January 24
41: At midday
today, Caligula, accompanied by Herod Agrippa, the last Jewish King of Judea, was
leaving \ through a covered walkway when one of the Praetorian tribunes
drew his sword and hit his shoulder with such force that he almost filleted him
in half, but since the Emperor cried out
that he was still alive, the Praetorians struck again and killed him.
Caligula’s treatment of the Jews does not qualify him as an anti-Semite since
he was “a certifiable nut case” who murdered several of his family members,
reportedly had incestuous relationships with at least of on his sisters and
planned to name his favorite horse as a Counsel of Rome. Caligula believed he
was a divinity who was to be publicly worshipped. A delegation of Jews from
Alexandria, including the famous Philo, went to Rome to plead the Jewish case
before Caligula. At first Caligula was hostile to the Jews, but in the end he
reportedly dismissed the delegation saying, the Jews are “just a poor, stupid
people unable to believe in my divinity.” The real threat came when Caligula
took steps to install a statute of himself in Jerusalem that was to be
worshipped. Agrippa, King of Judea and Petronious Publius, the Roman governor
of Syria were able to stall the Emperor whose subsequent assassination rendered
the point moot.
76: Birthdate
of Publius A Hadrianus 14th Roman Emperor. Hadrian reigned from 117 through
138. Hadrian banned Torah study, Synagogue worships and led the Romans in the
defeat of the Bar Kochba Revolt.
1076: Holy
Roman Emperor IV, who had issued an order prohibiting anybody from following in
the footsteps of Godfrey of Bouillon who swore to on crusade “only after
avenging the blood of the crucified one by shedding Jewish blood and completely
eradicating any trace of those bearing the name 'Jew,' thus assuaging his own
burning wrath” wrote a letter today “condemning Pope Gregory VII as a usurper.”
1059: Nicholas
II who “condemned the persecution of the Jews and who…expressed” his opposition
to “compulsory baptism” began his Papacy.
1436: In
Aix-en-Provence, a riot ensued after a crowd felt that a Jew who insulted the
Virgin Mary received too light a sentence.
1517: Selim I
defeated the Mamluks at the Battle of Ridaniya giving the Ottomans control over
Egypt leading to “radical changes in the affairs of” Egyptian Jewry including
the abolition of the office of nagid, the creation of independent Jewish
communities including the one in Cairo head by David ibn Abi Zimra and the
appointment of Abraham de Castro as the master of the mint..
1656: Dr.
Jacob Lumbrozo, the first Jewish physician in what would be the United States
arrived in Maryland today.
1678(1st of
Shevat): Rabbi Solomon Lichtenstein of Bialystok, author of Kokhmat Shelomo,
passed away.
1700: A
special commission instituted today to determine the rights of the Jews in
Berlin was instrumental in limiting the number of Jewish families allow to live
there to fifty.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3083
1704: In Metz,
France Abraham Schwab found a yeshivah that became the Seminaire Israelite
de France
1712: Birthdate of Frederick II, King of Prussia from 1740 until 86. Known as
Frederick the Great, the Prussian king’s treatment of Jews was, to say the
least, uneven. He did grant special rights to some, including Mendelssohn.
However, for the most part, he treated them as an exploitable economic
commodity. But what can you expect from a man who wished to be buried with his
greyhounds, the only living creatures he really loved?
1729: Frederick
William, I ordered the elders of the community to appoint Moses Ben Aaron as
the chief rabbi of Berlin, a move which upset the Jewish community because they
felt he was too young.
1735: “The
Sephardic Hamburg merchant Abraham de Lemos sent a petition to the Prussian
King Frederick William I” today in which he asked “the King for the abrogation
of the marriage between his son, Benjamin de Lemos, a student of medicine at
the University.”
https://jewish-history-online.net/source/jgo:source-43
1746:
Birthdate of Gustavus III during whose reign “the Jews of Stockholm invited
Levi Hirsch” to serve as their rabbi.
1767: In New
York City, Abraham Isaac Abrahams and his wife gave birth to Hyman Abrahams who
eventually settled in Charleston, SC.
1797(26th
of Tevet, 5557): Angel Emanuel of Plymouth, England who went to the West Indies
died of “the fever” today.
1780: “Jonas
Levi, an American Jew who had been captured by the English the previous year
and sent back to France” was at the home of Dr. (Benjamin) Franklin today, “who
had given him a passport as well as the sum of ninety-six livres…”
1781:
Birthdate of Louis-Mathieu Molé who “served as Napoleon’s advisor on Jewish
affairs” including the calling of the Grand Sanhedrin in 1807 and “moderated”
his original opposition to the Emancipation of the Jews.
1802(21st
of Shevat, 5562): Gershom Cohen, who in 1772 came to America where he “fought
in the Revolution and settled in Charleston where he married Rebecca Sarzedas
with whom he had nine children, passed away today.
1803(1st of
Shevat, 5563): Rosh Chodesh Shevat observed on the same day President Thomas
Jefferson wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin about conditions
relating to the Mississippi River and New Orleans, just six days before Monroe
and Livingston were to sail for France to discuss the possibility of purchase
New Orleans.
1804:
Presbyterian minister and poet Joseph Fawcett passed away. In 1785, he began a
series of Sunday evening lectures at the Old Jewry meeting house the popular
meeting house for a Presbyterians that took its name from the fact that the
area had been the Jewish quarter or ghetto in the days before Edward expelled
them at the end of the 14th century. There is no record of how
these Christians felt about occupying the territory used by the people they had
been persecuting and to whom they still denied the full rights of British
citizens.
1814:
Birthdate of John William Colenso, the native of Cornwall who while serving as
Bishop of Natal translated three books of the TaNaCh into Zulu and was
convicted of heresy for publicly denying “the Mosaic authorship of the
Pentateuch” and declaring “that Jeremiah was the author of the Book of
Deuteronomy.”
1817: Rebecca
Mordecai and Jacob Hertz who had been married in Charleston, SC, gave birth to
Emma Eger Hertz.
1820: In “York
Place Queens Elm,” Sophia and Nathaniel Levy gave birth to Catherine Levy.
1821:
Elizabeth Mayers, the daughter of Joseph and Sarah Mayers was married today in
the United Kingdom.
1823: In
Frankfurt am Main, Zerline Beyfus (Worms) and Meyer (Mayer) Levin Beyfus gave
birth to Sigismund Beyfus.
1826(16th
of Shevat, 5586): Six-year-old Ann Crawcour, the daughter of David Crawcour and
Amelia Barnes was buried at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery after
she had passed away this morning.
1828:
Birthdate of Ferdinand J Cohn, German botanist who is considered a founder of
the science of bacteriology. From his early studies of microscopic life he
developed theories of the bacterial causes of infectious disease and recognized
bacteria as plants. He aided Robert Koch in preparing Koch's famous work on
anthrax. Cohn's writings cover such diverse subjects as fungi, algae, insect
epidemics, and plant diseases.
1828(8th
of Shevat, 5588): Seventy-three-year-old Abraham Flesch, “the Rabbi at
Rausntiz, Moravia, who was the father of Joseph Flesch passed away today.
1829:
Birthdate of Yechiel Michel ha-Levi Epstein, the rabbi known as “the Aruch
haShulchan” and the father of Rabbi Baruch Epstein.
1830:
Birthdate of Jules Worms, the Paris born physician served the French Army as a
surgeon during the Crimean War and was on the staff at Rothschild Hospital from
1865 to 1875.
1841: In
Canterbury, Fanny Nathan and Joel Abrahams gave birth to Hannah Abrahams, the
wife of Joseph Hart and the mother of Eleazer, Fanny, Florence, Evelina, Joel
and Morris Hart.
1842: Three
days after he had passed away Daniel Rees was buried today at Bath Jewish
Burial Ground.
1843: Reading
of the Will of Sally Prager, the wife of Solomon Polack, “the well-known artist”
who “painted Gordon (Lord George Gordon) while the
Lord George was in Newgate prison.”
https://benuri.org/artists/498-solomon-polack/biography
1844: The
Second Annual Benevolent Ball of the Israelites of Philadelphia raised $489.79
today.
1847: Three
days after he had passed away, Abraham Abrahams, the son of Isaac Abrahams and
the husband of Rachel Lazarus with whom he had had ten children was buried
today at the “Hope Street old burial ground.”
1848: James Marshall finds gold at a mill that is being built for John Sutter near San Francisco, CA. According to historian Hubert Howe Bancroft this event brought “a medley of races and nationalities, including the ubiquitous Hebrews." According to Stephen Mark Dobbs there were thirty Jews at a Rosh Hashanah services in San Francisco and the number grew to fifty for Yom Kippur. Jews mined for gold but they mined the commercial opportunities and by 1853 their number had grown to 3,000 in San Francisco alone.
1850: “The House of Rothschild made a fifty-million-franc loan to Pope Pius IX
on condition that” the walls of Rome’s Ghetto would be taken down. Not only did
the Pope fail to remove the walls, he “re-imposed restrictions on Jews living
in the Papal States…brought pressure against other rulers to revoke Jewish
rights granted in 1848” and ruled that the kidnapped Jewish Edgar Mortara
should be raised as a Catholic.
1851: In
Cayuga County, NY, Albert Baham was hung for his role in the murder of the
Jewish peddler Nathan Adler. After the execution, Albert’s brother John
confessed his role which resulted in his death sentence being commuted to life
in prison. In point of fact, he was pardoned by the governor after having
served 8 years in prison for his part in the crime.
1852: In
“Zary, Poland,” Abraham and Rebecca Glass gave birth to Herman Glass, the
cantor at Congregation Chizuk Amunah in Baltimore and the husband of Rachel
Glass.
1853: In
Furth, Bavaria, Sigmund Max Einhorn, the “son of Karoline and Maier Mendel
Einhorn” and his wife, the former Karoline Schloss, gave birth to Max Jakob
Einhorn
1855: At
Columbia, SC, Jacob M. Wolf of Winnsboro, SC married Ellen Graetz of New York.
1856 (17th of
Shevat, 5616): Rabbi Yechezkel of Kuzmir, Polish Hasidic leader passed away.
(Ed. Note: This comparatively lengthy note is intended to provide those with
limited background an introduction to the richly textured, multi-dimensional
world of Chassidic Jewry.) Born in 1755, he was the founder of the) Modzitz or
Modzhitz Chassidim. This is the name of a Chassidic group that derives its name
from Modzice, one of the boroughs of the town of Dęblin, Poland, located on the
Vistula River. Followers of this group are known as Modzitzer Chasidim and they
are now based mainly in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem in Israel where their Rebbe
lives. They also have a smaller following in Brooklyn, New York. The rabbis who
lead them have come from a family by the name of "Taub". Rabbi
Yechezkel Taub of Kuzmir established yeshivas and a type of Hasidic teaching
that was similar to that of the Seer of Lublin, and distinct from the Hasidism
of Ger and Kotzk. Upon his death, his son, Rabbi Eliyahu Taub of Zvolin, Poland
succeeded him. He excelled in Torah scholarship and creating Hasidic songs. He
was called Menagen mafli pla'os Hebrew for "a wondrous musical
talent". His first son Rabbi Moshe Aaron succeeded him as Rabbi of Zvolin.
His second son Yisrael went on to found the actual Modzitz Hasidic dynasty.
Rabbi Yisrael Taub was born in 1849 and in 1891 founded the Modzitzer Hasidic
movement in Modzitz, Poland. He created many melodies that are still sung by
Hasidim today. When he passed away on November 24, 1920, he was succeeded by
his son Rabbi Shaul Yedidya Elazar Taub. Shaul Yedidya Elazar Taub was born on
October 20, 1886. He guided his Hasidim until 1938 when he fled Poland due to
Nazi persecution. He made his way to Lithuania, then to Russia, then to China,
and then to Japan. Eventually, with the help of some Modzitzer Chassidim, he
and some family members reached the shores of San Francisco and then moved to
Brooklyn, New York in 1940. It was during his stay in Brooklyn that Rabbi Shaul
became popular and helped rebuild Modzitz. He was a gifted songwriter and wrote
over 1000 Hasidic melodies. He constantly talked about the coming of the State
of Israel. He was unable to see his prediction come true and he passed away on
November 29, 1947, the day the UN voted to create the state of Israel. He was
succeded by his son Rabbi Samuel Eliyahu Taub. Rabbi Samuel Eliyahu was born in
Lublin, Poland on February 9, 1905. Rabbi Shaul and his son Rabbi Samuel were
on a trip to the then British Mandate of Palestine in 1935. While they were
there Samuel fell in love with Palestine and asked his father if he could stay
there. His father agreed and within a year Rabbi Samuel's wife and their child
came over to Israel. In 1947 he succeeded his father and became the Modzitzer
Rebbe to be known as the Imre Aish ("Words of Fire") as Samuel
Eliyahu is called and continued the traditions of Modzitz both as a composer
and Torah scholar. He passed away on May 6, 1984, when he was succeeded by his
son Rabbi Dan Israel Taub. Rabbi Israel Dan was born in 1928 in Warsaw, Poland.
He came with his mother to Palestine in 1936 to meet up with his father Rabbi
Samuel. For a number of years he headed the Modzitz Chasidim in the city of
Tel-Aviv where his father had lived. He moved to a new building in Bnei Brak,
Israel on Lag Ba'omer 5755 (May 18. 1995). Like his predecessors he also
composes Hasidic melodies and many of them have are sung regularly in Hasidic
synagogues. His opinion is highly regarded. The Modzitz Hasidim are well-known
for their uniquely inspiring melodies and their devotion to serious learning of
Torah and Talmud.
1859: Alexandru
Ioan Cuza, who as a leader of united Romania “tried to prepare for the
emancipation of the Jews” began his reign as Prince of Wallachia.
1862: In New
York City George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander gave birth to
Edith Newbold Jones who gained fame as Pulitzer Prize winning author Edith
Wharton whose display of anti-Semitism in The House of Mirth which
included the depiction Jewish financier name Simon Rosedale has proved to a
problem for her at least some of her Jewish fans.”
1862:
Bucharest was proclaimed capital of Romania. The Jewish population of Bucharest
had grown from 127 families in 1820 to 5,934 persons in 1860. By the turn of
the century, the Jewish population would exceed 40,000 people making them
almost 15% of the city’s total population.
1864: During
the Civil War, Joseph Herzog began his service with Company E of the 29th
Regiment.
1865: In
Warsaw, Therese Mohr and Isaac Rosenwasser gave birth to Harry Rosenwasser, the
husband of Esther Sachs, the founder of Rosenwasser Brothers, a company that
manufactured leggings and shoes and a member of Temple Israel as well as a
supporter of the Federation of Jewish Charities in New York
1866: Charles
August Lauff, the German native and California businessman, and his wife, Maris
J. Sebran, the daughter of Gregorio and Ramono Briones, gave birth to Caroline
Lauff.
1869: In
Ukraine, Yechezkel Boorstein, the son of Shlomo Boorstein. and his wife Pessia
Boorstein gave birth to future New York resident Dobrish (Dora) Handelman, the wife
of Joseph Yussel Handelman and
mother of
Alexander Handelman; Abraham Handelman; Harry Handelman; Anna Hellman; Meyer
Handelman; Miriam Diamond (Handelman) and Edward Handelman.
Sister of Anne
Boorstein; Eliezer Lipa HaLevi Boorstein; Zev (William) Velvil Boorstein
1874: Nathan
W. Lyman appeared at the Jefferson Market Police Court today and withdrew his
complaint that he had been swindled out of $7,000 by a Hungarian born Jew, Dr.
Gabor Naphegyi.
1874: In New
York City, thirty-three-year-old Sarah Hendricks and New Orleans native Florian
Hart Florance gave birth to Sylvia Florance., the wife of Theodore J. Joseph
and the mother of Marjorie, Dorothy and Barbara Joseph.
1875: “The
Talmud” published today provided a detailed, accurate description of this work
without any of the anti-Semitic rhetoric often attached to describing this
Jewish work. (Editor’s note – so far, I can find no explanation for why this
article was published or who wrote it)
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1875/01/24/82752821.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1876: Leaders
of several New York congregations met at Temple Emanu-El met tonight to discuss
the possibility of establishing a college for Jewish students. A committee was
established to contact congregations throughout the United States to gain
support for the endeavor. Louis May, President of Temple Emanu-El was selected
as chairman and Meyer S. Isaacs was selected as Secretary.
1877: Five
days after he had passed away, “David Viscount de Stern,” a senior partner in
Stern Brothers and the husband of Sophia Goldsmid with whom he had had five
children was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1877: In
Tennessee, Samuel “Saul: Hirsch, the German born so of Therese and Leopold
Hirsch gave birth to Stella Hirsch who became Stella Heilbronner when she
married Max T. Heilbronner with whom she had two children, Irene and Amy.
1879: Rosa
Sonneschein founded "The Pioneers," a Jewish women's literary club in
St. Louis, Missouri. “The club, which met in Sonneschein's home, was modeled
after similar Christian women's clubs and was devoted to general literary
subjects rather than specifically Jewish literature. Perhaps inspired by this
literary circle, in the 1880s Sonneschein began publishing stories in Jewish
magazines. She also worked as a correspondent for the German-language press in
the U.S., a position for which she was prepared by both her German upbringing
and her social status as the wife of a prominent St. Louis rabbi. In 1895,
after divorcing her husband, Sonneschein moved to Chicago and founded a
magazine specifically addressed to American Jewish women, the American Jewess.
Though the magazine ran only until 1899, it was the first English periodical
specifically addressed to Jewish women. It sought to document and inspire the
activism of an emerging network of Jewish women's organizations that expanded
upon the model established by the Pioneers.”
1880:
Birthdate of New York political leader and Congressman Meyer Jacobstein.
1882: The
Hearts of Oak Company featuring David Belasco as “Mr. Ellingham” performed for
the thies time at Leubrie’s Theatre in St. Paul, MN.
1884: In
Munich, banker and brewery owner Joseph Schulein, the Bavarian born son of Joel
and Jeanette Schulein and his wife Ida gave birth to Hermann Schulein.
1884: In Marienpol,
Poland, Deborah and Isaac Engel gave birth to Texas Aggie and University of
Texas trained attorney Sol Engel Gordon, the Judge of the City Court in
Beaumont, TX and “special attorney for the state of Texas responsible for
gaining a guilty verdict in a case brought against the “movie picture trust for
violation of anti-trust laws” who was the husband of Pauline Mayer with whom he
had two children – Julius and Beverly – and who was an active Zionist and a
member of the B’nai B’rith.
1887:
Birthdate of Alexander Portnoff, the native of the Ukraine who came to America
in 1907 where he became a leading painter and sculptor whose models included
Sholem Aleichem.
1888:
President Moritz Loth chaired a special meeting of the Executive Board at 1:30
p.m. where resolutions were adopted praising Max Hoffheimer, the board member
who passed away unexpectedly yesterday.
1888: In
Vienna, Mathide (née Donath) and Hermann Baum gave birth to Austrian writer,
Hedwig (Vicki) Baum who is considered one of the first modern bestselling
authors, and her books are reputed to be among the first examples of
contemporary mainstream literature. She attended Vienna Conservatory to study
the harp, later playing the harp professionally and teaching music for several
years in Darmstadt. After a number of novels in German, a breakthrough novel,
Menschen im Hotel, was turned into a play and then at the instigation of
producer Irving Thalberg into the highly successful film Grand Hotel directed
by Edmund Goulding. The story details one weekend in a posh hotel in minute
detail -- Baum had taken a job as maid to yield realism. The film won Best Picture
Oscar. Her time in the United States made her realize it was time to leave
Germany, emigrating in 1932. From that point Baum wrote many of her novels in
English and took citizenship in 1938. Residing in California, she lived in
Pacific Palisades, Pasadena, and then Hollywood, where she died of leukemia in
1960. Among two of her most pithy sayings are, "Pity is
the deadliest feeling that can be offered to a woman" and "To be a
Jew is a destiny.” (Jewish Women’s Archives)
1888: In New
York City, over a thousand people attended a benefit performance of "King
Solomon" at the Roumania Opera House. The event was organized by
Mrs. M. Rosendorff who will use the funds to buy meat for needy Jews at
Passover time. This is not Mrs. Rosendorff's first foray into fund
raising. In 1887, she hosted a ball at the the Webster Hall that paid for
meat Passover time.
1891(15th
of Shevat, 5651): Tu B’Shevat
1891: Sarah
Bernhardt is scheduled to sail from Harve today so that they can begin
performing at the Garden Theatre in New York at the beginning of February.
1891(15th
of Shevat, 5651): Dutch born “Belgian engraver and sculptor” Leopold Wiener,
the Royal Engraver whose interest in music led to his serving as “vice
president of the Conservatoire at Brussels” passed away today.
1892: It was reported today that as the famine worsens in Russia Czar Nicholas
II has decided to devote all of his energies to dealing with the crisis which
means he has “indefinitely postponed” all of the measures aimed against his
Jewish subjects.
1892: It was
reported today that the upcoming Hebrew Charity Ball is the last major
festivity of the social season in Philadelphia, PA.
1892: It was
reported today that in addition to persecuting the Jews, the Czar is now
persecuting the Stundists, a Christian sect founded in the 1850’s.
1893(7th
of Shevat, 5653): Russian author and Hebraist Isaac Mayer Dick passed away
today.
http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/vilna/vilna_pages/vilna_stories_mayerdick.html
1894: In
Manhattan, Hunter College graduate and schoolteacher Mrs. Augusta Streim
Silverman gave birth to Hunter College and Columbia trained educator Estelle
Silverman “was a member of the board of governors of the New York Principals
Association” passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/08/06/93142775.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1895: “A Dance
For Charity” published today described the dances sponsored by the Young
Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore home which have replaced the
annual Purim Ball as the leading social event “in Jewish social circles.”
The change took place two years ago but has not had any effect on the ability
to raise funds for the charities that benefit from these social events. (more
for 2015)
1895: In
Portland, Oregon, Ezras Achim which meets on the second Sunday of each month
and whose members included Leon Goldenberg and Himan Gertzman was incorporated
today.
1895: The
officers of the Montefiore Home were today reported to be: President – Jacob H.
Schiff; Vice President – Louse Gans; Treasurer – Isidor Straus; and
Honorary Secretary – Raphael Ettinger.
1896: It was
reported that while giving President Kreuger was giving a sermon during the
ceremonies dedicating a synagogue in Johannesburg, he said “And so I consecrate
this building to the worship of the Triune God.” While some Jews
minimized this reference to the Trinity, “others maintain that the
building has been desecrated and they have built another synagogue…”
1896: It was
reported today that in Jersey City, forty or fifty Jews who were sitting in the
audience during a speech being given by Herman Ahlwardt, the German anti-Semite
“threatened to kill him and burn the hall” when he “made some particularly
bitter references to them.” The Jews “were ejected by the police and
order was restored.”
1897: Berlin
Zionists Willy Bambus and Theodor Zlocisti addressed a letter to Herzl.
1897: Dr.
Lyman Abbott delivered a sermon today on the books of Esther, Daniel and Jonah
“all of which he said were fictitious although the book of Esther was based on
historical facts and was derived from court records.”
1897: One day
after he had passed away, 77-year-old Louis Rozelaar was buried today at the
Plashet Jewish Cemetery.”
1898: It was
reported today that for the year ending November 30, 1897, Mt. Sinai Hospital
in New York treated 2,996 patients with a mortality rate of 9.04 percent. (More
for 2014)
1898: It was
reported today that leaders of the Jewish community in Algiers have advised
their co-religionists to remain indoors and stay away from their businesses
following attacks by anti-Dreyfus/ant-Semitic mobs.
1898: A mob of
approximately 3,000 people surged through the streets of Algiers shouting “Down
With the Jews.”
1898: An
anti-Jewish riot took place today in St. Malo, a town in Brittany.
1898: “A
dispatch received from Algiers late tonight says that at 11 o’clock perfect
tranquility prevailed” with the troops having cleared the street of
anti-Semitic rioters including 300 of whom have been arrested.
1898: In New
York Max and Jane Walcoff Udell gave birth to City College trained business
executive and philanthropist Jerome I. Udell, the CEO of Max Udell Sons and
Company, a manufacturer of men’s clothing and a long time “member of the Board
of Directors of Beth Israel Medical Center.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/10/obituaries/jerome-i-udell.html
1899: “The
Zionist Movement” published today provided a summary of the report prepared by
the U.S. Consul at Beirut that concluded by “saying that the prospects are
brighter than ever before for the Jews in Palestine and for the country
itself.”
1899: Sarah
Ullmann, the wife of Solomon Ullmann, was buried today at the Edmonton Western
Jewish Cemetery
1899: It was
reported today that Henry Herzberg believes “that there never was a period in
the world’s history when more potent reasons existed why the essential
teachings of Judaism should be faithfully observed. Amid the forces of modern
civilization…there is vital need for constructive thought which feeds the moral
springs of action.”
1899: It was
reported today that the population of Palestine is 200,000 of which 40,000 are
Jews. This is an increase of 26,000 Jews in the last twenty years.
There are 22,000 Jews living in Jerusalem “half of whom” have come from Europe.
1899:
Birthdate of Robert Leon “Bob” Berman the New York and Fordham University
graduate whose major league as a catch and pinch runner consisted of two
appearance for the Washington Senators in 1918.
1900: In North
Rhine-Westphalia, Gustav Cohn the “son of Levi and Eva Regina Cohn” and his
wife Paula, gave birth to “Charlotte (Lotte) Cohn
1900(24th
of Shevat, 5660): Seventy-year-old Isaac Artom “Italian patriot, diplomat,
financier and author” passed away today at Rome.”
1900: Harry
Greenblatt married Fanny Gottliffe at “New Synagogue, Chapeltown Road, Leeds.”
1901: The
Industrial Removal Office was formally created as part of the Jewish
Agricultural Society at the Society's Executive Committee meeting. The
Society rented a store at 34 Stanton Street in New York and named it "The
Industrial Removal Office." The philosophy behind the IRO was to
assimilate the immigrants into American Society, both economically and
culturally. In 1901, following anti-Semitic decrees by the Romanian government,
a large wave of Romanian Jews fled to New York. The Rumanian Committee
was quickly formed in New York to distribute the immigrants to other towns
where they might find employment. B'nai B'rith lodges in these towns and cities
assisted the refugees upon their arrival. The Romanian Committee rapidly
evolved into the Industrial Removal Office, which took over the work on a much
larger scale and opened its availability to any unemployed Jewish immigrant,
regardless of their origin. The process of procuring work for immigrants was
done through traveling agents, who also obtained the cooperation of local
Jewish organizations. Local committees, organized primarily by B'nai B'rith,
obtained orders for workers and assisted the immigrants on their arrival. The
New York bureau noted requests received from the traveling agents and local
committees and matched up opportunities from their applicant lists. In the
first year of the Industrial Removal Office's existence, nearly 2000
individuals were sent to 250 places throughout the United States.
1902: In
Skalat, Galicia, Joseph and Hannah Speiser gave birth to “Assyyriologist”
Ephraim Avigdor Speiser
https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/ephraim-avigdor-speiser/
https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/ephraim-a-speiser/
1902:
Birthdate of economist Oskar Morgenstern who enjoyed a successful career in
Europe until the coming of the Nazis forced him to flee to the United States,
where he pursued his career.
1903(25th
of Tevet, 5663): Parashat Vaera
1903: The
New York Times reports on the growth and development of the Jewish
Theological Seminary including the securing of a $500,000 endowment and the
election of Justice Greenbaum, the New York state jurist, to the Board of
Directors.
1904: In
Bremerhaven, Germany, “Ernest and Helene (Goth) Winn gave birth to Monument’s
Man Lt. Col. Eric Ernst Winn
https://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes/first-hand-participants/winn-lt.-col.-eric-ernst
1904: The New
York Times “mentioned” today that the second concert of the Russian Symphony
Orchestra which had been founded by cellist Modest (Moisei Isaacovich)
Altschuler included a performance of Wiensiawski Souvenir de Moscou.
1905(18th
of Shevat, 5665): Sixty-two-year-old Edward Einstein, the native of Cincinnati,
Ohio who “was elected a Republican from New York’s 7th Congressional
District and who ran unsuccessfully for Mayor passed away today.
1905:
Henry S. Morais, journalist, educator and rabbi, writes a letter praising
Benjamin Disraeli to the New York Times entitled “Why the People of the
United States Should Cherish His Memory” in which he reviews Disraeli’s support
for the Union during the Civil War when other English leaders including
Gladstone “were known to be in sympathy” with the Confederates and which
concludes with the statement that this “scion of the famous Israelis of Jewish
history…the offspring of a people as old as the ages, will live in the minds
and in the hearts not alone of his own, but in those of a liberty loving
humanity.”
1906: There
are reports from Bucharest published today that “massacres of the Jews have
taken place in Kishinev and various parts of Bessarabia” and that there are no
further details available at this time.
1907: Today, in Vilna of nineteen members
of the Election Committee of the Jewish Committee” who were meeting in home of
Dr. Lewin, “formerly a member of the Duma” were arrested.
1907(9th
of Shevat, 5667): Ninety-year-old Moritz Steinschneider passed away in Berlin.
http://www.steinschneider.com/biography/msteinsch.htm
1908(21st
of Shevat, 5668): Leopold Wallach a distinguished New York lawyer who is the
father-in-law of Max Morgenthau, Jr. passed away today.
1908: In
Leipzig, Hans von Halban Sr. a professor of physical chemistry and his wife
gave birth French physicist Hans Heinrich von Halban.
1909: It was
reported today that according to “annual survey of religious statistics for
1908” there are 143,000 Jews belong to either the “Orthodox or Reform wings.”
1909: “The
opening of the Jewish Maternity Hospital at 270 East Broadway” “which is the
first of its kind to be established on the east side” is scheduled to take
place this afternoon.
1910: “Schiff
Would Check Jewish Immigrants” published today described a speech by Jacob H.
Schiff, the banker and philanthropist, in which he warned that the east side of
New York “could not continue to absorb many more poor Russian, Austrian and
Rumanian Jewish immigrants” and urged those attending the annual meeting of the
Hebrew Sheltering Aid and Immigrant Society to “deflect the current of Jewish
immigration to the South and West.”
1911: Founding of Merchaviya the first Jewish settlement in Emek Yizra'el
(Jezreel Valley). Ten years after its founding, Merchaviya would be joined by
its most famous member, Golda Meir. The future Prime Minister of Israel would
tend chickens.
1911:
Birthdate of Albert “Reds” Weiner, the four sport (football, basketball,
baseball and track) athlete a Muhlenberg who went on to play professionally
with the Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL.
1912: Vladimir Kokovtsoff, the Premier of Russia, admitted in writing today
that “Russia has treated American Jews differently” than other Americans but
that was no reason for President Taft to have abrogated the Treaty of 1832
since Russia reserved the right to treat American Jews “exactly on the same
basis as all other foreign Jews and because it is necessary to treat foreign
Jews in a way that is consistent with a “whole range of restrictions” that
Russia places on its Jewish subjects.
1912: Tulane Medical School trained surgeon and
pathologist Arthur Anselm Herold, the Shreveport, LA, born son of Rosa Simmons
and Simon Herold who after 1919 limited his practice to internal medicine in
Shreveport where he was chairman of the Southern District of the United Jewish
Campaign in 1926 and president of B’nai Zion Congregation married Eda Loeb
today.
1913: Franz Kafka stopped working on "Amerika"; it will never be
finished
1913: In Koln,
Germany, Meno Lissauer, the Lubeck, Germany born son of Frieda and Abraham Adolph Moses Lissauer the
founder and chairman of the Associated Metals and Minerals Corporation who made
his way from Nazi occupied Holland via Lisbon to the United States where he
became “a director of the American Federation of Jews in Central Europe and
established a scholarship and endowment at Brandeis and his wife Meta gave
birth to Hanna Hirschfeld
1914: In
Leonia, NJ, Yetta and Samuel S. Lefkowitz, “a registered pharmacist and a
chiropractor” who “served as the secretary-treasurer of the Amalgamated
Chiropractors Association of New Jersey” gave birth to attorney Naftali (Nat)
Lefkowitz, the husband of Sylvia Pollock
1914: Dr.
Cyrus Adler, president of Dropsie College Isaac Hassler, president of the Young
Men’s Hebrew Association and Charles Ellis, the Mayor of Camden, NJ were
reported today to be the speakers who address an upcoming meeting designed to
launch a fund raising drive to build a communal building for that Camden’s
Jewish population.
1915: “Jacob
H. Schiff while speaking today at the annual meeting of the Hebrew Free Loan
Society to which he and members of his family have been among the largest
contributors said he believed there was no other institution who work among
Jews was so far reaching and urged that steps be taken to broaden its scope and
capital.
1915: A
mass meeting sponsored by the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society to
express opposition to the Smith-Burnett Immigration Bill is scheduled to be
held this evening at Cooper Union.
1915:
David I. Seiffer will serve as Chairman of the mass meeting scheduled to be
held at Adas Jeshurun this afternoon for the purpose of raising funds for the
“war suffers in Kalisch, Russian-Polan which has been laid waste and is now in
the hands of the Germans.”
1916: A group
of “prominent Jewish women” met at the Hotel Astor this afternoon and chose
Mrs. Samuel Elkeles, the President of the Federation of the Sisterhoods to
serve as the chairwoman of a newly formed organization to raise funds for the
relief of Jewish war sufferers whose members also include Mrs. Harry Kraft,
Mrs. David Kass and Mrs. L.W. Zwisohn
1916: Chinka
Chana Zaid and Yosef Yechiel Zaid, HaKohen gave birth to their daughter Miriam
Meir.
1916: “The
Jewish Congress Organization Committee is scheduled to hold a mass meeting in
Carnegie Hall this evening as a demonstration for the rights of the oppressed
Jews in Europe” and which “is intended to emphasize the need of Jewish
organization as well as to arouse general public sentiment in favor of the move
for the attainments of the rights of Jewish people.”
1916:
“Enthusiastic endorsement of the movement for a Jewish Congress to demand equal
rights for the Jewish people, particularly in European countries after the war,
was expressed” tonight “by more than 3,000 persons who attended a mass meeting
in Carnegie Hall under the auspices of the Jewish Congress Organization
Committee” an organization that “includes seventeen national Jewish
organizations with a membership exceeding 500,000.”
1916: In San
Francisco, Elise (née Stern) and Walter A. Haas gave birth Walter A. Hass Jr.,
the CEO of Levi Strauss and Co., owner of the Oakland A’s, and noted
philanthropist who was the husband of Evelyn Danzig Hass with whom he had three
children – Robert, Betsy and Walter J.
1917(1st of
Shevat, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1917: Abraham
Isaac “Abe” Shiplacoff, the Socialist New York assemblyman “introduced New
York's first birth control bill, which would have allowed ‘the dissemination of
printed articles describing means of birth control’” today.
1918: The SS
Tuscania a luxury liner that had been converted into a troop ship, departed
Hoboken, New Jersey, with 384 crew members and 2,013 United States Army
personnel aboard of whom at least six were Jewish.
1918:
Birthdate of Newark, NJ, native Bernard Morris “Bernie” Weiner who was an
offensive lineman for Kansas State University before playing two years of
professional football with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/W/WeinBe20.htm
1918: After
one year and 332 days of service in the British Army Maurice Avener was
discharged because he was suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis.
1918: The
Gregorian calendar introduced in Russia by decree of the Council of People's
Commissars effective from February 14(NS). This change is one of the
impediments to pinpoint accuracy in dating events in Russian history.
Events are marked in different places by Old Style and New Style dates.
Unfortunately, some sources do not tell which they are which leads to added
confusion. (Yes, this is an excuse for some of the inaccuracies in this
document.)
1919:
“Agitation Against Jews” published today described “a campaign against Jewish
resident…in several South American cities including Montevideo and Buenos Aires
where “billboards have been covered with the inscription ‘Down with the Jews.’”
1920: “Roarin’
Dan,” a western directed by Phil Rosen was released today in the United States.
1920 (29th of
Tevet, 5680): Amedeo Clemente Modigliani passed away at the age of 35. http://www.isabel.com/gallery/reproduction/m/modiglia/record.html.
1921: In New York, “Samuel and Janie Stein Mintz, a Jewish couple from what was
then Austrian Galicia gave birth to award winning embryologist and cancer
researcher, Beatrice Mintz, the holder of Ph.D. from the University of Iowa who
spent much of her career at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/cancer-researcher-beatrice-mintz-dies-at-100-69626
1922: Eskimo
Pie patented by Christian K Nelson of Iowa. Nelson was not an Eskimo and he
was not Jewish. But those of us who live in Iowa don’t get to brag very often,
so just laugh and move on. There is a Jewish connection between Iowa and Ice
Cream. Many of the products manufactured by Blue Bunny Ice Cream which is
located in La Mars, Iowa, are kosher and delicious)
1922:
Professor Louis Ginzberg presented a paper on “The Question of Fermented Wines
in Jewish Religious Observances” to members of the Rabbinical Assembly of the
Jewish Theological Seminary who meeting in an executive session today.
Following a lengthy and lively discussion the consensus of opinion was that
unfermented grape juice may be used for sacramental purposes. This
decision will be forwarded to the American Jewish Committee which is collecting
information on the acceptability of using grape juice instead of wine when
reciting Kiddush, etc. Ginzberg’s belief that the use of unfermented grape
juice could be used put him at odds with the writings of Rabi Abraham
Klausner. Currently, nobody produces grape juice that meets the standards
of Kashrut so adoption of Ginzberg’s view would require the start of a new
business venture. [For those of you unacquainted with American History, this
issue arose with the start of Prohibition and its attempt to ban the sale and
consumption of alcohol in the U.S.]
1923: Today at
the “Golden Jubilee convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations”
Julius Rosenwald recommended “the complete abolition of the ceremonial use of
wine by both Orthodox and Reform Jews.
1923: Today,
at the Astor Hotel, Rabbi Jonah B. Wise proposed starting “an earnest campaign
to put an end to the use of Yiddish in order to retain those who now use it ‘in
the fold of Americanism and Judaism.’”
1924:
Birthdate of Chaim David ha-Levi, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv.
1924: In the Bronx, Jacob Raiffa, who sold wool products, and the former Hilda
Kaplan gave birth to Howard Raiffa “an economics professor whose mathematical
formulas for decision making were applied to the search for a missing nuclear
bomb and the siting of a Mexico City airport, and were even suggested as a way
to resolve a strike by professional hockey players.” (As reported by Sam
Roberts)
1924:
Birthdate of character actor Marvin Kaplan.
http://www.marvinkaplan.com/meet-marvin
1924: Max L.
Pine, Secretary of the United Hebrew Trades was the opening speaker at meeting
attended by representatives of 136 Jewish labor organizations where plans were
made to oppose the Johnson Immigration Bill which Congressman Fiorello
LaGuardia said was not an “immigration program” but an “immigration pogrom”
(JTA)
1924(18th
of Shevat): “Z’ev Jawotz, founder of the Mizrachi movement passed away.
1925(28th
of Tevet, 5685): Parashat Vaera
1925(28th
of Tevet, 5685): Adele Bloch-Bauer the wife of Ferdinand Bloch Bauer, the
subject of Gustav Klimts’ “Woman in Gold” passed away today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Adele_Bloch-Bauer_I#/media/File:Gustav_Klimt_046.jpg
1926: In New
York City, Louis and Rose Tishman gave birth to John Louis Tishman “a master
builder of the 20th century whose Tishman Realty and Construction Company
transformed the skylines of Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and New York.” (As
reported by David W. Dunlap)
1927: “Having
accepted the chairmanship of the New York campaign of the United Palestine
Appeal, because of the adjustment of differences between the factions
represented by Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Louis Marshall, Judge Otto A. Rosalsky
issued an appeal today to such Jews as "have not hitherto identified
themselves with Zionism in the organization sense of the word" to support
the appeal.”
1928: It was
reported today that a celebration marking the tenth anniversary of the Balfour
Declaration which was held at the Grand Street Boys’ Association clubhouse,
“Dr. Stephen S. Wise said he though the British Government will live up to the
covenant to it has affixed its name.”
1928(2nd
of Shevat, 5688): Sixty-seven-year-old “mining magnate” Berthold Hochschild, the
Bilbis, Grand Duchy of Hesse bon son of August Gustine Bendheim and Koppel
Jakob Hochschild and co-founder Metallgesellschaft AG and the American Metal
Company who was the father of Harold K. Hochschild, the founder of the
Adirondak Museum, Walter Hochschild, the founder of the Adirondak Camp and
Gertrude Hochschild, the wife of test pilot Boris Sergievsky passed awa today.
1929: Eighty-four-year-old
Adelaide Brewster Taylor the husband Selah Miller, the American consul in
Jerusalem who opposed Jewish settlement in Palestine and was vocal anti-Semite,
passed away today.
1930: “D. Emil
Klein Company” published today said that “for the year ending on December 31,
1929, D. Emil Klein Company, Inc. reported net profits of $414,414 after taxes,
depreciation and other charges,
1930: In
Augusta, GA, Cecilia and Hyman Lichtenstein gave birth to University of Georgia
alum and U.S. Navy veteran Meyer Lichtenstein, the husband of Sondra “Sunnie”
Lichtenstein with whom he had four children and who “ad a long career in the
mortgage business and real estate.”
1931(6th
of Shevat, 5691): Parsashat Bo
1931: “Green
Grow the Lilacs” which Theresa Helburn later came up with the concept of turning
it into the musical “Oklahoma” and which was directed by Herbert J. Biberman finished
its pre-Broadway tryouts today at the National Theater in Washington, DC.
1931(6th
of Shevat, 5691): Ninety-two-year-old Judith Adler the daughter of of Rav
Yitzchak Dov Halevi Bamberger, The Würzburger Rav. and Kela Bamberger, the wife
of Rabbi Immanuel Menachem Adler and the mother of PInchas Adler passed away
today in Bavaria.
1932(16th
of Shevat, 5692): Sixty-four-year-old Paul M. Warburg, the brother of
Felix Warburg, passed away at 6:30 this evening at his home in Manhattan. At
the time of his death, he was chairman of the boards of the International
Acceptance Bank of New York and the Manhattan Company. A native of Hamburg, and
a member of one of the most prominent banking family, he was instrumental in
providing many of the ideas that culminated in the creation of the Federal
Reserve. He was married to Nina Loeb, the daughter of the late Solomon Loeb of
the famed financial firm Kuhn, Loeb and Co.
1932:
Celebration of the 70th anniversary of the birth of author Sigmund
Dische in Czernowitz, Romania.
1932: Dr.
Abraham Schwardon’s gift to Hebrew University was described today as being “A
Great Collection of Autographs and Portraits Assembled by the Labors of a
Galician Chemist.”
1933: In New
Haven, CT, Thelma (Wisan) Frankenberger and Bertram Frankenberger, who as a Lt.
Colonel in the Army was the commander of Camp Blanding in Florida, gave birth
to University of Connecticut graduate and U.S. Air Force veteran Bertam
Frankenberger who pursued a career in the financial services the financial
services including six years with Deloitte Haskin and Sells.
1933 Jüdisches
Museum zu Berlin (1933–1938, opened on Oranienburger Straße a street in
central Berlin that was the in the heart of Berlin’s Jewish community before
the rise of the Nazis
1933(26th of
Tevet, 5693):Charles "King" Solomon a Boston racketeer born
in 1884 who controlled New England's bootlegging, narcotics and illegal
gambling during Prohibition was killed in Boston's Cotton Club by rival
gunmen. http://www.onewal.com/w-solomo.html
1934:
Ghazi bin Faisal, the King of Iraq who became pro-Nazi “as the tide of public
feeling began turning against Iraq’s Jews” “married his first cousin, Princess
Aliya bint Ali” today.
1934: A Lutheran minister (name unknown) opposed to the Reich Church is beaten
by Nazi thugs.
1934: In
New York City, the former Jean Smith and William Goldberg gave birth to Wharton
graduate, television producer and movie mogul Leonard Goldberg who wile at 20th
Century Fox brought “Broadcast News, Big, Die Hard, Wall Street and Working
Girl to the big screen.
1935: In Haifa
Matilda and Yehuda HaCohen gave birth to Nisim Cohen, a crewman on the
ill-fated INS Dakar.
1936(29th
of Tevet, 5696): Mt. Sinai Hospital medical researched and “WW I aviation
instructor” John Cohen passed away today in New York City.
1936:
Representatives of all three major faiths including Dr. Samuel H. Goldenson,
the rabbi at Temple Emanu-El “issued statements endorsing the aims of
Brotherhood Day” which will be observed next month.
1936: Speaking
at luncheon today at the Waldorf-Astoria, Ogden L. Mills, the former Secretary
of the Treasury “called upon American Jews and Christians to support the one
million dollar rehabilitation fund being raised by the Federation of Polish
Jews in America” because “we cannot view the starvation of 2,000,000 human
beings anywhere on this earth with equanimity.”
1936: Jewish
band leader Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded "Stompin' at the
Savoy" on Victor Records
1937: Dr.
Stephen S. Wise “praised Roosevelt’s declaration in his inaugural messages that
‘no group in this county will be regarded as superfluous’” while also telling
those at the Free Synagogue service that “the President stands ‘almost alone’
in his rebuke to Poland where it was said recently that 3,000,000 Jews were
‘superfluous’ and must be emigrated.”
1937: Rabbis
Abram Guzick, Bernard Leifer, Alexander Base, Morris Teshnor and Stephen
Parilla participated in the funeral services for Max Dick, the president of the
Home of the Sons and Daughters of Israel who had passed away on January 23.
1938:
Birthdate of Hungarian flyweight Gyula Torok who won a Gold Medal at the Rome
Olympics in 1960.
1938:
Birthdate of author Yoram Taharlev
http://www.taharlev.com/english.asp
1938: The
Palestine Post reported that a meeting of the General Council (Va'ad Leumi)
of Palestine Jews published a manifesto calling for the immediate opening of
the gates of the country to the millions of suffering Diaspora Jews.
1938: The
Palestine Post reported that one Jew was severely wounded when Arabs shot
at a group of workers returning from the Givat Shaul quarry to Jerusalem.
1938: The
Palestine Post reported that according to the new Romanian law, all Jews
had to appear before the courts in order to prove their citizenship rights.
1939:
Hermann Goring, Hitler’s #2, formally appointed Reinhard Heydrich as head of
Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration and ordered him to speed up the
process
1940:
Final day of an Aktion begun on January 18 during which 255 Jews were arrested
in Warsaw and then murdered in the Palmiry Forest.
1940: In
Brooklyn, Arthur Kaminsky, “a furrier” and May Kaminsky, “a homemaker” gave
birth to published Howard Kaminsky.
1940: As the
Nazi plunder of Poland continues, General Gouvernment ordered registration of
all Jewish property.
1941:
Birthdate of Dan Schecthman, the Tel Aviv native who is a professor at the
Technion and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
1942(6th
of Shevat, 5702): Parashat Bo
1942: “An
audience of 2000 attended the sixth annual trade union music festival was
presented tonight at Carnegie Hall under the auspices of the Palestine Labor
Committee” which was a fund raiser for “Jewish pioneers who have been active on
Middle Eastern fronts.”
1943: During
the past three weeks, fifteen trains reached the Auschwitz from Belgium,
Holland, Berlin, Grodno and Bialystok. Of the new arrivals, 4,000 were sent to
the barracks and 20,000 were killed before their luggage could be sorted. To
accommodate the rate of killing, four new crematoriums were constructed.
1943 One
thousand Jews from Jasionowka were rounded up and deported to Treblinka.
1943:
The Nazis incinerated Jewish patients, nurses and doctors at Auschwitz-Birkenau
1943:
Hitler ordered Nazi troops at Stalingrad to fight to death. This militarily
stupid command helped seal the fate of the German army and marked the beginning
of the end for the Nazi juggernaut.
1944:
The SS Meyer London was launched today. This “liberty ship” was
named for the American Jewish leader who was one of only two Socialist Party
members to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She was sunk
by a torpedo off the cost of Lybia.
1944: In Brooklyn Rose (née Rapoport) and Akeeba "Kieve" Diamond, a
dry-goods merchant gave birth to singer-songwriter Neil Leslie Diamond who was
a classmate of Barbra Streisand at Erasmus Hall High School.
https://www.biography.com/musician/neil-diamond
1944: Birthdate of David Gerrold [Jerrold
David Friedman] author of the World of Star Trek. There has always been
a strange affinity between Jewish writers and science fiction. Maybe it comes
from those Biblical chariots of Elijah, Ezekiel and Isaiah.
1945: The
so-called “transport of Death which was part of the Nazi Death marches that
took place in the waning days of WW II took place and “Brandys nad Orlici in
Czechoslovakia.
1946: The
Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a joint British and American committee
composed of six Americans and six Englishmen that was charged with examining
the “political, economic and social conditions in Mandatory Palestine as they
bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein and the
well-being of the peoples now living therein” which had been meeting in
Washington, D.C. continued its meetings for a second day in London.
1947:
Birthdate of Warren William Zevon, the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant and a
Scottish/Welsh Mormon who became a noted singer, song writer and musician.
1948: Julius
Ochs Adler was promoted to Major General in the United States Army.
1948:
Birthdate Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State and foreign policy
expert.
1948: At the
Playhouse Theatre in New Yor final performance of “Survivors,” with a script by
Jewish playwrights Irwin Shaw and Peter Viertel
1949:
France recognized Israel.
1949(23rd
of Tevet, 5709): Eighty-one-year-old famed New England traveling salesman John
Jacob Hyman, “founder of a cardiovascular research foundation bearing his name”
passed away today in Boston.
1950: “Unless
continued aid is given to Israel by American Jews, not only will Israel's
future be difficult, but many advances already achieved may be canceled out,
Aubrey Eban, Israeli delegate to the United Nations, declared today.”
1950(6th
of Shevat, 5710): Sixty-eight-year-old Czech native, former official in the
Austrian Ministry of Education and consultant for the Library of Congress Max
Lederer, the holder of a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna and husband of Maianne
Lederer who after fleeing Hitler controlled Austria became a visiting professor
at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, IA passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1950/01/26/87008663.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1951:
Birthdate of Soviet-born American comedian Yakov Smirfnoff
1952:
Twenty-three-year-old Montreal native Larry Zeidel scored “the winning goal as
the Indianapolis Capitals defeated Buffalo in the American Hockey League. (As
reported by Wechsler)
1953(8th
of Shevat, 5713): Parashat Bo
1953(8th
of Shevat, 5713): Seventy-two-year-old boxing promoter Michael Strauss “Mike”
Jacobs passed away today.
http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Mike_Jacobs
1956: German
born American composer Stefan Wolpe “was appointed to the faculty at the C.W.
Post College” today.
1956(11th
of Shevat, 5716): Sixty-one year old stage and movie actor Oskar Karlweis , the
son of author Carl Karlweis and the brother of author Mara Karlweis who fled
his homeland with rise of the Nazis and pursued his career in England and the
United States while married to produer Ninon Tallon passed awa today in New
York after which he was buried in Vienna.
1958(3rd
of Shevat, 5718): Sixty-five-year-old Dvinsk native Isidor Kadis who in 1905
came to the United States where he attended the University of Cincinnati and
HUC and became a “field director of the JNF” who worked with Chaim Weizmann and
raised two children with his wife Jean Price Kadis, passed away today.
1959(15th of
Shevat, 5719): Tu B'Shvat
1959:
"Party with Comden and Green" closes at John Golden New York City
1960(24th
of Tevet, 5720): Fifty-nine-year-old Alice Mayer Kirsch, the San Francisco born
daughter of Eva and Benjamin Mayer, the award-winning pianist who performed
under the name of Alice Frisca passed away today.
1960: ABC
broadcast “Glory,” an episode of “The Rebel” directed by Irvin Kirshner.
1962: Brian
Epstein signed a contract to manage The Beatles.
1963:
Birthdate of Michael Gorlovsky, the native of Dzerzhinsk, who made in Aliyah in
1988 following which he joined Likud and was elected to the Knesset from 2003
to 2006.
1964: Bob Hope
hosted an hour-long TV version of “The Seven Little Foys” which had been
written by Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson.
1965: The
evening in the Terrace Room of the Plaza Hotel, Rabbi Louis M. Lederman
officiated at the weeding of Hanna R. Cohen, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Samuel Cohen and Jeffrey M. Moskin, the son of Mr. and Mrs. William Moskin
1965(23rd
of Shevat, 5725): Almost a year to the day after the death of her husband
Federal Judge Clarence G. Galston,, 89-year old Estelle Elkus Galston the
mother of Clarence E. Galston and Mrs. B. Edward Bensinger passed away today.
1965: In
Damascus, Syrian police arrested Kamel Amin Th’abet on charges of being an
Israeli spy. After being tortured he was hung in a public
execution. Th’abet was Eli Cohen who successfully penetrated the highest
level of the Syrian government and provided intelligence of immeasurable value.
http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=205609
1965: Ninety-year-old
Winston Churchill a supporter who led the fight against Hitler when the rest of
the word was busy appeasing him, supporting him or standing by an giving him a
free hand passed away today. Martin
Gilbert, his official biographer, is Jewish and has written a slim, fascinating
volume entitled Churchill and the Jews.
1965:
NBC broadcast the first episode of “Branded” a television western created by
Larry Cohen
1969: Funeral
services are scheduled to be held today for Bronx resident Leon, “a Yiddish
journalist, novelist and post and the one-time city editor of The Day.
1971:
Ninety-year-old Martha Grassmann, the woman who risked her life to hide artist
Fritz Ascher during WW II passed away today.
1971: Author
Susan Brownmiller “helped to organize the New York Radical Feminists Speak-Out
on Rape” which took place today.
1971:”
Zachariah,” a musical directed and co-produced by George Englund was released
today in the United States.
1971(27th
of Tevet, 5731): Seventy-eight year old Chicago native Alvin Robert Cahn, the
holder of a “BS from Cornell” and “PhD from the University of Illinois where he
served on the faculty who was stationed
at Dutch Harbor for three years during WW II passed away today in Tokyo.
1973: Hussein
Al Bashir, he Fatah representative on Cyprus was killed tonight when a bomb
“plant under his bed was remotely detonated.’
1973: Mrs.
Leonard Hl Bernheim , “the former Elinor Kridel” whose husband is an investment
banker and who is the mother of two boys, Charles and Leonard, was elected
president of the Community Council of New York
1974(1st of
Shevat, 5734): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1975: ABC
broadcast the first episode of “Hot I Baltimore” a sitcom featuring Charlotte
Ray and Richard Masur with music by Marvin Hamlisch.
1975(12th
of Shevat, 5735): Seventy-two-year-old actor and comedian Larry Fine, one of
the Three Stooges passed away today.
1975(12th
of Shevat, 5735): Ninety-one-year-old Dr. Harry Finkelstein, a retired New York
orthopedic surgeon and a member of the original founding staff of the Hospital
for Joint Diseases, where he was a former chief of orthopedic surgery, passed
away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/1975/01/25/archives/dr-harry-finkelstein-91-orthopedic-surgeon-dies.html
1976(22nd
of Shevat, 5736): Seventy-one-year-old Pinchas Lavon passed away
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Lavon.html
1978: The
Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Menachem Begin told the Knesset
that he might reconsider his previous decision and would send a delegation to
the Cairo-held military talks, but warned that this would not happen if Egypt
continued to issue statements offensive to Jewish dignity. Begin explained that
Egypt broke off the political talks held in Jerusalem despite the fact that
President Anwar Sadat was well aware, in advance, of Israel's stand on the
Rafiah Sinai salient and on the future of Palestine's Arab people. In Cairo
Egypt confirmed that the political peace talks had been frozen, but not
terminated. The US insisted that both Egypt and Israel should embark on a
useful process that should resume whenever possible.
1979(25th
of Tevet, 5739): Eighty-five old sculptor Bashka Paeff passed away today in
Cambridge.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9B02E0DA1639E732A25755C2A9679C946890D6CF
1983(10th
of Shevat, 5743): Director George Cukor passed away at the age of 83 after a
stroke and a heart attack.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/15/books/the-man-in-the-glass-closet.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/41936%7C58446/George-Cukor/
1984:
Birthdate of Tel Aviv native Yotam Halperin, the 6’4” guard for Hapoel
Jerusalem of the Israeli Basketball Super League.
1986: In Eilat Laura (née Ehrenkranz), a teacher, and Brian Ullman, a printer
gave birth to Ricky Ullman who moved to the United States after his first
birthday and became a successful actor and musician.
1988:
After the Israeli Cabinet met today Police Minister Haim Bar-Lev told reporters
that reports to contrary, there is no policy to beat Palestinians to stop
protests in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He said that the using the word
beatings “is an unfortunate term.”
1988:
Eighty-six-year-old London born Biblical scholar Hugh Joseph Schonfield whose
works included A New Hebrew Typography and host of controversial books about
Judaism and early Christianity including The Passover Plot and Jesus: A
Biography passed away today.
1990(27th
of Tevet, 5750): Eighty-six-year-old Milton Kalischer, the son of Sigismund and
Helen Teresa Kalischer, who was an Iowa State University trained refrigeration
engineer and Westinghouse employee.
1990: An
Israeli court jailed for life plus 40 years a Palestinian known as the ''Tel
Aviv Strangler,'' who claimed to have killed seven people to prove he was not a
collaborator with the Israelis. Four of his victims were Jews and three were
Arabs. Mohammed Halabi, 32 years old, was sentenced today for the murders in
October of five women and two men. The Tel Aviv District Court jailed him for
40 additional years for two attempted murders. The police said Mr. Halabi
confessed to all the charges.
1991: Israel
said it would not carry out an immediate retaliatory strike against Iraq
despite the missile attack on Tel Aviv that killed three people. After that
decision, another Iraqi missile was destroyed by one of the American Patriot
missiles stationed in Israel over the weekend. And it was disclosed that a
Patriot had clipped the missile that hit Tel Aviv.
1991(9th
of Shevat, 5751): Seventy-three-year-old Ruth Jane Hexter Goodfriend, the
Cleveland born daughter of Rhoda and Harry Fleishman Affeldere who was the wife
of Louis M. Hexter and Jerome Goodfriend passed away today.
1991:
Mayor David N. Dinkins, who has repeatedly criticized the American effort in
the Persian Gulf, said today that he would travel to Israel next week in a
symbolic gesture of support for Israelis and for American troops. In the tender
world of the city's ethnic politics, the visit could prove awkward. It would
appeal to Jewish supporters and strengthen his pro-Israel stance, but it might
appear too hawkish to some of his anti-war constituents, including many blacks,
who still form the base of his support.
1991: In
the currency market, the dollar's recovery today, which was partly technical,
followed comments by Israel's Ambassador to the United States, who said Tel
Aviv would be ready to join in regional arms control efforts and possible peace
talks with the Palestinians once the Persian Gulf War ended.
1992: In “A
Physical Approach For an Israeli 'Hamlet'” Mel Gussow reviews Rina Yerushalmi's
provocative adaptation of "Hamlet" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
1993: A
“travel advisory” issued to reported that the American Jewish Congress will be
sponsoring 4 “family tours of Israel” this year ‘that include the opportunity
to celebrate a bar or bat mitzvah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and at the
Zealot's Synagogue in Masada”
1995(23rd
of Shevat, 5755): Seventy-seven-year-old Brooklyn-born southpaw Herb Karpel who
pitched in two games for the New York Yankees passed away today.
1995:
“Following an official state visit to Israel by Austrian President Thomas
Klestil in 1994, which included a side tour of Kiryat Mattersdorf, Klestil
hosted Rabbi Akiva Ehrenfeld at an official reception at the Hofburg Palace in
Vienna” today.
1996(3rd
of Shevat, 5756): In the UK, eighty-one-year-old Bernard Philips, founder of
Bernard Phillips and Company, passed away today.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituarybernard-phillips-1317581.html
1996: HBO
broadcast the first episode of “Tracey Takes On” starring Tracey Ullman.
1997: After
premiering on Christmas Day, “Mother” a comedy directed by Albert Brooks who
co-authored the script with music by Marc Shaiman and co-starring Albert
Brooks, Rob Morrow and Lisa Kudrow was released today in the United States.
1999:
“Get Bruce!” a documentary that included appearances by Billy Crystal, Bette
Midler, Roseanne Barr and Paul Reiser was released in the United States today.
1999: The
New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or topics of
special interest to Jewish readers including Primo Levi:Tragedy of an Optimistby Myriam
Anissimov, The Conversion by Aharon Appelfeld and Reporting Live
by Leslie Stahl.
2000: RADWARE
Ltd., of Tel Aviv is prepared to make an equity offering 2.5 million shares
this week.
2000: “Urbania” starring Dan Futterman premiered at
the Sundance Film Festival.
2001: As the
controversy surrounding the pardon of Marc Rich continues to grow, Jack Quinn,
former White House counsel under President Clinton, who is now Mr. Rich's
lawyer said in an interview today that the president had given every indication
in their conversations on January 19th that he had read the petition and piles
of testimonials that had been sent the previous month and that he was eager to
discuss the case on its merits.
2001:
Today, Mr. Bush appeared to be directing attention away from the
Israeli-Palestinian talks and toward major Arab countries by placing telephone
calls to four leaders: King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia,
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan.
The White
House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, described the calls as an effort to
''underscore the strong relations the United States has with these nations.''
He said they were ''introductory'' in nature and declined to be specific about
substance.
2001: In
France, premiere of Origine Contrôlée a French comedy starring Ronit
Elkabetz the Israeli actress in her first French film.
2001: The
cabinet decided tonight Israel will return to peace talks with the Palestinians
here on Thursday, after a nearly two-day suspension prompted by the killing of
two Israeli civilians in the West Bank.
2001:
Peter Mandelson completed his term as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
2002: In
New York, the 11th annual New York Jewish Film Festival comes to a close.
2002:
Professor Schmuel Noah Eisenstadt of Jerusalem delivered the “2nd
Simon Dubnow Lecture” at the Old Exchange in Leipzig.
2002: “An
Israeli helicopter assassinated Bakr Hamdan in the Gaza Strip, the leader of
the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which Israeli security official said was
responsible for "dozens of terrorist attacks carried out against Israeli
civilians and soldiers in the Gaza Strip.”
2003: A month
after a limited release, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” a film version of a
book by Chuck Barris produced by Andrew Lazar, with a screenplay by Charlie
Kaufman, filmed by cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel and featuring Jerry
Weintraub was released today in the United States.
2003(21st
of Shevat, 5763): Seventy-eight-year-old Auschwitz survivor and French labor
leader Henri Krasucki passed away today.
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jan/26/local/me-passings26.3
2004(1st
of Shevat, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
2004: “A who's
who of LA's entertainment world are expected to join Jewish Big Brothers Big
Sisters in honoring respected entertainment industry executive and producer
Mark Canton with the Sydney J. Rosenberg Lifetime Achievement Award at the 12th
Annual Dinner & Auction Gala tonight at the Century Plaza Hotel.”
2004:
“Metallica” a documentary co-directed and co-produced by Bruce Sniofsky
premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
2004: An
exhibition entitled “What Does It Mean To Be Jewish?” opens at the Jewish
Historical Museum in Amsterdam.
2005: In
“A Bright Diaspora Star Fails to Dazzle Israel,” published today Steven
Erlanger describes the Israeli reaction to American economist and banker
Stanley Fischer becoming Governor of the Bank of Israel.
2005: At
Columbia University, the Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim “compared
Herzl’s ideas to Wagner’s; criticized Palestinian terrorist attacks but also
justified them; and said Israeli actions contributed to the rise of
international anti-Semitism.” (JTA)
2005:
Daniel Barenboim discusses music as a bridge for peace in the Middle East.
2006:
During the Presidency of Robert A. Iger, The Walt Disney Company announced that
it would acquire Pixar for $7.4 billion in an all-stock transaction
2006: The
Los Angeles Times published a column by Joel Stein under the headline
"Warriors and Wusses" in which he wrote that it is a cop-out to
oppose a war and yet claim to support the soldiers fighting it. "I don’t
support our troops...When you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much
know you’re not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So,
you’re willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American
imperialism..."
2006: Ehud
Olmert, in his first major policy address since becoming Israel's acting prime
minister, said at the Herzliya Conference that he backed the creation of a
Palestinian state, and that Israel would have to relinquish parts of the West
Bank to maintain its Jewish majority.
2006: The
Antiquities Authority recommended the Meggido Prison be transferred to a new
location, after the remains of an ancient church were discovered on the
facility's grounds four months ago
2007: In what
some considered as a major breakthrough in the history of the Holocaust, Haaretz
reported that Khaled Abd al-Wahab, a well-to-do Tunisian farmer who died in
1997, was the first Arab to be named as a candidate for a Righteous Gentile
award from Yad Vashem. The nomination was based on testimony of Anny Boukris, a
73-year-old Jewish woman from Los Angeles who survived the Axis occupation of
North Africa. In a letter sent to the authorities at Yad Vashaem, she described
how Abd al-Wahab rescued her and 24 relatives from their hiding place and hid
them on his farm until the end of the German occupation. Boukris, who was 11 at
the time, related that al-Wahab risked his life when he stopped a German
officer from raping her mother.
2007,
Moshe Katsav held a press conference at which he accused journalists of
persecuting him and judging him before all the evidence was in.
2007: In a
talk scheduled minutes after Katsav's speech, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called
on him to resign from the presidency.
2007: At the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA, an exhibition entitled “Morris
Louis Now: An American Master Revisited” comes to a close. By 1966,
kingmaker-critics had anointed Morris Louis, the great Washington
abstractionist, the greatest painter since Jackson Pollock.
2008: The New
York Jewish Film Festival comes to an end with showings of Orthodox Stance a
documentary about “Dmitry Salita a twenty-something Russian immigrant equally
devoted to the seemingly disparate worlds of professional boxing and Orthodox
Judaism”; Villa Jasmin, a film about “Serge, a Tunisian-born Jew living in
Paris, who takes his wife to see the country he remembers fondly from his
childhood. It is based on a novel by Serge Moati, also explores Serge’s
parents’ courtship and his father’s activities with the anti-fascist movement
in the 1930s”; The Film Fanatic and The Unkosher Truth a short documentary, in
which the filmmaker must muster the courage to tell her father, an Orthodox
rabbi and U.S. Army general, that her boyfriend is German and gentile.”
2008(17th
of Shevat, 5768): Rami Zoari, 20, from
Beersheba, a border police officer, was killed and another female officer was
seriously wounded after terrorists approached the entrance to Shuafat refugee
camp in northern Jerusalem and opened fire on a group of Israelis. The
Battalions of Struggle and Return, a previously anonymous offshoot of Fatah's
Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack.
2008: Two
terrorists entered the Mekor Hayim High School Yeshiva in Kfar Etzion, south of
Jerusalem, and stabbed two students. The terrorists were killed by two of the
counselors in the room. The Izaddin al-Kassam's Martyrs Brigades, the Hamas
military wing, claimed responsibility for the attack.
2009: “The
Pink Panther2,” the 11th of the films in the Pink Panther series,
written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber premiered at Alpe d’Huez.
2009: The 5th annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival continues with
Noodle, a comic drama about an El Al flight attendant and a 5-year-old
Chinese boy left behind when his illegal immigrant mother is deported. Though
they have no language in common, the two build a bond as they search for his
mother.
2010:Final performance of The Kosher Cheerleader by Sandy
Wolshin at the Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix, Arizona.
2010:
“From Verse to Universe: Reading the People’s Torah” is scheduled to open at
the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum.
2010:An exhibition entitled: “Hyman Bloom: A Spiritual Embrace
at the Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to come a close.”
2010: The 19th
annual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the United States
premiere of the restored print of Bar Mitzvah, a classic of Yiddish cinema, in
which a mother miraculously survives a shipwreck and shocks the family by
appearing at her son’s bar mitzvah. The film features “the legendary Boris
Thomashefsky in his only film performance.”
2010:
The 10th annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present the
East Coast Premiere of “The Yankles,” which tells the story of ex-con who is
forced to coach an “upstart Orthodox baseball team” as part of the community
service sentence imposed by the Judge for a drunk driving conviction.
2010: The
New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including The Listener by Shira
Nayman
2010: The
Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including Where the God of Love Hangs Out
by Amy Bloom.
2010: “3
Backyards, “a film written and directed by Eric Mendelsohn premiered today at
the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Directing Prize as did
Mendelsohn's first feature, Judy Berlin, making him the only director to have
won the prize twice.”
2011: The 92nd
Street Y is scheduled to present a program entitled “2011: Challenges and
Opportunities for American and World Jewry” during which Malcolm Hoenlein and
John Batchelor are scheduled to lead “a candid discussion of the dangers and
issues facing the Jewish community in the coming year, from delegitimization to
the peace process to Iran globalization.”
2011:
The U.S. Premiere of “Convoys of Shame” / “Les Convois de la honte” is
scheduled to take place at the New York Jewish Film Festival. “This incisive
documentary examines how the SNCF (the French national rail company) used its
trains and its extensive infrastructure to transport tens of thousands of Jews,
Roma, and members of the resistance from France to Nazi concentration camps
from 1940 to 1944.
2011:
Today, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar defended his decision to approve the
military conversions which are undertaken according to orthodox Jewish law.
2011:
Rahm Emanuel should not appear on the Feb. 22 mayoral ballot because he does
not meet the residency standard, according to a ruling issued by a state
appellate court today. Emanuel told a news conference he would appeal the
decision to the Illinois Supreme Court and would ask for an injunction so his
name will appear on the mayoral ballot.
2011(19th
of Shevat, 5771): David Frye, whose wicked send-ups of political figures like
Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey and, above all, Richard M. Nixon, made
him one of the most popular comedians in the United States in the late 1960s
and early 1970s, died today in Las Vegas (As reported by William Grimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/arts/29frye.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=David%20Frye&st=cse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jzOQh-LzyE
2012:
“Dressing America: Tales From The Garment Center” – a documentary that explores
the post-World War II heyday of the garment district in Manhattan” and “pays
tribute to the Jewish immigrant roots of the garment industry” – is scheduled
to have its New York Premiere at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2012:
“Footnote” a Hebrew language films about a father, a son, Talmudic studies and
the Israel Prize “was nominated” today “for an Academy Awards in the category
of Best Foreign Film.”
2012:
YIVO is scheduled to present a lecture by Cur Leviant entitled “The Works of
Chaim Grade” one of the 20th century’s leading Yiddish authors.
2012: In
Mt. Vernon, Iowa, Holocaust survivor and education Irving Roth is scheduled to
speak at Cornell College as part of “Standing With Israel Event.”
2012: Israel
carried out four airstrikes on the Gaza Strip overnight after Palestinian
militants fired about six rockets and mortars over the border over the past
week, an Israeli military spokesman said today
2012:
Conflicting reports emerged tonight about an alleged Iranian plot against
Israeli and Jewish targets in Azerbaijan
2013(13th
of Shevat, 5773): Eighty-four-year-old Richard G. Stern, “the best American
author of whom you have never heard” passed away today. (As reported by
Bruce Weber)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/books/richard-g-stern-a-writers-writer-is-dead-at-84.html
2013:
Professor Dan Michman is scheduled to deliver a lecture “Jewish ‘Headships’ and
Nazi Anti-Jewish Policies” at the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust
and Genocide in London.
2013:
Leo Baeck Institute and Center for Jewish History are scheduled to present a
screening of “Kinderbloch 66: Return to Buchenwald”
2013:
Gerhard Loewenberg, University of Iowa professor emeritus and former dean, is
scheduled to read from his new memoir, Moved by Politics, at Prairie
Lights Books in downtown Iowa City.
2013:
The Wicked Wit of the West featuring Hank Rosenfield on the subject of Irving
Brecher is schedule for performance at the Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival
2013:
Four former Border Policemen, accused of abusing a petrified Palestinian man
who appeared to be mentally challenged, were in court today to hear the legal
arguments over whether or not their actions constituted abuse, Channel 2
reported. (As reported by Stuart Winer)
2013: The
nationalist Jewish Home party has risen to become the fourth-largest Knesset
faction, with 12 seats, after officials finished counting the votes of soldiers
and others this afternoon. The party had been predicted to take 11 seats before
the last votes were counted.
2014 Harris J.
Weingarten Tennis Weekend is scheduled to begin at the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish
Community Center in Houston, TX.
2014: Temple
Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa is scheduled to host its first Musical Shabbat of
2014.
2014: “Tatiana
(Tanya) Edelstein, wife of Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein was brought to rest
this afternoon at the Gush Etzion Cemetery.”
2014: Sixty-three-year-old
Tatiana (Tania) Edelstein, wife of Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein who passed
away last night was laid to rest this afternoon in the Gush Etzion cemetery
2014(23rd
of Shevat, 5774): Eighty-five-year-old Shulamit Aloni passed away today.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/former-minister-shulamit-aloni-dies-at-85-2/
2015(4th
of Shevat, 5775): Seventy-four-year-old historian Robert Herzstein passed away
today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2015: “The
Naked City” and “A Child of the Ghetto” are scheduled to be shown at the New
York Jewish Film Festival.
2015:
“Hannah’s Journey” is scheduled to be shown at the Brooklyn Israel Film
Festival.
2015: The
Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “The Essence of Schubert”
featuring Eliyahu Schulmann, Shmuel Magen and Shlomi Shem Tov.
2016(14th
of Shevat, 5776): Eighty-year-old Turing Award winner Marvin Minsky the
Princeton Ph.D. who co-founded MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and
husband of pediatrician Gloria Rudisch passed away today.
2016: The
Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host
“Yad Day” which will feature an exhibit of the museum’s Torah pointers and
chance for children to make their own Yads.
2016: “Sirens
sounded in communities in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, as a rocket was
fired from the Gaza Strip”
2016: The
Atlanta Opera is scheduled to present “Pure vs. Degenerate: The Nazi War on
Music” a concert that “will feature cabaret, popular and folk songs, opera, and
concert hall music by Jewish composers whose works were declared
'"degenerate" by the Nazi propaganda machine.”
2016: The New York Times featured reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Operation
Thunderbolt: Flight 139 and the Raid on Entebbe Airport, the Most Audacious
Hostage Rescue Mission in History by Saul David, Groucho Marx: The
Comedy of Existence by Lee Siegel and Ronald Regan by Jacob
Weisberg.
2017: The
Center for Jewish History and Leo Baeck Institute are scheduled to present a
lecture by Esther Wrtschko on “The Viennese Café in New York Exile” where she
will explore “the history of Jewish Austrian émigrés who transplanted the music
of Viennese cafes to New York City.”
2017(26th
of Tevet, 5777): Seventy-year-old Allan H. Steinfeld who helped to “modernize
the New York City” and followed Fred Lebow as head of the Marathon passed away
today.
2017: Dr.
Steve Feller is scheduled to present a one hour “overview of his upcoming Coe
College Thursday forum on the novels of Chaim Potok with special emphasis on The
Chosen, The Promise, My Name is Asher Lev and The Gift of
Asher Lev.
2017: “Israel
approved the construction of approximately 2,500 homes in the West Bank, most
of them in existing settlement blocs it hopes to keep in any peace deal,
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman announced” today.
2017: “Marie
Curie, The Courage of Knowledge” and “Stefan Zweig, Farewell to Europe” are
scheduled to be shown on the final night of the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2018: The
Center for Jewish History and the Jewish Book Council are scheduled to host the
“series premiere” of “First Person: Jewish Stories, Jewish Lives” featuring
Tova Mirvis, the author of The Book of Separation.
2018: JCC
Manhattan is scheduled to a live recording of “Unorthodox” Tablet magazines
flagship podcast featuring comedian Judy Gold and Father James Martin.
2018:
In Little Rock, AR, the Upshernish of Mendel Kramer, the son of Rabbi Yosef and
Mushka Kramer and the grandson of Esther Hadassah Ciment, and Rabbi Pinchas
Ciment, the leader of Lubavitch of Arkansas and the personification of the term
“Lamplighter.”
2019(18th
of Shevat, 5779): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of Astronaut Judith Resnik
who died when the “Space Shuttle Challenger” disintegrated 73 seconds after the
launch claiming the lives of all seven of those on board the craft.
2019(18th
of Shevat): Ninety-five-year-old Norman Goodman, the New Haven, CT born son of
Samuel and Lena Goodman and NYU trained attorney who served as country clerk of
Manhattan for 45 years passed away today. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
2019: A
screening of “Rosenwald” is scheduled to take place today at Morehouse College
as part of the school’s celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.
2019: Monica
Monica Leo of Eulenspiegel Puppets in West Liberty, Iowa, is scheduled to
present her show "Finding Home," a “trilogy dealing with Monica's
father's incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp, her parents' eventual
immigration to a small town in Texas where her father was a Lutheran pastor,
and her mother's work as a metal sculptor and peace activist” at Cornell
College in Mt. Vernon, IA.
2019: The
Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, the U. of Michigan Hill SHARE and the
Copernicus Program in Polish Studies are scheduled to co-sponsor a screening
of"The Return,” a film that follows four young Polish women and their
experiences discovering their Jewish identity in a place that used to be the
center of Jewish society” followed by a discussion with Adam Zucker and
Professor Geneviève Zubrzycki, CPPS director.”
2019:
The Joyce Theatre is scheduled to host a second and final performance of
Jerusalem choreographer Sharon Eyal’s “Love Chapter 2.”
2020:
Jerusalem born pianist Benjamin Hochman is scheduled to perform at the 92nd
Street Y’s Buttenwieser Hall.
2020:
As eastern Iowa braces for its third straight Shabbat Snow, in Cedar Rapids,
Temple Judah is scheduled to host a “Musical Shabbat” weather permitting.
2020:
Holocaust survivor and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Ruth Cohen is
scheduled to speak for the first time about her experience at Auschwitz today
“at the Museum’s commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.”
2020:
As the Fifth World Holocaust Forum, “the biggest diplomatic event in Israel’s
history” comes to an end President Rivlin and Prime Minister Netanyahu are
scheduled to “continue to hold bilateral meetings with foreign leaders until
about an before the start of Shabbat.” (As reported by Raphael Ahren)
2020:
In Los Gatos, CA, an exhibition titled: “In the Artist’s Studio: The Violin
Workshop of Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein” is scheduled to open at the New
Museum Los Gatos.
2021:KlezKanada,
Golden Land Concerts & Connections, Yiddish New York, Center for
Traditional Music and Dance, the American Society for Jewish Music, Boston
Workers Circle, and National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene are scheduled to
co-sponsor a virtual concert celebrating the 40th anniversary of the
Klezmer Conservatory Band.
2021:
Congregation Sha’ar Zahav is scheduled to present Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz’s lecture
about having hope in difficult times and developments in progressive Orthodoxy.
2021:
The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including American Baby: A Mother, a
Child and the Shadow History of Adoption by Gabrielle Glaser and the
recently released paperback edition of Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect
on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet
Waldman.
2021:
Via Zoom, “two leaders of Carolina Jews for Justice – founder and board member
Debbie Goldstein, and Executive Director Rabbi Salem Pearce – are scheduled to discuss
the history of Carolina Jews for Justice, how and why the organization was
started, how it had evolved over time, what they are doing now, and how they go
about ally-ship and partnership.
2021:
The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “Who’s
Afraid of Alice Miller,” a documentary about one of the world’s most famous
psychotherapists…who narrowly escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland during World
War II.”
2021:
“The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County is scheduled to present a
program on “The Gellman American Dream,” a documentary featuring the family of
Gary Gellman whose family members were “Jewish immigrant farmers during the
first half of the 20th century.”
2022:
The Streicker Center is scheduled to host a conversation with Linda Greenhouse
as she discusses her new book, On the Brink, with Floyd Abrams
2022:
The Miami Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host the Southeast United States
premier of “Rose.”
2022:
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), the National Hellenic Society, B’nai
B’rith International, Hellenic American Women’s Council, Sephardic Jewish
Brotherhood of America, European March of the Living, and the American Sephardi
Federation are scheduled to co-host “There is Neither Greek Nor Jew: The Heroic
Duo Who Saved an Entire Island From the Holocaust” n Honor of Righteous Among
the Nations Loukas Karrer and Dimitrios Chrysostomos who courageously worked to
“to save the Jews of Zakynthos from the Nazisto save
the Jews of Zakynthos from the Nazis
2022:
Seventy-one-year-old New Yorker Franz Lebowitz is scheduled to appear again
tonight at the Roda Theatre in Berkley, CA.
2022:
The National Library of Israel is scheduled to host Rich Brownstein lecturing
on “Auschwitz in Film: 75 Years of Holocaust Cinema.”
2022:
The Cantor’s Assembly and the Lowell Milken Center Music of American Jewish
Experience are scheduled to host the first in an eight-part series patterned
after last year’s original Stories of Music series.
2022:
Based on previously published reports, as of today “according to several
hospitals, the Omicron's spread, consequent surge in COVID cases, uptick in
seriously ill coronavirus patients, as well as the frequent quarantine of
medical workers - have all brought the health system and its workers to the
brink.” (As reported by Adir Yanko)
2023:
In Newton, MA, Beth Menahem Chabad is scheduled to present the first session of
“Book Smart: Judaism’s Most Important Titles and Authors.”
2023:
In London, Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “Ordinary People,” a Holocaust
Memorial Day Event.
2023:
The Jerusalem Post is scheduled to host “Democracy 2023,” “a data-driven
discussion about the challenges and opportunities facing the State of Israel.”
2023:
Israeli-born Bay Area Jewish community stalwart Rachel Biale talks about Lost
and Found her new fact-based novel,
about what happens to a 4-year-old Jewish boy after the Holocaust refugee ship
he’s on is blown up in Haifa harbor in 1940. Presented by Jewish Community
Library.
2023:
The Annenberg Community Beach House in Brentwood/Santa Monica is scheduled to
host “Remembrance of Things Present: Empowering Stories of Jewish Strength from
the children and grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors.
2023:
In Cedar Rapids, Temple Judah is scheduled to host the study group in a
discussion of Chapter 8 of People Love Dead Jews by Dora Horn.
2023:
Juniper Oak 2023, a large-scale joint exercise involved the IDF and U.S.
Central Command is scheduled to continue for a second day.
2023:
Temple Emanuel of Newton is scheduled to present “Inside Out: Self-Knowledge in
Our understanding of Israel” during which Rabbi Justin Pines, director of lay
leadership at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, will lead an
exploration of how understanding ourselves might shape our relationship with
Israel and the Jewish people, utilizing wisdom rooted in Mussar literature.
2024:
YIVO is scheduled to host a performance of the Yale Fortunoff Video Archive for
Holocaust Testimonies' newest album, Shotns/Shadows. Part of the "Songs
From Testimonies" project, this album is based on poems and songs from
interviews with Holocaust survivors recorded by the Fortunoff Archive.
2024:
Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Jeremy Rosen on “Making
Sense of the Bible: Can its Ancient Text be Relevant Today?”
2024:
To commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day 2024, UK will be screening the superb new
animated film, My Father's Secrets at the Rio Cinema in Partnership with
the London Borough of Hackne
2024:
AJHS is scheduled to present a discussion of Between Two Worlds: Jewish War
Brides After the Holocaust with author Robin Judd and historian Hasia
Diner.
2024:
In Metairie, LA, Chabad is scheduled to host its Tu B’Shvat seder complete with
wine and cheese.
2024: As January 24th begins in Israel,
the Hamas held hostages begin day 110 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.)