January 16
27 BCE: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus is granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate, marking the beginning of the Roman Empire. Ten years earlier Augustus had appointed Herod as King of Judea, of whom he said, “he would rather be a pig in Herod’s house than one of his family.” For more about why the clash between the Judeans and the Roman Empire did not have to lead to the destruction of the Temple and the end of a Jewish state, see Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations.
550: During the Gothic War, The Ostrogoths, under King Totila, conquer Rome after a long siege, by bribing the Isaurian garrison. The Ostrogoths was the name applied to the eastern Goths. The Goths were Germanic in origin and and are often thought of as part of the various Barbarian Hordes that destroyed the Roman Empire. Unlike other such groups such as the Visigoths and Vandals, the Ostrogoths, at least under their greatest leader Theodoric the Great, were known for their religious toleration which was extended to the Jewish people.
929: Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III who had appointed Hasdi ibn Shaprut to serve as his physician, established the Caliphate of Córdoba which came during what is called the “Golden Age” and due to their treatment by the rulers, the Jews of Cordoba supported the state and were active in commerce, industry and the study of science.
1120: The Council of Nablus is held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. This is the same Nablus that will be a Fatah stronghold at the end of the 20th Century and the same Jerusalem that is the capital of modern-day Israel.
1232: In London, The Domus Conversorum known in English as the House of the Converts was founded by order of Henry III to provide a home and free maintenance for Jews converted to Christianity.
1412: The Medici family is appointed official banker of the Papacy. According to the Jewish Virtual Library “the organized Jewish communities of Florence, Siena, Pisa and Livorno were political creations of the Medici rulers. And like the Medici Grand Dukedom itself, these communities took shape in the course of the sixteenth century. For more about the unusual relationship between this famousItalian family
see: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/medici.html
1547: Ivan the Terrible was crowned Czar of Russia. From the point of view of the Jewish people Ivan deserved to be called “the Terrible.” In 1563, he gave the Jews of Polotsk, Lithuania, the choice of converting or dying. When the Jews refused the cross, Ivan had his soldiers drill holes in the frozen Dvina River and then pushed three hundred Jewish men, women and children through them to their death.
1556: As part of the Peace of Augusburg, Charles V, who met with David Reuben and Solomon Molcho concerning “the alliance of the Jews of the East against the Ottoman Empire, abdicated as the King of Spain.
1556: King Phillip II, “who was a symbol of ‘Tyranny’ in Spinoza’s Political Writings” and who expelled the Jews from Milan, began his reign as King of Spain today.
https://www.redalyc.org/jatsRepo/774/77455380006/html/index.html
1600: The 400 Jews of Verona completed their synagogue after their move into the ghetto.
This date was actually celebrated as a "Purim" until the French Revolution, since many felt that the ghetto provided some protection, and since in an unusual move the keys of the ghetto were given to the Jewish leaders.
1678: In the colony of Rhode Island, Israel and Mary (Baker) Arnold gave birth to Israel Arnold, the son of the Deputy Governor of the colony.
1721: Birthdate of Lithuania native Mordecai Moses Mordecai, the husband of Savannah, GA native Zipporah De Lyon and the father of Deborah, David, Esther, Isaac and Philp Mordecai.
1739: “Saul” an oratorio by George Handel based on the story found in the 1stBook of Samuel was “first performed at the King’s Theatre in London.”
1756: In Germany, Kehle and Simon Bernheimer gave birth to Jakob Simon Berhnheimer, the husband Lea Hajim with whom he had six children.
1756(14thof Shevat, 5516): Rabbi Jacob Joshua Falk (Yaakov Yehoshua ben Tzvi Hirsch) passed away today at Offenbach, Born at Cracow in 1680, on his mother's side he was a grandson of Joshua of Cracow, the author of "Maginne Shelomoh." While a youth Jacob became examiner of the Hebrew teachers of Lemberg. In 1702 his wife, his child, and his mother were killed through an explosion of gunpowder that wrecked the house in which they lived. Jacob himself narrowly escaped death. He was then called to the rabbinate of Tarli and Lisko, small Galician towns. In 1717 he replaced Ḥakam Ẓebi in the chief rabbinate of Lemberg; and thence he was called to Berlin in 1731. Having displeased Veitel-Heine Ephraim, one of the most influential leaders of the community, by rendering a judgment against him, he was compelled at the expiration of his term of office (1734) to resign. After having been for seven years rabbi of Metz he became chief rabbi of Frankfort-on-the-Main; but the unfavorable attitude of the local authorities toward the Jews, and the fact that the community was divided by controversies, made his position there very precarious. Soon afterward the quarrel between Jacob Emden and Jonathan Eybeschütz broke out. The chief rabbi, because of his opposition to Eybeschütz, was ultimately compelled to leave the city (1750). He wandered from town to town till he came to Worms, where he remained for some years. He was then called back to Frankfort; but his enemies prevented him from preaching in the synagogue, and he left the city a second time. Jacob was one of the greatest Talmudists of his time. He wrote "Pene Yehoshua'," novellæ on the Talmud, in four parts. Two of them were published at Frankfort-on-the-Main (1752); the third, with his "Pesaḳ bet-Din Ḥadash," at Fürth (1766); the fourth, which, in addition to Talmudic novellæ, contains novellæ on the Ṭur Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ and "Liḳḳuṭim," also at Fürth (1780). He wrote also a commentary on the Pentateuch, which is mentioned by the author himself, but has not appeared in print. (As reported by Schechter and Seligsohn)
http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_14.html
1761(11thof Shevat, 5521): Reuben ben Aaron passed away today after which he interred in the “Hoxton Old Jewish Burial Ground.”
1764: For the next 12 months, starting from today, according to entries in the records of the New York Custom House, there were only 4 “Jewish entries all for Sampson Simpson. His cargoes which included iron, sugar, wine, skins and rum, were sent to South Carolina and the Mosquito Coast. Although his name is unknown to most, he was a highly successful businessman. During the Seven Years, which ended in 1763, he outfitted four ships as privateers. Simpson was the only Jewish member of the “prestigious Chamber of Commerce which was created in 1768.”
1765(23 Tevet, 5525): Isaac Zerahiah Azulai, the father of 18th century rabbinic scholar and author Chaim Joseph David passed away today in Jerusalem.
1774: In London, Solomon Salmons and Shirphra Phillip Levy Salomons gave birth Levi Salomons, “the London financier and underwriter” who lived near the Great St. Helen’s Synagogue and who in 1795 married Matilda Mitz with whom he had six children – Philip, David, Joseph, Sophia, Elizabeth and Esther and passed away in January of 1843.
1775: Birthdate of New York City native Samuel Abrahams, the son of Abraham Isaac Abrahams.
1776: In Buchau, Germany, Helen Neuberger and Heinrich Maendle gave birth to Marianna Maendle,
1777: One day after she had passed away, Esther Hamburger, the wife of Abraham Hamburger was buried today at the “Alderney Road (Globe Rd) Jewish Cemetery.
1781: Abraham Benjamin Cohen married Elizabeth Gompertz today.
1791: In Savanah, GA, Charleston native Judith Canter and St. Croix native Emanuel De La Motta gave birth to Isaac De La Motta who did not live to see his third birthday.
1794: English historian Edward Gibbon, author of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empirepassed away. Those who think that the acknowledgement of the Jewish origins of Christianity is a twentieth century phenomenon are not acquainted with this classic of ancient history. In chapter 15 of the first volume of this classic, Gibbon makes it quite clear that Christianity is rooted in the Judaism of the first century of the Common Era.
1801: Philadelphian Benjamin Solomon began serving as a Midshipman in the United States Navy today.
1802: Birthdate of Joel Jolson who was baptized as a Lutheran at seventeen and gained fame as Friedrich Julius Stahl, the German lawyer and politician.
1809: In Charleston, SC, Priscilla Moses Lopez and David Lopez gave birth to builder David Lopez, Jr., the tenth of their twelve children who was the brother of Sally Lopez, the founder “of the second Jewish Sunday School in America and who married Rebeca Moise after the death of his first wife Catherine Dobyn Hinton who was not Jewish which did keep Lopez from being an active member of the Charleston Jewish community.
1809: Benjamin Solomon began serving as a Midshipman in the U.S. Navy.
1814: Birthdate of London native Eve Beck, the daughter of Samson Beck.
1826: Four days after he passed away, forty-seven-year-old Aharon ben Moshe was laid to rest at the Bath Jewish Burial Ground
1827: Hannah and Moses Collis gave birth to Jemima Collis.
1834: Birthdate of Königsberg, Prussia, native and anti-Semitic journalist Otto Glagau.
1839: Naphtali Hart married Elizabeth Solomon today at the New Synagogue.
1843(15thof Shevat, 5603): Tu B’Shevat
1844: Isaac David Walter and Henriette Walter gave birth to their daughter Sophia who became Sophia Beer when she married Julius Beer.
1844:In Indiana, Moses and Sophia Neumann Amberg gave birth to Iske Amberg Fechheimer, the wife of Morris C. Fechheimer and mother of Henry, Thekla, Mad, Reeda, Moses, Karl and Sidney Fechheimer.
1849: In Natchez, Mississippi, Jannette Ries and John Mayer gave birth to Melanie Meyer Frank, the wife of Henry Frank with she had ten children – Caroline, Rosalie, Frderick, Ernest, Herman, Edgar, Wilhelm, Ophelia, Jeannette and John.
1852(24thof Tevet, 5612): Meir Eisenstaedter (Meir ben Judah Leib Eisenstädter) a nineteenth-century rabbi, Talmudist, and paytan) also known as Maharam Asch (a Hebrew acronym for "Morenu ha-Rav Meir Eisenshtadt" meaning "our teacher, Rabbi Meir Eisenstadt") passed away today.
1852: Mt. Sinai Hospital, known as Jews Hospital, was founded in New York City
1853: General Sir Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton who commanded the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force during the Gallipoli Campaign which meant that he was the ultimate commander of the Zion Mule Corps, the first All-Jewish force to take the field of battle since the days of the rebellions against Rome.
1853: Adam and Fridoline Kahnweiler Gimbel gave birth to Sallie Gimbel who became Sallie Greenewald when she married Aaron E. Greenwald.
1853: In Terre Haute, Indiana, Bernhardt Bischof and Sara Mathilda Wallace gave birth to Theresa Bischof who became Theresa Ezekiel when she married Walter Ambrose Ezekiel and who was active in a number of Cincinnati Jewish organizations including the United Jewish Charities of Cincinnati, the Sick Poor Society and the Council of Jewish Women.
1854: In Horton Yorkshire, Maria Moss and Bernard Jacob gave birth to Abigail Jacob, the wife of Lyon Samuel.
1856: In Baltimore, MD, Charleston native Solomon Nunes Carvalho and Sarah Miriam Carvalho gave birth to Solomon Solis Carvalho
1859: The first wife of Joseph Wolff, the son of a rabbi who converted to Christianity and became a “Jewish Christian missonary,” passed away today.
1862(15thof Shevat, 5622): Tu B’Shevat
1862: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Isaac M Brandon transferred from the Volunteers to the Twelfth United States Regulars.
1862: Birthdate of Baden native Elias Elkan Ries, the Cooper Union, the Maryland Institute and Johns Hopkins trained telegraph operator who made “improvements in telephone, telegraph and other electrical apparatus” which meant while developing 150 patents, he “introduced the Ries regulating sock for ‘turning down’ the light of electric lamps,” invented an “alternating current electrical system,” and a “method for electrically welding track rails” while still finding time to marry Helen Hirshberg in 1895.
1869: Birthdate of Lithuania native Louis Blaustein, the husband of Baltimore native Henrietta Gittleson and the father of Jacob Blaustin who was the founder of the American Oil Company.
https://blaufund.org/foundation-family-tree/
1870(14thof Shevat, 5630): Thirty-three year old Washington Hendricks the son Frances Isaacs and copper manufacturer Harmon Henricks and granddaughter of Uriah Hendricks, one of the founders of New York’s Congregation Shearith Israel, passed away today.
1871: Birthdate of Riga native Henrietta G. Blaustein who at the age of fourteen came to the United where she married Louis Blastein who along with their Jacob founded the American Oil Company and whose philanthropies included the Louis and Henrietta Blaustein Foundation.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/blaustein-henrietta-gittelson
1872: Four days after she had passed away, 67-year-old Sarah (Levy) Slowman, the wife of Abraham Slowman with whom she had had seven children was buried today at the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1875: On her 21st birthday, Abigail Jacob, the daughter of Maria and Bernard Jacob married Lyon Samuel
in London today.
1875: David James played the role of “Perkyn Middlewick” in Henry James Byron’s “Our Boys” which opened at the Vaudeville Theatre. James was the son of Agar and Abraham Julian Belasco who was named David Belasco at birth but changed his name so that he would not be confused with his second cousin and namesake David Belasco.
1876(18thof Tevet, 5636): Parshat Shemot; Start the second book of the Torah
1876(18thof Tevet, 5636): Seventy-eight year old Aron Emanuel Scharf, the husband of Magdelanna Roos, passed away in Bavaria.
1876: It was reported today that The Alliance Israelite Universelle of Paris has just published a pamphlet describing the discriminatory conditions under which the Jews of Romania continue to live. The Romanians have successfully circumvented previous attempts to improve the conditions of the Jews, including those resolutions adopted at the Convention of Paris in 1858, by declaring that Jews born in Romania are not Romanian citizens. Since they are not citizens, the Romanians contend it is legal to deny them such basic rights as the rights to own property and vote.
1876: Newman Leopold, a “French Hebrew loan broker” shot himself this afternoon at his home on Adelphi Street in New York. The wound did not prove immediately mortal and the reason for the shooting was not immediately known.
1879: In Paris, Edward de Forest and Juliette Arnold gave birth to Maurice Arnold de Forest who, along with his younger brother Raymond were, after the death of their parents, “were adopted by the millionaire Baroness Clara de Hirsch, née Bischoffsheim, wife of Jewish banker and philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch de Gereuth, and given the surname de Forest-Bischoffsheim.
1879: Mr. Henry Bergh delivered a lecture tonight at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in which he said “it was astonishing” that so little attention had been paid to the treatment of “dumb animals” in the United Sates. He felt that the clergy had not shown sufficient interest in the topic. He expressed his opinion that Christians might learn from the Turks and “old Jewish laws” if they wished to improve the situation.
1881: Birthdate of Martha Grassman who cared for painter Fritz Ascher for three years while he hid in Berlin from the Nazis.
1881: “An insane inmate” under the care of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society, set the facility on fire. This unnamed individual was the only fatality.
1882(25thof Tevet, 5642): Twenty-year-old Eugen C. Kahn, a native of Morgan City, LA, passed away today in New Orleans after which he was buried “in the cemetery located in” Berwick, LA.
1882(25thof Tevet, 5642): Seventy-four German born poet and linguist Ludwig Wihl whose “hopes for a university career were doomed to failure, because he declined to be baptized” passed away today in Brussels where he had been living in self-imposed political exile.
1884: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Levy officiated at the married of Julius Jacobson to Johannah Hoffman, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. G. Hoffman.
1884: The orthodox synagogue in St. Apern Straße was dedicated in Cologne
1886(10thof Shevat, 5646): Parashat Beshalach; Shabbat Shirah
1886(10thof Shevat, 5646): Seventy-two year old Bavarian attorney Leopold von Kulla “who was an honorary member of the Jewish consistory of Wurttemberg passed away today.
1888: Birthdate of Osip Maksimovich Brik, a Russian avant garde writer and literary critic who “was one of the most important members of the Russian formalist school, though he also identified himself as one of the Futurists.”
1889(14thof Tevet, 5649): Fifty-six-year-old “Russian scientist and publicist” Hirsch Rabinowitz passed away today in St. Petersburg.
1889: In Kovno, Moses Isaac and Anna (Fishman) Bettan gave birth to University of Cincinnati and Hebrew Union College Israel Bettan, the Rabbi for Congregation B’nai Israel in Charleston, West Virginia and Professor of Homiletics and Midrash at Hebrew Union College.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/bettan-israel
1890: It was reported today that in the last ten years disbursements by the United Hebrew Charities have more than doubled going from $35,000 to $72,000.
1890: It was reported that the past five years the Jewish immigrants arriving in New York included, 18,535 in 1885; 27,348 in 1886; 25, 788 in 1887; 29,602 in 1888 and 23, 674 in 1889.
1890: Birthdate of Richmond, IN native and Earlham College educated journalist Carl William Ackerman, the first dean of the Columbia School of Journalism who “published the first excerpts of an translation of the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
1890: Birthdate of Karl Freund who was one of the most famous directors and cameramen of his time who worked on everything from an early cinematic version of Dracula to episodes of the television sitcom Our Miss Brooks.
1890: Oscar S. Straus is scheduled to deliver “a few informal remarks” at a meeting of the Young Men’s Association of Ahawatch Chesed which is being held at Steinway Hall.
1890: As his health worsened, the children of 87 year old Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler were called to his bedside for one more visit.
1891: Lazarus Solomon, the son of Moses and Sarah Solomon was buried today at the “Canterbury Jewish Cemetery.”
1891(7thof Shevat, 5651): Isaac Aaron Ettinger, Reb Itzsche, passed away today. Born at Lemberg in 1827, he followed Zebi Hirsch Ornstein as the rabbi of Lemberg in 1888, a position he held until the day he passed away.
1892: “The Nautch Girl,” a comic opera that featured the music of Anglo-Jewish theatre man Edward Solomon closed today after two hundred performances at the Savoy Theatre.
1893: Theodor Kohn, the cleric with Jewish grandparents, began serving as Archbishop of Olomouc. He would eventually be forced to resign from the post.
1893: Three days after she passed away, eighty-eight year old Alice Aarons, the daughter of Aron Aarons who had passed away in 1849 at the age of 78, was buried at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1893: It was reported today that Joseph Barondess is leading a move to reorganize the Cloakmaker’s Union following its unsuccessful strike against Meyer Jonasson & Co. (Barondess was the son of Rabbi Samuel Barondess and a distant relative of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. His connection with the cloakmakers was so strong that he was as the “King of the Cloakmakers.”
1893: Four days after she had passed away, 52 years old Bloom Cohen, the daughter of Benjamin Woolf and Isabella Phillips and the wife of Levi Cohen, was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1894: In New York City, at the meeting of the Board of Police Superintendent reported that Roundsman Michael Downs and Patrolmen John Kenny and Kerwin Larkin have been suspended from duty and arrested on charges that they extorted money from Jewish peddlers.
1894: As the general economic conditions worsen It was reported today that New York Mayor Gilroy’s Relief Committee had made disbursement’s to various charities aiding the needy including two thousand dollars to the United Hebrew Charities.
1894: It was reported today that the East Side Relief Work has paid $4, 496.26 “for street sweeping and manufacturing” – work which is done primarily by Austrian and Russian Jews.
1894: It was reported today that R.H Macy & Co, which is owned by the Straus family donated another $1,346.26 to the Mayor’s Relief Committee
1894: Dr. C.F. Valentine was defeated in his bid to be elected President of the New York County Medical Association. It had been “hinted” that he was defeated because he was Jewish.
1895: Following the resignation of Casimir-Perier in the wake of the Dreyfus affair, General August Mercier who had led the fight to condemn the Jewish officer only got three votes in his quest to lead the next government.
1896: It was reported today that last year’s Hebrew Charity Ball raised $12,000 for the Montefiore Home and it is hoped that this year’s ball will raised even more money.
1896: It was reported today that 70 per cent of the population living at the settlement area at 26 Delancy Street is made up of Jewish immigrants from Russia. The area which has been inhabited by successive groups of immigrants, the last of which the Irish, is one of the most difficult in which the University Settlement Society has ever worked because of the over-crowding and lack of opportunity.
1897: In New York City Jacob and Julia (Jaffe) Oppenheim gave birth to Columbia University graduate and University of Michigan trained attorney Saul Chesterfield Oppenheim, the WW I army veteran who was a Professor of Law at George Washington University from 1927 until 1952 at which time he accepted a similar position at the University of Michigan while raising one child, Daniel, with his wife Morgery Ho. Heiman.
1898: Birthdate of Irving Rapper, the British born movie director who moved to Hollywood in the 1930’s where “he made his directing debut with the 1941 film “Shining Victory.”
1898: In Talsen, Latvia, Liebe (Lemkus) Davidoff and Israel Davidoff, a shoemaker, gave birth Harvard trained physician Dr. Leo Davidoff, “a founder of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine” and the husband of Ida (Fisher) Davidoff.”
1898: It was reported today that Anatole France and Emile Zola are among a group of “prominent doctors, lawyers’ and writers” who “have signed a petition in favor” of having the Dreyfus decision reviewed because of the “violation of judicial forms and the mysteries surrounding it.”
1898: “The annual meeting of the Hebrew Technical School for Girls was held” this “afternoon at the school headquarters” on Henry Street.
1898: Birthdate of Irving Rapper, the British born American director Irving Rapper whose career began in 1941 with “Shining Victory” and ended with “Born Again” in 1978.
http://articles.latimes.com/1999/dec/29/local/me-48573
1898: Paris was the scene of another night of violence as “bands of students paraded” denouncing Emile Zola, “shouting…death to the Jews,” smashing café windows, and in a case of mistaken identity, smashing the windows of a house they thought belonged to Zola.
1898: “France At Its Worst” published today described the current crisis over Alfred Dreyfus as demonstrating the “degeneracy” of the French people.
1898: It was reported today that there are two factions arrayed against Emile Zola, the editor and author who has taken the lead in defending Alfred Dreyfus. One is made of “those who would support the so-called ‘honor of the army’ at any sacrifice against individual justice.” (In other words, Dreyfus may be innocent but to overturn the verdict would hurt the military.) The other groups are the anti-Semites which including the students rioting in the street a number of those serving as Deputies in the French legislature.
1899: It was reported today that “the few attempts made to incited the populace” of Hungary “against the Jews have been fruitless, which is in marked contrast to the success of the anti-Jewish campaign in Austria. (More for 2014)
1899: Herzl writes to Bertha von Suttner, famous Austrian peace activist, to request an audience with the Czar.
1899: It was a reported today that in Duluth, a mob of 150 Jews attacked the Coroner when he went to open the grave of Mrs. Wlfound, whom it was claimed was buried alive. The Jews did not approve of what they considered was a desecration of the remains of a co-religionists.
1900: In Aachen, Germany, Rosa Stern and Abraham Holländer gave birth to their youngest child Edith, who would become Edith Frank when she married Otto Frank – a union that would produce the diarist Anne Frank.
1901: “The seventh council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which had adopted “memorial resolution in memory of the late Dr. I. M. Wise, came to a close tonight in Cincinnatti and will meeting again in St. Louis in 1903.
1902: It was reported today that Senator Nathaniel Elsberg has introduced a bill to incorporate the Jewish Theological Seminary for which “Jacob H. Schiff, Leonard Lewisohn and David Guggenheim have created a trust fund of $100,000” and which will be led by Solomon Schechter servings as Dean and Dr. Cyrus Adler serving as President.
1903: Herzl ate lunch with Lord Rothschild and had a meeting with Sir Thomas Sanderson, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs in Downing Street. Herzl submits the itinerary of the Commission and the membership. Sanderson recommends Sir Benjamin Baker, builder of the Aswan Dam, as irrigation engineer. Herzl is concerned about each and every detail.
1903: Birthdate of David Shaltiel, the native of Berlin who was “the district commander of the Haganah in Jerusalem” during the 1948 War for Independence.
1903: In Odessa, Russia, David and Clara Berman gave birth to Las Vegas mob boss Donald “Davie” Berman.
1903: Following the death of Henry de Worms seven days ago, The Jewish Chronicle wrote “Lord Pirbright was for several years president of the Anglo-Jewish Association, but resigned in 1886 owing to objections raised to his having attended the nuptials of his eldest daughter in a church. During his parliamentary career he was a warm advocate of the cause of Jews in lands of oppression, especially Rumania.”
1904(28thof Tevet, 5664): Henrietta Cahn, the native of Wittgenborn, Germany passed away today in Port Gibson, Mississippi.
1904: In Hesse, Germany, Salomon and Julie Adler gave birth to Berthold (Bert) Adler, the husband of Ruth Adler.
1905(10thof Shevat, 5665): Frederick David Mocatta , the son of Miriam Bradon and Abraham Mocatta and husband of Ada Goldsmid, who “was a partner of the London bullion broker, Mocatta & Goldsmid” and philanthropist noted for his role in the creation of Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition and development of the Jewish Historical Society of England.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica/Mocatta,_Frederick_David
1906: Opening of the Algeciras Conference during which “the US representatives ensured that the Conference documents praised the Sultan's Government for improvements in conditions of Jews and asked it to guarantee to treat all Moroccans equally.
1906: Bezalel, The Academy of Arts and Design, was founded in Jerusalem by Boris Schatz. Born in 1867, Schatz was a painter and court sculptor to King Ferdinand of Bulgaria. He died in 1932. The school was named after biblical artisan Bezalel, son of Uri, who was one of the main architects of the Tabernacle. It has well over 1000 students and offers degrees in art, architecture, and design.
1907: Two days before his 15th birthday Ukrainian born composer Samuel Kaylin “immigrated to the United States…aboard the steamship Neckar.
1907: In Atlanta, the two-day convention of the Union of Hebrew Congregations came to an end.
1908: Tonight, during the 23rd annual dinner of the Holland Society which was held at the Waldorf Astoria, President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard delivered a speech in which he “made a powerful plea for the Jews and the Jewish people, saying: We may depend upon it that in this country which has given him at last a real liberty” and “the Jews were a great people” who “had a free government centuries before other people thought of having it.” (Editor’s note: Eliot had a close, personal relationship with Justice Brandeis while it was his successor, President Lowell who supported quotas to limit Jewish enrollment at Harvard.)
1909: Birthdate of Clement Greenberg the most famous American art critic since Bernard Berenson, who was born “to a Yiddish-speaking socialist family and was brought up in Brooklyn and the Bronx.”
1910: The Jewish Agricultural and Colonial Association, the purpose of which was helping Jews to settle on farms, was organized today.
1911: The 22ndcouncil of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations which will be attended by rabbis and laymen from “seventy cities and towns” “representing 187 congregations” is scheduled to begin today at the Hotel Astor.
1911: William A. Purrington is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Perjury” which is the second of a series of lectures being held at the Educational Alliance in Manhattan
1912: “The New York Section of the Council of Jewish Women, a National organization with sections in fifty-three of the leading cities, heard today from its returning delegates to the recent triennial convention of the organization at Philadelphia that the sections in Washington, Baltimore, Boston, and Chicago have seceded from the National organization, and that there is likelihood of several smaller sections following suit.”
1913(8thof Shevat, 5673): Seventy-three Abraham Israel Mendoza the Whitechapel born son of Israel Mordechai Mendoza and the husband of Maria (Miriam) Mendoza passed away at Mile End Old Town, London.
1913: A meeting of the Lenora Sewing Circle under the leadership of Carrie Metz took place this afternoon at Isiah Temple in Chicago.
1914: Governor Martin Glynn of New York has appointed “Dr. Adolph Speigel, the Rabbi of Congregation Shaari Zedek of Harlem to attend the Congress in Berlin to protest against the violation of the Berlin Treat of 1879 which guaranteed full rights of citizenship to all Jewish subjects” or Romania.
1915(1st of Shevat, 5675): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1915: “Oppose Immigration Bill” published today told of Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society to host a series of mass meetings in Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Providence, Newark and New York to designed to help defeat the Smith Burnett Immigration Bill which contains a literacy test that would hamper Jewish immigration from Russia because the Czar’s government restricts their efforts to gain an education.
1915(1stof Shevat, 5676): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1915(1stof Shevat, 5676): Seventy-year-old Rabbi Benny Goldman, the son of Wolf and Rachel Goldman lost his battle with bronchial pneumonia and passed away in St. Louis today.
1916: It was reported today that starting next semester, Dr. Elias Margolis will teach the first ever offered course in Yiddish offered by Columbia University which has been added to the curriculum, in part “to encourage non-Jews to learn the language in order that they might teach the numerous night classes in New York.”
1916: The American Jewish Relief Committee is scheduled to host a fund-raising concert this evening at the Fourteenth Street Armory in New York City.
1916: “The Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society opened a branch office at the Sackman Street Synagogue near Belmont Avenue, Brownsville,” tonight “to enable Jews to find their relatives lost in the war zone and to help in sending aid to them.
1916: “An appeal to all Jews to forget partisanship and differences of doctrine in an effort to conditions of their ‘brethren in the oppressed lands’ was made” today “by Rabbi Samuel Schulman in a sermon on ‘The War and the Rights of the Jews’ which he delivered at Temple Beth-El” at Fifth Avenue and Seventy-sixth Street.
1917: Eighty-six-year-old Solomon Ullman, the former president of the Western Synagogue was buried today at the Edmonton Western Jewish Cemetery.
1917: Seventy-nine-year-old Admiral George Dewey the Spanish American War Naval hero passed away today which led the Council of the Union of American Congregations which was meeting in Baltimore at the time to send a telegram to President Wilson expressing their “profound sorrow” and “deep felt sympathy.”
1917: Birthdate of Szerena Abrahamova who was murdered at Auschwitz after having been transported there from Terezin in April of 1944.
1917: “Between 400 and 500 delegates are expected to attend the 25th council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations which opens in Baltimore with Henry Morgenthau, former Ambassador to Turkey and Jacob H. Schiff scheduled to speak at the gathering.
1917: The National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods which was created in 1913 and now has groups at 150 congregations is scheduled to begin its national convention today in Baltimore, MD.
1917: J. Walter Freiburg, President of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations announces a gift of $100,000 from Jacob H. Schiff for the establishment of a fund to provide for pensioning superannuated rabbis.
1917: “Following an appeal by Adolph S. Ochs, Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, fifty-seven Jews pledged over $140,000 in a few hours at the convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations to meet expenses of the Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati and synagogue and school extension work.”
1917: German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sends the Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico, proposing a German-Mexican alliance against the United States. The Zimmerman Telegram by Jewish historian Barbara Tuchman provides one of the best descriptions and explanations of this little-known episode in American history that helped lead the United States into World War I.
1918: The American Consul in Yokohama reported that Jewish refugees including 1 man, 156 women and 170 children who are “awaiting transportation to the United States” are “poorly fed and living in crowded quarters.”
1918: University of Buffalo and Columbia University trained dermatologist Joseph Bromberg, the Buffalo born son of Mary Cohen and Samuel Bromberg who served as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during WW I and who served as an instructor in dermatology at the University of Buffalo married Sabina Grace Medias today.
1919(15thof Shevat, 5679) Tu BiShvat / טו בשבט
1919” In Detroit, MI, Louis and Belle Horwitz gave birth to Jerome Phillip Horwitz “a scientific researcher who created AZT in 1964 in the hope that it would cure cancer but who entered the medical pantheon decades later when AZT became the first successful drug treatment for people with AIDS…” )As reported by Paul Vitello)
1920: Birthdate of Lodz native and Rutgers Ph.D. Arcadius Kahan the economic historian and U of Chicago professor.
1920: In Berlin, “at sessions of the Prussian Provincial Diet, the Minister for Public Worshp and Education declared that Germans and Jews are obliged to work together for the welfare of the country” and asked that “students of the higher schools not insult the Jews.”
1920: The 18thAmendment to the United States Constitution was ratified today. Its ban on the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors would present a set of unique problem for Jews who wished to observe the law of the land yet needed wine for Shabbat, Pesach (and other holidays) weddings and circumcision ceremonies.
http://americanjewisharchives.org/publications/journal/PDF/1991_43_02_00_sprecher.pdf
1921: In Winnipeg, Canada, “Meyer Thompson, a Jewish baker of bagels from Hull England and the former Annette Berman” gave birth to Abraham Thomas Thompson, the man who brought automation to the field of bagel baking.
1921: Salo Stein, who had been serving as rabbi in Jacksonville, FL, today began serving as the rabbi for Anshe Sholem Yehuda Congregation in Middletown, Ohio.
1921: “The ninth annual convention of the United Synagogue of America and the fouth annual convention of the Women’s League of the United Synagogue is scheduled to open today at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
1921 Today, Maximillian Cohen, the member of Socialist Labor Party and the Socialist Party of America was stripped of his editorship and expelled from the Communist Party.
1921: “The Period of Racial Prejudice,” a protest prepared under the initiative of John Spargo and signed by 119 distinguished American Christians from every walk of life” that began with “The undersigned citizens of Gentile birth and Christian faith view with profound regret and disapproval the appearance in this country of what is apparently an organized campaign of anti-Semitism, conducted in close conformity to and co-operation with similar campaigns in Europe” was made public today.
http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/1922_1923_8_AJCAnnualReport.pdf
1922: In Port Jervis, NY, Russian immigrants Gussie and David Levinson gave birth to Harry Levinson “a psychologist who helped change corporate America’s thinking about the workplace by demonstrating a link between job conditions and emotional health — a progressive notion when he began developing his ideas in the 1950s…” (As reported by Claudia Deutsch)
1922: In New York City, Frederick Margareten, the Manhattan born son of Regina Horowitz, “the Matzah Queen,” and Ignatz Margareten and his wife Mary Margareten gave birth to Jerome Margareten
1923: Birthdate of poet Anthony Hecht. Hecht won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1968 for “The Harder Hours.” He passed away in 2004.
1924: “The Miracle” directed and written by Max Reinhardt opened today the Century Theatre.
1925: Leon Trotsky was dismissed from the Russian Revolution Military Council as he lost the battle for power with Stalin.
1926(1stof Shevat, 5686): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1926: London born American featherweight fought his 79th bout which he won by a TKO.
1926: Grigori Sokolnikov completed his service as People’s Commissar for Finance of the USSR.
1927: “More than $900,000 was pledged tonight at a mass meeting of the 1,800 Philadelphians launching the 1927 campaign of the Federation of Jewish Charities” with the largest contributions coming from Albert M. Greenfield and Charles Gimbel of the Gimbel family.
1927: In a speech he gave at the dedication exercises of the Talmud Torah of the Jewish Centre in the Bronx, Louis Marshall “said the future of Jewry in New York was never brighter because of the renewed interest in teaching religion.”
1927: “ In Ohio, the State in which Dr. Isaac M. Wise helped establish reform Judaism a half century ago, 1,500 delegates from all parts of the country assembled today for the thirtieth biennial council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.”
1928: Part II of “Queen Louise” a biopic about a little known Prussian queen produced by Max Glass on which Hans Jacoby served as Art Director was released in Germany today.
1929: In Newark, NJ, Lithuanian Jewish immigrants Gabriel Lowenstein and Augusta Goldberg Lowenstein gave birth to Yale trained attorney and U.S. Congressman Allard Lowenstein
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Allard-K-Lowenstein
1930: As of today, Jerome Lewine, Leo Lowenstein and Paul Linz are serving as members of the governing committee of the National Metal Exchange
1930: Birthdate of Norman Podhoretz. Editor of “Commentary Magazine” Podhoretz has moved from being a liberal to a conservative.
1931: “The Love Habit,” an English comedy directed by Harry Lachman was released today in the United Kingdom
1931: “The Private Secretary” with music by Paul Abraham was released today in Germany. 1932: After 260 performances at the New Amsterdam Theatre, the curtain came down on the original Broadway production of “The Band Wagon” a revue with “book by George S. Kaufman and Howard Dietz, lyrics by Howard Dietz and music by Arthur Schwartz.”
1932: Philadelphian Jacob Billikopf, who had been associated with the recently deceased Julius Rosenwald in welfare activities for the last quarter of a century, expressed the opinion today that Rosenwald’s work on behalf of “the American Negro” was one of his most outstanding contributions to humanity.
1932: “Solomon Furth ran an American best 15 4/5 seconds in the 110-meter indoor hurdles” today. (as reported by Bob Wechsler)
1933(18thof Tevet, 5693): In Los Angeles, Mamie Klein the widow of Henry Klein, the co-owner of Klein-Norton Co. passed away today.
1933: NBC broadcast the 9th episode of “Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel” starring Groucho and Chico Marx.
1933: Birthdate of photographer Nathan Louis Finkelstein whose photographs of Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, and the Velvet Underground would become some of the most famous images of Warhol’s Factory and its revolving cast of characters.
1933: “Madame Wants No Children” a comedy with a script co-authored by Billy Wilder and filmed by cinematographer Willy Goldberg was released in Austria and Germany today.
1933: In New York Mildred and Jack Rosenblatt gave birth to Susan Rosenblatt who gained fame as Susan Sontag
http://jwa.org/thisweek/jan/16/1933/susan-sontag
1934: In Albany, NY, “the Assembly today concurred with the Senate in the adoption of a resolution by Senator Samuel Mandelbaum of New York, petitioning Congress to ask President Roosevelt to protest to Germany against ‘the reign of terrorism against Jews.’”
1935: Rabbi Stephen Wise spoke at luncheon of the Women’s League for Palestine where “it was announced that $21,000 has been received in gifts and pledges toward building a home for needy girls at Tel Aviv.” The home is similar to one already being operated in Haifa and will cost a total of $40,000 to complete.
1935: In Boston, Temple Israel is scheduled to begin offering “courses in rabbinical literature, Hebrew and history today.
1935: The “sub-conferences” of “the sixth Revisionist World Conference” are scheduled to come to an end today.
1935: Leaders of the Jewish National Fund announced that it had raise $20,000 which represents 40% of the goal of $50,000 needed to buy additional land in Palestine “as perpetual national property.”
1935(12th of Shevat, 5695): On her 91st birthday, Sophia Beer, the wife of Julius Beer and the daughter of Isaac David Walter and Henriette Walter passed away today in New York.
1935: Morris Rothenberg, President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), announced today that Sunday, January 20, 1935, has been designated as Palestine Day, with observances planned in more than 400 cities across the United States.
1936: “The Stern Conservatory of Music, founded by a Jewish family in 1850 and operated by it ever since, was turned over to the city of Berlin under orders of Julius Lippert, the Nazi Commissioner of Berlin. (Editor’s note – Anti-Semitism is a good business0
1936: Foreign Minister Josef Beck issued a statement tonight promising “protection to Polish nationals living in foreign countries, regardless of religion or races” which was welcomed by “Jewish Deputies who had complained recently of the persecution of Polish Jews in Germany.”
1936: A Magdeburg court sentenced a Jew lawyer named Fliess to one month’s imprisionment for complaining to the Bar Association about the “allegedly insulting manner adopted by” Dr. Kuhlmey “his Nazi adversary in demanding the exclusion of Mr. Fliess on racial grounds.
1937(4th of Shevat, 5697): Parashat Bo
1937: “Nationalism was declared the greatest threat to world security and peace in a sermon delivered this morning” in New Orleans, by Rabbi Morris S. Lazaron of Baltimore at Sabbath services attended by delegates to the joint convention of the Union of American Congregations and the affiliated national temple sisterhoods and brotherhoods/”
1937(4thShevat, 5697): Seventy-seven year old Annie Humphrey Johnston, the daughter of Moses and Esther Lazarus, sister of poet Emma Lazarus and wife of John Henry Johnstone passed away today in Venice.
1937: In Jerusalem, George Mansour, the secretary of the Arab Labor Federation testified before the Royal Commission that “there was no employment for Arab workers because of the government’s policy which, he alleged, favored the Jews.”
1938: Funeral services will be held today for Albert Ottinger, the former New York State Attorney General who lost to FDR in the 1928 gubernatorial race, at his home with burial in Union Field Cemetery.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F40B14F93A5A157A93C6A8178AD85F4C8385F9
1938: Birthdate of Robert Lipsyte, “an American sports journalist and author” who “is a member of the Board of Contributors for USA TODAY's Forum Page, part of the newspaper’s Opinion section.
1938: Benny Goodman refused to play Carnegie Hall unless the African-American members of his band were allowed to perform
1938: “The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert” was recorded today.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that a Jewish constable, Shaul Levy, 22, was killed and his companion, Yitzhak Zeldenberg was severely injured by an Arab in the Sanhedria quarter of Jerusalem. The murderer escaped.
1938: The Palestine Post reported Police found a small Arab arsenal in Ein Zeikun village.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that a government trade school had opened in Haifa.
1938: The Palestine Post reported In Romania, Jews were forbidden to employ Christian women under 40.
1939: “Jews emigrating from Germany are forbidden from taking jewelry and valuable items with them. All they are allowed to have is a single piece of dining silver each, wedding rings, and a watch worth no more than 100 Reichsmarks.” (As reported by Austin Cline)
1939(25thof Tevet, 5699): Fifty-nine year old Luxemborg born and University of Michigan trained civil engineer Moritz Katz, the son of Joseph and Rosalie Kahn and the husband of Edith Jackson Kahn with whom he had four children who gegan his career with the American Bridge Company and whose contributions to his field included the creation of “pre-case reinforced concrete ships where were used by the English Admiralty in W.W I passed away today in his berth aboard a train traveling from Detroit to NYC.
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4930193/moritz_kahn_obit/
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1939/01/17/91545980.html?pageNumber=21
1939: As the war clouds form over Europe that would become WW II, the physicist Neils Bohr, who was “half-Jewish” arrived in New York en route to accepting a position at Princeton. He told Hungarian born Jewish physicist Leo Szilar that his worst fears had come to pass. Two German physicists had successfully split the uranium nucleus giving Hitler’s government a major edge in what would become the race to build the first Atom Bomb.
1940(6thof Shevat, 5700): Forty-eight year old Clinton, NC born University of Pennsylvania trained attorney Walter Hansteiin, the World War I veteran who was “a past president of the Atlantic County (NJ) Bar Association” and the father of three children - Walter Jr., Ruth and Bertha- passed away today.
1940: A two-day forced march of 880 Polish POWs all of whom were Jewish came to an end with 600 of them being shot by the Nazis. (Jewish Virtual Library)
1941: Tonight, Axis airplanes raided airfields near Tel Aviv.
1942: Senitsa Vershovsky, a major in the Soviet Army, is shot by an Einsatzkommando unit at Kremenchug, Ukraine, for protecting Jews.
1942: The Nazis begin “resettling” the Jews in the Lodz Ghetto to the Chelmno Extermination Camp
1943(10thof Shevat, 5703): Parashat Bo
1943(10thof Shevat,5703): Fifty-six-year-old CCNY, NYU and Fordham educated Chemist, the son of Caroline Raphael and Joseph Meltsner and the husband of Rose Melstner who was known for his work in the filed of amino alcohols and an associate professor of Chemistry at City College passed away today.
1943: As the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the major turning points in WW II, reached a climax the Nazis lost control of the Pitomnik Airfield which was a major blow to attempts to supply the Wehrmacht.
1943: It was reported today that 64-year-old Judah Isdeslon, the rabbi at the Eldridge Street Synagogue who has “held pulpits in Jersey City and Denver” and is “a leader in the Mizrachi movement” will be buried in New York after having passed away in Miami Beach, FL.
1944: The acting chairman of the War Labor Board announced “resignation of Robert Abelow as executive director and general counsel for the regional War Labor Board” after which he became “a partner in the firm of Weil, Gotshal and Magnes.
1944: the D. Emil Klein Company, announced today that “Stephen Herz, who has been an executive vice president, has been elected of the cigar manufacturing company.
1944: Secretary of the Treasury Henry J. Morgenthau, Jr. presented a report entitled “Report to the Secretary in the Acquiescence of This government in the Murder of Jews” to President Roosevelt. Prepared by several non-Jewish technocrats working at the Treasury Department, “the document cited chapter and verse of the State Department’s ‘procrastination and willful failure to act…even willful attempts to prevent action from being taken to rescue Jews from Hitler.’” The report concluded ‘Unless remedial steps…are taken immediately…the government will have share for all time responsibility for this [Jewish] extermination.’ The authors of the report recommended that “refugee policy be removed from the State Department jurisdiction.”
1945: Three years after the “resettlement” of the Jews from Lodz began, the Soviets liberate the town and find 870 Jews still alive.
1945: Roy Nielsen from Milorg and Max Manus from Kompani Linge planted ten limpet mines 50 centimetres (1.6 ft) under the waterline along a 60-metre (200 ft) section of the port side of the SS Donau, became known as the "slave ship" after the SS and Gestapo transported 540 Jews from Norway to Stettin, from where they were taken by train to Auschwitz while she was docked in Oslo.
1945: The Red Army liberated Czestochowa, including its 800 surviving Jews.
1946: Birthdate of Sofia native Lydia Lazarov who along with Zefania Carmel “won the 1969 world title in the Team 420 Sailing Class, at Sandhem, Sweden” making them “Israel’s first world champions in any sport.”
1946(14thof Shevat 5706): Sixty-three year old NYU attorney Samuel A. Herzog, the New York City born son of Joseph Herzog and the former Belle Adler, the nephew of Dr. Cyrus Adler and the husband of the former Frances Rothschild who was a leading realtor as can be seen by his presidency of the 907 Fifth Avenue Corporation, the Darco Reality Corporation and the Samuel A. Herzog Building Company passed away today.
1946: Sid Tanenbaum scored 15 points as he led NYU to victory over Cornell.
1947: Birthdate of Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Her popularity among some Orthodox Jews would seem to run contrary to the admonitions found in Chapter I, Verse 5 of Pirke Avot concerning avoiding the gossip of women.
1948(5thof Shevat, 5708): Thirty-five members of the Haganah set out to bring supplies to the besieged four Kibbutzim known as the Etzion Bloc. Located the Hebron hills, the four Kibbutzim were defended by thirty armed fighters. They had already fought off one attack by hundreds of Arabs who were so confident of victory that they had brought bags to cart off the loot. Due to the lack of equipment, which was quite common among the Jewish forces, the thirty five set off without a radio. According to information gathered later, the column was given inaccurate directions by a local Arab who then alerted those who were besieging the Etzion Bloc. The Arabs fell upon the Haganah column and killed all of them. Their bodies were found and brought into the Bloc whose defenders now realized that they were completely on their own.
1948(5thof Shevat, 5708): Seventy-two-year-old Jacob W. Mack, a former chairman of the Board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and a brother of the later Judge Julian W. Mack passed away in Cincinnati, Ohio. (As reported by JTA)
1948: In New York City, Ernst and Miriam (née Brudno), Reichl to “American food writer” Ruth Reichel.
1949: Elias Sassoon and King Abdulla met today to discuss the possibility of a prisoner exchange between the Israelis and the Jordanians before the armistice negotiations had been completed at Rhodes.
1950: Birthdate of American stand-up comedian, Robert George "Bob" Schimmel.
1951: Laborite MP Ian Mikardo whose Jewish parents had escaped Czarist Russia, commented on an article he had written which included a suggestion for Britain to have a military base in Israel.
1952: “Scandal Sheet” a film based on The Dark Page by Samuel Fuller and storyline developed by Sidney Buchman was released in the United States today.
1952: U.S. premiere of “The Light Touch” directed by Richard Brooks (born Reuben Sax) who also wrote the screenplay.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported Soviet Jewry's fears that a major anti-Jewish policy statement was being prepared and would soon be announced in Moscow. Four knowledgeable Jewish Communist leaders fled from East Germany in anticipation of the oncoming persecution. The Israeli government stopped the distribution of the Communist daily Kol Ha'am to soldiers and warned that unless the newspaper stopped "naming the poor Jewish doctors in the Soviet Union as murderers and spies, it will be closed as endangering public security." The Histadrut Executive, by 27 votes to one, banned Communist members from participation in any trade-union activities.
1954: “His Majesty O’keefe,” co-starring Abraham Sofaer, produced by Harold Hecht and with music by Dimitri Tiomkin was released in the United States today.
1955: “At Ahab’s Court,” published today provides a review of Flame in the Sky: A story of the Days of the Prophet Elijah written by Jean Bothwell for readers between the ages of 10 and 14 which was illustrated by Jacob Landau.
1956: Egyptian President Nassar pledged to re-conquer Palestine. The immediate result of this boast was the Israeli victory in the Sinai Campaign of 1956.
1958: One of Israel's fondest dreams was fulfilled today with the opening of a new highway linking Elath and Beersheba.
1961: The production of “Conquering Hero” with a book by Larry Gelbart opened at the ANTA Playhouse.
1963: A week after firing coaching legend Paul Brown, Art Modell named one of the assistant coaches to the Head Coach position.
1963: “The Hook” starring Kirk Douglas, featuring Nehemiah Persoff, filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg and with music by Larry Adler was released today in the United States.
1964(2ndof Shevat, 5724): Fifty-nine-year-old Bronx-born World Flyweight Champion Pincus “Pinky” Silverberg passed away today.
http://www.nhregister.com/article/NH/20121013/NEWS/310139965
1964(2ndof Shevat, 5724): Sixty-two-year-old Aharon Zisling, Israel’s first Minister of Agriculture and member of the first Knesset passed away today.
http://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mk_eng.asp?mk_individual_id_t=590
1964: David Merrick’s musical ''Hello, Dolly!'' starring Carol Channing opened on Broadway, beginning a run of 2,844 performances.
1965: The recording of Al Kooper and Irwine Levine’s “This Diamond Ring” by Gary Lews & the Playboys hit #65 on this week’s top 100 Billboard Chart.
1968(15thof Tevet, 5768): According to the NYT, today and not yesterday is the date when 69 year old Dr. Leopold Infeld, the associate of Albert Einstein passed away.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/01/17/88922287.pdf
1968: At midnight, the INS Dakar set sail from Gibraltar. After submerging, the Israeli submarine was supposed to sail across the Mediterranean to Israel.
1968(15thof Tevet, 5768): Seventy-six year old “Morry Luxenberg, a tailor who for more than 40 years specialized in military uniforms” as can be seen by a client list that included Generals Douglas MacArthur, George C. Marshall, Jonathan M. Wainwright, George Patton, Jr and Leslie McNair and who “produced a felt cap in 1931 that has been worn since by some 75 percent of West Point’s graduating class each year” suffered a fatal heart attack today.
1972: Terrorist killed one American and injured 3 others during an attack at Gaza today.
1974(22ndof Tevet, 5734): Seventy-four year old New York native and Columbia University Paul Francis Linz who “in World War II served as a lieutenant commander in the Navy, during which time he worked in the Department of State, directing distribution of nonferrous metals and working out a reverse lend‐lease deal with Britain to obtain copper” and “who was a partner from 1932 to 1949 in C. M. Loeb, Rhoades & Co., member of the New York and other stock exchanges, died in Mexico City” today.
1974: “Mark Lutsker, a 25-year-old mathematics student, expelled in 1972 from Voronezh University for wanting to emigrate to Israel, was arrested today at Kiev OVIR when enquiring about his emigration permit, sentenced to two years imprisonment for alleged evasion of military service and sent to camp near Kutaisi, Georgia.”
1975(4thof Shevat, 5735): Eighty-six-year-old Israel Abramofsky, the native of Kiev who settled in Toledo, Ohio where he became a leading artist of the 20th century passed away today.
1976: Lidiya Nisanova of Derbent who had tried to make Aliyah in 1975 went on trial in the Soviet Union on charges of “speculation” and after having been found guilty was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
1977: Shlomo Hillel begins serving as Interior Minister
1977: Birthdate of Bnaei Brak native Ariel “Arik” Ze’ev Israel’s black belt in Judo who won the Bronze Medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
1977: The Marx Brothers were inducted into the Motion Picture Hall of Fame.
1978(8thof Shevat, 5738): Eighty-five-year-old Lithuania native Boris Deutsch, the “modernist who specialized in Jewish genre and figures” and who settled in Los Angeles in 1919 where produced his “single film, ‘Lullaby’ in 1929” passed away today.
https://lightcone.org/en/filmmaker-615-boris-deutsch
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the foreign ministers of Israel, Egypt and the US, agreed to hold a "political conference" in Jerusalem.
1979: The Shah of Iran who had maintained comparatively positive relations with Israel was forced to flee as he was replaced by an ant-Western regime that has called for the destruction of the state of Israel.
1981: Harold H. Saunders who played a key role in the creation of the Camp David Accords, completed his service as the 12th Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs.
https://scrc.gmu.edu/finding_aids/saunders.html
1981: Two days after its release in the United States ‘Scanners” directed and written by David Cronenberg with music by Howard Shore was released in Canada today.
1983: Jan Peerce who was recovering from a stroke that had left him partially paralyzed on the right side of his body, was forced to postpone a concert that had been scheduled for today.
1984: Prime Minister Yithak shamir, Defense Minister Moshe Arens and IDF Chief of Stat Moshe Levy are scheduled to attend the funeral of Major Saad Haddad in Lebanon.
1985(23rdof Tevet, 5745): Sixty-three-year-old photographer Ruth Orkin passed away today.
http://www.orkinphoto.com/photographs/europe-and-israel/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/150026231307475169/
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/17/nyregion/ruth-orkin-photojournalist-and-film-maker-dead-at-63.html
1991(1st of Shevat, 5751): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1991: The Persian Gulf War began today with the Palestinians supporting the Iraqis and the Israelis standing down from the conflict at the behest of the Bush administration.
1991: Zubin Mehta, the music director of the New York Philharmonic, who was to fly back to New York from Munich today changed his mind and headed for Tel Aviv instead. "He felt he needed to be in Israel" to demonstrate his affection for the country during the Persian Gulf crisis, said Neil Parker, a spokesman for the Philharmonic. Mr. Mehta, who was born in Bombay, has also been the music director of the Israel Philharmonic since 1968. In 1981, the orchestra named him music director for life. He had been in Austria to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic, then had driven to Munich for a flight to Paris, where he was to board the Concorde and return to New York. In Paris, he changed plans and flew to Israel instead. "He feels that the entire country has adopted him and that it was not possible to be anywhere else at this moment but Israel," Mr. Parker said
1992: Birthdate of Diana Golovanov, the Russian born Israeli singer and actress.
1993: NBC broadcast the last episode of “The Powers That Be” a sitcom created by David Crane and Martin Kauffman for which Norman Lear served as executive producer.
1993: Rabbi Kenneth Klaristenfeld officiated at the wedding of his nephew “Edward J. Klaris, an associate at the New York law firm of Lankenau Kovner & Kurtz” and Yale graduate Robin Pogrebin, a staff reporter at the New York Observer who is thedaughter of attorney Bert Pogrebin and Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “a founding editor of Ms. Magazine.”
1994: After opening in March of 1993, the curtain came down today on the final performance of Paul Rudnick’s Off-Broadway hit “Jeffrey.”
1995(15thof Shevat, 5755): Tu B’Shevat
1995: Funeral services are scheduled to be held for real estate developer and civic leader Monte Henry Goldman at Fairlawn Cemetery in Oklahoma City.
1995: Malcolm Irving Glazer purchased the Tampa Bay Buccaneers franchise and then named his sons Bryan, Joel and Edward co-chairman.
1996(24thof Tevet, 5756): Ninety-two-year-old author and music critic Marcia Davenport, the daughter of Bernard Glick and Alma Gluck passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/20/nyregion/marcia-davenport-biographer-is-dead-at-92.html
1996:President of Israel, Ezer Weizmann, gave a speech to both Houses of Parliament of Germany. He gave this speech in Hebrew to the Germans, fifty years after the Holocaust, and in it he beautifully summed up what Jewish history is. He said:
"It was fate that delivered me and my contemporaries into this great era when the Jews returned to re-establish their homeland ... "I am no longer a wandering Jew who migrates from country to country, from exile to exile. But all Jews in every generation must regard themselves as if they had been there in previous generations, places and events. Therefore, I am still a wandering Jew but not along the far flung paths of the world. Now I migrate through the expanses of time from generation to generation down the paths of memory..."I was a slave in Egypt. I received the Torah on Mount Sinai. Together with Joshua and Elijah I crossed the Jordan River. I entered Jerusalem with David and was exiled with Zedekiah. And I did not forget it by the rivers of Babylon. When the Lord returned the captives of Zion I dreamed among the builders of its ramparts. I fought the Romans and was banished from Spain. I was bound to the stake in Mainz. I studied Torah in Yemen and lost my family in Kishinev. I was incinerated in Treblinka, rebelled in Warsaw, and emigrated to the Land of Israel, the country from where I have been exiled and where I have been born and from which I come and to which I return.” I am a wandering Jew who follows in the footsteps of my forbearers. And just as I escort them there and now and then, so do my forbearers accompany me and stand with me here today."I am a wandering Jew with the cloak of memory around my shoulders and the staff of hope in my hand. I stand at the great crossroads in time, at the end of the twentieth century. I know whence I come and with hope and apprehension I attempt to find out where I am heading. "We are all people of memory and prayer. We are people of words and hope. We have neither established empires nor built castles and palaces. We have only placed words on top of each other. We have fashioned ideas. We have built memorials. We have dreamed towers of yearning, of Jerusalem rebuilt, of Jerusalem united, of a peace that will swiftly and speedily establish us in our days. Amen."
1996(24thof Tevet, 5756): Ninety-two year old music critic and author Marcia Davenport, the daughter of Bernard Glick and Alma Gluck passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/20/nyregion/marcia-davenport-biographer-is-dead-at-92.html
1997: Benny Begin completed his terms as Science and Technology Minister
1997: Sandy Baron and Sarah Silverman make guest appearances on tonight’s episode of “Seinfeld” entitled “The Money.”
1998: “Half Baked” a comedy featuring Laura Silverman, Jon Stewart and Bob Saget was released in the United States today.
2000: After 834 performances at the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, the curtain came down the original Broadway production of “Ragtime” the musical based on E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel.
2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960sby Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, I’m Not Done Yet! Keeping at It, Remaining Relevant, and Having the Time of My Life by Edward I. Koch with Daniel Paisner and Fire In The Night: Wingate of Burma, Ethiopia, and Zion by John Bierman and Colin Smith.
2001: In “Unorthodox Cinema; An Israeli Filmmaker Imagines the Unimaginable,” published today Deborah Sontag provides a sympathetic review of Joseph Cedar's ''Time of Favor,'' called ''Hahesder'' (''The Arrangement'') in Hebrew, which swept the 2000 Israeli Academy Awards.
2002(3rdof Shevat, 5762): Seventy-one-year-old Brooklyn born Avi Boaz, who had lived in Israel sine 1961 and who “ignored political lines to designs” when it came to designing houses was murdered today by Palestinian gunmen today on “a lonely road above a soccer field.
2002(3rdof Shevat, 5762): “Two Palestinian gunmen blocked a car as it turned into a gas state” and opened fire killing 45-year0ld Yoela Cohen and wounding her aunt.
2003: Space Shuttle Columbia took off for what would prove to be its final mission. The shuttle was carrying Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut.
2004: The Disney Channel broadcast Pixel Perfect by Neal Shusterman for the first time.
2004: U.S. premiere of “Along Came Polly” an “American romantic comedy film written and directed by John Hamburg, starring Ben Stiller.”
2004: Publication of “Survival of the Fittest?” Ari Shavit’s interview with Benny Morris.
http://www.webcitation.org/5pvy2Rvfw
2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman
2005: David Klein completed his term as Governor of the Bank of Israel.
2006: Shav Glick, legendary sportswriter, retired from the LA Times. Glick was known for his coverage of auto racing. He gained early fame writing about Jackie Robinson his classmate at Pasadena Junior College.
2006: The High Court of Justice rejected Jonathan Pollard's petition to be recognized as a Prisoner of Zion on the grounds that he was jailed by US authorities for spying against his country and not for conducting Zionist activity in a country where such activity is prohibited.
2006(16thof Tevet, 5766): Eighty-two-year-old “Stanley H. Biber, a small-town Colorado doctor who for decades was internationally renowned as the dean of sex-change surgery, died today at a hospital in Pueblo (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/21/national/21biber.html?pagewanted=all
2007: An exhibition entitled “From the Heart: The photojournalism of Ruth Gruber” opened at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.
2007:Following the conclusion of several months of probes into the summer's Lebanon war, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz announced his resignation.
2008: Avigdor Lieberman completes his term as Deputy Prime Minister
2008: At the 92nd Y in Manhattan Jewish author Carl Bernstein discusses his extensive research on Hillary Rodham Clinton, including her political rise and current campaign, and his most recent book, A Woman In Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
2008: The second episode of “The Jewish Americans” airs on PBS. The three episode series traces the history of the Jews in America starts with the arrival of the first 23 Sephardic Jews in New Amsterdam in 1654 and “ends with Maisyahu, the Chasidic hip-hop star, one of about six million Jews in America today.” For more information see:
http://www.jewishtvnetwork.com/jewishamericans/
2008: Ahawkish faction of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmerts coalition pulled out of his government today following the start of talks this week over how to resolve the most vexing issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
2008: A stone seal bearing the name of one of the families who acted as servants in the First Temple and then returned to Jerusalem after being exiled to Babylonia has been uncovered in an archeological excavation in Jerusalem's City of David, a prominent Israeli archeologist said today.
2009: The American Jewish Historical Society and the American Society for Jewish Music present:“Ethel Raim and the Center for Traditional Music and Dance:
2009: Two Grad rockets fired from Gaza hit Kiryat Gat this afternoon, wounding three people and causing heavy damage.
2009(20thof Tevet, 5769): Eighty-year Sherwin “Shy” Raiken the Villanova and NY Knicks basketball player passed away today in Philadelphia.
https://basketball.realgm.com/player/Sherwin-Raiken/Summary/100395
2009: Guy Cook, an attorney sent an e-mail stating that “Sholom Rubashkin denies all 99 charges…” (Editor’s note - The denial refers to additional charges filed against Rubashkin on Thursday, January 15, 2009.
2010: As part of the effort to aid Haiti following the devastating earthquake that struck the country on January 13, a field hospital operated by IDF medical teams became operational today.
2010: At the New York Jewish Film Festival, the New York premiere of “The Jazz Baroness,” a documentary created by filmmaker Hannah Rothschild that tells the story of her great aunt Baroness Pannonica “Nica” Rothschild de Konigswarter who “abruptly leaves her family and creates a new one among celebrated jazz musicians in postwar New York.”
2010: The 10thannual Atlanta Jewish Festival features a screening of “Anita,” film that revolves around terrorist bombing of the AMIA Jewish Community Center in 1994 that killed 85 people and wounded hundreds more and its impact on the life of Anita Feldman a girl with Down syndrome.
2010: The Museum of Modern Art features the first showing of Amos Gitai’s Carmel which opens with“quotes from Josephus on the Jewish Wars of two millennia ago, then segues to present-day Israel and his family, with a focus on the remarkably articulate Efratia, the filmmaker’s late mother, whose letters about life in Israel and abroad are read by Jeanne Moreau.”
2010(1stof Shevat, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
2010(1stof Shevat, 5770): Ninety-year old Hungarian born radio host George Jellinek passed away today.
http://www.wqxr.org/#!/articles/wqxr-news/2010/jan/18/wqxr-music-host-george-jellinek-90-dies/
2011: The Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival is scheduled to present a program entitled“5000 Years of Kvetching – Illustrated with cartoonist, Ken Krimstein” during which the New York cartoonist “will discuss the development of his newly published book, Kvetch as Kvetch Can, full of 90 original cartoons, some of which have been published in The New Yorker, Barrons, The National Lampoon, and The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
2011: The U.S. premiere of the restored version of “Lies My Father Told Me”, a film set in the 1920s Montreal Jewish immigrant community, is scheduled to take place at The New York Jewish Film Festival.
2011: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Hadassah sponsored a Tu B’Shevat Seder at Temple Judah
2011: “The Social Network” based on the life of Mark Zuckerberg won the Golden Globe award for Best Picture.
.2011: In Israel the Cabinet is expected this to approve Israel's acceptance of membership in the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.
2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman and the recently released paperback edition of The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick
2011: The Los Angeles Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman
2011: There were a number of attacks against Jewish institutions in Montreal sometime between yesterday evening and this morning, local media reported today. Vandals reportedly smashed the windows of three synagogues, a Jewish day school, and a Jewish daycare center in the Côte-St-Luc and Hampstead neighborhoods.
2011(11thof Shevat, 5771): Milton Levine, the co-creator of “Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm which was an instant hit in the fad-crazy 1950s” passed away today at the age of 97 (As reported by Valerie Nelson)
2012: “Remembrance,” a film inspired by actual events that depicts a remarkable love story that blossomed in the terror and squalor of a Nazi concentration camp in 1944 Poland, is scheduled to have its New York Premiere at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2012: Touro Synagogue Weekend of Peace March-MLK,Jr. Parade is scheduled to take place in New Orleans, LA.
2012: The 10th Annual Used Book Sale at Beth El Hebrew Congregation is scheduled to come to an end in Alexandria, VA.
2012: An Israel Defense Forces court sentenced a Palestinian man to five life sentences today, after he was convicted of murdering five members of the Fogel family in the West Bank settlement of Itamar in 2011.
2012: Hackers shut down both the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) and El Al’s respective websites today, one day after a hacker network threatened to carry out attacks on both sites. Th
2013: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman
2013: “An NFL source told the Chicago Tribuneearly” today that the Chicago Bears would name Marc Trestman as their new head coach tomorrow.
2013: At least five rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip in the direction of Ashkelon, at approximately 2:00 am today.
2013: At The Wiener Library in London, Dr. Joanna Beata Michlic from the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute is scheduled to deliver a lecture that “discusses early postwar memories of Jewish survivors and their rescuers concerning wartime rescue in Warsaw and Warsaw province, and the relationships between rescuers and their Jewish charges in the immediate postwar period.”
2013: “Aya” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2013: A week before the January 22 elections, representatives of the eight largest political parties running for Knesset will face off before the English- speaking public at The Jerusalem Great Synagogue tonight.
2013: Today the Jerusalem District Court convicted the "Jewish Terrorist" Jack Teitel of murdering two Palestinians and an assortment of other crimes between 1997 and 2008.
2014: The San Diego Center for Jewish Culture is scheduled to host a “Collage Workshop with Irene Neimark.”
2014: “Saul Bass Shorts” and “Cupcakes” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival
2014: The Daniel Cooney Gallery is scheduled to host the reception which marks the opening of “Inframen” a project of Nir Arieli.
2014(15thof Shevat): According to the tradition of the Bene Israel of India, the prophet Elijah ascended to heaven
2014(15thof Shevat, 5774): Tu BiShvat / טו בשבט
2014(15thof Shevat, 5774): Eighty-nine-year-old Seattle born producer Harvey Bernhard passed away today.
http://www.filmreference.com/film/64/Harvey-Bernhard.html
2014: Sirens went off tonight in the Ashkelon region as rockets were fired from Gaza for a second straight night.
2014: Among those nominated for Oscars today were “The Act of Killing”Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen for Best Documentary Feature and Emmanuel Lubezki for Cinematography for his work in “Gravity”
2014: The Ministry for Senior Citizens announced today that it canceled its NIS 25,000 ($7,000) support for a remembrance event organized by the city of Ramat Gan for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, after a Ynet report revealed that participants would be charged a NIS 20 ($6) entrance fee, including Holocaust survivors. (As reported by Gilad Morag)
2015: Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court opened a preliminary examination of possible war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, the first formal step that could lead to charges against Israelis today. (As reported by Rick Gladstone and Isabel Kershner)
2015: “An Unmarried Woman” is scheduled to be shown at the 92nd Street Y as part of the winter film series.
2015: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today blasted the joint Labor-Hatnua party list — now called the Zionist Camp — for being “anti-Zionist” and representing the “radical left,” and said his Likud party would not sit in a future coalition alongside it. (As reported by Marissa Newman)
2015: Secretary of State John Kerry laid a wreath at a kosher supermarket near Paris where four people were killed on January 9.
2015: The NIFY Southern Winter is scheduled to begin at Memphis, TN.
2016(6thof Shevat 5776): Parashat “Bo.”
2016: “Peridance, a group led by Israeli choreographer and dance teacher Igal Peri” is scheduled to appear at the Salvatore Capezio Theatre.
2016: Israeli trumpeter Itamar Borochov is scheduled to perform tonight at the Rockwood Music Hall this evening.
2017: In Falls Church, VA, graveside are scheduled to be held 105 year old Hilde Metzger Prins, daughter of Louis and Clara Metger who moved to Palestine in 1933 to escape the Nazis at the same time she sought refuge in Amsterdam after which she moved to New York and married Benajamin Prins in 1940 with whom she moved to Washington 1948 where she raised their daughter Judith, the wife of Larry Lorber.
2017: Today, Iraqi forces “retook an area in Mosul” where the Islamic State jihadists had levelled “the Nabi Yunus Shrine which was built on the reputed burial site of the prophet known as Jonah in 2014.
2017: The Daily Mail reported today that an Amazon employee who correctly guessed that a customer who purchased her niece was Jewish based on her last name “was fired after allegedly leaving a note in a package for a Jewish customer which read: “Greetings from Uncle Adolf.” (As reported by JTA)
2017: A special preview of “Denial” the film based on Deborah E. Lipstadt victory of Holocaust denier David Irving, written by David Hare and starring Rachel Weisz and Timothy Spall is scheduled to take place at the Phoenix Cinema under the sponsorship of the UKJF
2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a term opening event at the Varsity Club this evening.
2017: Jack Alan Markell completed his service as the 73rd Governor of Delaware.
2017: “Past Life” and “Such is Life” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2017: In celebration of Martin Luther King Day, the Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host a program for the whole family – What’s Your Dream? Including a discussion of What Do You Do With An Idea?
2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to dinner where students will have a chance to “learn a bit about something topical and Jewish.”
2018: In New Orleans, the Cathy and Morris Bart Jewish Cultural Arts Series is scheduled to host a screening of “Keep Quiet” which tells the “true story of a former far-right, anti-Semitic member of the Hungarian Jobbik party who discovered he was Jewish.”
2018: “German authorities said today they were conducting searches countrywide in connection with 10 suspected Iranian spies, with one report saying that the suspects were members of an elite military force that had been watching Israeli and Jewish targets.”
2018: “The United States sent $60 million to keep the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) in operation but withheld a further $65 million while it urged others to pay more, a State Department official said today.”
2018: The IAF announced this evening that “Major T., whose first name is not provided due to security, a 35-yeaer old mother of town has been named the commander of a flight squadron making her the first female pilot to hold such a position
2018: “Army sappers detonated a cellphone-operated explosive device that was apparently planted by Palestinians at the entrance to the Joseph’s Tomb holy site in the city of Nablus early this morning, ahead of a visit by approximately 1,000 Jewish worshipers, the army said.”
2018: In the District of Columbia, the Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Two Trains Runnin’”
2019: Dr. Laurence Sherr, the “composer-in-residence and Professor of Music at Kennesaw State University” and “an internationally recognized Holocaust music lecturer” is scheduled to tell the “compelling stories about the “resistance and defiance often hidden in the artistic work of Jewish musicians imprisoned at Terezin” at the Breman Museum in Atlanta, GA.
2019: “Alan Bern and Svetlana Kundish” are scheduled to present “Music from a Vanished World” at the Jewish Museum in London.
2019: In Cleveland, the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is scheduled to host a screening of “The Gatekeepers” a documentary by Dror Moreh.
2019: “Chasing Portraits” is scheduled to be shown this afternoon at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2019(10thof Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar Yahrzeit of Rabbi Shalom Sharabi.
http://www.aish.com/dijh/Shevat_10.html
2020: The Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture is scheduled host the Combined Jewish Philanthropies’ “Conversation for Action.”
2020: The Boston Synagogue is scheduled to host the first session of “Magic, Miracles and Messiahs: The Supernatural in Jewish Tradition.”
2020: “An Irrepressible Woman” and “Four Winters: A story of Jewish Partisan Resistance and Bravery in WW II” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2020: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to co-host discussion of Varian Fry, featuring Julie Orringer, the author of The Flight Portfolio, Jonathan L. Weinsner of the International Rescue Committee and Sandee Brawarsky, the culture editor of The Jewish Week.
2020: At the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, the UJA-Federation is scheduled to host “Neshama Carlebach and her gospel choir are scheduled to perform a “Community Concert for MLK Day.”
2021: East Bay Jewish film fest, Contra Costa JCC and several local congregations are scheduled to host a screening of “Shared Legacies” the 2020 documentary about the history of Black-Jewish relations from the civil rights era to the present day.
2021: B’nai Jeshurun Congregation is scheduled to present via Zoom Havdallah and a virtual Family Concert starring Rabbi Josh Warshawsky, a nationally touring musician, song leader, composer, and teacher of Torah
2021(3rdof Shevat, 5781): Parashat Va-ayrah;
2021: In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Temple Judea is scheduled to host “Havdalah in loving memory of Debbie Friedman IN PERSON in the TJ in parking lot.
2021: Based on reports that have been published at the end of this week in Newsweek, Israelis now fact a new threat since “Iran has recently sent its Houthi allies in Yemen unmanned aircraft loaded with explosives known as “suicide drones," which can reach and operate against a variety of targets including Israel.”
2022: Jewish Baby Network and Tyler Dean of Palo Alto Congregation Kol Emeth are scheduled to host an online party for kiddies under 5 and their families with dancing, singing and puppets to celebrate Tu B’Shevat.
2022: The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host screenings of “Persian Lessons” and “The Will to See.”
2022: The Weitzman National American Museum of American Jewish History is scheduled to host, online, a “Musical Tu B’Sjevat Seder featuring “Rebekka Goldsmith, Battya Levine, Rabbi Micah Shapiro and Jessie Reagan Mann.
2022: The ASF Institute of Jewish Experience is scheduled to presents “The Qur’an and its Relationship to Torah and Judaism.”
2022: The Miami Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host the Florida premiere of “Let It Morning,” the winner of seven Ophirs.
2022: The National Library of Israel is scheduled to host Professor David B. Ruderman as he presents “three case studies’ on “Jewish-Christian Encounters in Early Modern Europe.”
2022: Congregation Shirat Hayam of the North Shore is scheduled to host “Nature Hike for Tu B’Shevat”
2022: In an act of uniquely Jewish optimism, in Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is schedule to hold, online, its Tu B’Shevat Seder twenty four hours after a snowstorm dropped more than half a foot snow on Linn County.
2023: The Maltz Museum is scheduled to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day with freed programing today.
2023: The Vilna Shul is scheduled to present “MLK Day of Service for Young Professionals.”
2023: The Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to present community projects for the national MLK Day of Service, with a closing ceremony at Mitchell Park.
2023: Temple Isaiah, Temple Emunah, and Billy Dalwin PreSchool are scheduled to celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. through tikun olam (repairing the world).
2023: Today, “Herzi Halevi will enter office as chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force, as it marches into a political battleground, with members of Israel’s new right-religious government taking aim at the army’s chain of command.” (As reported by Emanuel Fabian)