July 30
762:Caliph Al Mansur founded the city of Baghdad. By the start of the 10th century wealthy Jewish merchants were playing the role of “court bankers” and were reportedly lending funds to the caliphs and his their minister.
1192: The forces of Saladin successfully stormed the walls of Jaffa forcing the remaining Crusaders to take refuge in the town’s citadel.
1360: A butcher’s license for a carniceria was issued to a Christian named Bernard Arlouin. In Spain, Jews were not allowed to have butchers licenses. In other words, they operated butcher shops, but were not allowed to own them. In this case, a Spanish Jew named Jafudenus Amilus operated the shop.
1488: Sixteen Jews were burned at the stake in Barcelona.
1492(9thof Av, 5252): The entire Jewish Community, numbering 200,000 souls was expelled from Spain.
1492: Don Isaac Abravanel gave up his power, wealth and prestige to join his fellow Jews on their perilous road out of Spain.
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/111855/jewish/Don-Isaac-Abravanel-The-Abarbanel.htm
1729: Baltimore, Maryland is founded. Jews were already living in the colony of Maryland when Baltimore was founded. The Jewish community in Baltimore is one of the oldest in the country. However, the first building that was built as a synagogue, the Lloyd Street Synagogue, was not constructed until 1845.
1756:In London Elie and Hana Pinto Vega gave birth to Abraham Furtado the President of the Assemblee des Notables and the assistant of the Mayor of Bordeaux.
1825: Birthdate of Ignaz Gorssman, the Hungarian born Rabbi who came to the United States in 1873 to Congregation Beth Elohim.
1825: Birthdate of Chaim Aronson, a Lithuanian Jew, who was inventor and academic. Aronson's inventions, which included several machines for mass producing cigarettes, a clockwork calculator, a prototype for an early movie camera, and the microdiarama, were, for their time, ground breaking. Aronson, however, is better remembered for a series of memoirs he wrote, published long after his death in the book A Jewish Life Under the Tsars This is an autobiography of Aronson's own difficult life, but it also describes insightfully, the life of ordinary society in Imperial Russia.
1829: Daniel O’Connell best known for his work in favor of the Emancipation of Catholics but who also supported Emancipation for Irish Jews and the repeal of the British law "De Judaismo", was elected to Parliament today
1836: Birthdate of Gustav Solomon Oppert, “German Indologist and Sankriist who was the brother of Julius Oppert.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_15159.html
1851: Rabbi Lyons officiated at the wedding of Mr. Solomons from Savannah, GA and Frances Joseph from Charleston, SC
1856: In New York Asher Kursheedt and Abigail Kursheedt gave birth to Lionel Judah Kursheedt
1860: The New York Times reported on "The Fast of Ab." -- "Yesterday was the fast of the month of Ab, the anniversary of the destruction of the temple of Solomon by Nebuchadnezzar, and of the second temple by Vespasian, among the Hebrew population all over the world; and was fully observed in the synagogues of this City. The fast of Ab is really one of abnegation. No meat is eaten, and but very little bread is broken. The synagogues yesterday were hung with black, and the Book of Lamentations was read in the original Hebrew."
1862: During the American Civil War, General William T. Sherman wrote a letter from Union-occupied Memphis, Tennessee stating, "I found so many Jews and speculators here trading in cotton, and secessionists had become so open in refusing anything but gold, that I have felt myself bound to stop it. The gold can have but one use - the purchase of arms and ammunition... Of course, I have respected all permits by yourself or the Secretary of the Treasury, but in these new cases (swarms of Jews), I have stopped it."
1863: The New York Times reported that “a Jew broker, made his appearance in Westchester, Penn., accompanied by a dozen others, whom he represented as anxious to serve as substitutes, for a consideration. Although some of the men, it is said, boasted of having taken part in the New-York riots, yet they were eagerly caught up by drafted men, and engaged at various prices as substitutes.” [The Times did not report on the ethnic or religious origins of any of the other participants in this scheme. This story was part of a series on the Draft Riots that racked New York in the summer of 1863. Did the Times identify the rioters as “Catholics” or Irish Catholics? ]
1863: Birthdate of American automaker Henry Ford. For Americans, Ford is the man who made the Model-T. For Jews, he is the man who popularized the "Protocols of the Elders Of Zion." Towards the end of his life, Ford apologized for his involvement with this anti-Semitic literature that still infects the world today.
1863:Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler consecrated the new building housing the Bayswater Synagogue.
1864: During the American Civil War, Union Army Sergeant Major Abraham Cohn distinguished himself at the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, VA. Cohn would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his fighting during the Wilderness Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg.
1870: Newspapers carry full accounts of what is called “A Horrible Murder” – the murder of prominent New Yorker Benjamin Nathan – and the so far fruitless efforts of the police to solve the crime.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C04E2D7103DE53BBC4850DFB166838B669FDE
1871: It was reported today that “the industrious Jews” are “annoying Christians.” In New York, the Alanson M.E. Church on Norfolk Street occupies a building adjacent to a tenement house that is “occupied almost exclusively by” Orthodox Jews. The Jews go to the synagogue on Saturday and work on Sunday. Many of them work as tailors “and the ceaseless whirr of their sewing-machines has proved very annoying to the worshipers in the church.” One of the Jews offered to stop working if the church members would pay him for his lost time. The trustees have declined his offer and are considering taking legal action against the Jewish worker.
1876(9th of Av, 5636): Tish'a B'Av
1876: “A Jewish Festival,” an article published today, reported that Tish’a B’Av, “a Jewish festival” commemorating “the destruction of Jerusalem was begun at 9 o’clock last evening in many of the synagogues” in New York City “and will be generally observed today at the various Jewish temples of worship, notably those of the orthodox Jews. In the churches of the latter, the services will consist of chants and prayers for the re-establishment of the Jewish hierarchy.” In addition to praying and singing, “the festival is…observed…by a fast of twenty-four hours duration.” [Ed. Note – It is worth noting that this brief but detailed description of a minor Jewish fast day appeared in the New York Times.
1878: Birthdate of Adolf Guttman, one of the Jews from Kleinstinach who served in the German Army during WW I.
1878: German elections resulted in the reactionary element having a dominant voice in the Reichstag. This date is considered the birthday of modern German anti- Semitism.
1880: Birthdate of Colonel Robert R. McCormick who gained famed as the editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune in an era when newspapers were the dominant voice of the media in the United States. He was a founder of the American First Committee, a powerful organization dedicated to keep the United States out of World War II which took on a decidedly anti-Semitic viewpoint.
1880: Birthdate of Bernhard Weiss, the German born lawyer who served as a top ranking police official during the Weimar Republic and fearlessly confronted the Nazis.
1880: “Resting at Schooley’s Mountain” published today provided a brief history of this famous New Jersey resort area. The area had become so popular with Jewish vacationers that two of the cottages, Heath House and Belmont Hall, effectively banned Jewish guests. The ban was lifted when the locals saw its negative impact. (This was one of only of series of bans instituted at hotels, etc. following the Civil War.)
1881: “Foreign Topics” published today described the nightly anti-Semitic demonstrations taking place in Hammerstein, West Prussia. The riots are similar to ones that have already taken placed in Baerwald, Pomerania.
1881: It was reported today that troops fired on rioters in Poltava who have been attacking Jews, killing four and wounding two.
1884: Theodor Herzl is admitted to the bar in Vienna.
1884: Two New York detectives apprehended Samuel Barnett, a Polish Jew who reportedly has been committing a series of robberies over the last three months in Harlem.
1884: In Nashville, TN, the jury hearing the case of Meyer Moskowitz and “Zeke” White was discharged this evening. Moskowitz, a Jew and White had been charged with murdering Meyer Fried of Nashville. The jury had acquitted White but was deadlocked on the issue of Moskowitz ‘s guilt.
1885: Myer S. Isaacs presided over a meeting of the Board of Delegates of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations which had been called to determine how to respond to the death of Sir Moses Montefiore. The board decided to recommend that all Jewish congregations hold special memorial services on Friday night and Saturday morning in honor of the late philanthropist. Plans will be made a later date for a more formal memorial service to be held in September.
1885: “Two young gentlemen of Hebrew extraction who were engaged selling bullet-like green apples from a wagon at the rate of one cent per quart” unsuccessfully tried to escape Dr. Cyrus Edson, Chief of the Secondary Sanitary Division, and his officers during a raid on the lower east side as part of Edson’s drive to put an end to the sale of unsanitary produce.
1886: Among the institutions that received money from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment today was the Hebrew Guardian Society in the amount of $2,858.29
1886: “Jew and Gentile Wedded” published today described the elopement of Nellie Goodwin and Meier Weil. Goodwin the 16 year old daughter of Reverend W.R. Goodwin of the Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church and Weil, the son of prominent Jewish merchant, have left Jacksonville, Illinois for parts unknown.
1887: “Wealthy Hebrews Worried” published today described Isidor Freedman’s inability to gain membership in the Utopia Club, a social club for wealthy Jews living in New Haven, CT. Freedman, part of the firm of Mendel & Freedman had been blackballed by Isaac Ullmann. (Not exactly the kind of story they taught us in Hebrew School)
1888: Forty-five year old Irish-American playwright Barley Campbell author of “Siberia” a drama about the persecution of the Jews of Russia passed away
1888:In Enghien-les-Bains, Val-d'Oise, dramatist Tristan Bernard and his wife gave birth to French playwright Jean-Jacques Bernard
1890: “The Juvenile Band of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum” will play at today’s concert sponsored by B’nai B’rith for the benefit of the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews in Yonkers. 1892: Waldemar Mordecai Wolff Haffkine, a Russian born Jewish bacteriologist, reported the results of his test of his cholera vaccine to the Biological Society in London.
1890: The Times of London reported that the Russian government has ordered the enforcement of the edicts of 1882 which were aimed at limiting the economic opportunities for Jews and forcing them to live “in certain towns.”
1890: The New York Times will forward a check for $30.50 that it received from Mrs. S.J. Nathan to the Hebrew Sanitarium, the charity for which the people of Sucassunna, NJ collected the money.
1891: Morris Goodhart of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society was among those who testified as to the harmful effects of the Standard Gas Company works on the riverfront at east 114th Street.
1891: The Russian immigrants who arrived at Boston yesterday from Liverpool will not be admitted into the country are because “they are deemed likely to be a pubic charge.”
1892: John Collins chaired the meeting of Fourth Assembly District Republicans held at the Hebrew Institute Hall.
1892: Dr. C.H. Goodman and Mrs. Goodman set sail today aboard the SS Gallia for Liverpool.
1893(17thof Av, 5653): Seventy-six year old Solomon Heyman who operated a successful dry goods business and was one of the Directors of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum passed away while on vacation in Long Branch.
1893: “Sir Richard Burton’s Life” published today provided a detailed review of The Life of Capt. Sir Richard F. Burton, the author of The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam
1894:Birthdate of Blanche Wolf Knopf. “Although her name and work have been overshadowed by those of her husband, Blanche Wolf Knopf carved out her own place in the publishing industry as vice-president and president of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Blanche Knopf was raised in New York, where she met Alfred Knopf in 1911. They were married in 1916; the year after Alfred Knopf launched his eponymous publishing firm. Blanche Knopf was involved in the firm from the start, and in 1921, she became a director and vice-president. In addition to running the office, Blanche Knopf's duties included frequent travel to meet with and recruit new authors for the press. By all accounts, she excelled in establishing relationships with writers on three continents. Under her leadership, Knopf published translations of French writers Albert Camus, André Gide, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre; South American writers Jorge Amado, Gilberto Freyre, and Eduardo Mallea; and the first American edition of Sigmund Freud's Moses and Monotheism. Knopf published American classics, but under Blanche Knopf's urging the firm also published such new American writers as H.L. Mencken, Willa Cather, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler. For her work in support of French literature in America, she was named a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the French government in 1949 and made an officer in 1960. Similarly, she was honored by the Brazilian government in 1950 with the Order of the Southern Cross. In 1957, Alfred Knopf became chairman of the board, and Blanche Knopf took over as president. However, in 1960, the firm was sold to Random House, which maintains the Knopf imprint as an independent entity. Blanche Knopf remained involved at the helm of the Knopf imprint until her death in 1966. Her New York Times obituary said that her "alertness and perspicacity in recruiting writers ... and her driving energy as an executive contributed immensely to the success of the house of Knopf." In a field dominated entirely by men, in which she was virtually the only woman in her time to take a leading role, Blanche Knopf had a lasting impact on Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., on the world of publishing, and on American letters.
1894: “Socialist Leaders Went Too Far” described the conflict among the Cloakmakers nearly all of whom are Jewish which was resolved when they chose Socialist Joseph Barondess to serve as their president. One of the points of contention was the Socialist demand that the Union Zeitung which is published in Hebrew with a circulation of 10,000 paid subscribers should be replaced with the Arbeiter Zeitung, “a Hebrew Socialist organ.”
1894: “Five jurors were impaneled” today “in part I. of the Court of General Sessions to try Policeman Jeremiah S. Levy” who is Jewish, “of the Thirty-first Precinct for birbery.
1894: Max Lefkowitz signed an affidavit today say that Officer Jeremiah Levy was not the man who had cheated him out of $25 in a scheme to provide testimony that would have freed his brother Ignatz who was facing charges of grand larceny.
1895(9th of Av, 5655): Tisha B’Av
1895(9thof Av, 5655): New York banker Simon Wormser passed away today.
1895: The strike of the Brotherhood of Tailors, most of whom were Jewish, seemed to be coming to an today as could be seen by Meyer Schoefield that “at least seventy contractors had already signed an agreement to give the strikers what they demanded” and that another twenty were prepared to sign.
1895: Samuel Gompers addressed a group of strikers tonight at Cooper Union.
1895: Otto von Bismarck passed away.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3337-bismarck-prince-otto-eduard-leopold
1898: Moses Montefiore Congregation in Hoboken, NJ is contesting the claim by David Engler that he actually owns the surface rights to the lot on which the synagogue sits and that he has the right to lift the building off of its foundation so that he can build a store on the property.
1899:”The United Hebrew Charities acknowledged” today that it had received a total of $180.50 to help resettle a family of four in the country. The parents have become chronic invalids from their work in the city and seek to support themselves in a rural area.
1901: Fifty-one year old historian Herbert Baxter Adams who wrote “valuable papers on the services” contributed by the “patriotic Jew” Chaim Salomon when others challenged his accomplishments, passed away today.
1902: Over 50,000 mourners followed the casket of Rabbi Jacob Joseph during his funeral in New York today.
1905(27thof Tammuz, 5665): Tobacconist Solomon Wallenstein passed away. Born 1831, he married Esther Hellman Wallenstein, the founding president of the Hebrew Infant Asylum, in 1865.
1905: In Bialystok, during the anti-Jewish riots, physicians were prevented from treating Jewish victims.
1908: Dr. Franz Kafka walked into the building housing the Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague and began working as an assistant in the legal department. He would retire in 1922 because of complications from a lung disease.
1911(5thof Av, 5671): Moritz Pinner, the father of Rogers Pinner, who was known as ‘Captain Mortiz Pinner’ passed away today.
1914: In a move the results of which resonant throughout the Middle East and beyond to this day, two days after the outbreak of WW I, the Ottoman Empire formed a secret alliance with Germany aimed specifically at Russia.
1916(29thof Tammuz, 5676): Dr.Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser passed away.
http://deadscientistoftheweek.blogspot.com/2012/01/albert-ludwig-sigesmund-neisser.html
1918(21st of Av, 5678): Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik, the son of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik and author of the Chiddushei Rabbeinu Chaim, a commentary on the teachings of Maimonides, passed away today. Born in 1853, he was known as Reb Chaim Brisker because of the methodology he developed for studying Talmud.
http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2007/10/reb-chaim-soloveitchik-obituary.html
1921: Birthdate of U.S. Army Alvin David Ungerleider who as a 23 year old lieutenant stormed Omaha Beach during the Normandy landings and helped to liberate the Concentration Camp at Nordhausen in 1945.
1922: Birthdate of Henry W. Bloch, the co-founder and (since 2000) the chairman emeritus of H&R Block. Henry and his brother, Richard Bloch, founded H&R Block in 1955 in Kansas City, Missouri. Bloch was born in Kansas City. He attended Southwest High School, and was an undergraduate at University of Missouri–Kansas City and the University of Michigan, graduating from Michigan in 1944. Through the Army Air Corps he received graduate training at the Harvard Business School. Bloch and his wife Marion married in 1951 and live in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The Henry Wollman Block fountain in front of Union Station in Kansas City is named in his honor, as is The Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and the Bloch Building, a major addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Mr. Bloch was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2001.
1925: Birthdate of Jakob Josef Petuchowski a native of Berlin, Germany. He was brought from Germany to London, in a children's transport, prior to the outbreak of World War II. After receiving a B.A. with honors in psychology from the University of London in 1947, Petuchowski moved to the United States in 1948 and earned his rabbinic ordination, masters degree and Ph.D. from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. Petuchowski served in the congregational rabbinate in Welch, West Virginia and Washington Pennsylvania. He was also the High Holiday rabbi of Temple B'nai Israel, Laredo, Texas, from 1956 through 1991.
1928: Claims by Frieda and Goldina Rubinson, two sisters born in Hamburg now living in Tel Aviv that they are the authors of the opera now known as “Turnadot” and that Puccini plagiarized the score from them were greeted with scorn and ridicule by sources in New York including William J Guard of the Metropolitan Opera Company and G. Ricordi & Co, the music publishers.
1929: In Zurich, at the second session of the sixteenth Biennial Zionist Congress, statistician and agricultural expert Dr. Arthur Ruppin of Tel Aviv delivers an address in which he described the negative impact that conversion, intermarriage, decreasing birth rate and an unchanged mortality rate were having on the survival of the Jewish people.
1932: The 1932 Olympics opens in Los Angeles. Attila Petschauer a gold medal winning swordsman was part of the Hungarian Fencing Team. The 1999 film Sunshine is a multi-generational study of Petschauer’s family and vividly depicts his death at the hands of the Nazis in 1943. Jewish Gold Medal winners includedIstvan Barta, Hungary water polo, Gyorgy Brody, Hungary, water polo; Lillian Copeland, USA, athletics, discus throw; George Gulack, USA,
gymnastics, flying rings; Endre Kabos, Hungary, fencing, team saber; Miklos Sárkány, Hungary
water polo.
1933: “The editor of Der Surmer, Julius Streicher, newly appointed Reich Commissar for Franconia, gave orders that 250 Jewish tradesmen in Nuremberg should be arrested, and ‘set to plucking the grass out of a field with their teeth.’”
1933: Catcher Harry Danning made his major league debut with the New York Giants.
1934: Birthdate of Bud Selig, Commissioner of Baseball and owner of the Milwaukee Brewers.
1934: In Lodz, Poland, Eljasz (Edward) and Natka Skornicki gave birth to Paulina Skornicka.
http://digitalassets.ushmm.org/photoarchives/detail.aspx?id=1106065
1936: The Palestine Post reported on the appointment in London of the Royal Commission for Palestine, chaired by Earl Peel. Other members were Sir Horace Rumboldt, Sir Laurie Hammond, Sir Morris Carter, Sir Harold Morris and Professor Reginald Coupland. The commission's terms of reference were "to ascertain the underlying causes of the disturbances... to inquire into the manner in which the Mandate was implemented in relation to the obligations of the Mandatory towards the Arabs and Jews... to study legitimate grievances and make recommendations for their removal and for the prevention of their recurrence."
1936: General Franco declared his Fascist government and the Spanish Civil War broke out. During the Second World War, Spain officially remained neutral, yet Franco sent troops to fight against the Russians, and Spain later served as a refuge for fleeing Nazis.
1937: Pierre-Marie Gerlier who would be posthumously awarded the title Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1981 was named Archbishop of Lyon today.
1937: In Memphis, TN, Lewis Glick and Sylvia Kleinman Glick gave birth to Milton D. Glick, nationally renowned academic leader who served as the 15th president of the University of Nevada, Reno
1939: Birthdate of movie director Peter Bogdanovich.
1939(14th of Av, 5699): Dutch sculptor Joseph Mendes da Costa passed away.
1939: In a private letter Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain described Germany's jealousy of the Jews' superior cleverness and states: "No doubt Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself; but that is not sufficient to explain the Pogrom."
1939: Reacting to German anti-Jewish policies and reflecting the attitude of many other officials in Great Britain and Western Europe, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain writes: "No doubt Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself. But that is not sufficient to explain the pogrom."
1940: Birthdate of producer Stanley Jaffe, the man who gave us Fatal Attracations.
1941(6th of Av, 5701): At Ponar, outside of Vilna, approximately, 150 Jews are shot. Most of the victims are elderly.
1942: German industrialist Eduard Schulte, whose company has mines near Auschwitz, reveals to a Swiss colleague that Hitler and the German Reich have decided to round up the millions of Jews of Occupied Europe, concentrate them in the East, and murder them using prussic acid starting in the fall of 1942. The information is soon communicated to Swiss World Jewish Congress representative Gerhart Riegner.
1942(16th of Av, 5702): German SS kills 25,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia
1942:Esther "Etty" Hillesum was transferred to Westerbork.
1942: The U.S. government established the Navy WAVES, or Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service, program. Though Navy women would not be allowed to serve outside the continental U.S., or even to go to sea, the military hoped that the recruitment of 10,000 women, who would work in onshore bases, would free sufficient numbers of men to fight overseas. Although women had served as nurses in the navy as early as the Spanish-American War, and officially in the Navy Nurse Corps since 1908, the WAVES program was by far the largest-scale effort to recruit women to active duty in the Navy. In the WAVES program, thousands of women performed nearly every possible job at over 500 naval stations through the Second World War. As military leaders had hoped, they enabled male officers and enlisted men to staff the ships that were responsible for the Allied victory in the Pacific theatre. Among the earliest group of women to enlist in the WAVES was Miriam Miller. Although her parents felt that military nursing "wasn't the life for a nice Jewish girl," Miller enlisted soon after her graduation from the Wilkes-Barre General Hospital School of Nursing, in Pennsylvania. She was assigned first to the Great Lakes Naval Station and then to the San Diego Naval Hospital. Later, when the Navy relaxed its prohibition on women serving outside the continental U.S., she worked in Guam, where she cared for soldiers injured in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Active in veterans' affairs after the war, Miller was elected President of the Jewish War Veterans National Ladies Auxiliary in 1961.
1943: First publication of Mishmar, a newspaper owned by Hashomer Hatzair that would be re-named Al HaMishmar
1944(10th of Av, 5704): Since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat, Tish'a B'Av is observed today.
1944: Three tankers, carrying some 1750 Jews from the Italian-held islands of Kos and Rhodes, arrive at Piraeus, Greece, where the Jews are bullied onto trucks and driven to the Haidar detention camp near Athens
1944: More than 100 Jews are deported from Toulouse, France, to Auschwitz.
1944: Edi Weinstein, his father and his friend Berl Goldberg, all of whom who had escaped from Treblinka were discovered by German soldiers. They killed Goldberg. Weinstein and his father survived and Edi Weinstein actually joined the Polish Army in 1945 helping to fight the Nazis in the waning days of the WW II.
1945: The administration of Germany is assumed by the Allied Control Council.
1946: A three-day pogrom begins in Miskolc, Hungary.
1950: James G. McDonald, the U.S. Ambassador to the state of Israel has submitted his resignation. McDonald is coming to the end of a normal two year posting at Tel Aviv.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that more than 1,500 polling stations opened to admit an estimated 880,000 voters for the Second Knesset. There were 17 lists of political parties contesting for the election of 120 Knesset members. About 75,000 Arabs were eligible to vote.
1951: Voter turnout for today’s elections for the 2nd Knesset reaching 75.1%
1951: Birthdate of Indian born, British artist and designer Gary Judah. For a look at his work go to http://www.gerryjudah.com/
1953: Senator Robert Taft of Ohio passed away. Most people do not remember Senator Taft. But in his day he was a political power. Known as “Mr. Republican” Taft was considered a “shoe-in” for the Republican nomination for President in 1952. However, his plans were upset by the surprise entry of Ike Eisenhower into the battle for the nomination. Ike won and the rest is history. As a Conservative Republican, Taft opposed most the social legislation that was popular among the Jews of his day. The Taft-Hartley Act was seen as a piece of anti-labor legislation that limited the power of labor and therefore the influence of many Jewish leaders. However, Taft joined Senator Wagner of New York (his political opponent on most domestic issues) in introducing a resolution supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The resolution was introduced in October of 1945 and demonstrated the changing attitude towards Jews and the increasingly broad support for the Zionist cause among non-Jews.
1956:In Tashken, Avner and Chana Leviev gave birth to Lev Avnerovich Leviev the businessman and philanthropist who served as president of the World Congress of Bukharian Jews.
1965: US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid. Wilbur Cohen, a man whose active career ran from the New Deal through the Great Society and was serving as Under Secretary of H.E.W. in 1965 was considered to be the driving force behind this landmark legislation that removed the fear of ill health for senior citizens and their families. Johnson would later name Cohen, the Wisconsin born son of Jewish immigrants, to the position of Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
1969:Barbra Streisand opens for Liberace at International Hotel, Las Vegas
1970: Israeli airmen shot down four MIGs flown by Russian pilots over the Suez Canal. This marked the first military encounter between Israeli and Russian forces
1976: Two French tourists were wounded when a bomb went off on a Jerusalem sidewalk.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that Britain severed relations with Uganda after Idi Amin's regime failed to provide information on the fate of Dora Bloch, the British-Israeli dual national dragged from a Kampala hospital after her fellow hijacked Air France hostages had been rescued from the Entebbe airport by Israeli commandoes
1976(2ndof Av, 5736): Seventy-five Emile Solomon Sachs, the Lithuanian born South African labor leader passed away today.
http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/emil-solomon-solly-sachs-south-african-socialist-dies-london
1980: The Knesset passed the “The Jerusalem Law” establishing Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel.
1983(20th of Av, 5743): MGM executive Howard Dietz passed away.
http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C62
1992(29th of Tammuz, 5752): Ken Meyer, the son of Australian entrepreneur and businessman Sidney Myer, and his wife died today in plane crash.
1992(29th of Tammuz, 5752): Joe Shuster, co-creator of Superman, passed away.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-joe-shuster-1538812.html?printService=print
1997(25th of Tammuz, 5757): Double suicide bombings to place in Jerusalem that would eventually claim the lives of fourteen Israeli victims.
1997(25thof Tammuz, 5757):Lev Desyatnik, 60, of Jerusalem; Regina Giber, 76, of Jerusalem; Valentina Kovalenko, 67, of Jerusalem; Shmuel Malka, 44, of Mevaseret Zion; David Nasco, 44, of Mevaseret Zion; Muhi A-din Othman, 33, of Eilabun; Simha Fremd, 92, of Jerusalem; Gregory Paskhovitz, 15, of Jerusalem; Leah Stern, 50, of Jerusalem; Rachel Tejgatrio, 83, of Jerusalem; Liliya Zelezniak, 47, of Jerusalem; Shalom (Golan) Zevulun, 52, of Jerusalem and Mark Rabinowitz, 80, of Jerusalem were murdered by Hamas today at Mahane Yehuda Market.
1999: The INS Dolphin was commissioned today.
1999: Russian born American conductor led Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of Peteris Vasks's Symphony No. 2 at the Royal Albert Hall
2000: The African American/Jewish Coalition for Justice hosts a picnic at Seward Park in Seattle, Washington.
2000: Bruce Fleisher carded a three day score of 198 to win the Lightpath Long Island Classic.
2000: The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America With Einstein's Brain by Michael Paterniti, Inside the Halo and Beyond: The Anatomy of a Recovery by Jewish born author Maxine Kumin and Millicent Dillon's new novel entitled Harry Gold about Harry Gold, the American Jewish chemist who acted as a spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930's and 40's.
2002(21st of Av, 5762): Five people were injured by a suicide bomber on Hanevi’im Street in Jerusalem
2003(1st of Av, 5763): Rosh Chodesh Av
2006: Jewish golfer Corey Pavin won the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee.
2006: The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Freud's Requiem: Mourning, Memory, and the Invisible History of a Summer Walk by Matthew Von Unwerth. “This elegantly meandering look at Sigmund Freud's life and the intellectual world he moved in examines an obscure 1915 essay, "On Transience," in which Freud records a conversation with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé.”
2006: Hezbollah fired a record 140 Katyusha rockets at targets in northern Israel today wounding at least eight people, including a Haaretz correspondent.
2006(5th of Av, 5766): Murray Bookchin, American libertarian and socialist, passed away.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/aug/08/guardianobituaries.usa
2007: In Jerusalem, Peretz Eliyahu and Victoria Chana collaborate to perform original music tied to ancient texts about love at a Tu B’Av event.
2007: Victoria Redel, author of The Border of Truth based on the experiences of Jewish refugees aboard the SS Quanza, presents a reading at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, NY.
2007(15th of Av, 5767): Tu B'Av.
2008:Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, embroiled in a high-profile corruption investigation, announced that he would resign his office after his party chose a new leader in September elections.
2009(9th of Av, 5769): Tish'a B'Av
2009:Randi & Bruce Pergament Jewish Film Festival presents a screening of “Max Minsky & Me,” a delightful comedy set in contemporary Berlin in which Nelly, a bookish bat mitzvah candidate, who wants to be on her school basketball team so she can meet her prince charming recruits a reluctant coach who offers her athletic training and ultimately, his respect.”
2009: In an interview today the head of the Israel Defense Forces' ground troops during the Gaza disengagement said the decision to evacuate Gaza Strip settlements in 2005 was "utter nonsense." Israel Defense Forces General (Res.) Yiftach Ron-Tal made the comment during an interview on Army Radio, a day before the fourth anniversary of the disengagement on the Hebrew calendar.
2010:A Grad-type Katyusha rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip struck close to an apartment building in a residential area of Ashkelon on today, while two mortar shells exploded in the western Negev just a few hours later.
2010:An Israeli Air Force Boeing aircraft carrying the coffins of six IAF servicemen killed in Monday's Yasour helicopter crash in the Carpathian Mountains landed at the Tel Nof air base. The funerals of the fallen soldiers will be held at various military cemeteries throughout the day today. Lt.-Col. (Res.) Avner Goldman will be buried at 12:15 p.m. in Modi'in; Lt.-Col. Daniel Shipenbauer will be buried at 3:00 p.m. in Gdarot; Maj. Yahel Keshet will be buried at 1:00 PM in Sharona; Maj. Lior Shai will be buried at 2:00 p.m. in Hod Hasharon; Lt. Nir Lakrif will be buried at 12:30 p.m. in Haifa; and St.-Sgt. Oren Cohen will be buried at 1:00 p.m. in Rehovot.
2010;It was reported today that the three bidders still in the mix to buy Newsweek magazine, according to the New York Times, are audio equipment tycoon Sidney Harman; tastefully named hedge fund guy Marc Lasry; and Mort Zuckerman chum Fred Drasner. All three are Members of the Tribe.
2010: “With Curious George” published today the plans for “Illumination Entertainment, the animation company founded by former Fox Animation President Chris Meledandri and whose movies Universal finances and distributes, is developing a new version of ‘Curious George,’" the creation of the Jewish team of Hans and Margret Rey.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2010/07/curious-george-illumination-movie-book-universal.html
2011:Gefen Books is scheduled to releaseConfidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan, by brothers-in-law Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, which “tells the story of an Israeli nuclear intelligence agent who found his way into the film business.”
2011(28th of Tammuz, 5771): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum of Uhely, Hungary, author of Yismach Moshe and patriarch of the Hungarian Chassidic dynasties who passed away on the 28th of Tamuz, 5601 (July 17, 1841).
2011: “Blood Relation” and “77 Steps” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2011:Those who are protesting the spiraling cost of living in Israel are planning to hold five marches tonight, in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Be'er Sheva, Haifa and Nazareth.
2011: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was expected to put together a team to examine the burden of indirect taxes on the public in the coming days, Army Radio reported today.
2011:An explosion was reported at a depot along the Egyptian natural gas pipeline in Sinai that normally supplies Israel with gas, Army Radio reported today. The attack on the pipeline was the third this month and the fifth since the beginning of 2011. It also followed a shootout between Egyptian security forces and apparent Islamic militants yesterday.
2011:Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took part in protests held in cities across the country tonight, the largest collaborative protest yet in a popular movement over social issues that has swept the country in the past two weeks.
2012: The Northern California Premiere of “Papirosen” is scheduled to take place at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2012: “Yossi,” a sequel to “Yossi and Jagger” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan.
2012:Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud) today slammed proposals calling for IDF conscription of Arabs. “You don’t have to be a genius to realize that it’s impossible to draft the Arab public. Any initiatives of this sort smack of hypocrisy and even malice,” Rivlin said at a Ramadan Iftar feast at Kafar Qara
2012:Following a day of mostly disappointing results for Israel at the London Olympic Games, two Israelis advanced to the semi-finals in their events in swimming and judo this morning. Amit Ivri set a new Israeli record in the 200 meter women's medley relay this morning. Ivri finished the race in 2:13:29, putting her in 12th place and allowing her to advance to the semi-finals this evening.
2012: (11th of Av, 5772): Ninety-one year old philanthropist Fred Worms passed away today.(As reported by Greer Fay Cashman)
http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Philanthropist-Fred-Worms-dies-at-91
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/anglo-file/philanthropist-was-amazing-example-of-a-world-jew-1.455681
2012: “In what appears like a clear endorsement of a presidential candidate, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said tonight that Barack Obama has been the most supportive president on matters of Israeli security throughout the two countries’ diplomatic relations.” (As reported by Yaakov Katz)
2012:The climactic denouement of the Daf Yomi seven-year study cycle of the Talmud was staged in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem tonight, with tens of thousands of haredi men crowding into venues in the two cities to celebrate their having completed the study of the ancient work of Jewish law.(As reported by Jeremy Sharon)
2013: A conference on “The Bible in the Iberian World: Fundaments of a Religious Melting Pot is scheduled to open at Leipzig, Germany.”
2013: “Sukkah City” and “Neil Diamond: Solitary Man” are scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2013: Dancers from the Paris Opera are scheduled to appear at Haifa’s Rappaport Hall.
2013: The Maccabiah Games are scheduled to come to an end.
2013: Ninety-nine year old Berthold Beitz, the head of ThyssenKrupp who “was remembered for his efforts to save hundreds of Jews and Poles from the Nazis while stationed in Poland during World War II” passed away today. (As reported by Melissa Eddy)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/business/berthold-beitz-german-steel-industrialist-who-saved-jews-dies-at-99.html
2013: Josh Zeid pitched in his first major league game as a member of the Houston Astros.
2013:Senator Dianne Feinstein of California introduced a bill tonight that would have the Senate resolve itself to supporting Secretary of State John Kerry's push for a two-state solution.(By Michael Wilner)
2013(23rd of Av, 5773): Ninety-four year old Ottie Schecthman, one of the pioneering stars of the NBA passed away today. (As reported by Richard Goldstein)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/sports/basketball/ossie-schectman-who-scored-the-nbas-first-points-dies-at-94.html?hpw
2014: Historic 6th& Synagogue is scheduled to host Trivia Night sponsored by B’nai B’rith.
2014: The Washington Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host another night of Coen brothers’ films.