JUNE 28
1320: “Pope John XXII issues Bullarium Romanum, ordering that Jews who convert to Christianity must be allowed to keep their property. The implication is that Jews who don't convert won't necessarily have their property rights protected.” (As reported by Austin Cline)
1389: Ottoman forces crush the armies of Christian Europe in Kosovo, opening the way for the Ottoman conquest of Southeastern Europe. This event is known as the Battle of Kosovo. The memory of this battle lingers to this day and has provided fuel for hostility between the different religious and ethnic groups in the Balkans. This victory of the forces of Islam over the Christians made their position in Europe just that much more precarious. And Christian insecurity was never a good thing for the Jewish population.
1443: “The marquis of Mantua, Italy issued favorable regulations, granting Jews freedom of religion , the right to settle internal disputes in rabbinic courts and permission to engage in all occupations.” (As described Abraham Bloch)
1491: Birthdate of King Henry VIII of England. Isabella of Aragon, the daughter of the Spanish King and Queen was Henry’s first wife. Before allowing the marriage to go forward, Henry had to promise that he would never allow Jews to settle in England. For the most part, Henry was true to his word although a small community of crypto-Jews may have settled in London. Henry’s other contact with Jews also surrounded his marriage to Isabella, only this time it revolved around his attempts to shed his wife. Henry sought to use the texts of what he called the Old Testament to prove that the marriage was invalid and that it was cursed by God. He attempted to get Rabbis in Italy to support his claims made to the Pope in Rome. The Rabbis decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Regardless of what the Bible said, they felt no need to risk their safety in Italy for the sake of capricious monarch living so far away.
1519: Charles V elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Charles was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella. Charles had already been on the Spanish throne for three years when he became Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. As king of Spain, Charles was a worthy heir to his grandparents. He continued the Inquisition and enforced their philosophy regarding Jews and Marranos. But in the Germanic and central European lands that came under his role, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Emperor showed a more benign, tolerant (for his time) attitude towards his Jewish subjects. “He made no attempt to institute the inquisition or even tamper with privileges extended by past emperors. At the Diet of 1544 held at Speyer, “Charles reaffirmed Jewish privileges” to such an extent that “the Speyer document was considered the most liberal and generous letter of protection ever granted to the Jews.” Charles defended the Jews against the anti-Semitic attacks of Martin Luther. “When Spanish troops entered Germany in 1546 during the Emperor’s campaign against rebellious Protestant princes…Charles issued an order to his army not to molest the Jews.” [Editor’s note: If you can find an explanation for this seemingly schizophrenic behavior, please let me know.]
1635: On behalf of the Company of the American Islands, a French owned enterprise Charles Lienard and Jean Duplessis, Lord of Ossonville began the colonization of the Island of Guadeloupe. This did not make the island part of the French Empire which made it possible for the Jews to settle there. Starting with their arrival in 1654, the Jews prospered in the fishing processing business and owned several sugar cane plantations. This would all come to an end when the colony was annexed by the French Empire and the Jews were expelled under the “Black Code.
1712: Birthdate of Swiss philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Unlike some other Enlightenment philosophers, Rousseau did not dabble in anti-Semitism. He may not have been Philo-Semitic but in his limited references to the Jewish people he wrote with unusual understanding and compassion. “We shall never know the inner motives of the Jews until the day they have their own free state, schools and universities where they can speak and argue without fear. Then, and only then, shall we know what they really have to say.”
1725: King Charles III of Hungary announced that he “intended to decrease the number of Jews in his domains” so “the government directed the counties to furnish statistics on the number of” Jewish subjects.
1762: Catherine II (whom the Boyars called “the Great”) ascends the throne of Russia. The German born Czarina followed her husband Peter III who died under mysterious circumstances in which she might have had a hand. The Jewish historian Salo Baron described her as possessing a rational attitude. Under the partition of Poland, Catherine became the ruler of Lithuanian with its large Jewish population. At first, Catherine tried to “thread the needle” of not offending the Russian Orthodox by granting her Jewish subjects too much freedom while taking advantage of their professional and business skills. In the end, she succumbed to pressure from Russian merchants who hid behind religion and limited the activities of her Jewish subjects to an area that would become known as “The Pale of Settlement.”
1809: A.M. Rothschild writes from Frankfurt to his son Nathan in London telling him that writing in Hebrew was fine for discussing family matters but not for conveying business information.
1815:Benjamin Olinde Rodrigues “a French banker, mathematician and social reformer” who had been born at Bordeaux in 1795 “was awarded a doctorate in mathematics today by the University of Paris” which was earned by his dissertation which contained what came to be called the “Rodrigues’ Formula”
1825: Twenty-seven year old German poet Heinrich Heine became a Protestant today.
1828: Hyam Harris was the first person interred by "Shaare Chessed," a burial society in New Orleans.
1831: Birthdate of Hungarian/German violinist and composer, Joseph Joachim.
1831: Birthdate of German historian Otto Stobbe who “was appointed to the Historical Committee of the German-Israelite Community Association” and who was a “colleague of Heinrich Graetz. In writing about his work in the field of Jewish history Stobbe said “Works on the history of the Jews are so little known in non-Jewish circles that even scholars, as I have often had occasion to see, are only imperfectly informed about the history of this people in Germany.” (As described by Michael Brenner)
1836: Former President James Madison passed away. Madison worked with his mentor Thomas Jefferson to ensure freedom of religion in the state of Virginia in the years between the Revolution and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Madison played in a key role in the ratification of the first ten amendments of the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights. The first of those amendments guaranteed the separation of church and state. Madison was the first President to appoint a Jew to a U.S. diplomatic post.
1838: The coronation of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom took place today. Victoria was on the throne until 1901. Her long tenure gave an era its name. But under the British system of government she reigned but did not rule which means she had only a limited impact on growing role of Jews in her realm. Early in reign, she sided with Moses Montefiore as he sought to protect the Jews of Syria during the Damascus Blood Libel lending him her royal yacht for his trip to France. On the other hand, in 1869 she exercised her royal prerogative when it came to creating new peerages by blocking the appointment of Lionel Rothschild to the House of Lords. According to Frederick Morton, one of her biographers, “it was not until Suez became British though Jewish money” and she came under the spell of Benjamin Disraeli that she relented and allowed Lionel’s son to enter the Lords. As she aged, Victoria would visit “the French estate of Baron Rothschild.” Despite her lack of political clout, she did attempt to intervene on behalf of the Russian Jews as Tsar Alexander III worked to make their lives increasingly unbearable. On the other hand, she was not pleased with the growing number of Jews who made up the social circle of her son, the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII .
1851: David Salomons stood as a Liberal candidate at a by-election in the Greenwich constituency, and was elected today as one of the constituency's two Members of Parliament (MPs). He was not permitted to serve in the House of Commons, because he had not taken the oath of abjuration in the form established by Parliament. However, he did not withdraw quietly: instead he took the oath, but omitted the Christian phrases, and took his seat on the government benches. He was asked to withdraw, and did so on the second request, but he returned three days later, on 21 July 1851. In the debate that followed, Salomons defended his presence on grounds of having been elected by a large majority, but was eventually removed by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and fined £500 for having voted illegally in three divisions of the House
1855:Baron Maurice von Hirsch, the German-Jewish philanthropist who founded the Jewish Colonization Association, married Clara Bischoffsheim the daughter of Jonathan-Raphaël Bischoffsheim of Brussels
1866:Benjamin Disraeli began serving as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader in the House of Commons in the cabinet of the Earl of Derby, the Prime Minister
1874: It was reported today that in the second-hand clothing trade silk and velvet waistcoats that appear to be worn out can be re-worked and made into skull-caps for German and Polish Jews.
1877(17th of Tammuz, 5637):Tzom Tammuz
1878: B.L. Solomon & Sons one of the largest and oldest of importers and dealers in upholstery and furniture in the country failed today. The business was established was established 45 years ago by B.L Solomon under the name of Solomon and Hart.
1880: While “making its regular trip up the East River from Manhattan, the SS Seawanhaka caught fire forcing those on board, many of whom who could not swim, to choose between burning to death and jumping into the swamp water where the ship had come to rest. Among the many Jews on board who perished were Mordecai Manuel Noah Smith and for Assemblyman Joseph I. Stein.
1882: It was reported today that Henry Holt & Co is issuing a book about the effects of the American Revolution – America and France: The Influence of the United States on France in the Eighteenth Century by Lewis Rosenthal.
1882: The dedicatory services for the new Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews to place at the new building located a one half mile south of Yonkers on Riverdale Avenue in New York.
1882: During his address at the University of Mississippi commencement ceremony in Oxford, famous author George W. Cable called for the graduates to embrace the future, “Let us search provincialism out of the land as the Hebrew housewife purged her house of leaven on the eve of the Passover.” (Editor’s note – It may seem strange to find out that a rural southern audience would understand a reference to the arcane customs of the Jewish people.)
1882: About 7:30 this evening a group of striking freight handlers attacked Russian Jews who had replaced them in Battery Park just outside of Castle Garden. A half hour later the strikers turned their attention to a group of returning Italian workers who proved to be more of a problem since they were armed with armed bars, sticks and dirks. After police intervened the Jews said they would not go back to work on the piers as replacement workers for the strikers.
1882: It was reported that Dr. Samuel Davidson is preparing a new book on Christian eschatology in which he will compare the doctrines of Christianity and Judaism. [This is evidence of the difference between the European and American view of Judaism. In the latter case it was something to be studied not condemned.]
1883: Birthdate of right wing French political leader Pierre Laval who eventually became Prime Minister of the Vichy Government where he aggressively followed pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic policies that would lead to his execution in 1945.
1883: A Russian Jew named Julius Simon, his wife and six children arrived in New York today aboard the steam-ship Egyptian Monarch. Simon who said he was sent to the United States by the Jewish Ladies Board of London claims to be entirely destitute.
1885: “Orthodoxy and Reform” published today described the clash between these two wings of Judaism as personified by Rabbit Kohut on one sides and Rabbis Kohler and Gottheil on the other. Kohler contends that although he disagrees with Kohut on matters related to religion, he considers him a personal friend.
1885: It was reported today that the elevation of Lord Rothschild to a peerage is unique because of his ethnicity but it follows the same pattern of other “plutocrats” who have been so honored.
1885: The Jewish neighborhood along Harrison Street suffered some of the worst damage when a rain storm struck Baltimore this morning followed by flooding which was the worst to hit the city since 1868.
1886: It was reported today that the new monthly magazine which will be the official publication of the B’nai B’rith, is to be named The Menorah. The Jewish fraternal organization is thought to represent over 10 per cent of the country’s Jewish population.
1886(25thof Sivan, 5646): Sixty-four year old Chaim Sofer who had been serving as rabbi “of the Orthodox congregation in the newly merged city of Budapest since 1879, passed away today.
1890: In Galveston, TX, Samson Heidenheirmer, President of the Standard Oil Mill and Joseph Marx, a local lawyer were arrested today and charged with arson in connection with a fire that destroyed the company last April.
1891: Twenty-two year old Annie Lippkin, the fiancée of a young tailor named Harry Cohen, went missing from her home on Suffolk Street today.
1891: “Twenty-six brigands” are demanding a ransom of £5,000 for the return of wealth Jew whom they kidnapped near Salonica.
1892: The Marquis de Mores who is scheduled to stand trial for killing Captain Armand Mayer has been provisionally released from custody.
1893: “Tenements Unfit To Live In” published today described the efforts of the Board of Health to closed down building deemed “unfit for human habitation by reason of their unsanitary condition” including the building at 141 Madison. The ground floor is home to a laundry owned by Max Rosenson and the upper floors are home to five Jewish families who have no place else to go.
1893: It was reported that Herman Ahlwardt the anti-Semitic member of the Reichstag is serving out the sentence imposed on him for libeling Herr von Loewe, the Jewish arms maker and several Prussian officials. (Editor’s note – Libeling Jews was one thing; libeling Prussian military officials was another matter.)
1894: “A.P.A. Man Finally Talks” published today provides the plans the American Protective Society has after it has disposed of the Catholics. According to Charles D.P. Gibson, “Then we’ll look after some other classes that are dangerous to the Republic…the Jews for instance who are constantly dodging their public financial obligations and who are in consequence, laying up great private treasures. By means of their money they are eating into the very heart of the people. They are gradually getting control of everything and if left alone they will in twenty-five years, own all our institutions. We’ll stop them where they are.”
1894(24th of Sivan, 5654): Sixty-eight year old German chemist Moritz Traube passed away in Berlin.
1895: Mrs. Simon Goldberg, Jacob Rothschild and Simon Ottenberg were named as trustees in the will of Simon Goldberg which was signed today
1897: It was reported today that the free entertainment enjoyed by over a thousand public school children at Educational Alliance’s auditorium grew out of an proposal originally championed by Julia Richman, a key figure in promoting quality public and Jewish education.
1897: Mrs. Elsie Schwager (nee Barstheit) and her new-born son converted to Judaism today. Following the conversion ceremony, Elsie and her 24 year old husband Phillip were married in a Jewish ceremony. The couple had been married in a civil ceremony more than a year ago.
1899: It was reported today that Menahem M. Eichler, Michael Fried and Leon H. Elmaleh have graduated from JTS. The first two have been ordained as Rabbis and the third has earned a teaching degree.
1900(1stof Tammuz, 5660): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1900: Birthdate of Arthur Levitt, New York lawyer and politician who served as New York State Comptroller and was the father of SEC Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
1902: Birthdate of Richard Rodgers. Rodgers would team with Lorenz Hart and then Oscar Hammerstein in writing numerous Broadway musicals including Oklahoma
1904: “Tried to Burn Synagogue” published today described an investigation by the Camden police into a recent attempt to burn the Jewish house of worship at Eighth and Sycamore Streets which Rabbi Shane began when “someone deliberately threw a lighted roll of paper through the window among a pile shavings while he was conducting services.”
1906: Birthdate of Israeli archaeologistBinyamin Mazar. Besides having a distinguished career that included the excavation at Beth Shearim, Mazar produced a family of archaeologists including son Ory, grandchildren Eilat and Dan and nephew Amihai Mazar.
1906: Birthdate of Maria Goeppert Mayer, German born US United States USA
1909: The cornerstone of the first Hebrew gymnasium Herzliah, was laid in Tel Aviv today.
1912: After four months of conflict, the entire Council of Jewish Community at Constantinople resigns.
1914: Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife were assassinated at Sarajevo
(Editor’s note – a few random comments about the impact of the war on the Jewish people, not meant in any way to be all inclusive)
Three Austro-Hungarian Field Marshals and eight generals were Jewish. “One of them, Field Marshal Johann Georg Franz Hugo Friedlander, was deported by the Germans in 1943 from Vienna Auschwitz , where he died.” While there are no exact figures the best estimates indicate that a million and half Jews served as soldiers in the armies on both sides of the conflict. The horrors of war fell hardest on the Jews of Eastern Europe. American Jews made Herculean efforts to provide aid for their suffering brethren. American Jews also sought to aid their co-religionists trapped in Palestine under the rule of the Ottomans as can be seen by their having the USS North Carolina, an American Battleship, go to Jaffa in 1914 with money and supplies collected by the American Jewish Committee and the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs. When America entered the war, the Jewish response was so strong that the 77th Division was referred to by some as “the Jewish division.” While Jews saw plenty of combat with the AEF with at least six of them winning the Medal of Honor, the most famous soldier may have been Irving Berlin whose musical contribution was patriotic and a real boost to moral. Bernard Baruch may be considered the most powerful Jew during the war. Not only was one of Wilson’s closest advisors on matters of war and he peace, as chairman of the War Industries Board he successfully managed the country economic mobilization which was critical to defeating the Central Powers. Strangely enough, his role, on the economic front mirrored that of Walter Rathenau, the German Jewish industrialist who understood the importance of industrial production to winning a modern war as could be seen by his role with the Raw Materials Department. The disproportionate service of German Jewish soldiers at “The Front” did nothing to quell the anti-Semitism that was apparently endemic to their Fatherland. The Zion Mule Corps, an all Jewish supply unit in the British Army performed in a most distinguished manner at Gallipoli and provided the impetus for the creation of the Jewish Legion an all Jewish combat regiment in the British Army that fought with General Allenby as he liberated Palestine from the Turks thus making it possible for the Balfour Declaration to have a reality on the ground. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Keep reading over the next four years for more specific daily items.
1914: Birthdate of Aribert Heima former Austrian doctor, also known as "Dr. Death". As an SS doctor in a Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen, he is accused of killing and torturing many inmates through various methods, such as direct injections of toxic compounds into the hearts of his victims. Along with Alois Brunner, Heim — who would now be (as of 2008) in his early nineties — is one of the last major Nazi fugitives still at large. However, according to a 2007 publication by former Israeli Air Force Colonel Danny Baz Heim was kidnapped from Canada and taken to Santa Catalina off the Californian coast, where he was killed by a Nazi hunting team code named “The Owl” in 1982. Baz himself claims to have been part of this group. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, as well as the French Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld say this is not true.
1914: Miss Henrietta Szold, Nathan Straus, Dr. J. L. Magnes, and Dr. Stephen Wise of New York arrived in Rochester, New York early this morning to attend a meeting of Zionists. The convention of Zionists will be formally opened by Louis Lipsky of New York, Chairman, who will introduce Dr. Schmarya Levin of Berlin. Levin will address the delegates in behalf of the International Executive Committee, whose headquarters are in Berlin. Dr Levin will speak in Hebrew and German. Max Lowenthal will welcome the delegates in behalf of the Jews of Rochester.
1914:Birthdate ofValerian Trifa, the Romanian Orthodox cleric who helped to foment the pogrom against the Jews of Bucharest who was finally brought to justice thanks to the efforts of Zev Golan. “Zev Golan is the English translator of the wartime memoirs of Stern Group commander Israel Eldad, The First Tithe; the author of the history Free Jerusalem; and the author of the Hebrew history Shofrot Shel Mered (The Shofars of the Revolt). Golan’s God, Man and Nietzsche: A Surprising Dialogue between Judaism and Modern Philosophers examines why Nietzsche both lauded and condemned Jews, and how Jewish and modern thinkers can, together, provide answers to the great problems of philosophy. Golan has also written extensively on economics and has edited several dozen studies of the Israeli economy, as well as the book Meshek BeMashber (An Economy in Crisis). His commentary has appeared in the Israeli dailies Haaretz and Globes. Golan lives in Jerusalem where he directs the Center for Public Policy at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
1915: During a meeting of the Zionist Federation in Boston, a dinner was held in Mechanics’ Hall where 1,400 attendees listened to speeches by Louis D. Brandeis, Nathan Straus and Rabbi Stephen Wise, among others. Brandeis was hailed as the leader of the movement to create a Jewish home in Palestine. Rabbi Wise’s call for additional funds brought the following response. During the evening it was announced that Mr. and Mrs. Julius Rosenwald of Chicago would donate $1,000 per month to the Zionist cause for the duration of the World War and would continue making their donations for a full year after a peace treaty was signed. an anonymous donor from New York gave $6,000 while Samuel Untermyer and Eugene Meyer each gave $3,000.
1915:“In the midst of demonstrations and strike demands on the question of "hiring and firing," Benjamin Schlesinger, the president of ILGWU asked the Protective Association to submit the dispute to a committee of unbiased persons. As a result a Council of Conciliation was appointed by Mayor John P. Mitchel and the strike was avoided
1917: In Manhattan, Aaron and Anna Schiff gave birth to Solomon “Sol” Joseph Schiff “whose rocketing, flat forehand propelled him to national and world table tennis championships in the 1930s when he was still in his teens, and who later earned the unofficial title “Mr. Table Tennis” as an ardent advocate for his sport…” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1917:Fareynikt Moishe Zilberfarb began serving as Deputy-Secretary of Jewish Affairs in the General Secretariat of Ukraine, the main executive institution of the Ukrainian People's Republic.
1919: The Treaty of Versailles was signed in France, ending World War I. The United States Senate would fail to ratify the treaty, which meant the U.S. League of Nations . Many Germans resented the terms of the treaty. This resentment helped to undermine the Weimar Republic
1921; Birthdate of Dorothea Herz who as Dorothea Rabkin joined forces with her husband Leon to build a collection of American folk art noted for the whirligigs and other sculptures made by anonymous carvers in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Starting not long after their marriage in 1958, the Rabkins spent decades scouring flea markets and secondhand shops. They acquired some traditional pieces like quilts and baskets, but they also bought objects few people wanted then — the works by unschooled artisans that are known today as outsider art. Their collection grew to more than 1,200 items, including paintings by self-taught black artists like Sam Doyle and Mose Tolliver. But the Rabkins were best known for figural folk sculpture, amassing one of the finest collections in private hands. Most often carved in wood, sometimes made of metal, the sculptures are typically human in form, depicting men and women at work and at play. Besides whirligigs, articulated pieces designed to move or spin in a breeze, they include tradesmen’s mannequins, ventriloquists’ dummies and dolls. Artwork from the Rabkins’ collection has been reproduced widely in books and exhibited around the country. More than 200 of the couple’s pieces are now in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York. One of the most instantly recognizable is the whirligig “Uncle Sam Riding a Bicycle,” among the most emblematic works of American folk art of any kind. Nearly five feet long and carved of wood, it was made between 1880 and 1920. When a propeller at the front is turned, Uncle Sam, in top hat and tails, pedals his little bike. Behind him, a richly carved American flag (the reverse side is Canadian) seems to ripple in the breeze. Among other notable objects the Rabkins gave the museum is an elaborate sheet-metal farm scene from the early 20th century that, set in motion, is almost Rube Goldbergian in its symphony of contingencies: a man pumps water, and a horse drinks it; a fisherman pulls on his rod as a chicken steals a worm from his bait can. As associates said in interviews this week, Ms. Rabkin had a keen eye for unheralded talent. (She was an early advocate, for instance, of the Pennsylvania folk painter Justin McCarthy.) From the mid-1980s till her retirement in 2007, she served on the collections committee of the folk art museum, advising it on acquisitions. Rabkin was born in Berlin. Her father was Jewish. Her mother was not. After Hitler came to power in 1933, the mother left the family and repudiated her children. In the years that followed, Dorothea and her twin sister, Rose, were shuttled among sympathetic Christian neighbors, sometimes together, sometimes apart, often hidden in closets. They dared not go to school, and their formal education ended. After the war began, the twins, now young adults, found themselves adrift in Berlin. Living separately and furtively, they and an older sister, Elizabeth, passed as Gentiles. (Dorothea dyed her hair platinum blond, her husband said.) During this period, their father, pursued by the Gestapo, killed himself. Their mother survived the war. Rose made her way to New York in 1948. Dorothea arrived the next year, carrying, as she later said, “an empty suitcase.” She found work as a cook in a Schrafft’s restaurant and was later an assistant to a rare-book dealer. In January 1958, Dorothea met Leo Rabkin on a blind date; they married that May. A native of Cincinnati, Mr. Rabkin is an abstract artist whose work is in the collections of major museums; for many years he was also a teacher of troubled adolescents at the Livingston School for Girls on King Street in Manhattan. She passed away at the age of 87, a victim of Parkinson disease cared for by her husband Leo, her sole immediate survivor.
1924: As the United States experienced an upswing in bigotry including anti-Semitism, the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross on Peavine Mountain in Nevada, following a similar event that had taken place at Reno in April of this year.
1926: Birthdate of comedian/actor/director Mel Brooks
1929: Release date of the first film adaptation of “Showboat” based on the novel by Edna Ferber with music by Jerome Kern
1932:Sibylle Aimée Marie-Antoinette Gabrielle de Riquetti de Mirabeau a French writer who used the pseudonym GYP passed away. She was “a fanatical anti-Semite & anti-Dreyfusard; in fact, while testifying at a court case in 1899 she gave her profession as "anti-Semite" rather than "writer".
1933:“In a speech to German newspaper publishers, Hitler describes the government’s new journalistic regulations.” (Jewish Virtual Library)
1934: Birthdate of Carl Milton Levin a Democratic United States Senator from Michigan and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. He has been in the Senate since 1979 and Michigan US Michigan
1936: The Palestine Post reported that after a train was derailed near Lydda, and one British soldier and an Arab railway man were killed, the town was ordered by the authorities to pay a 5,000 pound collective fine. The mufti of Jerusalem
1936: Sixty-five year old anarchist Alexander Berkman who unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Henry Clay Frick during a strike against U.S. Steel passed away today.
1938: The British authorities refused to commute the sentence Solomon ben Yosef, a Jewish youth, who is to be hanged tomorrow for having fired at an Arab-owned bus although he caused no casualties.
1939: “Delegates to the forty second annual convention of the Zionist Organization of America heald an outdoor meeting at the Jewish Pavilion at the World’s Fair” after having concluded its regular business sessions. This occasion coincided with the 30thanniversary of the founding of Tel Aviv, the all-Jewish city that has grown from a sand dune to a modern metropolis with 150,000 inhabitants.
1940: In a letter to Lord Lloyd lamenting the Colonial Sectary’s opposition to arming the Jews of Palestine, Churchill that because of this policy “twenty thousand sorely needed British and Australian troops were tied up in Palestine
1940: “Dominican Republic Bars All but Sponsored Immigration” published today described changes in the Central American republic’s treatment of those seeking asylum including Jews from Europe.
1941: German forces entered the Polish city of Drohobych
1941: Chief of Gestapo, Henirich Muller, sent Adolph Eichmann to review the destruction in Bialystok and Minsk.
1941: The Germans reoccupied Przemysl today which would prove to be a death sentence for all but 300 of its 17,000 Jewish inhabitants.
1941: For two days, in the German-occupied town of Kovno, Lithuania, Lithuanian police and released convicts use iron bars to beat hundreds of Jews to death in the city's streets. Thousands more Jews are murdered at Kovno , Lithuania Brest-Litovsk , Belorussia
1942: Following the end of fighting at Minsk 40,000 Jews are now trapped in the Nazi killing machine.
1942: All Jews living in France
1943: Samuel Levy, former Borough President of Manhattan and chairman of the Board of Directors of Yeshiva and Yeshiva College announced today that Dr. Samuel Belkin, Talmudic scholar and dean of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (Yeshiva) since 1941, has been elected president of Yeshiva and Yeshiva College
1944: As the Red Army approaches the concentration camp at Maly Trostinets, Belorussia, near Minsk, regular SS troops replace the non-German SS-auxiliary guards. All surviving prisoners--Jews and non-Jewish Russian civilians--are herded into a barracks that is set ablaze. Any prisoners who manage to exit the burning building are shot. About 20 Jews who had come to Maly Trostinets from the camp/ghetto at Theresienstadt , Czechoslovakia
1945(17thof Tammuz, 5705): As the ashes of the Holocaust settle over Europe, Tzom Tammuz took on an additional level of sorrow.
1945: Birthdate of Representative Jane Harman representing California
1946: Birthdate of Gilda Radner, the Detroit
1947: In New York, Morris Helprin, the president of London Films and actress Eleanor Lynn Helprin gave birth to Mark Helprin “an American novelist, journalist, and conservative commentator.”
1948(21st of Sivan, 5708): Eighty-three year old Gaston Michel Calmann-Lévy, the husband of Helen Calmann Levy and the father of Nicole Germaine Oulman and Robert Paul Michel Calmann-Levy, passed away today.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that a modified scheme for national insurance was finally approved by the government and was to be brought before the Knesset. Registration continued for the Four-Year People's Housing Scheme. Twelve thousand housing units were expected to be allocated to needy citizens yearly.
1952: On Shabbat, in Tel Aviv, taxicab drivers pull their vehicles off the road in protest over the government’s new restriction on use of gasoline and restrictions on driving of personal vehicles.
1954: A raid on Arab Legion camp at Azzun, 13 km east of Qalqilya by a seven man squad that included Meir Har-Zion led by Major Aharon Davidi came to a less than satisfactory end when it was discovered that Sergeant Yitzhak Jibli who had been wouned was taken prisoner by the Jordanians.
1956: A bill designed to abolish the death penalty that had been introduced by Sydney Silverman received overwhelming approval in the House of Commons. It was later voted down in the House of Lords.
1959(22nd of Sivan, 5719): Seventy-one year old Herman Leopoldi, the Austrian composer and entertainer who survived Buchenwald passed away today in Vienna after suffering a heart attack.
1967: Several thousand Jews returned to the Hebrew University amphitheater on Mount Scopus, the scene of the inauguration of the university in 1925, cut off from the rest of Jerusalem since 1948.
1967: Israel Jerusalem Jerusalem
1969:Seymour Pine led the raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. Inspector Pine, who was commander of the New York Police Department’s vice squad for Lower Manhattan when led eight officers into the Stonewall Inn, an illegal club frequented by cross-dressers. Pine later apologized for his role in the raid. The raid touched off the Stonewall Uprising, a major turning point for the GLBT to gain full civil rights.
1969: Birthdate of award winning Israeli actress of Ayelet Zurer
1973 Among those whose names appeared in the Lists of White House 'Enemies' and Memorandums Relating to Those Named published today were Alfred P. Slaner, Daniel Schoor, Marvin Kalb and Barbara Streisand.
1975: Rod Serling passed away. He gained fame as the creator and opening line presenter of Twilight Zone television series. Serling was born and raised as a Reform Jew. He became a Unitarian while in college in an attempt to mollify his wife's family who were upset at the prospect of having a Jewish son-in-law.
1976: The Jerusalem Postreported that an Air France jumbo jet was hijacked over Greece with some 216 passengers, including about 70 Israelis, aboard. This was the first instance of the hijacking of an Air France plane. Distraught relatives of Israeli passengers waited all night at Ben-Gurion Airport
1976: Air France Flight 139, which had been hijacked by terrorists, arrived at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The four hijackers were joined by several comrades who were supported by Idi Amin, the pro-Palestinian Uganda dictator.
1979(2nd of Tammuz, 5739): Stuart Schulberg the son of producer and studio executive B.P. Schulberg and younger brother of novelist/screenwriter passed away today.
1980: Molly Picon received a Creative Achievement Award from the Performing Arts Unit of B'nai B'rith.
1984(28th of Sivan, 5744):Yigael Yadin an Israeli archeologist, politician, and the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, passed away. There is no way to do justice to the life of this fascinating man who did it all from leading Israel in the fight for independence to taking part in some of the most important archaeological digs in history. If you did not know he had lived this life you would have thought it was a product of some famous fiction writer.
1986: After 524 performances and 23 previews Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues” directed by Gene Saks closed out its Broadway run at the Neil Simon Theatre.
1987: A children’s memorial designed by Moshe Safdie and financed by an American Jew named Abraham Spiegel who had lost his two year old son at Auschwitz, opened at Yad Vashem
1988:Iris Margaret Origo, an Anglo-Irish writer who helped to save Jewish children through the kindertransport including the painter Frank Helmut Auerbach passed away today.
1995: Joseph Stiglitz was appointed Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers which made a member of the Clinton Cabinet.
1998: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth by Norman G. Finkelstein and Ruth Bettina Birn.
2001: Ekaterina (Katya) Weintraub, 27, of Ganim in northern Samaria was killed and another woman injured late Thursday afternoon by shots fired at the two-car convoy on the Jenin bypass road.
2001 in New York City, New York, Matt Bloom defeated Kane to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship.
2001: American philosopher Mortimer Adler passed away. Adler was born into a non-observant Jewish home. He began his philosophic quest in his teens. Before his death, Adler converted to Roman Catholicism.
2003: At the Library of Congress opening of an exhibition entitled Herblock’s Gift: Selections from the Herb Block Foundation Collection
2004:Raleb Majadele entered the Knesset on today as a replacement for Avraham Burg, who had resigned.
2004:Mordechai Yosepov, 49, and Afik Zahavi, four, were killed when a Kassam rocket fired by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip struck near a nursery school in the northern Negev town of Sderot.
2005(24th of Sivan, 5654): On the day before his 73rd birthday, Philip Hobson, the British critic and poet who was the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants passed away today in London.
2007: Screening of “FromPhiladelphia Boston Center Boston , MA
2007: Israel’s President Moshe Katsav signed a plea agreement under which the rape charges against him will be dropped and he will serve no active jail time.
2007: David Miliband begins serving as Secretary of State of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
2007: Tel Aviv held its three White Night festival. Following the tradition of the French, the cultural institutions of Israel’s largest metropolis keep their doors open until “the wee hours of the night.”
2007(12th of Tammuz, 5767):Rabbi Abraham J. Klausner, a Jewish chaplain in the United States Army who arrived at the Dachau concentration camp a few days after its liberation in 1945 and a strong voice for thousands of Holocaust survivors who remained in displaced persons camps for years after the war, passed away at his home in New Mexico at the age of 92. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
2008: Birkat Hachodesh - On Shabbat, Jews around the world prepare for the saddest month of the year, by announcing that month of Av will arrive on the seventh day of the upcoming week.
2009: "The Java Jews, an energetic and talented group from Des Moines, IA, with guest artist John Manning, University of Iowa Professor of Tuba perform at the Hillel House at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “American Radical:The Life and Times of I.F. Stone” by D.D. Guttenplan
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish reader including “Arthur Miller:1915-1962” by Christopher Bigsby and the recently released paperback edition of “For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago” by Simon Baatz
2009: Today, Gideon Shalit’s family said that they would no longer respond to ongoing rumors about their son's release. They claimed the rumors were released by Hamas in order to put pressure on the Israeli government to free terrorists. Defense Minister Barak, too, claimed the rumors are harmful to the efforts to achieve the soldier's release.
2009: All flights from Israel to Sochi, Rostov and Krasnodar have been discontinued until further notice.
2009: Tony Kushner’s latest play, “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures,” is scheduled to have its final performance.
2010:Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings began today.
2010:The committee appointed to investigate the flotilla crisis of a month ago held its first meeting today
2011:Philip Roth, the author of Portnoy's Complaint, is scheduled to be officially awarded the biennial Man Booker International Prize in London today.
2011: An opening reception is scheduled to be held this evening marking the opening of an exhibition that will include “Under Destruction” a work created by Ariel Schlesinger, a sabara who studied at Bezalel, Academy for Art and Design, Jerusalem
2011:Justice Ministry officials came out today in defense of Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan, who been under public attack in the wake of Rabbi Dov Lior's arrest a day earlier for allegedly encouraging incitement.
2011: Dr. Oliver Wolf Sacks discussed his work and his personal health issues during the BBC documentary “Imagine.”
2011: According to Haaretz, today in his “remarks to the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians, Ronald Lauder scolded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a number of missteps, including lacking a diplomatic plan heading into the September UN vote on Palestinian statehood and setting preconditions for negotiations as part of the peace process in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict,
2011:An estimated hundred thousand people took part in the funeral procession of Rabbi Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz in Bnei Brack today.
2012: The remaining 18 families living at Givat Ulpana are scheduled to leave their homes today and move to temporary housing at a nearby military base. (As reported by Josh Davidovich)
2012: In Portland, Oregon, The American Conference of Cantors-Guild of Temple Musicians' Convention is scheduled to come to a close.
2012: Chris Murphy, Chief of Staff to D.C. Mayor Gray, is scheduled to speak at noontime meeting sponsored by The D.C. Commission of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC)
2012: Israeli cellist Yoed Nir is scheduled to perform at the Peace & Love Festival in Borlange, Sweden.
2012:The IDF is bolstering defenses along the Syrian border and beefing up its forces due to concern that terrorist groups are planning a cross-border attack in the Golan Heights, commander of Division 36 Brig.-Gen. Tamir Hyman said today.
2012:Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned members of the Keshev Committee today that unless mandatory national service for the Arab sector is instituted, he may decide not to bring the committee's recommendations to the Knesset for a vote. The Keshev Committee, tasked with drafting proposals to replace the Tal Law, announced earlier today that the panel had decided instead to institute a recruitment target for national service in the Arab community of at least 6,000 recruits from the sector by 2016.
2012:Dozens of artists, musicians and performers have joined a Facebook campaign calling for a boycott of the Tel Aviv municipality's annual White Night event today, to protest police violence against social justice demonstrators last week.
2013: “Fill the Void,” a film that “tells the story of an Orthodox Hassidic Family from Tel Aviv is scheduled to open in several theatres including the Chez Artiste 3 in Denver, the Camelot in Palm Springs, the Criterion in New Haven and the River Oaks Theatre 3 in Houston.
2013: Marlene Trestman is scheduled to deliver the Donald S. Shire lecture at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. “The speech is timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Department of Labor in addition to recognizing the 75th and 50th anniversaries of the Fair Labor and Equal Pay Acts, respectively, for which Bessie Margolin worked tirelessly. (As reported by Alan Samson, CCJN)
2013: “The Attack,” a film about an Israeli-Arab doctor whose wife is killed in a terrorist attacks is scheduled to be released at theatres throughout the United States.
2013: “The Sexuality Spectrum sponsored by HUC-JIR is scheduled to come to an end.
2013: At the Weiner Library, Filmmaker Alan Reich is scheduled to discuss his latest project, “The Last Boat,” which tells the story of the incredible rescue of seventy Jewish children and their two chaperones out of Poland on a British boat arriving in England three days before the start of World War Two.
2013: The IDF deployed an Iron Dome anti-rocket battery in the Haifa area early this morning, amid heightened tensions in the North stemming from the ongoing Syrian civil war
2013:The German Federal Administrative Court vetoed a bid to release classified foreign intelligence documents that would reveal western spies knew where Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann escaped to after World War II, British media reported today.
2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior adviser Ron Dermer will be appointed Israeli ambassador to the United States, Army Radio reported today
2014: Jonathan Lethem is scheduled to read from his latest book, Dissident Gardens, this evening at Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City.
2014: “The Wonders,” a film about “a bartender who doubles as a graffiti artist in Jerusalem is scheduled to be shown at the Portland Jewish Film Festival.
2014: Commemorating a Trio of Anniversaries of events that still resonate with us today:
2014: Commemorating a Trio of Anniversaries of events that still resonate with us today:
625th anniversary of Battle of Kosovo
100thanniversary of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife
95th anniversary of the signing of the Versailles Treaty