April 15
1191:
Coronation of Henry VI as Holy Roman Emperor during whose reign anti-Semitic
riots took place stretching from the districts along the Rhine all the way to
Vienna. Ephraim Ben Jacob of Bonn was
one of the leading Talmudist during this period.
1250: Pope Innocent III refused the Jews of Cordova
permission to build a synagogue.
1402: Pope Boniface IX granted "liberal
privileges" to the Jews of Rome – “reducing their taxes, ordering their
Sabbath to be protected, placing them under the jurisdiction of the Curia,
protecting them from oppression by officials; all Jews and Jewesses dwelling in
the city to be regarded and treated as Roman citizens.”
1452: Birthdate of Leonardo Di Vinci who painted
what, according to some, was the most famous Seder ever held - The Last Supper.
1600:
Abraham Scultetus ‘a German professor of theology, and the court preacher for
the Elector of the Palatinate Frederick V” jotted down in his diary “This
evening Rabbi Jehuda, the Loew, dropped by to see me.”
1642:
Birthdate Suleiman II, Ottoman Sultan.
His short reign would prove to be uneventful for his Jewish subjects,
which included two doctors, one named Levi and the other named Hayati Zade, who
served as court physicians.
1677:
Today The City Council of Lubeck decreed that no Jew should be permitted to
stay in the city overnight without the express permission of the senate, which
was rarely given.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10165-lubeck
1698(4th
of Iyar, 5458): Jacob ben Aaron Sasportas, the native Oran, the father of Isaac
ben Jacob Sasportas, the rabbi of the Portuguese at Amsterdam who had known
Sarah, the girl with whom Sabbateai had contracted his third marriage described
her “as a witless girl who used to deliver, to the general amusement, dement
speeches about she was going to married to the King Messiah passed away today
https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004392489/BP000027.xml?lang=en
http://segulamag.com/en/today_event/לוחם-נפטר/
1714(11th
of Iyar, 5474): Esther Liebmann (née Schulhoff)a German Jewish financier who served as
Court Jew to King Friedrich I of Prussia, inheriting the title and also the
Münzregal from her second husband, Jost Liebmann” passed away today.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_12510.html
1715: The Yamasee War, a two year conflict in
which Native Americans tried to drive the colonial settlers out of South
Carolina, began today. At the outbreak of the war Jews had already begun
settling in the colony. The original constitution of South Carolina which had
been written by John Locke in 1669 granted liberty to “Jews, Heathens and
Dissenters.” Simon Valentine is the
first Jewish settler whose presence can be officially confirmed. A resident of Charleston, he served as an
interpreter for Governor Archdale. There
must have been more Jews living there since “as early as 1703 protest was
raised against "Jew strangers" voting in the election of members to
the Common House of Assembly.”
1747: Birthdate of Baden native Moses Jakob
Sekeles, the husband of Fratz Abraham and the father of Abraham Moses Sekeles.
1747: Birthdate of Metzger, Germany native
Joseph A. Zimmern, the son of Ephraim Zimmern and the husband of Hendle
Zimmern.
1753: Hayman M. Levy the Hanover, Germany born
son of Reyna and Moses Levy and future resident of New York, and his Sloe Levy
gave birth to Reyna Levy.
1767(16th of Nisan, 5527): Second
Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer.
1767: In Eberstadt, Germany, Loebisch and
Abraham Arnold gave birth to Anschel Abraham Arnold, the husband of Esther
Regensburger with whom he had six children.
1768: In New York, Esther (Hetty Asher) Hays
(Etting), the Philadelphia born daughter of Asher Etting and Rachel Etting and
her husband David Barrack Hays gave birth to Hannah Myers, the wife of Benjamin
Myers and the mother of Sarah (Sally) Hays; Abigail Solomons; Myer B. Myers and
Abraham Myers,
1769(8th of Nisan, 5529) Parashat
Metzora
1770(20th of Nisan, 5530): Sixth Day
of Pesach; 5th day of the Omer
1770: Birthdate of Baden native Elias Isaak
Cahn, the husband of Bina Leone with whom he had seven children.
1773: Today, the Asser family began a 21-year
long struggle to “allowed to engage in navigation between the Netherlands and
her colonies.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11450-netherlands
1775(15th of Nisan, 5535): Pesach
was observed in the thirteen colonies for the last time since in a few short
days, the American Revolution began with the “shots heard round the world.
1777:
In Saarlouis, Marx Levy Mordechai, “the rabbi of Trier” and Eva Lwow gave birth
to Herschel Mordechai who gained fame as Heinrich Marx the lawyer and convert
to the Lutheran Church who was the father of Karl Marx, the Christian born
author of the Communist Manifesto.
1780(10th
of Nisan, 5540) Parshat Metzora; Shabbat HaGadol is observed during the British
siege of Charleston, SC, a city that boasts one of the oldest Jewish
communities in North America.
1782(1st
of Iyar, 5542): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1782:
Birthdate of Callman Stern, the husband of Jette Stern and father of Salomon
and Bettchen Stern.
1783:
In Zwolle, Holland, Bele Eliaser Cohen and Joseph Simon Magnus gave birth to
Judith Magnus who married her second husband Samuel Levy in London’s Great
Synaogue, nine months after her first husband, Moses Lazarus had passed
1783: Today the Continental Congress of the United
States officially ratifies the preliminary peace treaty with Great Britain that
was signed in November 1782. The congressional move brings the nascent nation
one step closer to the conclusion of the Revolutionary War.
Five
months later, on September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed by
representatives of the United States, Great Britain, Spain and France,
officially bringing an end to the Revolutionary War. It also formalized Great
Britain’s recognition of America’s independence.
1784:
In Baltimore, MD, two days after the end of Pesach, Hannah Levy and Eleazer
Lyons who had been married in Harrisburg, PA in 1776 gave birth to Uriah Lyons,
the husband of Surinam native Mary Ann Alexander with whom he had three
children.
1788(8th
of Nisan, 5548): Joseph Levy, the first Jew to be buried in Australia, passed
away. Apparently, his burial was not marked by any special Jewish ceremony.
1789(19th
of Nisan, 5549): Fifth Day of Pesach
1797(19th
of Nisan, 5557): Fifth Day of Pesach and Shabbat Chol HaMoed Pesach
1797:
In Germany, birthdate of Jeda Kellerman, the wife of Michael Oberndoerfer with
whom she had seven children.
1798:
Rachel Aarons and Joseph Tobias gave birth to Judith Tobias.
1799:
As an Ottoman Army marched towards Acre to break the siege by Napoleon who had
expressed philo-Semitic beliefs after landing in Palestine, French general Jean
Baptiste Kleber decided to attack the enemy the following day at Mount Tabor.
1802:
On the day before the first Seder, William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy
see a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring the former to pen I
Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. According to N.I. Matar, “Wordsworth” described the
Wandering Jew without considering that Jews had been established in England for
decades, and that Jews were ‘eagerly’ trying to change their ‘homeless’ image.”
1802:
In New York, Solomon Levy and Rebecca Eve (Hendricks) Levy gave birth to Juliet
Levy who became Juliet Moss when she married Joseph Lyons Moss.
1802:
In London, Julia Asher and Raphael Raphael gave birth to John (Jonah) Raphael,
the husband of Emma Schiff.
1805(16th
of Nisan, 5565): Second Day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1805:
One day after he had passed away, “Naphtali Hirts bar Yehuda Leib” was buried
today at the “Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.”
1806(27th
of Nisan): Rabbi Isaac Ashkenazi of Lemberg, author of “Taharot ha-Kodesh”
passed away.
1808(18th
of Nisan, 5568): Fourth Day of Pesach.
1808(18th
of Nisan 5568): Benjamin Goldsmid, a
leading English financer, passed away.
Born in Holland in 1755, he was the eldest son of Aaron Goldsmid and the
brother of Abraham Goldsmid who was also his business partner. Goldsmid married Jessie Salmons making him
the son-in-law of Israel Levin Salomons which benefited him financially and
socially. He was a friend of Pitt the
Younger and the founder of the Naval Asylum.
1808(Rachel
Emanuel De Piza and Joseph Gabriel Brandel gave birth to Angel Joseph Brandon.
1811(23rd
of Nisan, 5571): Seventh Day of Pesach
1813(15th
of Nisan, 5573): As the second year of the War of 1812 grinds on, Jews in the
United States and the United Kingdom are united in their observance of Pesach.
1815:
Birthdate of Lazar Zweifel the native of Moghilef who defended the Chasidim
saying that “persecutions which they were forced to endure at the hands of
their opponents were as unjust as the oppression of Jews by Christians.”
1819(20th
of Nisan, 5579): Sixth day of Pesach
1819(20th
of Nisan, 5579): David Maurtiz, the nephew of Rabbi Samuel Marx whose other
more famous nephew was Karl Marx, passed away today.
1819:
Birthdate of Ludwig Lewysohn, the native of Posen who served as a rabbi in
Frankfort-on-Order, Worms and Stockholm.
1820:
In Charleston, SC Isaac and Rachel Mordecai Harby gave birth Armida Harby who
became Armida Harby Cohen when she married Max E. Cohen with whom she had six
children – Marx, Eliza, Octavia, Herbert, Leah and Armida.
1824:
Birthdate of Gustav Cohn, the husband of Friederike Rechnitz and father of
Josef and Rosa Cohn
1828:
Isaak Strauss, the German born son of Samuel Suss Strauss married his first
wife Juetle Chaya Strauss today.
1828:
Jacob Levy married Elizabeth Solomon today at the Great Synagogue.
1830(22nd
of Nisan, 5590): Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor
1830:
Following William Huskisson’s presentation of a petition signed by 2,000 people
from Liverpool calling for the removal of the civil disabilities facing the
Jews of the United Kingdom, Robert Grant introduced a bill in Parliament
seeking to accomplish that goal.
1832(15th
of Nisan, 5592): As Andrew Jackson seeks a second term as President, Jews
observe Pesach.
1833:
Birthdate of Viennese born French astronomer Maurice Loewy.
1834:
Birthdate of Joseph Kohen Moline, the Brussels born poet.
1834:
Birthdate of Emma Simon, the native of Kolberg who married Louis Bernheim with
whom she gave birth to historian Ernst Bernheim
1835(16th
of Nisan, 5595): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer
1837:
Birthdate of Horace Porter, the American Civil War hero who served as U.S.
Ambassador to France during the Dreyfus Affair, which Poerwe was falsely
accused of attributing to an English plot to weaken the French.
1838(20th
of Nisan, 5598): Sixth Day of Pesach
1839:
In Wankheim, Germany, Leopold Hirsch, the son of Lea and Simon Seev Hirsch and
his wife and Therese Tölzele Hirsch (Wormser) gave birth to Herman Hirsch.
1839:
In Elizabeth, NJ, a Judge David Naar, a supporter of President James K. Polk
and the St. Thomas, VI born son of Sarah Naar and Hazan Joshua Naar and his
wife Sarah Cohen Naar gave birth to Zipporah Naar
1840: In London, a split
took place between the liberal Reform Jews and the Orthodox
1840: The
West London Synagogue of British Jews, a Reform Jewish congregation of London
was established today.
1840:
“Twenty-four gentlemen, eighteen of whom were Sephardim decided to establish
the West London Synagogue of British Jews.
1840:
Birthdate of Giuseppe Foa “the Rabbino Maggiore (Grand Rabbi) of Turino who
married Annetta Luzzati Foa with whom he had two children – Ida Dolce Foa Ghiron
and Ernesto Foa.
1841: Karl
Marx received his Doctorate from the University of Jena
1841: In
Philadelphia, PA, Clarissa and Joseph M. Asch gave birth to Mitchell J. Asch,
the “husband of Manuella Asch” and “father of Irina Clara Culver.”
1843(15th
of Nisan, 5603): Pesach and Shabbat
1843:
Birthdate of American author Henry James. For an interesting insight into this
great American authors view of the Jewish people see The Jewish East Side
by Milton Hindus, specifically the entry entitled “Henry James – The American
Scene” pages 65-78
1846(19th of
Nisan, 5606): Fifth Day of Pesach celebrated on the same day “the families of
James Fraser Reed and George and Jacob Donner, comprising 31 people in 9
wagons, left Springfield, Illinois for California” which was a step along the
path that led to the disaster knowns as “the Donner Party.”
1847: In Warsaw, Rabbi
Avraham Mordechai Alter and his wife gave birth to Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter,
the author of Sfas Emes and the Rebbe of the Gerrer Hasidim.
1848(12th of
Nisan, 5608): Shabbat HaGadol
1848: Now that the church on Chrysitie Street
between Walker and Hester streets has been successfully re-modeled to meet the
needs of its new Jewish owner the building of what would become Congregation
Temple Emanu-El was dedicated today.
1849: In Trieste, Elisa
Morpurgo and Giuseppe/Joseph Baron von Morpurgo gave birth to Irène Renée Cahen
d'Anvers (de Morpurgo)
1853: In New York,
Henry and Sophie Waldstein gave birth to Louis Waldstein the New York trained
physician who moved to London in 1898 to continue his practice and who wrote
“The Sub-Conscious Self in its Relation to Education and Health.”
1855: Birthdate of Austria
native and Chicago resident Henry Kramer, the husband of Rachel Kornfield
Kramer and the father of Fannye, Helen, Sarah and Israel Kramer.
1858: Birthdate of
Emile Durkheim French the sociologist who is regarded as one of the most
important founders of the modern field of sociology. One of his most
significant contributions is his development of the term and concept of
"social facts," what Durkheim believed should be the primary focus of
the scientific study of society. Durkheim grew up in a Jewish family and it was
assumed by his relatives that he would eventually become a rabbi. However, he
displayed impressive intellectual capabilities and earned a position at the
Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, the most prestigious teachers' college in
France. Around this time, he also generally lost his religious faith, although
he retained a strong desire for moral reform and moral studies. Instead of
religion, he hoped that science - and in particular the scientific study of
society - would help bring about moral reformation. As
a Jew, even if he wasn't very religious, he experienced the bitter
anti-Semitism of France of that era. The end of the century saw the advent of
the Dreyfuss Affair, when a Jewish army officer was falsely accused and
convicted of espionage. This led to an increase in anti-Semitism, especially
towards those like Durkheim who worked to have Dreyfuss exonerated. For
example, Durkheim's record indicates that he almost certainly should have been
elected to the Institut de France, but he was passed over entirely. During
World War I he was also accused of disloyalty and preference for the German
enemies, something perhaps motivated not only by his Jewish heritage but also
his German name and his origins in the disputed Alsace-Lorraine region.
Durkheim died in 1917 a year after his son died during World War I,
fighting for the French.
1858: In New York City,
Moses Richman and Rosa Mellis gave birth to Isabel R. Wallach, the wife of
Joseph G. Wallach who was vice president for the New York State Council of
Jewish Women and President of the Shaaray Tefila Sisterhood.
1859: In Rypin, Poland,
Molka King and Hirsch Ripinsky gave birth to artist Solomon Ripinsky who in the
1870’s established a studio in Sacramento before moving on to Oregon where he
lived for six years after which he settled in Alaska where he continued to
paint until his death.
https://www.askart.com/artist/solomon_ripinsky/11006579/solomon_ripinsky.aspx?alert=info#
1861 “From the West
Indies” published today provides a potpourri of information about Santa Domingo
and Cuba including the fact that there is one Jew among the 15 or 20
slave-traders working the markets in Havana.
1861: Following the
attack on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers to
serve for three months. This would turn
out to be a mere down payment in terms of the number of soldiers it would take
to save the Union. Among them would be
thousands of Jews including Frederick Knefler, an immigrant from Hungary who
would rise to the rank of Major General under William Tecumseh Sherman,
Brigadier General Blumenberg who had previously escaped the wrath of
Secessionist mob in Baltimore, and General Max Einstein whose troops covered
the retreat of the Union Army following the First Battle of Bull Run.
1861: As President
Lincoln issues a call for volunteers to fight the Confederates, Major Alfred
Mordecai makes a last-ditch effort to stay in the U.S. Army without having to
fight against his southern kinsman. He sends a letter to his superiors asking
that he be relieved of duty at the Watervliet Arsenal so he would not be making
munitions to fire against family and friends from North Carolina and
Virginal. He requested that he be
transferred to California or some other such distant posting where he felt he
could stay in the Army, serve his country and still avoid fighting his fellow Southerners.
1862(15th of Nisan,
5622): First Day of Pesach
1862(15th of Nisan,
5622): The first Jewish services were held in Dubuque, Iowa during Pesach
1862: Business was off
today at the New York Cattle Market because “the Jewish dealers” were absent
today “being their Passover.”
1863: Birthdate of
Isaac Levy, the husband of Lena Levy.
1863(26th of
Nisan, 5623): Miriam Joseph, the daughter of Israel Joseph and the wife of Levy
Moses whom she married in 1809 passed away today Sumter, SC.
1864: “In Varzan,
Lithuania, Joseph and Shata (Zachs) Lurie” gave birth to Rabbi Benjamin
Aronowitz the husband of Shifera Leibowitz, founder of a Yeshiva at Telisha
where he also served as an “arbitrator on Torah jurisprudence” before coming to
the United States in 1906 to lead a congregation in Lowell, Massachusetts and
then becoming a “teacher of Law and Talmud at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan
Theological Seminary.”
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/aronowitz-benjamin
1865: “In Krosinewitz,
Poland, Aaron and Bessie Marion (Feidel) Werner” gave birth to Lodz and Thorn,
Germany educated “branch manager of MGM Film Corporation Charles Werner, the
husband of Edna Korn who settled in St. Louis, MO.
1865(19th of
Nisan, 5625): Fifth Day of Pesach and Shabbat Shel Pesach
1865: At special
meeting today of the Orthodox congregation in Keokuk, IA, presided over by L.M.
Younker, one of the founders of the department store chain that bore the family
name a motion was unanimously adopted to the “synagogue draped in mourning for
thirty days in memory of our late president, Abraham Lincoln.”
1865: President Abraham
Lincoln dies after having been shot the night before at Ford’s Theatre. For
more see Lincoln and the Jews by Jonathan Sarna and Benjamin Shapell http://www.shapell.org/lincoln-and-the-jews/lincoln-and-the-jews-a-history/ OR
http://www.jhsgw.org/exhibitions/online/lincolns-city/exhibits/show/mr-lincolns-city/essays/holzer
1867: “New York Jewish
merchants met at Congregation Shearith Israel to consider action against
insurance companies which refused to insure Jewish business establishments.”
(As reported by Abraham P. Bloch).
1870(14th of Nisan,
5630): Erev of Pesach
1870: Birthdate of
Palukno, Vilna, native Jacob Ginsburg, who in 1892 came to the United States
where he was “one of the founders of the American Jewish Congress, founded The Jewish World and served as published
of the Philadelphia Jewish World
while raising his son Norman with his wife Annie Ginsburg.
1871: An article
published today provided “further details of religious disturbances at Odessa”
(Russia) during which “the Hebrews’ gave been the victims “religious
intolerance.” According to the article, The Standard, a paper published in
London “has a dispatch from Vienna stating that a religious riot has occurred
at Odessa. The Jews were despoiled” and
have suffered “great devastation.” According
to the dispatch, the “authorities were powerless” to quell the riot.
1872:
On the eve of Greek Easter Sunday, Greeks attacked Jews in a bloody riot.
"The Christians were set loose, and beat, massacred, and demolished the
houses of Jews…" It was reported one Jews was stabbed to death, and others
were injured. It was only after Turkish soldiers guarded the Jews that the
violence ended.
1873(18th
of Nisan, 5633): Fourth Day of Pesach
1873:
In San Francisco, Jacob and Rose (Hart) Zobel, gave birth to Stanford
University trained surgeon Alfred Jacob Zobel, who started serving as the chief
of clinic for Diseases of the Rectum and Colon at San Francisco Polyclinic in
1905 and who married Claire Wolf in 1925, two years after the death of his
first wife, Maybelle Getz.
1873:
In Poland, Aaron and Sarah Marcus gave birth to Isaiah Marcus the husband of
Fannie Plotnic and member of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis who ed congregations
in Columbus, OH, Chicago, Il and Richmond, VA
1874:
Two days after he had passed away, Edward Green, son of Levy Ephraim Green and
Emilia Hyams and the husband of Amelia Hart with whom he had had six children
was buried today in the “West Ham Jewish Cemetery.”
1874: Birthdate of Johannes Stark. A Nobel Prize winning physicist, he is
known for the Stark Effect. Stark attacked Einstein and other Jewish scientists
because they were Jewish. He also disparaged their scientific
accomplishments. He joined the Nazi party. After the war, he was
sentenced to four years in prison by a De-Nazifcation Court. He died
in 1957. Just because you win the Nobel Prize does not mean you are
"smart."
1875:
In Tichen, Russia, boot manufacture Myer Weingarten and his wife gave birth to Flint,
Michigan realtor and fruit company executive Harry Weingarten, the husband of
Libby Breslin with whom he had three children who at the age of 14 came to the
United States where became “a member of Congregation Shaa Zedek in Detroit,” served
on “the Board of the Citizens and Commercial Savings Bank of Flint” and was in
“charge of the committee that raised thirteen million dollars for Jewish war
sufferers.”
1875:
The "Jewish Exponent" was issued for the first time. R. Charles
Hoffman, Ephraim Lederer, and Felix Gerson served as the editors.
1877:
Birthdate of Rosalie Moses, the native of Horn, Austria-Hungary who as Rosalie
Moser was a passenger on the S.S. St. Louis and died during the Holocaust
sometime after having been disembarked in France, her last known place of
residence.
1878:
In Lithuania Feige Gobst and Elijah Chaim Konvitz gave birth to Rabbi Joseph
Konvitz, the husband of Welia Ridvas-Wilowsky and co-founder and dean of the
Palestine Theological Seminary in Safed who came to the United where, starting
in 1924 he began leading Anshe Russia Synagogue in Newark, served as an
American delegate to the World Zionist Congress in 1925 and the New Jersey
delegate to the American Prison Congress.
1878:
Birthdate of Cincinnati, OH resident Isaac Aronoff, the husband of Mary
Gelperin Aronoff with whom he had three children --- Sarah, Nathan and Louis.
1879(22nd
of Nisan, 5639): Eighth Day of Pesach; Yizkor
1880: In New York, the District Attorney delivered
a lecture entitled “Some Phases of Crime” at tonight’s meeting of the Young
Men’s Hebrew Associations.
1878:
Birthdate of Dr. Felix Kornfeld, the native of Bohemia who was the husband of
Paul Mandl
1880:
In Heldesheim, Rabbi Jakob Guttmann and his wife gave birth to Rabbi Julius
Guttman who became Professor of Jewish Philosophy at Hebrew University in 1934.
1881(16th
of Nisan, 5641): Second Day of Pesach
1881:
During the four-day observance of Russian Orthodox Easter, a Pogrom begins in
Elizavetgrad, Russia.
1882(26th
of Nisan, 5642): Parashat Shmini; Mevarchim Chodesh Iyar.
1882:
Birthdate of Telpki, Russia native Binder Ainbinder, who was murdered at Auschwitz
in 1942.
1883:
Pauline Moses and David Holtz were married today in New York City.
1883:
“In Wilno, Abraham and Stsia (Lechovitzky) Abramson gave birth to Maurice
Abramson and husband of Anna Mattline, who served as the rabbi for several
American congregations including Beth Israel in Evansville, Indiana and
Tifereth Israel in Des, Moines, Iowa while authoring several volumes including The
Bible in Questions and Answers and Berchos Moshe.
1883: In
Estonia, Sarah Snyder and Mendel Leiserson gave birth to University of
Wisconsin graduate and holder of a doctorate from Columbia William Morris
Leiserson the husband of Emily Nash Bodman who began his academic career as a
Professor of Economics and Political Science at Toledo University before moving
on to Antioch College in 1925 where he was a Professor of Economics.
1884(20th
of Nisan, 5644): Sixth Day of Pesach
1884:
Birthdate of Lithuanian born, University of London trained “Hebraist and
Arabist” Ben Zion Halper, a Professor at Dropsie College and an editor for the
Jewish Publication Society.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/halper-benzion
1885:
Birthdate of Petrikov, Russia native Max Zaritsky, the son of a rabbi and
husband of Sophie Zaritsky who in 1906 came to the United States where he rose
the Presidency of the United Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers International
Union
https://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w6h995qg
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/05/11/80575988.pdf
1885: In Belarus, Ida (Yetta) Slutsky, the future co-founder
of the Catskill resort Nevele Hotel and Country Club and her husband Louis Slutsky
gave birth to Louis Slutsky.
1886: A group of Sephardic Jews formed a corporation for
a congregation named in honor of Moses Montefiore.
1886(10th of Nisan, 5646): Eighty-five-year-old
German jurist Moritz Warburg the native of Altona who was elected to the Schleswig
-Holstein constituent assembly in 1848 passed away today.
1886: Birthdate of Pinsk native Israel Lebendiger, who in
1904 came to the United States where he earned a bachelor’s degree at Columbia
and was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary and married Carrie Liberman
before beginning to serve Congregation Sharae Zekek in St. Louis starting in
1922.
1887(21st of Nisan, 5647): Seventh Day of
Pesach
1887:Herzl is installed as
an editor of the "Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung" but holds the post only
a short time.
1887:
The Jewish Exponent, a weekly
publication servicing the Philadelphia Jewish community was published for the
first time today.
1889(14th
of Nisan, 5649): Ta'anit Bechorot observed on the birthdate of A. Philip Randolph
one of the great labor leaders in the United States who worked with Arnie
Aronson to found the Leadership Conference.
1890:
Representatives of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association and the Emma Lazarus
Club were among those attending the opening session of the convention of the
Association of Working Girls’ Societies being held at the Metropolitan Opera
House.
1890:
Birthdate of Russian native and Suffolk (MA) Law School trained attorney Harry
Ernest Burroughs, the husband of Hannah R. Burroughs with whom he had three
children – Harry, Jr., Warren and Jean – and World War I veteran who in 1904
came to the United States where he “served as chairman of the board of trustees
of the Massachusetts Law society, founded the Harry E. Burroughs Newsboy’s
Foundation and wrote Boys in Men’s Shoes, “published in 1944” in which he “recalled
his own bitte experiences selling papers.”
1891:
It was reported today that during a discussion of “The Religious problem” at a
meeting of The Nineteenth Century Club, Rabbi Gustav Gottheil took issue with
statements by Reverend Howard MacQueary about the crucifixion of Jesus saying,
“that Jesus of Nazareth was never persecuted by the Jews” and “defended the
virtues of King David” and King Solomon, “both of whom Macqueary had assailed.
1891:
“Jewish Hardships in Russia” published reported that “a ukase is about to be
issued that withdraws the privilege given to Jewish workmen of residing out the
outside the limits” of areas “assigned to Jews and which “will result in the
expulsion of 14,000 Jews from Moscow.”
1892: Birthdate of Corrie ten Boom, Dutch devotional
author whose family was arrested by the Gestapo during WWII for hiding Jewish
refugees in their home. Corrie's experience with the Nazis was depicted in the
1971 film, "The Hiding Place."1892 Birth of
Corrie ten Boom, Dutch devotional author whose family was arrested by the
Gestapo during WWII for hiding Jewish refugees in their home (Corrie's
experience with the Nazis was depicted in the 1971 film, "The Hiding
Place").
1892(18th
of Nisan, 5652): Fourth day of Pesach
1892(18th
of Nisan, 5652): Sixty-six-year-old New York City builder Marc Eidlitz, the
brother of architect Leopold Eidlitz and the father of Cyrus. L.W Eidlitz whose
construction projects included the Temple Emanu-El sanctuary located at 5th
Avenue and 43rd Street, passed away today.
1893:
“Ahlwardt’s Promise Not Kept” published today described the rejection by the
President of the Reichstag of Hermann Ahlwardt’s written statement that
purported to prove that high government officials were guilty of “corrupt
conduct.” Ahlwardt is a notorious anti-Semite who contends that the Jews are
behind plots to bribe German leaders.
1893:
Birthdate of Kiev native Herman Morris Pomrenze, who came to Chicago in 1913
where he earned an MD from Loyola and went on to a career as a surgeon and a
member of the faculty of Northwestern while being an active member of the
city’s Jewish community.
1893(29th
of Nisan, 5653): Parashat Shimini
1893:
In his sermon today, Rabbi Gottheil “used vigorous language” in criticizing
“the vigorous efforts which are being made by the various Protestant
denominations to secure proselytes from” the Jews of New York
1894:
Jacob Green, the four-year-old son of a Jewish peddler, accidently fell from
the fifth floor fire escape at a 19 Allen Street on the lower east side.
1895:
“The certificate of incorporation of the Hebrew Infant Asylum of the City of
New York was filed” today in the office of the country clerk.
1896:
Birthdate of Pesach Burstein, the Polish born American entertainer who among
other things was a director in the Yiddish theatre. (At least two sites attribute his first name
to the fact that he was born on Pesach but the 15th of April corresponds to
the 2nd of Iyar 5656. To have
been born on Pesach, 1896, his birthdate would have been March 29)
1896:
In Worcester, MA, Fannie E. and Jacob Meyer Talamo gave birth to Clark College
grad and Harvard trained pediatrician Haskell Talamo the husband of Madeline
Taber Talamao and member of B’nai B’rith.
1896:
Twenty-eight-year-old Columbia, Syracuse University and Middlebury College
trained attorney, and future U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Abram I.
Elkus, the New York born son of Julia and Isaac Elkus married Gertrude R. Hess
today.
1897: The date on which Oscar Altman and Rosie
Wachtel were to be married in New York City.
1898(23rd
of Nisan, 5658): Fifty-five-year-old Italian lawyer and Senator Cesare Parenzo
passed away today.
1898:
Birthdate of Isaac Palacci who was deported from Istanbul to France in 1942.
1899:
Birthdate of Karl Bernhardt, the native of Worms who gained fame as director
Kurt Bernhardt who fled Germany in 1933 and pursued his career in France and
Great Britain before settling the United States where his last picture was
“Kisses for My President” – a film that Hilary Clinton should appreciate since
it is comedic look at the first female President.
1899:
In a cable sent to the Navy Department in Washington, DC today Admiral Dewey
notes that the “native government established by Edward Taussig on Guam was
working well.
1900(16th
of Nisan, 5660): Second Day of Pesach; first day of the Omer
1900:
The head of nineteen-year-old Ernst winter was recovered from a pool in Konitz,
West Prussia. Other parts of his dismembered body had been recovered at various
times since his disappearance in early March. Local anti-Semites began to
accuse the Jews in what would become a 20th century blood libel.
1901:
Birthdate of Lithuania native Julius Maller who in 1921 came to the United
States where he earned a B.A. from Washington University, and M.A. and Ph.D
from Columbia and “a Doctor of Hebrew Literature degree from JTS” before
following a career path that led to serving “director of Research and
Statistics in the State Department of Audit” while raising three children –
Julie, Jeanne and Michael – with his wife Rose Ruth Araonwitz Maller.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/maller-julius-bernard
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/05/09/89195990.pdf
1902:
Thirty-two-year-old violinist and conductor Arnold Volpe, the Kovna, Russia
born son of Ella and Levi Volpe who came to New York city in 1898 where he
found the Volpe Symphony Orchestra married Marie Michelson today after which he
pursued many musical opportunities that led him to become the head of
Composition at the Chicago College of Music and conductor of the Miami Symphony
Orchestra.
1902:
In New York City, at a meeting of the Board of Alderman, Alderman Devlin
introduced a resolution asking the Mayor to instruct Commissioner Partridge not
to interfere with Jewish peddlers selling their wares on the east side next
Sunday because that day was the day before Passover. The resolution was denounced by Aldermen
Walkley and Oatman because it was asking the mayor to sanction a violation of
the city’s “blue laws. The Council adopted the resolution.
1902:
Birthdate Warsaw native Samuel Arthur “Sammy” Weiss the first Jew to be named
captain of the Duquesne University football team who went on “to represent
Pennsylvania's 30th, 31st, and 33rd Districts in the United States House of
Representatives” before serving as a Common Pleas Court Judge
http://history.house.gov/People/Detail/23526
1903(18th
of Nisan, 5663): Fourth Day of Pesach
1903(18th
of Nisan, 5663):Gustav
Gottheil, one of the leading Reform Rabbis of his time passed away. Born in
Prussia, in 1827, he was trained in Berlin before holding pulpits in Great
Britain and the United States where he was the Senior Rabbi at New York’s
Temple Emanu-El. While this brief entry
cannot do justice to his many accomplishments it must be noted that he was
unique among Reform rabbis for his early support of the Zionist movement. In fact, he was a delegate to the First
Zionist Congress.
1903:
Herzl arrives in Paris and confers with Lord Rothschild, Zadoc Kahn and other
members of the ICA on ways to further the project of establishing a Jewish
homeland in Palestine with the British government.
1904(30th
of Nisan, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1904:
Birthdate of American-Armenian painter Arshile Gorky who was a colleague of
fellow contemporary painter Mark Rothko the Latvian born American
expressionist.
1905:
In New York City, Barnet and Rose (Weislander) Rosenberg gave birth to Dr.
Ralph P Rosenberg, the husband of Leah (Davidson) Rosenberg and the holder of a
Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin who was a “Professor of German and the
Humanities at Yeshiva University in New York for 38 years.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1979/05/24/111029427.pdf
1905:Thousands of
dollars in money and great quantities of matzoth were distributed tonight among
the poor Jews of the lower east side, as is the custom every year before the
feast of the Passover, which opens on Wednesday and will be observed by all
Jews throughout the world for the next eight days.
1905:
Birthdate of Herman Steiner the native of Slovakia who became “a United States
chess player, organizer, and columnist.
http://www.chessdryad.com/articles/ccr/art_04.htm
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=21871
1906(20th of Nisan, 5666): In one of
those calendar coincidences, Easter coincides with the Sixth Day of Pesach and
the 5th day of the Omer.
1906: Final Broadway performance of Clara Lipman’s play “Julie Bonbon” at the
Lyric Theatre.
1907:
Birthdate of chess master Gerald Abrahams. Born in Liverpool, Abrahams
wrote “Teach Yourself Chess.”
1907:Dr. Stephen
Samuel Wise “so inspired those who heard his message that today more than a
hundred of his followers met at the Hotel Savoy to establish a free synagogue.
Henry Morgenthau, Sr., who would become the congregation’s first president,
declared that day, "The Free Synagogue is to be free and democratic in its
organization; it is to be pewless and dueless." A religious school opened
that October, and six months later had an enrollment of 150 students. Dr.
Wise’s Sunday morning services, held at the Universalist Church of Eternal Hope
on West 81st Street, drew more than 1,000 people.
1907:
Birthdate of Esther Gottlieb the wife of abstract expressionist painter Adolph
Gottlieb and the founder and president of the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb
Foundation.
1908:
In Bavaria, Max Neuberger and his wife Bertha Hiller gave birth to Albert
Neuberger, the British Professor of Chemical Pathology the University of
London’s St. Mary’s Hospital.
1908
(14th of Nisan, 5668): A Seder is scheduled to be held this evening on Ellis
Island for Jews who have not been able to enter the United States. The Acting Commissioner of Immigration has
given permission for the service to be held in the dining room of the
facility’s main building.
1909:
“Mrs. Seligman To Marry” published today described the plans of Mrs. Theodore
Seligman the widow of Theodore Seligman who passed away in Lucerne in 1907
and who “was formerly Miss Florence
Einstein, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. D.L. Einstein to marry Charles
Waldstein, a Professor of Fine Arts at Cambridge University.
1910(6th
of Nisan, 5670): Seventy-seven-year-old Jacob Fleischner, the husband of Fanny
Fleischner and father of Isaac N. Fleischner passed away today after which he
was buried at Beth Israel Cemetery in Portland, OR.
1911:
“Three weeks after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, The Outlook: An Illustrated Weekly Journal of Current Life, a New
York weekly magazine, published “The Factory Girl’s Danger” by Miram Finn
Scott, the Russian born daughter of Gittel and Moses Finn who had been Moshe
Avraham Finkovski, which “was a reconstruction of the night before the disaster
from the perspective of two sisters, Gussie and Becky.”
https://jwa.org/thisweek/apr/15/1911/factory-girl-s-danger-published-in-outlook
1911:
Birthdate of Murray Bernthal, the Brooklyn born violin prodigy and “Syracuse
University basketball player.
http://www.broadwayworld.com/central-new-york/article/Murray-Bernthal-Dies-at-99-20101210
1911:
Birthdate of Odessa native Charles Robert Goldenberg, who grew up in Milwaukee
and played for the University of Wisconsin before embarking on 13-year career
with the Green Bay Packers that included playing as a lineman on three NFL
championship teams.
1911:
Birthdate of Warsaw native Seymour Zambrosky who in 1924 came to the United
States where in 1936 he was “ordained at Cleveland’s short-lived Orthodox
Rabbinical Seminary of America.”
1912(28th
of Nisan, 5672): H.M.S. Titanic sank. According to some, there were
enough Jews on board that kosher meals were served. The Jewish passengers
represented a cross section of Jewish society. Two unusual women on board
were Edith Louise Rosenbaum and Mrs. Henry B. Harris. Mrs. Rosenbaum was
a writer for Women’s Wear Daily. During World War I, she would become
the first female war correspondent. Mrs. Harris went on to become a
famous New York theatrical producer. Three of the most famous passengers
were Benjamin Guggenheim and Isidor and Ida Straus. Guggenheim was a
ne’er do-well from a famous New York family. His most famous
accomplishment was to give the world his daughter Peggy Guggenheim the famous
patron of the arts. Isidor Straus was part of a fabled New York family
that had ownership interests in Macy’s and Abraham & Straus. He was
mourned as one of New York’s greatest philanthropists.
1912(28th
of Nisan, 5672): Sixty-three-year-old Ida Straus, born Rosalie Ida Blun, the
German born daughter of Nathan Blun and Wilhelmine Freudenberg and the husband
of department store own Isidor Straus with whom she had seven children passed
away today when the RMS Titanic sank.
1912:
Eight tombstones in the Jewish cemetery at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia marking the
burial site of 8 unnamed Jews who perished aboard the Titanic.
1912(28th
of Nisan, 5672): New York City theatrical manager Henry B. Harris died aboard
the Titanic today.
1912(28th
of Nisan, 5672): Forty-eight-year-old Emil Brandeis of Omaha, Nebraska died
aboard the Titanic today.
1912(28th
of Nisan, 5672): Forty-eight-year-old Spanish American War veteran Adolph Bauer
of Mobile, Alabama passed away today.
1912(28th
of Nisan, 5672): Mrs. Max Landsburg of Rochester, NY, passed away today.
1912(28th
of Nisan, 5672): Forty-six-year-old Benjamin Guggenheim died aboard the Titanic
today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/04/20/100361986.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1912:
“The Times of London” reported today the “discovery of a papyrus volume
containing text of the greater part of the Book of Deuteronomy,” and all of the
Book of Jonah as well as text from the New Testament.
1912:
Albert Einstein refers to time as “the fourth dimension.”
1912:
M.J. I. Judelsohn was “appointed to the United States Consular Service today.
1912:
Sixty-six-year-old Hungarian born Celia Raucher Goldfinger, the wife of Charles
Ignatz Goldfinger and the mother of Lille, Sallie, Catherine and Samuel Goldfinger
was buried today at the Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park, IL.
1913:
The Southern Education which Rabbi Max Raisin of Meridian, Mississippi attended
as a delegate opened today in Richmond, Va.
1913(8th
of Nisan, 5673): Seventy-nine-year-old New York merchant Adolph Silberstein
passed away today.
1914(19th
of Nisan, 5674): Fifth Day of Pesach
1914:
Mary Esther Jewell, who die fourteen months after her son’s birth and Arthur
David Samuel who died at Queen Alexandria Military Hospital in 1918 gave birth
to Abraham Samuel.
1915(1st
of Iyar, 5675): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1915:
“Relief Work Wins Praise” published today described the words of approval that
the New York City investigators had for the work of the United Hebrew
Charities.
1915:
It was reported today that there eleven thousand Jews serving in the British
army and navy” which Lord Reading, the Lord Chief Justice of England described
as “a good number for so comparatively small a community.”
1915:
Louis Gutman, the Jewish officer who recommended Hitler for his Iron Cross
First Class in 1918, “was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and appointed as
both a company commander and acting adjutant for the Regiment’s artillery
Battalion. “
1916:
Birthdate of Helene Hanff, the Philadelphia born screenwriter and author who
most famous work was 84, Charing Cross Road.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-helene-hanff-1267169.html
1916(12th
of Nisan, 5676): Shabbat HaGadol
1916:
In New York City Hiram Bloomingdale and Rosalind Schiffer gave birth to Alfred
S. Bloomingdale, the grandson of Lyman Bloomingdale, who along with his brother
Joseph founded Bloomingdale’s Department Store.
1916:
George Kroll of Paris, who was staying at the Ritz Carlton today described the
sacrifices that Russian Jews living in France have made for their adopted
country saying that “the Jews have disproved the assertions that they cannot
fight” and that “none have fought more bravely” than these refugees thousands
of whom volunteered as soon as the war began.
1917:
F.L. Fagley, Secretary of the Cincinnati Federation of Churches said that of
the $14,000 collected to provide relief of the Armenians and Syrians, $4,000
was contributed by Jews.
1917:
“A group who styled themselves ‘revolutionary socialists;” which included
members claiming to be Jews met today to protest the Canadian government’s
detention of Leon Trotsky whom authorities at Halifax said was trying to return
to Russia so that he could “provoke another revolution which would nullify the
stand of the” new Russian government which had overthrown the Czar.
1917:
“A cable message praising the provisional Government of Russia for having
emancipated the Jews was sent to the Foreign Minister” today “by all of the
delegates” attending the annual convention of the Federation of Rumanian Jews
being held at the Hebrew Technical School for Girls in New York.
1917:
Two hundred Jewish leaders are scheduled to hold a conference today at the
Astor Hotel this morning where “they will choose the most effective means of
putting Jewish loyalty at the service of America” as it enters into WW I.
1917:
Today, at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Committee
a resolution was adopted “expressing a willingness to co-operate with the Board
and favoring the passage by Congress of a bill providing for twenty
chaplains-at-large in the Army” several of whom “will be Jewish ministers.”
1917: The Problem of Space in Jewish Medieval
Philosophy by I.I. Efros was one of the books listed as a selection on
“Three Hundred Books of Spring” published today.
1918:
The Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities Campaign to raise $500,000 ended
tonight “with the announcement that $300,000 had been raised” and “that the
campaign would re-open after the present Liberty Bond campaign” has been
concluded.
1918:
It was reported today that in the last few weeks, the Jews of New York City
have “formed 18 district organizations” or Kehillahs “throughout the city to
bring a cooperative effort to the solution of various social problems to the
New York City Jewish population.
1919(15th
of Nisan, 5679): Pesach
1919:
Today, in Great Britain, “a week after the Morning Post had informed its
readers that the Russian Jews were purveyors of Bolshevism, Major E. H.
Coumbe…to the first step toward committing the” London “Council to a policy of
not employing aliens” which was the first step in his plan to get the Council
to bar all aliens, naturalized or otherwise, from employment
1919:
At Le Mans, France, Rabbi Lee J. Levinger held a Seder on the second night of
Passover for members of the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) who had been
issued furloughs so they could observe the holiday
1920:
Birthdate of Hank Kaplan noted boxing historian and writer.
1920:
In Stuttgart, Marianne (von Graevenitz) von Weizsäcker and Ernst von Weizsäcker
gave birth to Richard von Weizsäcker the President of West Germany.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/german-president-who-pushed-country-to-face-nazi-past-dies/
1920:
In what would become the “first act” of the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, two
security guards are murdered during a robbery in South Braintree,
Massachusetts. Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti would be convicted of and executed
for the crime, amid much controversy. Among their defenders were several
prominent Jews including Professor (and later Supreme Court Justice) Felix
Frankfurter, Judge Julian Mack and Harold Laski.
1921:
Birthdate of Budapest native and Holocaust survivor Kariel Gardosh who gained
fame as “an Israeli cartoonist and illustrator known by his pen name Dosh
(Hebrew: דוש)” who “worked as a
political cartoonist for the Israeli daily newspaper Ma'ariv and for the
Jerusalem Post” and “is the creator of the character Srulik which became a
symbol for sabras and the State of Israel, similar to Uncle Sam in the United
States.
1921:
It was reported today that Rabbi Leo M. Franklin’s message given at this week’s
meeting of Reform Congregations included a request “that the conference ask
great Church organizations of other denominations to protest against any
movement for world-wide anti-Semitic congress such as was recently stimulated
in Budapest” and a reminder “that while immigration laws should bar criminals,
anarchists and undesirables, they should not should shut out the oppressed.”
1922:
In Flushing, NY, Nathan Schacther and the former Anna Fruchter, both of whom
were Romanian Jewish immigrants gave birth to Dr. Stanley Schacter, the
Columbia University professor who “was one of the few social psychologists to
be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.” (As reported by Karen Freeman)
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/23/02/29.html
1922:
Birthdate of Michael Ansara who played “Haman” in the television miniseries
entitled “The Greatest Heroes of the Bible.”
1922(17th
of Nisan, 5682): Third day of Pesach
1922:
It was reported today that Dr. Hugo Bergman has said that “there is a great
deal of unemployment at present in Palestine” but that this “is only a
transient phase.”
1922(17th
of Nisan, 5682): Fifty-five-year-old Isaac David Broydé who served as librarian to the Alliance Israélite
Universelle from 1895 to 1900 and then “joined the editorial staff of the
Jewish Encyclopedia” passed away today.
1923:Insulin first became generally
available for use by diabetics. Sir Frederick Banting, one of the two men who
won a Nobel Prize for their work with Insulin based his work on the 1889
discoveries of the Jewish Polish-German physician Oscar Minkowski.
1923:
Dr. Spiegel, the representative of the German Red Cross who was working on the
transmigration of 300 Jewish refugees who had been expelled from Poland arrived
in Warsaw. The refuges must leave Poland
by September 1 and they are seeking to stay in German until they have obtained
visas to enter the United States. (As reported by JTA)
1923:
Preparations have been made along the White Russian border to provide food and
shelter for Jewish refugees from Poland who are being forced to return to their
former homes in the Soviet Union. (As reported by JTA)
1923:
Hugo Riesenfeld “co-presented a show at the Rivoli Theater in New York City of
18 short films made in the Phonofilm sound-on-film process.”
1923: BirthdateofNaomi Bronheim Levine,
the first woman to become executive director of the American Jewish Congress.
1923:
“A Few Minutes With Eddie Cantor” opened “at the Rivoli Theatre in New York
City.
1923:
Birthdate of Harvey Lembeck, the Brooklyn native whose career as character
actor included originating the role of “Sam Insigna” in the Broadway production
of Mr. Roberts, appearing as “Harry Shapiro” in the WW II classic “Stalag 17”
and serving as one of the underlings and sidekicks for Phil Silvers in the
television sitcom portraying the antics of con-man Sergeant Ernie Bilko.
1924:
It was reported today that David A. Brown told the delegates of the American
Union of Hebrew Congregations that “We don’t want to be less Jewish in this
country; we want to be more Jewish.”
1925(21st
of Nisan, 5685) Seventh of Day of Pesach
1925:
“A pessimistic view of the Jewish situation in various countries following the
opening of the Hebrew University was expressed by Israel Zangwill ih a letter
addressed to The Sunday Observer,
replying to an article by the editor, J.L. Garvin, entitled “The Jews-From
Titus to Balfour.”
1926:
“Nanette Makes Everything” a silent film starring Fritz Spira was released
today in Germany/
1926:
According to Professor of Mathematics Julian Coolidge there “has been a marked
slump in religion at Harvard” since the end of the World War but that among
Jews who made up about one fifth of the class of 1922 there was an increase of
those who described themselves as “believers” with about “one half of the Jews”
being classified as “religiously inclined.”
1927:
Birthdate of Dormont, PA native and University of Chicago alum “Albert Goldman,
the author of no-holds-barred biographies of Lenny Bruce, Elvis Presley and
John Lennon.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/30/obituaries/albert-goldman-biographer-is-dead-at-66.html
1927:
In Izbica, a largely Jewish shtetl in the Lublin district of Poland, Leon and
Masha Felicia Blatt gave birth to Tomasz Toivi Blatt who survived the 1943
revolt at Sobibor.
http://sobibor.net/confrontation.html
1927:
It was reported today that in two weeks members of Temple Emanu-El and Temple
Beth-El, two of the oldest Reform
Congregations in New York will vote on plan for consolidation already approved
by the trustees under which the “combine organization will be known as Temple
Emanu-El the chapel will called Chapel Beth-El
and that after using Temple Beth-El as its home for the next two years,
the new congregation will move into the new Temple Emanu-El being built at
Fifth Avenue and 65th Street “on the site of the Vincent Astor
Residence,
1928:
“A children’s entertainment is scheduled to be give by the Federation of the
Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies” This under un the leadership of Mrs.
Arthur Geers and Mrs. Sidney C. Borg.
1928:
“Rabbi Nathan Krass of Temple Emanu-El called upon the Reform Jewry of Greater
New York to contribute to the work of the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations and the Hebrew Union College which it maintains at Cincinnati in
a speech before the younger members of the Emanu-El congregation at the
Harmonie Club tonight.”
1928:
“The recent resignation of Dr. Stephen S. Wise from the Administrative
Committee of the ZOA was accepted” today “with great regret by the Executive
Committee of the organization.
1929:
As part of National Jewish Hospital Week was launched yesterday, Judge Samuel
D. Levy is scheduled to broadcast an appeal for funds today in a broadcast over
station WJZ.
1929:
“John Haynes Holmes, pastor of the Community Church of Manhattan” who “recently
returned from a trip through Palestine as the representative of Nathan Straus”
is schedule to speak on “A Gentile Pilgrim in the Jewish Homeland” tonight “at
the weekly forum of the Brooklyn Jewish Centre.”
1930:
“As a part of the celebration in Jerusalem” of the fifth anniversary of the
opening of the Hebrews University on Mount Scopus the dedication of the
Wolfsohn Library is scheduled to take place followed by “a musical festival I
the Untermeyer Open Air Theatre” at the university.
1930:
In France Ludovic and and Johanna Lawrence gave birth to Dartmouth graduate and
Olympic skier David Lawrence who had been able to escape with his family from
Nazi Europe thanks to a visa issued by Portuguese consul Aristides de Sousa
Mendes.
1931:
Brooklyn Outfielder Alta Cohen played in his first major league game.
1931:
Birthdate of Yitzhak Zamir, the native of Warsaw who made Aliyah at the age of
3 and enjoyed a successful career in the law including serving as Attorney
General of Israel and as a member of the Supreme Court.
1932:
“Girls to Marry, a romantic comedy starring Fritz Grünbaum who would be
murdered at Dachau in 1941 and S.Z Sakall who escaped from Hungary in 1940 and
made his way to Hollywood where his memorable performances included “Carl” the
head waiter in the classic “Casablanca” was released in Germany today.
1933(19th
of Nisan, 5693): Shabbat Shel Pesach
1933:
“Police, reinforced by troops are patrolling the streets” of Tangier Morocco
after “anti-Semitic disturbances broke out “during Passover when Arabs attacked
the Jewish population.
1933:
At a time when the Nazis were tightening their hold in Germany, more than 400
members and friends of the Board of Trade for German-American Commerce
including boxers Max Schmeling and Jack Dempsey attended a dinner dance on the
Hamburg American liner “New York” where the theme was the furtherance of
friendly German American relations
1934(30th
of Nisan, 5694): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1934:
“The Jews of America must bury all differences of opinion and untied to stem
the disaster that has befallen the Jews of German and which also seriously
effect Jews everywhere, Felix M. Warburg…declared” today “in a statement
setting forth the reason which moved him to accept the chairmanship of the three-million-dollar
United Jewish Appeal.” (JTA)
1934:
In a speech delivered today at the annual meeting of the Board of Deputies of
British Jews, “Leonard Montefiore, president of the Anglo Jewish Association
declared today” that “there is hardly a Jewish family in Germany without some
destitute member” and “that many Jewish hospital and communal institutions” in
Germany have already been closed or are on the verge of closing.”
1935:
In Prague, Anthony Fried, a Czech industrialist who served as a vice-president
of the arms and automotive conglomerate Škoda Works” and his wife Marta gave birth
to Princeton graduate and Oxford and Columbia trained attorney Charles Fried,
the husband of art history scholar Anne Smmerscale with
whom he two children – Gregory and Antonia and Republican Party stalwart who
served as Solicitor General for years under President Reagan and who served for
four years as Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/27/us/politics/charles-fried-dead.html
1935: It was reported today that in London, Leonard G.
Montefiore has informed “a joint foreign committee to the Jewish Board of
Deputies” that “the position of the Jews in Germany seems to have become worse
since” this past winter.
1936(23rd if Nisan, 5696): Harvard alum Simon
J. Lubin the Sacramento, CA born son of David Lubin and the nephew of Harris
Weinstock who founded Lubin and Weinstock “the largest department store” in
that city and the husband of Rebecca Cohen with whom he had three children –
David, Ruth and Miriam, passed away today in San Francisco.
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/search?style=oac4;titlesAZ=s;idT=UCb183294993
1936(23rd of Nisan, 5696): On the day after Pesach, Arabs
in Palestine renewed their riots which quickly grew into a full-scale uprising.The uprising began with an attack today on a convoy of trucks on the Nablus
to Tulkarm road during which the assailants shot and murdered two Jewish
drivers, Israel Khazan, who was killed instantly, and Zvi Dannenberg, who died
five days later
1936: “Arab brigands” “told their victims they were
robbing” them so they could “carry on the work of the ‘Holy Martyrs’ started
Izzedin El-Kassam who aimed to kill Jews and Britons in Palestine.
1936: Eustace Seligman was named chairman of the lawyer’s
division of the New York campaign of the Joint Distribution Committee which was
formed during a luncheon at the Lawyer’s Club with the goal of raising $125,000
to go toward the nationwide fund being raised to aid the Jews of Germany and
Central and Eastern Europe.
1936: Dr. Daniel A. Poling, the editor of the Christian
Herald who has just returned from 10 months in Europe told those attending a
luncheon at the Town Hall Club about conditions in Italy and Germany where he
said “opposition is solidifying” against the government because of “the
persecution of Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Masons and war veterans.”
1936: Tonight, members of the United Palestine Appeal
honored Judge Julian W. Mack for his twenty-five years spent on the Federal
bench as well as his work on behalf of the movement to settle Jews in
Palestine.
1937: It was reported today that German Government is
protesting the screening of “Modern German Christian Martyrs” at the Riverside
Church in New York characterizing “the film as ‘a new method of brazen Jewish
propaganda in America.”
1938:
The Palestine Post reported that Arab
terrorist gangs, searching for money and valuables, killed four Arabs in the
vicinity of Nazareth.
1938:
The Palestine Post reported that for
the first time in many years, the annual Nebi Musa procession failed to take
place in Jerusalem.
1938:
The Palestine Post reported that new
regulations warned that wearing any uniforms of His Majesty Forces, or attire
resembling such uniforms, was punishable by life imprisonment.
1938:
The Palestine Post commented on the
tragedy of a new immigrant, imprisoned for carrying an allegedly false
passport, who committed suicide. The message from his relatives, promising
assistance and legal defense, failed to reach him in time due to the lack of an
interpreter.
1938(14th
of Nisan, 5698) Fast of the firstborn; erev Pesach
1938:
In Vienna, Jewish houses of worship that have been closed since March 15 were
permitted to reopen today in time for Passover.
1938(14th of Nisan, 5698): Jews are killed
and injured during an anti-Semitic pogrom at Dabrowa Tarnowska, Poland.
1938:
In Budapest, the police arrested 24 Jews who are suspected “of being
responsible for issuing leaflets “urging Budapest Jews to oppose the
government’s numerus clausus bill.
1939:
In Turin, Italy, Natalia Ginzburg and Leone Ginzburg gave birth to historian
Carlo Ginzburg author of The Cheese and the Worms and The Night
Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries
1940:
Birthdate of Yossef Romano a Libyan-born, Jewish Israeli weightlifter with the
Israeli team that went to the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany where he
was murdered by Black September terrorists.
1941:
Birthdate of Howard Berman, Congressman from California’s 28th
District.
1941:
Construction was completed today on The Jadovno concentration camp, the first
of twenty-six concentration and extermination camps located in the Independent
State of Croatia
1941:
In the Belfast Blitz, two-hundred
bombers of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) attack Belfast, Northern Ireland
killing one thousand people.During World War II, a number of Jewish children escaping
from the Nazis, via the Kindertransport, reached and were housed in Millisle.
The Millisle Refugee Farm (Magill’s farm, on the Woburn Road) was founded by
teenage pioneers from the Bachad movement. It took refugees from May 1938 until
its closure in 1948.
1942:
“49th Parallel,” a British war movie based on an original story by
Emeric Pressburger who wrote the screenplay and starring Leslie Howard which
had premiered in New York as “The Invaders” was released in the rest of the
United States today.
1942:
Today, super-cryptologist and mathematics professor Abraham Sinkov, the
Philadelphia bon son of Jewish immigrants Morris and Ethel Sinkov “established
the Central Bureau (CB), cobbling it together from refugee elements of American
cryptologists evacuated from the Philippines, Australian cryptologists, and
other Allied contingents.”
1943:
In Cleveland, Ohio, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver delivered the eulogy at the
memorial service for Zvi Hirsch Masliansky which “was held …in the Straus
Auditorium of The Educational Alliance at 197 East Broadway. This was the place
to honor his memory, for it was the hall where he had spoken so often to a
generation of Jewish immigrants.
1943:
“The Gentle Sex” directed by Leslie Howard who also narrated the film and
starring Lilli Palmer was released today in the United States.
1944:
Prime Minister Churchill “pondered the question of who should succeed Sir
Harold MacMichael, whose term as British High Commissioner was coming to an
end.” Churchill put forth two
possibilities, Lord Melchett, a British Jew and the son of the distinguished
industrialist Sir Alfred Mond and Chaim Weizmann. Of course, Weizmann did not get the post and
within a year’s time Churchill would betray his Jewish friend and ally by
holding firm against Jewish immigration to Palestine and postponing the creation
of a Jewish state.
1944: Seventy Jews and ten Russians attempted to
escape from the forests surrounding the two of Ponary. Lithuania. From July
1941 until July 1944, approximately 100,000 people (mainly Jews) were
murdered in the forests surrounding Ponary a resort town in Lithuania. As
the Red Army approached a group of 70 Jews and 10 Russians were given the
task of burning all the bodies to cover up the mass murder. Realizing that at
the end of their work they too would be killed they (over a period of three
months) dug a tunnel 30 meters long with spoons. On the night of April 15 they
escaped. Only 13 reached safety alive.
1945: British forces liberated the Bergen-Belsen
camp. The British soldiers were horror-stricken at the spectacle that greeted
them. They found some 60,000 human beings alive under appalling conditions.
Most of them were seriously ill. Alongside them were thousands of unburied
corpses, strewn in every direction, and vast numbers of emaciated bodies in
mass graves and piles. Because the British Army was not geared to treat
everyone who needed assistance, 14,000 additional prisoners died in the first
few days and a similar number perished in the following weeks. The British
forces began to treat and rehabilitate the rest of the survivors.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/april/12.asp
1945: Rabbi Leslie Hardamn, “a young Jewish chaplain” was
among the member of the British 11th Armored Division who liberated
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp today.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/oct/13/secondworldwar-judaism
1945:
“Margot Heuman, who ore witness to the Holocaust as a Gay Woman” was from
Bergen-Belsen today.
1945:
Esti Reichman and some of her fellow prisoners including a woman named Dora
encountered one “disappointment” following the liberation of Bergen-Belsen when
they discover that they have missed celebrating Passover. The women had thought it was a leap year and
had been hoarding their meager rations to make a Seder. At the time of their liberation, they
discovered that this was not a leap year.
There was no Adar and Pesach had begun on March 29. [Hopefully somebody told them about Pesach
Sheini.]
1945:
Twenty-one-year-old Radom, Poland native Dora Eiger who had been deported to
Auschwitz in July 1944 was liberated by British troops today at Bergen Belsen.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/id-card/dora-eiger
1945:
Today, “while attached to the 11th Armoured Brigadier Hugh Llewellyn
Glyn Hughes,became
the first Allied Medical Officer to enter the concentration camp at
Bergen-Belsen after which he dealt with two immediate issues – “control of
disease and the distribution of food” to the inmates.
1945:
Leonard Mlodinow’s father was liberated by forces under the command of General
Patton. At the time, he weighed 80 pounds.
1945(2nd
of Iyar, 5705): At least 21 Hungarian Jewish prisoners were murdered today at
the Mikulov clay pit.
1945(2nd
of Iyar, 5705): The mother of Holocaust survivor Zoltan Zinn-Collis died in
Belsen on the same day the Red Cross had come to rescue her. He brother Aladar
died earlier in the year in the same camp and his father Adolf is believed to
have died in Ravensbruck in 1944. Zoltan
and his Edit were brought to Ireland after the war where he was able to rebuild
his life.
1945:
Special services were held in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem honoring the later
President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1946(14th
of Nisan, 5706):Ta'anit Bechorot/Erev Pesach
1946:
First Seders were held in Germany following WW II.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZYVUGgkT0g&feature=youtu.be
http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=ba13d322ff1efbe114aeb6779&id=0e56933e20&e=632ced0f1f
1946:
Rabbi Balfour Brickner conducted the Seder at the Euclid Avenue Temple in
Cleveland, Oho with the help of Erwin Jospe and Sam Levine who provided the
music for an event that included an Afikomon Treasure Hunt for the Children.
1946:
Golda Meir is joined by her children for a Seder.
1946:
As the hunger strike in Palestine designed to show support for the Jews from
Spezia who being detained in Italy entered the third day, “thousands of people
carrying flowers came to Jerusalem to show their support. The chief rabbis, who” had join the “fast
preside over an unusual Seder.” Everyone
“would eat a single piece of matzah, no bigger than an olive.” As they went through the Haggadah, those
fasting consumed cups of tea instead of cups of wine.
1946:
In Germany, a group of children was photographed at the Foehrenwald D.P. Camp
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/april/15.asp
1947:
Eighty-six-year-old Theodor Lewlad the Christian civil servant and nephew of
Jewish novelist Fanny Lewald who was removed from his position on the
International Olympic Committee because “his paternal grandmother was Jewish,’
passed away today.
1947:
Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, breaking that
sport's color line. Hank Greenberg reportedly gave moral support and guidance
to Robinson based on his experiences.
Brooklyn was a heavily Jewish borough where winning the pennant and
beating the hated Yankees was more important than issues of pigmentation.
1947:
Birthdate of Niles, OH and Marquette University trained award winning poet Albert
Frank Moritz, the husband of Theresa Moritz.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/a-f-moritz
1948:
Birthdate of American composer Michael Kamen whose work included “Mr. Holland’s
Opus.”
1948: The National Opera (Israel) held its first
performance in Tel Aviv. The opera was the creation of Edis de Philippe
from Brooklyn and Mordechai Galinkin from Leningrad. The debut was an act
of supreme optimism since the Arabs were busy trying to destroy the state
before it had even been created. As one observer wrote at the time,
"Noisy accompaniment was supplied by the gunfire from nearby skirmishes
between Tel Aviv and Jaffa."
1948:
This evening, “a company composed of Golani, Palmach and irregulars” traveling
“in two armed cars and two Egged buses made an unsuccessful attack on the Nabi
Yusha police fortress which cost the lives of four Jewish fighters.
1948:
Jewish forces seized Meggido, the sight of the Biblical Battle of Armageddon
and one of Lord Allenby’s great victories during World War I.
1948:
Jewish forces defeated Arab fighters at Tel Litvinsky, six miles from Tel
Aviv. The camp had served as a base for
the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II.
1948:
The Harel Brigade captured the village of Saris the “strategic hilltop
position” “overlooking the highway to Jerusalem” which the Arabs had used to
fire on Jewish vehicles thus helping to blockade the city.
1948:
The Haganah won a costly victory at Mishmar Ha-Emek fighting against
overwhelming odds. This was part of the famous "battle for the
Jerusalem Road."
1948:
Soldiers from Iraq and Jews fought for control of the Wadi Sara camp fifteen
miles south of Tel Aviv. Iraqi forces
were reported have reached the camp first but after encountering attacking
Jewish forces fled because they feared encirclement and capture.
1949:
In Miami, Murray and Naomi Zadan gave birth to Craig Zadan, whose
accomplishments including producing three successive Academy Awards ceremonies
and bringing several Broadway musical to television. (As reported by Richard
Sandomir)
1950(28th
of Nisan, 5710): Parashat Shminia
1950(28th
of Nisan, 5710): Seventy-year-old Bertha Wallach, the German born daughter of
Jakob and Ida Edelchen Baruch and wife of Joseph Wallach passed away today in
New York City.
1952(20th
of Nisan, 5712): Sixth day of Pesach
1952(20th
of Nisan, 5712): Seventy-one-year-old Issac Lowi passed away today following
which he was buried in the Beth Israel Cemetery in Gadsden, Alabama.
1952:
Birthdate of author Avital Ronell the daughter of Israeli stationed in Prague
and the “chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature at NYU”
who “was found responsible for sexually harassing a male former male graduate
student.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/nyregion/sexual-harassment-nyu-female-professor.html
http://as.nyu.edu/faculty/avital-ronell.html
http://egs.edu/faculty/avital-ronell
http://egs.edu/faculty/avital-ronell
1953(30th
of Nisan, 5713): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1953:The Jerusalem Post reported on the
strange ruling of the chairman of the UN Israeli-Jordanian Mixed Armistice
Commission who claimed that civilians were allowed to shoot at each other
across the border. The Israeli delegation took exception to this
"astonishing stand."
1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that an
Israeli patrol captured a boat and a terrorist who tried to infiltrate by sea
from Lebanon. The second boat escaped.
1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that "Yemin
Orde," a Youth Aliya village at Nir Etzion on the Carmel Hills was opened
by Lorna Wingate in memory of her husband, Capt. Charles Orde Wingate, who
formed the Jewish "night squads" and helped settlers to defend
themselves.
1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that The
Jerusalem YMCA was crowded with well-wishers who came to celebrate the 20th
anniversary of the building, a landmark and a significant cultural center in
the Capital.
1954(12th
of Nisan, 5714) Fast of the First Born
1954:
Senator Herbert H. Lehman was the guest of tonight at “a dinner given by the
America ORT at the Plaza Hotel to aid the campaign of the UJA of Greater New
York where speakers including Representative Jacob K. Javits said “the United
States must play the dominant role in achieving permanent peace between Israel
and the Arab states to thwart Communist infiltration in the Middle East.
1955(23rd
of Nisan, 5715): Sixty-nine-year-old Edgar Jones “E.J.” Kaufmann, Sr the
Pittsburgh born son of Morris and Betty Wolf Kaufmann who married Grace Arlene
Stoops Kaufmann after the death of his first wife Liliane Sarah Kaufmann who
was the founder of Kaufmann’s Department Store in Pittsburgh and the owner of “Fallingwater”
his summer home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright passed away to Palm Springs, CA.
1955:
Birthdate of Anthony Horowitz, an English novelist and screenwriter
1956(4th
of Iyar, 5714): Yom HaZikaron
1956(4th
of Iyar, 5714): Sixty—six-year-old Tupelo, MS born University of Missouri
trained journalist, Leo R. Sack, the WW I veteran and former United States
Minster to Costa Rica who raised one daughter with his wife Regina passed away
today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/04/17/84883578.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1957(14th
of Nisan, 5717): Erev Pesach
1957:
After almost seven years of Ruth Roman to Mortimer Hall with whom she had one
child, Richard, Ruth Roman’s divorce decree was granted today.
1958(25th
of Nisan, 5718): Seventy-six featherweight boxer Benny Yanger whose record
included fitty wins (30 by Kos) and eight losses (4 by Kos) passed away today.
1958:
Birthdate of Canadian poet and novelist Anne Michaels the author of Fugitive
Pieces and Winter Vault.
1958:
“The Camp on Blood Island” a WW II movie featuring Lee Montague was released in
the United Kingdom today.
1959: US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
resigned. Dulles was viewed as the
architect of the Eisenhower Administration’s foreign policy. He was Cold Warrior in the truest sense of
that term seeing everything in terms of Communists versus Anti-Communists. The one time he broke with this view was
during the Suez Crisis of 1956. There he
sided with the Soviets against the Israelis, the British and the French. Eisenhower and Dulles saved the Egyptian
dictator Nasser by allowing the Soviets to threaten the British with atomic
weapons and threatening Israel with economic destruction if she did not
withdraw from the Sinai. Israel did
withdraw and the disastrous policy of Dulles led to war in 1967 and the
volatile situation that exists on the West Bank to this day.
1959:
In New York City, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Brayer and his wife gave birth to Nachum
Dov Brayer the grandson of the former Boyaner Rebbe of New York, Rabbi
Mordechai Shlomo Friedman and the husband of Shoshana Bluma Reizel Heschel, who
became the Rebbe of the Boyan Hasidic dynasty in 1984.
1959:
President Eisenhower nominated Charles Miller Metzner to fill a vacant seat on
the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
1959(7th
of Nisan, 5719): A guard was killed at kibbutz Ramat Rachel.
1960(18th
of Nisan, 5720): Fourth Day of Pesach
1960:
In Copenhagen, Hennie Jonas and Rudolf Salomon Bier gave birth to Susanne Bier
who won “the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film for ‘In a Better World.’”
1960:
Ed Wynn and Maxie Rosenbloom played themselves in “The Man in the Funny Suit”
broadcast for the first time today.
1961:
In Medford, MA, Arlene (née Perlis) and Herbert Bloom gave
birth to Amherst honor grad and Harvard trained attorney Sarah Bloom Raskin, a
member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and Deputy Secretary of
the Treasury.
1962(111th
of Nisan, 5722): Forty-five-year-old Harold Ashe (Harold D. Ashkenazy) who
played guard for the Bowdoin College “Polar Bears” for three seasons starting
in 1935 passed away today.
1962:
Catcher Joe Ginsberg played in his last major league baseball game as a member
of the expansion New York Mets.
1964(3rd
of Iyar, 5724): Yom HaZikaron
1964:
Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein is scheduled to address the Kehilath Jeshurun
Sisterhood donor luncheon in the Crystal Room where Israeli pianist and
composer Shulamith Ran is scheduled to perform at this fund-raising activity
overseen by Mrs. Reuben N. Popkin, the president of the sisterhood.
1965(13th of Nisan, 5725): Syd Chaplin, actor and
half-brother of Charlie Chaplin passed away at the age of 80.
1965: Paddy Chayefsky’s “The Americanization of
Emily” directed by Arthur Hiller, co-starring Melvyn Douglas and with music by
Johnny Mandel premiered in the United Kingdom today.
1966(25th of Nisan, 5726): Jesse Judah
Oppenheimer, the Vancouver born son of August Isaac Oppenheimer and Cecilia
(Celia) Oppenheimer and the husband of Myrtle Ada Isabella Oppenheimer passed
away today in Winnipeg, Manitoba
1966(25th of Nisan, 5726): Sixty-year-old
University of Chicago alum Alvin Handmacher, the president of Handmacher-Vogel
Inc and founder of the Handmacher Foundation who raised three daughters with
his wife “the former Margaret Murdock” passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/04/16/82431991.pdf
1967(5th of Nisan, 5727): Parashat
Metzora
1967(5th of Nisan, 5727): Eighty-eight-year-old
Lazarus Levy, the acting warden of the Hart Island Penitentiary from 1938 to
1940 passed away today.
1967: It was reported today that the half of the
estate of Mischa Elman which includes “a Stradivarius that once belong to
Napoleon” and 200-year-old Amatti “was left in trust to his widow Mrs. Helen K.
Elman.”
1968(17th of Nisan, 5728): Third Day of
Pesach
1968(17th of Nisan, 5728): Fifty-year-old
Herman Rand a former principal of the Ahavas Israel Hebrew School in New Jersey
and “for 21 years national sales manager of Hollywood Shoe Polish, Inc” passed
away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/04/16/88940349.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1968: Future Anglo-Jewish author Anthony Horowitz
received a human skill from his mother on his 13th birthday.
1969(27th of Nisan, 5729): Yom HaShoah
1969: Today, the University of Brussels paid tribute
to 80-year-old Max Gottschalk “a research professor at the University’s
institute of sociology for 45 years who “has been associated with the Jewish
Colonization Association, ORT, and the Alliance Israelite Universelle” and “is
chairman of the National Center for Higher Jewish Studies which he founde in
1960.”
1971: “70, Girls, 70” opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst
Theatre with Stanley Prager serving as the production supervisor.
1972: Barbra Streisand joined other recording
industry stars performing at a benefit for George McGovern for President.
1974:
“Fifty prisoners, including eleven Jews in Perm camps 35 and 36 began a hunger
strike demanding improved conditions of detention, changes in starvation diet
of prisoners in punishment cells and the transfer to hospital of Russian
dissident, Vladimir Bukovsky.
1975(4th
of Iyar, 5735): Yom HaZikaron
1975:
“A Chorus Line” with music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Edward Kleban
“opened Off Broadway at the Public Theatre.
1976(15th
of Nisan, 5736): Pesach is observed for the last time under President Ford.
1977:
The Yale Center for British Art “designed by Louis I. Kahn” which was “located
across the street from the Yale University Art Gallery” Kahn’s first major
commission was opened to the public today.
https://britishart.yale.edu/architecture/louis-i-kahn
1979(18th
of Nisan, 5739) Fourth Day of Pesach
1979:
Four terrorists were killed today crossing from Jordan near Tirat Zir.
1980: The Nobel Prize winning existentialist author
and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre passed away at the age of 74. Sartre was not Jewish. But he did write about the Jewish people.
In
1946, immediately after World War II, Sartre published his brilliant dissection
of anti-Semitism and the Jewish condition, “Reflections sur la Question Juive.” “The little booklet has gone through a number
of editions, has been widely reviewed, and is still undoubtedly among Sartre's
most famous works. As one would expect in the case of a controversial writer, a
number of reviewers had important criticisms. If Sartre's analysis had striking
insights, some of his assertions were remarkably naive. He thought that
"socialism" would do away with anti-Semitism. He was
preoccupied-occupied with rabid anti-Semitism but gave little thought to the
perhaps more prevalent genteel hatred of Jews. Many Jewish reviewers felt that
he short-changed "Jewish self-consciousness" by asserting that
anti-Semitism is the only basis for it. We now know, from Sartre's own
words a few weeks before his death that at the time of writing his book he had
been incredibly ignorant, and willfully so, of all things Jewish. Nevertheless,
Sartre was a man much listened to, as he is still today after his death, and
his writings were given close attention.”
Frenchmen would do well to heed the words of one of their most famous
citizens, “The cause of the Jews would already be half won if only their
friends found in their defense a little of the passion and the perseverance
that their enemies devote to their destruction. To awaken this passion, it is
useless to appeal to the generosity of the Aryans because even among the best
of these this virtue is disappearing. But it may well be pointed out to each of
them that the fate of the Jew is his own fate. No Frenchman will be secure as
long as a Jew, in France or elsewhere in the world, has reason to fear for his
life.”
1981:
In Hamilton, Ontario, Dr. Mark Levy and his wife Lisa gave birth actress and
singer Caissie Shira Levy, the younger sister of Robi and Josh Levy.
1982:
Five Muslim extremists who murdered Egyptian President Sadat were executed.
1982:
In Vancouver, the former Sandy Belogus, “a social worker” and Mark Rogen “an
assistant director of the Workmen's Circle Jewish fraternal organization” who
“met o kibbutz Beitt Alfa,”gave birth to actor Seth Rogen
1983:
During a burglary at the L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art “200 items,
including paintings and dozens of rare clocks and watches, were stolen.”
1984(13th
of Nisan, 5744): Eighty-four-year-old German born “mathematician and
philosopher” Grete Hermann passed away today in her home town of Bremen.
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0812/0812.3986.pdf
1986:
Edwin R. Theile, who is “best known for his chronological studies of the
pre-exilic Jewish kingdoms and the author The Mysterious Numbers of the
Hebrew Kings passed away today.
1987(16th
of Nisan, 5747): Second Day of Pesach
1987:
“Without public announcement, Budapest has put up a statue, which was a private
gift from former American Nicolas M. Salgo, a Jew who had fled Hungary ahead of
the Nazis, to honor Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands
of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis and then disappeared in Soviet captivity.
1988:
Anglo-Jewish author Anthony Horowitz married Jill Green in Hong Kong.
1989:
“Brenda Starr,” a film based on the comic strip character of the same name with
script co-authored by Delia Ephron and with music by Johnny Mandel premiered in
the United States today.
1990(20th
of Nisan, 5750) Sixth Day of Pesach
1992:
William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were inducted into the National Association
of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Yes the number one and number
two leaders crossing space, the last frontier, were Members of the
Tribe. For those of you wondering who is Jewish, when Shatner's wife
passed away her "mourned her in the Jewish fashion" and
was reported to be working on a script called "Shiva" based on
his mourning experiences.
1992:
Billionaire Leona Helmsley was sent to jail for tax evasion.
1993(24th
of Nisan, 5753): Eighty-six-year-old Chicago trial lawyer Leo H. Arnstein whose
clients included Whirlpool and Sears passed away today at Glencoe, Illinois.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/19/obituaries/leo-h-arnstein-lawyer-86.html
1993:In a last-minute
letter apparently intended to defuse the controversy on the 50th anniversary of
the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Pope John Paul II told Roman Catholic nuns today to
move from their convent at the Auschwitz death camp. The Pope's letter, made public
by the Polish news agency, said the 14 Carmelite nuns must move to
another convent within the diocese in the Auschwitz area or return to where
they came from nine years ago. Kalman Sultanik, the vice president of the World
Jewish Congress, said he had been informed by Bishop Tadeusz Rakoczy of the
diocese of Bielsko-Biala, where the convent is situated, that the sisters had
agreed to move.The presence of the nuns, who live in a convent converted from a
two-story building used by the Nazis as a storehouse for the deadly Zyklon B
gas, has been an impediment to improved relations between Roman Catholics and
Jews in Poland and elsewhere. Many Jews view the red brick convent just outside
the barbed wire perimeter at Auschwitz, where some 1.5 million Jews perished,
as an affront to Jewish sensibilities. The World Jewish Congress threatened
earlier this year to boycott the ceremonies planned for Monday to mark the
ghetto uprising unless the issue of the Carmelite nuns was resolved. Vice
President Al Gore, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and President Lech
Walesa of Poland will speak at a ceremony on Monday night. Some survivors of
the ghetto uprising, which was crushed by the Germans within a month after the
fighting started on April 19, 1943, are expected to be present, organizers
said. "By the will of the church you are to move now to a different site
in Oswiecim," the Polish news agency quoted the Pope's letter as saying,
referring to Auschwitz. The letter also said the nuns, who come from the city
of Poznan in Western Poland, could choose to return there. The Pope's letter
was welcomed by Jews involved in the anniversary commemoration. "It is
perhaps a pity that it required the highest authority to make things move, but
it shows the church can handle the matter after all," said Stanislaw
Krajewski, a chairman of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews. Mr.
Sultanik said, "This is the first time that the Carmelites have accepted
that they must move." He said he believed the nuns would be out of the
convent within "a few weeks." Now that the Pope had ordered the move
and the nuns had accepted, Mr. Sultanik said, the Congress was not demanding
that the nuns leave before Monday. The convent at Auschwitz has been a thorn in
Jewish-Catholic relations since 1987, when Catholic cardinals and leaders of
Jewish organizations met in Geneva and agreed that the nuns should move to a
new Jewish-Christian center and convent to be built some distance from the
camp. In 1989, a New York City rabbi,
Avraham Weiss, contending the Catholic Church had not abided by the agreement,
organized a protest against the nuns. He broke into their convent and scuffled
with workmen the nuns had hired for renovations. After the episode, Jozef
Cardinal Glemp, the Roman Catholic primate of Poland, denounced the
"anti-Polishness" of Jews and their "power over the mass
media."
The
new center and convent have been completed for some months, but the nuns had
refused to move. This prompted Rabbi Weiss to threaten another demonstration
and made the World Jewish Congress contemplate a boycott of the anniversary. A
prominent Polish Jewish writer, Konstanty Gebert, said today that the Vatican
appeared to have acted on the Carmelites after realizing the consequences of
demonstrations at the convent this weekend. Mr. Gebert said that if Rabbi Weiss
staged another demonstration at the convent, local anti-Semitic supporters of
the nuns, known as the Committee for the Protection of the Carmelite Nuns,
would come out and counterattack. "Jewish demonstrators being attacked at
Auschwitz!" Mr. Gebert said. "Can you imagine the headlines? I really
think that got the Vatican moving." But at the same time, Mr. Gebert
pointed out that important elements in the Catholic Church in Poland were still
resistant to the nuns' moving. The acting Secretary of the Warsaw episcopate,
Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, said in an interview published in a Polish newspaper
today before the release of the Pope's letter that the church was not "in
unison" on the nuns' moving. "You cannot liquidate a convent with a
bulldozer," the bishop said in the interview.
1994:In “No New Arab
Attack, but Israelis Celebrate Independence Tensely,” published today Clyde
Haberman described how the Jewish state celebrated its independence day despite
threats by Arab terrorists to turn it into a day from hell.
1995(15th
of Nisan, 5755): First Day of Pesach coincides with Shabbat.
1996(26th
of Nisan, 5756): Eight-three-year-old Arthur J. Leylveld, a leading Reform
Rabbi, passed away today. (As reported by Lawrence Van Gelder)
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/16/us/rabbi-arthur-j-lelyveld-83-rights-crusader.html
1997(8th
of Nisan, 5757): Sam Moskowitz, author, critic and the teacher of the first
college level course on Science Fiction passed away at the age of 76.
http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/moskowitz_sam
1999:
A symposium entitled The History of
American Jewish Political Conservatism opens at American University in
Washington, D.C.
2000(10th of Nisan, 5760): Parashat
Metzora; Shabbat HaGadol
2000: “Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel of Austria today
criticized a lawsuit filed against the government and 80 of the country's
leading companies by lawyers representing Holocaust victims” who are seeking $18 billion for former slave laborers under
the Nazis and for people whose property was confiscated after the Nazi
annexation of Austria in 1938.
2001(22nd of Nisan, 5761): Eighth and
final day of Pesach.
2001: The New York Times featured reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including
“The Paintings of Our Lives” by Grace Schulman and “Maurve: How One Man Invented a Color
That Changed the World”by Simon
Garfield.
2002: Following the Battle of Jenin, Palestinian Red
Crescent Society and International Committee of the Red Cross staff entered the
camp, accompanied by the IDF.
2002:A pro-Israel rally in
Washington, organized in less than a week, attracted a crowd estimated at
100,000 people from across the spectrum of American Jewry.
2003(13th of Nisan, 5763): Eighty-year
old Dartmouth alum and second generation movie maker Maurice Rapf, “a founder
of the Writers Guild of America” passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/18/arts/maurice-rapf-88-screenwriter-and-film-professor.html
2004: “Yale Strom's documentary ''Klezmer on Fish
Street'' which wrestles with questions of Jewish identity in Poland, where much
of that heritage was destroyed during World War II is being shown at the Quad
Theatre in Greenwich Village.
2005: “Or” the Israeli film starring Dana Ivgy in
the title role premiered in Sweden today.
2005:
An exhibition entitled “Wild Things:
The Art of Maurice Sendak” opens at the Jewish Museum in New York.
2005:David Baddiel discusses “The Secret Purposes” at The Sunday Times
Oxford Literary Festival
2006:
The inauguration of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ein Kerem is postponed.
Construction of the church began in the first decade of the 20th
century but was never completed because of the Russian Revolution. The
dedication of the recently completed church was postponed at the request of
Russian President Putin. Putin wanted the inauguration delayed until Prime
Minister Sharon had sufficiently recovered from his stroke to attend the
ceremonies.
2007:
At the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an
exhibition styled “From Shtetl to the
Sooner StateCelebrating Oklahoma's Jewish History In conjunction
with the Centennial Celebration of Oklahoma Statehood” comes to a close.
2007:
Major League Baseball and the Israel Baseball League (IBL) hold a tryout in
California for players who did not make major or minor league rosters.
2007:
“The Last Jew In Europe” is performed at the Triad Theatre.
2007: As Jews all over the world begin the
observance of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day,Haaretz
reported that the
first comprehensive study of the incidence of cancer among Holocaust survivors
has shown that Holocaust survivors were found to be 2.4 times more likely to
have cancer than their peers who had not been through the Holocaust.
2007:
As reported in Haaretz Israel fell
silent as a two-minute siren wailed across the country this morning in
commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day.
2007: The
Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of All Whom I Have
Loved by Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld. In his new novel set on the eve
of the Holocaust, the Israeli writer Aharon Appelfeld tells the story of Paul
Rosenfeld, a 9-year-old Jewish boy in Czernowitz, Romania (now Chernovtsy,
Ukraine).
2007: The
Sunday Washington Post book section featured reviews of Jurgen Neffe's Einstein: A Biography, Walter Isaacson”sEinstein: His Life and Universe and Once Upon a Country by Sari
Nusseibeh, who joined Ami Ayalon, the former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal
security agency, in unveiling a “courageous peace plan”in 2002.
2008(10th of Nisan, 5768):Hendrik Samuel "Hank" Houthakker a
Dutch Jewish American economist passed away. Houthakker was born in Amsterdam.
In 1924. His father was a prominent art dealer. As a teenager he lived through
the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and, according to an interview he gave
to the Valley News, was once arrested by the Gestapo but escaped and was
sheltered for some months by a Roman Catholic family. He completed his graduate
work at the University of Amsterdam in 1949. He taught at Stanford University
from 1954 to 1960 and then completed the rest of his career at Harvard
University. Houthakker served on President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisers
from 1969 to 1971. Houthakker's contributions to economic theory have been
summarized by Pollak (1990). He is particularly well known for the Strong Axiom
of Revealed Preference, to which his name is often attached (see Houthakker
1950). This paper reconciles Paul Samuelson's revealed preference approach to
demand theory with the earlier ordinal utility approach of Eugene Slutsky and
Sir John Hicks, by showing that demand functions satisfy his Strong Axiom if
and only if they can be generated by maximising a set of preferences that are
"well-behaved" in the sense that they satisfy the axioms of choice
theory, that is, they are reflexive, transitive, complete, montononic, convex
and continuous—essentially the conditions required for a Hicksian approach to
demand theory.”
2008: In Cedar Rapids, Hedy
Epstein, whose parents died in concentration camps during the Holocaust speaks
at Kirkwood Community College and at Xavier High School.
2008: The
Washington Post reviews The Much Too Promised LandAmerica's
Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace by Aaron David Miller
2008:Todaythe Jewish prayer for the dead echoed across
what was once the heart of the Warsaw ghetto as Israeli and Polish leaders
marked the 65th anniversary of the doomed battle by young Jews against Nazi
troops.
2008:Poking into crevices
between the ancient stones of the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, today
a senior rabbi and his helpers removed thousands of handwritten notes placed
there by visitors who believe their requests will find a shortcut to God by
being deposited at Judaism's holiest site.
2008: “Behind the Velvet
Curtain: Songs from the Motion Picture Redbelt” by Rebecca Pidgeon, the wife of
David Mamet was released today on the Great American Music label.
2008: “History Awaits the
Pope and the Rabbi” published today described Rabbi Arthur Schneier’s
preparations for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.
2009(21st of Nisan, 5769):
Seventh Day of Pesach; Reform recite Yizkor
2009: “The first reading
of ‘What Strong Fences Make’ by Israel Horovitz was staged by New York's
Barefoot Theater Company” today.
2009: Roseanne Barr made
an appearance on Bravo's 2nd Annual A-List Awards in the opening scenes.
2010: A showing of “War Against
The Weak” is scheduled at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2010: Prof.
Jerome Copulsky, Director of Jewish Studies at Goucher College, is scheduled to
present a talk entitled “Zionism: Past, Present & Future” at George Mason
University sponsored by the GMU Religion Department and GMU Hillel.
2010: The Sarah Silverman
Program had its final showing on Comedy Central.
2010: Israeli customs
officials said today that they have already confiscated at least 10 iPads in
response to Israel’s ban on the importation of Apple’s newest product. The Israelis are concerned that the powerful gadget’s
wireless signals could disrupt other devices.
Israelis have every reason to believe that the problem will be solved
prior to the date of the international release of the iPad.
2011: After having
pleaded guilty to charges of corruption, former New York state Comptroller Alan
Hevesi was sentenced to a term of 1 to 4 years in the state penitentiary.
2011:The Jerusalem Fair, the Annual Fundraising
Bazaar for the Jerusalem Rape Crisis Center is scheduled to take place at the
Jerusalem Cinematheque
2011: Beth Chaverim
Reform Congregation in Ashburn, VA is scheduled to host a Chocolate Passover
Seder where attendees can “learn about and taste the symbols of Passover” by
sampling a “variety of chocolate items including chocolate covered matzah,
chocolate eggs, bitter chocolate, chocolate for dipping” and an Elijah's cup
filled with chocolate milk.
2011: The works of Israeli
composer Chaya Czernowin are scheduled to be featured at Columbia University’s
Miller Theatre.
2011:Following nearly a week of quiet for the
residents of the South, warning sirens were heard in the Ashdod area this
afternoon after two Grad rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip. Residents reported
that they heard two explosions. The
rockets landed in open fields and no injuries or damage were reported. The
communities close the Gaza Strip had enjoyed a short period of relative quiet
since Sunday. A tense quiet settled over southern Israel on Monday as a shaky
cease-fire went into effect, ending several days of Gaza attacks and IDF
counterattacks.
2011:U.S. President Barack Obama extended a warm
greeting today to all those celebrating Passover and likened the holiday's
story to the revolutions sweeping the Middle East.
2011:Defense Minister Ehud Barak welcomed today a
decision by the U.S. House of Representatives to approve a budget which
includes $205 million intended for continuing development of the Iron Dome
anti-missile system. Barak said the
decision is a "significant reinforcement of Israel's defense capabilities
against missiles." The U.S. Congress also voted to continue aiding Israel
to fund defense projects such as Arrow 2, Arrow 3, and Magic Wand. U.S.
President Barack Obama is expected to sign the budget on this evening.
2012: Filmmaker Judy
Lieff and poets Aneta Brodski and Tahani Salah are scheduled to appear at the
Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2012: In Fairfax, VA,
Congregation Olam Tikvah is scheduled to sponsor a silent auction combined with
a post Passover Pizza Party.
2012: On the weekend
ending today, a century after the sinking of the RMS Titanic, “Titanic” bcame “
he second film to cross the $2 billion threshold during its 3D re-release.”
2012: Mitzvah Day,
sponsored by Agudas Achim, is scheduled to take place in Iowa City, Iowa
2012: The New York
Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special
interest to Jewish readers including “The Crisis of Zionism” by Peter Beinart
and ‘Schmidt Steps Back’ by Louis Begley.
2012:Jacob Ostreicher, a 53-year-old Chasidic Jew
from New York who is in a jail in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, launched a hunger strike
following 10 months of appeals to the U.S. State Department.
2013: The Hartford Jewish
Film Fest is scheduled to close with a screening of “Hava Nagila – The Movie.”
2013: “A Work-In-Progress
Screening: On Becoming A Soldier” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester
Jewish Film Festival.
2013: Dr. David Kraemer
is scheduled to deliver the first in a series of lectures – All of Rabbinic
Literature in Seven Sessions – at the Skirball Center.
2013(5th of
Iyar, 5773: Yom Hazikaron – All places of entertainment are closed. Twice during the day, at the sound of a siren
throughout the country, everything—and everyone— stops completely for two
minutes.
2013:The head of the security network for US Jewish
organizations said the community is "standing vigilant" following bombings
at the Boston Marathon today.
2013: The annual
torch-lighting ceremony at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl marked the end of
Remembrance Day this evening and touched off Israel's 65th Independence Day
celebrations.
2013: Bret Stephens, a
former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, has won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize
for commentary for The Wall Street Journal, the prize committee
announced today.
http://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/Former-Post-editor-in-chief-wins-Pulitzer-Prize-310002
2013: Ceremonies,
festivities and general revelry around the country marked Israel’s 65th Independence
Day anniversary today.
http://www.jpost.com/National-News/IN-PICTURES-Israel-celebrates-65th-birthday-309958
2013:Israel must prepare for the possibility of
striking Iran’s nuclear program on its own, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon
warned today, during an Independence Day speech he delivered in Herzliya
2014(15th
of Nisan, 5774): Pesach
2014:Yuli Kosharovsky best
known for his work as an active leader of the Jewish refusenik movement passed
away today. (As reported by Laura Bialis)
http://forward.com/articles/196765/yuli-kosharovsky-soviet-jewrys-man-behind-the-scen/
2014:
In the evening Chuck Friedman is scheduled to lead the Agudas Achim Community
Seder catered by the Motley Cow Café.
2014:
After having been released by the Chicago Bears, today punter Adam Podesh
signed a one year contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
2014;
In “Golda Meir, late Israeli prime minister, vitally revealed in ‘Golda’s
Balcony’” published today Peter Marks reviews the performance of Tova Feldshuh.
2015:
The Oregon Board of Rabbis is scheduled to present Yom HaShoah: The Holocaust,
Memory and the Future Congregation Beth Israel in Portland.
2015:
Speaking today at the museum’s National Tribute dinner in Washington, “FBI
director James Comey called the Holocaust the most significant event in history
and said that’s why a US Holocaust Memorial Museum program on its lessons is
mandatory for new agents.
2015:
Peter Appelbaum is scheduled to discuss “Loyal Sons: Jewish Soldiers in the
German Army in the Great War” at the Center for Jewish History.
2015:
Professor of History and the Jeremy Zwelling Professor of Jewish Studies from
Wesleyan University are scheduled to present “Connected Histories: Sephardic
and Ashkenazi Responses to Blood Libels in Pre-modern Europe” at the University
of Connecticut.
2015:
“Jews, Judaism and American Law” with Rabbi Lance J. Sussman is scheduled to
open at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.
2015:
Just in time for the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, Marshal Weiss
provides us with “Kosher deli in England a Titanic survivor’s legacy.”
http://azjewishpost.com/2012/kosher-deli-in-england-a-titanic-survivors-legacy/
2016:
The graduate student council of the City University of New York is scheduled to
“vote on a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions.”
2016(7th
of Nisan, 5776): Ninety-four-year-old Frederick Mayer, the teenage refugee from
Nazi Germany who ended up being captured and tortured by Nazi captors while
taking part in operation “Greenup” passed away today. (As reported by Eric
Lichtblaum)
2016:
In Cedar Rapids, Shir Yehudah is scheduled to lead Temple Judah a “musical
Shabbat.”
2016:
Steven Gimbel, the professor of philosophy at Gettysburg College and author of
Einstein: The Man is scheduled to lecture at the Suffolk Y JCC on Long Island,
NY.
2016:
“Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah” and “I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The
Cinema of Chantal Akerman” are scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish
Film Festival.
2017(19th
of Nisan, 5777): Shabbat shel Pesach
2017(19th
of Nisan, 5777): Ninety-two-year-old psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Lifschutz passed
away today. (As reported by Sam Roberts)
2017(19th
of Nisan, 5777): Sixty-four-year-old Mendel Deitsch, a Chabad Rabbi who was
severely beaten six months ago in the western Ukrainian city of Zhytomir during
a robbery died today in Jerusalem as a result of the wounds he had sustained.
2017:
“Speaking to an Israel Radio reporter on the sidelines of a conference on the
civil war in Yemen in Paris, Yemen’s Information Minister Moammer al-Iryani
said today that the Houthis view the tiny remaining Jewish population as an
enemy and are engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing that includes ridding
Yemen of its Jewish community.”
2017: All decent people mourn the death of 20-year-old
Hannah Bladon, a British student stabbed in Jerusalem “by a Palestinian man” on
Good Friday in an attack that also left a fitty year old man and a 30 year old
pregnant woman with undisclosed injuries.
2017:
Courtesy of Bank Hapoalim, 35 Israeli museums and national sites offer free
entry today.
2018(30th
of Nisan, 5778): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
2018:
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and the Jewish
Historical Society of Greater Washington are two of the organizations scheduled
to host the “Blacks and Jews Unity Poetry Slam.”
2018:
“A new exhibition revealing the impact of the Jewish émigrés behind some of
Britain’s most iconic designs” at the Jewish Museum in London is scheduled to
come to an end today.
http://jewishmuseum.org.uk/designs
2018:
The New York Times featured reviews
of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers
including The Italian Teacher, a novel by Tom Rachman, In the Enemy’s
House: The Secret Saga of the FBI Agent and the Code Breaker Who Caught the
Russian Spies by Howard Blum, The People vs. Democracy:Why Our Freedom Is in
Danger and How to Save It by Yascha Mounk and How Democracies Die by Steven
Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
2018:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a
lecture by Adrienne G. Alexanian, the author of Forced into Genocide, as
part of the commemoration of the 103rd Anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide.
2018:
“Holocaust survivor Irene Miller, author of Into No Man’s Land: A Historical
Memoir, is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at this year’s Yom Ha’Shoah
Community-wide Holocaust Memorial Program, held this evening, April 15 at the Uptown JCC in New Orleans, LA.
2018:
The Schultz Campus for Jewish Life is scheduled to host “Remember the Holocaust
Yom Hashoah Commemoration with Ingrid Kennedy” this evening.
2018:
The Center for Jewish History and the YIVO Institute are scheduled to present
“Jews in Space” featuring Rob Schwimmer, Vickie L. Kloeris and Anna Martin.
2018:
Auschwitz survivor Helen Weingarten is scheduled to be the featured speaker at
the 53rd Annual Community Wide Holocaust Commemoration hosted by The
Breman Museum in Atlanta, GA.
2018:
The Governor of Georgia proclaims today as Holocaust Remembrance Day.
https://www.thebreman.org/Portals/0/Yom%20HaShoah%20Proclamation.pdf
2019:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “From Macy’s to the Titanic
– The Straus Family Legacy” during which “department store historian Michael
Lisicky discusses how the Straus family rose from German-Jewish peddlers to merchant
princes and major philanthropists before Isidor Straus's untimely death on the
RMS Titanic.”
https://www.smore.com/rqt4e-from-macy-s-to-titanic?ref=email
2019: The Streicker Center is scheduled to host “an
evening with Nathan Englander” during which the prize-winning author discusses
his newest novel Kaddish.com.
2019:
Luigi Toscano’s “Lest We Forget” series of large-format portraits of Holocaust
survivors, which has already “appeared in public space all over the world” is
scheduled to open at the San Francisco Civic Center today.
2019:
“Biographer Robert Caro Pauses as He Prepares His Final Lyndon B. Johnson
Volume” published in the April 15th issued of Time magazine provides
interesting insights on the working habits and intellectual drive of the “Tall
Texan’s” Jewish biographer.
http://time.com/5564169/historian-robert-caro-interview/
2019:
The running of the 123rd Boston Marathon is scheduled to take place
today to mark Patriot’s Day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
2019:
In the United States, deadline for filing Federal Income Tax Returns
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jews-and-taxes/
2019:
JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Holy Lands,” a film set in Israel in
London.
2019:
It was reported today that Goldman-Sachs, The Wall Street behemoth led by CEO
David Solomon slashed its average pay package by a fifth during the first
quarter, as traders struggled with bad bets and the bank hired more lower-wage
workers for its fledgling consumer bank.” (As reported by Kevin Dugan)
2019:
The Thaler Holocaust Memorial Foundation is scheduled to host an appearance by
Holocaust survivor Rachel Miller at Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2020(21st
of Nisan, 5780): Seventh Day of Pesach; for Reform last day of the holiday and
Yizkor
2020(21st
of Nisan, 5780): On the Jewish calendar, yahrzeits of 26 Jews of Bacharach,
Germany who were murdered and the “10 Jews of Mayence, Germany, who were killed
following blood ritual charges.”
2020(21st
of Nisan, 5780): Ninety-two year old Leon Konitz, the Chicago born son of
Abraham Konitz, the owner of a laundry and Anna (Getlin) Konitz who was one of the “leading Jazz-men of the
20th century” passed away today.
http://www.solosjazz.com/a_lee.php
2020:
According to previous statements made by Health Ministry deputy director
general Dr. Itamar Grotto, the top physician in the national health system and
an expert in epidemiology” made to “the Knesset’s coronavirus committee on
April 12, Israel does “not expect a return to regular economic activity after
the Passover holiday which ends” today.
2020:
Seventy-fifth anniversary of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp being liberated
by the British 11th Armored Division whose members including Rabbi
Leslie Hardman, the Jewish army chaplain who tried comfort the human skeletons
and attempted to give the dead and dying a measure of respect by, among other
things, reciting the Kaddish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Hardman#/media/File:Bergen_Belsen_Liberation_03.jpg
2021(3rd
of Iyar, 5781):Yom
Ha’Atzmaut - Israel Independence Day (observed), for more see https://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/
2021:
In New Orleans, the Goldring Center for Jewish-Multicultural Affairs (CJMA) and
St. Augustine High School are scheduled to host the annual scholarship award
ceremony.
2021:
The East Bay International Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a
screening online of “Menachem Begin: Peace and War.”
2021:
In Cedar Rapids, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to discuss online The
Dinner Party, a novel by Brenda Janowitz.
2021:
The Jewish Review of Books is scheduled to host a conversation between editor
Abraham Socher and historian Jehuda Reiharz, the author of three volumes on the
life of Chaim Weizman.
2021:
In Palm Beach Gardens, FL, in the morning, Temple Judea is scheduled to minyan
online with Abbie Strauss and in the afternoon “Coffee and Conversation with
Rabbi Feivel Strauss and Marisa Bagget, “an African
American Jew by Choice from Mississippi who became a Sushi Chef and the first
African American woman to graduate from the California Sushi Academy.”
2021: Based on reports published as Israel
prepared to celebrate its 73rd birthday, as of today the population
of the Jewish state stands at 9,327,000, with 73.9% of population being Jews,
21.1% being Arabs, and 5% being members
of other groups
2022:
As of this morning, Israel has arrested 18 Palestinians as part of an extensive
crackdown on suspected terrorist cells in the West Bank” and IDF forces have
uncovered and seized a large arms cache in the Nur Shams refugee camp. (YNET)
2022:
Lilach Orenstein is one of the five amazing artists selected for the 57th year
of the Fresh Tracks in Our Season of Anniversaries which is scheduled to begin
today.
2022(14th
of Nisan, 5782: At Tifereth Israel in Columbus, OH, Rabbi Braver is scheduled
to lead a Siyyum for Ta’anit Bechrot following the morning minyan
2022:
As Jews are preparing to celebrate Pesach all factions in Israel are waiting to
see how Palestinian Moslems will respond to call issued by “a collective of
Gaza Strip terror groups” on April 13 calling “on our people in the West Bank,
Jerusalem and Israel to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque this coming Friday and calling on the Palestinian resistance to stay vigilant
and be prepared to defend the mosque."
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s3expj9a4
2022:
Because of Pesach, in London, the LSJS office is scheduled to be closed from
today and April 25.
2022(14th
of Nisan, 5782): Fast of the First Born
2022(14th
of Nisan, 5882): In the evening, first seder
2023:
Lockdown University is scheduled to host a “special presentation” with Anita
Lasker-Wallfishch on the Anniversary of the liberation of Belsen.
2023:
Yael Bartana’s Malka Germania which investigates the longing for collective
redemption for German and Jewish histories as a response to an age of anxiety
is come to a close at Petzel Gallery today.
2023:
Or Shalom Jewish Community is scheduled to host “an evening of storytelling,
conversation, community and Havdalah featuring Jewish educator Peretz
Wolf-Prusan, writer Jan Sollish, and solo-theater performers Charlie Varon and
Kenny Yun.
2023:
Lockdown University is scheduled to host a lecture by Professor David Peimer on
“Goebbels: The Propaganda Genius of the 20th Century?”
2023:
The Eden-Tamir Center is scheduled to host “Ensemble Millennium/Toscanini
Quartet, Ensemble in Residence and Friends.”
2023
(24th of Nisan, 5783): Parashat Shemini; Pirke Avot Chapter One:
2024:
YIVO and the American Society for Jewish Music are scheduled to present “a
150-year celebration of Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), one of the 20th
century’s most important and influential composer which will feature the New
York City premiere of a film by David Starobin, “String Trio, Los Angeles
1946" a documentary about Schoenberg.
2024:
At the Mandel JCC in Beachwood, OH, Interplay Jewish Theatre is scheduled to
present two Israeli works: “How to Remain a Humanist After a Massacre in 17
Steps” by Maya Arad Yasur and “O God” by Anat Gov.
2024:
The Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies at UC Berkley is
scheduled to host a webinar on “The
Impact of the Israel-Hamas War on the Arab-Palestinian Community in Israel and
Implications for Shared Society.”
https://berkeley.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xifpr7DuSCe81Si4b3g1ow#/registration
2024:
In Cedar Rapids, the Marcus Theatre is scheduled to host a screening of
“Irena’s Vow” which tells “the incredible true story of Irena Gut, a Polish
nurse who heroically saved Jewish lives during WWII.”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19869662/
2024:
In another lecture in the series "The Character of Joseph", Kabbalah
researcher Melila Hellner-Eshedwill is scheduled to delve into the figure of
the owner of the striped gown as expressed in excerpts from The Book of Zohar
at Agnon House.
2024:
My Jewish Learning is scheduled to offer the final lecture by Jennifer
Mendelsohn on “How to Research and Construct Your Jewish Family Tree.”
2024:
The Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies at UC
Berkley is scheduled to host an in-person lecture Yossi Klein Halevi on
“Zionism and the Future of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflicts
2024:
As April 15th begins in Israel, the Hamas held
hostages begin day 192 in captivity.
(Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid for this blog to cover given the attack by Iran so this blog cannot provide any snapshot as of the posting at midnight Israeli time.)