OCTOBER 30
1207BCE: According to “three
scientists from Beersheba’s Ben Gurion University” who used NASA date today is
the date of the eclipse which is described in the Book of Joshua as God making
the sun stand still so that the Israelites could defeat the Amorites.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/eclipse-stopped-the-sun-for-biblical-joshua-israeli-scientists-say/
1270: Eighth Crusade comes to an
ignominious end. The crusade started
under the banner of France’s anti-Semitic King Louis IX. But he died of stomach
ailment in August. Effective leadership
devolved to Charles, King of Naples. The
crusaders got no further than Tunis. The
crusaders agreed to lift their siege of the Arab capital in exchange for
commercial advantages. The crusaders
went home having failed to accomplish any of their own noble aims. Considering the miseries that the Crusaders
heaped on the Jews, they were just as glad to finally glad to see them come to
an end after almost two centuries.
1340: At the Battle of Río Salado
King Afonso IV of Portugal and King Alfonso XI of Castile defeated Muslim ruler
Abu al-Hasan 'Ali of Marinid dynasty and Nasrid ruler Yusuf I. A Marinid victory would not have been a good
thing for the Jews. In fact, Alfonso was
greeted by crowds of cheering Jews when he returned to his capital. The victory was doubly important to the Jews
of Spain and Portugal because the successors to both of these monarchs followed
policies that were favorable to the Jewish people in their realms.
1348:
After two days, the authorities of Amont, in France, had finished arresting all
of the local Jews and taking their possession.
The arrest of the Jews was tied to the belief that they were responsible
for the Black Plague which was working its way across France. The Jews of Amont were lucky to have been
just arrested and robbed since in most towns the Jews were expelled without
their possessions or murdered.
1471:
Consecration of Rodrigo de Broja who as Pope Alexander VI employed Bonet de
Lattes, a Jewish born rabbi from Provence ad “the inventor of an astronomical ring-dial by means of which
solar and stellar altitudes can be measured and the time determined with great
precision by night as well as by day” as his physician.
1485: King Henry VII who was
quite willing to continue the policy of keeping England free of Jews; a policy
that dated back to 1290 was crowned King of England today. When Henry VII was arranging for the marriage
of his son to Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella “he
promised never to allow Jews into his domain.
Isabella had made it quite clear, if he refused the oath, the marriage
was off.
1491:
Gershon Soncino printed the first copy of “Immanuel Romi, Mahberot” (The
Notebook of Imamanuel Romi) at Brescia, Italy.
(Heinrich Graetz described him as a “Jewish Dante)
1649:
In Pawtuxet, Colony of Rhode Island, “Stephen and Sarah Arnold” gave birth to
Israel Arnold, the husband of “Mary (Barker) Arnold” with whom he had fourteen
children while find time to serve as Deputy Governor of the colony.
1682: Pope Innocent XI issued an
edict by which all the money-lending activities carried out by the Roman Jews
were to cease. However ultimately convinced that such a measure would cause
much misery in destroying livelihoods, the enforcement of the edict was twice
delayed.
1708: Abraham ben Saul Broda
entered into a contract with Jewish community of Metz to serve as its rabbi.
1723: In New York City, Abraham
Haim de Lucena and his wife gave birth to Moses Lucena.
1735: Birthdate of John Adams, Founding Father and
Second President of the United States.The
correspondence of John Adams reflects the complexity with which Jews and
Judaism were viewed in early national America.
Most "enlightened" American Christians such as Adams saw Jews
as an ancient people who, by enunciating monotheism, laid the groundwork for
Christianity. He also saw them as individuals who deserved rights and
protection under the law. Like many of his peers, Adams venerated ancient Jews
and thought contemporary Jews worthy of respect, but found Judaism, the
religion of the Jewish people, an anachronism and the Jewish people candidates
for conversion to Christianity. In an 1808 letter criticizing the depiction of
Jews by the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, Adams expressed his
respect for ancient Jewry. Adams wrote of Voltaire, "How is it possible
[that he] should represent the Hebrews in such a contemptible light? They are
the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their
Empire were but a Bauble in comparison of the Jews. They have given religion to
three quarters of the Globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more,
and more happily, than any other Nation ancient or modern." Aware of Adams' benign view of Jews, American
Jewish newspaper editor, politician, diplomat and playwright Mordecai Manuel
Noah (1785-1851) maintained a correspondence with the former president. In
1818, Noah delivered a speech consecrating the new building erected by his own
Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York.
Noah's "Discourse," a copy of which resides in the archives of the
American Jewish Historical Society, focused on the universal history of Jewish
persecution at the hands of non-democratic governments and their peoples. An
early Zionist, Noah believed that only when the Jewish people were
reestablished in their own home, with self-governance, could they live free of
oppression. Noah sent a copy of his "Discourse" to Adams. Adams
responded encouragingly to Noah, although the former president was evasive regarding
Jewish self-governance. Adams expressed to Noah his personal wish that
"your Nation may be admitted to all Privileges of Citizens in every
Country of the World." Adams continued, This Country has done much. I wish
it may do more, and annul every narrow idea in Religion, Government and
Commerce. … It has please the Providence of the 'first Cause,' the Universal
Cause [phrases by which Adams' defined G-d], that Abraham should give Religion,
not only to the Hebrews but to Christians and Mahomitans, the greatest Part of
the Modern civilized World." For Adams, Jews had earned their rights by
virtue of their historic contributions and by virtue of their citizenship, but
he did not respond to the idea of a Jewish homeland. Remarkably, a year later,
Adams made the first pro-Zionist declaration by an American head of state,
active or retired. In 1819, Noah sent Adams a copy of his recently published
travel book, Travels in England, France Spain and the Barbary States. In
his letter acknowledging the gift, Adams praised Noah's tome as "a
magazine of ancient and modern learning of judicious observations &
ingenious reflections." Adams expressed regret that Noah had not extended
his travels to "Syria, Judea and Jerusalem" as Adams would have
attended "more to [his] remarks than to those of any traveller I have yet
read." Adams continued, "Farther I could find it in my heart to wish
that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites . . . &
marching with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country &
restoring your nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews were
again in Judea an independent nation." What was the source of Adams's
Zionist sympathies? What moved him to make his extraordinary statement? A clue
can be found in the next sentence of his letter: I believe [that] . . . once
restored to an independent government & no longer persecuted they [the
Jews] would soon wear away some of the asperities and peculiarities of their
character & possibly in time become liberal Unitarian Christians for your Jeh-vah
is our Jeh-vah & your G-d of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is our G-d. Alexis de Tocqueville observed, "The
Americans combine notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their
minds, that it is impossible to conceive the one without the other." Adams
was clearly confident that freedom would lead the Jewish people to
enlightenment and that enlightenment would lead them to Christianity. For
Adams, Jewish self-governance in the Holy Land was a step toward their
elevation. Today, our understanding of democracy includes respect for diversity
and support for the retention of one's religious faith.
1748: Final letter from Abigail Franks to her son
eldest son Naphtali who was living in England.
1773: In Norfolk, Va, John and Inez Lucy Carter
Mills gave birth to Nancy Simons Mills Mercer who in 1827 married Revered Jesse Mercer, the founder of Mercer
College after the death of her first husband Captain Abraham Simons, “a wealthy
Jew” whom she had married in 1798.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43058419
1785: Birthdate of Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau
who met Rabbi Moses Sachs in Tunis in 1835 and was so impressed with him and
his plan to settle Jews in Palestine that he arranged for him to meet with
Baron Salomon Mayer von Rothschild of Vienna.
1785(26th of Cheshvan, 5546): Elkaley
Cohen, the wife of Chazan Gershom Mendez Seixas of New York’s Shearith Israel
Synagogue whom she had married in 1775 and with whom she had four children –
Isaac, Sharah, Rebecca and Benjamin – passed away today in New York after which
she was buried in the Third Cemetery of Congregation Shearith Israel.
1786: A deadly fire in the Jewish Ghetto of Verona occurred causing a
great loss of life.
1787: James
Madison, the author of the First Amendment which guaranteed separation of
church and who as president appointed a Jew to a diplomatic post, completed his
second term of service as a delegate
from Virginia to the Congress of Confederation which was the national
government of the United States.
1792: Birthdate of Frank am Main native “Maurice Moise Joseph Lasse
Oppenheim, the husband of Frderique Oppenhime and the father of Leonard
Oppenheim.
1798: In Berlin, “Adolf Martin Schlesinger, founder of the music journal Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung” and
his wife gave birth to Moritz Adolf Schlesinger the German music editor who was
known by the French as Maurice Schlesinger the creator of the journal Gazette musical.
1815(26th of Tishrei, 5576): Ninety-one year old Rachel Pinto whose
loyalty fluctuated during the American Revolution passed away today in New York
City.
1821: Birthdate of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. The author of such
major works as The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment
was an anti-Semite. As he grew older he
became convinced that Jews were the cause of all social ills and he was phobic
on the idea of letting Jews live outside of the Pale of Settlement.
1828: Ellen Lewis and Henry Davis gave birth to Augustus Israel Davis,
the husband of Ann Davis and the father of Louis and Theodaora Davis.
1835: In Philadelphia,Eleazer (Eugene)
Moss and Mary (Levy) Moss the daughter of Solomon and Rebecca Eve Levy gave
birth to John Moss II.
1839: Rosa and Benjamin Vallentine gave birthed to Adella Vallentine.
1840: In Philadelphia, PA, Mary Levy and “Eleazer (Eugene) Moss” gave
birth to John Moss the husband of Fleurette Lieber.
1850: Samuel Vandersluis married Hannah Kasner today at the Great
Synagogue.
1856: William Cullen Bryant delivered a speech tonight in favor of the
abolition of slavery. He recounted the story of the Israelite encounter with
the Amalekites when Moses arms grew weary and Aaron and Hur contrived to keep
Moses hands raised until victory was achieved.
He urged the attendees to lend their support to the leaders of the fight
against slavery so that when their arms grew weary like Moses, the people would
lend their hands in support of abolition.
1856: During an anti-Slavery rally held at the Academy of
Music in New York the speakers, who were Christian ministers, took issue with
the idea that the Bible supported the institution of slavery as practiced in
the United States. They contended that "there was no such idea of property
in a servant existing among the ancient Jews." [For once somebody had
actually read and understood the text of "The Old Testament."]
1860:The biennial banquet and ball in aid of the Jew’s
Hospital, well known charitable Institution took place at the City Assembly
Rooms this evening. As on former occasions of the same kind, the attendance was
large, and the contributions in aid of the Institution were most liberal. Not
less than 600 ladies and gentlemen of the Jewish faith sat down to the banquet,
and subsequently joined in the dance. Mr. Benjamin Nathan the President of the
Hospital, presided at the banquet, and on his right and left, at the head of
the tables, sat Rabbi Lyons of the Nineteenth-street Synagogue , Rabbi Isaacs
of the Wooster-street Synagogue, Rabbi Cramer, of the Greene-street Synagogue,
and other prominent clergymen and laymen of the Jewish faith. The "grace
before meal" was said in Hebrew by Rabbi Lyons, and the "grace
after" was sung in the same language by Rev. Mr. Cramer. Following the
latter, the President of the Institution addressed the audience, giving a brief
sketch of the "Jews' Hospital in New-York," and welcoming his hearers
to the entertainments of the evening. He said that the Jews' Hospital, since
its foundation, in 1855, had accommodated 1,225 inmates, of whom 1,127 had been
treated gratuitously. The benefits of the Institution were not confined to any
creed or sect, but the sick and unfortunate of all creeds and nations had
partaken of its blessings. At the same time it had neither asked nor received
any aid from the State or Municipal Governments, but had depended entirely upon
the voluntary contributions of its friends for support. In the intervals
between the toasts, the Secretary read off a list of the donations received
from those present, as well as by letter from absent donors. Among the latter
was a letter from Gov. Morgan, speaking in the highest terms of the Jews'
Hospital, and inclosing a check for $100. The total amount of donations
announced last evening reached the liberal sum of $14,000. At the conclusion of
the toasts the party retired to the ball-room adjoining, when the, dancing
commenced, and was continued till a late hour of the night.
1863(17th of Cheshvan, 5624): Philadelphian
Nathan Rosenfelt, a Sergeant serving with Company D of the 26th
Regiment who had been serving with the Union Army since 1861 succumbed to
wounds he had suffered on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
1864:Helena, Montana's capital, founded. Jews were involved with the Helena from its
earliest days. According to local legend Russian born Julius Basinsky arrived
in Helena in 1866 with one thousand cigars and not enough pocket change to buy
lunch in one of the town’s saloons. Louis Kaufman came to Helena and worked in
mining until 1872. He and Louis Stadler
formed Stadler and Kaufman Meat Company in 1872. Charles M. Russell, one of America’s premier
Western artists managed their ranch for several years. From the 1870’s on banks
owned completely or partially be Jews were launched in towns and cities all
over the Far West including Lewish Herschfield’s Merchants National Banking
Company in Helena.
1866: The cornerstone for a new Temple Emanu-El located on 5th
Avenue and 43 Street took place today during which Rabbi Samuel Adler and Rabbi
James K. Gutheim of New Orleans delivered “orations.”
1867: In Louisville, KY, Morris and Lina Kahn Baldauf gave birth to
Julius L. Baldauf, the husband of Gertrude Flexner Baldauf and the brother of
Minnie, Cora and Leon Kahn Baldauf.
1869: In Karlin, “Leopold and Sofie Sara Pick gave birth to Amalie Pick”
who became Amalie Kun when she married Franz Kuhn with whom she had one son
- “Leopold ‘Poldi’ Kun.”
1869: In Vienna, Leopold Bloch, “the son of Samuel and Theresia Bloch”
and his wife Rosa Bloch gave birth to Sophie Bloch, who became Sophie Eber
after she married Ernst Eber Bloch.
1872: Morris Joseph married Frances Amelia Henry, “the third daughter of
Michael Henry of Effingham House.”
1872: A two day meeting at Brussels that had been called so that leading
European Jews could discuss measures that could be taken to relieve the
suffering of their co-religionist in Romania was scheduled to come to an end.
1873: “In the hacienda of El Rosario, in Parras de la Fuente, Coahuila,
Francisco Ignacio Madero Hernández and Mercedes González Treviño gave birth to
Mexican Revolutionary and President who employed Felix A. Sommerfield a
colorful German Jew Felix A. Sommerfield as his Secret Service chief which lead
to his further involvement in Mexican civil wars including working for Pancho
Villa.
1874: In London, Julia Matilda Cohen, “the daughter of Jacob and Matilda
Waley” and her husband, Nathaniel Louis Cohen, gave birth to Jacob Waley-Cohen
1875(1st of Cheshvan, 5636): Rosh Chosesh Cheshvan and
Parashat Noach
1875: As the debate over the use of public tax dollars to support
religious education it was reported that in New York the Catholic Schools
receive almost $1,400,000 or 91% of the amount spent while the Jewish schools
receive less than $26,000.
1877: Birthdate of Salman Schocken, the German born publisher who became
an ardent Zionist. Among other things, he founded Schocken Publishing House and
published Haaretz. His life is too rich
and textured for this blog and you are urged to study from the many resources
that tell his fascinating story.
1878: Rebecca (nee Abrahams) Norva, the son of George Norva with whom he
had four children, was buried to at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1879: In New York, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association is scheduled to
present its first “down-town entertainment of the season” at the Pythagoras
Hall.
1880: Billee Taylor or The Reward of Virtue "a nautical comedy
opera" by Edward Solomon, the Anglo-Jewish composer and conductor was
first produced today at the Imperial Theatre in London
1880: Birthdate of playwright and lyricist Aaron Hoffman whose works
included “Welcome Stranger” a play set in “a narrow-minded New England town”
where an “energetic kind-hearted Jew named Isidor Solomon confront the region’s
“prejudice against the Jew” and whose basic theme “centers on the prejudice
shown in some quarters against the Jew – because of fear or dislike of the
Jew’s strong rivalry in business” or “because of his religion.
http://archives.nypl.org/the/18893
1881: Twenty-four-year-old “author and educator” Moness Monossowitsch, the Shati, Russia,
born son Rachel Gordon and Hirsch Monossowitsch and founder of private school in Libau that taught both Hebrews and
“general subjects who became a member of HIAS, the Association of Hebrew
Writers of America and Histadruth Ivrith of America married Vutel Meshulamy
today.
1881: Dr. Kaufmann Kohler gave his first Sunday lecture this morning at
Temple Beth-El in New York. This is a
reform championed by the Rabbi which will replace traditional Saturday morning
services with an observance on Sunday since the realities of the American
business world prevents people from attending services on the traditional day.
1882: “Church Contributions” published today provided a breakdown of
charitable efforts by denomination including the fact that there are 2,937 Jews
in New York who have contributed $100,000 for “benevolent purposes” that there
are 12,516 Jews throughout the United States who contributed $300,000 “for
benevolent purposes.”
1883: “Mr. Henry Irving In ‘The Bells’” published today gives a
full-scale review of English actor Henry Irving’s performance in the American
premiere of “The Bells.” “The Bells” by
Anglo-Jewish playwright Leopold Davis Lewis is based on “The Polish Jew” by the
French team of Erckmann and Chatrian.
1883: “Fulfilling Prophecy” published today questions the wisdom of
cutting “a canal twenty-miles long from the Mediterranean to the head waters
and another canal from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba” which will flood the
Valley of Jordan converting it into a lake in some places thirty miles” that
will enable ships to pass at all times from the Mediterranean to the Gulf” but
would bury Capernaum, Tiberias and Bethesda.
1884(11th of Cheshvan, 5645): Isaac Honig, a native of Mayence
who came to the United States in 1859 where he became a leading real estate
dealer as well as a patron of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society
and Mount Sinai Hospital passed away today.
1884: In a letter written today, J.S. Moore was critical of the rabbi who
was part of group of clergymen that met with Republican Presidential candidate
James Blaine because they had only come “to speak evil about” his opponent
Grover Cleveland saying that he at least should have known that the Biblical
punishment for speaking evil is “leprosy.”
1885: The newly elected officers of the United Hebrew Charities are:
Henry Rice, President; Henry S. Allen and Morris Tuska, Vice Presidents; J.H.
Hoffman, Treasurer; and I.S. Isaacs, Secretary.
1887: Mrs. Philip J. Joachimsen, President of the Hebrew Sheltering
Guardian Society reported that currently the society is providing “a home” to
543 children, 384 of whom range in age from 2 to 5 years. The facility which is on Washington Heights
is the only facility in the city that provides shelter for “orphans,
half-orphans or deserted children.”
1887: “The Oldest Jewish Gravestone” published today relied on
information first published in the Times of London to the latest discovery
about the history of the Jews of Europe.
Up until now, a headstone on a grave in a cemetery at Worms dated 4660
(or 900 CE) has been thought to be the oldest of its kind. But now a headstone has been found at
“Zahlbach, a small village close to Mayence” that bears the date 4560 (806 BC). After having been verified by Rabbi Lehman of
Mayence, the stone was placed in the town’s museum.
1888: It was reported today that in the last year the United Hebrew
Charities of New York assisted 16,953 in the past year. The society provided help to 29,602
immigrants who arrived at Castle Garden.
Approximately 2,600 people were “provided with employment” and 600 poor
Jews were provided with free burial. The
society collected over $73,000.00 and spent all but $4,000 in providing
assistance.
1889: “He Talks To Hebrews” published today described a well-received
address Colonel Elliot F. Shepard a prominent lawyer and civic leader gave at
Avhavth Chesed in New York City.
1889: Professor Morris Jastrow of the University of Pennsylvania
presented a paper on “The Text Books of the Assyrians and Babylonians” at
today’s meeting of the American Oriental Society.
1889: David Harfeld, a Richmond pawnbroker and the brother of Rabbi
Eugene Harfeld went on trial for bigamy today in New York City
1889: Birthdate of Blarus native Simon Halkin, the Israeli “poet,
novelist and teacher” who translated the works of Shelley, Shakespeare and Walt
Whitman into Hebrew. (One of three
different birthdates given for him)
https://web.archive.org/web/20080309153253/http://www.ithl.org.il/author_info.asp?id=107
https://www.ithl.org.il/author_print?c0=13307
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/halkin-simon
1889: “His Race Proud of Him” published today reported that Jesse
Seligman presided over the dinner held in honor of Sir Julian Goldmid, Seligman
praised the visiting Englishman as “one of the champions of Hebrew emancipation
throughout the world” who “had made this voice heard in the halls of Parliament
in behalf of civil and religious liberty and the removal of political
disabilities from Jewish citizens of all nations.”
1890: According to reports in the London Figaro and the New
York Times, the key to Baron Hirsch’s close relationship with the Prince of
Wales is a combination of his great wealth and, more importantly, his good
manners. The Baron is considered
remarkable for his philanthropy and his love of England.
1891: Birthdate of Newark, NJ native and NYU trained attorney Lionel P. Kristeller,
the president of the New Jersey Bar Association and WW I veteran who was the
husband of Helen Salmon Kristeller,
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/06/28/issue.html
1891: As Russia reels from a series of social and economic problems that
have been exacerbated by a famine it was reported today that “the suffering
Russian peasantry has…avenged their sufferings upon the Jews who are already
under an official as well as popular ban and this direction of their energies
is entirely pleasing to the Russian Government.”
1892: Twenty women and sixty-three men, all of whom are Polish and
Russian Jews were arrested today at the cloakmaking fir of S.M. Levi & Co
on charges that they had violated the laws banning working on Sunday.
1892: V. Henry Rothschild, Lyman G. Bloomingadle, Isaac Eppinger, Sigmund
Neustadt, Isidor Straus, Louis Gans, Samuel H. Eckman and Henry S. Hermnaa were
elected directors of the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids when the patrons
and managers held their annual meeting today.
1892: “Felix Adler’s New Book” published today provides a detailed review
The Moral Instruction of Children by Felix Adler.
1893: “Koh-i-Noor” a one act operetta authored by Oscar Hammerstein
opened tonight at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall.
1893: Birthdate of Navasota, TX and John Marshal Law School trained
attorney who served in WW I and as assistant attorney in Chicago, IL.
1894(30th of Tishrei, 5655): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1894: The Board of Estimate and Apportionment is scheduled to meet today
to consider requests for 1895 including $80,000 by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum,
$85,000 for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York Orphan Asylum
and $5,000 for the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children
1894:
Superintendent Stump of the Bureau of Immigration has received a letter from
Baron Hirsh, stating that the Jewish Colonization Society, of which Baron
Hirsch is the head, is engaged in diverting Jewish immigration from the United
States to Argentina; a county that is more open to accepting the Jewish
immigrants.
1895:
President Henry Rice and General Manager Nathaniel S. Rouseau presented the
annual reports at the annual meeting of the United Hebrew Charities which was
held at Temple Emanu-El today.
1896(23rd of Cheshvan, 5657): Samuel Corn, a
native of Prussia who came to the United States in 1825 at the age of 22 where
he became a successful businessman in the cap and furrier business as well as a
patron of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society and the Montefiore Home passed away
today.
1897: In the United Kingdom, Morris Joseph and
the former Frances Ameila Henry celebrated their silver anniversary.
1897(4th of Cheshvan, 5658):
Parashat Noach
1897:
Dr. Adler, the Chief Rabbi delivered the sermon at the Hampstead
Synagogue where he also consecrated “the new class rooms which have been
erected” next to the synagogue.
1898: Three days after he had passed away,
Harris Isaacs was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.”
1898: In Hellenthal, Germany, Bernhard
Rothschild, the German born son of Sibilla Rothschild and his wife Henrietta
Rothschild gave birth to Bronette Clementine Rothschild, the wife of Karl Paul
Heyne and the mother of Inge Heyne.
1898: Birthdate of Lothar Kreyssig the German
judge who defied the Nazis by trying to stop their euthanasia program and who
hid two Jews on his farm.
1898: In New Haven, CT, “Dr. S.P. and Pauline
(Berman) Burstein gave birth to Columbia grad and JTS ordained Rabbi Elliot
Burstein, the husband of Charlotte Greenfield, who served Congregation Beth
Israel for 42 years before becoming rabbi emeritus the merged Congregation Beth
Israel-Judea in 1969.
1899:
Birthdate of Dovsk native Simon Halkin, poet, novelist and teacher who split
his time between the United States and Israel before finally setting in the
Jewish state in 1949 where he “Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature and became
head of the department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.”
1899: In Saratov, Russia, Yakov Arkad'evich
Khazin and Vera Yakovlevna Khazina gave birth to Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam
the author and educator who was the wife of poet Osip Mandelstam.
1899:
Major Karri Davies was among the Jewish soldiers who fought during the Siege of
Ladysmith which began today during the Second Boer War.
1899:
In Charleston, SC, Rabbi B.A. Elzas officiated at the wedding of Joe H. Epstein
and Bertha N. Mothner.
1899:
In Hong Kong, Lizzie and Moritz Sternberg gave birth who was buried in the
Happy Valley Jewish Cemetery when he passed away in 1901.
1900:
In Kishinev, Chazkel and Dvoira Gurfinkel gave birth to Goldie Steinberg (née
Gurfinkel) a survivor of the Kishinev Pogrom and the widow of Philip Steinberg,
who lived to the age of 114 years, 290 days.”
1901: Dr. Emil von Behring was
selected to become the very first recipient of the new Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine which was first wonby a Jew in 1908 when Paul Ehrlich
won the award.
1902: Today in “commenting on the
anti-Semitic electoral victories in Austria, the Vienna correspondent of the
Times of London said “that no different result was expected” given the long
commercial crisis and “the Jew-baiting by the party in power.”
1903: During the
debate over accepting Uganda as a Jewish homeland, even on a temporary basis,
the newspaperDie
Welt publishes Menachem
Ussishkin's letter and Herzl's answer. Menachem Ussishkin opposed an expedition
to Uganda.
1904: “Congregation
Beth Elohim (House of God), comprising more than one hundred persons” was
“formed” today with “Barnet A. Elzas, the Rabbi of K.K. Beth Elohim in
Charleston” serving a similar for this newest South Carolina congregation.
1904: Cypriotes in Athens, Greece adopt a resolution, which they plan to
send to England to protest against the increasing immigration of Jews to
Cyprus.1905:
The massacre and pillage of the Jews of Odessa which would leave 8,000 dead and
12,000 dead began today.
1905(1st of
Cheshvan, 5666): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1905: A production of
“In New York Town,” a musical comedy based on the work of Loney Haskell” and
“with music by Albert Von Tilzer” opened today at the Fourteenth Street
Theatre.
1905:
After a nation-wide strike, Russia’s Czar Nicholas II issued a manifesto granting a constitution and a Duma
(parliament) in which the Constitutional Democrats (Cadets) and Social
Democrats would participate. These revolutionaries many of whom were Jews, were
known as the "Octoberists." The reforms did not work. Conditions worsened, in part because the Czar
was a weak ruler and not committed to reform.
Seventeen years later, Russia would explode in a revolution that would
bring the Communists to power.
1906: Birthdate of
Boston native and Tufts and Harvard trained organic chemist, “the president of
Merck Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories who was the husband of Elizabeth M.
Veveer and Peter Verveer Tishler.
1906: “The Future
of Russia Now Appears Brighter”
published today reported that one of the reasons for improved conditions in the
Czar’s Empire is that “reactionaries appear to have realized that the slaughter
of Jews will not restore the autocracy…”
https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.TAXSOL
1908: It was reported
today that Samuel Gompers, the Jewish President of the American Federation of
Labor “is doing all he can to hurry the contempt case again him so that so as
to have a decision before election day” so that he can use his influence to get
American workers to vote for William Jennings Bryan who is running against
Republican William Howard Taft.
1909(15th of
Cheshvan, 5670): Parashat Vayera
1909: In Knoxville, The
Tennessee Volunteers coached by George Levene lost to Georgia Tech.
1909: In Ann Arbor, MI,
The University of Michigan led by halfback Joseph “Joe” Magidsohn, “the first
Jewish athlete to win a varsity ‘M’” who was the “first athlete known to have
refused to compete on the Jewish High Holy Days” defeated Syracuse today.
1910: A review of three
plays by Arthur Schnitzler published today decries the fact that there is no
English theatre equivalent to the German theatre as represented by Schnitzler’s
work. That Schnitzler was actually an
Austrian born Jew did not keep the critic from identifying the noted playwright
as being “German.” Of course large
numbers of the Jews in Austria and Germany would see themselves in the same way
until they had their rude awakening in the 1930’s.
1910: During a pogrom
known as the Shiraz Blood Libel, 12 Jews were killed, 50 more were injured and
6,000 were robbed of all their possession by a mob seeking vengeance for the
baseless charge that the Jews had ritually murdered a Muslim girl.
1911: In Boston,
Senator Lodge told a “delegation of Jews headed by Max Mitchell “that in view
of Russia’s continued violation of the Treaty of 1832, decisive action must be
taken.”
1911: A “meeting of
ministers of all denominations under the auspices of the Federation of Churches
adopted resolutions protesting against the persecution of Jews and non-Orthodox
Christians by Russians and advocating the abrogation of the Treaty of 1832 with
Russia.”
1912: The first phase
of the State of New York v Charles Becker came to an end. Becker was a police officer who had been
charged with having a group of Jewish gangsters from the Lower East Side murder
Herman Rosenthal, a well-known New York gambler.
1912: When the
Bulgarians captured the Greek city of Didymoteikhon, the economic conditions of
the Jews deteriorated when a great deal of their property including Jewish
owned stores were damaged or destroy.
1913: Today, Serbia
which had a small Jewish community numbering approximately 13,000 souls and
Montenegro signed a treaty stabilizing the borders between the two today.
1914: “The Priest from
Kirchfeld,” a silent film with German subtitles directed by Jacob and Luise
Fleck was released today in Austria.
1914: The Ottoman
Empire enters the Great War as an ally of Germany and Austro-Hungary.
1914: During the
election campaign Nathan Strauss spoke at Niblo’s Gardens where he “struck down
the charges of religious prejudice” that had been unfairly lodged against
Governor Glynn.
1914: Dr. Bernard
Drachman, the rabbi of Congregation Oham Zedek spoke out against the injection
of religious prejudice in the current gubernatorial campaign.
1915: It was reported
today that of the one million refugees created by the Russian withdrawal on the
Eastern front who are facing mass starvation, 200,000 of them are Jews from
Lithuania.
1915: In New York
“Therese Friendly Wachenheimer and Samuel Wachenheimer, a jewelry manufacturer”
gave birth to Ferdinand Friendly
Wachenheimer who gained fame as Fred Friendly, the courageous, creative
producer who worked with Edward Morrow on See
It Now. There most famous broadcast
was the one exposing Senator McCarthy.
George Clooney played the role of Friendly in Good Night and Good Luck which captured the courage of Friendly and
Morrow as well as the hostile environment in which they lived.
1915: “A financial report issued” today by “the American Jewish Relief
Committee of which Felix Warburg is
treasurer listed donors and their donations including $15 from the Jewish
inmates at Green Meadow Prison, $100 from the Lawrence, Massachusetts Jewish
Relief Committee, $70 from the Hebrew Literary Social Club and $32 from Temple
Israel in Uniontown, PA.
1915: During the ill-fated Gallipoli Campaign where the Zion Mule Corps
served with great distinction a French submarine was captured providing the
Germans with the upcoming battle plans for the campaign.
1915: It was decided today to award the Nobel Prize in Medicine to Dr.
Robert Barany of Vienna University for his work in the physiology and pathology
of the ear.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9506E3D71E3EE033A25753C3A9669D946496D6CF
1916(3rd of Cheshvan, 5677): Eighty-four year old German
author and satirist Julius Stettenheim passed away today.
1916: Birthdate of New York native Herb Gershon who played for ten years
in the American Basketball League, one of the forerunners of what is now the
National Basketball Association where one of his teammates was New York
University grad Simon “Si” Bordman.
1917: Today, Rabbi David Goldberg was commissioned “as the first Jewish
Chaplain in the United States Navy – which must have been a lonely role to play
since he was the only rabbi to be commissioned by the Navy.
1918: Two days after she had passed away, 18 year old Mary Sack was
buried at the “Streatham Jewish Cemetery.”
1918: Sándor Wekerle, who had supported “a bill providing for equal
religious rights for Jews and Christians” completed his second term as Prime
Minister of Hungary.
1918: “Towards the end of World War I, the Sharifian Army led by Emir
Faisal, backed by the British Army, captured Damascus from the Ottomans as part
of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.”
1918: The Ottoman Empire signed an armistice signifying the end of
hostilities for World War I. The news
was greeted with great joy by the Jews of Palestine who believed that a benign
British military government would allow them to live under the terms of the
Balfour Declaration.
1919: Birthdate of Czarna (née Zielinski) Levy, the native of Poltusk who
was the wife of Reuven “Ruwek” (Lewin) Levy
1919: In Poland, “Yisrael Aryeh Werdyger, a well-to-do wholesaler of
men's shirts and dry goods and a prominent member of the Gerrer Hasidic
community of Kraków (Cracow)” and his wife gave birth to their youngest son,
David Werdyger, the Holocaust survivor and “Chasidic Chazan” “considered to be
one of the pioneers of 20th century Jewish music.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEFsaYzNAAM
http://www.collive.com/show_news.rtx?id=29842
1920(18th of
Cheshvan, 5681): Parashat Vayera
1920: Dr. Maurice H.
Harris is scheduled to deliver a sermon this morning on “Unsuspected Powers” at
Temple Israel of Harlem.
1920: At Petach Tikvah
in Brooklyn, Rabbi Aaron Eisenman is scheduled deliver a sermon “The Greatnes
of Human Sympathy.
1920: Dr. H.G. Enelow
is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Jew and the Bible” at Temple Emanu-El.
1920: Rabbi Max
Reichler is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Perpetual Youth” at Sinai Temple
of the Bronx.
1921: Bert Levy, Harry
Hirschfeld and Eddie Leonard are among those scheduled to appear at a benefit
performance tonight at the Times Square Theatre that is aid the Jewish Memorial
Hospital “which is raising funds for the construction of a non-sectarian hospital
at River Road and Dyckman Street.”
1922:
Benito Mussolini became Premier
of Italy. Mussolini was no anti-Semite.
Several Jews supported him and he had a Jewish mistress. Mussolini would turn on the Jews during the
1930’s. How much of this was a matter of
his own doing and how much was merely in response to curry favor with Hitler
has become a matter of debate. Any
diminution of suffering enjoyed by the Italian Jews was a credit to the people
of Italy and not to Mussolini.
1923: Four days after
he had passed away, Abraham Sackwild was buried today at the “East Ham Jewish
Cemetery.”
1923: In New York,
Yiddish theatre performer Berel and Helen Bernardi gave birth Herschel Bernardi
best known for his portrayal of “Lieutenant Jacoby” on the television detective
show “Peter Gunn.”
1924: “Clubs Are Trumps” a three-act play produced by Walter Hast
closed at the Bijou Theatre.
1925: Frank D.
Waterman, Republican nominee for Mayor of New York, today termed a
"frame-up" a letter published in The Morning Telegraph purporting to
show that Fountain Inn at Eustis, Fla., of which Mr. Waterman is President, has
a bias against Jews as guests.
1926(22nd of
Cheshvan, 5687): Rebbe Yissachar Dov, the third Rebbe of the Belz Chasidic
dynasty and the father of Aharon Roekach who would succeed him and become the
fourth Rebbe of the Belz Hasidic dynasty passed away today.
1927: “No Places to Go”
a “romantic film directed by Mervyn LeRoy” was released today in the United
States.
1927:
With more than 1,000 representatives of American Zionism to hear his challenge
at a conference in Cleveland, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, of New York, today called
upon Zionist leaders attending the national conference on Palestine to hold
Britain to its pledge to carry out the obligations of the Balfour Declaration
of 1917 to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
1928: Birthdate of Daniel Nathans, the son of
Russian Jewish immigrants. Despite the
fact that his father lost his business during the Great Depression, Nathans
took advantage of the American education system graduating from Washington
University in St. Louis. A
microbiologist, he spent at least some of his time at the Weizmann Institute of
Science in Rehovoth. Nathans won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1978. He won
the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1978.
He passed away in 1999.
1929: In the course of
today's session of the inquiry commission, on the Palestine riots, Sir Boyd
Merriman, counsel for the Zionists, objected because the records of casualties
which were put in evidence by the government showed only nominal rolls of Jewish,
not giving the nature or the occasion, whereas the Arab lists gave the fullest
information.”
1930: In Brooklyn,
Samuel Adelman, “an amateur photographer and craftsman who helped install the
floors when Harry S. Truman renovated the White House” after WW II and the form
Anna Pomerantz gave birth to Robert Melvin Adelman, the free-lance photographer
best known for his pictures of the fight to end segregation in the South. (As
reported by Sam Roberts)
1930: Austrian born
bacteriologist and pathologist Dr. Karl Landsteiner won the Nobel Prize for
Medicine today. Since 1922, Landsteiner
has been doing his research at New York City’s Rockefeller Institute ofr Medical
Research.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F0071EFF355C11738DDDA80B94D8415B808FF1D3
1931: “The Yellow
Ticket” the cinematic adaption of the play by the same name that tells a tale
about Russian Jews living under martial law that features Mischa Auer as
“Melchior” was released in the United States today.
1932: The Jack Benny
Program is broadcast for the first time on CBS Radio.
1932: In Pittsburgh, PA
“community service volunteer” Bessie Kann and “insurance salesman” Sidney
Heymman gave birth to Phillip Benjamin Heymann “who served four Democratic
presidents over six decades, mostly in the Justice Department, and who helped
prosecute major investigations, including Watergate and the Abscam bribery
sting operation…” (As reported by Katharine Q. Seeyle)
1932: A rabbi
officiated at the marriage of Czech born American talent agent Paul Kohner, the
founder of Paul Kohner Talent Agency and Mexican actress Lupita Tover at the
home of his parents “Julius "Kino" Kohner, who managed the local
movie theater and published a film industry newspaper, and his mother was
Helene Kohner (née Beamt).”
1933: Irma Lindheim, a wealthy American-born Jewish woman who
became President of Hadassah in 1926 joined Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek today.
1934: About
1,500 women attended that annual tea held by the New York Chapter of Hadassah
at the Waldorf Astoria during Governor Lehman, and Dr. Nathan Ratnoff, chairman
of the American Jewish Physicians Committee “praised Hadassah for it medical
and social work in Palestine and for its efforts to furth the spiritual
development of the of the Jewish community in the United States.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1934/10/31/94576192.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1934: The
bankers and brokers division of the Federation for the Support of Jewish
Philanthropic Societies gave a dinner at the Hotel Commodore tonight, as a
preliminary to the federation's campaign for funds, which will open Nov. 11
with the object of raising $2,071,000 to complete a budget of $3,655,000 for
ninety-one charitable agencies.”
1935: In
Hampstead, London, Helen (née Zlota) and George Joseph Winner gave birth to
director and producer Robert Michael Winner who was best known as “a restaurant
critic for The Sunday Times.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3663787.ece
1935: In New York, Cele
(née Mendelow) and Benjamin Caro gave birth to
author Robert Caro, best known for his multi-volume biography of Lyndon
Johnson http://www.robertcaro.com/
1935(3rd of
Cheshvan, 5696): Seventy-two year old Parisian born “orientalist and
indologist” Sylvain Lev, the author of Théâtre Indien passed away today.
1935: As reported in
today’s Baltimore Sun, “Long owned by the Dukes of Brunswick, the treasure was
purchased by a consortium of art dealers and sold to the government of
Prussia.” “The treasure” refers to 82
pieces of the Guelph treasure which four Jewish art dealers, Zachary Max
Hackenbroch, Julius Falk Goldschmidt, Isaac Rosenbaum and nephew Saemy
Rosenberg bought from the Duke of Brunswick for 7.5 million reichsmarks in1929”
and “the government of Prussia” refers to Hermann Goering.
1936: In London Hester
and Siegfried Sassoon gave birth to their only child George Sassoon whose
father described his expectations for his son to Max Beerbohm when he wrote
"Will he, I wonder, become Prime Minister, Poet Laureate, Archbishop of
Canterbury, or merely Editor of The Times Literary Supplement? Or Master of The
Quorn? Or merely Squire of Heytesbury?"
1936:Seventy-one-year-old Hattie Kahn Carb, the Washington, DC
born daughter of Solomon and Anna Madeline Graff Kahn and the widow of “real
estate pioneer” Isadore Carb and a member of Temple Beth-El who passed
away yesterda in Fort Worth was interred in the Hebrew Rest Cemetery today.
1936: “The Trouble with
Money” a Dutch comedy directed by Max Ophuls and produced by Will Tuschinksi
the son Dutch businessman Abraham Tuschinski
who built the famous movie theatre in Amsterdam that bears his name and
who was murdered at Auschwitz, was released today in the Netherlands.
1936: A law promulgated
today that empowers Josef Wagner “the new price commissar recently by ‘economic
dictator’ Hermann Goering to fix ‘just prices’ for ‘goods and services of all
kinds’” demonstrated that “Hitler’s second Four Year Plan” was not based on the
“capitalistic law and supply and demand” but on “a more socialistic managed
economy.” (The term Nazi meant National
Socialist, a fact conveniently forgotten who sought to paint Hitler as
anti-Communist defending the Free Enterprise System)
1936: While delivering
a speech on the economy tonight in Berlin, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels
declared “I am told that the Jews are becoming impertinent again. Let them beware. The more impertinent they become, the harder
will be our laws.”
1937(25th of
Cheshvan, 5698): Parashat Chayei Sara
1937: “West of
Shanghai,” an oriental based thriller produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jack L.
Warner was released today in the United States.
1937: In a sign of the
tightening bonds between the two major Axis Powers “Hitler bestowed the Order
of the German Eagle on Yasuhito, Prince Chichibu.”
1938: In “A Poignant
Record of Palestine,” published today T.R. Ybarra reviewed Going Home by
Ernst Harthern, a German newspaper correspondent who has been working in
Scandinavia which means he has been spared much direct contact with Hitler and
his Nazis. In fact Hitler is not
mentioned in this book which described Harthern’s first visit to Palestine in
which he has the sensation of a true homecoming. As he says at one point, “Almost anywhere on
earth there are more modern buses with better springs, but they are not Jewish
buses.”
1938: Birthdate of
Marina Ratner, the Moscow native who had to overcome the anti-Semitism of her
native land to become an award winning Israeli mathematician.
1938: In “Fear Colors
All Life In The Stricken Holy Land” Madeleine Miller describes the toll that
Arab violence which she describes as a “civil war” has taken on Jews and Arabs.
1938: Mitch Miller was
playing oboe with the CBS Symphony tonight during the broadcast of “The War of
the Worlds” based on a script co-authored by Howard Koch.
1938(5th of
Cheshvan, 5699): Ninety-year old Catherine “Kate” Fleishman Affelder the
Richmond born daughter of Henry Fleischman and Mina Frauenfield, and the wife
of Jacob Affelder.
1938: Washingtonian
Henry Brylawski, the future president of the Jewish Historical Society of
Greater Washington was among those who heard the broadcast “The War of the
Worlds” today.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0617_050617_warworlds.html
1938(5th of
Cheshvan, 5699): Fifty-two year old Baruch Nachman Charney (Baruch Charney
Vladeck), the American Jewish labor leader who was the manager of the Jewish
Daily Forward passed away today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladeck_Houses
1938: This afternoon
help arrived at Zbaszyn for the Polish Jews deported from Germany “from Warsaw,
supplied by Emanuel Ringelblum and Yitzhak Gitterman of the Joint Distribution
Committee, who were to form the General (Jewish) Aid Committee for Jewish Refugees
from Germany in Poland”
1939: Heinrich Himmler
head of the S.S. was instructed to have about a million people transported from
the Generalgouverenment. Half are to be Jews and half are to be Poles.
1939: SS
chief Heinrich Himmler designates the next three months as the period during
which all Jews must be cleared from the rural areas of western Poland. Hundreds
of communities will be affected, and thousands of Jews will be expelled with
nothing but what they can carry with them.
1940: In New York,
“Mollie and Walter Fox, a Jewish immigrant from Poland gave birth to composer
Charles Ira Fox whose score for “The Other Side of the Mountain” was nominated
for a Golden Globe.
1941(9th of Cheshvan, 5702): Four thousand Jews are murdered at
Nesvizh, Belorussia.
1941: A
12-year-old boy who escapes the Ninth Fort massacre of October 28 returns to
the Kovno Ghetto and reveals what happened.
1942: “The Men in Her
Life” directed and produced by Gregory Ratoff with a script by Frederick Kohner
and music by David Raskin was released in the United States today.
1942; The New York Times features a review of On Native Grounds: An Interpretation of
Modern American Prose Literatureby the Jewish author Alfred
Kazin.
1943(1st of
Cheshvan, 5704): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1943(1st of
Cheshvan, 5704): Max Reinhardt, the Austrian-born American who was a director
in both live theatre and film passed away today in New York at the age of
70. If you read the New York Times
obituary of this (for his time) titan of the theatre and cinema you will find
no mention of the fact that he was in New York because after the Anschlusshe
could not remain in Austria.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F00916FE3E5C167B93C3A9178AD95F478485F9
1943: Dr.
Zelik Levinbok, a Jewish doctor interned at the Koldichevo camp in Belorussia,
escapes with his wife and eight-year-old son.
1944: Rudolf Kastner
“travelled to St. Gallen, accompanied by Kurt Becher and Dr. Wilhem Billitz,
director of the Manfred Weiss Works.
1944: The Martha Graham
ballet ''Appalachian Spring,'' with music by Aaron Copland, premiered at the
Library of Congress, with Graham in a leading role. Aaron Copland is another
example of an American Jew who helped create a uniquely American culture.
1944: The final deportation train from
Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, to Auschwitz arrives at the camp. Of the 2038
prisoners on board, 1689 are immediately gassed.
1944:
Edith Frank was separated from her daughters today when she was selected for
the gas chambers; a fate she avoided when with a friend “she escaped to another
section of the camp.”
1944:
Alberto Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho, Portugal’s Chargé d'Affaires in
Budapest who is credited with saving the lives of thousands of Jews in
Nazi-occupied Hungary” was recalled to Lisbon today.
1944:
The Nazis deported Margot and Anne Frank from Auschwitz to Bergen Belsen, where
they both died five months later.
1944(13th
of Cheshvan, 5705): On her 75th birthday, Sophie Eber, the widow of
Ernst Erno Eber, and the “mother of Vilma Eber; Grete Eber; Erzsébet Anna Éber
and Olga Eber” passed away in her home town of Vienna.
1945: “The Day Before Spring” a Lerner and Loewe
musical “opened at the Shubert Theatre in Boston.”
1945: On the West Side
of Manhattan, “Ilse Anna Marie Winkler (née Hadra) and Harry Irving Winkler, a
lumber company president” who had “emigrated from Berlin, Germany, to the
United States in 1939, on the eve of World War II” gave birth to actor and director
Henry Franklin Winkler who foar a whole generation of television viewers will
always be The Fonz of the sitcom Happy
Days.
1946: In New Rochelle,
NY, Cecile Mitchell and Sydney Mitchell, “the chief executive officer and
partial owner of a furniture company and longtime president of New Rochelle’s
Beth El Synagogue gave birth tp NBC newscaster Andrea Mitchell. When asked if her
Judaism has ever been an issue,
positive or negative, in the course of her career she responded as follows. “It's certainly not been a negative issue. I
think when I was watching the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1979, after
the Camp David Summit in 1978; I certainly felt a tremendous emotional
connection to the issue and to the chances of a breakthrough between the
Israelis and the Arabs. Seeing Sadat and Begin was a very emotional experience.
Similarly, in 1993 I was one of many people on the South Lawn who were very
excited about prospects for peace, when we finally saw Rabin and Arafat shake
hands under the guidance of Bill Clinton. Perhaps it made me more eager to go
the West Bank and interview people and learn more about the Palestinian perspective.
So I think it's less a religious issue than a cultural connection to the Middle
East. One other experience that was important was the controversy over
President Reagan's visit to the cemetery in Bitburg where S.S. soldiers were
buried. I remember when Elie Weisel came to appeal to the president not to go.
That was a very powerful experience for me. I spent a lot of time covering that
issue, then we ended up going and visiting Bergen-Belsen with the president.
Certainly all of my childhood experiences and my parents' stories about the
Holocaust are part of my personal and intellectual history. Our family was not
Holocaust survivors, but it was a very important part of the way we were
raised. My mother and father talked about it all the time.”
1946: British
authorities held groups described as “Zionist extremists” responsible for the
death of two British soldiers and one British police sergeant who were killed
in separate land mine explosions today.
1947: “A Haganah
sourced said today that a number of” its leading members “had been attacked and
would by members of…Irgun Zvai Leumi in the Tel Aviv region last night.”
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F60A17FE3B5E17738DDDA80B94D8415B8788F1D3
1948(27th of
Tishrei, 5709): Parashat Bereshit
1948: During the War
For Independence, Egyptian planes drop supplies to their troops trapped in the
Faluja pocket.
1948: The village
Sa'sa' which was later re-built as a Kibbutz in the Upper Galilee “was
demolished by the Israeli Seventh Brigade and Oded Brigade today.”
1948: During Operation
Hiram, the Carmeli Brigade successfully fulfilled it mission of thwarting
counter attacks from Syria and Lebanon when it crossed into Lebanon and surged
all the way to the Litani River.
1949: Birthdate of
James Judd, native of Hertfordshire who is “Music Director of the Israel
Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion
1950: During the Korean
War, Chinese forces attacked Tibor Rubin’s unit (Company I, 8th Cavalry
Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division) at Unsan, North Korea during a massive
nighttime assault.” Tibor manned a 30 caliber machine gun at the south end of
the unit's line which would mark the start of one-man holding operation that
lasted for more than twenty four hours. (Based on Tibor’s Medal of Honor
Citation)
1951(30th of
Tishrei, 5712): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1951(30th of
Tishrei, 5712): Fifty-eight-year old New York born graduate of the New York College of Dentistry, Dr. Herman L.
Reiss. the World War I veer and “consulting oral surgeon at Sydenham Hospital passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/10/31/94093623.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1951: As of this date
one of the year’s bestselling books was The Story of The New York Times by Meyer Berger.
1952,The Jerusalem Post reported that the
Jewish National Fund had been granted a six million dollar loan by the Bank of
America to further settlement activities in draining the Hula region, and for
land reclamation and acquisition.
1952: The
Jerusalem Post reported that work began on the 165-meter westward extension
of Haifa Port's main quay to make it accessible to the largest ship in the
Mediterranean. Building a new state took
many forms including immigrant absorption, irrigating the Negev and expanding
port facilities for future export trade.
1953: “Take the High
Ground” a war movie set in Korea directed by Richard Brooks, produced by Dore
Schary with music by Dimitri Tiomkin was released in the United States today by
MGM.
1953(21st of
Cheshvan, 5714): Sixty-nine year old classical pianist Leonid Kreutzer passed
away today in Tokyo.
http://kreutzersalon.com/en/leonid.html
1955:Mohammed V, who according to Meredith
Hindley, found Vichy’s laws pertaining to Jews “appalling” and did what he
could given his limited power, to ameliorate their affect began his reign as
Sultan Morocco.
1956: During the Sinai Campaign Israel captured the Egyptian military post at
El-Thamad
1956: Soldiers in
Rafael Eitan’s regiment spot an Egyptian armored column and call for an
airstrike which destroys the vehicles, that unbeknownst to the Israelis, are
empty because the Egyptian soldiers were already in position in the Mitla Pass.
1956: During the Sinai
Campaign Israeli paratroops dug in to hold the Mitla Pass and await what would
be the successful linkup with IDF armor moving overland. Egyptian aircraft attacked the Israelis for
the first time, but the IDF was able to hold its own despite long odds.
1956: President
Eisenhower assured Ben-Gurion that the United States would not censure Israel
as long as the Sinai attack was not a grab for additional territory. Ben-Gurion responded that all Israel wanted
was the end of Egyptian support for the fedayeen (the name for Arab
terrorists), the end of Arab economic warfare against Israel and the opening of
the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping.
Ben-Gurion would stick to his goals.
Eisenhower would betray his promise.
1957: In San Francisco
Elaine Harlow and Robert Pollak gave birth to Craig Pollak’s younger brother
actor and comedian Kevin Elliot Pollak, who demonstrated the ability to provide
those supporting roles that are key to a film’s success as can be seen by his
portrayal of Sam Weinberg, the number 2 defense lawyer in “A Few Good Men” and
Jacob Goldman in the “Grumpy old men” movies.
1957: Birthdate of
Moscow native Shlomo Mintz whose family moved to Israel in 1959 where he became
a violin virtuoso and conductor.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/shlomo-mintz-mn0000745606/biography
1958: In San Francisco,
Elaine Harlow and Robert "Bobby" Pollak gave birth to their youngest
son Kevin Elliot Pollak, host of Celebrity
Poker.
1959: U.S. Premiere of
“The Wasp Woman” with music by Fred Katz.
1961: Birthdate of
Emmanuel Finkiel, the French-born producer/director of Voyages,
considered by some to be the best Jewish film of 2000)
1962: Yosefi Almogi
began serving as Minister of Housing and Construction
1963: Sixty-five year
old Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty whose courage in rescuing Italian Jews during WW
II has earned him the sobriquet “the Irish Schindler” passed away today.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-unbelievable-heroic-story-of-irelands-overlooked-oscar-schindler/
1963: “A New Kind of
Love” a romantic comedy directed, produced and written by Melville Shavelson,
co-starring Paul Newman and featuring George Tobias and Marvin Kaplan was
released today in the United States.
1963: The screening of
“The Victors” written, produced and directed by Carl Foreman at the San
Francisco Film Festival which is scheduled to begin today which maybe the first
time in the festivals history that a Hollywood film will open the festival and that
a filmmaker has broken the Hollywood boycott of the festival.
1965(4th of
Cheshvan, 5726): Parashat Noach
1965(4th of
Cheshvan, 5726): Seventy-seventy year old historian and Harvard professor Dr.
Arthur Meir Schlesinger, Sr., whose father had converted and the father of celebrity historian Arthur M.
Schlesinger, Jr. passed away today in Boston.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/26/specials/schlesinger-senior.html
1966(16th of
Cheshvan, 5727): Fifty-year old “Samuel Adelman, the Rabbi of Adath Jeshurun
Synagogue in Newport News, VA” who spent four weeks in Russia during the summer
of 1956 “as a member of the Rabbinical Council of America Mission to the Soviet
Union” passed away today after which he was buried at Mount Nebo Memorial Park
in Aurora, CO.
https://history.denverlibrary.org/sites/history/files/adelman.pdf
1966: Three days after
his death funeral services are scheduled to be held for 58 year old Wharton
graduate Herbert K. Baskin, a vice president with Bankers Trust Company and
award winning member of the American Jewish Committee and the UJA who was the husband
of “the former Betty Maxine Schwartz” at Riverside Chapel on Amsterdam Avenue.
1968: Israeli
helicopter-borne Sayeret Matkal commandos carry out Operation Helem (Shock),
destroying an Egyptian electric transformer station, two dams along the Nile
River and a bridge.[29] The blackout causes Nasser to cease hostilities for a
few months while fortifications around hundreds of important targets are built.
Simultaneously, Israel reinforces its position on the east bank of the Suez
Canal by construction of the Bar Lev Line
1968: “The Lion in
Winter” the Oscar winning movie version of James Goldman’s play produced by
Joseph E. Levine was released in the United States and the United Kingdom by
Avco Embassy Pictures.
1969(19th of
Cheshvan, 5730): Budapest born and pre-war Hungarian journalist Simon Davas who
in 1939 arrived in Britain where he “set up the Pallas Publishing Company” and
founded the Federation of Hungarian Jews in Great Britain passed a way today.
1972:(21st
of Cheshvan, 5733): Eighty-four year old architect Phillip Hubert Frohman, the
son of theatrical producer Gustave Frohman and nephew Charles and Daniel
Frohman, “who was most widely know for his work on the Washington National
Cathedral” passed away today.
1973: In New York,
“Clyde Haberman, who became a longtime journalist for The New York Times, and
Nancy Haberman (née Spies), a media communications executive at Rubenstein
Associates” gave birth to Sarah Lawrence College trained journalist who has
worked for The New York Post, the New York Daily News, Politico, The New York
Times and CNN who is the wife of fellow journalist Dare Adrashes Gregorian and
the daughter-in-law of Vartan Gregorian.
1974(14th of
Cheshvan, 5735):Eighty-four year old Brno born theatre director and producer
Ernest Lotha who fled Europe after the Anschluss with his wife actress Adrienne
Gessner and was the brother of author Hans Müller-Einigen passed away today.
https://www.dw.com/en/ernst-lothar-the-vienna-melody/a-44441246
https://www.europaeditions.com/author/175/ernst-lothar
1974: The National
Religious Party joined the governing coalition led by Yitzhak Rabin who had
replaced Golda Meir as Prime Minister.
1976: The second season
of “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” with Lou Scheimer as the voice of “Dumb”
Donald came to an end.
1976: Clarence
Chamberlin, the second man to fly the Atlantic and the first to do so with a passenger,
passed away. The passenger was a Jewish
businessman from Massachusetts, Charles Albert Levine who had been dabbling in
the new field of commercial aviation.
1977: The settlement of Mevo Dotan was founded on
the West Bank by secular settlers.
1978: “Within the
Woods,” directed by, produced by, written by and edited by Sam Raimi was
released today in the United States.
1979(9th of
Cheshvan, 5740): Seventy-five year old Northwestern University School of Law
Jack Nicholas Pritzker who was part of the family that founded the law firm of
Pritzker and Pritzker as well as the Hyatt Hotel Chain and who was the husband
of the former Rhoda Goldberg of Manchester, UK with whom he had one son
Nicholas J. Pritzker passed away today.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2003/05/andrews200305
1981(2nd of
Cheshvan, 5742): Eighty-four-year-old Anna Kreindler Tannenbaum, the Austrian
born daughter of Kieve and Salomea Brenner Kriendler and the wife of Henry
Tannenbaum whom she married in 1917 passed away today in Manhattan after which
she was interred at Mount Lebanon Cemetery in Glendale, NY.
1981: “Halloween II” a
slasher film directed by Rick Rosenthal was released today in the United
States.
1982: In Monmouth
County, Temple Beth Miriam “hosted a gala Dinner-Dance in Jacobson Hall.”
1984: Seventy-one year
old Charles “Charlie” Thompson Winters, the American businessman who was
imprisoned for his role in helping to smuggle three B-17’s to Israel during the
War for Independence passed away today.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/28368672/
http://www.palyam.org/OniyotRekhesh/Charles_Winters
1984(4th of
Cheshvan, 5735): Eighty-four year old German actor and director Wolfgang Heinz,
born David Hrisch, who “President of the Academy of the Arts in Berlin between
1968 and 1974” passed away today.
1986: “ Esther Rantzen,
presenter of That's Life!, a popular consumer TV show, suggested to the BBC
that they create "Childwatch", a program about child abuse that was
screened today on BBC1, the aim being to try to detect children at risk before
their lives were in danger”
1988: NBC broadcast the
first episode of “Family Ties,” a sitcom created by Gary David Goldberg in what
would be its seventh and final season.
1988: “At Temple Beth
Israel in Niagara Falls, NY Rabbi Samuel Porath and Cantor Herbert Strauss
officiated at the wedding of New York lawyer Claudia Leigh Grossman, the
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Grossman and Civil Engineer Aaron David Jaffe,
a project manager with the Tishman Construction Company, the son “Mr. and Mrs.
Samuel Jaffe of Shaker Heights, Ohio.”
1991: Mid East peace
conference began in Madrid, Spain.
1993(15th of
Cheshvan, 5754): Eighty six year old “screenwriter and actress” Maria Matray,
who fled her native Germany when the Nazis came to power but eventually
returned after the war passed away today in Munich.
1995(6th of
Cheshvan, 5756): Fifty-four year old “social activist and folk figure” Louis
Abolafia, whose run “against Richard Nixon in 1968 as the naked Hippie “love
candidate” earned him the “title” as the first Sephardic Jew to run for
President of the United States died of a drug overdose today.
1995: In a case of Jew
versus Jews Ben Kamin, Senior Rabbi, Temple-Tifereth Israel Beachwood, Ohio,
wrote the following letter-to-the editor in response to a column by Thomas L.
Friedman.
Thomas L. Friedman's
Oct. 29 column on Israel's emerging and opulent culture says a great deal about
postmodern Israel, but it ultimately oversimplifies. Israel is a lot more than
a cell phone, and Jewish identity has to do with a lot more than a new shopping
mall in Kfar Saba. I was born in Kfar Saba, and I share some of Mr. Friedman's
amazement at the transition. It's true that the orchards of my childhood are
giving way to shopping plazas, condominiums and automatic teller machines. But
a lot of the fear and concern that was part of those years has given way to a
certain contentment with life that was not part of things a generation ago.
Contrary to Mr. Friedman's assertion, a Jew who can have a pizza delivered via
a cellular phone is not a Jew with a lost identity. That is a Jew who is free.
I remember Kfar Saba very vividly. The dusty, underdeveloped hamlet was a
prototype of early Israel. My birth village, tucked next to the Samarian
Mountains, sat on a tense border with what was then the Hashemite Kingdom of
Jordan. A mile from my grandmother's house, where we lived, the Arab town of
Qalqilya brooded with hostility and occasional mortar fire. When I sat with my
grandmother on her back porch and recited the words of the Prophets, we could
see the minarets of Qalqilya to the east. The Mediterranean Sea was just a few
miles to the west. We were living the post-Holocaust predicament of national
Jewish life in a land still fighting for its life. There was indeed a strong
pioneering spirit in Kfar Saba and throughout the fledgling country. Our
teachers came from many other lands and many difficult experiences. They often
wept while leading us in Hebrew folk songs and exhorting us to love the Bible.
The mailman came on a tall horse. His sinewy arms betrayed the tattoos of
Auschwitz. There was something to be learned from every conversation with
people who either valued or feared life. The orange groves of the valley sent
us a fragrance that none of us shall ever forget. It was the smell of rebirth.
Somehow we knew that we were the free children of a dream that the world had
disparaged and that even Qalqilya next door was determined to destroy. Now,
many groves are gone and the delicious smell is no more. Yes, my birth village
of donkeys and orange trees is a successful hub of sports cars and video
stores. It's so easy for all who no longer live there, who are not taking the
risks of peace, to criticize and lament. How ironic to dispatch a report about
the creeping technological dexterity of Israel via electronic mail. All Israel
is doing is becoming more like us. This is what we hoped for a generation ago.
None of us would begrudge an Israeli youngster the right not to be killed in
battle, not to fear the future or not to call his or her mother via a cell
phone from any army base in Lebanon. None of us who lived in quaint Kfar Saba
back then wanted anything for our descendants but the chance to be free or
prosperous enough to draw cash out of a machine or to enjoy a fashionable
coffee outdoors in the very same century as Hitler and Eichmann.
1996: Milton Berle was
a guest on Howard Stern’s morning talk show.
1997(29th of
Tishrei, 5758): Eighty-five year old writer and director Samuel Fuller, the
decorated war hero who filmed footage of the liberation of a concentration camp
and used his experiences fighting with the famous 1st Division in
the 1980 film “The Big Red One” passed away today.(As reported by Richard
Severo)
1998: “American History
X” a film about neo-Nazis co-starring Elliott Gould was released today in the
United States.
1999 (Britain's
emeritus chief rabbi, Lord Immanuel Jakobovits attended Shabbat services for
the last time. He suffered a cerebral
hemorrhage and passed away on the following day.
2000(1st of
Cheshvan, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
2000(1st of
Cheshvan, 5761): The body of 30 year old Amos Makhlouf, who was the victim of
an unknown murderer, was founded today in a ravine near Beit Jala.
2001: Lawsuits are
filed seeking the removal Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s Ten Commandments
monument. (Moore’s disregard for the
Constitution is not a unique phenomenon in Alabama as anybody who remembers
George Wallace and his ilk will know)
2002: “Israel's
19-month-old coalition government was on the brink of breaking apart tonight as
ministers from the left-leaning Labor Party said they would depart to protest
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's proposal to spend money on settlements rather
than on other social needs.”
2003: In Miami, The
IsraFest Foundation proudly presents Don
Browne
2003: Broadway premiere
of the Stephen Schwartz musical “Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of
Oz.”
2004: The exhibition
“David Bomberg en Ronda: at the Museo Joaquin Peinado in Ronda in Andalusia
which showed work by Bomberg in the city and environment which he had
celebrated in paintings and drawings in 1934-35 and 1954-47 came to an end.
2004: “Houdini
enthusiast Sidney Hollis Radner” who had bought most of Houdini’s “props and
effects” including “the water torture cell” from the magician’s brother,
Theodore Hardeen, in the 1940’s auctioned his collection today in Las Vegas.
2005: Idina Menzel
appeared off-Broadway in the Public Theater's production of “See What I Wanna
See, “which premiered today and for which she received Drama Desk Award and
Drama League Award nominations.
2005: An Islamic Jihad
fugitive was shot and killed by Israeli security forces in a gun battle that
erupted outside a house in Kabatiyah near Jenin. The man who died, rather than surrender to
the Israelis, was being sought in connection with the part he played in the
suicide attack on Hadera. The murder
killed five Israelis and wounded at least fifty people in the peaceful coastal
town of 80,000.
2005:The
New York Times features
reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish
interesting including Ahmad’s War, Ahmad’s Peace: Surviving Under Saddam,
Dying in the New Iraqby Michael Goldfarb, Women’s Letters:
America from the Revolutionary War to the Present, edited by Lisa Grunwald
and Stephen J. Adler and Faith for Beginnersby Aaron Hamburger
2006 Israeli-born
scholar Prof. Jehezkel Shoshani published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science identifying the
remains of a 27-million-year-old creature unearthed in Eritrea as those of an
ancestor of the modern elephant.
2006(8th of
Cheshvan, 5767): Ninety year old Jacob Mendel Lazarus, the son of Sam and Annie
Stein Lazarus and the husband of Maxine B. Lazaurs passed away today after
which he was interred at the Sunset Hill Cemetery in Valdosta, GA.
2006: Efraim Sneh was
appointed Deputy Minister of Defense.
2007: Columnist Michael
J. Gerson, a former speechwriter for President Bush, discusses and signs Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to
Embrace America's Ideals (And Why They Deserve to Fail If They Don't)
in Reston, Virginia
2007: Haaretz reports that a new memorial center opens at
Bergen-Belsen camp.
2007: Today, a video game based on “The Simpson” based on the “animated
sitcom created by Matt Groening” was released today.
2007: The state prosecution told the High Court of Justice that it had
changed its mind about the indictment of Moshe Katsav on the basis of evidence
from the two key complainants.
2007(18th of Cheshvan, 5768): Sixty-six year old Israeli
comedian and actorYisrael Poliakov died of cancer at the
Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus Petah Tikva after which there was a public memorial
service at the Cameri Theatre followed by a burial at Kibbutz Einat.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0689082/
2007: “Centennial Celebration of Shaar Hashamaym Synaogue on Cairo’s
Adley Street.
2008: Dor Chadash presents the exclusive New York premiere of “The
Debt.” “Twenty years after WWII has ended,
three Mossad agents kidnap the infamous "Surgeon of Birkenau" in
Berlin. As they await their return to Israel with this monstrous Nazi war
criminal, a psychological duel commences between the Nazi and the young Mossad
agents.”
2008(1st of Cheshvan,
5769): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, 5769
2008:
The former manager of Agriprocessors was arrested on charges related to the
hiring of illegal workers.
2008:
Haaretz reported that an Israeli archaeologist digging at a hilltop
south of Jerusalem believes a ceramic shard found in the ruins of an ancient
town bears the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered, a find that could
provide an important glimpse into the culture and language of the Holy Land at
the time of the Bible.
2008:
The "gutter," or water system mentioned in the Bible as the way King
David's men conquered Jerusalem may have been found. Dr. Eilat Mazar, an
archaeologist excavating the City of David, the most ancient part of Jerusalem,
believes it has, and is to present her findings this evening at a seminar at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
2009:
Hundreds of exhibits supporting a scathing report on the Securities and
Exchange Commission’s past investigations of Bernard L. Madoff were released
today by the author of the report, the agency’s inspector general, H. David
Kotz.
2009(12th
of Cheshvan, 5770) Claude Lévi-Strauss the "father of modern
anthropology" passed away. (As reported by Edward Rothstein
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/europe/04levistrauss.html?pagewanted=all
2009:
The Tower of David Museum presents: "Peace Making in Jerusalem--a Concert
at the Tower of David Museum:" A musical dialogue between Yair Dalal,
Israeli singer and musician and Osma Abu-Ali, Arab singer and flautist that
will perform vocal and instrumental music both Arab and Jewish. The concert is
followed by a guided tour entitled "Four wings to heaven and three
religions" which will include panoramic views of Jerusalem from the tops
of the towers as well as a guided tour of the permanent exhibition of the Tower
of David.
2009:
Opening of "Synergy,” the
new exhibit on display in Beit Tzarfat, at Hebrew University's Givat Ram
campus. The group exhibit displays the drawing, sculpture, and photography of
artists Ann Rakover, Gila Robinson, Datia Landau, Yitzhak Shalhevet and Sasson
Tiram.
2009:
The Los Angeles Times featured a review of Ariel Sabar’s memoir “My
Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Family's Past," which won a 2009
National Book Critics Circle Award and has just been reissued in paperback.
2009:
“Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza” a play panned by The Sunday Times,
condemned by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and described as “a blood
libel” by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic opened at Gustavus Adolphus College
today.
2010(22nd
of Cheshvan, 5771): Parashat Chayei Sara
2010:Mark
Zuckerberg received a "Medal of Fear" at the Rally to Restore Sanity
and/or Fear
2010:
The 16th Annual R' Shlomo Carlebach Memorial Concert sponsored by The R' Shlomo
Carlebach Foundation is scheduled to take place in Jerusalem.
2010: The 15th Memorial Day Rally commemorating the assassination
of Yitzhak Rabin is scheduled to be held at 7:30pm in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.
2010: Brazilian-born violist Myrna Herzog performed
this evening at the Blumenthal Center in Tel Aviv.
2011: Sam Kringlen, Temple Judah’s young violin
virtuoso is scheduled to perform at The Hadassah Donor Dinner in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa.
2011:The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago, Illinois, is
scheduled to show Legado (Legacy) a documentary that tells the story of the
Jewish colonization in Argentina. . Rabbi Dr. Victor Mirelman , a native of
Argentina who teaches Jewish history at Spertus and is a leading expert in the
history of the Jews in Latin America is scheduled to introduce the film and
lead a post-screening discussion.
2011:Acclaimed up-and-coming novelists David Bezmozgis, author of The Free
World and one of The New Yorker’s “2010 top 20 fiction writers under the age of
40;” Nadia Kalman, author of The Cosmopolitans; and Haley Tanner, author of
Vaclav & Lena are scheduled to explore the modern Russian immigrant
experience with moderator Faye Moskowitz, author and professor of English and
creative writing at George Washington University at the Hyman S & Freda
Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival.
2011: The New York Times features reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Jerusalem:
The Biography” the 650 page epic tale by Simon Sebag Montefiore whose
great-great uncle was Sir Moses Montefiore a giant of 19th century
Jewry whom some only remember because of the windmill in Jerusalem that bears
his name – Montefiore’s Windmill.
2011:Israel was hit with another volley of rockets launched by Gaza militants,
despite reports that Egypt was working to secure a truce between Israel and the
Islamic Jihad that would halt all rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip effective
10 P.M.
2011:Tel Aviv court sentences former soldier for gathering and possessing
secret military documents, passing them to "Haaretz" reporter Uri
Blau.
2011:Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reiterated the
Israeli government's policy of strict retaliation against those that harm
Israelis, warning both Islamic Jihad and Hamas not to test Israel.
2012: The Israeli Philharmonic
Orchestra is scheduled to perform at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los
Angeles under the baton of Zubin Mehta.
2012: Publication today of “The
Hidden Stories of Jews and English Football.”
http://www.britishfuture.org/articles/news/jewish-influence-on-english-football/
2012: It was reported today that
“actor Daniel Day-Lewis and his sister Tamasin are donating papers belonging to
his father, the poet Cecil-Day Lewis which fill 54 boxes and included early
drafts of the poet’s work” to Oxford University
2012: “Forty Years on the Bimah” a
retreat organized by 80 year old Leah Novick the oldest woman rabbi within the
Reconstructionist, Reform, and Renewal movements came to an end today.
2012: In Bloomfield Hills, MI,
Temple Beth El is scheduled to present Jan Durecki speaking on “Behind the
Wheel” part of the Rabbi Leo M. Franklin Archives Jewish History Detectives
Lecture series.
2012:Iran's
foreign ministry spokesman said today that Tehran was ready to discuss the 1994
terrorist bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center.
http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=289827
2012:More
than 120 major decision makers, scholars and leaders from around the Jewish
world will attend a conference in Jerusalem today to discuss strategic issues
facing the Jewish people and the State of Israel in the future.http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=289754
2013: Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal
is scheduled to perform a new work by American-born Israeli choreographer Barak
Marshal.
2013: French Film Director Ilan
Duran Cohen is scheduled to attend the opening of The UK Jewish Film Festival
2013: “Wicked: The Untold Story of
the Witches of Oz,” a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and
book by Winnie Holzman celebrated its tenth anniversary on Broadway today.
2013: The 25th annual
Kosherfest is scheduled to come to an end today.
2013: The Israel Philharmonic
Orchestra under the direction of conductor/violinist Julian Rachlin is scheduled
to perform tonight at The Beverly Hills Hotel.
2013:Today
the Israel Antiquities Authority released the discovery of a 1,700 year old
curse found at the City of David archaeological site in Jerusalem.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/173398
2013: Teva Pharmaceutical
Industries announced today that its president and CEO for the past two years,
Jeremy Levin, has agreed to step down. Trading in shares of Teva were halted
following the announcement of Levin's departure, and once trading resumed, the
stock plummeted by 8 percent.
2014: The Skirball Center is
scheduled to present Jerry Rabow lecturing on “The Lost Matriarch: Finding Leah
in the Bible and Midrash.”
2014: Louis Black is scheduled to
perform at the Hull Center in Eugene, Ohio
2014:“Rescue,
Relief, and Renewal: 100 Years of ’the Joint’ in Poland” is scheduled to open
at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow today.
http://archives.jdc.org/about-us/articles/galicia-jewish-museum.html
2014: YIVO and the Museum of the
City of New York are scheduled to present “Creating History: Can We Tell the
Past?”
2014: “The suspected shooter in
yesterday’s assassination attempt on a Temple Mount activist in Jerusalem was
killed in the mixed Jewish-Arab Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor early this
morning following a shootout with police.” (As reported by Ilan Ben Zion)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/clashes-break-out-in-east-jerusalem-after-shooting-attack-in-capital/
2014: “A senior IDF official warned
today that Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group would likely target Ben Gurion
International Airport and the Haifa seaport in a future war with Israel in an
attempt to cut Israelis off of international travel.”
2014:Kevin
Youkilis “announced his retirement from baseball.”
2014: Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund Planning
Committee under the direction of Dr. Bob Silber is scheduled to meet in Cedar
Rapids, IA.
2015: Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan set today as the
sentencing date for “Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., 74, a former Ku Klux Klan leader
with a history of racist and anti-Semitic actions who was convicted of capital
murder in the shooting deaths of three people (none of whom were Jewish) a year
ago at a Jewish community center and an assisted living facility in suburban
Kansas City.”
2015:
“Academic, writer, and cultural diplomat Annie Cohen-Solal is scheduled to
discuss European and American modernism, the work of Niki de Saint Phalle, and
the interactions among art, literature, and society” at the American Art
Museum.
2015:
“Hana’s Suitcase,” Emil Sher’s adaptation of Karen Levine’s best-selling novel
is scheduled to be performed for the last time at the Young People’s Theatre in
Toronto.
2015(17th
of Cheshvan, 5776): “Dr. Joel Elkes, who published the first scientific trial
of a medication for schizophrenia and became a foundational figure in modern
psychiatry, describing a framework to understand how brain chemistry shapes
behavior” passed away today at the age of 101. (As reported by Benedict Carey)
2015:
Paul Singer, a billionaire New York investor sent a letter “dozen of Republican
donors” describing Senator Marco Rubio as being “the only candidate who can
navigate the complex primary process and still be in a position to defeat
Hillary Clinton in a general election.”
2015:
An “Israeli man in his 20s sustained moderate injuries after being stabbed near
the Ammunition Hill light rail station on Bar-Lev Street by a 23-year-old
resident of Kfar Akeb in East Jerusalem” while “a second man was injured by
police gunfire when security forces tried to subdue the attacker, who was shot
and critically wounded.”
2015:
Cellist Inbal Segev is scheduled to perform J.S. Bach’s Cello Suites at
Bargemusic in Brooklyn.
2016:
The New York Times featured books by
Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including recently
released paperback editions of Killing A King: The Assassination of Yitzhak
Rabin and the Remaking of Israel by Dan Ephron, America’s Bank: The Epic
Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve by Roger Lowenstein and The Gay
Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman
2016:
The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to
host an Open House at its new offices.
2016:
Today, “Noa and her longtime collaborator, Gil Dor, are scheduled to return to
the Skirball Center for an intimate concert with special guest
singer/songwriter Mira Awad.”
2016:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a lecture by Rhoda Miller on
“Long Island’s Jewish History.”
2016:
The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host a
lecture by award-winning cookbook author Joan Nathan which will include a look
at her new book King Solomon’s Table.
2016:
As part of the Jewish Film Series, the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines
is scheduled to host a screening of “Marvin Hamlisch: What he did for Love.”
2016:
In Ridgefield, CT, Congregation Shir Shalom is scheduled to host an afternoon
of musical theatre history featuring Ira Joe Fisher.
2016:
“Last Portraits” “a new Dutch film about Annemie Wolff” who courageously
created a photographic record of Dutch Jewry during the German occupation is
scheduled to be shown as the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
opens a new exhibition “Lost Stories, Found Images.”
2016:
The unveiling of Kevin Skinner’s matzevah is scheduled to take place this
afternoon at Eben Israel Cemetery in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2016:
Today, Anna Grinis “a 75 year old Russian born Israeli woman” “who was just two
days old when World War II broke out” “was crowned Israel’s 5th‘Miss Holocaust Survivor’ in an unconventional beauty pageant dedicated to
women who survived the horrors of World War II”
2016
“Senior journalist Ari Shavit resigned from both Haaretz and Channel 10 today
as a former J Street staffer came forth as the “second woman to accuse him of
sexual harassment.”
2016:
In Chicago, the Cubs led by President Theo Epstein are scheduled to take on the
Cleveland Indians led by General Manager Mike Chernoff in the fifth game of the
World Series.
2017:
The Temple Emanue-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host an evening with
former first daughters Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush.
2017:
Amid charges of sexual misconduct NBC and MSNBC “terminated Mark Halperin’s
contract with the network.
2017:
Today Lester Wolf, who would live to the age of 102, became the oldest living
former Congressman.
2017(10th
of Cheshvan, 5778): Ninety-six year old Argentine native Dr. Salvador Minuchin, a cutting-edge American
psychotherapist passed away today. (As
reported by Sam Roberts)
2017(10th
of Cheshvan, 5778): Seventy-seven year old urban photographer Mel Rosenthal
passed away today. (As reported by Neil
Genzlinger)
2017:
The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host an interfaith
discussion co-facilitated by Rabbi Michael Rosenfeld-Schueler where attendees
will examine the topic of the “Mind” by “looking at texts from the three
Abrahamic traditions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism.”
2017:
Dr. David Kraemer is scheduled to lecture on “Diaspora In Jewish History and
Thought” in which he examines the ways in which, over 2,500 years, the diaspora
competed with Zion “allowing for the growth of Torah even when are distant from
their original home” which is an alternative to view that Jewish history is 2
millennia of misery that could only relieved by a return to Israel.
2018:
Vanderbilt University and the Nashville Jewish Film Festival are scheduled to
host a screening of “Who Will Write Our History: The Secret Archive of the
Warsaw Ghetto” followed a by a discussion with the executive producer, Nancy
Spielberg the sister of Steven Spielberg.
2018:
In London, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “Generation Unexpected and
Jewish Life in Contemporary Poland” in which “theatre makers Katka Reszke and
Michael Rubenfeld discuss Jewish life and culture in today’s Poland.”
2018:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “All About Seltzer,” in which Barry
Joseph, author of Seltzertopia: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary Drink,
Kenny Gomberg, the third-generation owner of Gomberg Seltzer Works in Canarsie
and hit cookbook author, Adeena Sussman” discuss “the Jewish Champaign.”
2018:
The Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan is
scheduled to host “Whitechapel Noise: Politics, sex and religion in Yiddish
rhyme on the streets of London’s East End 1884-1914,” in which “Vivi Lachs of
Birkbeck, University of London will examine Yiddish kupletn (rhyming couplets)
written by Jewish immigrant songwriters and poets in pre-World War I London.”
2018:
The American Sephardi Federation and Reimagine are scheduled to present
“Crafting a Memory; Preserving a Memory” which will included a “tour of the
Spanish and Portuguese Cemetery” and a workshop at The Center for Jewish
History.
2018:
After five days, “The Israel Ride,” the country’s “premiere cycling experience
sponsored by the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies is scheduled to come
to an end today.
2018:
Israel is scheduled to hold municipal elections including one in Tel Aviv,
“where Ron Huldai, a former fighter pilot with a 20 year seniority as mayor,
will face competition from his own deputy mayor for the past ten years Asaf
Zamir and comedian turned entrepreneur Assaf Harel.
2018:
A public letter in Arab media from "the Islamic nationalist forces in
Al-Quds (Jerusalem)” calling on Arab Jerusalemites to boycott today’s elections
asserted: "Whoever takes part in the elections is a traitor who harms all
the Palestinian values.”
2018(21st
of Cheshvan, 5779): Sixty-four year old Meknes, Morocco and longtime Shas MK
David Azulai who clashed with the “Women of the Wall” and had a low opinion of
the Reform movement passed away today.
2018:
The day after he called the press the “true Enemy of People” in an early
morning tweet, President Trump is scheduled to visit Pittsburgh in the wake of
Saturday’s murder of eleven Jews in their synagogue by a gunman who reportedly
called for the death of the Jews and took particular exception to the work of
HIAS because it aids immigrants.
2019:
The Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to host “The Places of Israel – In
Song” during which the “Elad Kabilio and the MusicTalks ensemble embark on a
musical journey across Israel’s diverse sites with a concert of music inspired
by the landscapes of Israel.
2019:
In Palo Alto, A, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host Scott Kupor,
managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, as he “discusses Silicon Valley and
his new book, Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It.”
2019:
The Fourth Annual CJN Prize Awards Ceremony, “celebrating the achievements of
young Jewish Canadian Writers” is scheduled to take place this evening at York
University in Toronto.
2019(1st
of Cheshvan, 5780): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
2020:
The Eden Tamir Center is scheduled to host a live broadcast on Kan Kol Hamusika
of “Singers of ‘Meitar’ Opera Studio of the Israel Opera.”
2020:
In Columbus, OH, the Tefereth Israel Book Club is scheduled to discuss How to
Read the Jewish Bible by Marc Zvi Brettler.
2020:
In Ohio, this evening Temple Emanu El is scheduled to host “a virtual wine and
cheese reception” as part of Shabbat Lech Lecha.
2020
Congregation B’nai Torah is scheduled to present online “Domestic Violence
Awareness Shabbat: How to Protect Ourselves and Others in This Time of
COVID-19”
2020:
In another session examining UC Berkeley’s Magnes Collection, curators
Francesco Spagnolo and Shir Kochavi are scheduled to talk about sacred fabric
arts, including Torah ark curtains.
2021(24th
of Cheshvan, 5782): Parashat Chayei Sara) is read as Steven Saperstein ran for
election to the New York City Council to represent District 48 against Inna
Vernikov in a case of Jew versus Jew.
2021(24th
of Cheshvan, 5782): Centenarian Danzig native and longtime Professor of
Literature at Bard College Justus Rosenberg who worked with Varian Fry and was decorated by the French government as a
commander of the Legion of Honor for his service in World War II” passed away
today. (As reported by Alex Vadukul)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/nyregion/justus-rosenberg-dead.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/nyregion/justus-rosenberg-dead.html
justus rosenberg -
Google Search
2022:
The Iowa Canterbury Forum is scheduled to present the final program in its Fall
2022 series today: "The Travails of Translation", with Dr. Ken
Atkinson, Professor of History at the University of Northern Iowa and a
well-published scholar in the history of Judaism and Judea in the time during
which Jesus lived.
2022:
The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth, NJ is scheduled to host a concert, live
and virtual, featuring Israeli pianist Itay Goren.
2022:
Israelis are scheduled to move their clocks back one hour as daylight saving
time ends.
2022: The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to
host a Walking Tour of the Lower East Side.
2022:
The National Library of Israel is scheduled to host a lecture by Dr. Jonathan
Vardi of Hebrew University on “Solomon ibn Gabirol: A Poet of Strife and
Devotion.”
2022:
The New York Times publishes reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or
of special interest to Jewish readers including A Ballet of Lepers: A Novel
and Stories by Leonard Cohen.
2023:
Jessica Alpert (Rococo Punch) is scheduled to moderate a panel of creatives and
producers from firms including Antica Productions, Pod People, Capacity
Interactive and Christine Ragasa Global on how cultural institutions have used
podcasting to advance their missions presented by the Leo Baek Institute.
2023:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a conversation with Amy David Sorkin
and Adam Kinzinger, the author of Renegade .
2023:
In New Orleans the Jewish Community Center is scheduled to host Natasha Lance
Rogoff, the author of Muppets in Moscow, “the bestselling memoir by an American woman
television producer/ filmmaker who was tasked with bringing Sesame Street to
Russia.”
2023:
The Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre is scheduled to host a virtual lecture
by Professor Derek Penslar on “Zionism and Emotion: From Love to Anguish.”
2023:
As part of the Jewish Values and Strategy in Wartime series, The Tikvah Online
Center is scheduled to host a lecture by Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter on “Jewish
Prayer in a Time of War.”
2023: As part of its “Creation and Inspiration from
Jewish Sources” series, Agnon House is scheduled to host, online, a talk with the writer and poet Dror Burstein about
writing, creating and inspiring through a study of Jewish sources.”
2023:
The Museum at Eldridge Street is scheduled to host “How the Lower East Side Got
Their Names,” a virtual program that “dives
into the spies and traitors, soldiers and politicians, and governors and royals
who gave our city and the Lower East Side their names.”
2023:
As October 30 begins in Israel, IDF
forces are reported to be focusing its operations on Hamas targets on the
northern part of the Gaza Strip while also responding from shelling in the
north, rockets fired from Gaza continue to fall on “Israeli towns and cities” and
Israel has reopened the second of three water pipelines that provide water to
the Gaza Strip, allowing for a total of 28.5 million liters a day to flow into
the Hamas-run territory from Israel, according to the Israeli military liaison
to the Palestinian territory” while over 200 hostages begin their 24th
day in captivity.
(Editor’s
note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover so we are just
providing a snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time)