August 8
117 C.E.: Hadrian named Emperor of the Roman Empire . He is remembered as the man who accepted the limits of the Roman empire, as can be seen by the construction of Hadrian’s Wall in what is today Great Britain. It was designed to keep the barbarians out of the empire and was viewed as the greatest engineering feat of the Roman legions. Hadrian was also seen as a man of culture who a devotee of Greek learning. Jews remember him as the man who brought on Bar Kochba’s Rebellion. At the end of this extended but ultimately failed clash of arms. Hadrian made war on Judaism itself. He sought to build a temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount
1356: The King of Aragon sent his Jewish physician to tend to the wounds of a Muslim who was fighting in the king’s army.
1391:In Barcelona, the citadel where many of the Jews had gone for protection was stormed, by the mob and more than 300 Jews were murdered, among the slain being the only son of Hasdai Crescas.
1488: Makre Dardeke (Teach of Young Children) was published for the first time in Naples Italy by Joseph Ashkenazi. This Judaic glossary was trilingual: Hebrew, Arabic and Italian. [For more see “A history and guide to Judaic dictionaries and concordances, Volume 3, Part 1” by Shimeon Brisman]
1541: The Jews of Great Poland were authorized by King Sigismund to elect a chief Rabbi
1588: In the war between England and Spain, the Battle of Gravelines comes to an end. Conventional commentators see it as turning point in history because it marked the end of the Spanish Armada's attempt to invade England. Any defeat suffered by Spain, the land of the Inquisition had to be seen as a plus from the Jewish point of view. More specifically, the end of the Battle of Gravelines meant that the Spanish Armada could not support the landing of Spanish troops in the Netherlands. Part of the mission of the Armada was to provide support for Spanish forces fighting to impose Catholic rule on the Protestant Dutch. The Spanish were determined to bring the Inquisition to the Netherlands to punish the heresy of the Protestants and would of course have doomed the future for the Sephardic Jews who had already settled in Holland or would be settling there. If the Spanish had been successful at Gravelines, the 23 Jews who would sail into New Amsterdam would have found a Catholic government that would have not provided them aid, shelter and a New World in which to settle. It is not too great a stretch to say that a line can be drawn from Drake’s victory over the Armada at Gravelines to the founding of the Jewish Community in America. As we have said many times in our studies in Cedar Rapids, you must understand history to understand Jewish history and seeing history through the Jewish prism is not the same as seeing history in its general form.
1654: Jacob Barsimson sailed for New Amsterdam from Holland aboard the Peartree and landed on August 22. Some consider him to be the the first Jewish immigrant to travel to what is now New York City. Other dates have been giving for this sailing. Regardless, the official date of the start of the Jewish community comes later in 1654 when 23 Portuguese Jews landed in New Amsterdam .
1655: The Russians captured Vilna. As part of the peace settlement between Chmielnicki and Czar Alexis, the east bank of the Dnieper became part of the kingdom of Moscow
1670: After Leopold I evicted the Jews from Vienna
1765(21st of Av, 5525): Elkalah Myers Cohen, the first wife of Myer Myers died at the age of thirty, leaving him three sons and two daughters.
1804: Birthdate of Dr. Gedelia Daniel Rudolph Warburg.
1809: A group of 70 people led by the followers of the Vilna Gaon arrived in Eretz Yisrael.
1817: Frederick VI granted Hartvig Philip Ree “the right to build a sugar refinery at Aarhus.”
1820: Birthdate of composer and conductor Jules Stern the native of Breslau “who established his reputation” when he conducted the first performance of Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah” in 1847
1829: In Paris, Lucinde Paradol and Léon Halévy the son of the writer and chazzan Élie Halévy gave birth to journalist Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol
1846: Second and concluding day of the dedicatory services for the Eagle Street Synagogue in Cleveland, Ohio.
1849: Birthdate of Henri Cordier, the native of New Orleans who grew up in France and eventually became President of the Société de Géographie
1850(30th of Av, 5610): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1854:The New York Times reported that all of the people of Jamaica, regardless of religious persuasion, have responded sympathetically to the plight of the Jews living in Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine. They have raised $2,000 to help alleviate their suffering which includes the effects of a famine brought on by an outbreak of “pestilence” and skyrocketing food prices. The suffering of the Jewish communities is blamed on Czar Nicholas who has prevented the Jews from receiving financial aid usually sent from Russia.
1868: Baron James Mayer Rothschild purchased a Chateau for 4.4 million francs. The estate became Château Lafite Rothschild. However, Baron James, died just three months after purchasing Lafite and the estate became the joint property of his three sons: Alphonse, Gustave, and Edmond.
1871: The Court of Special Sessions in New York, Judge Shandley presiding heard an usual case today. Mr. Robert Thomas, a member of the Alanson Methodist Episcopal Church complained that a Jew named Nathan Koyofski was disturbing their Sabbath (Sunday) Services with noise made by his sewing machine. Koyofski lives in a tenement adjoining the building housing the church. Requests from church members that he stop his work had proven fruitless so they were forced to take legal action. Koyofski ‘s lawyer contended that any attempt by the state to dictate which days were for work and which were for worship “would be an infringement of fundamental American principles…” Shandley found Koyofski guilty of violating the law that stated “explicitly that no one should willfully disturb religious worship, of whatever nature it might be…” If anybody disrobed the Jews on Saturday, they would have an equal righ to complain. The Judge suspended the sentence. But he warned Koyofski that if he were brought before him again on a similar charge, he would have to go to jail.
1873: Louis and Lillian (Wolff) Seligsberg gave birth to Alice Lillie Seligsberg a social worker and Zionist who helped to found Hadassah.
1878(9th of Av, 5638):Tish'a B'Av
1879: A major fire has destroyed much of Sarajevo today including the city’s Jewish quarter.
1881(13th of Av, 5641): Just 6 days before his 52nd birthday Jules Moch a Colonel of the 130th Regiment in the French Army, the father of Gaston Moch and the grandfather of Jules S. Moch passed away.
1882: “Discontented Russian Jews” published today provided the reasons for the angry outbursts that had taken place yesterday at the offices of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society. After having been subject to indignities in various European cities as they made their way to the United States, several of the Jews felt betrayed when they found out that they would not be receiving 160 acres and enough financial support to begin life as farmers. At the same time, their lack of language skills has made them feel they will never be able to earn a living and some are so frustrated that they want to return to Russia.
1882: The Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society was reported to be sending groups of Russian immigrants to agricultural communities near Hartford, CT and Vineland, CO on a daily basis. The society is planning on sending 25 men to South Orange, NJ next week so that they can start a new colony.(The unprecedented mass migration of Eastern European Jews was already overwhelming available resources in the first of its four decades)
1883: It was reported today that the dinner provided at the recently held conference of Jewish congregations in Cincinnati was a violation of Jewish dietary laws since included Little Neck clams, soft shell crabs and shrimp salad. In response to reports that some “of the conservative congregations would withdraw from the union,” Rabbi Wise disavowed responsibility for the menu since it was paid for by private individuals who could spend their money as they please. Besides, the rabbi said that “the American Hebrews’ religion does not center in the kitchen or the stomach.”
1883: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Budapest following the acquittal of Jews charged with the ritual murder of Esther Solymose
1884: It was reported today that “The Woskhod, the Hebrew journal, has received a warning from the authorities for violating the press laws.” (This must be a reference to Voskhod, a monthly founded by Adolph Landau in 1881.
1885: “The Four Great Moses” published today identifies the leading Jews with that name – Moses of Biblical fame, Moses Ben Maimon (Maimonides), Moses Mendelssohn and Moses Montefiore, who “put into practice the teachings of his three great predcessors…”
1886(7th of Av, 5646): Gedaliah Tiktin the son Solomon Tiktin whom he succeded as the rabbi in Breslau and who received the Order of the Red Eagle for his services rendered during the Franco-Prussian War passed away today.
1887 A payment of $1, 097.23 was made to Leopold Feiss today by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
1887: A payment of $157.57 was made to A.J. Friedlander to by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
1888(1stof Elul, 5648): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1889: The funeral of Isaac Phillips is scheduled to take place today at his home in New York City.
1889: The United States Deputy Marshall said that “Simon Baruch, a Spanish Jews accused of stealing approximately $150,000 while in Austria arrived at New York aboard the SS Harmmonia.
1890:N.J. Arbeely was appointed to serve as an interpreter at the Barge Office (the major entry point for immigrants in New York) based on his fluency in several foreign languages which includes Hebrew.
1890: A squad of police moved through an a area bounded by Hester, Essex, Division, Orchard and Norfolk streets arresting fifty immigrants, including a number of Jews for violating city ordinances concerning pushcarts, stands and other commercial conveyances that blocked the streets.
1890: The will of the late Alexander Bach was filed for probate today.
1890: Mendel Feldstein saw two men, one of whom was Jacob Rohnewitch bury$90 worth of jewelry that they had stolen from Israel Simovitch.
1891:Birthdate of German violinist Adolf Busch. Busch was not Jewish. But early on, he saw the dangers of the rise of Hitler and moved to Switzerland. When WW II he moved to the United States where he continued his career until his death in 1952.
1891: “No Swindle Like This One” published today described commercial co operations engineered by Steve Ryan of Atlanta, Ga most of whose 400 victims are Jewish merchants from several locations in the United States.
1892: Birthdate of Solomon Bennett Freehof “a prominent Reform rabbi, posek, and scholar. A native of London, he moved to the U.S. in 1903, received a degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1914 and was ordained by Hebrew Union College in 1915. He was a World War I army chaplain, a liturgy professor at HUC, and a rabbi at Chicago's Congregation Kehillath Anshe Maarav before moving to Pittsburgh.” Rabbi Freehof served as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Beginning in 1955, he led the CCAR's work on Jewish law through its responsa committee. He also spearheaded changes to Reform liturgy with revisions to the Union Prayer Book. For many years, he served as the pulpit rabbi at Rodef Shalom in Pittsburgh, PA.” According to the congregation, "For more than 35 years, Dr. Freehof's weekly book review series attracted audiences of more than 1,500 Christians and Jews." He retired in 1966 and passed away in 1990. He was a descendant of the Alter Rebbe.
1893: Reverend Herman P. Faust of the Hebrew Christian Mission accused the United Hebrew Charities of refusing to give needy Jews. He specifically cited the case of Joseph Korman, a Russian Jew whom he said had been denied aid and when he died it was left to his group to pay for the burial and provided for his widow and orphans (more to come tomorrow)
1897: “From Cactus Aristocracy” published today described society in Los Angeles where “the big fortunes are held …by three classes: “the native ranch interest;” “the lumber dealers;” and “the Jews.” “The Jews…are socially conspicuous but less obtrusive than either of the other two.”
1897: It was reported today that Herr von Diest’s pamphlet that accuses Bismarck of “gaining wealth by questionable methods” will delight the anti-Semites because of its attacks on the Rothschilds and Gerson von Bleichröder, the Jewish banker who handled financial matters for the Chancellor and Prussia.
1898(20th of Av, 5658) Sixty-seven year old Adolph Sutro, the first Jewish mayor of San Francisco who made his fortune in the Comstock Lode passed away today.
1899 Israel Zangwill is scheduled to return to New York today after visiting with Judge Meyer Sulzberger in Philadelphia.
1899: Funeral services for Myer Stern were held in the Temple Emanu-El today forenoon, and many men prominent in business and fraternal circles were present. Rabbi Gustav Gottheil and his assistant, Dr. Joseph Silverman, officiated. In an earnest eulogy Rabbi Gottheil spoke of Mr. Stern's philanthropic character, and of his activities in various organizations. In his brief eulogy Rabbi Silverman said “Myer Stern made the world better for being here. He catered neither to the great nor the strong but follolowed where the principles of truth, right and justice led.” Mr. Stern was the author of The Rise and Progress of Reform Judaism : Embracing a History Made from the Offical Records of Temple Emanu-El of New York, with a Description of Salem.
1900: In Dresden, Rosa Philippine (née Blum) and Ignatz Siodmak gave birth to German American director Robert Siodmak.
1903: DorothyLevitt drove the Napier motor-boat at Cowes and won the race
1905: In Ashland, VA, Martha and William E. Dodd, FDR’s first Ambassador to Nazi Germany gave birth to William Dodd, Jr. The younger Dodd accompanied his father to the posting in Berlin and became an ardent anti-Fascist at a time when famous Americans like Lindbergh were cozying up to Hitler. Unfortunately, like many of his political persuasion he became a victim of the Right Wing Ant-Communist this college professor with a PhD ended his days as a clerk at Macy’s. Whatever their views before they came to Berlin Ambassador Dodd and both of his children saw the danger of the Nazis and tried to warn America about it.
1908: Birthdate of Arthur J. Goldberg. Son of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine
1909: First Jewish community organization is founded in Santiago, Chile – Sociedad Unon Israelita de Chile. At the same in Argentinia, a group of Jewish students founded Juventud Israelita Argentina which produce a journal entitled Juventud, which became a favorite among Argentinian Jewish intellectuals.
1910: Birthdate of actress Sylvia Sydney. Born Sylvia Kosow to Russian Jewish immigrants, Sydney Hollywood Paramount
1911:During the 62nd Congress Public Law 62-5 sets the number of representatives in the United States House of Representatives at 435. There were 5 Jews serving in the House during the 62nd Congress including, Jefferson Levy, Julius Kahn, Victor Berg, Henry Goldfogle, Adolph Sabath. By contrast, the 111th Congress (the session meeting in 2010) there were 31 Jews serving in the House of Representatives; 30 Democrats and one Republican.
1911: Moses Gaster, the Romanian born Jewish scholar who was Chief Rabbiof the Sephardic communities in England
1914: German industrialist Walter Rathenau went to see the Head of the General War Department in Berlin to offer his support to the war effort. “Rathenau proposed to ‘save Germany Germany
1918(30thof Av, 5678): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1918: Australian troops under General John Monash spear headed the successful attack of the British army at the Battle of Amiens. Amiens was the opening round in the great allied offensive that would force the surrender of the German Army. Monash’s key role would be recognized when he was made Knight Commandeer of the Order of the Bath by King George V. Monash was the highest ranking Allied officer on the Western Front. His revolutionary tactics that enabled the breakthrough would be the basis the armored warfare during World War II.
1919: Birthdate of Murrey Marder, the crusading journalist who was the first to expose the tissues of lies created by Joe McCarthy during the Anti-Communist witch hunt – a smear campaign that the Right continues to in the second decade of the 21st century.
1920: Birthdate of Bernard Schoenbaum, the son of Jewish immigrants, “who in hundreds of cartoons in The New Yorker needled the relatively affluent, the media-conscious, the irony-besotted and the socially competitive.”
1920: Establishment of Gdud HaAvoda VeHaHaganah al shem Yosef Trumpeldor a “socialist Zionist work group also known as Gdud Ha’Avoda that its name from Joseph Trumpeldor, the one-armed Russian soldier who died defend Tel Hai from attacks from the Arabs.
1921: In Manhattan actress Lillian Bonner and movie producer Ephraim Asher gave birth to “William Asher, a producer, director and screenwriter in the early days of television who directed some two dozen shows — most notably “Bewitched,” which starred his wife, Elizabeth Montgomery, and more than 100 episodes of “I Love Lucy” (As reported by Denise Grady)
1922:Birthdate of Gertrude Himmelfarb, who has made her career as an intellectual historian and has perhaps made her larger mark on the world as a conservative public intellectual. “Raised in Brooklyn , Himmelfarb earned her B.A. from Brooklyn College University of Chicago Chicago Atlantic . As she wrote about Acton America Wilson Graduate Center
1922: Birthdate of Rudi Gernreich. Born into an Austrian-Jewish family, Rudi arrived in America
1922: Birthdate of Dr. Leon Eisenberg, who “conducted some of the first rigorous studies of autism, attention deficit disorder and learning delays and became a prominent advocate for children struggling with disabilities.” (As reported by Benedict Carey)
1923: Samuel J. Bloomingdale, the President of Bloomindale Bros. hosted a luncheon at his office today during which Francis Leffler announced the completion of plans to raise funds from the manufacturers in the house furnishing trades that will help erase the $500,000 deficit in the budget of the New York Federation that supports the Jewish Philanthropic Societies. (As reported by JTA)
1924:Plutario Elias Calles, President-elect of Mexico, spent a few hours in Atlantic City today for the so he could meet with Jewish labor leader Samuel Gompers and the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, which is in session here at the Ambassador Hotel.
1925: In one of their largest rallies ever, 40,000 Ku Klux Klansmen marched down Pennsylvania Avenue Washington , D.C. Illinois Indiana Ohio
1926:Hundreds of residents of the Jewish quarter of Paris assembled at the Garenord station at 11 o'clock tonight to greet the poet Chaim Nachman Bialiak with shouts of "Heidad!", and the singing of Hatikvah on his visit to the French capital after “the conclusion of the Zionist Actions Committee in London.” (JTA)
1929: “On the ground that Alfred Dreyfus, a write and sculptor, has been committed to a sanitarium as insane although he is of sound mind, an application was made” today “to Supreme Court Justice Frankenthaler for an order directing that the question of his sanity be determined by a jury. Dreyfus had been committed to a mental institution more than a year ago by his brother Walter Ludwig Drefyus.
1931: Birthdate of Joshua Matza Israeli political figure and “president and CEO of State of Israel Bonds, a global enterprise that generates more than $1 billion in annual sales. Israel utilizes the funds for economic development projects. Matza was recommended for the post in 2002 by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and then-Finance Minister Silvan Shalom. Matza served 18 years in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, as a member of the Likud party. He was a cabinet minister in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, holding the portfolio of minister of health. Matza also served 20 years on the Jerusalem City Council, 10 of which were in the capacity of deputy mayor.”
1931:The Arab National Association adopts a resolution indicating that the Arabs do not intend to obey the government's orders to cease agitation against sealed armories and will continue to defy the British government in Palestine
1933: Dr. Daniel Mulvihill, a New Yorker visiting Berlin “was assaulted by a German citizen…apparently because he had failed ‘to salute a Nazi detachment.’”
1933: The police and the Aeronautics Board of the Department Commerce began an investigation today into reports that a an unidentified plane had, for the last two days, been dropping German language pamphlets on a meeting of the United Singers Society protesting the exclusion of the Friends of the New German from its activities. The Friends of Germany is pro-Nazi while the United Singers Society is a conservative German organization that does not support the Nazis. The investigation was begun at the behest of Albert F. Frosh, president of the United Singers Society.
1933: In Czernowitz, Romania, the Maccabee sports organization submits a claim for 100,000 lei as compensation for cancelling the Maccabiade, international meet of Jewish athletes, forbidden by Rumanian Government, owing to fears that Lord Melchett, head of Maccabee World Union, would be molested by anti-Semites. Lord Melchett was Sir Alfred Moritz Mond, the son of Ludwig Mond. He was a leading British businessman, politician and supporter of Zionism.
1933:The German Government announced that those East European Jews who will be deprived of their citizenship in accordance with a recent decree will be given the status of Staatenlose (men without citizenship in any country); this explanation is accompanied by estimates that 10,300 East-European Jews had been naturalized in Prussia alone since 1922.
1933: The All-German Richard Wagner Association, meeting at Beiruth to arrange for the Wagner Festival, decides to amend its by-laws so as to exclude all "non-Aryans," and to instruct its branches throughout Germany to expel Jewish members. It was actions like this that created the myth that Wagner, who was dead by now, was an anti-Semite.
1933: In Regina, the Jewish Colonization Association prepares statistics for the World's Grain Exhibition and Conference which show that 557,000 Jews in eight countries engage in agriculture and cultivate 5,410,750 acres of land, and that the Jewish farmers in Canada raise 500,000 bushels of wheat annually. The family of Ekiel Bronfman was one of those Jewish families who did not succeed in its agricultural endeavors. Thanks to Ekiel’s son Sam, they found another way to make money from grain besides growing it
1933: In Germany, The Ministry of Labor issues an ordinance which provides that no Jewish physician is to remain associated with any sick benefit association, with the exception of front-line war veterans, and establishes an official list of sick fund doctors, from which all Jews are excluded.
1935 (9th of Av): Yiddish poetess Rivka Galin passed away
1935: “Following complaints from Dr. Schacht plus reports on the public disagreement with the wave of anti-Semitic violence, Hitler ordered a stop to "individual actions" against German Jews today.”
1936: The World Jewish Congress was convened in Geneva
1937: As the debate over the Peel Commission Report continued Rabbi Dr. Stephen Wise, president of the Zionist Organization of America, assailed the partition plan as abandonment of trust, but his rejection did not oppose the very idea of the creation of a Jewish state. He said that Great Britain Palestine Jerusalem
1937: In Los Angeles, Lillian (née Gold) and prop supervisor Harry Hoffman gave birth to their second son Dustin Hoffman, the younger brother of attorney and economist Ronald Hoffman.
1938: Sir Harold Alfred MacMichael, the High Commissioner of Trans-Jordan and Commander in Chief of Palestine issued an appeal for an end to the “ruinous campaign of murder and sabotage.
1938: An Italian newspaper, the Tevere, printed an attack on the Jewish historian Emil Ludwig. The attack on Ludwig was triggered by comments about “the race problem” made by Mussolini “in 1932 that are included in his book, Conversations With Mussolini that are in sharp contrast with the views now expressed by the Fascist dictator who has allied himself with Hitler.
1938: Hadassah headquarters in the United States received a cable from the Youth Aliyah offices in Berlin stating that fifty seven Jewish boys and girls fleeing Germany and Austria had arrived in Palestine and that another 110 young Jewish refugees embarked today for the trip to Palestine.
1938: The Nazis opened the Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration camp.
1941: Neilma Myer, the daughter of Australian businessman and philanthropist Sidney Myer, became Neilma Gantner when she married Vallejo Gantner in Melbourne.
1941: In Hungary
1941: Corporal Hank Greenberg, the all star baseball player now serving with the U.S. Army is placed in charge of a five man anti-tank crew.
1942: Gerhart Mortiz Riegner sent the “Riegner Telegram” describing plans for the Final Solution to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the President of the World Jewish Congress. “Have received through foreign office following message from Riegner Geneva STOP Received alarming report that in Fuhrers headquarters plan discussed and under consideration all Jews in countries occupied or controlled Germany number 3½ to 4 million should after deportation and concentration in East at one blow exterminated to resolve once and for all Jewish question in Europe.”
1942: All 2,000 Jews of Szczebrzeszyn refused to gather for a deportation round up. The Germans commenced a search for them. Only 400 were found. They were all killed.
1944: The Frank family and all those who had been hiding with them in attic were taken from their prison cells and sent to the Westerbork Concentration Camp.
1944: After a kangaroo trial in Berlin
1944(19th of Av, 5704): Famed expressionist painter Chaim Soutine passed away. Born in Belarus Paris France Paris
1945: First baseman Mike Schemer made his major league debut with the New York Giants.
1948(3rd of Av, 5708): Seventy-eight year old Leo Morris Franklin, a leading Reform rabbi who served Temple Beth El in Detroit from 1899 to 1941, passed away today.
1953: Birthdate of Donny Most who played Ralph in the sitcom Happy Days.
1964: Alaska Democrat Ernest Gruening was one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The two senators saw the resolution as “unconstitutional because it was ‘a pre-dated declaration of war power’ reserved to Congress. This vote cost him his seat in the Senate; a fate that many of the johnny-come-lately opponents such as the anti-Semite J. William Fulbright were spared.
1976: Three Israelis were injured when a bus was fired on near Hebron.
1977: Officials in Washington agreed that there was no evidence that more than 8,000 pounds of the lost American enriched uranium and plutonium had ever reached Israel.
1977: The Jerusalem YMCA, one of the most beautiful in the world and the only one to have a membership 98 per cent Jewish, celebrated its centenary.
1982: Just two weeks before her 84th birthdate Rosie Goldschmidt Waldeck, the author whose works include Athene Palace passed away. Born a German Jew in 1898, she converted to Catholicism and became a U.S. citizen in 1939
1982:“Where are the Arab ‘brothers' now?” by Daniel Pipes appears in the Chicago
1984: Funeral services were held today in Jerusalem for “Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz, former Chief Rabbi of the Orange Free State in South Africa and more recently a Herut Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem.” (As reported by JTA)
1986: Warner Bros. released "One Crazy Summer," a romantic comedy produced by Michael Jaffe featuring Jeremy Piven in the role of “Ty.”
1987:Mary Travers, the folk singer, plays Emma Lazarus, as one of a series of radio spots for a a program entitled “Voices of Freedom.” Ms Travers said her character also had such contemporary relevance. ''She doesn't talk about history as if it's frozen in time,'' Ms. Travers said of Lazarus. ''Her words are valuable not as the words of a woman willing to struggle with inequity in 1883, but as the words of an American willing to struggle with inequity in 1987.''
1987: ''Yiddish Theater in London, 1880-1987 an exhibition included in this summer's Jewish East End Celebration is scheduled to come to an end.
1987: ''Daughters of the Pale,'' an exhibition that in words and photographs documents the experiences of daughters of Jewish immigrants, is scheduled to come to an end in London
1988: Israeli Ambassador Moshe Arad met with Rev. Jesse Jackson.The two men and their advisers said they discussed a wide range of issues, including the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians; the plight of black Israelis; Israel's relationship with South Africa, and recent friction between blacks and Jews in this country, particularly in Chicago and New York.
1989: A Broadway revival of he musical “Shenandoah” with a “book” co-authored by producer Philip Rose opened today.
1993: The third in a series of family tours to Israel sponsored by the American Jewish Congress is schedule to begin today.
1993: The Bosnian family sponsored by Temple Beth Am arrived in Seattle, Washington.
1995: Eighty-nine year old SS officer Kurt Becher who was involved in deals to trade money and goods for sparing the lives of Hungarian Jews that included dealings with Rudolf Kastner passed away.
(For more about Rudolf Kastner see Gaylen Ross’s award winning documentary “Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt With Nazis” http://www.killingkasztner.com/
and Kastner’s Train by Anna Porter and
1996: Mel Torme, an icon of the American Jazz scene, suffered a stroke which effectively ended his career.
1999: PGA golfer Bruce Fleisher won the Lightpath Long Island Classic.
1999: The New York Times includes reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945 by Leo Marks, Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings: Volume 2, 1927-1934and Broke Heart Blues by Joyce Carol Oates, the author who discovered late in life her own family's Jewish history: Her grandmother, who immigrated to the United States in the 1890s, kept her religion hidden for fear of persecution.
1999: Avery Corman, the novelist, who has just completed working on a new musical with Cy Coleman, discusses ''The Musical: The American Jewish Theater in Its Heyday'' at Temple Adas Israel Elizabeth Street
2001: Hamas claimed credit for today’s bombing at Moshav Beka’ot
2003(10th of Av, 5763):Third Petty Officer Roi Oren, 20, an Israel Navy commando, was shot in the head and killed in an assault on a Hamas bomb factory in Nablus. (Jewish Virtual Library)
2004: Second and final performance by the Royal English Opera Company of Rockford, Illinois of “The Nautch Girl,” a comic opera composed by Edward Solomon. These are the only times the opera has been performed in North America.
2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace by Dennis Ross
2005: Legislation is introduced in Congress that would make it illegal to deny life insurance to people based on their travel habits. Those traveling to
2005: “Kevin Youkilis took the field in the 9th inning along with Adam Stern and Gabe Kapler, setting a "record" for the most Jewish players on the field at one time in American League history and the most in Major League Baseball history since four Jewish players took the field for the New York Giants in 1941. (Jewish Virtual Library)
2005: Wolf Blitzer began hosting The Situation Room, a two-hour afternoon/early evening program on CNN
2006:Five ambulances donated to Magen David Adom by Canadian Jewry were flown to Israel New York CAL Cargo Airlines. The ambulances were donated as a sign of solidarity with the situation in Israel and to help with the treatment of the injured from the conflict in the northern part of the county. "The company is currently doing all it can to give preference to urgently required cargo for the security forces and other state bodies," a statement from CAL Cargo said
2006 (14th of Av, 5766): Staff Sergeant Oren Lifschitz, 21, of Kibbutz Gazit and Staff Sergeant Moran Cohen, 21, of Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov were killed in battles in the south Lebanon village of Bint Jbail. St.-Sgt. Yesmao Yallao 26, from Or Yehuda and Cap. (res.) and Gilad Balahsan, 28, of Karmiel were killed in clashes with Hezbollah near Leboneh.
2007:The last two concerts The Zimriya - The World Assembly of Choirs are held at 8 P.M., at Einav Cultural Center in Tel Aviv and at Independence Hall on Mt. Scopus. The Zimriya has been held every three years since 1952.
2007(24th of Av, 5767): Melville “Mel” Shavelson, writer, director and producer passed away at the age of 90.
2008:Israeli President Shimon Peres attends the Olympic Games' opening ceremony at the invitation of the Chinese government. Since the games open on Friday, the Chinese government has agreed as a goodwill gesture to house him in a hotel within the Olympic complex so he will not desecrate the Sabbath. While Beijing Jerusalem Darfur and Tibet
2008: In an article entitled “Jewish Roots in India
2008: In Virginia, Jody Wagner resigns her position as Secretary of Finance.
2008(7th of Av, 5768):Ted Solotaroff passes away at the age of 80
2009: In Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chai's Saturday night music line, directed by Shaanan Street, presents "Eve’s Women": Four musicians create a magical, diverse musical world, with fresh, new arrangements of familiar melodies and songs from Jewish tradition, klezmer tunes, and Hasidic songs. A fascinating musical journey including improvisations created in each concert.
2010: A documentary entitled “Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
2010:Bankito, sometimes referred to as "Jewstock" -- a youth-oriented Jewish culture festival on the shore of Bank Lake, north of Budapest is scheduled to come to an end.
2010:First Jewish Women's Music Festival at Falls Village, CT is scheduled to come to an end.
2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including two novels set in Nazi-occupied Holland by Dutch author Hans Keilson – The Death of the Adversary and Comedy in a Minor Key, Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs, 97 Orchard by Jane Ziegelman and Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg; The Letters Edited by Bill Morgan and David Stanford
2011: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.
2011(8thof Av): Erev Tisha B’Av – fast starts at sundown
2011: This evening, a delegation of 18 Washington-based ambassadors from four continents and one other senior diplomat who have embarked on a fact-finding mission to Israel and the West Bank organized by The Israel Project (TIP) will go to the Old City of Jerusalem to observe the commemoration of Tisha B’Av
2011:Three mortar shells fell last night in Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, causing damage to a fence. No injuries were reported. Since the beginning of 2011 more than 340 rockets have been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
2011: Today, the High Court of Justice rejected a petition asking that the government be ordered to deploy the Iron Dome rocket defense system in Gaza border communities.The ruling to reject the petition, which had been brought by the Eshkol Regional Council, follows an upsurge in Palestinian rocket fire against the South in recent days.Some 340 rockets and mortar shells from Gaza have hit dozens of southern communities this year, the IDF Spokesman’s Office said today
2011:During a discussion on the subject, the High Court criticized the Israel Medical Association's (IMA) conduct during negotiations with the finance and health ministries. Supreme Court President Judge Dorit Beinisch said "the IMA's behavior does not arouse faith, this is no way to negotiate."
2012: The Summer Learning Institute is scheduled to begin at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.
2012: “Photographer David Rubinger, who immortalized paratroopers reaching the Wall in the 1967 war, recreated his iconic image with a female trio holding a Torah scroll (As reported by Aaron Kalman)
2012: Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the annual free festival of music and dance, is scheduled to present the U.S. debut of The Alaev Family, a Bukharin groove band from Israel with deep roots in the music of Tajikistan and Jewish Bukhara.
2012: Citing disappointing results for Israeli athletes in the 2012 Olympic games, Minister of Culture and Sports Limor Livnat announced today that she will establish a committee of experts to look into this year’s failures in order to bring about better results in the next Olympics, set to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the summer of 2016
2012: The British Guardian newspaper today acknowledged it was wrong to call Tel Aviv Israel’s capital, but reiterated its stance that Jerusalem is not the capital either, since it is not recognized as such by the international community.
2012:A series of Hezbollah terror attacks inside Israel were foiled recently by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) after a group of Israeli-Arabs helped smuggle 20 kilograms of high-grade explosives into Israel. Today, eight residents of Nazareth and the town of Ghajar - half of which is in Israel and the other half in Lebanon - were charged in the Nazareth District Court with assisting in the infiltration of the explosives.
2013: “Esther Broner - A Weave Of Women,” a documentary about the pioneering feminist and scholar is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2013: At Zefat, the three day International Klexmer Festival “the biggest festival of Jewish soul music in the world” is scheduled to come to an end.
2013: Nobel Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman, a Princeton psychologist known for his application of psychology to economic analysis who “escaped Nazi Europe and served in the Israeli army” was one of the people President Obaman named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
2013: In response to a “security concerns” no planes were allowed to land at or leave the Eilat airport when the IDF closed the facility for two hours today. (As reported by Asher Zeiger)
2013(2ndof Elul, 5773): Ninety-two year old Jack Zomlefer, a brilliant chemist, successful business and educated Jew who shared his last years enhancing the quality of the Jewish community in Cedar Rapids ,passed away today.
2013*2ndof Elul, 5773): Ninety-year old opera star Regina Resnik passed away today. (As reported by William Yardley)
2013(2ndof Elul, 5773): Actress Karen Black passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/movies/karen-black-versatile-character-actress-dies-at-74.html?hpw
2014: Israel’s Dimona Theatre/Cultural Lab and the Classical Theatre of Harlem are scheduled to “present a succinct journey into Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Sugar Hill.
2014: “High-profile Toronto Jewish delicatessen owner Zane Caplansky is scheduled to send his food truck to the outdoor screening ‘Laila’s Birthday’ a dark comedy by Palestinian director by Rashid Masharawi.” (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)
2014: In Milwaukee, Congregation Sahlom is scheduled to host its final concert of the summer featuring Becky Spice and Jack Forbes in “an original cabaret show.”