth to George Henry Morris who would only live for ten weeks.
10866: In New York, Mariana Marcuse and Samuel Stroock gave birth to Columbia trained attorney and director of the Jewish Board of Guardians Moses J. Stroock, a director of the School for training Jewish Social Workers and member of Temple B’nai Jeshurun.
1869: Henry Fileman, the second son of John Fileman mairred Theresa Clara Leopold, the eldest daughter of Louis Leopold at the Masonic Hall, Bedford Row, Holborn, WC.
1869: Ivan Andreevich Shingarev, a prosperous merchant, and Zinaida Nikanorovna gave birth to Andrei Ivanovich Shingarev, a physician and leader of the Kadets (Constitutional Democrat Party) who in March of 1916 took the unusual position of defending the Jews against charges of destroying the war effort, boldly pointing the disabilities under which Jews lived in the Czar’s Empire.)
1870: During the Franco-Prussian War, the Kaiser’s forces defeated the French Army which included Bernard Abraham, a decorated artillery officer, in what would prove to a strategic victory that helped to seal the fate of the Napoleon with all that that would come to mean in 1870 which would lead to 1914 which would lead to 1939.
1870: The Baltimore American reported that members of the Lloyd Street Synagogue had filed suit against various officers of synagogue in Circuit Court over what they considered violations of the charter as it pertains to matter of ritual and the hiring of a Chazan, among other matters.
1871: It was reported today that a large quantity of diamonds, rubies and other precious stones which had been concealed in the luggage of three French Jews has been seized by Custom House authorities on suspicion that they had been smuggled in to the country aboard the SS Italy.
1872: Birthdate of New York native and University of Wisconsin trained attorney Charles Lehman, the long term Judge Milwaukee County Circuit Court and husband of Des Moines born Rose Sheuerman who was active in the Milwaukee chapter of B’nai B’rith, the ADL and the American Jewish Committee.
1873:In Hungary, Jahanna Goldberger and Gimbel Herbach gave birth to Temple University graduate and cigar manufacturer turned building and loan association executive Joseph Herbach who was the husband of Fannie Wiessler and the editor and publisher of the Philadelphia Jewish times.
1875: In Erie, PA, “Isaac and Bertha (Ernhorn ) Baker gave birth University of Chicago graduate and founder of the Federation of Jewish Charities “Edward Mose (Max) Baker,” the longtime President of the Cleveland Stock Exchange” and a leading Progressive Republican political leader.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/baker-edward-max
1877: Esther Hannah Samuel, the daughter of Maurice Moses Beddington and Hannah Maria Beddington and her husband Henry Sylvester gave birth to Hilda Beatrice Samuel who became Hilda Beatrice Weiner when she married Charles Jacob Wiener, the mother of Eric and Philippe Wiener.
1878: “The Happy Californians” published today described the surprise expressed by Christians in California that Michael Reese, the recently deceased German-Jewish millionaire had bequeathed “large sums to different institutions irrespective of their denomination.”
1878: During the Yellow Fever epidemic that has gripped New Orleans Rabbi J.K. Gutheim, Edward J. Krsheidt and other officers of the Hebrew Benevolent Assoication made the following appeal, “ Sickness, distressand suffering amont the poor are increasing daily. Our funds are nearly exhaustaed. In this sad calamity we deem it our melancholy dutry to appeal to the sympathies of our brethern throughout the United States for speedy aid.”
1879: The Notes of Foreign News column reported the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs has issued a circular to its missions abroad concerning the condition of the Jews living in the country. On the one hand the government claimes that “In the future every foreigner” Jewish or non-Jewish, will be eligible to become naturalized citizens regardless of religion. At the same time, the government claimes that “the Jews in Roumania at the present moment have never been Romanian citizens. The government questions how it can make them citizens “in one day” since it will that Moldavia will be over-run by 300,000 Jews who are “uneducated fanatics, having a different language, a different language, a different different customs, different sentiments and whom the” Romanians have always considered foreginers. Granting the Jews currently living in Romanaia would “stirke a terrible blow to the economic interest of the county…and would drive the population to revolt…” [The treatment of the Jews living in Romania was a cause that had been taken up by the Great Powers. The Romanians wanted recognition as an independent state while working tenanciously to avoid improving the lot of its Jewish citizens.
1879: It was reported today that The Pall Mall Gazette (an English publication) “says that a Mr. Austin Corbin has ‘gone so far as to exclude Jews from the Manhattan Beach Railway…’” The columnist concludes that this “will be news to Corbin and the Jews.” (Apparently, the English author did not know that report of Corbin’s ban was quite true.]
1880: A barge filled with children on an excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children narrowly avoided colliding with a yawl-boat as it came through the Narrows today.
1880: Mr. Mendel denied recent reports that the Sharon Hotel at Sharon Springs does not accept Jewish guests is false. He has been staying there for the last three summer seasons as have been several other guests whom the proprietors know are Jewish. (This comes on the heels of the Saratoga Springs incident)
1881: Birthdate of Prussian native” Gus Edwards, song writer and “talent scout whose discoveries included Eddie Cantor and George Jessel and who was the husband of the former Lilian Boulanger, passed away today.
1881: Two days after he had passed away, Morris Harris, the son of Nathan and Rebecca Harris and the husband of the former Catherine Myers with whom he had five children was buried today at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery)
1881: The SS Bellevue will leave for an excursion to Hart’s Island today at 11 am sponsored by the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society
1881: “A Pawnbroker Swindled” published today described the victimization of Ellis Silbertsein, a Jewish pawnbroker who owns a shop on North 9th Street in Philadelphia, PA.
1882: In Chicago, “Louis Ullman and Eleanora Fried” gave birth to University of Chicago graduate and Professor of Latin and Department Chair at the University of North Carolina Berthold Louis Ullman, the husband of Mary Louise Bates and the father of geographer Edward Ullman.
https://classics.unc.edu/about-us-2/departmental-history/b-l-ullman/
1882(3rdof Elul, 5642): Forty-two year Leon Jacob Wetheim the Dutch bank employee turned author who was the brother of A.C. Wertheim and the son of Dina Minden and Carl Wertheim, passed away today.
1883(15thof Av, 5643): Parashat Vaetchanan; Tu B’Av
1883: In Canajoharie (Montgomery County) NY, Judge Thomas W. Bingham officiated at the wedding of New Yorker Joseph P. Joachimsen and Caroline Cohen, “the daughter of the late Marx E. Cohen of Charleston, SC.”
1883: It was reported that “Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice, Under Foreign Secretary stated in the House of Commons…that the government…has asked the Russian government to” explain why a British Jewish businessman who had “a proper British passport” was expelled.
1886: Birthdate of Sholom Schwartzbard a Bessarabian-born Jewish anarchist known primarily for the assassination of the Ukrainian politician Symon Petliura. Schwartzbard held Petliura responsible for the death of his parents who had been murdered in a pogrom in 1919.
1887(28th of Av, 5647): Julius Weisbaden a miser who has no friends or family in the United States died today Bellevue Hospital
1887: It was reported today that Adolph Stern a commercial traveler who passed away yesterday will be buried by the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society at the Salem Fields Cemetery. Stern, who was a member of the society, died alone since his wife and grown daughter still lived in Germany.
1888(11thof Elul, 5648): Parashat Ki Teitzei
1888(11th of Elul, 5648): Prominent New York merchant Marks Laski died suddenly today at his home on West 36th Street.
1888: “Jews in Prussia” published today relied on reports from the London Times to report that in 1880 there were 363,790 Jews living in Prussia which made them 1.33 percent of the population. Five years later the number of Jews had grown to 366,543 but they were now only 1.29 per cent of the population.
1889: “Right or Left” published today described Dr. Friedrich Erlenmeyer’s “proof” that “the ancient Hebrews” were “a left-handed people.”
1889: Jacques Damala, the non-Jewish husband of Sarah Bernhardt, passed away.
1889(21stof Av. 5649): Thirty-seven year old Lewis Arnheim, a member of the Georgia State Legislature passed away today.
1889: Birthdate of St. Louis University trained attorney Maximilian George Baron, the Ukraine born son of Julius and Rose (Shucart) Baron and the husband of Dorothy Catlin, who became a member of the faculty at his alma mater and served as the Vice President of Board of Education of Associated Hebrew Schools of St. Louis married Dorothy Catlin
1890: Rabbi E.M Chapman of Dallas and Samuel Gompers delivered the eulogies at the funeral for Montague L Marks who was buried at Washington Cemetery on Long Island “according to the practice of the Orthodox Jews.”
1890: “Baron Hirsch, the well-known Jewish financier and philanthropist sent the Hebrew Young Men’s Benevolent Society of Montreal a check for $20,000 after it was discovered that the Canadian society could not participate in the benefits of the American trust fund which he had created.”
1890: Birthdate of Solomon Rosenthal, the Lithuanian born chess master.
1890: Fifty-three year old Samuel Cohen was arrested today on charges that he was falsely representing himself as an agent of the Hebrew Aid Society and was collecting money which was intended to help poor Jews.
1890: Birthdate of journalist and linguist (Hebrew and Yiddish) Daniel Persky, the native of Minsk who came to the United States at the age of 1921 who motto was “Eved L’Ivrith Anokhi” – “A slave unto Hebrew am I.”
1890: Sixty-two year old John Cooper Vail, the librarian at Bellevue Hospital and author of the prize winning poem “The Hebrew Gladiator” which was first published in the New York Clipper passed away today.
1891: Solomon Sassoon Benjamin married Fanny Van Nierop at the Bayswater Synagogue.
1891: “City and Suburban News” published today described an appeal that Rabbi William M. Krauskopf made that raised $165 for the Hebrew Sheltering House.
1891: “Brazil Wants Farmers” published today that a large number of Russian Jews have gone to the Brazilian Consul’s office in New York to apply for permission to go that country where they can work as farmers. Many of those who have already gone there do not know anything about farming and seemed to be more interested in pursuing the profession they know best – peddling
1892: “The Pope on Jews and Frenchmen” published today provided a summary of Mme. Severine’s interview with the Pope that appeared in Figaro in which he discussed his views about the Jews and anti-Semitism.
1892(25thof Av, 5652): Sixty-one year old German author Elise Henle, the wife of Leopold Levi, passed away today at Frankfurt-on-Main.
1892: Farrer Herschell, 1st Baron Herschell, the son of Ridley Haim Herschell a Jewish convert who founded “the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews” began serving as Lord Chancellor today.
1893: Birthdate of old “Romanian born American businessman, Benjamin Abrams, a “founder of Emerson Radio and Phonography Corporation” and the Jewish communal leader who “was a founder of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Greater New York Committee for State of Israel Bonds.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20100105174830/http://www.ce.org/Events/Awards/441.htm
https://www.hbs.edu/leadership/20th-century-leaders/Pages/details.aspx?profile=benjamin_abrams
1893: The Park Departments has issued a permit to allow the thousands of unemployed Jewish workers to hold a mass meeting in Union Square.
1893: Emma Goldman the wife of the man who shot Chairman Frick of Carnegie Steel delivered “a violent speech’ at a meeting in Golden Rule Hall on Rivington Street.
1894: Seventy-one year old Eugene Lawrence, the author of The Jews and Their Persecutors, passed away in New York City.
1895: “Kesher Shel Barzel” published today traces the history of the organization from its founding in 1860 as a mutual aid society in New York City to becoming one the largest national Jewish benevolent and protective societies in the United States. Kesher Shel Barzel means “Iron Knot.”
1896: The body of the man with the Hebraic features which was found yesterday in a New Jersey barnyard was identified as Arthur Malke of Newark who has been missing for four days.
1896: In Hamburg, Nina J. Loeb, the daughter of Solomon Loeb and Paul Warburg gave birth to James Paul Warburg, a World War I veteran and banker who was “a financial adviser to FDR.”
1897: A crowd of 15,000 heard Mayor Strong when he delivered an address at the Summer Festival given tonight by District Grand Lodge, No.1 Independent Order Free Sons of Israel at Sulzer’s Harlem River Park.
1897: J. S. Koenigsberg, a leading member of the Jewish community in Denver received a letter for Edwin Wallace, the American Counsel at Jerusalem “giving an account of gross misappropriation of money sent by American Jewish societies for the relief of their fellow countrymen” living in that city.
1898: All the children living at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum should have been removed today from the facility at 138th Street and Amsterdam Avenue as officials dealt with an epidemic of dystentery.
1899: When the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus resumed this morning at 7:25 AM in Rennes, “Colonel Picquart, former Chief of the Intelligence Department of the War Office, was called to the witness stand and continued his deposition which was interrupted yesterday by the adjournment of the court.”
1899: The meeting of the Third Zionist Congress comes to an end.
1899: It was reported today that Rigmund Albert, a Jewish cadet, had left the Military Academy at West Point because of he had been persecuted because of his religion.
1899: Thirty-one year old Siegfried Wolf and Ida Wolf gave birth to Alfred Emil Wolf.
1900: Birthdate of Passaic, New Jersey native and Princeton University graduate Berry Pink, the WW I U.S. Navy veteran the head of Berry Pink Industries “which reportedly manufactured about a billion marbles a year” leading to be “known as ‘the Marble King.’”
1901: “The Sacred Seven” published today described the numerous times that the number seven occurs in the Bible including the laws pertaining to slavery, treatment of a woman after she has given birth and the conquest of Jericho. (Editor’s note: This story is noteworthy because it appeared in a daily newspaper and not in a religious tract or magazine)
1902(15thof Av, 5662): Tu B’Av
1902(15thof Av, 5662): Hungarian born Leopold Schenck, “The Austrian Embryologist” passed away today.
https://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/ishm/vesalius/VESx2004x10x01x037x037.pdf
1902: Birthdate of Dallas, TX native B. Benedict Glazer the University of Cincinnati grad and HUC trained rabbi who served congregations in New York and Detroit while being a supporter for the fight for equal rights in Michigan.
1902(15thof Av, 5662): Isaac Blumenthal whose estate was valued at $172,000 in real estate and upward of $25,000 in personal property passed away today.
1903: Johns Hopkins graduate and University of Pennsylvania trained physician Sydney M. Cohen, the Jonesboro born son of Helen and Herman Cone who was “a consultant in orthopedic surgery at Hebrew Hospital,: an associate professor of pathology at the University of Maryland and a “major in the Reserve Corps, U.S.A.”, vice president of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and and a member of the “Medical Veterans of the World War married Bessie Skutch today
1903: “The first conference of the Greater New York societies, affiliated with the Federation of American Zionists was held” today “in the Bnei Zion rooms” on Montgomery Street
1903: Today, while the Sixth Zionist Congress was meeting Jacob de Haas “came in contact with three Jews, one of whom had been a Zionist and was now indifferent; the second was too religious and the third…a Russian Parisian socialist” who “regretted the hold Zionism was taking on the Russian Jewish students.”
1904: Max Factor, Sr. moved to the United States and opened a small perfume and cosmetics concession at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Over time, this would grow into Max Factor and Company, one of the leading makers of cosmetics in the world.
1904: Birthdate of Max Factor Jr. Max Factor, Jr. would follow in his father’s footsteps as
1906(27thof Av, 5666): Parashat Re’eh; Shabbat Mevarchim Chodesh Elul
1906: It was reported today that in an interview in St. Petersburg, Premier Stolypin “asserted that he was in no way an anti-Semite” and that “he considered that the Jews should be consulted relative to their condition.”
1906: “A children’s costume carnival is scheduled to take place at the Royal Palace Hotel for the benefit of children’s war in the Atlantic City Hospital and the Jewish Seaside Home at Ventnor, NJ.”
1907: Czar Nicholas wrote “received with pleasure” on the margin of address sent to him by the Union of Russian People “demanding the entire exclusion of Jews from the Duma…”
1907: Col. Schroetter, the Commander of the Bialystok Military Station who was accused of organizing and helping to court the recent attacks on Jews in Bialystok “was assassinated today.”
1908: One day after he had passed away, Russian born Myer Genn, the husband of Annie Genn with whom he had five children was buried at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland” today.
1908: One day after she had passed away, Belfast native Lillie Genn, the daughter of Abraham and Fanny Genn was buried today at the “Belfast Jewish Cemetery in Northern Ireland.”
1908: The New Jersey convention of the American Federation of Labor adopted a resolution endorsing Samuel Gompers and his policies. The real issue was Gompers’ support William Jennings Bryan’s bid to be elected President in the race against William Howard Taft.
1909: New York Democratic political leader Charles F. Murphy reminded an interviewer that ex-Police Commissioner Bingham “has had to take back almost everything he said while in office” including his statement that 50 per cent of the Jews are crooks.
1910: Ossip Gabrilowitsch and his wife Clara Clemens (the daughter of Mark Twain) gave birth to their daughter Nina who turn out to be the last known lineal descendant the great American humorist and author.
1911: In Great Britain, the University of Birmingham conferred an honoree degree on Professor Dr. Hermann Oppenheim, a leading neurologist.1911: The Alliance Israelite Universelle sends ten thousands francs to relive the suffering resulting from the fires at Constantinople.
1911: Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres awards Captain Raymond Weill a grant of six thousand francs to continue excavations in Egypt. Weill would go on to lead archaeological expeditions in Palestine in 1913-1914 and 1923-1924 that would include exploration of the part of the ancient Jerusalem water system known as the Siloam Channel.
1911: Anti-Semitism took on many faces in Russia as Jewish families were expelled from two more cities that had been part of the Pale of Settlement. The Czar’s government also enforced restrictions on the number of Jewish students attending high schools and confiscated property owned by Jews outside of thePale.
1911: Founding of Tifereth Israel in Everett, MA.
1911: James Simon, President of Hilfsverein der Deuteshcne Juden, gave one hundred thousand marks to the Technical Institute in Haifa.
1912: In Chicago, Illinois, dedication of Temple Beth Israel.
1912: In New Brunswick, NJ, founding of Avhas Achim synagogue.
1913(15th of Av, 5673): Tu B’Av
1913: “Too Aid The Jews” published today described “ a plan to call a world congress to prostes agains Russian persecution of the Jews and to denounce the ‘ritual murder’ charge now being prosecuted in Kieff against a Jew named Bellis” who is “alleged to have killed a Russian boy” which was proposed in a letter to the Jewish Chronicle by Dr. Armand Kamnika, secretary of the Israelitische Allianz and a rabbi in Vienna.”
1914: Today, “only eighteen days after the outbreak of” World War One, the Jews of the United States “began to take steps for the relief of their brethren whom they knew would be suffers from the conflict.”
1914: “In Trachin, an outbreak of fires as Russian troops marched through the town was immediately blamed on the Jews” whose goal, according to the locals, was to let the Germans know where the Russians troops were located. In this case 14 Jews were arrested and although they were later released their “pillaged goods” were neither returned nor paid for. (During August and September, the Jews of Poland were subject to numerous pogroms, usually at the hands of the Cossacks forcing them to flee to Warsaw from which they would later be forcibly be deported eastward (263 As reported by Max Hastings)
1915(8thof Elul, 5675): Schumel Itzig Gordon, the son of Salman Yehuda Gordon, passed away today.
1915: A group of Jewish leaders met at the Wave Crest Manor, at Wave Crest, L.I., “to consider plans for the publication of a number of classics.”
1915: Leo “Frank's body arrived at D.C.'s Union Station on its way to New York for burial. Among the 200 people gathered were local members of B'nai B'rith's Argo Lodge, headed by Rabbi Abram Simon of Washington Hebrew Congregation.”
1915: “The feeling in Marietta over the (Leo) Frank lynching is illustrated by a jeering, sarcastic telegram sent today by the Chief of Police H.H. Looney to Detective William J. Burns who was employed by Frank’s friends and was run out of Marietta after an attempt to lynch him which read ‘Leo Frank lynched here yesterday. Come quick and help investigate.’”
1915: “Under the title ‘Finis’ an editorial in this morning’s Macon Daily Telegraph” reads in part, “The Frank case has come to an end – climatic, catastrophical, stunning in is conclusiveness, its absolute finality.”
1916(19thof Av, 5676): Eighteen year old Samuel Salomo Israelsohn passed away.
1916: Rabbinical seminaries in Florence and Leghorn, Italy merged due to lack of funds.
1916: “Turn to the Right” staring Abraham Sincoff opened today on Broadway
1916: It was reported today that “the condition of the Jews in Palestine calls for immediate attention” and that “the Jewish farmers in Syria have been facing a serious economic crisis which threatens the survival of the promising growth of Jewish agricultural industry – an industry on which so many hope throughout the Jewish world have been built.”
1916: After nine days, an Allied force of three French divisions and one British division were defeated by the Bulgarians at the little known Battle of Dorian
1917: Vilmos Vázsonyi completed his term in office as Minister of Justice of Hungary.
1917: A Great Fire in Thessaloniki, Greece destroys 32% of the city leaving 70,000 individuals homeless. The downfall of the Jewish community in Thessaloniki started with a fire in the Jewish quarter in 1917. Prior to the start of the fire Thessaloniki had been one of the two o most important Jewish communities in pre-World War II Greece. In the 1600s, Thessaloniki, a Sephardi community, became one of the largest Jewish communities in the world and was known as "ir v’em beyisral," metropolis and mother of Israel. By 1900, more than half of the town’s population was Jewish, which was about 80,000 Jews. In 1900-1910 Thessaloniki had more than 50 synagogues, 20 Jewish schools and numerous Jewish institutions and associations. It was a center of Torah learning for all of Europe. Business was generally conducted in the Sephardi language of Ladino and, on Friday afternoons, almost all commercial life stopped since most of the city’s workers were Jewish. A sprawling Jewish cemetery that was destroyed during World War II to make room for a new university lay in the center of the city (. The Jewish population was varied and included both Kararites and followers of the false messiah Shabbatai Zevi. The city had a strong Judaeo-Spanish culture. For all intents and purposes, this all disappeared with the Holocaust.
1917(30th of Av, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1917: In San Francisco, Herman Weinberger, a native of Bohemia “of Jewish descent” and his wife whose family came from England gave birth Republican leader who held a variety of positions including Secretary of HEW under Nixon and Ford and Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan.
1917: It was reported today that nearly 100 Americans Jews who had been living in Palestine have left Constantinople for Switzerland.
1918: Due to massive fires in Salonica, 50,000 Jews are homeless. This represents nearly the entire Jewish population of the city.
1918: Premiere of “Our Mrs. McChesney” a silent film “based on the 1915 play by Edna Ferber.
1918: Thirty-four year old Russian born American lawyer and Democratic Party leader Benjamin Antin married Dora Polsky today.
1918: Benjamin Antin, “a member of the New York Bar and examiner for the Municipal Civil Service Commission and Miss Dora Polsky a New York public school teacher and the daughter of Morris Polsky were married today at the bride’s home on Fulton Avenue in the Bronx.
1919: An appraisal of the estate of Ludwig Dreyfus filed today shows “that the total was worth $1,305, 318.”
1920: The Tennessee State Legislature approved the Nineteenth Amendment providing “the final ratification necessary to add the Amendment” that gave women the right to vote “to the United States Constitution.
1920 Isaac Rabinowitz of New York City received the Distinguished Service Cross today.
1920: In Holyoke, Vincent and Antoinette D’Addario gave birth to Raymond D’Addario, “an Army photographer whose images of Hitler’s top henchmen during the Nuremberg war crimes trials put their faces before the world as it became increasingly aware of Nazi atrocities.” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1920: Alfred Mond was the subject of a cartoon in Punch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred_Mond_cartoon_from_Punch_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_16707.png
1921: Birthdate of Lydia Litvyak a Soviet fighter pilot during WW II who flew 66 missions before being shot down in 1943.
http://www.jewoftheweek.net/?s=Lydia+Vladimirovna+Litvyak+&submit=Search
1921: In London, The Times published the third in a series of articles by it “Constantinople Correspondent” that “incontrovertibly demonstrated that ‘The Protocols’ consist in the main of ‘clumsy plagiarisms’ from a French political pamphlet directed against Napoleon III and published in Brussels in 1865 by a French Lawyer named Maurice Joly and entitled ‘Dialogues in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.’”
1922(24th of Av, 5682): Sixty-three year old “dental surgeon and businessman Dr. Hugo Ascher, the husband of Minna Luise Ascher and the father of German artist Fritz Ascher passed away today in Berlin.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/if-not-for-the-nazis-he-may-have-been-the-next-leonardo/
1922: In St. Louis, MO, “Rose (née Winter), a singer with The Muny, and Jonas Schrift, a designer of men's clothing” gave birth to Sylvia Schrift who gained famed as actress Shelly Winters who enjoyed a long and varied career and who,unlike her fellow acting student Marilyn Monroe, was able to make the transition from female leading lady to character actress which made possible a five decades long career in which she made over 130 films.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011401166.html
1923(6thof Elul, 5683): Parashat Shoftim
1923(6thof Elul, 5683): Fifty-six year old Pauline “Lena” Peyser the daughter of Philip Peyser and Natalie Ann Kilinksi, wife of Morris Gusdorf and mother of Melvin and Florence Gusdorf passed away today after which she was buried at Hebrew Cemetery in Washington, DC.
1924: It was reported today that “following an executive conference of the American Emergency Committee on Jewish Refugees at the Hotel Astor Louis Marshall, the Chairman, announced that the committee had seriously considered the invitation extended by President-elect Calles of Mexico for Jewish mass migration into Mexico.”
1925: “The fourteenth Zionist World Congress was opened this evening with a speech by President Weizmann, who welcomed the emissary of the Austrian Government, 8,000 delegates and diplomatic representatives of the powers.”
1926:Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service reported that “the number of families to be settled in the Ukraine during the years 1927 and 1928 is not to be less than during the present year, that is, not less than 4,000 families each year, the Ukrainian Government Commission for Jewish Land Settlement decided at its meeting here. Since the number to be settled outside the Ukraine during 1927 will not exceed 1,000 families, and in 1928 will be 3,000 families, it has been decided that sufficient land should be allocated in the Ukraine for the settlement in 1927 of 3,000 families and in 1928 of 1,000 families.”
1926: Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service reported that “The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America has this year produced a new form of collapsible Succah, which can be erected within an hour. These Succahs give an opportunity to the Jews of America to have their observance not only in the Synagogue, but at their homes. Applications can be made to the office of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, 131 West 86th St., New York City.”
1926: In Warsaw, “Alina (née Fryszman) Lewinson and Szymon Lewinson , a urologist and Polish Army officer murdered in Katyń” gave birth to journalist Janina (née Lewinson) Bauman, the wife of “socialist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman.”
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2010/jan/26/janina-bauman-obituary
1927: Moselle “Molly” Elias, the Rangoon born daughter of Sassoon and Rachel Ezekiel and her husband Harry Moses Elias gave birth to Mervyn Elias.
1928: In Manhattan, “Abner Millon, a tailor, and the former Mollie Gorkowitz” gave birth to Theodore Millon “a psychologist whose theories helped define how scientists think about personality and its disorders, and who developed a widely used measure to analyze character traits.” (As reported by Benedict Carey)
1929: Arabs, following their attack Friday on the Wailing Wall and on groups of Jews yesterday, today stoned Rabbi Nical of the College of Torah Chaim.
1929(12th of Av, 5689) A young Sephardic Jew named Abraham Mizrachi who was stabbed at the Maccabi grounds near Mea Shearim, in the Bukharan Quarter on Shabbat by Arab rioters died of his wounds today.
1930: In Ploiesti, Romania, Isidor and Mina Librscu gave birth to Holocaust survivor and Israeli professor Liviu Librescu, who was murdered while trying to protect his students during the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007
https://www.weremember.vt.edu/biographies/librescu.html
1931: Birthdate of political scientist and author of The Political Science of British Politics Jack Ernest Shalom Hayward the native of Shanghai and scion of an Iraqi family that was interred by the Japanese during WW II who served in the RAF and who has been a Professor of Politics at the University of Hull and the University of Oxford.
1932: It was reported today that those left to mourn the Louise H. Pollak of blessed memory include her husband Julian A. Pollak, the Cincinnati City Councilman, her three children – David, Julian R. and Betty – her mother Mrs. David M. Hyman, her brother Mark Hyman and her sister Mrs. Alfred Friedlander.
1932: “The Beautiful Adventure” a romantic comedy directed by Reinhold Schunzel who also co-authored the script was released today in Germany.
1932: In Germany, premiere of “The Bartered Bride” a film based on the comic opera directed by Max Ophüls who also co-authored the script.
1933: In Paris, Bula (née Katz-Przedborska) and Ryszard Polański, a painter and manufacturer of sculptures gave birth to Rajmund Roman Thierry Polański who gave fame as Roman Polanski.
1933: According to press reports published in Jerusalem, Mrs. Sarah Levi of Singapore has set aside her fortune of £100,000 to rebuild Safed, which suffered during the 1929 riots.
1933: It was reported from Jerusalem that Aba Achimeir, a Revisionist, has been charged with having conspiring to assassinate Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff.
1933: The British High Commissioner issued an order that in all towns of mixed population a third of the wages spent in public works shall be assigned to Jewish labor.
1933: According to the official count, there are a total of 297 accredited Zionists delegates to the Zionist Congress meeting in Prague: 139 are Laborites, 79 General Zionists, 47 Revisionists and 32 Mizrachi.
1933: The meeting of the International Congress of Mizrachi meeting in Cracow, Poland, comes to an end. Before adjourning the delegates called for the reorganization of the Jewish Agency, expressed opposition to the leadership of Chaim Weizmann and called for a world Orthodox religious congress to be held in Jerusalem no later than 1935.
1933: In Germany, the Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment prohibits the filming of a scenario based on Stefan Zweig's "Amok."
1934(7thof Elul, 5694) Parashat Shoftim
1934: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Rabbi J.L. Goldberg, Mrs. G.A Holzman and Professor M.H. Kallen are in Geneva awaiting to attend a world congress of Jewish leaders that will begin on August 20 where “a campaign to combat what is termed anti-Semitic propaganda will be proposed.
1935: “An appeal to rabbis throughout the country to urge their congregations in the forthcoming high holiday to support the drive by the UJS for $3,250,000 to help Jews in Germany and other lands to settle in Palestine was made today by Felix W. Warburg, national chairman of the appeal.”
1936(30thof Av, 5696): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1936(30thof Av, 5696): Eighty-two year old Martha Springer Fleisher passed away today after she was interred at Mount Sinai Cemetery in Philadelphia.
1936: “In a statement released today by the National Conference of Jews and Christians, leaders in the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish faiths in American expressed resentment at the speech of Father Charles E. Coughlin in which he challenged the Jews to affirm their belief in the principle of brotherly love” – a belief that he said Christians accepted but which he did not think Jews had demonstrated their belief.
1936: Fifty thousand Jewish residents of Tel Aviv attended the funeral today of two nurses killed by Arab snipers yesterday. “Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, British High Commissioner in Palestine, expressed his ‘deepest sorrow and abhorrence of the recent brutal murders and attacks on a perfectly innocent people.’”1937: In Geneva, the Permanent Mandates Commission had completed its sessions and submitted a secret report on the British partition of Palestine scheme to the Council of the League of Nations.
1937: In Zurich, Dr. Chaim Weizmann opened the fifth session of the Jewish Agency Council and announced that it would support the Zionist Congress policy of negotiating with Britain, in principle, the terms of the establishment of a Jewish state. He was opposed by Dr. Felix Warburg, of the council’s non-Zionist representation.
1938: Birthdate of Marcia Lewis who received an RN from the Jewish Hospital School of Nursing in Cincinnati before gaining fame as a Tony nominated actress and singer. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1938:A British military column was ambushed this afternoon by a gang of well armed Arabs near Acre. The troops assisted by aircraft fought back and in the battle at least twenty-seven Arabs were killed by the fliers and ten more by the troops.
1938: As Arab violence continued, an eight year old Jewish boy was killed and four others were wounded when a bomb was thrown at a crowd on the border between Tel Aviv and Jaffa while another Arab threw a bomb at truck carrying eleven Jewish workers, wounding nine of them.
1938: As Arab violence continued to escalate in Palestine, hundreds of Moslems took to the streets of London shouting “Down with the ignorant Wells” as they protested the publication of A Short History of the World by H.G. Wells. At the same time a Moslem delegation complained to the High Commissioner of India that the book “insulted the memory of Mohammed and the Koran.”
1939(3rd of Elul, 5699): Eight year old Walter Bodner passed away today after which he was buried at the Poali Zedek Cemetery in Everett, Massachusettes.
1940: Birthdate of Nelli Abramova the Jewish volleyball player who helped the Soviet Union win a Silver Medal at the Olympics in 1964
1941: The Nazis took over authority of Kovno and sealed off the ghetto. Five hundred Jews were taken from the ghetto to be killed. Looting and killing of the Intelligentsia would soon follow.
1941: Adolf Hitler ordered the end to the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and handicapped persons due to protests within Germany. This change in policy at least raises the question as to what effect similar protests by Church leaders and others might have had in averting the Final Solution.
1942: The Nazis deported 998 Jews, including 287 children, to the East from Belgium.
1942(5thof Elul, 5702): Thirty year old Marianne Baum, the wife of Herbert Baum with whom she helped to organize resistance to the Nazis “was executed in Plötzensee Prison” two months after Herbert was murdered by the Nazis.
1942(5thof Elul, 5702): Forty-eight year old Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff who had been “deported to the Wülzburg concentration camp, near Weißenburg, Bavaria” in 1941 died there today from the effects of tuberculosis
1943: Thousands of more Jews were deported from Bialystok to Treblinka. This was last train to ever be sent there. All the Jews were sent to the gas chambers. Afterwards, the camp closed down for good.
1943: The last transport from Salonika arrived in Auschwitz consisting of 1,800 laborers, the last of 48,533 people to be deported from that town. Almost 38,000 of them would be exterminated on arrival.
1943: The process of destroying the evidence of mass murder that took place at Babi Yar, a suburb of Kiev in the Soviet Ukraine, began. Jewish and Soviet prisoners were set to work, unearthing thousands of bodies and burning them in huge pyres. The Jewish prisoners attended to the horrible task knowing that they too would be shot and burned at the end they tried an escape. During attempt to hide the evidence of genocide, 311 out of 325 Jewish and Soviet prisoners would be killed in their break-out attempt.
1944: Fifty-eight-year-old Ernst Thalmann, the leader of the Communist Party in Germany and a foe of Adolph Hitler was murdered today at Buchenwald concentration camp.
https://spartacus-educational.com/GERthalmann.htm
1945: A group of refugees in the “Beriha” movement in Komo, Italy were captured by the camera.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/august/15.asp
1946: Colonial Secretary George Hall returned today from Paris to report to Prime Minister Attlee on consultations with Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and Jewish Agency leaders concerning Palestine.
1947: “The Jewish refugees aboard the ship Empire Rival, one of three British transports off Port-de-Bouc with about 4,500 visaless immigrants to Palestine who had been brought back after their ship, the Exodus 1947, had been intercepted by the British Navy, announced this morning that they were starting a hunger strike.”
1948: “Hollow Triumph,” a film noir directed by Steve Sekely, with a screenplay by Daniel Fuchs and music by Sol Kaplan premiered in Reading, PA.
1948: Yiftah, a kibbutz in northern Israel located near the Lebanese border “was established today “by demobilized Palmach soldiers who were members of the Yiftach Brigade, after which the kibbutz is named.”
1949: “Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, director of the United Nations trusteeship division, tonight called the Senate Judiciary Committee "irresponsible" and said its cognizance of false charges against the United Nations Secretariat constituted an "absurd witch hunt."
1950: First performance of "The Village I Knew," choreographed by Sophie Maslow.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/18/1950/sophie-maslow
1950: In Chicago, “Albert Friedlan, who survived three years in Auschwitz” and the former “Ilona Muller,” who worked “as a forced laborer during the Holocaust:” gave birth to Robert Martin Friedland, the Reed College friend of Steve Jobs and international businessman who has been involved in some questionable business dealing.
https://www.forbes.com/profile/robert-friedland/#78267cf33214
1951: Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive's American section, appealed tonight to the delegates to the twenty-third World Zionist Congress to shelve the ideological debate on whether it was the duty of all Zionists to settle in Israel.
1951: In Ramala, Moshe Moshonov a native of Bulgaria and his wife gave birth to “Israeli actor, comedian and director” Shlomo “Moni’ Moshonov.
1952: The US granted Israel over $73 million for the relief and resettlement of immigrants and for technical cooperation.
1952: Birthdate of comedic talent Elayne Boosler
1953(7thof Elul, 5713): Sixty-two-year-old Clara Rose Lazarus Snyder, the Romanian born daughter of Rebecca and Morris Lazarus and the wife of Benjamin S. Snyder with whom she had three children – Sylvia, Ruth and Milton – passed away today in Gloucester County, NJ after which she was buried in the Montefiore Cemetery in Jenkintown, PA/
1954: Today “Jerusalem honored Joseph Carlebach's work, among others at the local Lämel-School, by naming a street, Rekhov Carlebach/Karlibakh רחוב קרליבך, after him in the neighborhood of Talpiot.”
1956(11thof Elul, 5716): Parashat Ki Teitzi
1957(21st of Av, 5717): Sixty-two year English born film composer Louis Levy who composed themes for Alfred Hitchcock passed away today.
1957(21st of Av, 5717): Rabbi Aharon Rokeach the fourth Rebbe of the Belz Hasidic dynasty passed away. Born in 1877, he led the movement from 1926 until his passing in 1957.
http://matzav.com/the-belzer-rebbe-rav-aharon-rokeach-ztl-upon-his-yahrtzeit-today-21-av-5/
http://www.hevratpinto.org/tzadikim_eng/148_rabbi_aaron_rokeach.html
1959: “Wanda Landowska” published today eulogized the great harpsichordist described as “a musician’s musician.”
1962: Birthdate of Tel Aviv native Noam Kaniel who “has sold over 8 million records.”
1963: “’55 Pulitzer Jury Chose Odets Play” published today described the decision eight years ago of the Pulitzer Prize Board to over-rule the Pulitzer Prize jury’s choice of “The Flowering Peach,” a play based on the story of Noah by Clifford Odets, as the winner of the drama prize for 1955.
1964(10thof Elul, 5724): Fifty-three-year-old Broadway producer Bernard Hart, the Brooklyn born son of Lillian (Solomon) and Barnett Hart, a cigar maker and the brother of playwright and director Moss Hart passed away today.
1968: A funeral service is scheduled to be held in New York for 67 year old, Joseph Platzker, the former Commissioner of Housing and Buildings.
1969: “Take the Money and Run” starring Woody Allen and Louise Lasser and with music by Marvin Hamlisch was released today in the United States.
1969: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair which was held on the land of Max B. Yasgur came to an end.
1970(16thof Av, 5730): Forty-nine year old Louis Pollack the art dealer and historian who founded Peredot Gallery passed away today.
1974: Birthdate of Nicole Krauss, the New York novelist best known for Man Walks Into a Room, The History of Love and Great House who married Jonathan Safran Foer with whom she had two children – Sasha and Cy.
1976(22ndof Av, 5736): Fifty-seven-year old Chicago born and University of Chicago trained marketing specialist Edward S. Gordon who a WWII veteran and member of the faculty at Roosevelt University passed away today.
1976: In Washington, DC, the National Hadassah Convention came to an end.
1977: The US formally and publicly rebuked Israel’s decision to extend certain new services to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and to approve, by the Ministerial Committee for Settlement, the three new settlements on the West Bank: south of Tulkarm, at Mevo Horon and between Hebron and Beersheba. The US expressed deep disappointment that Israel ignored President Jimmy Carter¹s appeal to avoid such actions before the reconvening of the Geneva Peace Conference.
1977: The ambassador to the UN, Chaim Herzog, lashed out at UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, who had also expressed regret that Israel set up new settlements. Herzog reminded Waldheim that double standard and discrimination had long been a norm at the UN.
1978: In Berkley, CA, Marjorie and Joe Samberg gave birth to American entertainer David A.J. “Andy: Samberg.
1978(15th of Av, 5738)
1978: “Girlfriends, a comedy directed and produced by Claudia Weill, starring Jewish actress Melanie Mayron “as Jewish photographer Susan Weinblatt” and featuring Eli Wallach and Bob Balaban was released today in the United States.
1978(15th of Av): One person was killed when a terrorist bomb went off in a Tel Aviv market.
1980: Funeral services are scheduled to take place today for Esther Grossmann, the widow of James Grossman and the mother of Edward and David Grossman.
1981: Jerry Lewis appears on "Donahue" to defend Telethons.
1983: In Los Angeles Henry Winkler, best known as “The Fonz” on “Happy Days” and Stacy Furstman Weitzman gave birth to screenwriter and director Max Daniel Winkler.
1983: The Park East Synagogue building at 163 East 67th Street (NYC) which had been established as Congregation Zichron Ephriam by Rabbi Bernard Drachman was [laced on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places today.
1983(9thof Elul, 5743): Eight-one year old Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (Bernhard Leon), the German born son of a Jewish furrier who became the British art historian “best known for his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England“ passed away today.
1986: Morton Abramowitz was commissioned as Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.
1988: “ABC Suing Israeli Agency for Showing News Tapes” published today described litigation involving the screening of news footage in Jerusalem.
1989: “Let It Ride” a comedy starring Richard Dreyfus and featuring Allen Garfield was released in the United States today.
1990(27thof Av, 5750): Parashat Re’eh
1990(27thof Av, 5750): Ninety-four year old Harvard trained attorney Lee Ferbstein, the husband of Helen Turner Crecilius and the father of “Anne and Froncie Ferbstein passed away today in Akron, OH.
1993: In Israel, the Supreme Court “rejected the petitions” challenging the Attorney-General’s decision to release Demjanjuk “on the grounds that (1) the principle of double jeopardy would be infringed, (2) that new charges would be unreasonable given the seriousness of those of which he had been acquitted, (3) that conviction on the new charges would be unlikely, and (4) that Demjanjuk was extradited from the United States specifically to stand trial for offenses attributed to Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka, and not for other alternative charges.”
1994: In Copenhagen, the fifth congress of the EAJS came to an end.
1994(11th of Elul, 5754): Latvian born Israeli scientist and philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz passed away. (As reported by Joel Greenberg)
1995(22ndof Av, 5755): Sixty-six year old author James Maxwell whose works include “The Night Everything Was Simple” in which “Zionist plans for Palestine are viewed with approval” and “Village Incident” and “Strictly From the Mississippi” in which “the Jewish characters are presented sympathetically” passed away today.
1996: Devorah Zlochower, Leora Bednarsh, and Laura Steiner were recognized for completing a three-year program of Talmud study at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education in New York City
http://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/18/1996/dije
1996(3rdof Elul, 5756):Sixty-six year old Hugo Gabriel Gryn , a leader in the Reform movemtn, passed away. A native of Berehovo, he survived Auschwitz, trained in America and served as the Rabbi for West London Synagogue for 32 years
1999(6th of Elul, 5759): Fifty-five year old award winning playwright and author Hanoch Levin passed away today.
http://www.jewish-theatre.com/visitor/article_display.aspx?articleID=27&pagenumber=2
1999: The Drisha Institute for Jewish Education graduated its first class. According to its mission statement the Drisha Institute “provides women with the opportunity to engage in traditional Jewish text study in an environment which encourages seriousness of purpose, free inquiry and respect for classical texts. Drisha offers a wide variety of study options for women of all backgrounds and levels.”
2000: “Shimon Peres lavishly praised China today as he finished a two-day visit intended to bolster Israel's ties with this onetime adversary and shore up global support for continued peace talks.” (As reported by Erik Eckholm)
2001: Elisabeth Murdoch married Matthew Freud, head of Freud Communications and the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud.
2002: The Sunday New York Times featured a review of Stone Kiss by Jewish mystery writer Faye Kellerman and a printing of the poem “Like a Seal” by Abba Kovner translated from the Hebrew by Eddie Levenston
2003(20th of Av, 5763): Seventy-eight year old bookseller and former “Timesman” Julius Ochs Adler, Jr. passed away today. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden and Eric Pace)
2004: Eighty-two year old composer Elmer Bernstein passed away. Born in 1922, the Academy Award winning composer gave us memorable scores for many movies including The Magnificent Seven, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Escape, The Man With A Golden Arm. (As reported by Adam Bernstein)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17322-2004Aug19.html
2004(1stof Elul, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2005: Shirat HaYam was evacuated today as part of Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza.
2005: Kfar Darom was evacuated as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan.
2006: Congressman Steve Rothman married Jennifer Beckenstein, the community affairs coordinator at the Center for Food Action in Englewood, New Jersey. The couple met through JDate, an online dating website for Jewish singles. Between them, Rothman and Beckenstein have five teenage children and two dogs, who plan to live in Rothman's home, which is being expanded to accommodate the blended family
2006: Haim Ramon resigned as Justice Minister.
2006: “On Sontag: Essayist as Metaphor and Muse” published today provides Holland Cotter’s description of the photography show at the Metropolitan Museum designed to honor the memory of Susan Sontag.
2006: “The Illusionist” produced by Brian Koppelman and Bob Yari and with music by Philip Glass was released today in the United States.
2007: In Jerusalem, "Music in All the Shades" presents "A Musical Trip in the Balkan Countries," featuring Constantine Kitlin on the clarinet, Olga Dshbeski on the flute, Yulia Sinaibeski on the mandolin, and Yuri Pobolotskion on the accordion.
2007: The Shabbat observance of the San Diego Humanistic Jewish Congregation will celebrate Individualism with an investigation of the Essenes, Jews who settled at Qumran and created the Dead Sea Scrolls.
2008: James B. Cunningham presented his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
2008(17th of Av, 5768):Ninety-one year old Manny Farber, a painter whose spiky, impassioned film criticism waged war against sacred cows like Orson Welles and elevated American genre-movie directors like Howard Hawks and Sam Fuller to the Hollywood pantheon, died today at his home in Leucadia, Calif.
2008: Time magazine includes an article about the critical swing vote that begins, “The most important demographic for Barack Obama in November might be old Jews in Florida, and the most important old Jew in Florida is my grandmother” and a review of Neillie Hermann’s novel, The Cure for Greif featuring Ruby Bronstein, her “strong, loving family” including her father a “Holocaust survivor father, whose observance of Jewish customs persists despite his professed loss of faith” with whom she visits the camp where he was interred as a young boy
2008: Tzfat [Safed] Klezmer Festival opens.
2008: In an article entitled “Under ‘Kafkaesque’ Pressure, Heir to Kafka Papers May Yield Them,”Ethan Bronner described the fate Franz Kafka’s personal papers which had been rescued by Max Brod and eventually became the property to Esther Hoffe who has now passed away.
2009: “It was reported today that Paula Abdul was negotiating to return to Idol after not taking part in season nine of Dancing with the Stars
2009(28th of Av, 5769): Ninety-eight year old Rose Friedman, the widow of Milton Friedman with whom she was an intellectual and personal soul-mate, passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
2009: Dan Zofi and Jack Germany led and evening of Israeli & International Folk dancing at Beit Shalom Synagogue, the Jewish Congregation of Maui.
2009: Today Israeli novelist David Grossman was named a finalist for the only international literary peace prize awarded in the United States. The board of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize announced that Grossman was on its short list of possible award winners for his collection of essays "Writing in the Dark."The committee said Grossman was a finalist for his "six essays on politics and culture in Israel, including his speech on the 2006 Lebanon War, which took the life of his son. Grossman addresses the conscience of a country that has lost faith in its leaders and its ideals."Along with Grossman, others on the shortlist include the notable authors Thomas L. Friedman and Ma Jian.
2010: "A Film Unfinished" directed by Yael Hersonski is scheduled to be shown at the Film Forum in New York.
2010: In Cedar Rapids, IA, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet at the home of Andrea Liu where Ina Loewenberg is scheduled to facilitate a program entitled “Reading Aloud: Poems on Jewish Themes.”
2010: With the mid-August heat showing no mercy on the Holy Land, locals broke an all-time single-day record for electricity use this afternoon, the Israel Electric Corporation announced. The corporation said demand topped 11,200 megawatts, following 19 straight days of unprecedented energy usage
2010(8th of Elul, 5770): Ninety-nine year old Benjamin Kaplan who as an U.S. Army officer played a critical role in the Nuremberg trials and then went to become a Harvard Law Professor and jurist passed away. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
2010(8th of Elul, 5770): Ninety-four year old Martin Dannenberg the man who “found the Nuremberg Laws Document” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
2011: David McKenzie, JHSGW Interpretive Programs Manager is scheduled to lead a Walking Tour of Jewish Washington in which participants will learn what it was like to live and worship as a Jew in Washington from 1850 to 1950 in the historic Seventh Street, NW, neighborhood, now known as Chinatown but originally settled largely by German Jews.
2011: The Fourth Annual Pickle eating contest is scheduled to take place at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. The pickles are being supplied by Sixth & Rye, a food truck that travels the streets of the Nation’s Capital offering a variety of kosher delights including corned beef on rye.
2011: Attackers mounted at least three separate strikes on Israeli civilians and soldiers around the popular Red Sea resort of Eilat today, killing seven and wounding at least 20, in what the country’s defense minister called a “grave terrorist incident.”
2011: The IDF attacked terror targets in Rafah in the Gaza Strip today, in response to a three-stage terrorist attack which killed seven Israelis and wounded dozens in the South earlier in the day
2011: Social justice protests have been canceled for the coming days, including a mass rally planned for Saturday night in Jerusalem, following combined terror attacks in the South of Israel that left seven Israelis dead and over two dozen wounded this afternoon.
2011: The New York Times featured a review of Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein by Julie Salamon
2011: Members of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community gather at Temple Judah for a Surprise Birthday Party celebrating the birthday of Marianne Bern.
2011(18th of Av, 5771): Eighty-two year old Sally Goodgold, an activist who defied ‘pigeon-holing’ passed away today. (As reported by David W. Dunlap)
2011(18thof Av, 5771): Forty-nine year old “Paskal Avrahami, a member of the YAMAM Counter-terrorism Unit was killed this evening during a firefight with terrorists north of Eilat on the border with Egypt. He was married and had three children.”
2011(18th of Av, 5771): St.-Sgt. Moshe Naftali was killed today while responding to the terrorist attacks near Eilat.
2011(18th of Av, 5771): Fifty-seven Yossef Levy was killed during a terrorist attack and his wife was injured during today’s terrorist attack.
2011(18th of Av, 5771): Ninety-one year old biochemist Maruice M. Rapport passed away today in Durham, NC. (As reported by William Grimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/health/03rapport.html?pagewanted=print
2012: Nicole Wolf-Camplin is scheduled to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah at Agudas Achim in Iowa City, IA
2012:In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah is scheduled to host an open house in honor of Marianne Bern’s 90th birthday.
2012: Kippah-wearing Jews and non-Jews are expected to march today in Sweden as a sign of solidarity with Malmö’s Jews.
2012(30th of Av, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2012: Amy Schumer’s “standup comedy special Mostly Sex Stuff premiered on Comedy Central” today.
2012: Three Egyptian policemen and a soldier were injured near the Sinai town of Sheikh Zuwaid today when armed men fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their convoy during an operation against militants following the killing of 16 border guards.
2012: A savage fight between Jewish and Arab teenagers in downtown Jerusalem late at night on August 16 that left a 20-year-old Arab man in critical condition, with witnesses calling it a "lynch situation" against the three Arabs. A 19-year-old Jewish Jerusalem man was arrested this afternoon in connection with the beating. He will be remanded at the Jerusalem Magistrates Court today. Police refused to say whether he had a history of similar incidents, though they expect a number of additional arrests in the coming days.
2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies by Jonathan Alter and the recently release paperback edition of Iron Curtain” The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum
2013: Starting today the Health Ministry is scheduled to “offer oral polio vaccine to children up to the age of nine-and-a-half years.” (As reported by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich)
2013: In Coralville, Iowa Congregation Agudas Achim under the leadership of Rabbi Jeff Portman is scheduled to host its annual synagogue picnic.
2013: “When Comedy Went to School” is scheduled to shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.
2013: “The campaign to recall Mayor Bob Filner amid accusations of sexual harassment” began gathering signatures today. (As reported by Tony Perry)
2013: “Archaeologists working in Jerusalem have discovered what they say is a 2,700 year-old pottery fragment with an ancient Hebrew inscription possibly containing the name of a Biblical figure.” (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)
2014: Klezkanada, the international festival of Jewish/Yiddish culture and the arts is scheduled to open today.
2014: “Alive Inside, A Story of Music and Memory” and “Alive Inside, A Story of Music and Memory,” a film about “a downed Israeli fighter pilot and a Palestinian boy” are scheduled to be shown at the Berkshire Jewish Film Festival.
2014: The 16th Street Book Club at the Jewish History Center is scheduled to host a discussion of Stations West Allison Amend’s novel about Jewish life in the early days of the Oklahoma Territory.
2014: “British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s apologized today after staff at a central London store removed kosher food from shelves in response to protesters outside demanding a boycott of Israeli goods.” (As reported by JTA)
2014: Egypt confirmed that both Israel and Hamas have agreed to another extension of the current cease-fire.
2014: The number of senior Republican Jewish leaders in the House of Representatives went to zero today as the resignation of Eric Cantor from Congress took effect today following his defeat by a “Tea Party” Republican in the party’s primary.
2015: UK Jewish Film is scheduled to host a showing of “Iris” the “50thand last film of Albert Maysles” in which he pays a wry tribute to Iris Apfel, a quick-witted, highly original 93-year-old New York style icon.”
2015: Docent Training is scheduled to begin at the Breman Jewish Museum in Atlanta, GA.
2015(3rdof Elul, 5775): Eighty-nine year old Bud Yorkin who teamed with Norman Lear to create a string edgy comedies including “All in the Family,” “Maude” and “The Jeffersons” passed away today.
2015: As we mark the centennial of Leo Frank’s lynching, “the Anti-Defamation League’s Washington, DC Regional Director, David Friedman” spoke “about the ADL’s fight against ant-Semitism.
2016: In Brooklyn, Halyards bar is scheduled to host a Tu B’Av event this evening where “a group of talented storytellers and comedians will share their tales of love lost, found, and everything in between.”
2016: Today “begin the 100-day countdown to the kickoff” to the start of a year-long celebration marking the creation of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies in Canada.
2016: Finally screening of “Bulgarian Rhapsody” sponsored by the UKJF is scheduled to be shown at the JW3.
2017(26thof Av, 5777): Seventy-two year old campaign strategist and political guru Arthur Finkelstein pas away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2017: In Atlanta, GA, The Breman Museum is scheduled to host program where attendees learn “about Josef Skupa, a Czech puppeteer who performed satirical puppet shows during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.”
2017: The first Sababa NJ Shabbat dinner for young Jewish adults in Union Country is scheduled to take place this evening.
2017: The Modern Dance Theater Istanbul of Istanbul State Opera & Ballet is scheduled to perform tonight as part of Tel Aviv Dance presented by the Suzanne Dellal Centre.
2018: Israeli comedian Naor Zion, “the son of Persian Jewish parents” is scheduled to return to his stand-up comic roots with a show at Beit Shmuel.
2018(7thof Elul, 5778): Parashat Shoftim
2019: Five days after he passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning at Mt. Zion Temple in St. Paul, MN for 93 year old Dale Cowle, “one of the founding members of the Ames, Iowa, Jewish Congregation” and the husband of Marion Cowle.
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Sarah.”
2019: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host “Soccer Day the J with Maccabi Tel Aviv Soccer Coaches.
2019: “Rosenwald” is scheduled to “have a special screening at Temple B’nai Israel in Oklahoma City…followed by a talk about ‘Education and Justice: Understanding and Reawakening the Black-Jewish Partnership’”
2019: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Jacob’s Ladder by Ludmila Ulitskaya and Places and Names: On War, Revolution and Returning by Elliot Ackerman as well as Rutu Modan’s “homage to Lean Goldberg on of Israel’s celebrated poets and children’s authors.
2020: Tonight, Democrats officially approved a new party platform that expresses support for a two-state solution that would establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel and which expresses a belief that Jerusalem should remain the capital of Israel.
2021: San Francisco performer Gilda Solve and the Osher Marin JCC are scheduled to host, virtually, “A Tribute to Irving Berlin.”
2021: “Congregation Beth Emek is scheduled to present, online “Political Events Affecting Israel” during which Matan Zamir, deputy consul general at S.F.-based Israeli consulate, will discuss the effect of Israel’s March elections.”
2021: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters: A True Story of Family Fiction” which includes a conversation with author Julie Klam and genealogist Jennifer Mendelsohn.
2021: Based on report published yesterday, Israelis should be able to have a small sigh of relief because the fires around Jerusalem have been contained.
2021: Based on reports of rockets having been fired from Gaza, Israelis may awake today wondering if they are going to have to endure another round of violence from the Hamas enclave.
2021: The National Museum of American Jewish History, for which Mitchell Levin is an “official content provider,” is scheduled “Songs of Our People, Songs of Our Neighbors” with Susana Behar, “the Havana-born singer of Ladino and Latin American songs.
https://www.nmajh.org/events/songs-of-our-people-songs-of-our-neighbors-susana-behar/
2022: Park Synagogue is scheduled to hold “An Evening of Israeli Dancing” this evening in the Wain Pavilion.
2022: The Museum of Jewish Heritage is schooled to host a “Modern Jewish Sounds Concert” with Kami Maltz and Friends.
2022: Jewish Gateways is scheduled to present “Rags of Light: The Music of Leonard Cohen from a Jewish Perspective.”
2022: Session 1 of Trybal Berkshires, a summer camp for young adults is scheduled to begin today.
2022: In San Francisco, Congregation Sherith Israel is schooled host “Expecting Jewishly,” a meet-and-greet and laid-back text study for expecting parents with rabbinic intern George Altshuler, snacks and shmoozing