This Day, February 29, In Jewish History by Mitchell A Levin and Deb Levin Z"L

February 29

 1236: In Narbonne (France), an attack on the Jewish quarter occurred after a Jew accidentally killed a Gentile during an argument. The Governor of the city, Don Amyeric, forcibly reestablished order. The house and library of Rabbi Meir ben Isaac were pillaged, but no one was killed.

1468: Birthdate of Alessandro Farnese who as Pope Paul III failed in his attempt to censure Bomberg’s Hebrew publications because the printer successfully argued that “ancient manuscripts were not to be altered.”

1644: Dutch explorer Abel Tasman began his second Pacific voyage which proved to be a disappointment to his backer – the Dutch East India Company in which Jews owned approximately a quarter of the shares

1704: During Queen Anne’s War, French forces and their native allies staged a raid on Deerfield, MA which today is home to Schoen Books and the Jewish History Society of Western Massachusetts.

1720: Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden, in whose presence “two Jews of Stockholm, Israel Mandel and Moses Jacobs together with their families were baptized in 1681” abdicated in favor of her husband, who became King Frederick I.

1752(25^th of Adar, 5512): Shabbat HaChodesh (According to Rosetta Calendar)

1772(25^th of Adar I, 5532): Parashat Vayakhel; Shabbat Shekalim

1776: Today, in an attempt to crush the American Revolution which was supported by most Jews in the 13 Colonies, “the House of Commons approved treaties with German principalities supplying Great Britain with German troops.

1792(6^th of Adar, 5552): On the Hebrew Calendar, Yahrzeit of tosafist Rabbi Samuel ben Natronai who died a martyr’s death

1796(20^th of Adar I, 5556): On the Hebrew calendar, Yahrzeit of Rabbi Joel Sirkeks, the author of Bayit Hadash, a commentary on the Tur code.

1804: Twenty-four-year-old Judah Lyons, the Philadelphia born son of Eleazar Lyons married Mary Levy in New York City.

1808(1^st of Adar, 5568): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1812(16^th of Adar, 5572): Paashat Ki Tasa

1812: In Charleston, SC, Sarah and Chapman Solomon gave birth to Levy J. Solomon, the husband of Hannah Hyams with whom he had eight sons.

1816(30^th of Shevat, 5576): Rosh Chodesh Adar

1816: In Santa Cruz, Jamaica, Joseph Alexandre Lindo, the Son of Alexandre (Elisha) Lindo and Hannah Lindo and his wife Sarah Lindo gave birth to Caroline Munt Braham, the wife of John Richard Braham

1820(14^th of Adar, 5580): Purim

1824: In Savanah, GA, Sarah E. Melhado, who was Sephardic and Cosam Emir Bartlett gave birth to Washington Montgomery Bartlett, the first Jewish governor of California.

1828(14^th of Adar, 5588): Purim

1828: Dutch natives Vrouwtje Salomon Barnstijn and Benjamin Jacob Van Blercom gave birth to Judi Van Blercom.

1828: Birthdate of Ludvi Jacob Hertz who was buried in Denmark’s Horsens Jewish Cemetery.

1832(28^th of Adar I, 5582): Jendle Jentle, the wife of Jose Falsche passed away today.

1832(28^th of Adar I, 5582): Emanuel Baruh Lousada, the uncle and namesake of West Indies merchant Emanuel Baruch Lousada and the uncle of Abigail Lousada, who lived at Sidmouth and was a member of the Mahamad (Council of Elders) of the London Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue passed away today.

1836: Les Huguenots an opera composed by Jewish composer Giacomo Meyerbeer premiered at the Paris Opéra

1840(25^th of Adar I, 5600): Parashat Vayakhel; Shabbat Sekalim

1844(9^th of Adar, 5604): On the Jewish calendar, ancient fast day observed to mark “the first controversy between he schools of Hillel and Shammai.”

1848(25^th of Adar I, 5608): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of “Rabbi Moses ben Abraham, the son of a Swedish Count who had converted to Judaism, served as a rabbi in Amsterdam and was the author of Meliz Yosher” who had passed away in 1803.

1852(9^th of Adar, 5612): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeit of Prague communal leader Mordecai Marcus Meisel who pass away in 1601.

1856: Sir Saul Samuel completed his first term as a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales.

1860: Samuel Levy, alias "Old Levy"; Morris M. Goldstein, alias Goldever; L. Truebart; Michael Roberts, alias "Big Roberts," and Henry Wcyman, “five Polish and Prussian Jews known to the authorities of New York as expert pickpockets and daring burglars left town this evening on what was described as a “Western Tour” meaning they were heading for Albany, Buffalo and parts unknown.

1864: Birthdate of Baltimore native Sadie Altman, the wife of Henry A. Altman

1868: Benjamin Disraeli completed his third and final term as Chancellor of the Exchequer

1868: Birthdate of Heinrich Class, the anti-Semitic German politician who supported the Putsch of 1923 and was a member of the Nazi Party who avoided punishment for his evil and passed away in 1953.

1872: Birthdate of bantamweight boxer Sigmund “Sig” Hart who managed three Heavyweight Champions including Jack Johnson.

1872: In Budapest, orientalist Armin Vambery and his wife gave birth to future New York resident Rusztem Vambery, the attorney and godson of Edward, Prince of Wales (King Edward VII) who opposed the dictatorships of Bela Kuhn and Miklos Horthy and served briefly as Hungary’s ambassador to the United

1872: In Hartford, CT, Hannahlie and Jacob Lyon gave birth to Bernhard Lyon, the father of Delphine Lyon Kohn, the father-in-law of Police Commissioner Sol H. Kohn, and “head one of the largest firms of plumbing contractors in the state” of Connecticut who served as a health commissioner for Hartford and who served as an “office of Congregation Beth Israel.

1876: Birthdate selected by Ferencz Deszo Weisz, who gained fame as “magician and escape artist Theodore Hardeen” who joined with his brother Harry Houdini for a brief period before going off on a career of his own, when he was reportedly creating an American persona.

https://timenote.info/lv/person/view?id=11368959&l=en

https://www.wildabouthoudini.com/p/theo-hardeen.html

1876(4^th of Adar, 5636): On the Jewish calendar, Yahrzeit of av Ahai b. Ray Huna, an early Saboraim (Post Talmudic Sages) who had passed away in 506 C.E, (As reported by Abraham Bloch)

1880: It was reported that the Young Men’s Hebrew Association will hold a Purim celebration at the Lexington Avenue Opera House featuring performance by the Torriano Opera Troupe.

1884: In Washington, DC, Rhode Island Congressman Nelson W. Aldrich and his wife gave birth Richard S. Aldrich who while serving in Congress as Republican from Rhode Island in 1924 joined Congressmen Adolph J. Sabah, Samuel Dickestein and Emanuel Celler in opposing the proposed immigration bill denouncing it as “the worse kind of discrimination against a large class of individuals and absolutely opposed to our American ideas of equality and justice.”

1888: Birthdate of Lucille Selig, the Atlanta native who married Leo Frank

1892: Sir Edgar Speyer, the American born chairman of Speyer Brothers, the British branch of his family’s financial empire, became a naturalized British citizen.

1892: Among the charities that were named at today’s meeting of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment to receive contributions from the city’s theatrical and concert license fund were the United Hebrew Charities of the City of New York, $1,500; the Montefiore Home, $1,000; Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, $350; and Beth Israel Hospital, $100.

1892: Incorporation of St. Petersburg, Florida which has become the site for the Florida Holocaust Museum.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0017_0_17303.html

http://www.cbistpete.org/

http://www.chabadsp.com/

1892: Thirteen new cases of typhus were discovered today by sanitary authorities in New York City.  Seven of the new cases were Russian Jews who had arrived aboard the SS Massilia and had been quarantined at a facility provided by the United Hebrew Charities.  The other six were people who had come in contact with one of these seven.

1892: “Renan on the Prophets” published today provides an in-depth review of History Of The People of Israel From the Time of Hezekiah Till The Return From Babylon by French author Ernest Renan

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F10811F93D59107788DDA00A94DA405B8285F0D3

1896: In Brookline, MA, Cecilia McCarthy and Arthur Wellman gave birth to director William Augustus Wellman who won the Oscar for his work on the script of “A Star is Born” which included contributions by Dorothy Parker, produced by David O. Selznick and with music by Max Steiner.

1904(13^th of Adar, 5664): Ta’anit Esther; Erev Purim

1908(27^th of Adar I, 5668): Shabbat Shekalim; Parashat Vayakhel; Mevarchim Chodesh Adar II observed on the same day that James Madison University which at last report had a Hillel House servicing over 400 Jewish students, was founded at Harrisonburg, Virginia in the United States as The State Normal and Industrial School for Women by the Virginia General Assembly.

1912(11^th of Adar, 5672) Ta’anit Esther is observed on Thursday to avoid conflict with Shabbat.

1912: “The Nathan Straus Pasteurized Milk Laboratories with principal office in New York City  was incorporated today to establish infant milk depots throughout the State and dispense through them pasteurized milk free or at a cost price with a view of reducing sickness among babies” whose directors are Nathan Straus, Lina Straus, Nathan Straus, Nathan Straus Jr., H. Grant Straus an Sissie S. Lehman.

1912: In an echo of “America’s difficulties with Russia of the passports of American Jews,” this morning, in London, The Times printed a letter from David L. Alexander, K.C., President of the Jewish Board of Deputies and Claude Montefiore, President of the Anglo-Association, protesting against the anomalous position in which Jews desiring of visiting Russia are placed by restrictions imposed upon them by the Russian Government.”

1916: In Winchester, Tennessee, “Russian-Jewish immigrant shopkeepers, Anna (née Stein) and Solomon Shore gave birth to Frances Rose Shore who gained fame as singer, actress and television variety show hostess, Dinah Shore.  She overcame a childhood bout of polio to become a successful dancer.  After graduating from Vanderbilt University, she found early fame and fortune as a singer with bandleader Xavier Cougat (Charo’s husband).  She took the name Dinah from the title of a popular song.  During the 1950’s she hosted a Sunday Night variety show which she always ended by giving America a big sweeping kiss before singing the theme “See the USA in your Chevrolet.”  Most Americans did not know that this all-American blond girl-next door was Jewish.

(Please note, NYT shows her birthdate as March 1 while all other sources show February 29.  I realize I disagree with the Times at my peril)

1916: Funeral Services are scheduled to be held this morning at the Uptown Talmud Torah for Henry Glass the husband of Fannie Glass and head of Henry Glass and Company where the mourners will include members of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association, the Jewish Centre and the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War.

1920: In New York, Gertrude and David Nemerov gave birth to Howard Nemerov, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet who was the older brother of famed photographer Diane Arbus. 

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/07/obituaries/howard-nemerov-poet-laureate-and-pulitzer-recipient-dies-at-71.html

1920: Czechoslovakia’s National Assembly passed a constitution establishing a democratic republic.  At the time there were approximately 350,000 Jews living in the country making them about 2 to 3% of the total population. Jews of the newly created republic would flourish until the shameful Munich Agreement of 1938.

1920: “The Annual Meeting of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies” is scheduled to take place this evening in the ballroom of the Hotel Astor complete with supper and dancing to the music of Michael Markel’s Orchestra.

1920: In Hungary Admiral Miklos Horthy overthrew the government and becomes Regent, a position he will hold until 1944. Horthy was an avowed anti-Semite who promulgated a series of declarations and laws aimed limiting the participation of Jews in all facets of Hungarian society.  This played well with the populace since at this time, the Jews who were 5% of the population were 60% of the doctors, 51% of the lawyers, 25% of the university students, etc.  [Anti-Semitism goes hand in hand with Jewish success.  Yet, anti-Semites also attack Jews as a pariah when they are poor.]

1924: In Munich, Geneal Ludendorff, one of the chief defendants in the trial of those held responsible for the Bavarian ‘putsch’ last November took the stand today” and declared that him the Jewish question was a racial question; that the Jews had no more right than the English or Frech to be allowed to obtain authority and influence in Germany.”

1924: It was reported today that “the Chief Rabbi of Palestine, Abaham Isaac kook has left” Palestine “ for
America on an official visit.”

1924: Birthdate of Cleveland third basemen Al Rosen. Rosen elected MVP of the American League in 1953.  He was the first player to be elected unanimously.  He led the Indians to the American League Pennant in 1954.  He left baseball after 1956, his all-star career shortened by injuries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/sports/baseball/al-rosen-who-missed-triple-crown-by-a-hit-dies-at-91.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

1928: Birthday of Laszlo Berkowits “a Hungarian-born American Reform rabbi. From 1944-1945, he was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. After his release in 1945, he studied briefly in Sweden before he moved to the United States, where he began studying to be a rabbi. He was ordained in 1962.” In 1963, he was hired by Temple Rodef Shalom as its first senior rabbi. He held this title for 35 years, prior to his retirement in July, 1998. In 1988, he received his Doctor of Divinity from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He is currently the Rabbi Emeritus at Temple Rodef Shalom.

1932: A portrait of Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo was among those on display at an exhibition of American portraits by contemporary American artists that was held this afternoon at the American Art – Anderson Galleries for the purposed of raising funds to support the Free Milk Coffee Stations for the unemployed.

1932: “Benjamin Cardozo, the newly appointed Justice of the Supreme Court” had lunch with President Hoover today at the White House during which they “discussed legal affairs and his new duties on the highest tribunal.

1932: Twenty-four-year-old Jackie Fields (born Jacob Finkelstein) won a non-title bout with a 9^th round knockout in Pittsburgh, PA.

1932: Birthdate of Chicago native and University of Illinois trained mathematician (B.S., M.A. and Ph.D.) Gene Howard Golu the numerical analyst “who taught at Stanford University as Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science and held a courtesy appointment in electrical engineering.

https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet/MRAuthorID/74940

1936: Twenty-two-year-old track star Milton Green who would boycott the Berlin Olympics, won the 45 high hurdles, the 50 yard spring and the broad jump in a competition today between Harvard, Yale, Cornell and Dartmouth.

1936(6^th of Adar, 5696): Parashat Terumah

1936: Rabbi Israel Goldstein is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “What Is Success: How Much Is Worth?” at B’nai Jeshurun.

1936(6^th of Adar I, 5696): Seventy-one-year-old Abraham “Abe” Ruef, who began as a reformer but became a political boss and Mayor of San Francisco who went to prison after being convicted of corruption related to the rebuilding of the city after the earthquake.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9400E6DC133BE33BBC4953DFB566838D629EDE

1936: Paul Baerwald, Chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee announced today that “New York City’s quota in the 1936 national $3,500,000 fund of the Joint Distribution Committee has been set at $1,500,000.

1936: Dr. Chaim Weizmann, is reported scheduled to meet with those Jews who “are sponsors of a scheme to accelerate the evacuation of Jews from Germany “told the New York Times ‘I do not know the extent of the funds of the nature of the scheme contemplated by Herman Samuel’s mission, but I am ready to cooperate in the execution of any project promising to increase Jewish immigration to Palestine.’”

1936: In Berlin court today, when sentencing five communists to death and “five more to penal servitude for fourteen years each and six others to penal servitude ranging from three to twelve years” the presiding Judge said that in passing judgement he had “considered all the circumstances that had led to the incitement of the masses by Jewish-Marxist wirepullers.”

1936: In Lwow, Poland, “two Jewish students were seriously injured and other were slightly hurt in a clash” tonight “between Jewish and non-Jewish students at the Lwow University of Polytechnic and Commerce.

1936: Birthdate of Gene Golub, the Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and co-author of “Matrix Computations.”

1936: Baby Snooks, played by Jewish comedic actress Fanny Brice, debuts on the radio program The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.

1936: During a concert at the Carnegie Hall, Bronislaw Huberman, switched the Stradivarius "Gibson" he owned for over 40 years with his newly acquired Guarnerius violin in his dressing room during the intermission and went on to the second half of the concert. When he was playing Cesar Franck's Violin Sonata in A Major, his secretary, Miss Ida Ibbiken, noticed that the "Gibson" disappeared from the dressing room. It was snatched by a young New York nightclub musician, Julian Altman, who kept the violin for the next half century. After being convicted of child molestation in 1985, Altman made a deathbed confession to his wife, Marcelle Hall, that he had stolen the violin. The insurance company, Lloyd's of London, paid Huberman $30,000 for the loss in 1936. Ironically, Julian Altman went on to become a violinist with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. and performed for Presidents and politicians with the stolen Stradivarius for many years. After Altman's death in 1985, Ms. Hall consulted experts who confirmed that the violin was indeed the Gibson Stradivarius. Two years later, she returned it to Lloyd's and collected a finder's fee of $263,000. The instrument underwent a 9-month restoration by J&A Beare Ltd., in London. In 1988, Lloyd's sold it for $US1.2 million to British violinist Norbert Brainin. In October 2001, the American violinist, Joshua Bell, purchased it for $4,000,000. "Normally someone in my situation with my income could not afford to own a Strad like this, but I was very lucky in my purchases of violins", Bell said. "I kind of worked my way up and managed."

 1936: “Not The Only Victims” published today described efforts to by the American Christian Committee for German Refugees to provide aid for Christians seeking to flee Nazi Germany including raising a fund of $400,000 for the resettlement of 2,500 Christian refugees.”

1940: "Gone with the Wind" won eight Oscars at the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, including Best Picture of 1939. This American classic certainly had a Jewish touch.  It had a Jewish producer, theme music written by a Jew and of course a Jew, Leslie Howard, played one of the leading characters – the soulful Ashley Wilkes

1940: The screen version of The House of the Seven Gables with a script by Lester Cole and directed by Joe May premiered in Chicago today.

1940: In response to the adoption of the Land Transfer Regulations, David Ben Gurion declared that “The effect of these regulations is that no Jew may acquire in Palestine a plot of land, a building or a triee, or ay right in water, except in town and a very small part of the country.  The regulations not only violate the terms of the Mandate but completely nullify its primary purpose.’

1940: “Jewish women and children marched through the streets of Tel Aviv today carrying banners with biblical quotations prophesying Jewish ownership of Palestine.

1940: In Tel Aviv, Avraham Milstein, a volunteer in the British army in World War II, and Sarah Milstein, a kindergarten teacher” who “were among the founders of Kibbutz Afikim” gave birth to “Israeli military historian Uri Milstein,” the husband of “actress Shifra (Ben David) Milstein.”

1944: “Views Here Irk Egypt” published today reported that “Mustafa Nahas Pasha, as Egyptian Premier and Foreign Minister, has gone to the United States Minister to Egypt, Alexander Kirk, protesting against speeches made in Congress favoring the recognition of Palestine as a Jewish nation and the unrestricted settlement of Jews there.”

1944: Today, in Washington, “the Iraqi Legations made public protests from leaders of the Iraqi Parliament against a proposed Congressional resolution in favor of lifting restrictions on the immigration of Jews into Palestine.”

1944: It was reported today that “for the first time since the liberation of North Africa, Jewish delegates from Algeria, Tunis and French Morocco will proceed to the United States to report on the situation of the Jews there before and after the Nazis were driven out of their homelands…”

1944: “Incomplete returns on the results of a three-week fund-raising drive to further the work of the National Conference of Christians and Jews show that $100,000 has been collected, it was announced today at a luncheon at the Hotel Commodore attended by 1,000 members of the textile and allied industries who conducted the campaign.”

1948(19th of Adar I, 5708): Two Jews were killed, and five other persons were wounded in a bomb explosion in Haifa today on the third floor of Barclays Bank building near the railway station in the harbor zone.

1948: The Stern Gang bombed the Cairo-Haifa train killing 27 British soldiers.

1952: In Queens, NY, Raymond and Shirley (née Silverstein) Joseph, emigrants from Poland gave birth to Cornell and G.W. alum Abby Joseph Cohen known for her bullish stock market predictions who is the wife of David Cohen with whom she had two children.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-10/goldman-s-abby-joseph-cohen-famous-for-bullish-calls-to-retire

1952: Lawrence Demmy and his partner won “the ice dancing title at the World Figure Skating Championship in Paris.” (As reported by Bob Wechsler.

1956: President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower announced that he would seek a second term.  He would win in a landslide in November.  In the last weeks of the campaign (October, 1956) the Suez Crisis would flair up and Ike would have to deal with a major foreign policy challenge which would have special meaning for Jewish voters as they went to the polls.  

1960: The first Playboy Club opened in Chicago, Illinois. One of the most famous Playboy Bunnies was feminist activist Gloria Steinem.

1960: “The Play of the Week” broadcast the Moss Hart adaption of “The Climate of Eden” produced by David Susskind

 1960: An earthquake in Agadir, Morocco killed 5000 people, including hundreds of Jews.

1964(16^th of Adar, 5724): Parashat Ki Tisa

1964: Birthdate of Princeton graduate and Orthodox rabbi Joshua Berman, the holder of a PhD from Bar-Ilan university where he later joined the faculty as a professor of bible and as a contributor to several publications including Mosaic Magazine, he “has written there on a variety of topics including most commonly the Israelite exodus out of Egypt and the current state of biblical studies…”

https://bible.biu.ac.il/en/node/559

https://mosaicmagazine.com/author/joshua-berman/

1964: Birthdate of James Robert Bruce Ogilvy, the editor of Revisioning Philosophy which included a section by Naomi Scheman who wrote about attempts to heal the rift between Blacks and Jews which included her membership in a Black and Jewish Women Dialogue Group in the Twin Cities.

1968(30^th of Shevat, 5728) Rosh Chodesh Adar

1968: Eighty-two-year-old Barnard and University of Chicago graduate Margaret Avery Augur, the Evanston, IL born daughter of Walter Wheaton Augur and Nellie J Augur, the headmistress of the Kingwood Schoolpassed away today in Hingham, MA

1968: “The Secret War of Harry Frigg” with Tom Bosley, Norman Fell and Paul Newman was released today in the United States.

1972(14^th of Adar, 5732): Purim

1972: “Plans to hold antipoverty elections on, the Jewish Sabbath would be forestalled by legislation introduced in the New YokCity Council today at the request of the Lindsay administration.”

1976: Birthdate of Lior Mor, the native of Haifa who was Israel’s 2000 Davis cup team and coached Israeli players at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

1976: “Operation Daybreak” a “film based on the true story of Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of SS General Reinhard Heydrich in Prague” with a screenplay by Ronald Harwood was released in the United Kingdom, 3 months after having first been seen in the United States.

1980 (12th of Adar, 5740): Yigal Allon (יגאל אלון‎) passed away.  Born on a kibbutz in 1918, this sabra played an active role in the creation of the Kibbutz movement and the IDF.  He was a member of the Haganah and leader of the Palmach.  After the War for Independence, he became a leading general in the IDF.  After leaving the army, Allon became active in politics and held several responsible government positions including acting prime minister between the death of Levi Eshkol and the installation of Golda Meir as head of the government.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Allon.html

http://www.goisrael.com/Tourism_Eng/Tourist%20Information/attractions/Pages/The%20Yigal%20Alon%20Museum.aspx

http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14393.html

1984: Pierre Trudeau, whose son Justin would apologize for Canada’s treatment of Refugees and condemn the BDS movement as anti-Semitic, announced today that he was stepping down as the Prime Minister of Canada.

1988(11^th of Adar, 5748): Eighty-seven-year-old May Weiss, the New York born daughter of Regina and Frederick Fred Margareten and wife of Morris Weiss with whom she had two sons – Richard and Stanley Weiss.

1988: Nazi documents implicated former UN Secretary-General and Austrian President Kurt Waldheim in WWII deportations. Waldheim's claims that he was just an Austrian serving as an officer in the Nazi Army, proved to be false.  His war time behavior would make him persona non grata in many countries and he did not run for re-election as President of Austria. 

1992(25^th of Adar I, 5752): Parashat Vayakehl; Shabbat Shekalim

1992: In Lawrence, L.I., at Temple Israel, Rabbi Gilbert Klaperman officiated at the wedding of Michele Lesley Bialek, an assistant district attorney and Todd Alan Neufeld, C.P.A.

1992: It was reported today that “The International Paper Company said it had tentatively agreed to acquire roughly an 11 percent stake in Israel's Scitex Corporation for $209 million in a private placement.”

1996: Novelist Joan Collins, the daughter of a South African Jew, was awarded US $1 million from Random House for breach of contract.

1996: Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger named today as “Henry Roth Day” in New York City.

2000: In “Its Children; Cultural Ties and Low Costs Lure Orthodox Couples to Lower East Side” published today, Tina Kelly described the phenomena of young Jews returning en masse to an area from which their immigrant forbearers sought to escape.

2004: Thirty-four-year-old “defenseman Mathieu Schneider” whose love of the game may have come his French-Canadian mother Aline, led the Detroit Red Wings to victory over the Philadelphia Flyers.

2004: "Ten Years of Hope," a play by Elizabeth Swados about the experiences of women who fled El Salvador for new lives in New York City, opened.

2004: The New York Times features books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Five Men Who Broke My Heart by Susan Shapiro and the recently published paperback edition of Michael Pye’s novel World War II art theft The Pieces From Berlin. A woman in wartime Berlin accepts objets d'art for safekeeping from cultivated Jews, most of whom are sent to their deaths in Nazi camps. Sixty years later a Holocaust survivor recognizes a table in the window of her shop in Switzerland, forcing both characters to confront their long-submerged pasts.

2004(7th of Adar, 5764): Playwright Jerome Lawrence passed away.  Born Jerome Schwartz in Cleveland, Ohio, Lawrence is best known for the hits “Auntie Mame” and “Inherit the Wind” both of which became hit films.

http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040325/news_1m25lawrence.html

2004: In “A Frenchman Or a Jew?” published today Fernanda Eberstadt uses a sketch of the life of a French Jewess named Brigitte Stora as a vehicle for describing the changing status of the Jews of France especially in light of the growing Moslem population in metropolitan France.

2008: At Temple Judah, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the second in a series of special Musical Shabbats.

2008: The original motion picture soundtrack of “The First Basket,” a “documentary film on professional basketball’s influence on Jewish culture was released today.

2008: Two weeks after its premiere at the Berlin International Festival, “The Other Boleyn Girl” starring Natalie Portman and featuring Andrew Garfield was released today in the United States.

2008: A Belgian writer has admitted that she made up her bestselling "memoir" depicting how, as a Jewish child, she lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the Holocaust, her lawyers said. Misha Defonseca's 1997 book, Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years, was translated into 18 languages and made into a feature film in France, according the Associated Press.Her two Brussels-based lawyers, siblings Nathalie and Marc Uyttendaele, said the author acknowledged her story was not autobiographical and that she did not trek 1,900 miles as a child across Europe with a pack of wolves in search of her deported parents during World War II, the AP reported. Nor is she Jewish.

2008: Israel began Operation Hot Winter, also called Operation Warm Winter a “military campaign in the Gaza Strip, launched in response to Qassam rockets fired from the Strip by Hamas. Two days prior to the IDF mission, “Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad carried out a rocket barrage, in which they fired for the first time 6 Grad missiles at the industrial city of Ashkelon.”

2012: “New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza” is scheduled to open at Theatre J in Washington, DC.

2012: A petition that had been presented to Parliament by Isabel Ferreira Lopes, granddaughter of Barros Basto and Vice President of the Jewish Community of Porto that stated Barros Basto’s dismissal from the army was a matter of political and religious segregation on account of being Jewish, the name of Artur Carlos de Barros Basto was officially “rehabilitated” today.

2012: The annual Latke-Hamentasch Debate is scheduled to take place at Adas Israel in Washington, DC.

2012: Violinist Yehonatan Berick and cellist Rachel Mercer are scheduled to perform a series of duets at the Jerusalem Music Center.

2012: A number of people were injured; traffic was disrupted and electricity was cut today due to winds that reached up to 110 kilometers per hour as a late-February winter storm swept across the country. In Tel Aviv, a large tree was toppled on the city's central King George Street, taking down an electricity line with it. The street was closed to traffic as crews worked to clear the tree and restore electricity. A number of other trees were uprooted in Tel Aviv, causing damage to cars. In Herzliya, Netanya, Ramat Hasharon, municipal crews were working to clear fallen trees from city streets. In Netanya, a driver was trapped when a tree fell on his car. Emergency crews freed the uninjured driver from his vehicle. In Netanya, a 70-year-old man was lightly injured by flying glass from a shattered store door. Magen David Adom crews treated the man on the scene and evacuated him to a hospital. In the North, a major road in Hatzor Haglilit was closed to traffic due to a number of uprooted trees strewn across the road. Police were allowing traffic to access the city from the direction of Safed. The Israel Electric Company said its crews were working to restore electricity in a number of locations. It asked the public to stay away from downed power lines and to report such dangerous instances to its hotline, *103. In the North, snow fell this morning on the Hermon Mountain in the Golan Heights, leading police to close access to the area. Schools in the Golan Heights closed early Wednesday and sent children home due to the snow. By the afternoon snow flurries spread to the south over the Golan, prompting authorities to close Route 91 between the Hasharyon and Wasat junctions leading to the Golan settlement Ein Zivan.  Snow was expected to reach other mountain areas in the North later tonight and it was possible snow would reach mountains in the Center of the country later tonight. (As reported by the JPost)

2012: Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posthumously baptized slain Jewish reporter Daniel Pearl last year, the Boston Globe reported today.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/mormons-posthumously-baptize-slain-jewish-reporter-daniel-pearl-1.415552

2012(6^th of Adar, 5772): Ninety-one-year-old “Sheldon Moldoff, who drew some of the most recognizable superheroes of comic books’ golden age without receiving recognition in his own right until decades later” passed away today.  (As reported by Daniel Slotnik)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/books/sheldon-moldoff-batman-comic-book-artist-dies-at-91.html?_r=1&hpw

2016: Shulem Deen, the author of All Who Go Do Not Return, his story of growing up among the Skverers, one of the most insular Hasidic sects in the US is scheduled to lecture on “Telling Your Story: The Art and Craft of Memoir Writing” at the Skirball Center.

2016: Mike Brown who had placed on waivers by the Sharks was claimed today by the Montreal Canadians.

2016: “Sands and Seasons” and “Carvalho’s Journey” are scheduled to be shown at the 26^th annual Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2020: In the Bay Area, among the non-traditional Shabbat observances are “Tot Shabbat with Isaac Zones” hosted by Urban Admah and “Shabbat Forest Bathing” in the Redwood Regional Park.

2020: In Berkeley, CA, the Kehilla Community Synagogue Immigration Committee is scheduled to co-present “Witness at Tornillo,” a “documentary that follows Josh Rubin, a border activist who plants himself outside a child detention center in Texas.”

2020: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host a Seduah that will begin an hour the end of Shabbat.

2020: This evening, The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a screening of “The Syrian Jewish Community: Coming to America (1900-1919).”

2020: The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host George Levy Mueller as part of the “Resistance, Resilience and Hope” program where Holocaust survivors tell their stories.

2020: The Seven Annual Jewish Film Institute Winterfest is scheduled to open today with screenings of “Soros” and “Oliver Sacks: His Own Life.”

2020: In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host a Klezmer band performing on instruments preserved and restored from the Holocaust as part of the “Violins of Hope” project.

2020(4^th of Adar, 5780): Parashat Terumah;

2024: Since Rabbi Feivel is on a mission to Israel, Cantor Abbie will lead the Thursday morning minyan at Temple Judea.

2024: YIVO is scheduled to present a discussion of Firebird with translator Alissa Valles, led by YIVO Executive Director Jonathan Brent.

2024: In New Orleans, Chabad and Hadassah are scheduled to jointly host a Challah Bake.

2024: The Sir Martin Learning Center is scheduled to host Allen Packwood’s third lecture on “Churchill’s D-Day.”

2024: In Washington, the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum is scheduled to present “CJM After Sunset: Summer Camp” for those age 21 and above.

2024: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “Antisemitism Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” during which will Mark Weitzman, Dr. Robet J. Williams and Professor Magda Teter will discuss The Routledge History of Antisemitism, “a guidebook to the breadth and depth of conspiracy theories, libels, rumors and propaganda that have underpinned the oldest hatred across time and space.”

2024: As February 29th begins in Israel, the Hamas held hostages begin day 146 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.)