July 18
64: During the
reign of Emperor Nero, the Great Fire begins in Rome. After the fire, Nero avoided the initial
inclination to blame the blaze on the Jews.
Instead, he targeted the nascent Christian sect which had recently
become active in the city. Possibly Nero
who saw himself as a god felt personally threatened by Christianity which also
worshipped a Divinity who had come to earth in human form.
392: “Emperors
Valentinian II, Theodosius I, and Arcadius order that anyone who disturbs the
Catholic faith must be exiled.” This edict is actually not aimed at the Jews
but at those Christians who deviate from accepted religious principles. Of course, this use of state power to protect
Catholicism is one more indication of the “second class” status that the Jews
are having to do deal with.
1100: Godfrey
of Boullion, one of the leaders of the First Crusade, “the first crusader
installed ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem who “in 1906 had collected tribute
from Jews in Mainz and Cologne” as the Crusaders made their way down the Rhine
Valley, passed away today.
1195: The
Moslem Almohads (‘Proclaimers of the Unity of Allah’) score a great victory
over the Christian Catilian King Alfonso VIII at the Battle of Alacros. The Almohads were a sect of Moslem
fundamentalists who invaded the Iberian Peninsula from North Africa. They were determined to defeat the Christian
forces fighting to take Iberia back from the Moslems. As part of their agenda, the Almohads also
punished the Moslems living in Spain for having become ‘soft’ and moderate in
their views on Islam. They also punished
the Jews of Spain who lived among the Moslems for being agents of their
corruption. Many Jews would flee Spain as the Almodhades consolidated their
power, thus marking the end of the Golden Age.
One of those departing because of the Almodhades was Maimonides and his
family.
1216: Honorius
III, who in 1230 would issue an ordering the Jews of Mayence to pay 1,620 marks
if they wanted to avoid being excluded from business dealings with Christians,
began his papacy today.
1283: German
Talmudist Judah ben Asher began his journey that would end in Toledo, Spain.
1290: Edward I
(England), pressured by his barons, the Church and possibly by his mother,
announced the expulsion of all the Jews. The expulsion came on Tisha B’Av,
adding to that day’s list of Jewish sorrows. By November approximately 4000 had
fled. The Jews had to pay their own passage, mostly to France. They were
allowed to take movables (i.e. clothing). A number of Jews were robbed and cast
overboard during the voyage by the ship captains. The Jews did not return to
England until 1659. This was the first national expulsion of the Jews.
1494: In a
will dated with today’s date a Pilsen “there is a reference to a string of
beads given as a pledge by the testator to the Jew Mekl” the son of Jontoffa
who lived a house number 263, “for a loan of 4 schocks.
1577(4th
of Av, 5337): R' Moshe Gershon Altschuler, the Czech born son of Avraham Avir
Altschuler and the husband of Chana Altschuler passed away today in Krakow.
1658: Leopold
I, who relied on the services of Samuel Oppenheimer to help finance his war
against the Turks, began his reign as Holy Roman Emperor and King of Germany.
1716: A decree
banishing Jews from Brussels was issued today; but it was not enforced: a gift
to the crown overcame all difficulties. A similar decree issued forty years
later had the same result. Several Jews received the right of citizenship in
Brussels. Among them was one named Philip Nathan, who, in 1783, requested the
government to assign a place for a new cemetery for the Jews; the old one,
situated near the Porte de Namur, having disappeared in consequence of the
dismantling of the fortress1860: A report of the bankruptcy case of Lord
William Godolphin Osborne includes a list of his creditors among whom was a
“Jew money lender.”
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1541&letter=B
1775:
Birthdate of Karl von Rotteck, the German politician and author who opposed
Jewish emancipation saying that “the Jew had to be de-Jewified.”
1784: In New
York, the Trustees of Shearith Israel met to discuss the expansion of the
Jewish cemetery. After he was re-elected
as Chairman, Myer Myers informed his colleagues
that, “Mr. Hayman Levy and Mr. Solomon Simson had bargained with Mr.
Isaac Roosevelt for the ground adjacent to the Burying place for eighty pounds,
one half to be paid on delivery of the deed, and the other half in twelve
months or sooner."“The board voted to purchase the land.”
1793(9th
of Av, 5553): On the first anniversary of the death of Revolutionary War naval
hero John Paul Jones, Jews observed Tsh’a B’av
1799: In
Amsterdam, Cantor Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto,
and Judith van Samuel Peixotto gave birth to Dr. Daniel Moses Levy
Maduro Peixotto , the husband of Rachel Lopes Mendes Peixotto
1799:
Birthdate of Indiana political leader Judah Samuel, the first Jewish trained
lawyer to graduate from what is now Rutgers University, the son Dr. Benjamin S.
Judah and the husband of Harriet Brandon.
1800:
Birthdate of Daniel Levy Maduro Peixotto.
Born at Amsterdam, this eldest son of Moses Levy Maduro Peixotto gained
fame as an American “physician, scholar, author, and philanthropist.” . He was educated in Curaçao under the
direction of Professor Strebeck. He accompanied his father to New York and
graduated from Columbia College at the age of sixteen, receiving the degree of
Doctor of Medicine in 1819. He was a member of the old Philolexian Society of
the college, the membership of which society still includes the names of his
descendants. Prior to taking his degree he had entered the office of Dr. David
Hosack, at one time physician to George Washington. Peixotto was one of the
editors of the "New York Medical and Physical Journal" and of
"Gregory's Practice" (1825-26) and was a frequent contributor to the
periodicals and newspapers of the day. Later on he edited "The True
American," advocating the election of Gen. Andrew Jackson, and he was also
connected with the "New York Mirror." Among the many offices held by
him were the following: secretary of the Academy of Medicine (1825); physician
to the City Dispensary (1827); and president of the New York Medical Society
(1830-32); he was also one of the organizers of the Society for Assisting the
Widows and Orphans of Medical Men. The title of Professor of the Theory and
Practice of Medicine and Obstetrics was given him in 1836, and in the same year
he was elected to honorary membership in the Medical Society of Lower Canada.
Having accepted the appointment of president of the Willoughby Medical College,
he removed to Cleveland, Ohio, where he was dean of the faculty for a number of
years. Returning to New York, he resumed his practice there, and continued it
until his death in 1843. He married Rachel M. Seixas, the daughter of Benjamin
Seixas, March 19, 1823.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=158&letter=P#ixzz1L3nS5V1h
1811: In Pennsylvania, Judith and Isaiah
Nathans gave birth to Moses Nathans, the father of Benveneda Nathans Potsdamer
Ella Cornelia Nathans Thalman and Laura Augusta Nathans Sonneborn, and the
husband of the former Benveneda Valintina Solis who he had married in 1831
after breaking tradition and negotiating directly with her father in 1830 over
his desire for the wedding, passed away today in Philadelphia after which he
was buried at Mt. Sinai Cemetery in Philadelphia, PA.
1812(9th of Av, 5572): Parashat
Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av
1812: In New
York City, Judith and Moses Benjamin Seixas gave birth to Jacob Levy Seixas,,
the husband of Hortensia Seixas, who was a member of a Jewish “Clan” that was
prominent in both New York and Newport” and supporters of the Patriot Cause.
1824:
Birthdate of German native Mary Griessman Rothschild, the wife of Samson
Rothschild and the mother of Jacob, Simon and Martin Rotschild.
1813: In
Aarhuus; Jutland, Hartvig Philip Rée and Thamar (Terese) Rée gave birth to
Bernhard Philip Rée the editor of
the "Aalborg Stiftstidende and husband of Julie Ree and Anna Marie
Elisabeth Ree.
1815: In
Charleston, SC, Rebecca Phillips and Isaiah Moses gave birth to Cecilia Moses,
the wife of Abraham Alexander Solomons who she married in 1843 at Charleston
and with whom she had eight children.
1820: One day
after he had passed away, Philip Moses was buried today at the Brady Street
Jewish Cemetery.
1826: London
born Michael Meir Myers and Rebecca Jacobs gave birth to Rachel Myers.
1829(17th
of Tammuz, 5589): Parashat Balak
1829:
Birthdate of Babette Steinhardt the native of Dresden who will become Babette
Seligman following her marriage to Joseph Seligman
1836: A day
after she had passed away, “Julia Lazarus the wife of Eleazer Lazarus” with
whom she had three children – Isaac, Nathan and Solomon – was buried today at
the Exeter Jewish Cemetery.
1838: “In
reaction to various political revolts that have given freedom to Jews, Pope
Gregory XVI issues an edict critical of how Catholic measures against Jews have
fallen by the wayside in recent years.” The Pope wrote: "The unfortunate
political events that recently afflicted the Pontifical dominions have produced
among other disorders the failure to observe Apostolic Constitutions and the
other Edicts regarding the Jews." (As reported by Austin Cline)
1839: Thirty-two-year-old
Marcus and Theresia Lobl gave birth to David Lobl.
1841: A day
after she had passed away, 56 year old Rachel Hendricks, the wife of Lewis
Emanuel, with whom she had two children – David and Abraham – was buried today
at the Brady Street Jewish Cemetery.
1844(2nd
of Ave, 5604): Poznan, Poland native Hyman Hurwitz whose “close friendship with
Samuel Taylor Coleridge” led to him becoming the “first professor of Hebrews
Language and Literature at University College, London” passed away today after
which “he was buried in the Brady Stret Cemetery…”
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Hebrew-Language-Hyman-Hurwitz/dp/1167041569
1850(9th
of Av, 5610): Tish’a B’Av observed for the first time during the Presidency of
Millard Fillmore who had been Vice President until the death of President
Zachary Taylor who had passed away on July 9.
1853: In
Baltimore, MD, Elkan Bamberger, the German born “son of Isaak Jakob Bamberger
and Gela Caroline Bamberger” and his wife Theresa Bamberger gave birth to Rosa
Hammerslough the “wife of Isadore Hammerslough and the mother of Carrie Heims
and Stella Schaap.”
1854: Fanny
and Ferdinand Reichenheim gave birth to Ernst Reichenheim.
1854: London
born Sophia Goldsmid and David De Stern gave birth to Edward De Stern, the
husband of the former Constance Jessel.
1854: Samuel
Gluckstein and Hannah Joseph gave birth to Montague Gluckstein, the husband of
London born Matilda Franks.
1859: Birthdate
of Trieste, Austria native Irene-Luzzatto Cohen “a member of the Sephardic
Jewish Luzzatto family,” the wife of Achille Luigi Carlo La Guardia and
mother of famous New York political leader Fiorello La Guardia.
1859: In
Cincinnati, Ohio, Lewis Block and Caroline Walther gave birth to Cincinnati Law
School graduate Leon Black, the husband of Carrie Hyman who moved to Kansas
City, MO in 1886 where he continued practicing law and was the President of
Congregation B’nai Jehudah
1861: In Lithuania, Keize and Yakov Horwich
gave birth to Bernard Horwich, the successful banker and businessman who was
“the first President of the Federated Jewish Charities of Chicago” and an
early, ardent who “worked closely with Chaim Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow and
Shmarya Levin” and who raised five children with his wife Mamie Horwich.
1862: It was reported today that the will of
Isidor Bemlord, which has now been admitted to probate, leaves $500 to the
Jews' Hospital in New York City.
1864: In Ulm,
Germany, “Leopold M. and Amalie (Bing) Bernheimer” gave birth to Charles L.
Bernheimer, the graduate of Thudichum’s College, Geneva, Switzerland and
American businessman whose career was capped by serving as Chairman of the
Board Bear Mill Manufacturing Company who was a leader of the “fusion movement”
in New York that led to the election of Mayor John P. Mitchell while raising
his family with the former Clara Silberman.
1864: A review
of The History of Friedrich the Second, Called Friedrich the Great by Thomas
Carlyle reports that “a closely printed chapter of twenty-two pages is devoted
to M. Voltaire’s ‘powerful Jew law-suit,’ a wretched and obsolete stock-jobbing
squabble.”
1868: In
Richmond, VA, Isabelle Rosenbaum, the Richmond born daughter of Caroline and Joesph
Myers and her husband Michael Rosenbaum gave birth to Joseph Marx Rosenbaum,
the husband of Sara Mina Rosenbaum.
1869(10th
of Av, 5629): Tish’a B’Av
1869: In
Minsker, Asher Abrich gave birth to Abraham Abrich who in 1891 came to the
United States where he eventual formed the Rhode Island Paper Stock Company in
Providence, RI, married Ida Taber with whom he had eight children while serving
as “a member of the Hebrew Free Loan Society” and a financial supporter of the
Denver Hospital.
1870: The
First Vatican Council decrees the dogma of papal infallibility. The First
Vatican Council had been summoned by Pope Pious IX who repealed certain laws aimed at limiting
occupations open to Roman Jews and opened the doors of the Ghetto and yet was
also known as the Pope who refused to return Edgardo Mortara and insisted on
him being raised as a Catholic.
1871:
Birthdate of German chemist Karl von Hirsch, who despite his nobility would die
in the Holocaust at Theresienstadt.
1871: At
Weimer, under the leadership of Ludwig Barnay, those attending the
“stage-congress” “organized the alliance of German stage associates under the
name of "Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnenangehöriger," which welded
into one body the hitherto semi-antagonistic players, authors, and managers.”
1873(23rd
of Tammuz, 5633): Sixty-three-year-old “German violin virtuoso and composer
Ferdinand David” passed away today.
http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/c.asp?c=C2912
1873(23rd
of Tammuz, 5633): Edwin Moses, the four month old son of Dr. Montefiore and
Rosetta Moses passed away tody.
1873(23rd of
Tammuz, 5633): Sir David Salomons, 1st Baronet, a leading figure in the 19th
century struggle for Jewish emancipation in the United Kingdom passed away. .
He was the first Jewish Sheriff of the City of London and Lord Mayor of London,
and one of the first two Jewish people to serve in the British House of
Commons.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=89&letter=S
1875: In Pittsburgh, department store own Max
and Sidonie Rosenbaum gave birth to Walter Rosenbaum, the secretary-treasurer
of Rosenbaum Company, the department store that employs over 2,000 workers who
is the husband of Eva Heymann with whom he had three children – Stanley,
Madeline and Ruth.
1876: At
today’s opening session of the American Philological Society in New York, Dr.
George R. Entler read a paper on “The Origin of the Hebrew Article” that
disputed “the theory that the Hebrew article ‘ha’ has the same origin as the
Arabic ‘al.’” According to Entler, “in Hebrew both the article and the
conjunction ‘vav’ are derived from the substantive ‘avah’ and connected with
the demonstrative pronoun ‘hu.’”
1877(8th of
Av, 5637): Erev Tish'a B'Av
1877: Rabbi H.
P. Mendes of Manchester, England, officiated at Tisha B’Av services this
evening at the synagogue on West 19th Street in New York City. The only light in the sanctuary came from
“four candles on the reading desk and the little tapers” with which the
worshippers were provided. Rabbi Mendes
is the newly appointed assistant for Rabbi J.J. Lyons
1877: Judge
Hilton denied reports that he was weakening or wavering in what he termed as
his ban on “Seligman Jews” from the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY.
1877: An
article published today described the role of M.A. Shaffenburg a German Jew who had been serving as U.S. Marshal
for the Territory of Colorado, in the election of Jerome B. Caffee to the U.S.
Senate from Colorado.
1878(17th
of Tammuz, 5638): Tzom Tammuz
1878: It was
reported today that Isaac Schwartz who owned a dry goods store on 3rd
Avenue in New York filed for bankruptcy today.
He showed liabilities of $10,029 with no assets.
1879: In
Augustovo, Suwalk, Russia, Jacob Weislander and Hinda Lewin gave birth to
English educated American Communist Rose Harriet Pastor Stokes, the wife of a
J.G. Phelps, a millionaire member of New York’s elite social groups who “was a
founding member of the Communist Party of Party.
http://spartacus-educational.com/USAWstokes.htm
1879: Pavel
Borisovich Axelrod, the Jewish Menshevik who died in exile while opposing the
Bolshevik Revolution and the former Nadezhda Ivanovna Kaminer gave birth to
their second child Alexander.
1880(10th of
Av, 5640): Since the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat, Tish'a B'Av is
observed today.
1880: Lionel
Goldsmid married Catherine Hart today in the United Kingdom.
1881: Sixty-five-year-old
Anglican churchman Arthur Stanley, author of the History of the Jewish
Church a three volume work that appeared in 1863, 1865 and 1881, passed
away today.
1882: Samuel
Obreight, a young Jew who became the subject of a sanity hearing after he
married Mary Myers, a Christian, appeared in court today. The judge decided to release him in the
custody of his wife until he can make a final ruling.
1882: Rudolpha
Leischinsky, a young Jewish woman recently arrived from Europe, is scheduled to
be transferred to the Emigrant Insane Asylum on Ward’s Island today. She had originally been taken to Bellevue
after a failed suicide attempt.
1882:
Birthdate of Cracow native Harry Baum the graduate of CCNY “a volunteer
settlement worker on the Lower East Side became one of basketball's greatest
coaches during the early decades of the 20th Century.
1882: It was
reported that Rebecca Gold, the wife of a Russian Jew committed suicide last
night in Athens, GA. The death remains a mystery but she left a mirror and two
knives in a cradle by the side of her young infant.
1882: The
striking freight handlers continued their efforts to keep foreign born workers
away from the docks. While Italian
workers were fed sandwiches, the Russian Jews were getting three meals
including a dinner consisting of boil meat prepared by a Jewish cook. Both groups will be getting $.25 a day as an
additional incentive not to cross the picket line.
1883:
Birthdate of Polish native Jacob Dunn who in 1902 came to the United States,
settling in New York City he was an active member of the Federation of American
Zionists and the ZOA.
1883:
Birthdate of David “Dave” Fleisher the creator of several iconic cartoon
characters and co-owner of Fleischer Studios passed away
https://www.biography.com/people/max-fleischer-082515
1883: In
Hungary, the court that is trying several Jews on charges that they murdered a
Christian girl, Esther Salomossy, went to Tisza Ezlar today where Moritz Scharf
was forced to look through the key-hole in the door of the synagogue through
which he claims to have seen the murder committed. It was obvious that the
witness could have only seen one person at a time and that it was impossible to
have seen a group of people. [In early
reports, Scharf claimed that his testimony came only after he had been abused
and threatened.]
1884: Four
families of Jewish immigrants who are being held at Castle Garden have sent a
request of the Commissioners of Emigration to be allowed to “join their
friends’ in New York City who are willing to support them so that they will not
become “public charges.”
1885(6th
of Av, 5645): Parashat Devarim: Shabbat Chazon
1885:
Birthdate of Providence, R.I native and attorney Phillip J. Feinberg who served
as Democrat in the Massachusetts State Legislature.
1885: Rebecca
Marcus who owns a grocery store on Broome Street charged Solomon Schulman, a
Russian born rabbi with larceny in Essex Market Court. She claimed he came into her store and stole
$31. He denied the charge and said he
was in the store to collect the $8 she owed him for tuition.
1886: “In Gartz
on the Oder, Rudolf Grobba, a nurseryman, and Elise Grobba gave birth WW I
veteran and German diplomat Fritz Konrad Ferdinand Grobba who after Hitler came
to power developed a network of officers in Iraq known as the “Golden Square”
and who in 1941 played a key role in laying the groundwork for the coup known
as the Farhud which turned into a pogrom
claiming the lives of at least 180 Jews.
1887: It was
reported today that the Hebrew Standard
has declared that “a diet of crabs and lobsters is not only un-Jewish” it is
also unhealthy.
1888:
Birthdate of Alvah T. Meyer the silver medal winning track star who was one of
the Jewish members of the Irish American Athletic Club
1888: At the
bride’s home in St Kilda, Australia, the future Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs married
18-year-old Deborah (Daisy), daughter of Isaac Jacobs, a tobacco merchant who
had been president of the St Kilda Hebrew Congregation and in 1889-90 was to be
president of the Chamber of Manufactures.
1889(19th
of Tammuz, 5649): Sixty-two year old attorney and member of the Reichstag Wolf
Frankenberg passed away today.
1890: As of
today, the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children has received $5,132.25 to be used for
summer excursions.
1890: “The
Secretary of the United Hebrew Charities has learned that the family of Solomon
Rasinkoff” which was mistakenly sent back to Europe by the Hamburg Line several
weeks ago is now in Russia. The
steamship company has offered to bring the family back to New York if the
Hebrew Charities can raise the funds to get them from Russia to the port of
Hamburg.
1891: The
twenty-three Jews who arrived from Rotterdam aboard the Massadam will be returned to that port by the ship that brought
them to the United States. Five other Jews who had arrived from Glasgow will
suffer a similar fate. (This method is
part of the government’s plan to make the trafficking in pauper immigrants a
losing business proposition for the shipping lines.)
1891: “A dozen
or Russians” attacked a Jewish farming settlement four miles from “Veile”
burning fourteen of the residents before the remaining victims armed themselves
and chased them away.
1891: In a
letter to the Washington Star, Simon Wolf explained decision of the Democratic
National Convention at Cleveland to adopt a plank for its platform “regarding
the Czar’s treatment of the Jews in Russia.”
1892: The
governor of Pennsylvania has issued the papers seeking the extradition from
Canada of two Jewish peddlers named Harris and Charley who are accused of
killing another peddler in Wyoming County
1892(23rd
of Tammuz, 5652): Twenty-three-year-old Ludwig Beer, a native of Germany passed
away today in China after which he was buried at the Happy Valley Jewish
Cemetery in Hong Kong.
1892: In his
quest to create an anti-cholera vaccine, Dr. Waldemar Haffkine, a Russian born
Jew, risked his own life by testing his vaccine for the first time on himself.
1892: Arthur
Richard of New York inspected the Jewish colony at Chesterfield, CT. The colony which is home to forty families
and contains hat factory as well as a creamery plant, is the first such colony
funded by Baron Hirsch in New England.
1892: “Russian
Cruelty In Politics” published today contained Simon Wolf’s explanation “of the
appearance in the Democratic platform adopted at Cleveland of the plank
regarding the Czar’s treatment of the Jews in Russia.”
1893:
Following numerous incidents of Russian Jews attacking and robbing their
co-religionists Alter Shapiro, the Vice
President of the Hebrew Protective Society and Solomon Dore allowed themselves
to be robbed by the gang and then signaled the police who were waiting to
arrest them.
1893: The
manager of the Thalia Theatre at 46 Bowery “has declared vengeance” against
those who vandalized his theatre on July 15.
The vandals acted in response to a boycott against Isidor Lindemann and
his Windsor Theatre by the Hebrew Trade Unions that had spread to the Thalia.
1894: Birthdate of Odessa native Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel a survivor of the
Pogroms of 1905 who would go on to become a journalist and author in the Soviet
Union before being arrested by Stalin who sent him to Siberia where he died in
1940.
1894: Two days
after she had passed away Sophie Mayer, “the daughter of Pauline and Felix
Mayer” was buried today at the West Ham Jewish Cemetery/
1894:
“Sectarian Appropriations” published today provided a breakdown of the excise
money collected that had been collected in 1893 and distributed to different
charitable organizations including $178, 275 that went to Protestant and Jewish
institutions as compared with $609,748.32 to Catholic institutions.
1895: “Col.
Waring’s Little Helpers” published today described the formation of a
children’s street clean brigade which was formed during a meeting at the Hebrew
Institute.
1896(8th
of Av, 5656): Shabbat Chazon; in the evening, Tish’a B’av fast begins
1896(8th
of Av, 5656): Despite the fact that he had been sick for several weeks and just
come from the hospital, 55 year old Charles Liebhaber insisted on fasting as
Tish’a B’av began.
1896: First
and only meeting between Herzl and Baron Edmond de Rothschild, whose financial
sponsorship the Zionist leader was seeking.
1897: “Women
Here and There” published today includes a description of a club named after
Louisa Mae Alcott located in Boston that was started by Jewish women to provide
educational and cultural programs for young Jewish girls including concerts,
workshops and “talks on various subjects…of the most elevating tendencies.
1898: After
three months of service, 2nd Lieutenant B. Albert Lieberman was honorably
discharged today.
1898: Those
who became soldiers in the Army when the 15th Minnesota Volunteer
Infantry was mustered into the United State Service were Private Jacob W.
Kaufman of Wheaton, Corporal Charles M. Schloss of Minneapolis, Corporal Louis
S. Fredenberg of Willmar, Private Aaron Jacobson of Willmar and Privates Robert
Pinkus and Joe Schwabacher of St. Paul.
1898: During
the Spanish-American war, the Spanish were defeated by the U.S. Navy at the
Third Battle of Manzanillo where Adolph Marix the first Jewish graduate from
the United States Naval Academy who was serving on the USS Maine when she blew
up, commanded the USS Scorpion with such skill that he was cited by Congress
for “eminent and conspicuous conduct.”
1898: The will
of the late Jacob Berk was filed for probate in the Surrogate’s office today.
1898: In
Philadelphia, PA, Mr. and Mrs. Hiram H. Hirsch gave birth to attorney Sylvan
Hobson Hirsch, the holder of BS in economic from the University of Pennsylvania
where he was the head cheerleader in 1919 who was a member of the USNR and the
husband of Ruth Bulter, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hyman Henry Butler.
1898: “For
Jewish Publications” published described the work of the JPS which includes the
recent publications of Dreamers of the Ghetto by Israel Zangwill and “an
index volume of Graetz’s History the Jews as well as the upcoming
publication of Jewish Services in the Synagogue and the Home by L.N.
Dembitz.
1899:
Birthdate of Punxsutawney, PA native Abraham Gerson Carmel the University of
Cincinnati and University of Pennsylvania trained surgeon, proctologist and WW
I veteran who was the husband of Cyrilla Carmel.
1900: In
Lithuania, “Sholem Moshe Rabinovitz and Chaya-Leah Levy” gave birth to Arthur
Mordechai Rabinovitz, the husband of Anna Dorothy Silverstone with whom he had
three children.
1901: In
Vlagtwedde, Netherlands, Louis Sachs, the “son of Jacques Löehman Sachs and
Rebekka de Jonge” and his wife Emma Sachs gave birth to Joseph Sachs.
1901: MP
Arthur Straus who crossed the aisles from Conservative to Labour parties and
his wife gave birth to George Strauss who was a Labour MP for 46 years.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-strauss-1490546.html
1902:
Birthdate of Phillip Hickman the Anglo-Jewish “professional
bantam/featherweight/lightweight” who boxed under the name of “Johnny Brown.”
1902:
Birthdate of Denver, CO, native Esther Greenblatt Quiat, the wife of Denver
University trained lawyer, Ira Louis Quiat and mother of Marshall and Gerald
Quiat.
1902: Mark
Matveyevich Antokolski, the Litvak who became a world class sculptor was buried
in St. Petersburg today. The train
carrying his body from Paris where died made a special stop in his native Wilno
before reaching its final destination.
1903: Wenzel
von Plehv, the Czar’s Minister of the Interior, and like many of his class and
nationality, an active anti-Semite, was ready to see Theodor Herzl today.
1903: Moses
Alexander, “the second elected Jewish governor of a U.S. state” and the 11th
governor of Idaho completed his second term as Mayor of Boise, Idaho
1903: In
Morristown, NJ, Addie Wolff Kahn and Otto Hermann Kahn gave birth Princeton
trained investment bank and patron of the arts Gilbert W. Kahn, the WW II Navy
veteran and partner in Kuhn, Loeb and Company who was the thrice married
husband of “the former Polly Stover” and father of Maud, Margaret and Roger
Kahn
https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/16/archives/gilbert-w-kahn-art
1903:
Birthdate of Viktor David Grünbaum the Austrian architect who came to America
after the Anschluss and gained fame as Victor Gruen, the founder of Victor
Gruen Associates, who designed shopping malls and created “master plans” for
several major metropolitan areas.
1904: “IN
MEMORY OF DR. HERZL” published today described the meeting where the two
divisions of Judaism, orthodox and reform, were united at the memorial mass
meeting held in honor of Dr. Theodor Herzl, in Carnegie Music Hall, under the
direction of the Zionist Council of Greater New York where a crowd of more than
six thousand people heard speeches by Dr. Harry Friedenwald, Rabbi A.M. Raddin
and Rabbi Isidor Myers.
1905: New York
Congressman Henry Mayer Goldfogle said today that “he has given up of ever
recover the watch and fob which were stolen from him several weeks ago” because
“no pawnbroker in this city would dare make a loan on the watch after all the
publicity about the robbery.”
1906: “The
court, all chambers united, gave its judgment. After a lengthy review of the
case it declared unanimously that the whole accusation against Dreyfus had been
disproved, and it quashed the judgment of the Rennes court-martial sans renvoi.
The explanation of the whole case is that Esterhazy and Henry were the real
culprits; that they had made a trade of supplying the German government with
military documents; and that once the Bordereau was discovered they availed
themselves of the anti-Jewish agitation to throw suspicion on Dreyfus” (As
reported by Global Security.org)
1906: In
Philadelphia, “Louis Odets (born Gorodetsky) and Pearl Geisinger, Russian- and
Romanian-Jewish immigrants” gave birth to Clifford who began his theatre career
by leaving school at the age of 17 to become an actor. After a series of small
parts working in the theatre and on radio, Odets helped form the Group Theatre
in New York. Members held left-wing political views and wanted to produce plays
that dealt with important social issues. Odets, who joined the American
Communist Party in 1934, had his first play produced, Waiting for Lefty, in
1935. The play that dealt with trade union corruption was an immediate success.
With his next two plays, Awake and Sing! and Till the Day I Die, Odets
established himself as a champion of the underprivileged. After the production
of Paradise Lost (1935), Odets accepted a lucrative offer to become a film
screenwriter and while in Hollywood met and married the actress, Luise Rainer.
However, he continued to write plays and with Golden Boy (1937) he had his
greatest commercial success. This was followed by Rocket to the Moon (1938),
Night Music (1940), Clash By Night (1941), The Big Knife (1949), and The
Country Girl (1950). Investigated by Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American
Activities Committee in 1953, Odets argued that he had never been under the
influence of the American Communist Party and his work had been based on his
deep sympathy for the working classes. Unlike many writers and actors who had
been members of the party, Odets was not blacklisted and continued to work in
Hollywood. This included the screenplay for the acclaimed, Sweet Smell of
Success (1957). Clifford Odets died on 18th August 1963.
1907: In
Harrogate (UK), Rose Samson Hart and Simeon Hart gave birth to Herbert Lionel
Adolphus Hart (H.L.A. Hart) who became a Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford
and authored numerous legal tomes including The Concept of Law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concept_of_Law#/media/File:The_Concept_of_Law.jpg
1908(19th
of Tammuz, 5668): Parashat Pinchas
1908 Birthdate
of New York City native and University of Virginia graduate Eugene
Pumpian-Mindlin, the University of Zurich trained psychiatrist who served on
the faculties of both USC and UCLA.
1908: “Count
Puckler, Germany’s notorious Jew baiter, who a few months ago was officially
declared has his private affairs withdrawn from his control and place in the
charge of a conservator.”
1909(29th
of Tammuz, 5669): Fifty-seven-year-old Maude Phillipa, the daughter of Edward
Salomon and Henrietta Levien who were early members of the Jewish community in
Australia passed away today.
1909: It was
reported today that “that the work in the interest of the Sanitarium for Hebrew
Children is doing invaluable good” as can be seen by the twice a week free
excursions and the special excursion held “for the benefit of the poor mothers
and babies of the east side of New York.
1910: Today, “The New York American broke the story
that a combination of Wall Street bankers would be working for Woodrow Wilson,
the man who appointed the first Jew to the Supreme Court, thus paving the way
for all future non-traditional appointees to the court,to be the Democratic
Party nominee for President in 1912
1911(22nd of
Tammuz, 5671): Rabbi Dr. Hermann Adler CVO, the Chief Rabbi of the British
Empire from 1891 to 1911 passed away. The son (and successor as Chief Rabbi) of
Nathan Marcus Adler, the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica writes that he
"raised the position [of Chief Rabbi] to one of much dignity and
importance. “Born in Hanover, like his father, he had both a rabbinical
education and a university education in Germany, and like him he subscribed to
a modernized Orthodoxy. He attended University College School in London from
1852-54. He graduated at Leipzig; he later received honorary degrees from
Scottish and English universities, including Oxford. He was head of a
congregation in Bayswater during his father's lifetime, and his father's
assistant from the time his father's health began to deteriorate in 1879,
before succeeding him on his death in 1891.In 1909 he was appointed a Commander
of the Royal Victorian Order. Adler wrote extensively on topics of Anglo-Jewish
History and published two volumes of sermons. He was a vigorous defender of his
co-religionists and their faith, as well as their sacred Scriptures.
1912: In
Minneapolis, Beatrice Hirshler (née Tuchman) and Isadore Henry Levin gave birth
to literary critic Harry Tuchman Levin, the namesake of the Harry Levin
Literary Prize.
https://web.archive.org/web/20061004194841/http://www.acla.org/levinandwellek.html
1913:
Birthdate of Vienna native Erich Pollak, who gained fame as actor Eric Pohlman
who, in one of those great stories of love and fidelity “followed his fiancée
and later wife, Jewish actress Lieselotte Goettinger into exile in London”
where the two took jobs a cook and butler before being able to resume their
careers in the United Kingdom after the War
1913: “Because
of rumors that Pinkerton detectives involved in the case believe that Conley
was the murderer, and not Leo Frank, a grand jury convenes to consider
indicting Conley. Solicitor Dorsey refuses to allow Pinkerton detectives to
interview Conley and opposes indicting Conley. (Three days later, the grand
jury decides to postpone an indictment.)”
1913(13th of Tammuz, 5673): Edward Selig
Salomon “a German immigrant to the United States who served as a Union
brigadier general in the American Civil War and later became governor of
Washington Territory and a California legislator” passed away. In an unusual
twist, Salomon fought with Union Armies in the East and the West. He
distinguished himself at the Battle of Gettysburg where he had two horses shot
out from under him. He then led his
regiment in Sherman’s victorious campaign that led to the capture of
Atlanta. Salomon was appointed to his
post as territorial governor of Washington by President Grant which provides
further proof that the latter was not an anti-Semite.
1914(24th of Tammuz, 5674): Parashat
Pinchas
1914: Rabbi A. L. Weinstein of Davenport, IA
conducted Shabbat morning services for those vacationing at Lake Harbor,
Michigan.
1914: On Saturday morning, Rabbi Jacob D.
Schwarz of Cincinnati conducted services for those vacationing at Cedar Lake,
Wisconsin.
1915: “The doctors completed the sewing up of
the wound in Leo Frank’s throat at 1;15 this morning” that was inflicted on him
last night by William Green, a prisoner who was trying to murder him.
1915: Dr. H.J. Rosenberg, the family physician
of Leo Frank and the Frank family, arrived at the State Prison Farm, from
Atlanta with two nurses and said that while Frank’s “condition was serious he
had a good chance at life.
1915: The wife of Leo Frank is in Milledgeville
the site of the State Prison Farm where she has come to visit her husband.
1915: Georgia Governor Nat E. Harris who has
urged that “a thorough investigation of the attempt to murder Leo M. Frank in
order to determine whether” prisoner William “Creen acted on his own initiative
or as the tool of confederate” said he had “tried today to get in touch with
members of the Prison Commission but failed to reach any of them.”
1916(17th of Tammuz, 5676): Tzom
Tammuz
1916: “As a reward for his political services,”
Abram Elkus was nominated by President Wilson to serve as United States
Ambassador to Turkey, a position that Henry Morgenthau Sr. had held until his
resignation.
1916: Committees representing the Conference of
National Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Congress Organization reached an
agreement tonight that “two committees will submit identical reports to their
organizations which, if accepted, will settle their differences and unite the
Jews of the United States in the campaign to demand full civil, religious and
political rights for their co-religionists in lands where laws discriminating
against them now exist.”
1916: “The House unanimously adopted a Senate
resolution requiring the President “to designate a day on which the citizens of
this country may give expression to their sympathy by contributing to the funds
now being raised for the relief of Armenians in the belligerent countries” – a
resolution patterned after the one adopted in January to help the Jews of
Europe.
1917: A draft
of what would become the Balfour Declaration was submitted to Lord Balfour.
1917: The
Chicago Hebrew Institute Band is scheduled to “give their initial concert of
this summer’s series this evening…on the grounds of the institute.”
1917: It was
reported today that the Joint Distribution Committee expressed regret “over the
death of Samuel I. Hyman who had been selected by the committee to visit Russia
to supervise the relief work in that country.”
1917: It was
reported today the former Abram I. Elkus, the former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey
who has recently arrived in New York has said that “the relief work for the
Jews in Turkey and Palestine was being carried on with great success” and that
“the funds collected in” the United States “were being utilized exactly as
intended by the Joint Distribution Committee.”
(Reports from Elkus stand in stark contrast to the reality of Jews being
forced to leave Palestine in such a state that many of them enlisted to fight
with the British against the Turks)
1918(9th
of Av, 5678): Tish’a B’Av
1918: After
the death of his first wife, Lena Hanles, in 1916 today, Rabbi Bernard Michael
Kaplan, the Lithuanian born son of Michael Sheftel and Feigel (Mayor) Kaplan
who had been serving as the leader of the Bush Street Temple in San Francisco
married Ray L. Steinman today.
1918: Dr.
Hyman Gerson Enelow, the Rabb who served as Chairman of the Overseas Commission
of the Jewish Welfare Board arrived in France today.
1918: Today,
Montreal native Nathan Lang enlisted in the Jewish Legion in which he served in
Palestine along with his brother before he was discharged in October 1919 after
he which moved to New York in 1925, married in 1926 and returned to his
hometown in 1935.
1918: In Lead,
SD, Ernest R. "Cap" Graham and Florence Morris gave birth to Phillip
Graham, the son-in-law of Eugene Meyer and the husband of Katherine Meyer
Graham who helped turn the Washington Post into one of the leading newspapers
in the United States. (Graham was not Jewish but his wife’s family was)
1919(20th
of Tammuz, 5679): Jacob Simon, the son of Hannah Simon and the brother of
“Hattie, May, Jennie and Sol Simon” passed away today in Chicago.
1919(20th
of Tammuz, 5679): Henrietta Cert, the wife of Henry Cerf with whom she had had
six children, passed away today in Chicago.
1919: Rabbi
Julius is scheduled to lead Friday evening services at Beth El Temple in
Chicago.
1919: Rabbi
Julius Gussfeld is scheduled to lead Friday evening services at Temple Beth
Israel on Lawrence Avenue in Chicago.
1920: In the
Bronx, “Isidore Bernstein and the former Rebecca Axelrod, Yiddish-speaking
immigrants from Eastern Europe” gave birth to Lester Bernstein “a former editor
of Newsweek magazine who also wrote
for The New York Times, was a foreign
correspondent for Time magazine and,
as a vice president of NBC in 1960, helped arrange America’s first televised
presidential debates.” (As reported by Robert D. McFadden)
1921: It was
reported today from Detroit, that after years of waiting, Bernard Schwartz,
head of the recently incorporated Bernard Schartz Cigar Corporation is about to
launch “a large national advertising and sales campaign.
1921(12th
of Tammuz, 5681): Sixty-four-year-old Annette Joseph, the London born daughter
of Henry and Rosetta Pinto, the wife of Montefiore Joseph and the “other of
Abraham Pinto Joseph; Irene Rachel Wolff; Edward Cecil Joseph; Kenneth (Kalman)
de Sola Joseph and Rosetta Joseph” passed away today in Quebec,
1921: In
Brooklyn, Solomon Goldman, a jeweler, and the former Sarah Goldstein, who had
immigrated from Russia gave birth to “Jacob E. Goldman, a physicist who as
Xerox’s chief scientist founded the company’s vaunted Palo Alto Research
Center, which invented the modern personal computer…” (As reported by John
Markoff)
1922(22nd
of Tammuz, 5682): Eighty-two year old Jacob Moser, the Danish born British
textile merchant who served as Lord May of Bradford, founded the Bradford
Reform Synagogue and was an early support of the Zionist cause passed away
today.
1922: Birthdate of American academic and
philosopher, Thomas Samuel Kuhn.
1922:
Birthdate of Abraham Joseph Chayes who followed in the footsteps of his parents
both of whom were lawyers by graduating first in his class from Harvard Law and
become a leading expert in the field of international law.
1923(5th of
Av, 5683): Quebec native Alfred Benjamin, the first vice president of the
Abernathy Furntiure Store in Kansas City who “became president of the United
Jewish Charities in 1905 and who was a member of Temple B’Nai Jehudath passed
away today
https://pendergastkc.org/article/biography/alfred-benjamin
https://kchistory.org/islandora/object/kchistory%3A115474
1923:
Birthdate of William M. Birenbaum, the product of the Waterloo, Iowa school
system who became the nationally known university administrator who helped
rescue Antioch College from looming insolvency during his tenure as president
there in the 1970s and ’80s. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1924;
Birthdate of Boris Lurie, the Russian born American artist who survived the
Holocaust and “cofounded the NO!Art movement.
1925(26th
of Tammuz, 5685): Parashat Matot-Masei
1925:
Playwright Arthur Richman, the New York City born son of Jenny Swann and
William Reichman whose works included “Not So Long Ago,” “The Awful Truth” and “A
Proud Woman” and who began serving as President of the Society of American
Dramatists in 1925” married Madeline Marshall today in London.
1925(26th
of Tammuz, 5685): Fifty-one year old “Ephraim Moses Lilien an art nouveau
illustrator and printmaker particularly noted for his art on Jewish themes who
is sometimes called the "first Zionist artist” whose works included a
photograph of Herzl taken 1901https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephraim_Moses_Lilien#/media/File:Herzl_Basel_1901.jpg and “The Queen of
Sabbath” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephraim_Moses_Lilien#/media/File:Juda_13.jpg passed away today
1925: Adolf Hitler published his personal manifesto
Mein Kampf.
1926: “The
Plastic Age” a silent film produced by B.P. Schulberg was released in New York
today by Preferred Pictures.
1927(18th
of Tammuz, 5687): Sixty year old Paul Davidson, the East Prussian born son of
Moritz Davidson, who went from being a “commercial traveler” to being a movie
producer who worked with such famous directors as Ernst Lubitsch “committed
suicide” today after UFA, the production company, had canceled his contract
earlier in the year.
1928(1st
of Av, 5688): Rosh Chodesh Av observed for the last time during the Presidency
of Calvin Coolidge.
1929: In
Brooklyn, truck driver Joseph Elfin and homemaker “Bessie (Margolis) Elfin”
gave birth to award winning journalist and “Washington bureau chief for
Newsweek” who raised one child, Dana Elfin, with his wife “Margery (Lesser)
Elfin.” (As reported by Richard Sandomir)
1930: “A
five-hour secret meeting between member of the Wailing Wall Commission and
Jewish and Moslem representatives broke down today” because of the “refusal of
the Moslesms to concede the Jews had more than the mere right to visit the
wall.”
1931 (4th
of Av, 5691): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon
1931: In
Paris, the campaign against Jewish students from Rumania studying in France
reached its climax today when “in accordance with a decision of the ministry of
education announced today, Rumanian medical students in French universities
will no longer be able to receive state certificates of doctorate. (JTA)
1932:
“Thirteen Jewish students were injured when National Democratic students attack
a Jewish student camp at Poronin near Zakopane, Poland today.”
1933:
Birthdate of Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko who broke with the standard
Soviet narrative about the Holocaust when “in1961 he wrote what would become
perhaps his most famous poem, Babiyy Yar, in which he denounced the Soviet
distortion of historical fact regarding the Nazi massacre of the Jewish
population of Kiev in September 1941, as well as the anti-Semitism still
widespread in the Soviet Union.”
1934: The
Jewish National Fund Council for Greater New York is sponsoring this evening’s
farewell dinner for Bronx dentist and JNF activist Dr. Solomon Deutsch at the
Farm Food Vegetarian Restaurant. Dr. Deutsch and his family are making Aliyah.
(As reported by JTA)
1934: In one
of several efforts by Zionist leaders to reach a compromise with the Arabs,
David Ben-Gurion and Dr. Magnes met with Auni Abdul Hadi, the leader of the
movement devoted to Palestinian Arab independence.
1934: Today,
in England, “a day after shooting had been completed on ‘The Man Who Knew Too
Much’” Peter Lorre, the Hungarian born Jewish American actor and his wife
“boarded a Cunard liner in Southhampton” so they could sail to the United
States thanks to the their newly gained “visitor’s visas.”
1934: A
lengthy article in a Nazi newspaper attacked Egyptian Jews. The Germans stated
some Jewish boys insulted the Swastika flag on the German Consul's car. The
paper stated the boys were arrested.
1935:
“Anti-Jewish outbursts occurred again tonight in Berline when howling youths
attacked customers coming out of a large Jewish ice cream plant in the northern
section of” Berlin.
1936:
“Representative William I. Sirovich conferred for an hour today with President
Miguel Gomez and presented a proposal that Cuba open her doors for at least
100,000, perhaps more, persecuted German Jews for whom American Jewry and
international humanitarians of all creeds are seeking to find permanent homes
in countries where immigration restriction do prove to be a bar.”
1936: Irving
“Reis was the creator of Columbia Workshop, the experimental anthology program
on the radio, and its initial broadcast took place” today.
1936: “At
least twenty persons were hurt in a clash between Arabs and Jews” at Rabat,
French Morocco, today.
1937(10th
of Av, 5697): Tisha B’Av observed because the 9th of Av fell on
Shabbat.
1937: Fear
gripped the hearts of Jews in Baghdad after two days of violence where “tens of
thousands of Moslems marched through the streets of Baghdad in an anti-Jewish
protest after mid-day prayer” on Friday and two Jewish merchants who had taken
refuge in their shops “were killed by a mob that been told by agitators that
the British had given control of a Moslem holy are in Jerusalem to the Jews.” (Editor’s
note – the more things change, the more they stay the same.
1937: The
funeral for “well-known writer and Zionist,’ “Dr. Abram Coralnik, the associate
editor of the Jewish Day” which has
been organized by the Jewish Writer’s Club is scheduled to take place this
morning at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society Building” followed by interment “in
the Jewish National Workers Alliance Plot at the Montefiore Cemetery in Queens.
1937: In
Złoczew, Poland Hillel Safran and Clara Hoffman gave birth to American chemist
Roald Hoffman who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1981.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1981/hoffmann-bio.html
1938: Eight
days after he passed away, Otto Eisler, the husband of Alice Eisler and the
brother of Rudolf and Paul Eisler was buried today in Vienna.
1938: “The
Cunard White Star liner Queen Mary” arrived in New York “from Southampton via
Cherbourg with 1,225 passengers among whom were 55 Jewish refugees from German
and Austria.”
1938: “The
heavy Jewish liquidations caused by ‘Aryanizations’ and the numerous
restrictions imposed on Jewish businesses, together with the sudden exclusion
of Jewish brokers from the Stock Exchange” and the anti-Jewish excesses in
Vienna which contributed to a slump in foreign trade” are two of the reasons
given for German Stock Exchanges having today suffered ‘their worst day since
Hitler came to power”
1939(2nd of Av, 5699): Seventy-eight
year old Columbia professor and founder of the American Economic Association
Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, the son of banker Joseph Seligman and Babette
Steiner and husband of Caroline Beer who earned a B.A. Ph.D. and LL.B from
Columbia University and who became the head of the faculty of economics and
sociology at his alma mater while authoring numerous works that works were
“translated into French, Italian and Japanese” including The Economic
Interpretation of History passed away today.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2143501?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edwin-Robert-Anderson-Seligman
1939: Fifty-two-year-old
Flossye Kolhman passed away after which she was buried at the Springhill Avenue
Temple Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama.
1939: Filming
of “Babes in Arms” based on the Rogers and Hart musical produced by Arthur
Freed was completed today.
1939: The
entire Jewish community of Palestine, regardless of political persuasion,
participated in a general strike aimed at protesting Colonial Secretary Malcolm
MacDonald’s announcement that Jewish immigration would be banned for the next
six month.
1940:
Birthdate of Bronx native and award-winning author on “lesbian and LGBT history
Lillian Faderman, the daughter of a single mother working in the garment
industry who has been with her “partner Phyllis Irwin for forty years and
raised her son Avrom in such a manner that he earned a Ph.D from Stanford.
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt1580333s/entire_text/
1940:Chiune
Sugihara “a Japanese diplomat who served as Vice-Consul for the Empire of Japan
in Lithuania” began issuing life-saving visas to Polish and Lithuanian Jews in
violation of instructions from his superiors.
1940:
In France, Herschel Feibel Grynszpan, the Jewish refugee who assassinated Ernst
vom Rath was delivered to SS Major Karl Bömelburg at the border of the Occupied
Zone, driven back to Paris, flown to Berlin, and locked up in the Gestapo's
headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse.
1940:
“The Boys from Syracuse,” a film “based on the 1938 stage musical by Richard
Rodgers and Lorenz Hart” and produced by Jules Levey was released today in
Syracuse, NY.
1940: The Florence Times described plans for
the arrival of Dr. Leopold Wallach from Stuttgart, Germany who will become the
Rabbi at Temple B’Nai Israel in Sheffield, Alabama
1941: “The
first news of the Eastern killings reached England through intercepted German
police messages which told of the mass shooting of ‘Jews, Jewish plunderers,
Jewish bolshevists’…in numbers ranging from a hundred to several thousand at a
time.”
1942: SS
Captain Theodor Dannecker inspected Camp Gur, the internment facility in
southwestern France and order the inmates to prepare for transportation to
Eastern Europe. Unbeknownst to them,
this meant Auschwitz.
1942: Nine
hundred Jews fled to the woods near Szarkowszczynzna as the Germans entered the
town. Six hundred of them did not make it to safety and were killed
1943(15th of Tammuz, 5703): Two hundred slave laborers are murdered
at Miedzyrzec, Poland.
1943(15th
of Tammuz, 5703): Seventy-four-year-old Max Meyer Blumenthal, M.D., the German
born son of Selig and Juliane Blumnethal and the husband of Martha Elkus died
today in the Theresienstadt Ghetto.
1943: Charles
L. Bernheimer, the Ulm, Germany, born son of “Leopold M. and Amalie (Bing)
Bernheimer”, the graduate of Thudichum’s College, Geneva, Switzerland and
American businessman whose career was capped by serving as Chairman of the
Board Bear Mill Manufacturing Company who was a leader of the “fusion movement”
in New York that led to the election of Mayor John P. Mitchell while raising
his family with the former Clara Silberman celebrated his 79th
birthday today.
1943(15th
of Tammuz, 5703): Sixty-three-year-old Leopold Einstein was murdered today at
Terezin.
1943: One
thousand Jews are deported to Auschwitz from Paris
1944(27th
of Tammuz, 5704): Eighty-year-old Caroline Bamberger Fuld, the widow of
successful merchants of Louis Frank and Felix Fuld, who used her fortune for
several philanthropic and educational endeavors including the creation of the
Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, passed away today.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9507E2DB163FEE3BBC4152DFB166838F659EDE
1944: The Jews
living on the island of Rhodes were ordered to assemble for what would become a
transport of Hungary. The community dated back to 1492, the time of the
expulsion of the Jews from Spain.
1945:
Birthdate of Canadian born, American educated political leader Stephen Mandel
who has served as Mayor of Edmonton and Minister of Health in the Government of
the Province of Alberta.
1945: In
Cortland, NY attorney Joshua J. Nasaw and Beatrice “Bea” Kaplan Nasaw, a schoolteacher,
gave birth to their oldest son historian David Nasaw, the Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Professor of
History at City University of New York.
1946:
According to The Catcher in the Rye, the novel by J.D. Salinger who was
raised as a Jew but became a follower of Zen, today “was the date that Holden
Caulfield's younger brother, Allie, died of leukemia.”
1947: The
British seized the SS Exodus carrying 4000 "illegal" immigrants. Its
defiance of the British navy and its ultimate return to Germany formed one of
the most dramatic episodes in post-war Jewish history. This was only one of
many ships seized, turned around or actually sunk as the Jews defied the
British blockade and tried to make their way to Palestine. This episode
gained additional fame because it provided the core for the famous novel and
film Exodus.
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/july/16.asp
1947: Dr.
Joshua Cohen was among those on board the SS
Exodus when it was seized by the British. “With limited medical equipment,
Cohen” had “set up impromptu clinics on every deck to care for more than 4,500
passengers, including 655 children.”
Following the seizure of the ship, After the British had seized the
ship, Cohen negotiated with the British doctors to have many of the wounded
sent by ambulance to Haifa. Following
his experience on the Exodus, Cohen returned to the UK, only to be recruited by
the British Army. He eventually returned to Israel and served for four years in
the Israeli Medical Corps. Later, he was director general of the Poriya
Hospital outside Tiberias, as well as deputy director of Rambam Hospital in
Haifa.
1947:
Mordechai (Motke) Eldar who had survived Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen
and Gunskirchen and his sisters were among the passengers on the Exodus whom
the British would forcibly ship back to Hamburg. Eldar returned to Tel Aviv a year later. He
joined the IDF where he served for thirty years reaching the rank of Colonel.
1948: The HMCS Norsyd, a flower class corvette
was re-commissioned today as the INS
Haganah
1948: On the
final day of Operation Dekel, Israeli forces take the villages Sh’ab and
Al-Birwa.
1948: Benjamin (Ben) Dunkelman, a Jewish veteran of the
Canadian Army, commanded the 7th Brigade and its supporting units
throughout Operation Dekel that came to an end today.
1948: As part
of Operating Death to the Invader, Israeli continued their offensive in the
Negev attacking Egyptian invaders at Hatta and Karatiyya. After initial Israeli
success, the Egyptians counter-attacked with tanks. An Israeli soldier named Ron Feller risked
his life in a successful effort to destroy two of the tanks using a hand held
anti-tank weapon for which he had only two rounds. He received the Hero of
Israel Citation for his bravery.
1948: A fourth and final attack by Israelis on the
fortress of Latrun failed. Latrun would
remain in the hands of Jordan’s Arab Legion until 1967.
1948: Israeli
forces take Ayin Karem ending the threatened Egyptian invasion of Jerusalem.
1948: Canadian
Benjamin "Ben" Dunkelman, who fought with The Queen’s Own Rifles
during WW II was the commander “of the 7th Brigade” Israel’s
“best-known armored brigade” during Operation Dekel which came to an end today.
1948: During the War of Independence, after ten
days of fighting (July 8- July 18), a second truce went into effect.
1948: As of today, the entire lower Galilee
from Haifa Bay to the Sea of Galilee was under Israeli control.
1948: Over the next thirty-six hours, Dr. Stanley
Levin, a volunteer surgeon from South Africa “performed 28 successive
surgeries” without stopping for a break.
1948: Today,
“at 17:30, on the last day of the summer offensive, Modi Alon led Syd Antin and
Rudy Augarten who was flying his first combat mission in Israel, from Herzliya
in three S-199s to attack an Egyptian armored column at Bir Asluj, west of
Beersheva” “where they dropped their
bombs and made three strafing runs.”
1948: Modi
Alon scored his third aerial victory today when he shot down a Royal Egyptian
Air Force Spit fired piloted by Wing Commander Said Afifi al-Janzuri. The Spitfire had been the backbone of the RAF
during the Blitz in 1940. Alon had
served in the RAF during the war but had flown the American made P-51.
1948:
Birthdate of Graham Spanier who was forced to resign as President of Penn State
University for his role in the school’s sex abuse scandal.
1949: Today
“after a five hour meeting at Mishmar hay Yarden” Israel and Syria “initialed
an armistice agreement today and agreed to sign it on” July 20.
1949: Today in
Copenhagen, Denmark an appeals court commuted the death sentence of Dr. Werner
Best, the High Commissioner for the Reich in Denmark who “was accused of having
taken the initiative in mass deportation of Danish Jews, to a sentence of five
years imprisonment.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1949/07/19/86776449.html?pageNumber=11
1950(4th
of Av, 5710): Sixty-nine-year-old Julius Levin, the husband of Etta Karesh
Levin and the father of Sidney L. Levin passed away today and was later buried
in KKBI Cemetery in Charleston, SC.
1951:The Jerusalem Post reported that
while the Knesset voted for equal rights for women, the word ba'al (the word
for husband which literally means also a master) was replaced with ish (man,
meaning husband as well). The Women's Equal Rights Bill was unanimously opposed
at the annual conference of four Israeli kadis (Moslem religious officials),
held in Jerusalem. The kadis, however, eased the divorce laws for separated
wives. Henceforth Israel's Arab women whose husbands were abroad would become
eligible to remarry, if they wished to press divorce proceedings.
1952: “Don’t
Bother to Knock” a film noir with a script by Daniel Taradash and with music by
Lionel Newman was released in the United States today.
1952(25th
of Tammuz, 5712) Sixty-seven-year-old Ben-Zion Poljakoff passed away in
Helsinki, Finland.
1953: “Doctors
completed’ the fifth attempt in the United States to ward off the crippling
effects of of polio with mass inoculations of gamma globulin, “a serum which is
made in Israel.”
1954(17th
of Tammuz, 5714): Tzom Tammuz
1955: “Governor
Harriman of New York saw from the air today the dredging operation by which
Israel is reclaiming prehistoric Hula swamp and creating a rich farm area.”
1955: It was
reported today that “a shipping agreement between Israel and the Soviet Union
which help Israel to increase trade with Moscow has been signed by the Israelis
Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.”
1957: “Silk
Stockings” a screen adaptation of George Kaufman and Abe Burrows play produced
by Arthur Freed (Arthur Grossman), featuring Peter Lorre, George Tobias and
Jules Munshin and edited by Harold F. Kress was released today in the United
States.
1957(19th
of Tammuz, 5717): Isidore Rabinowitz, the Grodno born “son of Libbie and Shimon
Rabinowitz” and the “husband of Rebecca Rosen Rabinowitz” with whom he had had
three children passed away today in Brooklyn.
1958(1st
of Av, 5718) Rosh Chodesh Av
1961(8th
of Av, 5721): Seventy-four-year-old Chaim Gutman, famous Yiddish writer and
satirist, known under his nom de plume of “Der Lebediger” who “had been a
member of the editorial staff of the Day-Morning Journal in New York since 1953”
passed away today at Miami Beach. (As reported by JTA)
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gutman-chaim
1962:
“Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man” produced by Jerry Wald “with a cast
that included by Eli Wallach, Paul Newman, Susan Strasberg and Baruch Lumet
with music by Franz Waxman” was released by 20th Century Fox in the
United States today.
1964(9th
of Av, 5724): Parashat Devarim; Shabbat Chazon; Erev Tish’a B’Av
1964(9th
of Av, 5724): Cecilia Goldman, the wife of Morris Goldman and the mother of
Samuel, Mortimer and Leslie Goldman passed away today.
1965(18th
of Tammuz, 5725): Tzom Tammuz
1967(10th
of Tammuz, 5727): Eighty-one year old “Mrs. Minnie Greenfield Cohen, the widow
the former picture editor of the New York Times, Israel Cohen, who had passed
away in 1952, died today at Kings Highway Hospital in rooklyn.
1967: Germaine
Ribière, a French Catholic member of the Resistance born in 1917 “was
recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/ribiere.asp
1969(3rd
of Av, 5729): Seventy-four-year-old Birth Control pioneer Fania Mindell passed
away today in Mexico City.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/oct/26/1916/fania-mindell-arrested-for-distributing-birth-control-material
1969: During
the War of Attrition, “Egyptian commandos attacked Israelis military
installations in the Sinai.
1969: Today, “The
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine bombed the Oxford Street store of
Marks & Spencer in London.”
1969: “The
Appointment” a psychological drama directed by Sidney Lumet was released today
in Finland.
1970: Menahem
Eini was taken prisoner when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down during the War
of Attrition.
1970(14th of
Tammuz, 5730): Shmuel Hetz was killed when his F-4E Phantom II was shot down
during the War of Attrition.
1973:
Birthdate of Christine Demter whose murder for hire was the subject of By
Persons Unknown: The Strange Death of Christine Demeter by Jewish authors
George Jonas and Barbara Amiel.
1976:The Jerusalem Post reported that during
his electoral campaign, Jimmy Carter, the US presidential candidate, announced
that he believed strongly that "Israel made enough concessions, and it was
time that Arabs made some." In Montreal, an angry walkout by most large
African nations scarred the opening of the biggest, costliest and most
controversial Olympic Games in history. The African nations pulled out after
the International Olympic Committee rejected their demand to bar New Zealand
because of its sporting links with South Africa. Taiwan also pulled out from
the Olympics after Canada ruled that it could not take part under the name of
the "Republic of China." extensive readership survey
1976: Eight
Israelis and three Palestinians were injured today when a bomb was exploded
aboard a bus in Tel Aviv today.
1977: “Israel’s
newly announced anti‐inflation program spurred organized labor today
to its first confrontation with the Government of Prime Minister Menahem Begin
since he took office last month” as “The General Federation of Labor, or
Histadrut, called on all Israeli wage earners to protest the 25 percent
increases in the prices of basic foods and fuels that the Government decided
upon as a means of draining purchasing power,”
1978: Egyptian
& Israeli officials begin 2 days of talks.
1978: John
Gunther Dean completed his service as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark,
1979:A fifteen-day conference co-sponsored
by Sarah Lawrence, the Women's Action Alliance and the Smithsonian Institution,
began on this date at Sarah Lawrence College. Intended for female leaders, it
was attended by a diverse range of participants representing 43 different
women's organizations.The institute was organized by Sarah Lawrence
professor Gerda Lerner One of the pioneers of women's history, Lerner hoped to
introduce a diverse group of varied backgrounds to the possibilities of women's
history. Lerner described the 15-day course as equivalent to a semester-long
seminar. In addition to ongoing afternoon workshops and evening cultural
events, each morning's program featured one lecture by the seminar instructors.
Joining Lerner as the principle instructors were Alice Kessler-Harris and Amy
Swerdlow, both pioneering feminists and women's historians.
1980: “The Big
Red One” a WW II combat movie directed by Samuel Fuller and filmed by
cinematographer Adam Greenberg was released in the United States today by
United Artists.
1981: “Israeli
jets today bombed a densely populated area of Beirut containing Palestinian
guerrilla headquarters and, in wide raids in southern Lebanon, knocked out
three more bridges”
1981: “Palestinian
gunners, continuing their rocket attacks on northern Israeli towns for the
third day, reportedly hit a maternity hospital in Nahariya, wounding four women
who were patients there.”
1982(27th of
Tammuz, 5742): Eighty-five-year-old “Roman Jakobson, an internationally known
authority on Slavic languages and literatures” passed away today at
Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, which was not far from his home in Cambridge, Mass. Best known as the founder of phonology, the
study of abstract properties of the sounds of speech, Dr. Jakobson was Institute
Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fields
of linguistics and philosophy and was the Samuel Hazzard Cross Professor of
Slavic Languages and Literatures and General Linguistics Emeritus at Harvard
University. He was Thomas G. Masaryk
Professor of Czechoslovak Studies at Columbia University before he joined the
Harvard faculty in 1950. Harvard called the appointment a major step in the
expansion of the university's Slavic studies. In 1957, Dr. Jakobson was invited
to join M.I.T.'s faculty, and he taught at both institutions. He retired from
Harvard in 1967 and from M.I.T. in 1970.
Dr. Jakobson could read 25 languages, and in one of his works he
analyzed poetry in 16 languages. His study of phonology was only a facet of his
work, which continued until his death. In 1981-82, he added to the list of his
publications two books and 15 articles, the last of about 500 he produced in
his lifetime. One of his last books,
''Dialogues,'' consisting of conversations between him and his wife, Krystyna
Pomorska, professor of Russian literature at M.I.T., will be published by
M.I.T. in September
1982: The
first congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies opened today at
Herford College Oxford.
1982: Neve
Daniel was established today on the site of The Cohen Farm “which had been founded
on September 6, 1935, on lands purchased from Arab residents of Bethlehem, that
were transferred to the Jewish National Fund in 1943 and which had been
abandoned during the Arab riots, and remained under Jordanian control until
1967.”
1983(8th of
Av, 5743): Erev Tish'a B'Av
1984(18th
of Tammuz, 5744): Eighty-eight-year-old Russian born English Zionist and a
member of the Rothschild family Flora Solomon who “was the mother of Peter
Benenson, the founder of Amnesty International” passed away today.
http://spartacus-educational.com/Flora_Solomon.htm
1984(18th
of Tammuz, 5744): Seventy-four-year-old Polish born, NYU graduate and holder of
a doctorate from Dropsie University Dr. Irving Abraham Argus, the husband of
the former Tema Gerber with whom he had two children – Aharon and Rachel – the “professor
emeritus of history at Yeshiva University's Bernard Revel Graduate School and
an authority on Jewish life in the Middle Ages” whose works included “Urban
Civilization in Pre-Crusade Europe, in which he held that the concept of
town government originated with Jewish communities of the 10th and 11th
centuries” and The Heroic Age of Franco-German Jewry, which traced the
contributions to Jewish cultural life of a small group of Franco-German Jews
who survived the Crusades and became the progenitors of Ashkenazic Jewry” passed
way today.
1985: James D.
Ellison, 38 years old, founder and spiritual leader of the Covenant, the Sword
and the Arm of the Lord, described by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a
survivalist, white supremacist group “ was convicted in Federal District
Court today of racketeering charges related to fires at a Jewish Community
Center in Bloomington, IN and a homosexual church and the bombing of a natural
gas pipeline.”
1986:
“Aliens,” a sci-fi film featuring Jeanette Goldstein and Paul Reiser was
released in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.
1986:
“Pirates,” an adventure comedy directed by Roman Polanski who co-authored the
script and starring Walter Matthau was released in the United States today.
1987: “A
banned Soviet film which presents a sympathetic portrait of Soviet Jews was
shown to restricted audiences at a Moscow film festival, and officials have
promised its eventual release.”
1989(15th of
Tammuz, 5749): Twenty-one-year-old model and actress Rebeca Schaeffer was
murdered by an “obsessed fan who had been stalking her for three years.”
1990(25th
of Tammuz, 5750): Seventy-two year old Johnny Wayne, the “Wayne” of the
Canadian comedy team “Wayne and Shuster” passed away today.
1992(17th
of Tammuz, 5752) Parshat Balak
1992: “British
solicitor and Labour party leader” Victor Mishcon, the Brixton born so of Rabbi
Arnold Mishcon and Quennie Mishcon completed his service as “Shadow Lord
Chancellor.”
1992(17th
of Tammuz, 5752): Eighty-four-year-old Norfolk, VA native Elsie Nusbaum
Hofheimer, the University of Pennsylvania education wife of Henry Clay
Hofheimer II with whom she had three children passed away today after which she
buried in the Jewish section of Forest Lawn Cemetery in Norfolk.
1994: George
Gershwin’s “The Man I Love which had been “recorded by Kate Bush for Larry
Adler's The Glory of Gershwin tribute album was released today as a single.”
1994(10th of
Av, 5754): In Buenos Aires a car bomb exploded outside the building housing the
AMIA, the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Israelite Mutual
Association, or AMIA) building killing 85 people and wounding more than 200
others in what remains the deadliest anti-Semitic incident anywhere since World
War II and came two years after 29 people died in a similar attack on the
Israeli Embassy in Argentina.
1995: Ehud
Barak succeeded David Libai as Interior Minister.
1995: “Three
teenagers were crushed to death by a falling gate during a farewell concert by
the popular band Mashina” at the Hebrew Music Festival in Arad.
1997(13th of
Tammuz, 5757): Sir James Goldsmith, a flamboyant British-French financier who
maintained three families, homes in four countries and used his billions to
fight the European Union, passed away today at the age of 64 after having
battled pancreatic cancer for four years.
His father was Jewish. His mother
was not. Sir James made his fortune as a highly successful corporate raider
before turning to politics. He formed his own Referendum Party in Britain with
the single mission of combatting further European integration while maintaining
a seat from France in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Although his party
polled over 800,000 votes in the British elections in May, it did not win a
single seat in the House of Commons. Born into a prosperous banking family, Sir
James went on to amass a personal fortune estimated at up to $2.5 billion.
Having frequented luxurious hotels in his youth, he briefly flirted with the
idea of working in one, but soon turned to finance, excelling in the art of taking
over troubled companies. He was a brilliant investor of his profits too and
accurately forecast the American stock market crash of 1987, turning his assets
into cash just before the market plunged. In the United States, he was best
known for his 1986 raid on the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, which became
an issue in Congressional hearings on takeovers.
1998(24th
of Tammuz, 5758): Parashat Pinchas
1998(24th
of Tammuz, 5758): Seventy-five-year-old Dr. Henry C. Zingher passed away today
“in his home in Vernon Hills.”
1999: The
New York Times reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest
to Jewish readers including “Spinoza: A Life” by Steven Nadler.
1999: In
“Lives; Pandora’s Idiot Box” published today David Rakoff described what it was
like to own his first television set.
2000: “The
United States and Germany approved a $5 billion agreement to compensate forced
laborers like him from the Nazi era.”
2001: Daniel
C. Kurtzer presented his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
2002(9th
of Av, 5762): Tish’a B’Av
2002(9th
of Av, 5762): Eighty-year-old New York born, Julliard trained violinist and WW
II veteran Seymour Solomon, who with his brother Maynard founded Vangaurd
Records, a must label for folk music lovers in the 1950’s and 1960’s passed
away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/19/arts/seymour-solomon-80-record-label-founder.html
2002(9th
of Av, 5762): Twenty-one year old Yocheved Ben-Hanan of Emmanuel died today of
wounds she suffered when a terrorist attacked Dan bus #189.
2002: Eric
Moonman, the former Laborite Member of Parliament, university professor,
Zionist leader and author of The Violent Society appeared as “a terrorism
expert” appeared for the first time “on a Channel Five Lunchtime Bulletin…after
which he appeared dozens of times on UK television.
2003: “Bad
Boys II” directed by Michael Bay, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, with a script
co-authored by Jerry Stahl and music by Trevor Rabin” was released today in the
United States by Columbia Pictures.
2004: After
101 performances at Studio 54, the curtain came down on a revival of
“Assassins,” a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
2004: At the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, the fifth and final performance of the Biblical opera "Nabucco" by Giuseppe
Verdi in which acclaimed Israeli theatre and opera director Jacobo
Kaufmann, directs and designs the scenery. He is the first Israeli
ever to be hired to direct an opera in Italy.
2004: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish
authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently
released paperback edition of “In Praise of Nepotism:: A History of Family
Enterprise From King David to George W. Bush” by Adam Bellow, the son of
novelist Saul Bellow, who succeeds in canvassing much of Western history (not
to mention Confucian and Hindu traditions) to argue that kinship is ''both
natural and necessary.''
2004:With President Néstor Kirchner looking
on, Argentine Jewish leaders today marked the 10th anniversary of a deadly
anti-Semitic attack here by delivering blistering attacks on his predecessors
and European institutions they say have blocked efforts to bring the
perpetrators to justice.
2005: The second in the three part National Geographic Special based Guns,
Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond aired tonight on PBS.
2005: Rabbi
Aaron Sherman officially assumes the pulpit at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa.
2006: The
following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died
of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers were killed in
the Israel-Hizbullah war: Andrei Zelinsky, 36, of Nahariya.
2006: In
“Hunker Down With History” published today, Richard Cohen began his column on
the Middle East by writing "The greatest mistake Israel could make at the
moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a
well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea
of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some
Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are
seeing now".
2007: The 93rd
annual national Hadassah Convention comes to an end.
2008: In Cedar
Rapids, Iowa, weather permitting, Temple Judah is scheduled to celebrate Friday
night Shabbat Services in the new Silber Family Outdoor Sanctuary.
2008: Arad
police, in a rare incident, shot dead a man threatening to kill his ex-wife
with a knife
2008: In an
article entitled “The Floods of 2008,” George C. Ford describes the impact of the
worst natural disaster in the history of Cedar Rapids on the Siegel family, who
has been prominent members of the business community for over six decades and
pillars of the Jewish community.
Sixty-eight years after
Siegel’s Jewelry & Loan opened in downtown Cedar Rapids, the business was
forced to relocate following last month’s flooding. Ken Siegel and his brother,
Jary, who operated the store at 105 Third Ave. SE, signed a lease for a vacant
store at 3525 First Ave. SE within days after learning the extent of the damage
to their business.“When we were finally allowed back into downtown to check our
business on June 16, we found the windows were broken and blackened,” Ken
Siegel said. “Looking inside the store, we saw the walls were buckled in,
display cases had been flipped upside down and torn apart and there was really
complete devastation.” Although Jary Siegel and store employees had moved
merchandise like plasma televisions and guitars from the basement to the top of
the showcases on the first floor, the floodwaters destroyed virtually
everything but jewelry stored in two safes. “All of our retail jewelry and
diamonds were stored in the safes,” Ken Siegel said. “Unfortunately, the safes
had digital locks that were shorted out by the floodwaters and we were stuck
for about a week. We looked all over the country for someone to get the safes
open until Jeremy at John’s Lock & Key in Cedar Rapids was able to get them
open.” Siegel said more than 3,000 envelopes containing diamonds and other
jewelry had to be opened by hand.“We had between 10 and 12 people cleaning
the jewelry, matching the diamonds with certificates, creating new paperwork
and cataloging each item,” he said. “We also had about 3,000 or 4,000 DVDs in
our inventory. We were able to recover about 2,000, but we had to throw away
the cases because they were submerged. “We literally lost thousands of items. I
would estimate that we lost at least $250,000 worth of merchandise.” Cy
Christenson, 92, who has repaired watches at Siegel’s since 1976, lost all of
his tools as well as “enough parts and crystals for five shops,” according to
Siegel. “We’re still recovering customers’ watches left for repair.” Siegel
said getting the business up and running was a priority.“We’re in essence like a bank, so if a
bank closes, customers get upset when they can’t get their money,” he said.
“We’re also a loan institution as well, so we had hundreds of people calling to
find out if they could get their merchandise.” Siegel said customers who pawned
merchandise other than jewelry likely will not be able to redeem their items.
“The national
pawn contract says that we’re not responsible for catastrophic events like fire
and floods,” he said. “We have insurance for everything but flooding.” Siegel
said customers who pawned merchandise usually were loaned anywhere from 50
percent to 60 percent of the value when it was pawned.“Most of the customers we have talked
with have been very understanding,” he said.Asked if the business will return to the
building it bought in 2005 after being a tenant for 65 years, Siegel does not
have an answer.“We’re trying to rescue a $500,000 investment,” he said.“We would like to go back downtown. We
love the downtown area, but we will have to see what develops over the next few
years.”
2008: In “Using Bombs
to Stave Off War” published today historian Benny Morris described what he sees
as the consequence of the military option in dealing with the Iranian nuclear
threat.
2009: Fifteenth
anniversary of the AMIA bombing attack.
The following was sent to us by an anonymous Argentine Jew whose pain
has not been dimmed by the passing of time.
The AMIA
Bombing was an attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine
Israelite Mutual Association, or AMIA) building in Buenos Aires on July 18,
1994, that killed 85 people. Carried out under Carlos Menem's presidency
(1989-1999), it was Argentina's deadliest bombing. Argentina is home to a
Jewish community of 200,000, the largest in Latin America. It was one of the
Largest Attacks against Jews after the holocaust. I'm an Argentine Jew, not
only I've lost people close to my life in this attack but our lives as Jews in
Argentina changed forever, we lost everything we had, including our voices. As
we continue to hear the silence of the international community and the lack of
care of our own community. Now isn’t it sad to read the level of ignorance that
the Jewish community worldwide has about this. I have questioned myself every
year, why? Why would people care so little about this? They attacked us for not
only being Jews but as they see us as a way to attack Israel, so at least for
that basic reason, even if you don't care about the Jews in Argentina, don't
you care about an attack towards Israel? Even if Israelis didn't die.. We died
due to that... As every year not only I ask tons of people if they know about
this day, and obviously they are totally ignorant, Do you think you might have
a little place in your heart to remind yourselves that we as well represent the
Jewish population, that 85 people died and 300 severely injured and put this
solemn day of remembrance in your little calendar... I'd say just for respect.
Just at least for respect even if you don't care....I'm the daughter of a
holocaust survivor... the same way I remember all of my family and all of the
victims of the holocaust, I as well make a very special place in my heart to
remember the AMIA and the Bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina. And we
still don't have support, and we still don't have justice, and still the world
continues to ignore our cries of help....Shame shame, shame on ignorance...
shame that people just don't care.
[Ed.
Note; We hope that by publishing this as it was written, we have in some small
way atoned for previous failure to note this tragic event in our people’s
history. Zachor – Remember and remember
we will.]
2009:
The Jerusalem Film Festival features a screening of Harlan-In the Shadow of
the Jew Suss. “
2009(26th
of Tammuz, 5769): Eighty-four-year-old Anglo-Jewish actress Jill Balcon passed away today.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/20/jill-balcon-obituary
2010:
In Bethlehem, PA, table games began today at a casino owned by Sheldon Adelson
2010:“Controlled Chaos and Brawny Braininess Watcha Clan with
Charming Hostess” are scheduled to appear on the final day of the 25th
Annual Jewish Music Festival in San Francisco.
2010: The New York Times featured reviews of
books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Where I Live:New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 by Maxine
Kumin, the Phildelphia born Jewish poet.
2010:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaves for Egypt today to
discuss with President Hosni Mubarak the possibility of launching direct
negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas is also due to meet with Mubarak in Cairo.
2010:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today said he opposes the
conversion bill proposed by Yisrael Beiteinu, which would give sole authority
over Israel's conversions to the Chief Rabbinate, saying it will "tear
apart the Jewish people."
2011:
In “Roseanne’s New Reality” published today, the aging Jewish born comedian
reveals that “every Friday night for Shabbat from sundown until 2 a.m., she
gets high, drinks red wine, and does a meditation Rav Berg taught her.”
2011:
“Egypt’s Rising Power” published today examined the career of Amr Moussa the
leading candidate to be the next President of Egypt. What his “supporters love
most “about him “is his long and vocal history of anti-Israel diatribes.” Moussa insisted that he would honor the
treaty despite his opposition to Sadat’s peace moves.
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/07/10/why-amr-moussa-is-egypt-s-presidential-frontrunner.html
2011:A 50-year-old Jewish man from the Beit Zayit suburb of
Jerusalem was arrested by police today afternoon on suspicion of being
responsible for the forest fire in Jerusalem on Sunday
2011:The Malaysian government-backed newspaper said in an
editorial that foreign Jewish groups will try to use a current push for reform
to interfere in the country.
2012:
Center for Jewish History and American Jewish Historical Society are scheduled
to present screenings of “Hester Street” and “Sweatshop Cinderella.”
2012:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to present “A
Magical Eve with James Conlon” during which the Music Director of the Ravinia
Festival and Executive Director of the OREL Foundation. Maestro Conlon will
share insights about his "Breaking the Silence" series featuring
music from composers whose work had been silenced by the Nazis. Musical
accompaniment will be provided by Janai Brugger and Miah Im
2012:
One year from today, on July 18, 2013, the Maccabiah Games are scheduled to
open in Jerusalem
2012:
In New Orleans, a three-week program of continuing education styled “The World
of Fiddler on the Roof” is scheduled to begin tonight with “Marc Chagall’s
World.”
2012(28th
of Tammuz, 5772): One hundred two year old Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv passed
away today. (As reported by Matti Friedman)
2012(28th
of Tammuz, 5772).Seven people were killed and 32 injured when a bomb exploded
on an Israeli tourist bus at the airport of the Bulgarian city of Burgas today,
the 18th anniversary of the Iran-sponsored attack on the AMIA Jewish center in
Buenos Aires, Argentina. Six of the victims died on the spot, and the seventh
in the hospital following the attack, Bulgarian officials confirmed. Two of the
victims were said to be Bulgarian -- the bus driver and tour guide.(As reported
by Yaakov Katz, Herb Keinon, Yaakov Lappin)
2012:
Seven people have been killed, and 30 injured — including three critically — by
a bomb that exploded on a bus carrying an Israeli tour group from its plane to
the terminal inside Bulgaria’s Bourgas airport this evening.
2013:
In Waukee, Iowa is scheduled to sponsor “Keeping The Homeland Safe: Israel and
Iowa Together” featuring Sheriffs Paul A. Fitzgerald, Ted Kamatchus and Bill
McCarthy.
2013:
The Maccabiah Games are scheduled to officially open this evening at Teddy
Stadium in Jerusalem.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/higher-faster-stronger-jewishly/
http://www.timesofisrael.com/history-in-the-making-at-the-19th-maccabiah-games/
2013:
The late André Tchaikowsky's opera The Merchant of Venice is scheduled to be
premiered at the Bregenz Festival,[
2013:
In New Orleans, “The World of Fiddler on the Roof” a three part program
sponsored by Reform Congregation Gates of Prayer and Orthodox Congregation Beth
Israel is scheduled to begin this evening with “Marc Chagall’s World.” For more see Crescent City Jewish News the place to go for news about the Jewish
community of Greater New Orleans
2013:
A U.S. State Department official said today there are no plans to announce a
resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks after the Israeli government
denied that it agreed to base new talks on the 1967 lines. (As reported by
Lazar Berman)
2013:
The Israeli Antiquities Authority issued a press release announcing the
“discovery” of archaeological remains identified as King David’s Palace.
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/king-david%E2%80%99s-palace-at-khirbet-qeiyafa/
2013:
The 19th quadrennial Maccabiah Games started in grand fashion at Teddy Kollek
Stadium tonight, bolstered by tens of thousands of enthusiastic spectators, and
more than 9,000 of the most talented Jewish athletes in the world. (As reported
by Daniel K. Eisenbud)
http://www.jpost.com/Sports/Worlds-largest-Jewish-sporting-event-kicks-off-in-Jerusalem-320350
2014: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to a host the “6th Street Minyan”
followed by ice cream, challah and wine.
2014: As of this morning, Israeli
time, the IDF has begun a limited incursion into Gaza designed to destroy a
series of tunnels and other terrorist infrastructure.
2014(20th of Tammuz,
5774): At 3:00 A.M. “First Sargent Eitan Barak, a 20-year-old fighter from
Herzliya in the Nahal Brigade, was mortally wounded in north Gaza” as the IDF
sought to put an end to the terrorist threat.
2014: “A second, massive volley of
rockets was aimed at central Israel from the Gaza Strip just after 9pm this
evening, even as IDF ground grounds operated in the Gaza Strip in a bid to stem
the attacks. At least two rockets were reportedly intercepted in the Tel Aviv
area. (As reported by Ilana Curiel)
2014: Following yesterday’s
attempted infiltration of Israel by 13 terrorists through an underground
tunnel, the Israeli military said it had already uncovered 10 tunnels with 22
exit points and that there were “dozens” more “terror tunnels” spread around
Gaza. (As reported by Isabel Kershner)
2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled
to host an “end of season” “Double Concerti” featuring the works of Bach and
Vivaldi.
2015: Israeli-born jazz guitarist Gilad
Hekselman is scheduled to perform at the Cornelia Street Café in NYC.
2015: “Songs from the Second Floor” and “42nd
Street” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
2015: In Amherst, MA, at the Yiddish Book
CenterTrombonist/keyboardist Brian Bender of the Yiddishkeit Klezmer Ensemble,
Little Shop of Horas, and the Wholesale Klezmer Band is scheduled to lead an
instrumental workshop for aspiring teen and adult klezmer musicians as part of
Yidstock.
2016(12th of Tammuz, 5776):
Sixty-nine year old Uri Coronel, “the chairman of the Israelite Portuguese
Community of the Netherlands” died today “after he collapsed at gym while
exercising. (JTA)2016(12th of Tammuz, 5776): In Israel, 89 year old psychologist Blome
Evers, the survivor of Auschwitz known as “the unofficial queen of Jewish
Amsterdam” and the mother of six including Rabbi Raphael Evers passed away
today. (JTA)
2016: “War Paint,” a “musical that focuses on
the lives of and rivalry between 20th-century female entrepreneurs Elizabeth
Arden and Helena Rubinstein” opened today at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.
2016: The Republican National Convention is
scheduled to open in Cleveland without attendance by Republican Jewish fund
raisers including Charlie Spies and Yitz Applebaum, Bush administration alumni
Noam Neusner, Tevi Troy and Jay Zeidman and Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, the highly
regarded Orthodox rabbi in New York who oversaw Ivanka Trump's conversion to
Judaism but who changed his mind about
accepting the opportunity to lead a prayer when he came to the conclusion that
the appearance would be divisive and run counter to his goal of community
unity.
2017: Today “during a press conference in the
Hungarian parliament following meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu,
Prime Minister Viktor Orban expressed regret that his country had neglected to
protect its Jewish citizens during the Holocaust” saying that “at an earlier
time, the government of Hungary made a mistake, moreover, committed a sin when
it did not protect its citizens of Jewish heritage…”
2017: Today, Deadline reported that “On the
Basis of Sex,” a biopic about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that Felicity Jones
would play the Justice and Mimi Leader would be the director.
2017(24th of Tammuz, 5777): Eighty-nine-year-old
Herbert Needleman, the doctor who was the driving force behind removing lead
contamination from the world of children, passed away today, (As reported by
Benedict Carey)
2017: Today “Britain’s Prince William and his
wife Kate visited the site of a former Nazi concentration camp at Stutthof in
Poland, where they met with two British survivors of the facility where 28,000
Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.”
2017: The 20th Maccabiah Games are
scheduled to come to an end today.
2017: “God’s Own Country” and “On the Beach at
Night Alone” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
2017: In London, JW3 is scheduled host a film
starring Richard Gere “as a relentless Jewish-American macher.”
2018(6th of Av, 5778): Eighty-seven
year old Nobel Prize for Physics winner Burton Richter, the Brooklyn born son
of textile worker Abraham Richter and “Fanny (Pollack) Richter” and the father
of Elizabeth and Matthew Richter whom he raised with his wife Laurose passed
away today. (As reported by Kenneth Chang)
2018: Today pitcher
Dean Kremer “the first Israel drafted by a Major League Baseball team” was
traded to the Baltimore Orioles after which “he was assigned to the Bowie
Baysox of the Double-A Eastern League.”
2018: YIVO is scheduled to present “The Essence
of Yiddish Theatre, a theatrical introduction to Yiddish language and Yiddish
theatre.”
2018: In Cedar Rapids, IA, the Hadassah Book
Club is scheduled to discuss Survivors Club: The True Story of a Very Young
Prisoner of Auschwitz by Michael Bornstein and Debbie Bornstein Holinstat
2018: “Batsheva – The Young Ensemble is
scheduled to perform Ohad Naharin's Bessie Award-winning dance, Naharin's
Virus” at The Joyce Theatre in New York City.
2018: “Odd Mom Out's Jill Kargman and the
Unorthodox podcast hosts” are scheduled to “screen a new short film about the
persistence of the "JAP" (Jewish American Princess) stereotype” followed by “a discussion with guests
including Tovah Feldshuh, Judith Rosenbaum and Bat Sheva Marcus” at the Marlene Meyerson JCC
in Manhattan.
2019: Twenty-fifth anniversary of the AMIA bombing attack.
2019: The YIVO
Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a lecture in Yiddish by
Daniel Soyer, a “professor of history and Jewish studies at Fordham University”
on “Yiddish New York.”
2019: In London, JW3
is scheduled to host the final screen of “The Matchmaker” directed by Avi
Nesher and “Why the Jews” directed by John Curtin.
2019: In Palo Alto,
CA, the Oshman Family JCC is scheduled to host “The Code” during which
“Margaret O’Mara talks about her new book, subtitled Silicon Valley and the
Remaking of America, with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Kornblut”
2019: “Judge Richard
Berman”…is scheduled “to issue a ruled whether to grant Jeffrey Epstein bail”
today.
2019: The San
Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to open this evening with a
screening “A Miracle of Miracles,” the documentary that “tells the story behind
Broadway musical "Fiddler on The Roof" and its creative roots in
early 1960s New York” and “includes interviews with the Broadway show’s Tony
and Pulitzer Prize-winning lyricist Sheldon Harnick, legendary producer Hal
Prince, original cast members, such as Austin Pendleton, as well as rare
archival footage of choreographer Jerome Robbins.”
2020(26th
of Tammuz, 5780): Parashat Matot-Masay;
2020: Day 3 of the four-day Cinegogue Summer
Days film festival is scheduled to including 2020 documentary “They Ain’t Ready
for Me” about a Black rabbinical student in Chicago, followed by Q&A
including the film’s subject, a 2020 documentary “Michael Tilson Thomas: Where
Now Is” followed by a Q&A with Tilson Thomas and producer Peter Stein and
1919 silent film about a Jewish girl falling in love with a non-Jewish boy,
“Broken Barriers,” with Sascha Jacobson Quartet performing a newly composed score
live online.
2020: In Pepper Pike, OH, B’nai Jershurun
Congregation is scheduled to host via Zoom “Starbucks, Bread and Torah Online.”
2020: The Boston Workers Circle is scheduled to
present online a “Discussion on Shimon Dzigan” during which “Miriam Isaacs she
talks about her current project translating the works of the beloved Yiddish
comedian Shimon Dzigan”
2020: Israelis are scheduled to observe Shabbat
with a series of new restrictions in response to the spike in Coronavirus cases
which mean “people will be allowed to leave their homes this weekend but malls,
shops, pools, zoos and museums would shut from Friday afternoon until Sunday
morning…”(YNET)
2021(9th of Av, 5781): Tish’A B’Av;
2021: In Palo Alto, CA, the Oshman Family JCC
is scheduled to host an “in-person gathering on Tisha B'Av to mourn the
destruction of the temples in Jerusalem and reflect on our world as the
pandemic eases that includes singing, chanting, guided meditation and poetry.”
2021: The New York Times features
reviews of books by Jewish authors or of special interest to Jewish readers
including the recently released paperback edition of The Bohemians: The
Lovers Who Led Germany’s Resistance Against the Nazis by Norman Ohler.
2021: In Atlanta, at the Bremen Museum, Rabbi
Joe Prass, director of the Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education will be
giving tours of the Holocaust Gallery.
2021: The London School of Jewish Studies is
scheduled to host Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz who will be leading a special
virtual tour to help deepen our understanding of this fast, and bring to life
the people who lived through the destruction of the second Temple” which will
include virtual visits to the British Museum, Pergamon Museum and Bible Lands
Museum in order to recreate this lost world and see the human side of this
seismic event.”
2021: Urban Adamah is scheduled to host a
virtual “Tish’a B’Av Meditation retreat with “spiritual leaders Norman Fischer
and Rabba Dorothy Richman who will discuss and lead Jewish meditation, prayer
and learning on the day marking the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem.
2022: The Americans and the Holocaust traveling
exhibition is scheduled to open at The Americans and the Holocaust traveling
exhibition is scheduled to open at Marshalltown Public Library (Marshalltown,
IA),University Libraries, Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA) and Bismarck Veterans
Memorial Public Library (Bismarck, ND).
2022: Lockdown University is scheduled to host
a webinar with Jason Greenblatt lecturing on “Understanding’s Today Changed
Middle East.
2023: The Construction of the Tabernacle
by Ephraim Epstein, which provides “a detailed study of the construction of the
Tabernacle, the portable sanctuary used by the Israelites during their exodus
from Egypt. Drawing on biblical and archaeological sources” was published toda.
2023: The Summer Institute on “Teaching the
Holocaust” sponsored by the Iowa Jewish Historical Society is
scheduled to continue for a second day.
2023: Lockdown University is scheduled to host
a lecture by Jeremy Rosen on “The Jew Bill of 1753.”
2023: The Ackman and Ziff Family Genealogy
Institute is scheduled to present “In the Shadow of Auschwitz: How JCC Krakow
is Rebuilding Jewish Life in Poland and Supporting Ukrainian Refugees.”
2023: The Winter Family which occupies a
special place in the French and Israeli artistic scene is scheduled to appear
at the Sultan Room in Brooklyn.
2023: In New Orleans, the National Council of
Jewish Women is scheduled to hold its board meeting.
2023: YIVO is scheduled to present a lecture by
Dr. Avi Blitz “the ‘Tsenerene,’ the most
popular Yiddish book in history.”
2023: Lockdown University is scheduled to host
a lecture by Trudy Gold on “Israel Zangwill, the ‘Jewish Dicken’ and the
Kilburn Wanderers.
2024: YIVO is scheduled to present a lecture in
Yiddish by Marion Aprtoot on “Isaac Wetzlar’s Call for Reform of Jewish Society
and Education.”
2024: The Museum at Eldridge Street’s “Senior
Manager for Education and Accessibility, Scott Brevda—historian, museum
educator, and Senior Manager for Education and Accessibility at the Museum at
Eldridge Street— is scheduled to present a special verbal description tour of the
Synagogue's stained-glass windows and explore their role in one of the most
historic synagogues in the United States.
2024: The final screening of “June Zero,” for
which Jake Paltrow and acclaimed Israel filmmaker Tom Shoval co-wrote the
script for this film, which takes place in 1961 Israel and unfolds the story of
Eichman's trial from three very unexpected points of view.
2024: Those touring Poland with David Bernstein
and Jeffrey Saks are scheduled to “take a short walk to the restored
18th-century shul and add their voices to the centuries of Lancut Jews who
prayed there” followed by a “drive to Tarnow, a city that was 50% Jewish before
the war, for a walking tour including a Bima that remains from the Alta Shul,
built in the 1600s.
2024: The National Library of Israel is
scheduled to host lecture by Profess Liora Halperin on “In Search of the 'Bnei
ha-Yishuv': Excavating Forgotten Pasts in the David Tidhar Archive.”
2024: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is
scheduled to open with a screening of “Shari & Lamb Chop,” a documentary
about the late ventriloquist Shari Lewis and her sheep sock puppet.
2024: Muskha Cohen from Chabad New Orleans is
scheduled to lead “a women's centered discussion centered around a fusion of
the physical and spiritual realms of Judaism.”
2024:Lockdown University is scheduled to host a
lecture by David Herman on “A.B. Yehoshua and the Generation of the State.”
2024: On the anniversary of King Edward’s
decree expelling the Jews from England, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of
“All The King’s Jews” which was a “BBC program, produced and aired in 1990, that
explores the events that led to the Jews’ banishment as well as England’s
little-discussed contribution to the invention of antisemitism as we know it
today: it is, after all, the place where Jews were first falsely accused of
ritual killings of Christian boys, and from which they were eventually
methodically deported.”
2024: As part of Goodness Week, the family of
hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin is commissioning the writing of a new Torah that
will being with a procession that is scheduled to begin at the Bnei Baka branch
and end at the Baka Community Center.
2024: In Coralville, Agudas Achim’s Synagogue
Seniors is schedule to host a lecture by Tom Gelman on “Common Misconceptions
of Estate Planning.”
2024: As July 18th begins in Israel, an
unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism that has included Hamas supporters calling
for Zionist passengers on a New York subway to raise their hands, sweeps the
United States and the Hamas held hostages begin day 286 in captivity. (Editor’s note: this situation is too fluid
for this blog to cover so we are just providing a snapshot as of the posting at
midnight Israeli time.)