July 13
100 BCE: Birthdate of Julius Caesar. When Caesar and Pompey fought for control of the Empire, the Jews supported Caesar because of the evil Pompey had done to the Jewish people including desecrating the Temple and shipping thousands of Judeans to Roman slave markets. Caesar returned Jaffa to Judean control and allowed the walls of Jerusalem to be rebuilt. The Jews of Rome were allowed to organize as a community and Jews living on the Italian peninsula were able to improve their economic condition.
982: Kalonymos da Lucca, “the second Jew mentioned in the annals of Germanic history” “saved the life of Emperor Otto II” “who rewarded him with a house and citizenship in the city of Main where he could live safely as a Jew under the protection of the Archbishop.” (As described by Leo Sievers)
1105(29th of Tammuz, 4865: On the secular calendar Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac also known as Rashi passed away. Rashi is a Hebrew acrostic for Rabbi Shlmoh ben Isaac. Born in 1040 he was the leading rabbinic commentator in his day on the TaNaCh and Talmud. His work is so basic to Jewish study, that it is said when we study Torah we must study Rashi. Rashi lived at the time of the Crusades. He passed away five years before the birth of that other great medieval sage, Maimonides. (See the attachment for a fuller treatment of his life.) While there is much to be learned from the teachings of Rashi, there are also lessons that we can learn from his life. While he studied with the greatest teachers in Germany, he lived in a French town with a comparatively small Jewish population. For those living in small towns this should serve as a reminder that living in small town is no reason not to study. Rashi was a Rabbi. He was also a successful businessman. He was a wine merchant who was able to care for his family and support students and yeshivas. In other words, just because most of us have to work for a living, we can still find time for study. Rashi had five daughters and no sons. Unlike the example of the mythical Tevye, Rashi’s daughters were all educated scholars. According to the stories told about them, all five wore tefillin. In other words, for Rashi, women were not to be "barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen." His example means we should be providing a full Jewish education for all of our community, regardless of sex. (See Maggie Anton’s books about Rashi’s daughters for more about this)(www.rashisdaughters.com)
1148: Anti-Jewish riots take place in Cordova, Spain.
1391:The richest Jew in Valencia, “the great Don Samuel Abravalla,” was baptized to in the palace of En Gasto. He is now known as Alfonso Ferrandes de Villanueva.
1564: In Brest Litvosk (Lithuania), Abraham, the son of a wealthy and envied Jewish tax collector was accused of killing the family's Christian servant for ritual purposes. He was tortured and executed. King Sigmund Augustus forbade the charge of ritual murder.
1608: Birthdate of Ferdinand III the Holy Roman Emperor who awarded the Jewish community their own banner in recognition for their services in the defense of Prague during the Thirty Years War.
1756: Birthdate of artist and caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson a non-Jew who born in Old Jewry, a street that takes its name from the fact that it was part of a Jewish quarter that had first existed at least as far back as the 13thcentury.
1787: The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory. It is important to note that there were no religious qualifications to settling in the area, owning land or taking part in political activities. This openness encouraged Jews to settle the lands west of the Allegheny Mountains. It also forced some of the east coast states to remove their remaining religious qualifications for participating in state government
1796: When French forces renew their bombardment of Frankfurt this evening, fire breaks out in the city including the area known as the Judengasse.
1798: Birthdate of Warder Cresson, the Quaker born Philadelphian who changed his name to Michoel Boaz Yisroel ben Avraham when he converted to Judaism. After surviving a sanity hearing, Cresson became an ardent supporter of Jewish settlement in Palestine moving to Jerusalem where he married a Sephardic women, raised a family a eventually passed away.
1816: Birthdate of German novelist Gustav Freytag who was married to a Jew but who authored Debit And Credit the popular anti-Semitic six volume novel that featured he Jewish Ehrenthal family who are money-lenders and speculators and their criminal employee Veitel Itzig and promoted negative stereotypes of Jews.
1815: Future President John Q. Adams wrote in a letter: 'The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, I should still believe fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.'
1823: Birthdate of French poet Eugène Manuel, the son of Parisian Jewish doctor.
1841: Birthdate of Austrian architect Otto Wagner. Budapest's Rumbach Synagogue, built in the 1870s, was his first major work. There seems to be some dispute as to whether or not Wagner himself was Jewish. We post his name because of the synagogue construction since we have not been able to verify whether or not he was Jewish.
1852: In New York, the Board of Alderman approved placing gas lamps in front of the synagogue on Greene Street.
1859: Sir Moses Montefiore was informed that in an interview Mr. Odo Russell, a British diplomat, had with Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, a senior Vatican official closely associated with the Pope, the latter said that the issue of Edgardo Mortara was “a closed question.” In other words, Vatican was standing fast on the seizure of the Jewish child and had no intention of returning him.
1861: In Nevada, Israel ben Joseph Benjamin, a German-Jewish traveler who was a passenger on one of the first scheduled daily overland stagecoaches passed through Jacobs Well “a foundling way station for changing horses or mules on the Daily Overland Mail stage.”
1863: During the Draft Riots which began today in New York City, mobs came down the street where the Hebrew Orphan Asylum was located but passed the building without attacking.
1865:An article published today entitled "Russia: Extensive Fires" reported that a fire has destroyed 108 houses in Gerdok most of which belonged to Jews. Two children died in the fire. A fire in the Jewish quarter at Grodno destroyed eighty-two houses. The Synagogue in Borisoff was among the buildings that fell victim to the flames when fire swept the town.
1872: According to reports published today, The Jewish Messenger endorsed the proposal of the New York Times that poor and orphaned children in New York should be able to enjoy at least one excursion during the month of July. In urging its readers to contribute to this cause the Messenger reminded that among the beneficiaries would be at least four hundred Jewish children.
1873: “Cleanliness Versus Godliness” published today took issue with the contention of the historian Eusebus that the Apostle James never took a bath. “The assertion is most improabable, for not only were all the apostles strict Jews, but St. James, the Bishop or Jerusalem, could least of all have afforded to despise so sacred a Jewish habits as cleanliness” since James “was held in the highest esteem by the Judaizing party in the Church.
1874: Jewish leaders from all over the United States are gathering in Cleveland, Ohio for tomorrow’s meeting of the Council of the American Union of Hebrew Congregations.
1875: Representatives from a group of Jewish congregations from across the United States held their second annual meeting in Buffalo, NY. Joseph Cohn of Pittsburg, PA was elected President; Henry Brock of Buffalo was elected Vice President; Lippman Levy of Cincinnati was elected Secretary; S. J. Lowenstein of Evansville, Indiana was elected Assistant Secretary.
1876: Judge Abraham Jesse Dittenhoefter described the meeting in which New York Governor Samuel J. Tilden was told that he had been nominated by the Democratic Party as their candidate for President. He then read a sample of letters from those supporting this candidate of reform. (Tilden is the “Tilden” of the famous Hayes-Tilden electoral stalemate)
1877: The New York Times featured a review of Poet and Merchant by Bethold Auerbach, “a Jewish romance” in which all but a couple of the characters are Jews.
1878: At the conclusion of the Congress of Berlin, the European powers sign the Treaty of Berlin designed to officially the end of the Russo-Turkish War. One of the issues settled by the treaty was the question of independence for Romania. The Romanians promised that they would improve the treatment of the Jews living in Romania. Rather than trust the Romanian leaders, the authors of the treaty bowed to pressure from influential European Jews and insisted “that Romania must guarantee Jewish political emancipation before her sovereignty could be recognized.” The requirement was incorporated into the Treaty of Berlin under Article 62.
1879: A delegation of Rabbis from congregations across the United States, including both Reform and Orthodox came to house of Rabbi David Einhorn and presented him with a resolution enumerating his various accomplishments as his decades long career. The 72 year old native of Bavaria is retiring as the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth-El with a pension of $3.500.
1879: An article published today based on information from The Saturday Review, a London weekly magazine, examined the life of the late Lionel Rothschild. Rothschild was held in high esteem for his philanthropies that included an unexpectedly large donation for the relief of those who suffered during the Irish Famine in the 1840’s. Rothschild was praised for being more than “nominally a Jew” and for taking a leading role in the affairs of the Jewish community. Rothschild was “too rich too powerful and too socially important to be tempted to seek to rise by a calculated conversion.” On a personal level, one of Rothschild’s crowning moments came when he won the Epsom Derby in 1879 thanks to the efforts of “Sir Bevys.” Much of the prejudice that Jews have experienced in England has dissipated due, in part, to the example of the Rothschilds which includes the unique Jewish trait of “setting as much store on the attainment of high education and the development of business faculties in the women as in the men.”
1881: It was reported today that a resolution was introduced at the 8th annual council of the Union of American Hebrew congregations calling upon the Union to the steps that would lead to the abolition of the Religious Department of the Census Bureau. Those in favor of the proposal felt that the “Church and State were separated by a wide gulf” and that the government did not have any right to ask Americans about their religious beliefs. Those who were opposed to the proposal felt that the Hebrew Union did not have the right to interfere with the operations of the government. The latter view prevailed and the motion was withdrawn.
1882: President Lotte of Cincinnati presided over a meeting of the Executive Board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations at Saratoga, NY. The Board represents 15 congregations.
1883: It was reported today that the expenses of the Hebrew Union College have exceeded income by $18,200. The shortfall was covered by money taken from the Sinking Fund. In order to avoid further financial problems the Union will collect a head tax of one dollar for each congregant belonging to the congregations across the country.
1885: Marcus Berheimer delivered a welcoming address to the delegates from the United Hebrew Relief Associations from the principle cities in the United States who had gathered in St. Louis to form a union of the Hebrew Charities into a national organization.
1887: At 14thannual meeting of the leaders of the Hebrew Congregations of America, leaders of the Reform Movement expressed their disgust with the treatment of Jewish-American citizens doing business with, or visiting, Russia. The group wants changes made to the Russo-American Treaty that will guarantee American Jews will be treated with same respect as is shown to American Catholics and Protestants.
1888: Birthdate of Isaac Nachman Steinberg, the Russian born lawyer and political leader who served with Lenin but then was forced to flee to the West in the 1920’s when the political winds of the Bolsheviks blew in another directiron.
1889: “Harlem Club and Senator Cantor” published today described attempts to minimize the action of club members. They claimed that the Jewish political leader had not been blackballed; merely postponed. While it was thought that a majority of the members would vote in favor of membership, the “blackball system” would keep that from happening.
1890: Rabbi Sabato Morais of Philadelphia, PA is giving a lecture this morning entitled “Some Hebrew Grammarians” at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
1891:”Russians Facing Famine” published today described the effects of the worst food shortage since the earliest days of the Romanov dynasty including the suffering of the Jews especially those living at Rovnopol where they “are practically dying of hunger.” During a tour of the area, the governor saw the Jews “destitute of bread and corn” and “several families living together in one hut for the sake of warmth generated by propinquity.”
1892: The assailant who attacked Gustave Berkowitz, an old Jewish peddler, escaped from custody today.
1893: Among the people who were killed in today’s train wreck at Newburgh, NY was
“an unknown woman, apparently thirty-four years old, of Hebrew cast of countenance” (In other words she looked like a Jew). Among the injured were five members of the family of Leopold Michael, a retired diamond merchant on his way to spend the summer in the Catskills.
1893: The decision by the family of Captain Dreyfus not to accept a jewel sword which a group of American Jews plan to purchase in his honor and the decision by Emile Zola not to accept an engraved gold pen from the same group was made public today. The plan to buy these items had split the Jewish community with the editors of the Forwards being most vocal in their opposition.
1893: “Soon To Have A New Temple” published today provides a detailed description of Shaaray Tefilla’s home located on 82nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues
1894: Birthdate of Isaak Babel Russian short-story writer and dramatist. He is known by many as the author of "Red Calvary." Babel’s artistic career ended when he was arrested by the Soviet secret police in one of those periodic purges brought on by Stalin’s paranoia. Babel was shot after a secret trial proved he was a traitor.
1894: Even though Eugene Debs said it was his decision, the Knights of Labor blamed Samuel Gompers for calling off the planned strike intended to show support for the Pullman workers.
1895: On Shabbat, Dr. Samuel Sale of St. Louis, MO will deliver the sermon at the annual Central Conference American Rabbis meeting in Rochester, NY.
1895: “A Jewish Confession of Faith” published today listed the ten point formula “for the reception of proselytes being considered by the Reform movement.
1895: It was reported today that a new translation of Conventional Lies of Our Civilizationby Max Nordeau is being published in London that will replace the one that appeared in Chicago ten years ago.
1896: “Bugs, Worms and Beetles” published today described the history and impact of these critters including the fact that the “Jews of Morocco regard male grasshoppers as unclean” and that they only eat the females “which have peculiar markings on their bodies” which are said to be Hebrew letters that “make it lawful to devour the animals bearing them.” (No shrimp or lobster; but we can eat female grasshoppers in Morocco – such a deal)
1896: Birthdate of Israeli painter Mordecai Ardon. Born in Poland when it was part of the Russian Empire, Ardon later moved to Germany where he was a student at the "Bauhaus" School from 1920 to 1925. This was the period in German history known as the Weimar Republic. Ardon moved to Jerusalem in 1933. He had his first American exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1948. There are numerous websites where you can view his works. He passed away in 1992.One of his most famous is the "Ardon Windows" in the Jewish National and University Library
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/european/Mordechai-Ardon.html
1896: Herzl meets with representatives of Hovevei Zion Britain.
1899: The Knights of Zion, a Jewish fraternal organization, was incorporated today at Albany, NY.
1901: Birthdate of Myrtle Ehrlich, the Brooklyn native who became the successful American businesswoman, Tillie Ehrlich Lewis, “the tomato queen.”
http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,857087-1,00.html
1904(1st of Av, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Av
1904(1stof Av, 5664): Forty-seven year old English soprano and actress Giulia Warwick (born Julia Ehrenberg) passed away today
http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/whowaswho/W/WarwickGiulia.htm
1905: Sir Reginald Francis Douce Palgrave, the Clerk of the House of Commons passed away. His father was Sir Francis Palgrave, born Francis Ephraim Cohen, who converted and changed his name so that he could marry Elizabeth Turner.
1909(24th of Tammuz, 5669):Jacob Bettelheim, the Viennese born dramatist and author passed away in Berlin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Bettelheim
1910: Fire destroys 21 buildings in the Jewish quarter of Salonica, damage near 600,000 Francs.
1911(17th of Tammuz, 5671): Tzom Tammuz
1911: Birthdate of Hyam Plutzik the Brooklyn born professor and poet whose work was worthy of consideration by the Pulitzer Prize Committee.
http://www.hyamplutzikpoetry.com/
1913: As the wars continue in the Balkans, the Turks capture the Greek city of Didymoteikhon which is ruled by the Bulgarians. Unfortunately for the Jews, who had suffered property losses when the Bulgarians took the city in 1912, the economy continued to deteriorate under Ottoman rule.
1919: Birthdate of Eliot Asinof whose journalistic re-creation of the 1919 Black Sox scandal, Eight Men Out became a classic of both baseball literature and narrative nonfiction. Eliot Tager Asinof was born in Manhattan and grew up in Manhattan and Cedarhurst, N.Y. His grandfather Morris, a Russian immigrant, was a tailor who eventually opened a men’s store in Manhattan.Eliot’s father, Max, worked there, and when young Eliot went to work there as well, it was a tenet that he had to sew a suit before he would be allowed to sell one. The dexterity he developed served him well. Mr. Asinof was an accomplished amateur pianist and sculptor. He was also a carpenter who in 1985, with his son, built the Ancramdale house he lived in for the rest of his life. He shot his age on a golf course for the first time at 79. After graduating from Swarthmore, Mr. Asinof played baseball briefly in the minor leagues — he was a first baseman in the Philadelphia Phillies organization — before he joined the Army. When he returned, his son said, the Phillies invited him to return, but he pulled a muscle during his first practice, and that was it for his sports career. He turned to writing. He also had a gift for finding the company of other gifted people. A compact man with a gravelly voice and a New York accent, he was gregarious and shrewdly charming.“A writer whose shrewdness and insight trumped his style, which was plainspoken and realistic, Mr. Asinof was productive and versatile. He wrote more than a dozen books, including a novel, Final Judgment that is set on a college campus and concerns a protest to keep President Bush from delivering a commencement address, and is to be published in September by Bunim & Bannigan.Weeks before his death, his son said, Mr. Asinof completed a memoir of his World War II service in the Army Corps on Adak Island in the Aleutians. Seven Days to Sunday his 1968 account of a week in the life of the New York Giants football team as it prepared for a game, was an early if not groundbreaking enterprise of journalistic embedding in the world of sports. His first novel, Man on Spikes published in 1955 and based on a longtime friend who spent years in the minor leagues, was a prescient condemnation of baseball’s feudal control over the players. That system was not dissolved until 1975 with the abolition of the so-called reserve clause in standard contracts, which allowed teams to retain in virtual perpetuity the services of players in their employ.Mr. Asinof also wrote for television and the movies, although his published credits were limited, probably because he was among the many writers who were blacklisted in the 1950s. In his case, he once wrote after he got hold of his F.B.I. file, the blacklisting came about because “I had at one time signed a petition outside of Yankee Stadium to encourage the New York Yankees to hire black ballplayers.”But he is best known for “Eight Men Out,” published in 1963, and for the 1988 movie of the same title. The book is an exhaustively reported and slightly fictionalized account of how eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox allowed their anger at the parsimonious team owner, Charles Comiskey, to corrupt their integrity, leading them to welcome the overtures of gamblers, who persuaded them to throw the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. A seminal event in the history of the game, it led to the appointment of the first baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Mr. Asinof spent nearly three years researching the book, including interviewing the two members of the team, Joe Jackson and Happy Feltsch, who were still alive. In the end, “Eight Men Out” was a book that made plain the connection between sport and money and between sport and the underworld. “Here is the underbelly of baseball vividly dissected,” said Fay Vincent, the former baseball commissioner.In the Camelot of the Kennedy 1960s, the book also made plain, if only by inference, the unsavory potential in American culture, a theme that ran throughout Mr. Asinof’s work. Twenty-five years later, “Eight Men Out” was made into a popular film directed by John Sayles, with a script by Mr. Sayles and Mr. Asinof.” He passed away at the age of 88 in June, 2008.
1919:London Jewish Hospital opens for out-patients
1921: Birthdate of Ernest Gold, composer of the score from the hit film “Exodus” for which he won an Oscar.
1921: In Ross, CA, Frank Moore Cross, Sr. and his wife gave birth to Frank Moore Cross, Jr. “an influential Harvard biblical scholar who specialized in the ancient cultures and languages that helped shape the Hebrew Bible and who played a central role in interpreting the Dead Sea Scrolls.” (As reported by William Yardley)
1921(7th of Tammuz, 5681):Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann a Franco-Luxembourgish physicist and inventor, and Nobel laureate in physics for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference, later known as the Lippmann plate passed away.
1924: Birthdate of Gyorgy Deutsch the native of Hungary and Holocaust survivor who gained fame as “George Lang, a restaurateur and cookbook writer who in the 1970s transformed Café des Artistes into one of New York’s most romantic, beloved dining spots and in the 1990s helped restore the historic Budapest restaurant Gundel to its former glory.” (As reported by William Grimes)
1925: Flo Ziegfeld and his Ziegfeld Follies begin the creation of what would become an American Icon. Comedian W.C. Fields went home to attend his mother's funeral. In a last minute desperate move, a comparatively unknown cowboy from Oklahoma named Will Rogers began his comedic career.
1926: Birthdate of composer Meyer Kupferman.
1927: Birthdate of Simone Annie Liline Jacob, the daughter of a Nice, France, architect, most of whose family perished in the Shoah which she survived and gained fame a as political Simon Veil.
1928:In Cricklewood, Hertfordshire, Rachel and Hersch Lauterpacht gave birth to Sir Elihu Lauterpacht CBE QC LLD a British academic and lawyer, specializing in International Law,
1930:Robert Sarnoff, head of RCA (Radio Corporation of America) tells the in New York Times "TV would be a theater in every home." Okay, so it is not Micah or Jeremiah, but it is a Jew providing prophecy in one sense of the term.
1930: Birthdate of Naomi Shemer one of Israel's most important and prolific song writers. During her lifetime, she was hailed as the "First Lady of Israeli Song." Born Naomi Sapir, Shemer did her own songwriting and composing, as well as setting famous poems to music, such as those of the Israeli poet, Rachel, and adapting well-known songs into Hebrew, such as the Beatles songs "Hey Jude" and "Let it Be" ("Lu Yehi"). Israeli songwriter Naomi Shemer's grave on the shores of the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret)]. The stones were left by visitors, in keeping with an ancient Jewish custom Naomi Shemer was born and raised in Kevutzat Kinneret, a kibbutz that her parents had helped to found, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. In the 1950s she served in the Israeli Defense Force's Nahal entertainment troupe and studied music at the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem. She married Mordechai Horowitz and had two children, Lali and Ariel.In 1983, Shemer received the Israel Prize for her contribution to Israeli culture. Several of Shemer's songs have the quality of anthems, striking deep national and emotional chords in the hearts of Israelis. Her most famous song is "Yerushalayim shel zahav" ("Jerusalem of Gold"). She wrote it in 1967, before the Six Day War, and added another stanza after Israel captured East Jerusalem and regained access to the Western Wall. In 1968, Uri Avnery, then a member of the Israeli parliament, proposed that "Jerusalem of Gold" become the Israeli anthem. The proposal was rejected, but the nomination itself says something about the power of Shemer's songs. Shemer continued to write and perform until her death. She died of cancer in 2004 at the age of seventy three.
1933: In Germany, Nazism was declared the sole German party.
1935: On her 34th birthday, Tillie Lewis opened the first Flotill cannery in Stockton, California. By 1951, Flotill Products, later known as Tillie Lewis Foods, Inc., was earning $30 million per year, making it one of the five largest canning companies in the country. In the same year, Lewis was named "businesswoman of the year" by the Associated Press. In 1952, the company introduced a line of diet foods using low-calorie sweeteners and known as Tasti-Diet. Tillie Lewis Foods was eventually bought by the Ogden Corporation, which made Lewis one of its directors. Lewis died in 1977, but the Italian pomodora tomatoes she introduced to the U.S. are still a staple of American agriculture. (As reported by Jewish Women’s Archives0
1936: The Palestine Post reported that two Jews were seriously injured by Arabs in Jerusalem. Figures prepared by this newspaper indicated that 41 Jews had been killed and over 150 seriously injured since the outbreak of the Arab disturbances on April 19. British forces lost five men. The estimated damage to Jewish property was over 100,000 pounds. The Tel Aviv Port jetty had been lengthened to 200 meters.
1936: According to some sources, today marks the start of the Spanish Civil War (I have found at least two other dates)
1937(5thof Av, 5697): Edgard Cattaui, the son of Moise Cattaui and Ida Ross and the husband of Lia Cattaui passed away today in Cairo.
1938:Declaring that the maintenance of a proper Supreme Court was of paramount concern to the country, Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg urged in a speech here tonight that an extra session of the Senate be called before the Supreme Court convened in October to confirm or reject President Roosevelt's nominee to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo
1938:The immediate transfer to Palestine of "tens of thousands of Jewish children now trapped in Germany, Austria and Poland" was urged by Hadassah, the women's Zionist organization of America, in a message sent today to the London executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine for transmission to the Intergovernmental Refugees Committee, meeting in Evian, France. The message was signed my Mrs. Moses P. Epstein, president of the organization and sent on behalf of Hadassah’s 70,000 members.
1941: Birthdate of Ehud Manor “an Israeli songwriter, translator, and radio and TV personality.”
1942: French police arrested author Irene Nemirovsky, as “a foreign Jew.” She was shipped to Auschwitz where she died five weeks later at the age of 39. She gained famed in the 21st century with posthumous publication of two newly discovered manuscripts, Suite Francaise and Fire in the Blood.
1942: Five thousand Jews of Rovno (Polish Ukraine) were executed by the Nazis.
1942: The Einsatzkommando returned to daily actions of murder. Seven thousand Jews were rounded up in Rowne ghetto. Over the next two days, the SS would slaughter 5,000 of them.
1943: Alexander Schmorell and Kurt Huber, members of the White Rose resistance movement, are beheaded with a guillotine by the Nazi government. (Everybody remembers the killers and those who remained silent. This is a chance to those made the final sacrifice when the world was plunged into darkness) (As reported by Austin Cline)
1943: Father Marie Benoît traveled to Rome today to seek the help of Pope Pius XII in transferring Jews to northern Italy. A meeting was arranged between Father Benoît and the pope. When Father Benoit explained that the police in Vichy France were acting against the Jews, Pius XII was surprised, saying, "Who could ever expect this from noble France?" He promised to diligently deal with the situation. However, the North African plan was eventually foiled when the Germans occupied northern Italy and the Italian-occupied zone of France
1943: Thirty-five year old Gerda Baier was deported from Prague to Theresienstadt. Eventually she would be shipped to Auschwitz where the Nazi murdered her.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/13.asp
1944: The Red Army liberated Vilna, Lithuania. Eight thousand Nazis and their allies had been killed during the five day fight. The legions of the Red Army included the Jewish partisans led by Abba Kovner and his two closest associates, Vita Kempner and Ruzka Korczak. On this day, the Jewish partisans first met Ilya Ehrenburg, “a Jew from Russia, a writer and poet whose dispatches from the front had been a tremendous inspiration” for these and other partisans fighting in the woods and marshes of Eastern Europe. Ehrenburg took pictures of the Jewish brigade and was the first to tell their story to a wide, non-Jewish audience.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/14.asp
1945: In Berlin at the Rykestrasse Synagogue Soviet City Commander Nikolai Berzarin attended the first Shabbat eve service which was organized by Erich Nehlhans a Shoah survivor who was the new president of Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin
1945:Birthdate of Ilan Shlagi, an Israeli political leader who served in the Knesset and held several cabinet positions including Minister of the Environment and Minister of Science and Technology
1946(14th of Tammuz, 5706): Eighty-two year old Alfred Stieglitz the first born son of German Jewish immigrant parents who became one of Americas most famous and prominent photographers and who was also instrumental in promoting modernist art to the American mainstream public, passed away.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/stgp/hd_stgp.htm
1948: During the War of Independence Abba Eban spoke before the U.N. Security Council. He questioned why the Arabs had rejected the U.N. request to extend the cease fire between the Arabs and the Israelis for another ten days. Using the majestic tones of a Cambridge graduate he asked, “What are the ambitions which rest upon so flimsy a moral foundation that they cannot endure tend days and nights of peace?”
1948: During the War of Independence, Israeli forces continued their efforts to widen the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. To that end, they captured the village of Tsora – the birthplace of the Biblical figure Samson – from the Egyptians. This gave the Israelis control over another section of the railway running between the coast and the City of David.
1948: During the War of Independence, an Irgun unit began a night attack on Malah that lasted into the early hours of July 14. “Seventeen Irgunists were killed including Nathan Cahsman, from London, who had arrived in Israel on the ill-fated Atalena.
1950: At Boston’s Suffolk Downs, a three year old named Tel Aviv runs in the Fourth Race, a six furlong claiming event.
1950: In discussing the guiding principles of Israel’s foreign policy, Moshe Sharett said “that in the ideological struggle between the democratic and communist social orders Israel had definitely chosen democracy…Israel is most eager to promote friendly relations with all nations, regardless of their internal regimes. Yet it was impossible to ignore the fact that it only in democratic countries that Jewish communities enjoyed freedom of organization, expression and independent activity.”
1951(9th of Tammuz, 5711): Seventy-six year old Arnold Schoenberg passed away. Born in Vienna in 1874, Schoenberg enjoyed a brilliant musical career. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he was dismissed from his post as a director of a school for musical composition at the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. His response was a formal, public return to the Jewish faith, which he had left early in life. America offered a haven and became his home. He wrote numerous works using Jewish themes including the Holocaust and the birth of the state of Israel.
1951: Birthdate of Edith Bernstein who morphed into Didi Conn, an actress who has appeared in film on the stage, and in television.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that 128,000 immigrants entered Israel during the first half of 1951 (one every two minutes). Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion presided over the meeting of the government-Jewish Agency's Coordination Board responsible for the newcomers' housing, employment and the state of sanitation in transit camps. "The attainment of freedom and security often takes precedence over personal convenience," David Ben-Gurion told a large audience in Beersheba.
1954: Mexican painter Frida Kahlo who claimed that her father Carol Wilhelm Kahlo was Jewish, a claim which has been challenged by at least one biographer passed away today.
http://www.frida-kahlo-foundation.org/biography.html
1955: The Beaux Arts Trio featuring pianist Menahem Pressler debuted at the Berkshire Music Festival.
1955:Birthdate of Ehud Havazelet an award-winning American novelist and short story writer who was born in Jerusalem. His father, Meir Havazalet, a rabbi and professor at Yeshiva University immigrated to the United States in 1957. He graduated from Columbia University in 1977, and received an M.F.A at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop in 1984. He became a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, from 1985 to 1989, and a Wallace Stegner Fellow. He taught creative writing at Oregon State University from 1989 to 1999. Since 1999, he has taught creative writing at the University of Oregon.
1960: Forty-five year old Joy Davidman the “child prodigy” and American author who converted to Christianly and whose marriage to C..S Lewis was a joining of two intellects passed away today.
http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/node/31
1963: Israel adopts a law prohibiting the raising of pigs in Jewish settlements.
1969: The New York Times featured a review of The Story of Masada by Yigael Yadin; retold for young readers by Gerald Gottlieb.
1972: Carroll Rosenbloom, owner of the Baltimore Colts, traded teams with the owner of the Los Angeles Rams. Rosenbloom was now the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, which became the St. Louis Rams.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the Knesset, at the special festive session marking the US bicentennial, that a strong and confident America was needed to assure freedom, democracy and peace. The Knesset sent a special, congratulatory message to the US Congress.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that in London, the British minister of state announced that there was little doubt that Mrs. Dora Bloch was dead and that the Ugandan government must bring those responsible to justice. Britain regarded all Ugandan explanations as "totally unacceptable."
1978:Alexander Ginzburg, Soviet poet and political dissident was sentenced by a Soviet court to 8 years in prison. Although he was a practicing Russian Orthodox Christian, he adopted his mother's Jewish family name as a young man to protest Stalin's anti-Semitic campaigns.
1979: A 45-hour siege began at the Egyptian Embassy in Ankara, Turkey. Four Palestinian guerrillas killed two security men and seized 20 hostages. Now that Egypt was at peace with Israel, she was fair game for attack by Palestinian terrorists.
1989: Thirteenth Maccabiah comes to an end.
1989: At six o’clock in the evening al public transport in Jerusalem stopped for one minute in memory of a terrorist attack that had taken place on July 6 that targeted bus 405 that ran between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
1992: David Levy steps down as Israel’s Foreign Minister.
1992: Yithak Rabin replaced Moshe Arens as Minister of Defense.
1992: Ovadia Eli completed his term as Deputy Minister of Defense.
1992: Binyamin Ben-Eliezer “was appointed Minister of Housing and Construction in Yitzhak Rabin's government.
1992:Rafael Pinhasi finished his term as Israel’s Communication Minister. Born in Kabul in 1940, Pinhasi made Aliyah in 1950. A member of Shas, he has held a variety of positions in local and national governmental positions.
1992:Binyamin Ben-Eliezerwas appointed Minister of Housing and Construction in Yitzhak Rabin's government.
1992: Moshe Shahal replaced Roni Milo as Minister of Public Security
1992: Moshe Shahal begins serving as Israel’s Communication Minister. Born in 1934 in Iraq, he made Aliyah in 1950. After graduating with a law degree from Tel Aviv University, he began a political career that included a variety of governmental positions and membership in the Alignment and Labor Parties.
1992: Yitzhak Shamir completed his second term as Prime Minister of Israel.
1993: “Jews decry 'slap in face' from academy Big alumni event scheduled for Yom Kippur holy day” published today” described the reaction to the Naval Academy celebrating Homecoming on the Day of Atonement.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-07-13/news/1993194040_1_yom-kippur-jewish-holidays-jewish-alumni
1997: In an article entitled “Israel Games Draw Westchester Athletes,” Chuck Slater provides a graphic portrait of Lorin Ambinder, Nina Zeitlin, Matthew Deutsch and Scott Grayson, the four young athletes from Westchester County who are in Israel to represent the United States in the 15th Maccabiah Games, opening tomorrow.
1997: The Sunday New York Times book section features a review of The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and Their History by Isaiah Berlin and Man Without A Face the autobiography of East Germany’s spymaster Markus Wolf, the German Jew, who while head of Stasi, provided training camps for the PLO in East Germany where they could master the use of guns, explosives and guerilla tactics. Yes, Isaiah Berlin and Markus Wolf are both Jews which raises the question, “what is a typical Jew?”
1998: Silvan Shalom succeeded Michael Etian as Minister of Science and Technology.
1999: Detroit Catcher Bradley David "Brad" Ausmus is one of the reserve players on this American League All Star team which played the National League tonight.
2000:Jan Karski, a liaison officer of the Polish underground who infiltrated both the Warsaw Ghetto and a German concentration camp and then carried the first eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to a mostly disbelieving “West,” died in Washington.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/karski.asp
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/karski.html
http://www.jankarski.net/en
2003: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Absolutely American: Culture War at West Pointby David Lipsky and the recently released paperback edition of King of the Jews by Leslie Epstein, a Holocaust novel that focuses on the morally ambiguous politics of survival of a Judenrat, forced to collaborate with the Nazis in a Polish ghetto.
2004: Jacobo Kaufmann, Israeli acclaimed theatre and opera director, directs and designs the scenery of the Biblical opera "Nabucco" by Giuseppe Verdi at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, opening at the world famous Terme di Caracalla. He is the first Israeli ever to be hired to direct an opera in Italy.
2004: Yosef Paritzky completed his term as Minister of Energy and Infrastructure.
2005: The government of Israel sealed the borders with the West Bank and Gaza following a Tuesday night suicide bombing at Netanya. Netanya is the site of the Maccabiah Games. No athletes were victims of the attack and all had vowed to stay for the rest of the competition.
2005: Stephen Schwartz’s musical “Wicked” opened at Chicago’s Ford Center-Oriental Theatre.
2006: In a debate broadcast today on the BBC's This Week, Maureen Lipman argued that "human life is not cheap to the Israelis, and human life on the other side is quite cheap actually, because they strap bombs to people and send them to blow themselves up."
2006(17th of Tammuz, 5766): Fast of the 17th of Tammuz. The solemnity of the day is heightened by reports that Hezbollah terrorists have kidnapped two members of the IDF on the border of Lebanon. In addition to which, eight members of IDF have fallen during the terrorist attack and/or as part of the military action aimed at rescuing them.
2006: The following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers were killed in the Israel-Hizbullah war:Monica Lehrer Zeidman, 40, of Nahariya; Nitzo Rubin, 33, of Safed.
2006(17th of Tammuz, 5766): Eighty-seven year old Oscar winning actor Red Buttons (born Aaron Chwatt) passed away. (As reported by Mervyn Rothstein)
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE2D91E30F937A25754C0A9609C8B63
2008: Abbas and Olmert were expected to discuss the status of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks on the sidelines of a conference hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to boost cooperation between the European Union, Middle Eastern and North African countries.
2008: The 94thHadassah Annual Convention opens in Los Angeles.
2008: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Prague in Danger: The Years of German Occupation, 1939-45: Memories and History, Terror and Resistance, Theater and Jazz, Film and Poetry, Politics and War by Peter Demetz whowas a boy living in Prague as a “first degree half-Jew” (his mother was Jewish) during the war, Lady Liberty by Doreen Rapport, a noted author of children’s books including The Secret Sederand In the Promised Land: Lives of Jewish Americans and The Owner of the House: New and Collected Poems 1940-2001 by Louis Simpson who mixes the warmth of memories of his Jewish ancestry with the grim realities that brought it to an end; "In my grandmother's house there was always chicken soup/And talk of the old country -- mud and boards,/Poverty,/The snow falling down the necks of lovers. But the Germans killed them./I know it's in bad taste to say it,/But it's true. The Germans killed them all."
2008: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World by David Maraniss, Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Glachen, and As Good As Anybody: Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom by Richard Michelson.
2008: Ofira Henig, makes her directorial debut at the Weill Auditorium in Kfar Shmaryahu when the curtain rises on “Yerma” written by Spanish playwright and poet Federico Garcia.
2009:The 18th Maccabiah Games, which draw Jewish athletes from around the world as well as Israeli citizens, both Jewish and Arab, opens today in Israel. Approximately 5,000 athletes will be participating from outside of Israel, representing a 20% increase from the last Games held in 2005. The Maccabiah Games are one of the five largest athletic events in the world by number of participants and are considered Regional Games by the International Olympic Committee. Competition is held in many different sports at locations around the country.
2009:Kolech, a modern Orthodox women's organization, will hold its sixth international conference entitled "The Woman and Her Judaism."
2009:As part of the Noontime Lecture Series: “Balance of Power in the Persian Gulf” The National Museum of American Jewish Military History presents “Iraq vs. the United States, Gulf War I” in which Dr. Jeffrey Greenhut will show how the Iraqi seizure of Kuwait was a direct outcome of the Iran-Iraq War, and then how the United States, under the leadership of President George H. W. Bush, formed a vast international coalition that was able to liberate Kuwait in one of the most effective military campaigns since World War II.
2009: It was announced today that Britain's chief rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, has been made a life peer. The House of Lords Appointments Commission recommended the appointment for the community leader to take his place in the House of Lords. "I am honored by this appointment. I am proud to be following in the footsteps of my predecessor, Lord Jakobovits, who served in the House of Lords," Dr Sacks said. "I will be combining both my rabbinical responsibilities and the opportunities that membership of the Lords offer me to speak on issues that matter."
2010: Mothers Circle, an education and support group for non-Jewish women raising Jewish children, is scheduled to meet at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.
2010: “A Jewish Girl In Shanghai” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
2010:The Libyan organizers of an aid ship trying to breach Israel's blockade the Gaza Strip said today that an Israeli military vessel had confronted the ship and ordered it to change course for the Egyptian port of el-Arish.
2010:U.S. President Barack Obama today nominated Deputy Secretary of State Jacob (Jack) Lew, a religious Jew, as his new director of a budget that suffers from a budget deficit approaching $1.3 trillion. The appointment must be confirmed by the Senate, which may question Lew whether he can function while observing the Sabbath. One story making the rounds in the United States is that Lew, when he was director for the Office of Management and Budget for former U.S. President Bill Clinton, refused to answer an urgent phone call from the president on the Sabbath, when using the phone is prohibited except in life-saving situations. The speakerphone was turned on, and Clinton reportedly said, “I know it is the Sabbath, but this is urgent. G-d would understand.” Lew later consulted with his rabbi, who told him that the Jewish concept of “pikuach Nefesh,” or saving lives, is applicable when the president calls urgently and that he can pick up the phone on the Sabbath without violating the Jewish law.As Clinton's budget director, Lew performed the rare feat of operating three budgets without increasing the national deficit. "If there was a Hall of Fame for budget directors, then Jack Lew surely would have earned a place for his service in that role under President Clinton, when he helped balance the federal budget after years of deficits," President Obama said. Lew left the Clinton administration with a record $236 million budget surplus but now inherits a whopping $1 trillion deficit for the first nine months of 2010, and it may reach $1.3 trillion by the end of the year.. The bloated budget and the troubled American economy have contributed to a drop in President Obama’s popularity that has sent Democrats scurrying to fight against a possible loss of the party's Congressional majority in November’s mid-term legislative elections. Lew’s service as budget director also may place him in a difficult position on the subject of military aid to Israel as well as to Egypt and other Arab countries. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Georgetown Law Schools and ran the budget for New York University before managing financial branches of Citigroup. Despite his political and financial skills, he faces an uphill task, according to Republican Senator Judd Gregg. He told NBC, "I find him to be very thoughtful, very smart, very capable. He’s taking on a job, however, where the numbers don’t match up. This country does not have a policy which is going to lead us out of what is a disastrous financial situation. Lew was born in New York City to a Polish immigrant father. He began involvement in political life at the age of 12, when he volunteered for Democratic presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy’s anti-Vietnam war campaign.
2010:US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Jewish organizations TIDAT to assist in securing the release of a Jewish-American government contractor who has been held in Cuba for seven months without charge. Alan P. Gross, a USAID government contractor, was arrested on suspicion of espionage by Cuban authorities while he was on the Caribbean island helping to set up a communications center for the local Jewish community. Clinton, who was speaking at a dinner honoring Hannah Rosenthal, the Obama administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat anti- Semitism, raised the issue at the behest of his family.
2010: Tzachi “Hanegbi was convicted of perjury, and subsequently was fined 10,000 NIS, and moral turpitude was added to the offense.”
2011: In Las Vegas, Nevada, Hadassah is scheduled to hold the second and final day of its National Business Meeting.
2011: Nirvana, dance show from Korea, which is based on ancient ritual Buddhist dances is scheduled to be performed at the Karmiel Amphitheater.
2011: In Vienna, the 13th European Maccabiah Games are scheduled to come to an end.
2011: An arrest for tax evasion in the Mea Sha’arim neighborhood of Jerusalem degenerated into violence this morning, when hundreds of ultra Orthodox protesters threw rocks, steel bars, and Molotov cocktails at the municipality officials and police. Police were accompanying the officials on their raid of the poultry slaughterhouse belonging to Yoelish Krois, the unofficial 'operations officer' of the Eda Haredit, the small anti-Zionist extreme haredi group. Krois's business has been operating for some ten years without the proper licenses.
2011: The Prime Minister's Office issued a statement saying that Benjamin Netanyahu is categorically opposed to a bill allowing the Knesset to have the authority to vet – and if need be veto - Supreme Court candidates.
2012: The Vertigo Dance Company which was founded in Jerusalem in 1992,is scheduled to make its debut performance at the Durham (NC) Performing Arts Center
2012: CNN is scheduled to broadcast the first of its “Green Pioneers” program. “CNN has named Yosef Abramowitz, president and cofounder of the firm responsible for Israel’s first solar field, as one of six global “Green Pioneers.”
2012” ConAgra has until today to officially respond to the complaint filed by 11 plaintiffs who are seeking unspecified damages and restitution for ConAgra’s “deceptively and misleading mislabeling Hebrew National products as strictly 100% kosher, when they are not,” (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)
2012: Dr Daniel Wildmann is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled ‘Desired Bodies': Leni Riefenstahl, the Berlin Olympics 1936 and Aryan Masculinity at the Wiener Library in London.
2012:A bush fire broke out tonight in Park Snir between Kibbutz Maayan Baruch and Kibbutz HaGoshrim in the North. Large forces of fire fighters and police were called to the scene and managed to extinguish the fire after several hours.
2012:In two separate incidents along Israel's southern borders today, IDF forces fired upon Palestinians trying to infiltrate into the country, killing two and wounding one.
2012:IDF troops killed a Palestinian terrorist who opened fire on their patrol, near the Erez crossing, on the Gaza border this afternoon. (As reported by Ron Friedman)
2012(23rdof Tammuz, 5772): Sixty-five year old Shlomo Bentin an Israeli neuropsychologist and recipient of the 2012 Israel Prize in psychology was killed in a traffic accident while riding a bicycle near the University of California, Berkeley. (As reported by Asher Zeiger)
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-prize-winner-shlomo-bentin-killed-while-bicycling-in-california/
2013: Tatiana Rubina, the Russian pianist, is scheduled to perform today at the Eden-Tamir Music Center.
2013: “Valentine Road” and “A Man Vanishes” are two of the films scheduled to be shown at the 30th Jerusalem Film Festival
2013: The works of Jerusalem native Tamar Ettun are among those to be shown at LMCC’s Open Studios in New York City.
2013: This evening, Temple Judah’s very own Jared Roach is scheduled to throw out the opening pitch as the Cedar Rapids Kernels square off against the Bowling Green Hot Rods
2013: “Social justice protesters blocked the northbound lanes of the Ayalon Freeway from the La Guardia exit to the Shalom exit in Tel Aviv tonight.”
2014: Shir Chadash, the Conservative congregation in Metairie, LA, a New Orleans suburb is scheduled to begin is “Nearly New Sale.” (Editor’s Note – This Congregation gave me my first teaching job when I was a student a Tulane so I take a personal note of pleasure in seeing how it has grown and prospered.)
2014: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center a screening of “A Song for You,” a film about the escape of George and Gisela Karp and their infant daughter from the Nazis that took them across the Pyrenees and the impact of their experiences on the next generation.
2014: Jewish Federation leaders are scheduled to arrive in Israel where they will visit “a number of areas targeted by rockets, including the “Yaelim” absorption center in Beersheba, Kibbutz Or Ha’Ner, a resilient center in Sderot with Talia Levanon, the director of the Israel Trauma Coalition followed by visits to the towns of Ashkelon, Sderot and the Gaza border region.”