June 8 In History
65 CE: Jewish insurgent forces captured the fortress of Antonia in Jerusalem. This battle marked the outbreak of the Jewish revolt against Rome Second Temple
68: The Roman Senate accepts Galba as the new Emperor. Galba was the second of men who would claim title of Emperor in the eleven months between June, 68 and July, 69. The first of the five was Nero and the last of the five was Vespasian. There are those who contend that there is direct connection between this Imperial anarchy and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Vespasian was determined to secure the throne and to promote is son Titus as his heir. He decided to take the unusual step of completely destroying the Jewish capital and its house of worship as a way of demonstrating that he had the power to hold the throne and put an end to the revolving door Emperors.
570: Religion of Islam founded in Mecca
632: According to tradition, the anniversary of the death of Mohammed, founder of Islam. Mohammed had expected the Jews of Arabia to accept his new faith. When they did not, he turned on them. This is an oft told tale in Jewish history.
1191: Richard I arrives in Acre thus beginning his crusade.
1374: Geoffrey Chaucer is appointed Comptroller of Customs and Subsidy of Wools, a position that pays ten pounds per year. This steady income gave him the freedom to write The Canterbury Tales which contained the “Prioress Tale” complete with its anti-Semitic featuring an eight year old Christian child who is murdered in the Jewish quarter of the town while singing hymns in praise of his faith. At the end, the Jewish community is wiped out as punishment for the death of the Christian child.
1662: Asser Levy bought a lot from Barent Gerritsen on Hoogh Straat (Stone Street New Amsterdam [New York City
1664: King John Casimir of Poland denied the Jews of Vilna the right to deal in non-Jewish books
1723(5th of Sivan): Rabbi Isaac Vita Cantarini, author of Pahad Yizhak passed away
1753(6th of Sivan, 5513): Shavuot
1787: Birthdate of Emanuel Aguilar, father of author Grace Aguilar.
1789: James Madison introduces a proposed Bill of Rights in the House of Representatives. Those favoring ratification of the U.S. Constitution promised that a Bill of Rights (what would be the first ten amendments to the Constitution) would be enacted as soon as the new federal government was formed. The First Amendment is of particular importance to Jews because it guarantees freedom of religion in the nation’s organic document. This has made the experience of Jews in the United States
1810(6th of Sivan, 5570): Shavuot
1810: Israel Jacobson introduced an organ for the first time at a Reform service in Berlin.
1815: During negotiations intended to guarantee Jewish rights in the Treaty of Vienna, the Mayor of Bremen inserts language in “Article 16” that will effectively end the rights gained by most German Jews during the military successes of Napoleon.
1815: Birthdate of Rabbi Samuel Hirsch. Born in Germany Chicago , Illinois
1815: Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo Europe in the wake of two decades of almost non-stop war, the Jews sent a Christian attorney, Carl Buchortz, to act on their behalf. An agreement was reached whereby "Jews were given rights in proportion to accepting the duties of citizenship." This was the first time that Jewish rights became a European political issue.
1848(7th of Sivan, 5608): Second Day of Shavuot
1857: An English Jew named Theodore Seymour was arrested in Boston this evening on charges of having stolen an unspecified number of gold bracelets from Tiffany & Co, the famous New York jewelry store. Mr. Seymour who also used aliases of Leman and Simon had worked there for a year before being recently discharged. The police recovered the merchandize valued at $500 during the arrest. Seymour will be sent back to New York City to stand trial.
1859(6th of Sivan, 5619): Shavuot
1867: Birthdate of Frank Lloyd Wright who designed the house of worship used by Beth Sholom Congregation in Elkins Park, PA (suburban Philadelphia). “Construction began in 1953 and was completed in 1959. Wright designed the building to look like a "luminous Mount Sinai," with an extravagant fountain at its entrance, carpet that's meant to look like desert sands, and a mountain-like roof that looks a bit like a Klingon spacecraft. The building,…has been accorded status as a National Historic Landmark. Wright's design surrounds congregants with meaningful symbols, adding a new spiritual dimension to the very act of going to synagogue.”
1869: With her health declining Jewish born feminist and abolitionist Ernestine Louise Rose and her Christian husband William Ella Rose set sail from the United States for a trip to England.
1871:Birthdate of Julius Fleischmann, the son of Charles Louis Fleischmann of Fleischmann’s Yeast, who would become mayor of Cincinnati before dying an untimely death in 1925.
1871: At today’s meeting of the Rabbinical Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dr, Max Lillienthal reported that he had not been able “to effect a reconciliation between the members of the Conference that had met at Philadelphia in 1869, and those who were attending the current Conference.
1871: Today’s meeting of the Rabbinical Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, adopted the report of the Committee on the Establishment of a Rabbinical Seminary favoring the development of such an institution and instructed the committee to develop a “a more detailed course of study.” This is one of the steps that led to the creation of Hebrew Union College.
1872: In London Alice le Strange married Laurence Oliphant. Oliphant was a British journalist and MP who became a devoted advocate of settling Jews in Palestine as can be seen by his fundraising activities, his attempts to gain a lease from the Ottomans on a portion of Eretz Israel for that purpose and his employment of Naftali Herz Imber as his personal secretary.
1872: A special meeting was held tonight at the synagogue on East 57th Street where resolutions were adopted to express the Jewish community’s sense of loss following the recent death of James Gordon Bennett, the fouder, owner and editor of the New York Herald. Besides describing him as a fearless, honest and upright champion” of the general population, the resolutions said “that in him the Israelites generally had an honest supporter and a true friend and that the New York Herald…always gave firm and true support to our creed.”
1878(7th of Sivan, 5638): Second Day of Shavuot
1879:Rabbi Isaac C. Noot officiated at the corner-stone laying ceremony for the new synagogue being built by Congregation B’Nai Israel. The building located at 289 East Fourth Street will be the home to this Orthodox congregation which had been founding in 1847. A copper box was placed in the cornerstone containing a variety of items including copies of New York newspapers and the issue of Frank Leslie’s Monthly that contained a history of the Jews of New York. Dr. Lyon Berhard, the oldest member of the congregation was given the honor of laying the cornerstone.
1878(7th of Sivan, 5638): Second Day of Shavuot
1879: The officers and members of B’nai Israel lead the cornerstone for the building that will house their new synagogue on E. 44th Street in New York. The congregation is currently worshipping at its temporary home on Rivington Street which it has been using since it sold its building on Stanton Street so that it could afford to construct the new building.
1881: In Cleveland, Ohio, Louis Seasongood, “a rich Hebrew from Cincinnati” lost his bid for the second time to be nominated as the party’s choice for Lieutenant Governor.
1882: It was reported today that the body of young man thought to be a Jew was taken to the morgue after it had been found hanging in New Jersey’s Glendale Woods. [Editor’s note – it took me a few minutes to figure out why they assumed he was Jewish]
1883: A jury in Westchester Country found Theodore Hoffman guilty of murdering a Jewish peddler named Zife Marks. The judge sentenced the prisoner to death by hanging.
1885: “Explorations in the Delta” published today describe the recent explorations conducted in the Nile Delta region under the auspices of the Egyptian Exploration Fund Society. As a result of these archeological activities Edouard Naville has produced a memoir about Pithon, the Biblical city built by the Israelite slaves.
1885: In Pennsylvania Reverend D.E. Shaw of Keokuk, Iowa has been elected Professor of Hebrew at Lincoln University. [Since I am from Iowa, I could not resist the entry]
1885: Attendees at a meeting of Baptist Ministers called to examine the new translation of the Old Testament were critical of the liberties taken with translating the Hebrew text into English feeling in several cases that the new translation did not reflect the accurate meaning of the Hebrew. They suggested that the translators return to their work so that, for instance, in Genesis, the text would reading the and the morning of the first day, rather than the one day.
1889: The Hebrew Relief Fund made a contribution of $161 to aid those suffering from the effects of the Conemaugh Floods.
1889(30th of Sivan, 5659): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1890: “Judah” the new play by Henry Arthur Jones which will be performed next winter at Palmer’s Theatre in New York is reported “to have been praised without stint” during its performances in London. The hero of the play is Judah Llewellyn the son of Welch mother and a Jewish mother who falls in love with a character named Vashti.
1890: Julian Nathan presided over the closing exercises of the Sunday School of the United Hebrew Charities which were held this morning.
1890: “Jewish Annals” published today provided a detailed review of Outlines of Jewish History From B.C. 586 to C.E. 1890 which had been revised by Michael Friedländer
1891: Birthdate of South African cricketer Manfred John Susskind in Johannesburg, Transvaal
1892: Today, the Tegeblatt confirmed recent rumors that Emin Pasha had died of smallpox in Africa. Born Isaak Eduard Schnitzer, the physician and naturalist was baptized at the age of 7 when his widowed mother married a Lutheran. (The rumors were just that rumors since he passed away in October of 1892)
1893: The American Israeli published what some considered to be an exposé about Immigration Commissioner Joseph Senner.
1897: “Baptist Worship With Jews” published today described the joint service held at the Belden Avenue Baptist Church in Chicago which was led by Rabbi Julius Newman and Reverend M.W. Haynes.
1897: “Jew Refrain From Voting” published today attributed the light turn out during the recent judicial election in Chicago to the fact that it was held on a Jewish holiday when the Orthodox members of that faith would not be at the polls.
1898: Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes provide over the opening session of conference of Jews from the United States and Canada meeting today at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue
1898: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band will play at today’s “patriotic tea in honor of Alexander Hamilton sponsored by the Hospital and Charitable Committee of the Parish Guild of St. Luke’s Church
1898: The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America was organized. Or Chaim was one of the founding congregations. The Orthodox Union has grown to be one of the largest umbrella organizations for Orthodox Judaism in North America . One of its earliest accomplishments was the establishment of Elchanan Theological Seminary, a modern academic institution designed to train Orthodox Rabbis. It was the original School of what is now Yeshiva University
1899: Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Beerman hosted their annual garden party for those living at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews.
1913: Eleven students of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America became rabbis this afternoon at the graduating exercises in Aeolian Hall, when Dr. Solomon Schechter, the President of the seminary, conferred the degrees. The services marked the tenth anniversary of the seminary's reorganization.
1918: Birthdate of Esther Vilenska, a native of Poland who gained fame as an author and a member of the Communist Party in Israel
1920:Osip Maksimovich Brik, the son of Jewish jeweler and avant garde author, joined the Cheka, the early version of the Soviet secret police.
1924(6th of Sivan, 5684): First Day of Shavuot
1928: Attorney General Albert Ottinger’s investigation into complaints made by the Hebrew Religious Protective Association concerning the practices of certain New York area cemeteries continued today. Among the complaints was an allegation by Harry Kaplan, President of Adath Israel, that his brother was buried in a grave at the Baron Hirsch Cemetery in Port Richmond on Staten Island that contained four feet of water
1929: Birthdate of Jerry Stiller. Born in Brooklyn , this comedic actor is best known as part of the team of Stella and Meara.
1930: Birthdate of Robert John Auman the German born Israeli-American mathematician and member of the National Academy of Sciences. Among other things he and Michael Maschler used the Game Theory to analyze sections of the Talmud.
1933: Birthdate of comedian and game show player Joan Rivers.
1934:A death sentence was pronounced today against Abraham Stavsky, who, with Zvi Rosenblatt, was on trial for the murder on June 16, 1933, of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, labor leader and member of the Jewish Agency Executive of Palestine. Rosenblatt was acquitted on the ground of insufficient evidence. Notice of appeal has been filed on behalf of Stavsky.
1936: In Jerusalem, the Jewish community joins in the celebration of King George’s birthday.
1936: As Arab violence mounts two Arabs died and 26 Arabs and Armenians were injured by a bomb which exploded inside the Jaffa Gate today
1937: Chaim Weizmann presented his reasoning for supporting partition at private dinner given by Sir Archibald Sinclair where his fellow diners included Winston Churchill, James de Rothschild and several parliamentary supporters of Zionism. Weizmann was willing to “settle for a Small state at once” rather than wait for a “Large state” that might come in some distant future. Churchill opposed partition and contended that the Jews should wait for their state in all of Western Palestine as envisaged by the White Paper issued in 1922.
1938: A year before the Nazis invade Poland, anti-Semitic riots begin in Warsaw.
1939: In Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael, British High Commissioner hosted a garden party in honor of the King’s birthday. All Jewish leaders had declined the invitations as a way of expressing their displeasure with the recent White Paper that, if enforced, will put an end to Jewish immigration an the hope of a Jewish home in Palestine.
1939: In response to an order by Chief Rabbi Herzog, all synagogues pronounced the usual prayers for the King and his family in honor of the monarch’s birthday.
1941: During World War II, "mixed squads, some made up of Palestinian Jews and Australians, others entirely Jewish" went into operation for the first time in Lebanon and Syria which were controlled by Vichy Government. It was during this combat that Moshe Dyan lost his eye and began wearing his famous eye-patch.
1942: In Poland
1943(5th of Sivan, 5703): Erev Shavuot, The Jewish community at Zbaraz, Ukraine, is destroyed.
1943: Dr. Albert Menasche arrived at Auschwitz from Greece
1943:A transport arrived in Auschwitz today and after a selection 220 men and 88 women are admitted into the camp. The other 572 deportees are murdered in the gas chambers.
1943: What may have been the last transport of Jews sent from Salonica left for Bergen-Belsen today. Included in the transport was the Chief Rabbia of Salonica, Rabbi Zvi Koretz and his family. A list of all of the Jews of Salonica with their addresses and ages was given to a Jew named Vital Hasson by the chief rabbi. Hasson was said to have escaped to Albania
1944: “President Franklin Roosevelt signed a memorandum directing the establishment of an Emergency Refugee Shelter at Fort Ontario, Oswego, NY.”
1944: "The Greek tanker Tanias, commandeered by the Germans was torpedoed by the British submarine HMS Vivid 53 kilometers west of Heraklion, capital of the Greek island of Crete. On board were all of the 265 Jews of Crete including many children, all of whom perished.
1947:The Oujda and Jerada pogrom came to an leaving 42 Jews dead and approximately 150 injured. The excuse for this pogrom in northeastern Morocco was the local Muslim reaction to fighting in Palestine.
1948(1st of Sivan, 5708): Rosh Chodesh Sivan
1948: "The Milton Berle Show" premiered on NBC TV. This aging Jewish vaudevillian would come to "own" Tuesday night. He was the first national star of the infant medium.
1948: During The War of Independence, David Ben-Gurion orders his military leaders to attack the fortress at Latrun for a third time. This is one time that Ben-Gurion will not be able to bully the opposition into doing things his way. Ben-Gurion is desperate to break the Arab stranglehold on the road to Jerusalem David West Point graduate who reached the rank of Colonel in the American Army during World War II. No longer on active duty, Marcus is serving as “military advisor” to Ben-Gurion. In fact, under the name Stone, Marcus has been given the responsibility of opening the road to Jerusalem Jerusalem Jerusalem Jerusalem
1949: Numerous celebrities including Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Frederic March, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson were named in an FBI report as members of the Communist Party. The disproportionate number of Jews named in what later was proven to be a bogus report, set the stage for claims that the Jews were responsible for the Communist menace.
1949: Birthdate of Ukrainian born American pianist Emanuel Ax. He first captured public attention in 1974 when, aged 25, he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv.
1950: According to reports published in the New York Times, the government of Israel, in response to a request from Secretary State Dean Acheson, is investigating charges of the mistreatment of Arab infiltrators who have crossed into the Jewish state from Jordan. Acheson’s request was triggered by complaints from Arab states, who, it should be noted, still consider themselves to be officially at war with the state of Israel.
1951: Oswald Pohl, chief of the economic office of the SS, Otto Ohlendorf, responsible for the murder of 90,000 Ukrainian Jews, and Colonel Paul Blobel, organizer of the massacre of the Jews of Kiev, were hanged.
1952: Movie producer Sidney Luft, the son of Jewish immigrants, married film star Judy Garland. His marriage to her is his only real claim to fame.
1953: Alexander Korda married Alexandra Boycun.
1954(7th of Sivan, 5714): Second Day of Shavuot
1954: Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel Founded
1962(6th of Sivan, 5722): Shavuot
1966: Birthdate of American actress Julianna Margulies.
1967: In the one sour note of the Six Day War, Israeli planes accidentally attack the American Naval ship, U.S.S. Liberty. Despite numerous investigations that proved otherwise, there are anti-Semites, those who are anti-Israel and assorted conspiracy buffs who claim that the attack was deliberate. American ships had been ordered out of the area. Apparently word did not reach the Liberty Liberty
1967: President Nasser of Egypt Suez Canal . The Egyptians continued to fight and in the end would leave 15,000 dead in the Sinai. There was still no agreement among the Israelis as to how to deal with Syria Golan Heights and the general in commanded of the Northern Frontier pressured Prime Minister Eshkol to take action and end the Syrian menace to the Galilee . Moshe Dyan showed the same reluctance he had when it came to taking Jerusalem Syria
1970(4th of Sivan, 5730): American psychologist Abraham Maslow, famous for his Hierarchy of Needs, passed away.
1981(6th of Sivan, 5741): Jews observe Shavuot for the first time during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.
1986: Former United Nations Secretary-General and veteran of Hitler’s Army, Kurt Waldheim, is elected president of Austria. Before the presidential elections, the Austrian weekly newsmagazine Profil revealed that there had been several omissions about Waldheim's life between 1938 and 1945 in his recently-published autobiography. A short time later, it was revealed that Waldheim had lied about his service as an officer in the SA-Reitercorps (stormtroopers), a paramilitary unit of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) before the war, and his time as an ordinance officer in Saloniki, Greece from 1942 to 1943. It is known and documented that many crimes against civilians were committed during the military occupation of Greece. Instead, Waldheim had incorrectly stated that he was wounded and had spent the last years of the war in Austria. Speculation grew, and Waldheim was accused of being either involved, or complicit, in "war crimes". During his Presidency Waldheim was not welcome in most capitals of the world. One of the few exceptions to this treatment was the Vatican which he visited twice during his Presidency.
1987: Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres agreed today to appoint a career diplomat, Moshe Arad, as Israel's next ambassador to Washington.
1991: Outfielder Ruben Amaro, Jr. who has a Jewish mother made his major league debut with the California Angels.
1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood by Naomi Wolfe, Ovitz:The Inside Story of Hollywood's Most Controversial Power Broker by Robert Slaterand the recently released paperback edition of The Temple Bombing by Melissa Fay Greene in which“the author shows the intertwining of racism and anti-Semitism in the South in the 1950's, when Rabbi Jacob Rothschild, a Northerner, came to Atlanta to lead its oldest synagogue. Enraged by Rothschild's support of black civil rights, white supremacists bombed the temple in 1958.”
2000(5th of Sivan, 5760):Joshua Myron, one of the last of the camel-mounted Zionist brigade that fought with Vladimir Jabotinsky against Turkey in Palestine during World War I, passed away today in Manhattan at the age of 102. With the outbreak of World War I, Mr. Jabotinsky, then a Russian journalist, realized that the Ottoman Empire was likely to lose to the British and that it would pay for the Zionist settlers in Israel to back the winning side. He spread the idea of forming a Jewish Brigade, sometimes called the Jewish Legion, to fight beside the British. The British Army unit, which recruited Jews from both the Middle East and Europe, used camels to move from front to front, and Mr. Myron rose to become company sergeant in charge of transport. The brigade is believed to have contributed significantly to the British war effort, and Mr. Jabotinsky believed its aid was a major factor in winning the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain announced support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. ''Half the Balfour Declaration belongs to the Legion,'' Mr. Jabotinsky wrote. Among the other members of the brigade was David Ben-Gurion, later the first prime minister of Israel. Mr. Myron was born at Rishon Lezion, the first officially Zionist settlement in Palestine, and devoted his life first to battling for a Jewish homeland, then to supporting Israel after its establishment in 1948. After emigrating to New York and becoming a pharmacist, he remained active in raising arms and money for Israel. Mr. Myron's father, Feivel Miransky, left Russia with a group of pioneers called the Biluim to go to Palestine as one of the founders of Rishon Lezion. Jews already lived in Palestine, but had not banded together in settlements in support of the Zionist ideal. The settlement of Rishon and other Zionist towns was financed by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, who established a large vineyard there. Mr. Miransky set up a carriage service to link Rishon with Jaffa, which became Tel Aviv. At the time, the trip took more than two hours on a sandy, muddy road. Mr. Myron was born on Aug. 17, 1897, into a frontier existence. His grandson Marc Lubin told of the time some of Mr. Myron's father's horses were stolen when he was 16. He reported the theft to the police and was told he was on his own. He ended up crossing the Jordan River and taking his horses back. After the war, Mr. Myron decided to move to the United States. He immediately experienced what he regarded as a stinging insult and a great inconvenience when the British refused to grant him traveling papers, saying he was officially a Turkish subject. So, officially at least, he arrived in America as a Turk. He had intended to study veterinary medicine at Columbia University but the school was not accepting new students at that time. He studied pharmacy at Albany College of Pharmacy. While there, he married Sybil Berkowitz, who died in 1973. In the early 1930's, they returned to Palestine, where their daughter, Naomi Scheurer, was born. She now lives in Manhattan; Mr. Myron is also survived by three grandchildren. Eventually, the Myrons moved to Suffern, N.Y. Mr. Myron commuted to Manhattan, where he owned two Midtown pharmacies. Before the modern state of Israel was created, he sent money and arms to those fighting to create it, his grandson said, and he never lost his pugnacious streak. At his funeral, the rabbi remembered his response to a move in his synagogue, the Congregation of the Sons of Israel, to share more equally the honor of reciting prayers during holy days. It was decided that each member would be limited to just one reading. Mr. Myron said that sounded good. Then he asked, ''Which two things am I doing?''
2001: “Arafat’s Failed Utopia,” Amos Perlmutter’s last column appeared in the Jerusalem Post
2006: Nobel Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel has called on Israel to take in refugees from Darfur. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, says, "We as Jews are obliged to help not only Jews. I was a refugee and therefore I am in favor of admitting refugees. I thought it was very laudable when Israel became the first country to admit the Vietnamese boat people. History constantly chooses a capital of human suffering, and Darfur is today the capital of human suffering. Israel should absorb refugees from Darfur, even a symbolic number."
2007: Haaretz reported that “despite the increasing tensions with Syria, Israel will not ask to widen the mandate of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) on the Golan, which is due to be extended at the end of the month, government sources in Jerusalem said.”
2008:In San Francisco the Contemporary Jewish Museumofficially opened the doors to its new building today with a community-wide celebration.
2008: Erev Shavuot 5768
2008: At Temple Judah, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Erev Shavuot Confirmation Service for Gabriel Kringlen and Jacob Muesham.
2008: The Sunday New York Times book section features a review of The German Bride, a novel set among the German-born merchants and traders who in the middle of the 19th century left Europe for the raw possibilities of the American West written by Joanna Hershon
2008: Thomas Friedman described the future of Israel. “From outside, Israel looks as if it’s in turmoil, largely because the entire political leadership seems to be under investigation. But Israel is a weak state with a strong civil society. The economy is exploding from the bottom up. Israel’s currency, the shekel, has appreciated nearly 30 percent against the dollar since the start of 2007. The reason? Israel is a country that is hard-wired to compete in a flat world. It has a population drawn from 100 different countries, speaking 100 different languages, with a business culture that strongly encourages individual imagination and adaptation and where being a nonconformist is the norm. While you were sleeping, Israel has gone from oranges to software, or as they say around here, from Jaffa to Java.” For the entire article go to;
2008:An 18-year-old Palestinian was arrested at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus Israel Hebron
2009:Center for Jewish History and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum present a program entitled “A Discussion of Refugees and Rescue: American Diplomat James G. McDonald and the Jewish Refugee Crisis, 1935-1945”The remarkable efforts of James Grover McDonald to call attention to the threat faced by European Jewry and his tireless attempts to relay these concerns to the highest levels of government are explored in the acclaimed new volume Refugees and Rescue: The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald, 1935-1945, edited by Richard Breitman, Barbara McDonald Stewart, and Severin Hochberg.
2009:David W. Jourdan, a former submariner in the U.S. Navy and the founder/president of Nauticos, an ocean exploration company, discusses and signs his new book, Never Forgotten: The Search for Israel's Lost Submarine Dakar at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
2009:Israel Defense Forces soldiers early today killed at least four Palestinian militants who were trying to cross into Israel from the Gaza Strip. An IDF source said that the group was planning to launch an attack on an Israeli community bordering the Strip. The defense establishment said later that the militants also planned to abduct IDF soldiers once inside Israel.At least ten militants - some on horseback - opened fire on an IDF patrol on the Israeli side of the fence, which returned fire. There were no injuries reported among the IDF troops. Residents said the Palestinian militants fired anti-tank weapons and set off explosives against the patrol.
2009(16th of Sivan, 5769):Sheila Finestone, who had had a distinguished career as a Canadian Member of Parliament and Senator passed away at the age of 82.
2010:“The Naming,” the new multi-disciplinary work by Persian Jewish innovator Galeet Dardashti, the driving force behind the popular band Divahn is scheduled to be peformed at the Washington Jewish Music Festiv
2010:President Shimon Peres, in South Korea to boost economic ties today, also did his part for Israel's aliyah (immigration of Jews to Israel) effort, encouraging a special robot to get "upgraded" in Israel. President Peres' visit aims to boost economic ties between Seoul and Jerusalem and will address the issue of sanctions against Iran.
2011: Canadian television journalist Joe Schlesinger received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Alberta in Edmonton[ for his long and distinguished career. He also delivered a speech to the 2011 graduating class of the Faculty of Arts, impressing on the new alumni that learning is a life-long endeavor, and that one should not be complacent and allow their minds to stagnate. His speech received a standing ovation
2011(6th of Sivan, 5711): First Day of Shavuot
2011: Contemporary Israeli Dance Week is scheduled to begin this evening at La MaMa in New York City.
2012: The Gallim Dance Company, which takes its name from the Hebrew word for waves, is scheduled to have its opening night performance at The Joyce in NYC.
2012: Planet Brass is scheduled to perform an evening of music created by Israeli Rafi Malkiel at the David Greer Recital Hall.
2012: In Iowa City, at Agudas Achim, Professor Robert Cargill is scheduled to facilitate a digital media presentation on "The Coronation of the King: The Importance of the Gihon Spring and the Kidron Valley to the Early Jewish Monarchy and to Later Prophets and Christian Interpretive Traditions."
2012:Thousands of people participated in Tel Aviv's 14th Gay Pride Parade today, including many tourists arrived in Israel to attend the annual gay pride week-long events.
2012(18th of Sivan, 5772): In a tragic reminder of the high pirce that Israel continues to apy for its vary survival Corporal Dor Gan died tragically today in roll-over accident while patrolling on the Goland Heights.
2013: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to celebrate the 100th birthday of Henry Brylawski.
2013: At Adas Israel in Washington, DC, Judith Hauptman, Professor of Talmud and Rabbinic Culture at The Jewish Theological Seminary, is scheduled to deliver the d’var Torah at the service honoring Rabbi Charles Feinberg’s 40th anniversary in the Rabbinate.
2013(30th of Sivan, 5773): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz