September 5
394: Battle of Frigidus between Emperor Theodosius who ruled the eastern Roman Empire and Eugenius, ruler of the western part of the empire. Theodosius’ victory brought the two halves of the empire back under on ruler for one last time. This is viewed as battle between Christianity (Theodosius) and a resurgence of pagan worship (Eugenius). The victory did ensure Christianity’s hold on the Roman Empire, much to the detriment of the Jewish people. But Theodosius was not anti-Semitic or particularly opposed to the Jewish people. For example, in 388 when a Christian mob burned a synagogue in a town on the banks of the Euphrates River. Since the local bishop had had a hand in the arson, the governor was afraid to act and turned to Theodosius for help. The Emperor “reprimanded” the governor and ordered the official “to demand that the bishop build a new synagogue.” By now, though, the Church had gained so much power that Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, “forced the emperor to publicly withdraw his orders.”
1187: Birthdate of Louis VIII of France whose attempts to exploit the Jews for his personal gain brought him into a major conflict with Theobald IV the powerful Count of Champagne, who had his plans for extorting money from his Jewish subjects.
1236: “In a letter written to the archbishop of Bordeaux, Pope Gregory IX expressed his outrage at the ant-Jewish atrocities perpetrated in France” and “issued orders to several archbishops and bishops of southwestern and western France to compel the crusaders to make good the losses the Jews had suffered at their hands.” (Jewish Virtual Library)
1236: Pope Gregory IX sent a “Request to Louis IX, king of France, to punish the crusaders, murderers and despoilers of the Jews, and to compel them to make restitution."
1288: Nicolas IV issued “Turbato corde,” a papal bull that dealt with the conversion of Christians to Judaism. Any Jew thought to be involved in such an action could be held by the authorities who could confiscate their property, among other penalties.
1319: Birthdate of Peter IV of Aragon during whose reign the “Ordinance of the Jews of the Crown of Aragon” was adopted.
1566: Suleiman the Magnificent passed away.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0019_0_19345.html
1638: Birthdate of the Sun King, Louis XIV of France. During his long reign the French monarch’s treatment of the Jews vacillated based primarily on economic need. But in the end, the real Louis shone through when “he ordered the Jews ‘to leave the kingdom without any belongs,’ and told the local officials to take any and all means to expel Jews ‘because that is our wish.’”
1654: Twenty-three Sephardic Jews, seeking sanctuary from the Spanish Inquisition, arrive in New Amsterdam [New York], from Pernambuco, Brazil. They had arrived at their final destination on the ship St. Catherine (also referred to in the literature as the St. Charles).
1708: In Lisbon, Portugal, Abraham Mendes Seixas and Abigail Mendes Seixas gave birth to Isaac Mendes Seixas who would settle in Newport, Rhode Island.
1708: In Lisbon, Portugal, Abigail M. Seixas and Abraham Mendes Seixas gave birth toe Isaac Mendes Seixas, the husband of Rachel Franks Levy whom he married at New York in 1740 and with whom he had nine children.
1725: King Louis XV of France married Maria Leszczyńska. Jews may well have taken part of the wedding celebrations since Louis XV had publicly guaranteed the rights of the Jews living in southern France when he came to throne in 1723. This change in policy from his father Louis IV may have been the result of 110,000 livres payment made in honor of “the joyous event of his Majesty’s coronation.”
1726: In New York City, Moses Raphael Levy and Grace Mears gave birth to Benjamin Levy.
1736: Many leading Jews of Posen, Poland were imprisoned and tortured a following blood libel.
1764: In Berlin, Esther and Benjamin de Lemos gave birth to Henriette Herz née De Lemos, the emancipated Jewess who converted after the death of her husband.
1766(2ndof Tishrei, 5527): Second Day of Rosh Hashanah observed for the first time since Parliament adopted the Declaratory Act which was one of the steps that led to the American Revoltuion.
1781: During the American Revolution, General George Washington rode into Chester, a town on Chesapeake Bay where he found out that French Admiral de Grasse had arrived with his fleet; a decisive event in defeating Cornwallis made possible because Admiral Sir George Rodney had opted to continue looting St. Eustatius where he displayed an anti-Semitic animus toward the Jewish merchants instead of intercepting the French Fleet as he had been ordered to do.
1783: In Charleston, SC, Moses Cohen and Judith De Lyon gave birth to Rinah Cohen.
1784: Birthdate of Reinah Abrahams, the daughter of Emanuel Abrahams who was the wife of David Mordecai.
1785(1stof Tishrei, 5564) Rosh Hashanah observed as John Adams serves his first term as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Thomas Jefferson served his first term as U.S. Ambassador to France
1789: In New York City, Jacob Naphtali Hart and Leah Nathan gave birth to Zipporah Hart.
1791: Birthdate of Giacomo Meyerbeer. Born Jacob Liebmann Beer, Meyebeer was a successful German- born composer for opera. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Meyerbeer saw no need to give up his Judaism to gain artistic success. He passed away in 1864.
http://www.meyerbeer.com/whois.htm
1793: In the wake of the French Revolution, The Reign of Terror began today during which Alsatian born Jewish businessman and philanthropist Herz Cerfbeer of Medelsheim (Naphtali Ben Von-Geer) was imprisoned for a year on charges that he had been a supporter of the Ancien Regime.
1797: Simon Medex married Elle Cert in Eysden, Holland.
1800: Malta was conquered by Great Britain. According to legend the Jewish community in Malta began over 3,000 years ago when members of the tribes of Zebulon and Asher arrived on the island with the Phoenicians. The Jewish community of Malta had its ups and downs over the centuries. The British conquest found the community at an “up point.” In 1789, Napoleon had conquered Malta on his way to Egypt and Palestine bringing the French laws abolishing slavery and establishing liberty and equality for all to the citizens of Malta including the Jewish population.
1807: After twenty days, the British bombardment of Copenhagen, during which 24 year old Ludwig Lewin Jacobson “served as a military surgeon at the lazaretto of the Freemasons' academical lodge” came to an end following which the Danish Jewish surgeon obtained permission to “inspect the British field-hospitals” as a matter of scientific inquiry.
1807: The Battle of Copenhagen, which destroyed the family property Danish Poet Henrik Hertz who had been raised by the newspaper M.L. Nathanson after the death of his father, came to an end
1810: John Pesman married Esther Capua at the Great Synagogue today.
1811: In Frankfurt am Main David Philipp Schloss and Malchen Schloss gave birth to Adelheid Goldschmidt the wife of Herz Simon Goldschmidt.
1816: Louis XVIII has to dissolve the Chambre introuvable ("Unobtainable Chamber"). Jews remember Louis XVIII as the French monarch who would not renew the rights the Jewish people had won under the Republic and Napoleon thus forcing them to revert to the status they “enjoyed” prior to the French Revolution.
1816: Five years after being appointed rabbi at Glogua a royal rescript was issued making him chief district rabbi at Breslau, a position he held until his death in 1820.
1818(4th of Elul, 5578): Joseph Haltern “who wrote ‘Esther,’ a Hebrew adaptation of Racine’s drama of the same name” passed away today in Berlin.
1825: In Amsterdam, Sara da Costa and Isaac David Levie Montezinos gave birth to David Levy Montezinos, the husband of Abigail Levy Montezinos.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/montezinos-david
1832: Birthdate of Austrian native Anna Kanner who became Anna Zeisler when married Ignatz Zeisler with whom she had two sons, Joseph Zeisler and Northwestern trained attorney Sigmund Zeisler.
1841: In Edinburgh, Scotland Sidney and Nancy Hart Aloe gave birth to Albert Sidney Aloe who in 1856 came to the United States where he worked as a building engineer before settling in St. Louis where opened a string of optical goods stores and married Isabella Prince/
1842(1stof Tishrei, 5603): Rosh Hashanah observed for the second time during the Presidency of John Tyler, the first person to become chief executive because of the death of the sitting president.
1848: The Jews of Hanover, Germany, were granted equality.
1848: Nassereddin Shah Qajar, whose personal doctor was Bohemian born Jewish physician Jakob Eduard Polak, began his reign as King of Persian today.
1853: Sixty-nine year old Georges Bernard Depping, the author of Les Juifs dans le moyen âge, essai historique sur leur état civil, commercial et littéraire (History of the Jews during the Middle Ages) which was written in an attempt to win a prize offered by the French Royal Academy “for a work describing the condition of the Jews in France during the medieval period” passed away today.
1858(26thof Elul, 5618): Sixty-three year old “Austrian satirical writer and journalist Moritz Gottlieb Saphir uttered his final words "Now all is over, I have to go” as he passed away today at Baden.
1859: “Quarrel Over a Jewish Bible” published today described a dispute over ownership of a Bible by the Jews of Troy, NY. On one side is led by a tailor named Herman Levy, a Jewish tailor, Julius Lawrence, his son-in-law. Levy claimed to have bought the Bible for $34 in 1858. His opponents claim that they paid $80 for it eleven years ago. The disputants came to blows and Levy was twice imprisoned - first on charges of assault; second on charges of perjury for having lied about his claim to the sacred text.
1860: Lewis Hart married Elizabeth Hart today at the New Synagogue.
1861(1st of Tishrei, 5622): Rosh Hashanah finds Jews wearing Blue and Gray facing each other across the battle lines of the Civil War.
1861: In Prague, Leopold and Sofie Sara Pick gave birth to Franziska Fanny Kun /Kohn
1865: In New York City, Betty Loeb and Salomon gave birth to their daughter Guta who married Isaac Seligman making her Guta Seligamn
1865: In New York City, “J. Daniel and Fannie (Marshuetz) Mayer” gave birth to Columbia Law School graduate Julius M. Mayer, the Attorney General for the State New York and U.S. District Court Judge.
1865: It was reported today the Mr. R. J. De Cordova, the humorist and author, has lately received a legacy from a deceased relative in England, amounting to quite a fortune. It is to be presumed, therefore, that Mr. C. will have no further occasion to be amusing. [The presumption was in error since Mr. De Cordova, who was Jewish remained humorous and popular.]
1869(29th of Elul, 5629): Erev Rosh Hashana observed for the first time during the Presidency of U.S. Grant.
1870: It was reported today that a group of German Jews in Philadelphia have just finished building a new synagogue.
1872: The investigation of the mistreatment of the passengers aboard the SS Charles H. Marshall, which included numerous Jewish immigrants from Russia, was scheduled to continue today at Castle Garden, NY.
1874(23rd of Elul, 5634): Parashat Nitzavim-Vayeilech; Leil Selichot
1874(23rdof Elul, 5634): Seventy-one year old Mary Ann Knapp Ancona, the Newburgh, NY born daughter of Silas and Bathsheba Knapp and the wife of Moses Montefiore Acona passed away today after which she was buried in Reading, PA.
1875: Birthdate of CCNY alum and NYU trained attorney Martin Wechlsler, “a past president of the Flatbush Jewish Center, vice president of the United Synagogue of America and the father of two children – Lean and Daniel
1876: Birthdate of Silesian born journalist turned movie producer Lothar Stark who was among the Jews living in Denmark that was saved during the Holocaust by being spirited away to Sweden.
1877: In Cincinnati, OH, Amelia Hyman and Emile Kahn gave birth to University of Cincinnati and College of Music award winning graduate Cora Kahn, the instructor in public speaking at HUC and drama class instructor at the Wise Center at Cincinnati’s Plumb Street Temple.
1878: It was reported that Thomas Fallon, a Roman Catholic, and his wife, a 15 year old Jewess named Rachel Cohen have gone to live in their home on Baxter Street, after a judge had dismissed the complaint by the bride’s father, Lowenthal Cohen, that the girl had been kidnapped and not married.
1879: It was reported today that the Skuptschina, the National Assembly of Serbia, which was supposed to settle the issue of Jewish emancipation will not be meeting as scheduled. This has led to speculation that the so-called great powers of Europe will bring pressure on the Serbian cabinet to resolve the issue.
1880: “The Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau” published today gives a detail description of the performance the anti-Semitic drama.
1880: It was reported today Baron Sunzburg is the President of the “society for the diffusion of Jewish knowledge among the Jews of Russia.” The society supported 25 schools and supplied “various…libraries, societies, and writers” with a variety of Jewish literature.
1881: Alfred Marks, alias Charles Sarridge, a handsome well-dressed Jewish “flim flam” man whose con involves getting merchants to change his larger bills for smaller ones was arrested in New York City today.
1881: “State Affairs In Europe” published includes a description of conditions in Russia where the anti-Jewish riots are seen as “the prelude to other disorders. The attacks on the Jews of Kiev and Tchernigoff are “chronic” and the authorities “do not even attempt” to bring them to an end. Eventually, “the nineteenth century will witness a return to the ages of barbarism in Russia.”
1882: The first United States Labor Day parade is held in New York City. While Jews have been active in the American labor movement for more than a century, Labor Day has taken on a new meaning for at least some Jews. Labor Day weekend is the now the time when the The Ball – “biggest Jewish singles event of the year” – takes place.
1882: In New York, the Board of Health heard a report from its inspectors the building occupied by the female department of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum which is home to 125 children is not connected to a sewer system. After hearing Mr. Myer Stern’s statement that the Asylum has not had any response from the Department of Public Works to its application for sewer connection, the board adopted a resolution asking the Department of Public Works to cooperate with the Jewish organization in this matter.
1884: It was reported today that at Coventry the fundraising effort to restore St. Michael’s Church has been an ecumenical affair with Jewish citizens having contributed to the $130,000 raised so far.
1884: “Paupers Coming Back” published today described plans to send 3,000 Jewish immigrants from Romania to the United States that are being organized by Edward A. David on behalf of Romanian bankers.
1885: It was reported today that a figure of Sir Moses Montefiore will be added to the large collection at Eden Musee.
1886: As New York experiences a series of strikes amongst various trade groups, 700 Jewish tailors are schedule to go on strike today which is Sunday, the first day of their workweek.
1886: In New York Rosalie Jacobs and Leonard Lewisohn gave birth to Irene Lewisohn “the founder of the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Museum of Costume Art who was the sister of Alice Lewisohn.
1888(29thof Elul, 5648): Erev Rosh Hashana observed for the last time during the Presidency of Grover Cleveland. (Cleveland is the only split term president who won re-election after losing his attempt to get re-elected in 1888)
1888: In Hurley, WI, Rachel Wolfe and Casper Lewis gave birth to University of Chicago trained attorney and realtor Leon Lawrence Lewis the husband of Ruth Lowenberg who was the executive secretary of the of the Anti-Defamation League for twelve years, the founder and first editor the B’nai B’rith Magazine while being “active in all Jewish philanthropic, educational and charitable movements in Chicago.”
1889: In Warsaw, Poland, Same and Adela (Newmark) Grossbard gave birth University of Colorado trained electrical engineer Sol Grossbard, the General Electric employee wo went on to serve as the vice president of the Hus Sheng Trading Company in Shanghai and a member of the Chinese-American Engineering Association.
1889: In New York Judge Van Hoesen was scheduled to rule on motions related to a squabble between S.D. Levy and Alexander S. Rosenthal, the lawyers involved in the divorce proceedings between Simon and Anne Weinstein which have lasted for more than 5 months. (All of the parties are Jewish except the Judge.)
1889(1stof Tishrei, 5660): Rosh Hashanah
1889: In “Bella, Czechoslovakia,” Jacob and Charlotte Newgeboren Drachsler gave birth to Julius Drachsler, who, at the age of 14 came to the United States where he earned a BS at CCNY and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia after which he became an Assistant Professor of Sociology and CCNY and wrote Democracy and Assimilation and Intermarriage in New York City.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/253331
1889: Birthdate of Vilna native and physicist Jonas Bernard Nathanson who in 1896 came to the United States earned a Ph.D. at Ohio State, taught at Carnegie Tech and authored such works as The Reflecting Power of the Alkali Metals.
https://archive.org/details/reflectingpowero00nath
1890: In Bialystok, Louis Leib Surazski Zuro, the son of Arke (Aaron) Surazski and Pesza Sourasky and his wife “Leah Sourasky gave birth to William “Wolf” Zuro
1890: In the Czech part of the Austria-Hungary Empire, Jacob and Charlotte Newgeboren Drachsler gave birth to Julius Drachsler who, at the age of 14 came to the United States where he earned a BS at CCNY and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia after which he became an Assistant Professor of Sociology and CCNY and wrote Democracy and Assimilation and Intermarriage in New York City
1890: As of today, Adolph Eisner who has been Superintendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum for the past six years has been missing for over a week amidst allegations about his “conduct toward several young girls in his charge.” However, a committee has investigated the charges and said that at worse he “had been very indiscreet in his language to some of the older girls.”
1891: Mr. Bauman who runs a training school for people working the garment industry financed by the Baron Hirsch Fund and managed by the United Hebrew Charities denied charges that his trainees were taking jobs away from experienced workers. He said that if the immigrants were not trained they would become peddlers or go out without work. He said that his trainees could not compete with experienced workers because the latter were not as skilled and the school did everything it could to send its graduates to work in cities outside of New York.
1892: Birthdate of Hungarian born violinist Joseph Szigeti
1892: “Rabbi Sonnenschein’s Problems” published today described the marital problems of prominent St. Louis Rabbi Solomon H. Sonnenschein who is seeking a divorce from his wife Rosa who is currently in Chicago and has announced her attention to cross file. (While may not know their names today, they were a Jewish Power Couple and she would go to found The American Jewess.)
1892: The body of an unidentified Jewish peddler thought to be a cousin of Harris Glckman was found in New Utrecht
1893: In Norma, NJ, “Yocheved Perski and Aaron Rovine gave birth to Sarah Rovine, the future wife of Abraham Brodsky.
1893: It was reported today that Herr Paasch the “notorious anti-Semite” who persistently attacks government officials for “showing a leaning toward the Jews” “has been pronounced a dangerous lunatic and has been sent to an asylum.”
1893: A hearse containing the body of a Jewish infant under the care of undertake Solomon Goodman and driven by Moses Bernstein and David Rich was struck by a trolley in Brooklyn on its way to the Hebrew Cemetery at Flatbush.
1894: Wolf Siegel petitioned Judge McAdam to issue a writ of mandamus ordering the “Society Chevia Gwat Aushi Poland” reinstate him as a member. Siegel claimed he had been dismissed from the organization because he trimmed his beard, a claim denied by the Society.
1894: “Kaybles War On Jews” published today described the attacks by this tribe of Berbers on Jews living in several communities in Morocco where the synagogues have been looted, men tortured and killed and the children “outraged and sold into slavery.”
1895: John Reilly and Patrick Finn were arrested and jailed today for having attacked Cohen Friedman
1897: The Hebrew Free School Association sponsored a free entertainment for 500 children at the Education Alliance Building at East Broadway and Jefferson Street.
1897: Birthdate of Morris Carnovsky, the St. Louis native whose acting career was interrupted by being placed on the infamous “blacklist.”
1897(8thof Elul, 5657): Thirty year old Abraham Moss fell from his bicycle in Brooklyn today and died.
1897: “A Jewish State in Palestine an Impossibility” based on information that originally appeared the American Israelite provided Rabbi Isaac M. Wise’s reasons why the conflict between religion and rationalism would doom Dr. Herzl’s dream of creating a Jewish state Palestine.
1898: Comte de Bejon de Larouziere who just arrived in New York from France where he has watched events concerning the Dreyfus Affair first hand said that it did not matter if Colonel admitted that the letter used against Dreyfus was a forgery, there would never be a rehearing of the case because “the aristrocratic element and great masses of Frenchmen would be opposed to it;” that there would be a revolution if a new trial were granted while no revolution will take place if a new trial is not granted and that the leaders of the French military are against a new trial.
1898: A despondent Polish Jew who had been swindled by Peter Brume is hospitalized at St. Mary’s Hospital after having tried to drown himself by jumping off the bow of a ferry boat.
1899(1stof Tishrei, 5660): Rosh Hashanah is observed for the last time in the 19thcentury.
1899: Dr. Rudolph Grossman will deliver a Rosh Hashanah sermon entitled “What Does It Mean to Be a Jew?”
1899: Congregants at Temple Beth-El will hear a sermon entitled “The Kingdom of God.”
1899: At B’nai Jeshurun, Rabbi S.S. Wise will deliver a sermon entitled “New Year Thoughts and New Year Hopes.”
1899: In Rennes, during the second Dreyfus trial, the court did not hear testimony from a Serbian expatriate testifying for the Prosecution because it spent most of the day reviewing an “espionage dossier” in a secret session.
1900: Birthdate of Muscovite filmmaker Yelizaveta Svilova, “lifelong collaborator and wife of Dziga Vertov” and sister-in-law of cinematographer Mikhail Kaufman who in own right was most famous for her filming of the liberation of Auschwitz and the creation of a documentary about the Holocaust using that footage.
1900: Herbert Stern, 1st Baron Michelham, the son Hermann, Baron de Stern and Julia Goldsmid and his wife Aimee Geraldine Bradshaw gave birth to Herman Alfred Stern, 2nd Baron Michelham
http://www.npgprints.com/image/1130837/bassano-ltd-herman-alfred-stern-2nd-baron-michelham
1900: Birthdate of Polish born, Canadian Jewish writer Shmuel-Leyzer Abello.
http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2015/12/shmuel-eliezer-abello.html
1901: Today, President William McKinley who had been overwhelming supported by Jews when he ran against Williams Jennings Bryan addressed the people attending the Pan-American Exposition on “President’s Day.”
1902: Eighty year old award winning German scientist Rudolf Carl Virchow who “attempted to provide a rationale for the sense of Jewish acculturation” (in Germany) but who “still assumed that Jews were a separate and distinct racial category” passed away today.
1902: In a letter to Wenzel von Plehve Herzl reports on the just completed meeting of the Zionist Congress
1902: Birthdate of Darryl F Zanuck Hollywood producer and motion picture executive. Zanuck was not Jewish. He was of Greek ancestry. But he made the Academy Award winning film Gentlemen's Agreement. Filmed in 1947, this controversial movie dealt with the subject of anti-Semitism in the United States; not the goose-stepping, brown-shirted variety of the Nazis, but the culturally accepted American variety of quotas and "the unwritten, gentlemen's agreement" that Jews should be excluded from certain clubs, hotels, business opportunities, law firms, etc. Jewish film makers at Warner Brothers and MGM did not want Zanuck to make this movie. They knew how real certain forms of anti-Semitism were and they feared a backlash. They also cautioned Zanuck that in the unsettled political environment of the late 1940's, such a film might be detrimental to his career. Their fears proved to be unfounded as Gregory Peck gave one his signature performances and helped the film win three Oscars.
1903: It was reported today that in Australia, Solomon Cohen, “the managing director of Cohen and Co Ltd” “obtained a divorce decree nisi from his wife.”
1904: M.N.Leve, the President of the Alliance Israelite said today “the reforms which the Czar has proclaimed for the amelioration of the condition of the Russian Jews, said the new regulations were little more than a hint of a better disposition.”
1904: Miami, FL. Realtor Isidore Cohen the Bialystock born son of Pearl Bashinsky and Lazarus Cohen, who was “one of the founder Congregation Beth David, the first synagogue in Miami married Ida Hershkowitz today.
1905: The Russo-Japanese War comes to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth. President Theodore Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the fighting. In additional to the Medal, there was a cash award four thousand dollars some of which TR donated to the Jewish Welfare Board. Today’s Japanese victory was due, in part of the efforts of loans made by Jewish financers to Japan which made it possible for the Empire of the Rising Sun to buy the munitions needed for victory. As a result of the loan that Jacob Schiff procured for Japan through Kuhn, Loeb & Co, the Jewish financier received the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star which he received from Emperor Meiji in the Imperial Palace. One can only wonder if Schiff’s efforts were driven, in part, by the vicious anti-Semitism of the Czarist regime. On the other hands, Joseph Trumpeldor, who would become one of the early heroes of the Zionist movement, was a highly decorated soldier serving in the Russian Army who lost his arm during the ill-fated fight at Port Arthur. (Jewish history is never a simple affair)
1905: In Budapest, Henrik Koestler and Adela Jeiteles Koestler gave birth to Arthur Koestler. Koestler was a journalist and author who wrote about everything from Communism to the origins of European Jewry to Yoga and Zen Buddhism. His life is so richly textured that it reads like a character out of a piece of fiction. Two of his most famous works are Darkness at Noon and The God That Failed, which deal with his disillusionment with Communism, a doctrine he had embraced before World War II. He wrote at least three books dealing with Jewish topics. Thieves in the Night was based on his experiences living on Kibbutz before the war. Promise and Fulfillment is a history of Palestine from the Balfour Declaration to the founding of the state of Israel. Thirteenth Tribe is based on the Khazars and Koestler's belief that most European Jews are descended from them. Koestler suffered from Leukemia and Parkinson's Disease and passed away under tragic circumstances in 1983.
1906: As of today, “the governors of the principal towns and provinces of Russia have been instructed not to permit Jews, Poles or Armenians to carry arms.”
1906: The “shochtim” who belong to the 90 member Shechter Union led by Jacob Roberwitz went on strike today in a battle over their system for compensation which means that “Orthodox Jews on the East Side and in Brooklyn will dine without chicken” until the matter is resolved.
1906: Today, “Premier Stolypin and Council of Ministers in Russia” issued an official communication containing the government’s program” that included “an article promising the immediate abolition of useless restrictions on the Jews.
1906: Today, in Russia, The Council of Ministers sanctioned “the plan permitting the Jews to open elementary and secondary schools under the same conditions as the adherents of other creeds.”
1907: “Want Holiday Cards Mailed Early” published today described special requests made by Postmaster Morgan for Jews to mail their holiday day cards early and to allow for extra days for delivery because “many of the clerks are Jews and desire to observe their holidays which fall on September 9, 10 and 18.”
1908: Birthdate of Caraglio, Piedmont native and historian who Arnaldo Dante Momigliano who “became Professor of Roman History at the University of Turin, but as a Jew soon lost his position due to the anti-Jewish Racial Laws enacted by the Fascist regime in 1938” after which he taught at Oxford and the University of Chicago.
1909: Birthdate of Old Testament scholar and biblical archaeologist George Wright who led digs at Shechem and Tell Gezer.
1909: Birthdate of Detroit native Harry Lawrence Newman the star quarterback for the Michigan Wolverines who led them to three Big Ten Championships that included an undefeated season and national championship in 1932 before going on to a successful NFL career in the late 1930’s.
1910: Marie Curie, who had supported Dreyfus and whose enemies attempted to block her membership in the French Academy with false claims that she was Jewish “announced….that she had found a process to isolate pure radium from its naturally occurring salt, radium chloride, making large scale production of the rare element feasible.”
1911: In London, George W. Seligman married Mrs. R.C.W. Wadsworth a widow who was the daughter of James Benedict of New York City.
1912: “Judge Leon Sanders, just returned from Europe, where he has been making arrangements for a world-wide movement in the interests of Jewish immigration, was honored this evening by a dinner at the Hotel Astor” which was attended by more than 450 persons.
1913: The eastern portion of Hot Springs, AR, the resort community that Jews began to settle in the 1830’s and which at this time was home to many stores owned by Jews including Simon Meyer, Morris Moscowitz and David Lockwood, went up in smoke today in fire that brought engines from as far away as Little Rock.
1914: During WW I, the pivotal Battle of the Marne, which represented the last chance for the Allies to halt the advance of the Germans on the Western Front began with armies that came to include tens of thousands of Jews on both sides.
1914: During World War I, “on the Eastern Front, the first award of the Cross of St George, the equivalent of the Victoria Cross in Britain,” went to Leo Osnas, a Jewish soldier, “for exceptional bravery on the field of battle.”
1914: Forty one year old French Roman Catholic author Charles Peguy, an ardent Dreyfusard (supporter of the French Jewish military officer) passed away today.
1914: Stoker William Stern was among the 250 British sailors who died today when the HMS Pathfinder was sunk today by the U-21 in what was the first sinking of a surface vessel by a submarine using a motor powered torpedo.
1915(26thof Elul, 5675): Orthodox Jews in New York and other cities in the United States observed a special fast day which had been called for by a group of rabbis meeting at the Henry Street Synagogue to express sympathy for suffering being experienced by the Jews of Europe because of the World War and to pray for peace at special services being held on this day.
1915: Rabbi M.S. Margolis conducted services from five until 8 this morning during which he delivered “ a sermon on the sufferings of the European Jews” and called for financial contributions from American Jews to aid the their co-religionists in the war zones.
1915: In Toledo, Ohio, founding of Anshe Sfard Synagogue
1915: “Jacob Panken, the attorney for the Hebrew Trades acted as the temporary Chairman of today’s meeting in Beethoven Hall where delegates from “a number of Jewish trade unions and the National Workmen’s Committee on Jewish Rights” met “to consider ways and means by which American Jews can assist European Jews during and after the war.”
1915: The American Jewish Relief Committee a cable message from the Jewish Colonization Committee at Petrograd stating “Referring our cable fifth June, seeing daily increasing acutest, indescribable distress. Sums collected and half million Government contribution completely exhausted.”
1915: “Speaking before the Council of the Empire” today “Baron Rosen former Russian Ambassador to the United States declared that it was the duty of the legislature to take the initiative in introducing bill abrogating all legislation restricting the rights of Jews.”
1915: In Atlantic City, NJ, the Fourth Annual Convention of the Associated Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Associations opened today at Beth Israel Temple with a speech by Joseph Brenner of New York who declared “that young Jews are growing up in ignorance of the history and the achievements of the great men of the race.”
1915: Leon Trotsky attended an International Socialist conference in Zimmerwald, Switzerland that issues a manifesto demanding immediate peace and civil war between the classes throughout Europe.
1915: The bazar sponsored by the Galician and Boukowinian Jews which has a member of 60,000 is scheduled to continue for a second day.
1916: “Asks Jews To Drop Congress Program” published today described efforts by the Jewish Congress of Committee of Brooklyn under that leadership of Chairman Professor Isaac A. Hourwich and Vice Chairman Joseph Barondess to get its counterparts throughout the United States to repudiate “the peace agreement” that is designed to lead to the meeting of an American Jewish Congress because of disagreement over the method of electing delegates and choosing members of the executive committee.
1916: Birthdate of Canadian comedian Frank Shuster, the Shuster in the team of “Wayne and Shuster” who was the cousin of Jos Shuster, one of the creators “Superman.”
1916: Today, the New York Times published a list of friends or relatives of Jews living in the New York area supplied by acting general manager Jacob Fain whom the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America is trying to find on behalf of needy Jews living in Russia.
1917: Pavel Axelrod of the Organization committee of the Russian Social Democratic Party and Karol Radek and Jacob Hanecki of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania were among the delegates attending the “Third Zimmerwald Conference” – a meeting of anti-War Socialists – that opened today in Stockholm.
1917: In Greensburg, PA, a suburb of Pittsburg, furniture salesman David Goldberg and his wife Anna gave birth to Arthur Newton Goldberg who gained fame as “Art Rupe, the founder of Specialty Records, an innovative independent label based in Los Angeles that brought rhythm and blues into the mainstream and helped set the table for the rock ’n’ roll era with singers like Little Richard and Lloyd Price.” (As reported by William Grimes)
1918: Prior to the Battle of Nablus, in Palestine “the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade took over the left sector of the valley defences, continuing active patrolling.”
1918: “In the ravine de L’Homme Mort, near Vauxcere between the Vesle and Aisne Rivers,” after a bursting shell blew off both of this feet, William Shefrin, a cook serving with Company C, 306th Infrantry, “although mortally wounded, cooly directed the work of rescuing and caring for other wounded men of the kitchen department” who had been injured with their transport was struck.
1919: The 1919 Emergency National Convention of the Socialist Party of America which Jacob Panken played a vital role as the chairman of the Credentials Committee came to an end today.
1919: It was reported today that “the campaign to raise $500,000 for the purpose of covering the cost of the new home of the Hebrew National Orphan House on Tuckahoe Road will be inaugurated by a dinner at the Hotel Astor: on September 15th.
1920: Seats for the upcoming High Holiday services are on sale today at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun and the West End Synagogue (Congregation Shaaray Tefillah)
1920: Grand Rabbi Meilech Horowitz and Cantor Marcus Ornoff are scheduled to officiate this afternoon “at the dedication ceremonies of the new gate to be opened at Mt. Carmel cemetery by the Congregation Beth H’Kneseth Anshee Mieletz of which Mendel Z. Schapiro is president.”
1920: Birthdate of Ontario, Canada, native Selma Diamond who wrote comedy for radio and television before establishing herself as a comedic character actress.
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-05-14/local/me-19057_1_night-court-actress-selma-diamond
1921: In Brooklyn, Harry Gotbaum and the former Mollie Bernstein gave birth to labor leader Victor Harry Gotbaum. (As reported by Steven Greenhouse)
1922: Birthdate of Istanbul native Mordecai Weinstein who gained fame as Mordechai Gazit, the older brother of Shlomo Gait, Haganah veteran and “an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir., ambassador to France, and as Director-General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry”
1922: Today, Hyman Rickover “joined the destroyer La Vallette” where “he impressed his commanding officer with his hard work and efficiency.”
1922: Three days after he passed away, funeral services are scheduled to be held in Jersey for Joseph Morris, the husband of Jeannette Morris who was lodge brother of Hiram Cohen.
1923: In the aftermath of the Earthquakes that struck Japan in August, “Rabbi Abram Simon, the President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis…issued a call to all members to obtain subscriptions to the Japanese relief fund of the American Red Cross.”
1924: “Another message from President Coolidge praising the Jews in” the United States in which he said that “the Jewish New Year which begins on the evening of September is one of the most notable anniversaries in the Jewish calendar” and “it is an occasion too, of much interest to non-Jewish people” was made public today
1925: Birthdate of Justin Kaplan the Pulitzer Prize winning biographer whose subjects included Mark Twain, Walt Whiteman and Lincoln Steffens.
1926(26thof Elul, 5686): Walter Pulitzer, the son of Albert Pulitzer and the nephew of publisher Joseph Pulitzer who was the president of the Pulitzer Publishing Company, the author of Chess Harmonies and composer of songs for light opera who married Caroline Englehart and divorcing Lillian Hearne passed away.
1926: Rabbi David de Sola Pool, the spiritual leader of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, reported on his recently completed trip to Palestine. He said that one of the things that impressed him the most was the “complete public security in Palestine and Transjordan.” He reported that he and his family traveled between the two entities with the same sense of security one would have in traveling from New York to Montreal. He was also impressed with the economic growth in the region which was exemplified by the newly completed public works project in Jerusalem that will bring “copious” amounts of water to the City David; a change that will benefit Jews, Moslems and Christians.
1927(8th of Elul, 5687): Fifty-seven year old movie mogul Marcus Loew who formed MGM and Loews Theatre Chain passed away.
http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=88
1927: Thirty-two year Samuel Holtzman the lightweight boxer who fought under the name of Frankie Callahan passed away today.
1927: “The Master of Nuremberg” starring Julius Falkenstein and featuring Maria Matray and Hermann PIcha was released today in Germany.
1927: Three quarters of the houses in the town Kotsk or Kock in Eastern Poland were destroyed by a fire which broke out tonight. The town was the home of Menachem Mendel Morgensztern of Kotzk, better known as the Kotzker Rebbe.
1928: A group of Jews from Wembley, in the London Borough of Brent, held their first meeting at which it was decided to form the Wembley Hebrew Congregation and Mr. H Hooberman was appointed Chairman of the Congregation.
1929: As Arab violence abated, a large number of Arab leaders met in Jerusalem under the auspices of the Arab Executive.
1929: In Haifa, Jewish shops remained closed while casualties from the fighting at Safed , where the British repulsed invading Bedouin forces, arrived in the northern port city.
1929: A committee of leading physicians of Jerusalem today issued a strong denial of a government official statement that there were no mutilations of the bodies of Jews massacred at Hebron. The physicians emphatically asserted that among the fifty-nine slain Jews buried at Hebron a great number of unspeakable mutilations were disclosed. The committee demands the exhumation of these victims in the presence of European doctors and the Consular Corps for the purpose of proving their contention. The committee also states that many Jews are being treated in Jerusalem hospitals for mutilations and that these are still available for inspection.
1930: It was reported today that Felix W. Warburg, the American philanthropist gave an interview in Berlin in which he emphasized the need to continue aide “for translating the hopeful and optimistic outlook in Palestine into reality in order to lay a safe foundation for te Jews there and for their progress in the future.”
1931: A week after premiering in New York City, : “Street Scene” the movie version of the Pulitzer Prize winning play Elmer Rice, produced by Samuel Goldwyn and with music by Alfred Newman was released today in the rest of the United States.
1931: In Alexandria, Egypt, “Dora and Haim Victor Mizrahi, a store clerk” gave birth to Moshe Mizrahi the Egyptian born, award winning Israeli film director Moshe Mizrahi
1931: Birthdate of Amnon Rubinstein, the native of Tel Aviv who became a legal scholar, politician, columnist and member of the Knesset serving from 1977 through 2002.
1932: In Atlantic City, the annual encampment of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States where payment of the bonus to World War Veterans and the immigration quotas which affected Jews were topics of conversation is scheduled to come to an end today.
1932: In San Francisco, CA, Mortimer Fleishhacker, Jr. the San Francisco born son of Mortimer and Florence Fleishhacker gave birth to Mortimer Fleishhacker, III
1932(11th of Elul, 5692): Forty-two year old director Paul Bern, a colleague of Irving Thalberg and the new husband of film star Jean Harlow was found dead today, with a gunshot in his head and gun by his side. For more see http://www.historictruecrime.com/how-did-paul-bern-die-the-mysterious-death-of-jean-harlows-husband/
1933: First baseman Phil Weintraub made his major league debut with the New York Giants.
1934(24th of Av, 5694): Baevski Myer passed away. Born Simcha Myer Baevski in Russia, in 1878, the Australian businessman and philanthropist, best known for creating Myer, Australia's largest chain of department stores.
1934: In Elmira, NY, Dr. Alexander Lyons, the Rabbi of the Eighth Avenue Temple in Brooklyn is scheduled to deliver the main address today during the dedication of the People’s Temple.
1935: Artist Lucienne Bloch, the daughter of composer Ernest Bloch, married Stephen Pope Dimitroff today.
1936: “The Arab Supreme Committee decided today to continue the general strike against Jewish immigration and the sale of land to Jews…” which so far has claimed the lives 300 people including seventy-nine Jews.
1936: The American Committee for the Relief of Jews announced today that “leading rabbinical and synagogue organizations throughout” the United States “have joined in the committee’s High Holy Days’ appeal which is aimed at ameliorating “the distress of about 3,500,000 Jews in Poland.”
1936: The Democratic State Committee announced that “a resolution endorsing President Roosevelt and Governor Lehman has been adopted delegates representing about 50,000 owners and workers in the cleaning and dyeing industry.”
1936: During the Spanish Civil War, Robert Capa photographs “The Falling Soldier.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Capa,_Death_of_a_Loyalist_Soldier.jpg
http://life.time.com/history/robert-capas-falling-soldier-the-modest-birth-of-an-iconic-picture/#1
1937(29thof Elul, 5697): Erev Rosh Hashanah
1937(29thof Elul, 5697): Seventy-four year old “tobacco manufacturer and philanthropist” Sir Albert Levy, the son of Moses Levy, founder Adrath Tobacco Company, a member of the West London Synagogue and supporter of “a wide range of Jewish causes who was knighted in 1929 passed away today leaving an estate of £130,000.
http://www.jta.org/1937/09/08/archive/sir-albert-levy-british-philanthropist-dead-at-74
1937: “One Hundred Men and a Girl” a musical comedy directed Henry Koster, produced by Joe Pasternak, with a score by Charles Previn and featuring Mischa Auer as Michael Borodoff was released in the United States by Universal Pictures.
1938: The Racial Laws were passed today in Italy which excluded all those of Jewish background from universities, schools, academies and other institutions.
1938: When the National Socialist Party held its annual convention in Nuremberg today, Nazis did not have to look on “the old synagogue and administrative buildings of the Jewish Cultural Society on Hans Sachs Platz” because in August Julius Streicher had ordered that the demolition of these buildings that he called “the disgrace of Nuremberg” were to be destroyed before the party faithful gathered.
1938: After a two day hiatus, “You Can’t Take It with You” by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart continued its Broadway run when it re-opened at the Imperial Theatre.
1939: As the Nazis continued their sweep through Poland, the Germans tried to set fire to the predominantly Jewish section of Sulejow, Poland. Six Jews died in the flames while five were shot as they fled.
1939: Germany asked Russia to invade Poland from the east in accord with the pact that Hitler and Stalin had signed in August of 1939. Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister replied that they would "at a suitable time."
1939: “Golden Boy,” a film version of the play by Clifford Odets, with a script by Daniel Taradash and Lewis Meltzer, music by Victor Young and filmed by cinematographer Karl Fruend was released in the United States today.
1940:Today, Gustav Simon, the senior Nazi administrator announced the extension of the Nuremberg Laws to Luxembourg.
1940: Assistant Secretary of State, Breckinridge Long, a proponent of curbing Jewish immigration, sent a memo to his consulates that stated in part: "The list of Rabbis has been closed and now it remains for the President's Committee to be curbed." Long's attitude was typical of many officials in the US State Department and helps explain why so little was done to help the Jews escape Nazi persecution both before and during the war. His "genteel band of anti-Semitism" was but another form of the "gentlemen's agreement" only this time with deadly consequences
1941: U.S. Premiere of Citizen Kane, which had premiered in New York last May, with music by Bernard Hermann and which earned Herman Mankiewicz earned an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
1942(23rdof Elul, 5702): Parashat Nitzavim-Vayeilech; Leil Selichot
1942: Eight hundred women were gassed at Birkenau.
1943(5th of Elul, 5703): Seventy-seven year old Julian W. Mack who served a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for 38 years and whose leadership of the Jewish community included serving as President of the Zionist Organization of America passed away today.
http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/biography/73
https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/mack-julian-william
1943: An old shoe warehouse in the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto takes delivery of 12 freight cars filled with shoes stolen from murdered Jews
1944: Bernhard Bästlein a German Communist who was active in the anti-Nazi resistance “was sentenced to death today for the crimes of conspiracy to commit high treason, aiding the enemy and undermining military strength.” (He was not Jewish, but we should remember that there were those who risked their lives to combat the Nazis,)
1944: The SS closes the concentration camp at Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands.
1944: At Kibbutz Ein-Harod, Atara and Nachman Prag gave birth to Zvi Prag who perished about the Submarine Dakar in January of 1968.
1945: Of his meeting this morning with Herman B. Baruch, the brother of financier Bernard Baruch, President Harry S. Truman said, "Flatterer. Wants to be ambassador to France. Conniver like his Brother."
1946: “978 Jews Reach Cyprus” published today described the delivered of the arrival of the British transport Empire Heywood at Cyprus where it unloaded its cargo of 978 Jews deported from Palestine who were “unauthorized immigrants.”
1946: As the British prepare for their “conference on the Holy Land” which is scheduled to open next week, their “policy as stated tonight by an authoritative Government official will be to ease the Arab States off their rock-like opposition to all Zionist aspirations and thus to increase the Zionist moderates’ influence.”
1946: An Arab leader in London declared today that “the Arab states will demand the establishment of an Arab constitutional government in Palestine.”
1947: Rusztem Vámbéry, the son of famed orientalist Armin Vambery began serving as Hungarian ambassador to the United States.
1948(1stof Elul, 5708): Rosh Chodesh Elul – the Shofar is sounded for the first time In a Jewish state since 70 CE.
1948: Leon Blum completed his term as Vice-Premier in the cabinet of Andre Marie.
1948: Betty and Jacob Levin are married in Chicago, starting a fifty-nine year life-time partnership that was a blessing and inspiration to all who came to know them.
1949: During a debate on conscription in the Knesset, “Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said tonight that Israeli armies would invade neighboring Arab states if the Palestine war was renewed by an attack on Israel.”
1949: It was announced today in Tel Aviv that “plans made by Israeli engineers and approved by American experts who visited Haifa recently will enable the port to handle to handle” two millions of tons of cargo.
1950: Funeral services are scheduled to be held this morning at “The Riverside” for one of the founders of Luft and Luft Equipment Corporation Ira Luft, the husband of Gussie Luft and father of Julian D. Luft who was an officer of The Congregation of Throgs Neck Jewish Center.
1951: In Los Angeles, premiere of “The Blue Veil” directed by Curtis Bernhardt, produced by Jerry Wald and with music by Franz Waxman
1951: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion greeted the delegates of the 12th annual conference of The Women’s International Zionist Organization at its opening meeting in Jerusalem. The organization has 180,000 members in fifty-one countries. The organization which focuses on social work activities does not have branches in the United States, since Hadassah already fills that niche.
1951: At the end of four days of war games in the Negev watched by representatives of the U.S. and U.K., Major General Yigal Yadin, the IDF’s Chief of Staff expressed unbounded confidence in the ability of his troops to repel attacks by an aggressors.
1951: As America is gripped by a right-wing witch hunt, former Communist Karl Wittfogel told the House Un-American Activities Committee that Rutgers University professor Moses Finkelstein was a communist. This accusation would touch off a series of events that would lead to Finkelstein losing his position, moving to England where his career led to a knighthood.
1951: The funeral for Abraham Cahan the retired editor of the Forward is scheduled to take place today.
1952: After having premiered in the United States in 1948, “Gallant Bess” co-produced by Mathew Rapf who also wrote the screenplay was released today in Sweden.
1954(7th of Elul, 5714): Ninety-four year old Eugen Schiffer, a long time German political leader who survived the Holocaust living in a ghetto in Berlin passed away today.
1954: Twenty-five year old southpaw Morris “Moe” Savransky pitched his last game for the Cincinnati Reds in his one and only major league season.
1956(29thof Elul, 5716): Erev Rosh Hashanah
1956(29thof Elul, 5716): Forty-nine year old society photographer Sterling Henry Nahum, “known professionally as Baron, a friend of Prince Phillip and a “Court Photographer to the British Royal Family passed away today.
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp60452/baron-sterling-henry-nahum
1957(9th of Elul, 5717): Seventy-four year old St. Louis native Evelyn Scharff passed away today in New York City.
1958: Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago was published in the US. Born in 1904, Pasternak became something of a hero during the 1930's when he refused to write in a manner consistent with the rules laid down by Stalin. He actually began writing Doctor Zhivago during the 1930's. Pasternak won the Nobel Prize for Literature but was forced to reject the award. If he had accepted, he would have been exiled.
1960(13thof Elul, 5720): Sixty-six year old William I Teichner, “an engineer for the New York Board of Transportation and the Transit Authority,” “a vice president of the Sea Gate Jewish Congress and a trustee of the Coney Island Lodge of B’nai B’rith” who was the husband of Sonya Teichner and the father of “Dr. Victor J. Teichner” passed away today.
1961 Milk and Honey, “a musical story centers on a busload of lonely American widows hoping to catch husbands while touring Israel and is set against the background of the country's fight for recognition as an independent nation” began a pre-Broadway run at the Colonial Theatre in Boston, MA.
1962: In Haifa, Leah and Benjamin Ga-Or, both of whom “are professors at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, gave birth to Amir Gal-Or who “served as pilot in the Israeli Air Force” for almost a quarter of a century before becoming a successful entrepreneur who founded Maayan Ventures.
1967: CBS broadcast the first episode of “Good Morning, World,” a sit-com created by Carl Reiner and Sheldon Leonard and starring Goldie Hawn.
1969: Today, Peter Max was featured on the cover of Life magazine “under the heading ‘Peter Max: Portrait of the artist as a very rich man/”
1971: “Consecration of the first Canberra Community Centre (the ACT Jewish Memorial Centre), featuring both an orthodox synagogue and provision for liberal services in the Dr. Fanny Reading Auditorium.”
1971: CBS broadcast the last episode of “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” featuring Wolfe Morris as Thomas Cromwell.
1972: Palestinian guerrillas attacked the Israeli delegation at the Munich Olympic Games; 11 Israelis, five guerrillas and a police officer were killed in the siege. The group who carried out this outrage was called "Black September." Their name had nothing to do with Jews or Israelis. Rather, their named commemorated the violent expulsion of the PLO from Jordan at the hands of the Jordanian government. The hostage crisis moved from the Olympic Village to the Fürstenbruck airport near Munich. That is where the Israeli Olympic sportsmen were killed by eight Arab gunmen. Israel never forgot Yosef Gottfreud, Ze¹ev Friedman, Ya¹acov Springer, Moshe Weinberg, Eliezer Halfin, Mark Slavin, Kehat Shorr, Andre Spitzer and Amihud Shapira. The Israeli government promised that it would pursue and punish the murderers and those who aided them. How did the world respond to this first act of terror in what is now called the War on Terror? The Olympic Games continued at Munich. The UN would condemn Zionism as a form of racism. The General Assembly would applaud wildly as Yassar Arafat, the father of this terror, stood with pistol on his hip addressing the international body dedicated to peace.
http://life.time.com/history/munich-massacre-1972-olympics-photos/#1
1972(26th of Elul, 5732): Yossef Romano, a Libyan-born, Jewish Israeli weightlifter with the Israeli team that went to the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, was the second of eleven Israeli team members murdered in the Munich massacre by Black September terrorists during that Olympics today. He was the Israeli weight-lifting champion in the light and middle-weight divisions for nine years. Romano competed in the middleweight weightlifting division in the 1972 Olympics but was unable to complete one of his lifts due to a ruptured knee tendon. He was due to fly home to Israel on September 6, 1972 to have an operation on the injured knee.
1972: Israeli race-walker Shaul Paul Ladany was awakened by wrestling Coach Yoseef Gutfreund enabling him to escape from the terrorists and sound the alarm to officials that the attack was underway.
1973: Five Palestinians were arrested in Rome thwarting a planned attack that was to be made on an El Al plane flying over room using ground-to-air rockets supplied by the Soviet Union, Egypt, Iraq and Syria.
1973: In Paris, Arab terrorists attacked the Saudi-Arabian Embassy following which “French authorities allowed the terrorists to fly from France with six Saudi diplomats as hostages aboard a Syrian plane which landed in Kuwait.
1975(29thof Elul, 5735): Erev Rosh Hashanah
1975: During New Year’s Eve services Jews clashed with militia outside Moscow synagogue
1976: The cabinet decided to appoint Aldin Yadlin, former head of the Histadrut's economic enterprises, governor of the Bank of Israel to succeed Moshe Sanbar
1976: Today’s Mass Market Paperbacks Best Sellers list included, #2 The Eagle Has Landed, Jack Higgins’ novel about a Nazi plot to assassinate Churchill, #5 Ragtimeby E. L. Doctorow and #10 Ninety Minutes to Entebbe by William Stevenson.
1977: In order to qualify as the 22nd member of the Arab League, Djibouti barred all Israeli shipping from its port.
1977: Kibbutz Kfar Etzion celebrated the 10th anniversary of its re-establishment.
1978: Sadat, Begin and Carter began the peace conference at Camp David, Maryland. These talks would produce the first peace treaty between Israel and one of its Arab neighbors. The treaty has lasted. The peace may be "cold" but there have been no "hot" wars.
1978(3rd of Elul, 5738): Seventy-five year old Brooklyn native and Junior Lightweight boxer Joe Glick whose twenty-three year career “included over two hundred bouts” two of which were fights for the Junior Lightweight Title which he lost passed away today.
1985(19thof Elul, 5745): Eighty-four year old Margareta Nyiszli who along with her husband Mikilos, the author of Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Accountand her daughter Susanna survived the Holocaust, passed away today.
1986(1stof Elul, 5746): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1986: Sixty-eight year old Reverend John Stanley Grauel, a Methodist Minister who supported Zionism and served as a crewman on the S.S. Exodus in 1947 passed away today.
1987: An exhibition entitled ''Boris: The Studio Photographer 1900-1985,'' documenting the life and work of the portrait photographer Boris Bennett, which is part of the Jewish East End Celebration is scheduled to come to an end.
1988(23rdof Elul, 5748): Ninety-two year old Leo Henry Rosenberg, the son of Joseph and Rosa Rosenberg, and graduate of the Armour Institute of Technology who was one the first announcers best known for his groundbreaking broadcast of the Harding-Cox election in 1920 which was followed by a successful career in advertising passed away today.
1988: Jerry Lewis' 23rd Labor Day telethon raises record $41,132,113
1991: First performance of The Death of Klinghoffer an opera based on the murder of Leon Klinghoffer which was controversial because of its portrayal of his killers took place at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
1991: Two weeks after the rioting in Crown Heights, Anthony Graziosi, an Italian sales representative with a white beard dressed in dark business attire, was driving in the neighborhood “six blocks away from where Yankel Rosenbaum had been murdered” was surrounded by “a group of black men, one of whom shot and killed him” leading to allegations “State Attorney General Robert Abrams, former Mayor Ed Koch, and a number of advocacy organizations, that Graziosi's resemblance to a Hasidic Jew precipitated his murder.”
1992(7th of Elul, 5752): Author Fritz Leiber passed away. He was best known for his science fiction works several of which won Hugo Awards.
1993(19thof Elul, 5753): Seventy-seven year old Irma (Silverbach) Seligmann the wife of Werner Julius Seligmann passed away today in Montevideo, Uraguay.
1996: Holocaust denier David “Irving filed a libel suit concerning Deborah Lipstadt’s book Denying the Holocaust naming the author and her publisher, Penguin Books as defendants” while also suing “Holocaust historian Gitta Sereny for libel for an article” she had written about him.
1997(3rd of Elul, 5757): Hungarian born conductor Sir George Solti passed away.
1997(3rd of Elul, 5757): Twelve Israeli naval commandos were killed in an attack against a Hezbollah installation.
1998: Seventy-seven year old actor and director Leo Penn who had the unique distinction of risking his life as a bombardier in WWII only to be blacklisted and who was the “father of musician Michael Penn and actors Sean Penn and Christ Penn, passed away today.(As reported by Kathryn Shattuck)
1998: Premiere of Radu Mihăileanu’s Train of Life (Train de Vie) one of the most off-beat movies ever made about the Holocuast.
1999(24th of Elul, 5759): Alan Funt, creator of Candid Camera, the original television reality show passed away.
1999: A Hamas bombing at Egged bus 960 at Tiberias failed to murder anybody.
1999: A Hamas bombing at the Haifa Central Bus Station failed to murder anybody.
1999: The New York Timesincluded reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The Last Survivor: In Search of Martin Zaidenstadt by Timothy W. Ryback, Jafsie and John Henry: Essays by David Mamet, Modern Girls, Shining Stars, The Skies of Tokyo: Five Japanese Women by Phyllis Birnbaum and American Odyssey: Letters and Journals, 1940-1947 by Wilhelm Reich.
2000: “Evan and Jaron” the second album by twin brothers Evan Mitchell Lowenstein and Jaron David Lowenstein was released today.
2001: An explosion from a bomb ignited by a terrorist disguised as Jew “rocked downtown Jerusalem and “sent Sergeant Major Mugrabi and his partner, Officer Natan Sandaka, flying at least 10 feet.”
2002: Otto Schily, the interior minister “said today that vigorous police work by the authorities here had disrupted a militant Islamic group that was plotting attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets throughout” Germany.
2003: David “Blaine began his 44-day endurance stunt sealed inside a transparent Plexiglas case suspended 9 metres (30 ft) in the air next to Potters Fields Park on the south bank of the River Thames, the area between City Hall and Tower Bridge in London. The case, measuring 3 feet (0.9 m) by 7 feet (2.1 m) by 7 feet (2.1 m), had a webcam installed so that viewers could observe his progress. During the 44-day period, Blaine went without any food or nutrients and survived on just 4.5 litres of water per day.”
2003(8th of Elul, 5763): Twenty-seven year old Mordechai Laufter of Netanya died today of wounds suffered during a bus bombing in the Shmuel HaNavi Quarter of Jerusalem.
2004: The New York Timesincluded reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick andSecrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis by Eli Zaretsky
2004: “Focus on the Soul: The Photographs of Lotte Jacobi” closes after three months of being on displayed at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC.
2005: In Little Rock, AR, the bris of Rabbi and Estie Ciment’s newborn son.
2005(1st of Elul, 5765): Rosh Chodesh Elul; the Shofar will be sounded at the end of all morning services except on Shabbat until the penultimate day of the month. Psalm 27 is recited daily from this date until Shemini Atzeres.
2005: Haaretzreported that the opening of the Israeli diplomatic mission in Dubai several weeks ago was the culmination of a series of elaborate contacts Israel has been developing with the United Arab Emirates for years
2006: In its first-ever public recruiting drive, the Shin Bet security service is calling on high-tech geeks to join the anti-terror battle.
2006: The BBC reported that Randy Lerner now owned 85.5% of the Aston Villa football club.
2006: Once the scene of Nazi pogroms and massacres against Jews, the Polish city of Kielce changed colors. Sixty years after the Holocaust, it opened its doors to 16 Israeli defense industries exhibiting their wares at the 14th MSPO International Defense Industry Exhibition taking place in the city. Located in southeastern Poland, Kielce was once home to 24,000 Jews who were all - except two - killed during the Holocaust. In 1941, a ghetto was built in the city, and most of the Jews were moved there before being transferred to Nazi concentration camps. In July 1946, local Poles murdered 46 Jews who had returned to the city after the war to rebuild the destroyed Jewish community.
2007(22nd of Elul): Yahrzeit of Joseph B. Levin; still remembered and still missed after 22 years.
2007)22ndof Elul, 5767): Eighty-six year old Charlotte Zucker, the wife of Burton Charles Zucker and the mother of “directors Jerry and David Zucker and actress Susan Breslau” who was often cast in a small bit parts in her son’s movies (like one of the Lucille Ball impersonators in Rat Race, and Vincent Ludwig's secretary, Dominique, in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!) passed away today.
2007: Norman Finkelstein announced his resignation from DePaul after coming to a settlement with the university on generally undisclosed terms.
2007: In Highland Park, Illinois, the funeral of Dr. Jacob Levin; more could be said but there would never be enough room to say it all! He is loved and missed. Ironically, Jacob Levin is buried on the same day as the Yahrzeit of his brother Joseph is observed.
2007: Eighty-six year old Charlotte Zucker, the wife of Burton Charles Zucker, “the mother directors Jerry and David Zucker and actress Susan Breslau passed away today.
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/08/local/me-passings8
2007: After premiering at Tribeca, “I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With” starring Sarah Silverman and Jeff Garlin who also directed, produced and wrote the film was released today in the United States.
2008: “The Wrestler” a sports film directed and co-produced by Daniel Aronofsky, written by Robert Siegel and featuring Mark Margolis, Todd Barry and Judah Friedlander premiered today at the Venice Film Festival.
2008: NBC aired a segment on “Dateline” convicted hedge fund manager Samuel Israel III.
2008: “A Secret” (a Holocaust themed film) opens in New York. Claude Miller’s haunting new movie, called “A Secret” (“Un Secret”) opens in New York. The Holocaust themed film is based on a novel by Philippe Grimbert.
2009: In another one of those cases of Jews vs. Jews, for the first time Anthony Oliver “A.O.” Scott appeared as one of the critics on “At the Movies” replacing Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz.
2009: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah hosts its annual Hebrew Labor Day Traditional Shabbat Service featuring Hebrew prayers and Hebrew National Hot Dogs at a “Completely Kosher Kiddush.”
2009: NiCad, an international rock band featuring Israeli vocalist and drummer Gilad Woltsovitch appears at Talking Head Club in Baltimore, MD.
2009: Today “an Associated Press story quoted legal experts as saying that filing for bankruptcy reorganization might offer Annie Leibovitz her best chance to control and direct the disposition of her assets to satisfy debts.”
2009: At the Jerusalem Theatre a performance of "Yerid Hamizrach" a collection of songs that is a polished, dramatic mix of the personal biography of the poet Haim Guri and his Israeli experiences, from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and Yaffo, and onwards. The names of David Ben Gurion, Yosef Trumpledor, Y. H. Brenner, Yonatan Ratush, Natan Alterman, and others, are an inseparable part of the historical events that defined the stormy period in Israel and the personal lyric of Guri's life in the land. In "Yerid Hamizrach" has drama, parody, is many faceted, and fascinating. Guri himself and the show's creators participate in the event.
2010: BuckUSY a United Synagogue Youth (USY) Chapter, based out of Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus, Ohio is scheduled to begin its road trip to Sandusky, Ohio.
2010: The Los Angeles Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Sonderberg Case by Elie Wiesel.
2010: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Wherever You Go, Joan Leegant’s “first novel, in which three American Jews suffering from various shades of misguidedness visit Israel in search of meaning (or closure or salvation or . . . you get the picture) and their lives collide in (what else?) an act of terror.”
2010: The Washington Postfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Bob Dylan In America by Sean Wilentz.
2010: At the U.S. Open, third-seeded Venus Williams defeated Israeli Shahar Peer, who was 16th-seeded, 7-6 (3), 6-3 on the second straight windy day in Arthur Ashe Stadium
2010: Last Night at Chateau Marmont by Lauren Weisberg, the “debuted today at No. 9 on the New York Times Bestseller List.
2010: Yona Metzger, great-rabbi of Israel and Zsolt Semjen, Hungarian vice-prime minister, attended the rededication of Óbuda Synagogue in Obuda, Hungary. Jews had been living in the area since the early decades of the 18th century. The synagogue was originally built in 1820.
2011: "Hansel and Gretel: The End of the Fairy Tale" is scheduled to be performed by Florence Fisch-Hacham at Bet Avi Chai in Jerusalem.
2011: The Yad Elie Benefit Concert is scheduled to take place at Waimann’s house in Jerusalem.
2011: The Brit of Rabbi and Estie Ciment’s son is scheduled to take place at the Chabad Jewish Center in Little Rock, AR. The “tribe” of a true Tzaddik continues to increase.
2011: On Labor Day in the USA, The DC Beit Midrah is scheduled to sponsor a “Labor on the Bimah” event at the DC Jewish Community Center.
2011: The civil administration with the help of hundreds of border police destroyed three homes at the Migron outpost in the West Bank early Monday morning. In so doing they made good on a pledge by the state to the High Court of Justice that the three would be taken down in September
2012: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, MD.
2012: 40thAnniversary of the Munich Massacre
2012:Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles is scheduled to deliver the invocation at a session of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.
2012: The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Greater Washington and The Embassy of Israel is scheduled to sponsor a tribute and commemoration on the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Olympics massacre –“ A Memorial: Remembering the Munich 11.” 2013
2012: Democrats amended the party platform this afternoon to include language supporting Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
2012: Relatives of the Israeli Olympians slain by Palestinian gunmen during the 1972 Games in Munich today marked the 40th anniversary of the attack with Israeli and German officials at the air base where most of the 12 victims died.
2012: The Air Force struck a terror cell that was about to launch rockets into Israel, the IDF said tonight. The cell had been involved in past rocket fire on southern Israel, the IDF added.
2013: A clash between commerce and Kavanah takes place with the opening of New York City’s Fashion week on the first day of Rosh Hashanah (As reported by Eliora Katz)
2013: Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman who has seen his mayoral prospects dwindle in light of embarrassing revelations regarding his behavior on Twitter, once again made headlines early today, this time over controversial remarks directed at him by a prospective Jewish voter in Brooklyn
2013: Sixty-six year old Stephen Chron passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/health/stephen-crohn-who-furthered-aids-study-dies-at-66.html?_r=0
2013(1stof Tishrei, 5774): Rosh Hashanahh
2014: Two members of the University of Haifa faculty, Dr. Efraim Lev and Dr. Moshe Lavee, complete a week-long series of meetings and presentation at The Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut.
2014: Comedian Lewis Black is scheduled to appear at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, NH.
2014: Hundreds of mourned gathered today for a memorial service at a Miami synagogue for slain journalist Steven Sotloff, who was executed by Islamic State extremists it was reveal earlier this week. Nearly a thousand mourners paid their respects, filling to capacity the Temple Beth Am synagogue that housed the somber ceremony, according to the Miami Herald.
2014: Israel radio reported today that “a Nigerian visiting Israel was quarantined in Jerusalem for fear she may have contracted the Ebola virus.” (JTA)
2015(21stof Elul, 5775): Parasaht Ki Tavo; Leil Selichot
2015: In Jerusalem, Rav Yaakov Moshe Poupko is scheduled to his lecture T’shuva with the Flick of the Wrist?” at the Orthodox Union’s Israel Center.
2016: It was reported today that Katrina Lantos Swett, “the daughter of the late, Hungarian-born US Congressman Tom Lantos” was among 100 recipients of the Knight’s Cross who returned their award “to Hungary to protest the bestowing of the same award on journalist and writer Zsolt Bayer who has made anti-Semitic and racist references in his articles.”
2016: The 2nd Annual Red Beans and Rice Cook-off sponsored by the Crescent City Jewish News, Torah Academy and the Jewish Community Day School is scheduled to be held this afternoon in Metairie, LA.
2016: Starting today “radio shows with the Israel Story podcast will be brought to St. Andrew’s Church as part of this year’s Jerusalem Season of Culture or Medkdeshet.
2016: “Rabin, The Last Day” is scheduled to be shown at JW3, also known as Jewish Community Centre London
2016(2nd of Elul, 5776): Eighty-eight year old “Eliyahu Yosef She’ar Yashuv Cohen, a former chief rabbi of Haifa known for his Torah scholarship, interfaith work and strict vegetarian lifestyle” passed away tonight,
http://www.timesofisrael.com/rabbi-shear-yashuv-cohen-scholar-and-warrior-dies-at-88/
2016: On Labor Day, American Jews can reflect on their role in the American Labor Movement:
http://www.csjo.org/resources/essays/jews-in-the-american-labor-movement/
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/labor-movement-in-united-states
http://www.ajcarchives.org/ajc_data/files/1952_3_specialarticles.pdf
2017: In Memphis, TN, the Temple Israel Sisterhood is scheduled to host an evening devoted to “Women’s Health Issues and Breast Cancer.”
2017: In London, JW3 hosted a screening of “The Venice, Ghetto, 500 Years of Life.”
2017: The Hebrew Congregation of St. Thomas is scheduled to offer the first session of three week course – An Introduction to Judaism.
2017: 45thAnniversary of the Munich Massacre
2018: Beit Avi Chai is scheduled to host “the Israeli Klezmer in a performance dedicated to the month of Elul” featuring “guest musicians Mark and Peretz Eliyahu.”
2018: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host an evening with Pulitzer Prize winner Linda Greenhouse, author of The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction and “ACLU National Director David Cole” as they discuss issues surrounding the Supreme Court.
2019: “New York Fashion Rediscovered 1982-1992,” an exhibit curated by Ya’ara Keydar is scheduled to open today.
https://www.zaz10ts.com/nyfashionrediscovered
2019: In Jerusalem, The Train Station is scheduled to host its interactive “Our IDF” interactive exhibit.
2019: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host the final two screenings of “Blinded by the Lights.”
2019: Shiva ends this morning for Deb Levin, Devorah Elisheva https://www.crescentcityjewishnews.com/deb-levin-supporter-of-this-day-in-jewish-history-passes-away-in-iowa/
2020: The Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival is scheduled to come to an end today.
2020: After reaching a record high of 42 degrees Celsius, residents of Jerusalem are expected to enjoy temperatures of a brisk 39 degrees Celsius today “according to the Yerushamayim weather forecasting website.”
2020: In Jerusalem, the Eden Tamir Music Center is scheduled to “Mozart – The Best of Chamber Music” as performed by the Toscanini Quarter with clarinetist Jonathan Hadas.
2020: B’nai Jeshurun is scheduled to host its week Torah study program “Starbucks, Bread and Torah” online.
2020: The Axelrod Israel Jewish Film Festival in Partnership withThe American Sephardi Federation
Is scheduled to continue to present The Virtual Sephardic Film Festival
2020: Temple Israel of Boston is scheduled to host online “Clergy Havdalah, Cocktails and Mocktails.”
2020(16thof Elul, 5780): Parashat Ki Tavo;
2021: Jewish Baby Network and PJ Library East Bay are scheduled to host an outdoor event with song, dance, puppets, apples and honey and shofar-blowing as part of an erev Rosh Hashanah event.
2021: OFJCC and BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Chang are scheduled to host “Rosh Hashanah: The New Basics” where in an outdoor setting attendees can learn about “the origins of customs such as shofar blowing, apples and honey and tashlich, and why there are so many Jewish holidays all in one month.”
2021: In London, S&P Sephardi Senior Rabbi Joseph Dweck is scheduled to give a lecture “Mind Your business: The role of mental health in Teshuvah.”
202: The online version of the 16th Arthur Rubenstein International Piano Master Competition is scheduled to come to come to an end today.
2021:The Paralympic Games in Tokyo, during which swimmer Iyad Shalabi made history by becoming the first Israeli-Arab athlete to win a medal in the Olympics or Paralympics” are scheduled to come to an end today.
2021: On the eve of the Jewish new year, world Jewry numbered around 15.2 million people, the Jewish Agency said in a report published today. (As reported by Itamar Eichner)
2021: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readings including Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump by Spencer Ackerman
2021: The final showing of “Untitled (inflatable house, zip ties, blower), a solo project by New York-based artist and 2020-2021 A.I.R. Fellow Bat-Ami Rivlin” is scheduled to take place today.
2022: In San Ramon, CA, “Limmud Bay Area,” a two day learning event is scheduled to come to an end today.
2022: In Lawrence, MA, the Bread and Roses Heritage Festival is scheduled to present the internationally acclaimed klezmer ensemble Ezekiel’s Wheels Klezmer Band.
2022: Fiftieth anniversary of eleven Israeli athletes being taken hostage by 8 members of the Palestinian terrorist organization, Black September who had broken into the quarters of the Israeli delegation at the Olympic Village in Munich.
2022: As Labor Day is celebrated in the United States, Jews, who are commanded to Labor for six days before they can rest, might want to contemplate their changing views and roles in the history of the American Labor Movement (Lest we forget, in the garment industry it was often Jewish owners versus Jewish sweatshop workers
http://www.csjo.org/resources/essays/jews-in-the-american-labor-movement/
https://www.marxists.org/subject/jewish/herberg-labor.pdf
http://www.jewishlaborcommittee.org/2006/01/readings_on_the_american_jewis_1.html
http://www.ajwnews.com/archives/14322
http://magazine.discoverjcc.com/the-jewish-people-and-the-american-labor-movement/