JUNE 14
1287: Kublai Khan defeated the force of Nayan and other traditionalist Borjigin princes in East Mongolia and Manchuria. It is quite possible that there were Jewish soldiers serving under the great Mongol warrior who became Emperor of China. According to Marco Polo, Kubla Kahn celebrated the festivals of the Jews as well as those of the Muslims and Christians, indicating that a Jewish community existed that could make itself felt at the highest level of the Empire.
1514: Azemmour, a city in Morocco, offered privileges to Jews fleeing from Portugal.
1656: Directors of the Dutch West India Company sent a strong letter to Peter Stuyvesant in New Amsterdam ordering him to give "more respect" to the "Jews or Portuguese people" in his city. A principle shareholder in the company, a Jew named Joseph d'Acosta had assisted in obtaining this statement.
1751 Pope Benedict XIV issued an encyclical “”On Jews and Christians Living in the Same Place” in which he bemoans the growing presence of Jews in Poland. (The Pope would seem to be a little late in dealing with this. Jews had been living in Poland for centuries, having been encouraged to settle their by the monarchs who saw them as financial and commercial asset. By the middle of the 18th centuries, the position of the Jews had deteriorated and in less than fifty years, Poland would disappear as an independent Kingdom. (Jewish Virtual Library)
1796: French forces attacked
1798(30thof Sivan, 5558): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1799(11thof Sivan, 5569): The avoidance of massacre when the French forces withdrew gave rise to the annual observance of Purim Ubrino
1804(5thof Tammuz, 5564): Forty-nine year old Isaac Abraham Euchel, the Copenhagen born Hebrew author and founder of the “Haskalah Movement” passed away in Berlin.
1821(14thof Sivan, 5581):Seventy-two year oldChaim Volozhin (Chaim ben Yitzchok of Volozhin), author of Nefesh Ha-Chaimpassed away. Born in 1749, he studied with the Vilna Gaon before establishing the Volozhin Yeshiva in 1803 in which he applied the methods of his famous master. The Yesshiva outlived its creator, remaining open for 90 years.
1841: Colonel Charles Henry Churchill wrote to Sir Moses Montefiore expressing his support for the creation of Jewish state in Palestine and identifying the first steps that must be taken. First, the Jews must “take up the matter universally and unanimously. Secondly, the European Powers” must aid them in their endeavor by taking Syria and Palestine “under their protection” and governing them “according to the spirit of European administration.” Churchill was a British soldier and diplomat who was among the first people, if not the first person, to propose a practical political plan for the creation of a Jewish state in what is now the state of Israel.
1842(6thof Tammuz. 5602): Dr. Joel Hart passed away today. Born in Philadelphia in 1874 he was trained in London where he married his wife Louisa Levien. He served as U.S. Counsel of Leith, Scotland from 1817 until 1832. He was a charter member of the Medical Society of the County of New York.
1858: Birthdate of the Marquis de Morès, an anti-Semitic French nobleman who attacked Jews in France and Algeria
1868: Birthdate of Karl Landsteiner, the Austrian born American physician who received the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work on differentiating the blood groups in 1930.
1874: “The Mystery of Metz: An Old Cause Célèbre” an article published today described the blood libel which took place at that ancient German city in 1669. According to the author, who described the even in great detail, this was an example of another groundless attack that Jews had to suffer during the Middle Ages.
1880: Mortiz Hartman, an official of the Simon Benevolent Association went to the morgue in New York and asked for the body of a young Jewess named Kate Ungerleider who had died of whooping cough. Hartman and Louis Davis took the body of the child that had been given to them and brought it to the Bay Ridge Cemetery where they turned it over to the wife of the cemetery caretaker so that she could wash it and prepare it for burial according to Jewish law. The woman took the body into her house and immediately came back out telling the men that the body was that of a Christian boy. They interred the remains in a temporary grave and returned to the morgue in search of Kate’s body. When no action was taken, Hartman went to the Commissioner of Charities and Corrections who instituted a successful search for the body. This was the third known instances of such errors in the last six weeks. The officials returned to the Bay Ridge Cemetery and interred it there in accordance with Jewish law.
1880(5th of Tammuz, 5640) A 32 year old tailor named Maurice Moses Heineltrop took his own life today after Seligman & May refused to pay him for a batch of waistcoats he had made for them. Heineltrop’s sense of desperation stemmed from the fact that he employed 16 men and he would not be able to pay them for their work.
1880: It was reported today that Professor Grazidadio Ascoli, the chairman of comparative philology at the Accademia Scientifico-Litteraria of Milan is scheduled “to publish his essay on the Hebrew inscriptions at Venosa, in Calabria. These seem to be the earliest Hebrew inscriptions found in Europe…” [This may be reference to the inscriptions in Hebrew, Greek and Latin found in Jewish catacombs that date from the 4th and 5th centuries of the Common Era.
1881: Based on a Reuter’s dispatch from St. Petersburg, it was reported today that peasants living in a village in the district of Kiev have paid 800 rubles to the Jews as compensation “for the sufferings they have undergone.
1882: In New Orleans, Miss Jessie Green and Isaac Feitel. Born an Episcopalian, she converted before her marriage. The couple had previously been married in a civil ceremony. Today’s wedding was performed by a local rabbi.
1884: It was reported today that a half shekel coin from the time of Simon Maccabeus was sold for $10.25 at an auction conducted this week to dispose of rare coins held by Thomas Warner, a member of the American Numismatic Society. The price compares favorably when you consider that the rarest coin in the collection sold for 25 dollars. The half shekel had a chalice of manna with a Hebrew inscription on one side and a render of a triple lily or Aaron’s Rod on the other side.
1885(1st of Tammuz, 5645): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1885: In a demonstration of the impact of Jewish culture on Western civilization Dr. A.P. Peabody chose the words from Nehemiah “Then I consulted with myself” as the text for the Baccalaureate sermon at Harvard. “He could not, he said think of any more appropriate basis for his remarks than these words of the foremost figure in Hebrew history from the time of Moses to the time of Christ.” [Yes, at Harvard, Jesus was apparently considered to be Jewish]
1888: James H. Hoffman and H.M. Leipziger addressed the more than four hundred attendees at the fourth annual exhibition sponsored by the Hebrew Technical Institute located on Stuyvesant Street. The exhibition gave the supporters of the school a chance to examine the projects and accomplishments of the 78 youngsters attending the school.
1888(5thof Tammuz, 5648): Russian teacher and poet Wolf Ha-Kohen Kaplan, whose most famous work was "Ereẓ ha-Pela'ot" passed away today in Riga.
1891: “Russia’s War On Jews” published today begins with an eyewitness account of the Czar’s plans for his Jewish subjects. “Jews in bands of from 1,000 to 2,000 are being escorted to different points on the German frontier and put across the line into the latter country. There can be no question as to the intention of the Russian Government to expel all the Jews from its domain.”
1891: “Helping Sick Children” published today includes a summary of the annual report issued by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children. Among other accomplishments, the society sponsored ten free excursions last year for 18,124 sick children and their mothers and is about to begin using the new facility at Rockaway that cost $20,225.
1891: “Browning’s Story Told” published today provides a detail review of Life and Letters of Robert Browning by Mrs. Sutherland Orr. “Mrs. Orr begins this memoir of Robert Browning with a refutation of a story current in his lifetime and revived after his death, that Jewish blood coursed in his veins, active support of which was obtained from his known interest in the Hebrew language and literature and his friendship for many members of the London Jewish Community.”
1893: “Caught In A Death Trap” published today provided details of the fatal fire at building on Montgomery Street that was the home to numerous tailoring operations.
1893: While talking to reporters at the Victoria Hotel in New York City, Pierre Botkine, Secretary of the Russian Legation said that “The Russian laws enacted against the Jews which resulted in driving many of them out of the country are necessary to protect the Russians. He went on to say that these laws were not a matter of religion but were a matter of economics. “Jews are so much more clever than Russians…that they would capture everything if granted liberty.”
1894: The annual commencement exercises of the Hebrew Technical Institute at Arlington Hall. Abraham Steinberg who worked in the second floor shop of Isidor Shlivek was one of the few who was able to escape down the stairway although he almost suffocated before reaching the street. Benjamin Signel, a Janitor at the Hebrew Free School said he saw two men standing at the third floor window who were afraid to jump. They tried the fire escape instead but one of the men still fell to his death. (The Triangle Shirt Fire made headlines, but fires like this were all too common in the garment district for several decades. It took the labor unions to create safe working conditions. The description of this fire reminds one of those that take place in the 21st century in “third world garment factories” )
1894: The Jewish Theological Seminary hosted its commencement exercises the Music Hall in New York City.
1894: Leopold Minzesheimer continued to serve as the Superintendent of the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
1894: Herman Baar continues to serve as the Superintendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. The officers are Emanuel Lehman, President and Henry Rice, Vice President. The trustees are Morris Tuska, Nathan Necarsulmer, Julian Nathan, Myer Stern, H.S. Allen, Theodore Seligman and S. J. Bach.
1894: It was reported that the daughter-in-law of Moses Levy, had obtained a judgment of $12,000 after suing him “for alienating the affections of her husband.
1896: Based on information that first appeared in the London Chronicle it was reported today that fortune of the late Baron Hirsch will eventually be inherited by an unnamed “little Roman Catholic girl” who has been recognized of the heir of Lucien de Hirsch, the Baron’s son who predeceased his father.
1896: Louis Michael filed a response in the Chancery Court at Paterson, NJ in which the Jewish husband is being sued for divorce by his Christian wife.
1897(14thof Sivan, 5657):When the British steamship Scot arrived at the Island of Madeira off the west coast of Morocco, it was announced that Barney Barnato, the South African “diamond king” had committed suicide by jumping overboard. His body would be recovered and buried at Willesden Jewish Cemetery, London amidst protestation that he had not taken his own life.
1897: A fire broke out at the immigrant processing center on Ellis Island which had been in use since January 1, 1892.
1897(14thof Sivan, 5657)
1897: “Hebrew Free Schools Confirmation” published today described the annual confirmation exercises at which Albert F. Hochstadter, President of the Hebrew Free School Association awarded the Freida Schiff Prize, The Linette Friedlander Prize, The Myer S. Isaacs Prize and the Clarence Korn Memorial each of which carried a fifty dollar prize.
1898: The government has dispatched troops to Lemberg in response to anti-Semitic riots.
1899: “Mr. Dunlop Before the Mayor” published today described a meeting between New York Mayor Van Wyck and Wilson W. Dunlop who is a missionary aggressively trying to convert Jews on the Lower East Side to Christianity. When Dunlop complained that he had been attacked while preaching in the street the Mayor said “You have been using the streets for a crusade against the Jewish religion and you musn’t do it anymore. This is a free country and you can make a fight against any religion you choose but you can’t do it in the streets. If you want to conduct a crusade against the Jews go and hire a hall.”
1900: Hawaii was organized as a territory of the United States. There were approximately four hundred Jews living in Honolulu Hawaii Honolulu
1901(27th of Sivan, 5661): Frederick Knefler passed away. A native of Hungary, Knefler settled in Indiana where he worked as a carpenter before becoming a lawyer. When the Civil War broke out, Knefler enlisted in the 11th Indiana Infantry under the command of his friend Lew Wallace. He served with the Union Army in the west fighting in a series of battles including Stones River, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge. He then played a leading role in Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign where he commanded a brigade. His finest moment may have come at the Battle of Franklin where is bravery earned him the rank of Brevet Brigadier General making him one of the highest ranking Jewish officers to serve during the war. After the war, he returned to Indianapolis where he practiced law, worked for the government and devoted his spare time to veterans’ affairs.
1903: Macedonians attacked the Jewish quarter of Sophia, Bulgaria.
1904(1stof Tammuz, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1904: Birthdate of Margaret Bourke-White, whose father was from an Orthodox Jewish family and whose mother was Irish. For those who grew up in a world of hand-held video cams, satellite communications and cable network news, it is hard to appreciate the important role played photographers and photo-journalists like Bourke-White. Her photos filled the pages of such publications as Life Magazine, which brought the world of natural disasters, war and high fashion to Middle America
1905: Sailors aboard the Russian Warship Potemkin mutiny. These events will provide the material for Battleship Potyomkin, a 1925 silent film classic directed by Sergei Eisenstein
1906: Start of three days of anti-Jewish violence known as the Bialystok Pogrom. The violence began when “two Christian processions took place; a Catholic one through the market square celebrating Corpus Christi and an Orthodox one through Białystok’s New Town celebrating the founding of a cathedral. The Orthodox procession was followed by a unit of soldiers. A bomb was thrown at the Catholic procession and shots were fired at the Orthodox procession. A watchman of a local school, Stanislaw Milyusski, and three women Anna Demidyuk, Aleksandra Minkovskaya and Maria Kommisaryuk, were wounded. These incidents constituted signals for the beginning of the pogrom. Witnesses reported that simultaneously with the shots someone shouted “Beat the Jews!” Once the shots were fired, the violence began immediately. Mobs of thugs, including members of the Black Hundreds, began looting Jewish owned stores and apartments on Nova-Linsk Street. Policemen and soldiers who had earlier followed the Orthodox procession either allowed the violence to happen or participated in it themselves. The first day of the pogrom was chaotic. While units of the Czarist army, brought to Białystok by Russian authorities, exchanged fire with Jewish paramilitary groups, thugs armed with knives and crowbars dispersed throughout the main areas of the city to continue the pogrom.[10] Some Jewish sections of the city were protected by self-defense units, usually organized by the labor parties, which moved against the thugs and looters. They were in turn fired upon by Czarist dragoons. Thanks to the Jewish self-defense units several working class sections of the city were spared the violence and thousands of lives were saved.”
1907: Jacob Weinberger married Blanche Solomon. Blanche was the daughter of I.E. and Anna Solomon one of the earliest and most successful Jewish families to settle in the Arizona Territory
1909: The Order of Brith Abraham held its Golden Jubilee dinner at the New Star Casino in New York. The dinner was attended by 2,000 guests including several notables the most important of which was the District Attorney Jerome who was the featured speaker for the evening.
1909: Rabbi Judah Magnes addressed the Zionist convention being held at the Terrace Garden. Pointing to the changes that had come about in the Ottoman Empire due to the recent Turkish revolution Magnes urged the Jews to “work for an autonomous state under Turkish suzerainty rather than an independent government.”
1911:In Glasgow, Emanuel “Manny” Shinwell “played a prominent role in the six-week strike” by the National Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union which was part of nationwide strike.
1912: Educator and advocate for social change, Julia Richman arrives in France
1916: Samuel Utermeyer attended the Democratic National Convention which opened today as a delegate from New York
1919: Birthdate of Gene Barry. Born Eugene Klass in Brooklyn, New York, Barry went on to a long, commercially successful career in film and television. He often played suave, sophisticated types whose voices never betrayed even a bit of Brooklyn. Barry played a starring role in the 1950’s version of War of the Worlds.
1920: Birthdate of Dr. Arnall Patzin an ophthalmologist whose research upset medical convention but ended up saving countless babies from blindness. He was born in rural Elberton, Ga., the youngest of seven children. His father, an immigrant from Lithuania, was a peddler who insisted on maintaining Jewish customs in Elberton, where his was the only Jewish family. He passed away in 2010 at the age of 89.
1921: During a speech in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill, who had just returned from a visit to the Middle East, praises the accomplishments of the Zionist settlers and describes how the Arabs have benefited from their efforts. He denounced as “disgraceful” any action of the British government that would such progress to “fanatical attacks” by outsiders.
1921: During a debate on Palestine, Lord Winterton “warned Churchill that once you begin to buy land for the purpose of settling Jewish cultivators you will find yourself up against the hereditary antipathy which exists all over world to the Jewish race.” It would seem that from the earliest days, there was a direct connection between being anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic.
1925: Birthdate of Serge Moscovici a Romanian born Jew who survived the Holocaust escaped from his native country following the Communist takeover and settled in France where, among other things he founded the “European Laboratory of Social Psychology.”
1927: Flag Day celebrated today commemorates the 150thanniversary of the adoption of the design for the American flag by Congress. On the previous Shabbat, in response to a resolution adopted by the Synagogue Council of America, rabbis devoted their sermons to this topic.
1929: Birthdate of Seymour Kaufman who gained fame as Cy Coleman the Tony Award winning composer and pianist.
1929(6th of Sivan, 5689): Shavuot
1931: Deadline for submitting results of delegate election to the Executive of the Jewish Agency which is making plans for the Seventeenth Zionist Congress.
1934(1st of Tammuz, 5694): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1934: A Nuremberg court sentenced a non-Jewish wife of a Jew to four months in prison as a ‘race-defiling female.'
1934: Hitler met with Mussolini for the first time. Hitler was the junior partner at this first meeting. As the thirties progressed the roles would be reversed and Mussolini would shift his policies to satisfy the Nazi dictator.
1934: With a Star of David on his boxing shorts, Max Baer KO'd Primo Carnera in 11rounds to win the World Heavyweight Championship. However, Baer’s Jewish persona was considered to be more of a box office thing than a religious reality. Born in 1909 in Nebraska
1935: In Paris, Jacques Schiffrin “a Russian Jew who had emigrated to France where he worked as publisher and his wife gave birth author/editor Andre Schiffrin the Yale University graduate whose life story can be found in his 2007 autobiography A Political Education: Coming of Age in Paris and New York.
1936: Birthdate of Avraham Shochat, the Tel Aviv native, who helped found the city Arad and has served as an MK and held several cabinet posts.
1936: The Palestine Post reported that once more the Jezreel Valley Lower Galilee suffered its stormiest night ‚ grain and cornfields were set on fire and over 250 old olive trees were cut down. After all Arab train passengers left a train at Kalkilya, a bomb thrown inside one of the coaches injured 18 Jews near Tulkarm.
1936:In attacks in and around Jerusalem today Arabs wounded five Jewish truck and bus drivers as well as an additional number of and workers, two of whom are in a serious condition. Only recently, in the same vicinity, Jewish travelers were killed in similar attacks.
1937: Chaim Weizmann wrote to Winston Churchill thanking him for the support he had given to Zionist cause by trying to convince Colonial Secretary William Ormsby-Gore that the Southern part of Palestine Palestine
1938: All Jewish businesses that have not already been registered and marked must now comply with the Reich requirement
1940: Auschwitz was opened. Approximately 2.5 million people were killed and another 500,000 died of starvation and disease there. The first inmates, included teachers, priests, and other non-Jewish Poles,
1940:Artist Jan Komskiwas in the first group of about 750 prisoners assigned to Auschwitz, in southern Poland, on the day it opened. His number, 564, was tattooed on his forearm.
1940: German Forces entered Paris. At the time France Paris
1940: In Paris, Gestapo officers went to the flat of Walter Benjamin with the intent of arresting the expatriate German intellectual. They failed because Benjamin and his sister had already left Paris for Lurdes.
1941: Etty Hillesum, a student at Amsterdam University
1941: As the Final Solution came into full fury, 400 Jews were deported from Estonia.
1941: In the Netherlands, based on a decree by the German occupiers, today was the last day on which doctorate degrees could be issued to Jews. Physicist Albert Pais, who had completed his doctoral work on June 9, was the last Jew to earn a doctorate in the Netherlands until World War II came to an end.
1942: Anne Frank begins to keep a diary
1942: Two thousand Jews break out of Dzisna , Byelorussia
1944: Two thousand Jews are deported from Corfu , Greece Auschwitz .
1944(23rd of Sivan, 5704): Leon Sakkis was killed by German machine-gun fire while aiding a wounded comrade in Thessaly, Greece. Sakkis was part of a group of Jewish resistance fighters, who along with other partisans were working to keep the Germans from enjoying the “fruits” of the harvest taking place in Greece.
1945: In London, Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill’s son, tells Chaim Weizman that he ‘had tried to save 115 Jews in Yugoslavia; he has save 112, but 3 had perished.’ In 1944 Randolph Churchill had parachuted behind German lines to worth Marshall Tito and his Yugoslav partisans in the fight against the Nazis. As part of that mission, young Randolph Europe to help the partisans and to try and rescue the Jews who had not gone to the Death Camps.
1946: Bernard Baruch - widely seen by many scientists and some members of Truman's administration as unqualified for the task - presented his Baruch Plan, a modified version of the Acheson-Lilienthal plan, to the UNAEC, which proposed international control of then-new atomic energy. The Soviet Union rejected Baruch's proposal as unfair given the fact that the U.S. already had nuclear weapons, instead proposing that the U.S. eliminate its nuclear weapons before a system of controls and inspections was implemented. A stalemate ensued.
1948(7thof Sivan, 5708): Second Day of Shavuot
1950: An Israeli army spokesman denied Jordanian charges that Arabs who had infiltrated Israel “had been mistreated while being returned across the frontier” to Jordan. What the Jordanians have not explained is why the Hashemites allow their Kingdom to be used as base for those who want to enter Israel with the intention to attack the Jewish population.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Mapai won eight of 11 seats in Migdal Gad's first municipal council elections. Hapoel Hamizrahi won two and Mapam one. While there were 1,973 eligible voters, only 1,543 actually voted. Nine additional clothing points and 11 shoe points were released for the month of July. The Kaiser-Frazer plant in Haifa which was hailed as a model of American production efficiency assembled the first cars for sale in Israel.
1951: In Albuquerque, NM, premiere of “Ace in the Hole” directed, produced and written by Billy Wilder.
1952: Birthdate of Leon Wieseltier, editor of The New Republic and the author of “Kaddish” one of the finest books of its kind which Theodore Bikel did a marvelous job of recording.
1952: The keel is laid for the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus. This was a major milestone in the creation of America’s ace-in-the-hole in the Cold War – the fleet of nuclear attack submarines against which the Soviets never did develop an effective defense. Admiral Hyman Rickover, who suffered his share of anti-Semitism in the Navy, was the father of the nuclear Navy and the submarine fleet.
1953(1stof Tammuz, 5713): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1953: Herbert Aptheker was listed as a Sponsor of The National Committee to Secure Justice for the Rosenbergs and Morton Sobell
1953: One hundred and eight bachelor’s degrees were awarded during the commencement ceremony at Brandeis University. It was the newly created school’s second commencement ceremony. Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at JTS and George Alpert, Chairman of the Brandeis Board of Trustees received honorary degrees during the ceremony.
1954: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law that places the words “under God" to the United States’ Pledge of Allegiance. Despite its apparent invocation of the divinity, this insertion did not evoke a storm of protest in the name of separation of church and state. Everybody knew that this was a political statement, not a religious one. At the height of the Cold War, it was a line in the stand between the West and the forces of “mindless, godless Communism.
1954(13thof Sivan, 5714): In Shenandoah, VA, “education advocate, philanthropist, art collector, and college trustee Margaret Seligman Lewisohn passed away today.
1956: U.S. released date for the “Catered Affair” directed by Richard Brooks, produced by Sam Zimbalist and based on Paddy Chayefsky television play.
1958: Birthdate of Wafa Sultan a Syrian born American author and critic of Muslim society and Islam who trained as a psychiatrist in Syria. Following one of her critiques of Moslem culture in which she said "no Jew has blown himself up in a German restaurant" the American Jewish Congress invited her to visit Jerusalem.
1959: David Joel Horowitz, the founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, married Elissa Krauthamer in a Yonkers, NY synagogue.
1967(6th of Sivan, 5727): First Day of Shavuot
1967(6th of Sivan, 5727): On the First Day of Shavuot an estimated 200,000 gathered in and around the Wall to celebrate the first major festival following the reunification of Jerusalem. When Teddy Kollek appeared at the Wall he was hailed “as the first Mayor of Greater Jerusalem.”
1967: A contingent of Mossad agents that had fanned out across the West Bank to meet with members of the Palestinian elite immediately following the Six Day War submitted their classified report to the head of Military Intelligence. It argued that an independent Palestinian state should be established as quickly as possible in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, "under the auspices" of the Israel Defense Forces and "in agreement with the Palestinian leadership." They suggested that the borders of the Palestinian state be based on the 1949 armistice lines that had served as the border until earlier that month, with some minor adjustments. "In order to enable an honorable agreement," the document continued, Israel
1972: Martin Dies, former member of the House of Representatives from Texas passed away and Chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee. A man of considerable influence in his day, Dies was a red- baiting reactionary who, among other things, was an anti-Semite.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Ephraim Katzir became the first president of Israel Windsor Castle England Haifa Haifa
1982: Israeli tanks cut off Muslim West Beirut, trapping leaders of the PLO,
1985: TWA Flight 847 is hijacked by Hezbollah. Long before 9/11, Moslem fanatics were making war against the West. Supported by Iran, Hezbollah splits its time between terrorist activities aimed at Israel, trying to control Lebanon and making war against Western civilization.
1986(7th of Sivan, 5746): Sixty-seven year old composer Alan Jay Lerner passed away. In one of the many cultural ironies that are so much a part of the American scene, Lerner composed with fellow Jew to write “Camelot,” a musical about English king that became a Broadway and cinematic classic that was loved by JFK, the first American Catholic President. (As reported by Samuel G. Freedman)
1986(7th of Sivan, 5746): Second Day of Shavuot
1987:The annual International Israel Festival which began on May 18 is scheduled to come to an end today.
1997(9thof Sivan, 5757): Seventy-seven year old Jay Ziskin, the California psychologist and lawyer who was the father of movie producer Laura Ziskin passed away
1998: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Ghost Country” by Sara Paretsky
2005(7th of Sivan, 5765): Second Day of Shavuot
2004(25th of Sivan, 5764):Max J. Rosenberg, “an American film producer, whose film career stretched across six decades” passed away in Los Angeles at the age of 89. “He was particularly noted for his horror or supernatural films, and found much of his success while working in England. Rosenberg was born in the Bronx, New York. In 1945 he entered the film business by becoming a foreign film distributor. Although he primarily produced horror or supernatural films, his first film Rock, Rock, Rock (1956) was a musical. His partner in this film was Milton Subotsky, and the two would start the British company Amicus Productions in 1964. During his career he produced more than 50 films, on some of which he was not credited. Among the horror and supernatural films he produced were such titles as Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Land That Time Forgot (1975), and its sequel, The People That Time Forgot (1977). In 1957 he produced the first horror film in color, The Curse of Frankenstein. Rosenberg also produced a children's film, Lad, a Dog (1962), a pair of films based on the Doctor Who series, and director Richard Lester's first film, It's Trad, Dad! (1962). He was particularly proud to have produced the 1968 film of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, starring Robert Shaw and directed by William Friedkin. He worked well into his 80s; his final film credit was 1997's Perdita Durango aka Dance With the Devil.
2006:Leaders of the largest Orthodox rabbinical organization in the U.S. have reached a compromise regarding overseas conversions with Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar.
2007(28thof Sivan, 5767):Shirlee Mages, whose father owned a thriving Roosevelt Road restaurant in the 1930s and '40s and whose husband put his name on a sporting goods chain, died today at the age 88 “in her Gold Coast home of natural causes, said her daughter, Lili Ann Zisook. Mrs. Mages was the widow of Morrie Mages, a 1950s Chicago television staple who was often in the company of the late broadcaster Jack Brickhouse touting his sporting-goods stores through the sponsorship of a late-night movie called "Mages Playhouse." Morrie Mages and his family had a chain of 14 stores in the 1960s, but the business ran into hard times and was sold. That led Mrs. Mages to take a job managing the Pompian Shop, a ladies boutique on Michigan Avenue, her daughter said. "My mother was just a woman who did what she had to do," Zisook said. Morrie Mages subsequently rebounded with a smaller chain, anchored by a store at LaSalle and Ontario Streets. He died in 1988 at 72. Mrs. Mages, born Shirlee Gold, grew up in the Lawndale neighborhood. Her father, Meyer, owned Gold's Restaurant at 810 W. Roosevelt Rd. Gold's had a ballroom where many weddings were celebrated and future musical star Benny Goodman would sometimes play clarinet there, Zisook said. After her graduation from Marshall High School, Mrs. Mages attended Northwestern University before getting married in 1939. Always strong with numbers, she worked as a stock broker in the 1950s, her daughter said. In retirement, during which she wintered in Palm Springs, Calif., she was devoted to the mastery of canasta and mah jongg. Mrs. Mages survived bouts with breast and colon cancer and quadruple bypass surgery, her daughter said. "She was such a strong woman, not so much physically, but her mind," Zisook said. When her husband was alive, the couple organized the Morrie and Shirlee Mages Foundation, which provided sports equipment to needy youths. After his death, she led the charge to name a playground in Lincoln Park after her late husband.
2007: An exhibition entitled The Other Promised Land: Vacationing, Identity, and the Jewish-American Dream opens at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.
2007: In a press release, Hebrew University
2008: “State Renews Efforts to Bring Disputed Jewish Manuscripts From Russia published today described theefforts by the state of Israel to bring the Ginzburg Collection from Russia to a permanent home in the Jewish state.
2009: Esther M. Sternberg, a doctor and the author of The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions, discusses and signs her new book Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Beingat Politics and Prose, in Washington, D.C.
2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Rosenfeld’s Lives: Fame, Oblivion, and the Furies of Writing” by Steven J. Zipperstein and “The American Future: A History” by Simon Schama.
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris, Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy by Eric D. Weitz and Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen.
2009:A Kassam rocket fired by Gaza terrorists hit the Ashkelon Beach region this afternoon.
2010: Shabtai Rosenne was appointed to the Israeli special independent public Turkel Commission of Inquiry into the Gaza flotilla raid
2010: The long history and deep roots of Jews in the Tar Heel state are coming to life in an ambitious new multimedia project that is scheduled to begin today with an exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. “Down Home,” which encompasses a slickly produced documentary film and handsomely illustrated coffee-table book, celebrates Jewish contributions to North Carolina social, civic and commercial life. But the project also aims to capture a nearly vanished way of life for Jews in the state’s mill and market towns, according to Leonard Rogoff, an organizer of the project and historian at the Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina, which is producing “Down Home.” “Elderly Jews who lived the rural small-town experience are an endangered species,” said Rogoff, who also authored the companion book, “Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina” (University of North Carolina Press, 2010). “Synagogues have shuttered in cities like Tarboro and Lumberton. Smaller communities are expiring. We need to document them.” The project “tells an important part of our state’s story,” wrote Linda A. Carlisle, Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, in an e-mail to the Forward. “Jewish culture has helped shape North Carolina in its rural areas as well as its urban centers for centuries.” North Carolina’s state legislature kicked in $350,000 toward the project’s $1.25 million budget, according to Rogoff; the rest came from foundation grants and individual donations. The investment has paid off with research that “contributes new insights into Jews in the South,” Rogoff said. “Histories typically focus on the pre-Civil War era and German-Reform Jews as normative southerners. We’ve emphasized the East European experience in the New South as well, and it’s updated to include the Sunbelt.” Rogoff’s team at JHFNC is also creating classroom material for 4th- and 8th-grade “People of North Carolina” courses in the state’s public schools with talks about expanding the lessons “across all grades and disciplines,” he said. According to Rogoff, the “Down Home” project tells stories of Jews from Joachim Gans, who arrived on Roanoke Island on Sir Walter Raleigh’s expedition in 1585, to Jacob Henry, who in 1809 delivered a speech in defense of religious freedom after his right to serve in the state legislature was challenged. And it spotlights civil-rights era heroes like Harry Golden, publisher of the esteemed The Carolina Israelite newspaper, “known nationally for his civil-rights advocacy, delivered in a Lower East Side accent,” Rogoff said. In a folksier vein, the book, film, and exhibit highlight experiences of prominent, prosperous families like the clan of Eli Evans, whose own history provides one narrative thread of the “Down Home” project. Evans’s paternal grandfather was an immigrant peddler, his mother’s father a shopowner; his businessman father, Emanuel, became a wildly popular six-term mayor of Durham in the 1950s, and his mother Sara served on Hadassah’s national board for 40 years. Now a New Yorker, Evans himself went on to write what many consider the definitive history of southern Jews, “The Provincials” (University of North Carolina Press, 1973), which has continuously been in print for nearly three decades. “The story of the Jews is the untold story of the South,” said Evans, a onetime speechwriter for President Lyndon Baines Johnson who went on to run several charitable endowments, including the Carnegie Foundation. “The region has whatever image it has from whatever violence there was. But that’s not the story of the Jews. Ours is the story of successful integration and good relationships.” The Jewish experience in North Carolina was unique in the South, Evans said, because North Carolina was unique in the South. “We didn’t have a strong Klan in our state. We had a commitment to public education, a more moderate political atmosphere, and enlightened political leaders,” he said. “I’m not saying no antisemitism existed. But there was a philo-Semitism that manifested itself in many ways.” The exhibit itself, which will travel across North Carolina over the next year, uses artifacts and photos to recreate a series of “environments”: A synagogue sanctuary, dry-goods store, family Sabbath table, and a study based on Harry Golden’s Charlotte home. The 81-minute “Down Home” DVD documentary, (available through the JHFNC’s website), complements the museum show with a somewhat academic mix of archival footage, insightful interviews and unfortunately costumed re-enactments. While the exhibit’s partly intended to educate North Carolinians about their own history, Rogoff said he hopes “Down Home” might reach other Jews — especially from the Northeast. “All native southern Jews have humorous stories about meeting New Yorkers who cannot believe that Jews actually live in the South,” he said. “They associate a New York accent, not a southern drawl, with being Jewish. That’s a very old cliché. New Yorkers especially can be terribly parochial, and the famous Saul Steinberg cartoon of a terra incognita beyond the Hudson aptly illustrates their provincialism.” While it spends a lot of time looking back, the “Down Home” project also suggests a Jewish southern future that looks increasingly suburban and metropolitan. “Jews are finding opportunities in the hospitals, universities, research laboratories, and financial centers that have typified the development of the state’s post-industrial economy,” said Rogoff. “North Carolina is especially inviting for two-career couples where both are professionals. Newcomers who explore the local Jewish communities generally report finding warm welcomes, contrasting the neighborliness with what they found up north. You get a heckuva lot more house for the money, and the climate is a whole lot better.” But one area where Rogoff admitted the North may have an edge is bagels. “There isn’t much aside from the ubiquitous Bruegger’s,” he said. “Cary [near Raleigh] and Chapel Hill have independent bagel makers, but a really good deli and Jewish-style bakery are opportunities waiting to happen. “
2010: Israeli superstar David Broza is scheduled to perform at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York.
2010(2nd of Tammuz, 5770): One of the Israeli police officers, Yehushua "Shuki" Sofer, who was shot in a terror attack on a patrol car this morning in the Hebron Hills area has succumbed to his wounds. “
2011:Rabbi Bernice K. Weiss, author of “Converting to Judaism - Choosing to be Chosen: Personal Stories” is scheduled to lead “Basic Judaism for Jews and Non-Jews Alike” a “7-part series that provides an overview of the Bible, Shabbat ritual and observances, how to observe kashrut and the Jewish laws of death and mourning” at the Historic 6th and I Synagogue in Washington, DC.
2011: The 8th Grade Graduation is scheduled to take place at the Hillel Day School of Metro Detroit.
2011: Flag Day is celebrated in the United States to mark the anniversary of the Continental Congress’ adoption an official flag. According to Dr. Gary Zola, the Stars and Stripes probably made their first appearance in American synagogues during the period surrounding the assassination of President Lincoln. This coincided with the Union victory that marked the end of the Civil War and a feeling of patriotism was running at full flood. Zola thinks, although he can offer no proof, that American flags appeared on the bima at Jewish houses of worship during the First World War, another period of patriotic fervor. Dr. Jonathan Sarna believes that the custom of displaying the flag in houses of worship – Jewish as well as Christian – dates back to the Spanish American War of 1898. This also was a period of great patriotic fervor, marking a popular war that enabled those of the North & South to join together in common cause. Regardless of when the flags first appeared, by the 1930’s they were a permanent ornamentation on the bimah, possibly as antidote to the simmering anti-Semitism that was part and parcel of the Great Depression.
2011: National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau instructed Noble Energy to develop the Noa North gas reserve in the Noa license after concerns that the field spilled over into Palestinian territory.
2011: Actress Natalie Portman has given birth to a baby boy fathered by a choreographer she met while she filmed her Oscar-winning role in Black Swan, People magazine reported today.
2011:Today brought strange weather to both the northern and southern regions of Israel. Meteorologists confirmed that the ash cloud from an Eritrean volcano had indeed reached Eilat, but authorities insisted there was no health danger to civilians and also that flights at both Eilat Airport and Ben-Gurion International Airport were running on schedule.In the north of the country, residents of the Golan and Galilee regions were surprised this morning to awake to rain, an extremely rare occurrence during the summer months.
2011:President Shimon Peres visited the Negev Beduin village of Hura today, praising the community as a prime example of Negev development. Peres received a warm welcome, and received the honorary title Sheikh Peres.
2011:Deputy Mayor of Economic and Housing Development and Brick City Development Corporation Chair Stefan Pryor, Manischewitz Company Co-CEOs Alain Bankier and Paul Bensabat, Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger, and BCDC CEO Lyneir Richardson, will cut the ribbon to open the new Corporate Headquarters and Plant for The Manischewitz Company,today, at 11 a.m. The facility is located at 80 Avenue K in the East Ward.
2012: “Gershwin Shows’ Tonys Fuel Plans for a Musical” published today described plans by the trustees of George and Ira Gershwin’s estates to produce more musicals in light of the Tony won by “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess’ which won in the musical-revival category.
2012: Anouk Markovits, author of I Am Forbidden is scheduled to have a reading at McNally-Jackson on Prince Street in NYC.
2012: A Palestinian sniper in the southern Gaza Strip fired at an Israeli farmer working in a field near Kibbutz Nir Oz in the Eshkol Regional Council area today.
2012: Mahler on the Couch is scheduled to complete it New York City theatrical run
2012: The Jewish Museum of Australia is scheduled to host the media preview of its newest permanent exhibition, “Calling Australia Home"
2012: “SERET 2012” – the first London Israeli Film & Television Festival opened in London. Seret is the Hebrew word for “movie.”
2013: “Man of Steel,” a blockbuster film that brings Superman back to the screen is scheduled to be released to the general public today in covnentail , 3D and IMAZ theatres. Superman is creation of Jerru Siegel and Jose Shuster. David S. Goyer wrote the screenplay and Israeli actress Auyelter Zurer plays the role of Superman’s mother.
2013: “Fill the Void,” a film that “tells the story an Orthodox Chassidic family from Tel Aviv” is scheduled to open in several new venues including the Music Box Theatre in Chicago and the Ritz at The Bourse 5 in Philadelphia.
2013: U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is scheduled to meet with Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon in Washington, DC.
2013: In the United States, observance of Flag Day, a holiday pioneered by Ben Altheimer, Sr. a Jewish businessman from Arkansas who convinced President Woodrow Wilson to adopt it as a national holiday in 1916.
2013: According to a Lebanese report today, embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad plans to open a “resistance” front on the Golan Heights and thinks such a move could unify the various factions in Syria.
2013:Representatives passed a defense authorization bill that would make it U.S. policy to take “all necessary steps” to ensure Israel is able to “remove existential threats,” among them nuclear facilities in Iran. “It is the policy of the United States to take all necessary steps to ensure that Israel possesses and maintains an independent capability to remove existential threats to its security and defend its vital national interests,” said the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act passed today. (As reported by JTA)
2013: Donald Carr, the president of The Canadian Jewish News announced today that the board of director has confirmed that the print newspaper which has been publishing for the last 53 years will continue to publish canceling earlier plans to cancel the paper on June 20th.(JTA and JPOst)
2013: “Judge Judy” starring Judith Sheindlin won its first Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program on its 15th nomination
2013: A top commander of a Nazi SS-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States and has been living in Minnesota since shortly after World War II, according to evidence uncovered by The Associated Press.
2014: “Operation Sunflower” and “Hanna’s Journey” are scheduled to be shown at the Israel Film Center Festival be held at the JCC of Manhattan.
2014: The ZviDance which has already given a special performance sponsored by Israel’s Office of Cultural Affairs is scheduled to perform for the last time in New York City.