August 19
43
14CE: Augustus, Roman Emperor passed away. For the
Jews, Augustus was a comparatively benign ruler. He left Judea under a Jewish king (even
if it was Herod) and only converted the homeland of the Jews to a province
during the turmoil that followed Herod's death.
Under Augustus Roman governors were ordered to follow policies that
would not antagonize the Jews including.
They were not to permit pagan altars to be built in Jerusalem and their
troops were not to parade through the city carrying standards with the picture
of the Emperor. He followed a similarly benign policy towards the Jews in the
Diaspora including allowing them to contributions to support the Temple and
exempting Jews from appearing in court on the Sabbath, starting with Friday
night.
1099: The armies of the First Crusade defeated the
Saracens at the Battle of Ascalon (an historic Palestinian city on the
Mediterranean), one month after they had captured Jerusalem. Neither the Jews
nor the Moslems fared well at the hands of the Crusaders. They slaughtered the Jews of Europe as they
marched away and slaughtered the Jews of Jerusalem when they took the
city. The Crusaders did win the Battle
of Ascalon, but they actually did not capture the city of Ascalon due to a
quarrel between two of the Crusader leaders.
The city remained in the hands of the Moslems and would become a base
from which Jerusalem would be attacked in subsequent campaigns. This would not be the last time that initial
victories by Western armies fighting in the Middle East did not result in long
term conquests.
1203: “A fire started by Flemish crusaders burned
down the Jewish quarter of Constantinople including the synagogue.” (History of
the Jewish People)
1263:
King James I of Aragon takes the lead in one of the earliest recorded instances
of Christian censorship of Jewish writings.
1270:
Today, three months after having “agreed to reconfirm Magna Carta and to impose
restrictions on Jewish moneylending” to gain Parliaments permission to levy
additional taxes, King Edward I, the king who would later expel the Jews from
his realm, sailed from Dover for France on the first leg of what was to become
the Ninth Crusade,.
1274:
Coronation of King Edward I of England. Under Edward’s reign things went from
bad to worse. For example, in “1279 and
edict imposed the death penalty on Jews accused of uttering blasphemy about
Christianity. In 1280, “Edward ordered
Jews to listen to Cominicans preaching conversion.” In one of his “last acts of extortion…he
arrested the heads of Jewish families and demanded their communities…raise a
12,000 pound ransom payment.” Finally,
in 1290, the King ordered the expulsion of all Jews from his realm. He would be the last ruler of England to
officially deal with the Jewish people until the days of Oliver Cromwell.
1338:
Host desecration riots destroyed the Jewish community of Wolfsberg, Austria.
The Jews were accused of having stolen the Eucharist, making it bleed, and
trying to burn it. Over 70 Jews were burned at the stake and the community
destroyed. The community was never revived.
1439:
Frederick III, the Holy Roman Emperor passed away today. “To his last hour” he “protected those
outlawed by all the world,” a reference to the Jewish people. “He had a Jewish physician” and made Jacob
ben Yehicel Loans a knight. On his
deathbed, “Frederick is said to have strongly recommended the Jews to his son,
enjoining on him to protect them, and not to listen calumnious accusations,
whose falsity he had fathomed. (As reported by Graetz)
1509:
The Battle of the Books took place in Frankfurt (Germany): Johann Pfefferkorn,
an apostate Jew, convinced Maximilien I to destroy all Jewish books, especially
the Talmud. The books were defended by a gentile, Johann von Reuchlin, a noted
humanist, scholar and student of the Zohar. The battle was decided in his
favor, and the decree was rescinded. Such challenging of the Church by
Christian scholars - on its own ground - helped bring about the Reformation and
the revolt against the Church.
1555: First printing of Orech Chaim a section of the Shulchan Aruch in Eretz
Yisrael. The Shulchan Aruch (The Set Table in English) is a major
compilation of Jewish Law created by Rabbi Joseph Caro. He began writing the work while living in
western Turkey in 1522. He finished it while
living in Safed, the gathering place for scholars and mystics in Eretz
Israel. The Shulchan Aruch is
divided into four sections the first of which is Orech Chaim. Orech Chaim deals with laws concerning
prayer, Synagogue, Shabbat and holiday observances. It would take approximately
five years for all subsections to be printed.
1629: Rabbi Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller was
dismissed from office today and imprisoned at the order of the imperial court
of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II for “insulting Christianity” – a charge
which led to a fine of being levied on the rabbi, one fifth of which was paid
for by Jacob Bassevi von Treuenberg, the financier and “Court Jew” who served
three different emperors including Ferdinand II.
1654: Gershon Shaul Yom Tov Lipman Heller,
"Tosfot Yom Tov" passed away today. “He served as chief Rabbi of
Prague and of Vienna. His most famous
work was a commentary on the Mishnah entitled Tosafot Yom Tov. The word Tosafot is translated as
“additions.” There are those who contend
that the Tosafot are not actually “additions” or commentaries on the Talmud but
commentaries on Rashi’s commentary.
Regardless Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller was a great scholar, sage and communal
leader.”
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Heller_Yom_Tov_Lipmann
1662: French philosopher and mathematician
Blaise Pascal passed away. Unlike some
other French philosophers Pascal thought highly of the Jewish people as the
following quote proves, "It is certain that in certain parts of the world
we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and
this is called the Jewish people…. This people is not only of remarkable
antiquity but has also lasted for a singularly long time… For whereas the people
of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much
later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so
many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their
historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things
over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, however, and
their preservation was foretold… My encounter with this people amazes
me…."
1751: Birthdate of David de Leon the
son of Abraham de Leon
1758(15th of Av, 5518):
Parashat Vaetchanan; Tu B’Av
1760: Birthdate of Sarah Isaacs, the
Easthampton born daughter of Aaron Isaacs who converted and was the wife of
William Payne and the mother of William Howard Payne, the creator of “Home
Sweet Home.”
1761; Today, in London, at “a meeting of the
chief synagogue” a resolution was
adopted condemning the formation of “ a society calling themselves a
Congregation of Bricklayers” and warning all ministers and congregants to avoid
any contact with this institution.
245 Jews of England
1763(10th of Elul, 5523): Judah Hays,
the Netherlands bon son of Joannoe and Michael Hays, the husband of Rebecca
Hays and the “ather of Bertha Hays; Phila Nunes; Moses Michael Hays; Reyna
Malcha Touro; Meleg Hays; Caty Jacobs; Rachel Michaels; Sarah Hays and Jochabed
(Josy) Pinto” passed away today in New York City.
1764(21st of Av, 5524): “Merchant and
shipowner” Judah Hays who was an “officer at Shearith Israel” passed away today
in NYC.
1770: Israel Lyons a silversmith living in
Cambridge where he taught Hebrew to students at the university, wrote Observation
and Enquiries Relating to Various Parts of Scripture History and raise two
children - Israel, an “astronomer, botanist and mathematician, and Judith –
passed away today.
http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/56/3/275
1772: Grace Mears and Moses Raphael
Halevi gave birth to Samson Levy, the husband of Martha Lamplugh with whom he
had eight children.
1781:
George Washington and his French allies under the command of Rochambeau began
their secret forced march that would end at Yorktown and lead to the eventual
American victory and independence for a nation that provided a home and haven
to millions of Jews.
1794: In the Netherlands, Abraham Salomon and
his wife Marretje gave birth to Grietje Abraham Cohen Verveer
1796(15th of Av, 5556): Tu B’Av
observed for the last time during the presidency of George Washington.
1800: Birthdate of “German poet” Michael Beer
“brother of Giacomo Meyerbeer, the composer, and of Wilhelm Beer, the
astronomer.”
1803: Six days after he had passed away, Simeon
Hart Myers, the son of Naphtali Hart Myers and the former Hester Moses, was
buried today at the “Holly Road burial ground.”
1807(15th of Av, 5567): Tu B’Av
1807: Jacob Aaron married Catherine Benjamin
today at the Great Synagogue.
1807: Lewis Isaacs married Caroline Pyke today
at the Great Synagogue.
1809: In Alsace, Isaac Dreyfus, the son of
Jacob Dreyfus and his wife Gertrude “Julie” Dreyfus gave birth to Rosine
Dreyfus who became Rosine Picard after she married Louis Picard with whom she
had three children – Achille, Caroline and Lucien.
1809: Birthdate of Daniel Joseph Jaffe, the
father of Martin, John, Alfred and Otto Jaffe.
1810: Moses Alexander and his wife gave birth
to Dinah Alexander, the wife of Jacob David Davis whom she married in London’s
“Great Synagogues.”
1818: Joseph Michaels married Rebecca Harris
today at the Hambro Synagogue.
1826(16th of Av, 5586): Shabbat
Nachamu
1826(16th of Av, 5586): Amsterdam
native Marianne Abraham Groenteman, the wife of Joseph Isaac Cohen Presser whom
she married in 1779 and with whom she had three children passed away today.
1827: One day after he had passed away, 69 year
old Nathan Nathan was buried at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery”
today.
1830: In Germany, Deborah and Marcus Kleinert
gave birth to Isaak Benjamin Kleinert, the husband of Virginia Kleinert and
Catherine Kleinert.
1835: A Jew Bill (legislation intended to
complete the political and civil emancipation of English Jews) passed its first
reading in the House of Lords.
1840: Today, Israel B. Kursheedt who had “played
a key role in the establishment of Hebra Terumath Hakkodesh, which aided the
poor of Israel, chaired a gathering of New York’s Jewish community to protest”
the arrest of several Jews living in Damascus on charges of having killed a
Franciscan friar so that they could use his blood for Passover in what is
called the Damascus Affair.’
1842: In Dlazov, Dr. Issac Joachim Weintraub and Theresia
Weintraub gave birth to Anna Henrietta, the wife of Rabbi Dr. Aaron Albert
Siegfried Bettelheim and Itzak Meisler and mother of Paul Bettelheim; Minnie
Thalhimer; Rebekah Regina Kohut; Sidonia Cyd Bettelheim; Felix Albert
Bettelheim; and Esther Adler.
1843: In Strasbourg, Alsace, France, Louis and
Babette Block gave birth to Adolphe Bloch, the husband of Noémie Bloch whose
children included Marcel Dassualt, a leader in the French aviation industry.
1845: In the Paris suburb of
Boulogne-sur-Seine, Haut-de-Seine, James Mayer Rothschild and Betty von
Rothschild gave birth to their youngest child Baron Edmond Benjamin James de
Rothschild
1848:
The California Gold Rush really gets under way as news of the strike
appears in the New York Herald alerting Americans living in the East that
“there is gold in them thar hills.” Jews
joined the thousands of others who streamed west looking for fortune. According to Pioneer Jews by Harriet
and Fred Rochlin, local newspapers provided documentary proof of the Jewish
presence: “The Cohen claim at Vallecito made another whopping clean-up.” “Nathan Rhine has one of the best ledges…He
expended about $8,000 to develop it.” “A
Jew named Heyman and several others have worked for some weeks some claims on
the new ledge. These claims were jumped
by a man named Moore.” Jews and gentiles
discovered that there were more ways to make their fortunes than digging and
panning. Of course, the most famous Jew
to strike it rich was Levi Strauss whose pants not only won the West but our
now a household brand around the world.
1850(11th of Elul, 5610): Sixty-eight-year-old
Moravian born physician and chemists Nicolaus Wolfgang Fischer who earned his
medical degree at Erfut and professor of chemistry at the University of Breslau
passed away today in Breslau.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6152-fischer-nicolaus-wolfgang
1851: Birthdate of Ferdinand-Camille Dreyfus
the French journalist and office holder who was not related to Captain Alfred
Dreyfus but who ended up fighting a duel with the notorious anti-Semite, the
Marquis de Mores at the same time that the embattled French captain was being
railroaded.
1852: In Wilkes-Barre, PA, Abraham Strauss and
Emilie Bodenheimer gave birth to Joseph Seligman Strauss, the husband of Miriam
Weiss, who took time from his legal practice to serve as a member of the
Wilkes-Barre School Board and a member of the Executive Committee of B’nai
B’rith.
1853(15th of Av, 5613): Tu B’Av
1853: In Frankfurt, Germany, “Wilhelm Carl von
Rothschild and Mathilde Hannah von Rothschild of the Naples branch of the
Rothschild family” gave birth to Adelheid von Rothschild, the wife of her
cousin Baron Edmond James de Rothschild and the mother of James, Maurice and
Miriam de Rothschild who “became involved in her husband’s life work in
Palestine.”
1856: Birthdate of Harold Frederick, the native
of Utica, NY, who wrote The New Exodus: A Study of Israel in Russia which
displayed a sympathy for the subject – the way in which the Czar’s government
treated its Jewish subjects.
1861: Derogatory stereotypes were part of the
American linguistic landscape as can be seen in this report published in the Charleston Courier describing an episode
among Union prisoners being held at Richmond. A newsboy who had been in the
habit of selling his papers at three, suddenly ran his price up to five cents,
and on making his accustomed sale in the morning to one of the prisoners, the
latter first refused to "come down." The young vender was equally
inexorable, and finally carried his point, and received the amount of his
demand. This rise in stocks was reported to the Yankee conclave, whereupon the
question was raised whether it was right for the man to jew the boy, or the boy
to jew the man. The discussion thus commenced in the social circle was carried
into the debating society, and after the usual pros and cons, it was finally
decided that the boy, being the sole and undisputed owner of the property, and
the said property not being contraband of war, and no concatenation of
circumstances having arisen to obstruct the right thereby vested in the
original possessor of the aforesaid vehicle of information, the right was
undoubtedly inherent in the adolescent merchant to determine for himself the
incipient value of his goods, and to charge for the same accordingly, ad
valorem duties to the contrary notwithstanding.
1861(13th of Elul, 5621): Joseph Oterman, the
Dutch born Texas financier married to Rosanna Dyer, the brother-in-law of Major
Leon Dyer and the uncle of Dr. Joseph Osterman Dyer was accidently shot today
and suffered wounds that would led to his death a few days later. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fos09
1862: Philadelphian Joseph A. Davidson, who
will be killed during the Battle of Fredericksburg, began serving with Company
I of the 134th Regiment.
1862: Birthdate of Auguste-Maurice Barrès, the
French author and politician who could not be convinced by Leon Blum that was
Dreyfus was innocence because, as he wrote in one of his anti-Semitic
pamphlets, "That Dreyfus is guilty, I deduce not from the facts
themselves, but from his race."
1863: In Los Angeles Hannah Pessah Cohn and
Abram Wolf Edelman, “the first rabbi to serve Congregation B’nai B’rith in Los
Angeles” gave birth to architect Abram M. Edelman who designed several
buildings that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places including
the El Mio House.
1867:
Birthdate of Rumanian born New York “wholesale shoe merchant” Bernard Lebovitz,
“one of the founders and a former president of B’nai Jacob Synagogue in South
Brooklyn” and “the executive director of the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital”
who was the husband of Hedvig Lebovitz.”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1955/09/13/92640182.pdf
1869: In Buffalo, NY, Siegmund Nathan Levy, the Moisling, Germany born son
of Moses Nathan Levy and Hannchen Levy and his wife Marie Emilie Ulrike Levy
gave birth to Otto D. Merpall.
1870: Birthdate of Bernard Baruch financier and unofficial adviser to
several U.S. Presidents. He passed away
in 1965. Born in South Carolina, Baruch's family moved to New York
City. He graduated from City College of New York. He began working
as an office boy at three dollars a week. However, by the age of
30 he had amassed a fortune thanks to successful speculation in the Stock
Market. He was an adviser to President Wilson during World War I and
accompanied him to the Paris Peace Conference after the war. Thanks to
shrewd financial skills, including knowing when to get out of the stock market,
Baruch's wealth survived the Crash of 1929. Baruch was a supporter of the
New Deal. He served Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. He authored
the Baruch Plan, which was an attempt to avoid nuclear war by having an
international agency control Atomic Energy. Baruch is credited by some
with first using the term "Cold War" to describe the conditions that
existed between the Soviets and the United States after World War II. Baruch
was one of those truly colorful characters in American whose life is better
described by a novelist than a historian. more like it was created by
novelist than a historian.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/bernard-baruch
https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/bernardbaruch/
1870: “A Hebrew Church Schism” published today described a case that is
being heard by Judge Pinkney in the
Circuit Court which centers around a dispute among the members of the Baltimore
Hebrew Congregation on the corner of Lloyd and Watson streets over the
introduction of changes in ritual that the plaintiffs claim were not adopted in
accord with the charter of the congregation.
1871:In Frankfurt am Main, Robert Moses Jesais Cohn, the Altona, Germany
born son of Doris and Rabbi Ruben Simon Cohn, and his wife Rosa Cohn gave birth
to future Copenhagen resident Dora Samson, the husband of Abraham Samson.
1871:In Frankfurt am Main, Robert Moses Jesais Cohn, the Altona, Germany
born son of Doris and Rabbi Ruben Simon Cohn and his wife Rosa Cohn gave birth
to Aron Arnold Cohn, the husband of Bella Cohn.
1872: In Jerusalem, dedication of Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue which would
serve as the Chasidic house of worship until the Arabs demolished it in 1948
that is also known the Nissan Beck Shul in honor of Nisan Beck, the leader of
the Chassidic community in Palestine until his death in 1889 who was
responsible for the construction of the building under extremely adverse
conditions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Beck#/media/File:Synagogue_Tiferet_Israel.jpg
1872: Three days after she had passed away, 61 year old Hannah (Marks)
Somers, the widow of Isaac Somers, and mother of Miriam H. Somers, was buried
today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery” today.
1872(15th of Av, 5632): Seventy-three-year-old Karl Feust, the son of the
Chief Rabbi of Bamberg who decided to be a lawyer, despite all of the obstacles
facing a Jew in that profession, and who
also served as the secretary of the Jewish community passed away today.
1872:“The Bells,” a “one act play that tells the story of a man named
Mathias who secretly murdered a Jew 15 years ago and the consequences of his
act” opened tonight at Booths Theatre in New York City.
1874(6th of Elul, 5634):
Seventy-four-year-old Aaron Lopez, the Charleston born son of David Lopez who
was the husband of Eleanor Cohen and “prominent in the affairs of Georgetown,
SC” passed away today in Memphis, TN.
1874: The Grand Lodge of the ancient Jewish Order Kesher Shel Barzel met
at Albany, NY, today. Of the 5,404
members, 4,934 are men and 530 are women. During the past year, Lodge has paid
$23,000 to “the heirs or legal representatives of twenty-three deceased
brethren.” The Lodge has $7,000 on hand
“to pay the endowment of he next seven deaths.”
1875: Birthdate of Joseph Whyl, the husband of Yorkshire native Rosa
Phillips.
1876: In New York, Fannie Myer and Isaac Goldmann gave birth to Nathan
Goldmann, the president of Isaac Goldmann Realty and since 1920 the president
of Isaac Goldmann Company which was founded by his father in 1876 who was the
husband of Pauline Levy and a member of the Businessmen’s Council of the Jewish
Philanthropic Societies of New York;
1876: Thirty-six-year-old George Smith, the translator of the Epic of
Gilgamesh whose study of ancient Assyrian texts “threw light” on material
contained in the Bible passed away at Aleppo, Syria after having suffered from
a bout of severe dysentery.
1877:“The Polish Jews and Where They Worship described the dissatisfaction which “some of the prominent Jews of this City, of
the class which is represented by the Jewish
Messenger, have” expressed because of “the freedom with which certain
rabbis and other Hebrews of importance with their people among the Polish Jews,
and the other poorer classes of Israelites “ on the lower east side “marry and
divorce members of their congregations without regard to the laws of the State
of New York.”
1877: It was reported today that many Jewish immigrants from Russia and
Poland do not trust the civil courts and look to their rabbis for decisions in
legal matters.
1877: It was reported that the Jews in the United States have access to
15 newspapers and magazines devote to Judaism.
One of them is printed in German while others have German departments.
1877: It was reported that there are 15 Jewish newspapers and/or
magazines published in the United States.
One of them is printed in German and “others have German departments.”
1878: As New Orleans was in the grip of a Yellow Fever Epidemic, New York
City Alderman Lewis received the following telegram from some of the prominent
Jewish resident of New Orleans, LA:The following telegram from prominent Hebrew
residents of New-Orleans was received today by Alderman Lewis: “Sickness,
disease and suffering among the poor increasing daily. Our funds are nearly exhausted in this sad
calamity. We deem it our melancholy duty
to appeal to the sympathies of our brethren throughout the United States for
speedy aid.”
1879(30th of Av, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1879: The Commissioner of Emigration took the three Neumann brothers –
Joseph,10; Ignatz,8; Max, 7 – to Justice Flammer to the Police Court in the
Tombs. He “committed them to a Hebrew
charitable institution to be educated and cared for.” Peter Groden of Castle Garden had found the
three boys huddled together three weeks ago in Battery Park where they were
trying to sleep. They said their mother
had died and they had no food and not place to go. Groden took them to the Emigration
Commissioners who found out that that the boys’ father “had abandoned them and
gone to the West.” Since there were no other friends or relatives, the court
system was the only other alternative.
1879: “Mysteries of the Royal Arch” published today described he
connection between the Masons and the ancient Hebrews including the fact that
their initiation room “is a representation of the tabernacle erect on the old
site of the Temple” built in the time of Haggai, Joshua and Zerubbabel.
1880(12th of Elul, 5640): Fifty-nine-year-old Herman Bodek,
businessman and Hebraist who wrote These Are the Words of Covenant, “a
catechism of the ritual signs, allegories, and objects of Freemasonry” passed
away today in Leipzig.
1881: It was reported today that based on figures collected in Germany,
there are 6,139,662 Jews living in the world.
Of these, over 5 million live in Europe and slightly more than 300,000
live in America. In Europe Russia, with
2,552,594 has the most Jews and Norway with 34 has the fewest.
1882: Two Russian Jewish girls named Mary and Hannah Rabeteck arrived in
New York from Hamburg aboard the SS Cimbria.
The two girls who are aged 6 and 8 respectively, claim they have an
uncle with the same last name living in the city, but do not know his first
name so they will have to stay at Castle Garden for the time being.
1882: Burglars stole $250 worth of materials from the workshop of Meyer
Norden on Broome Street in New York.
Norden is Jewish and his shop is closed on Saturday which appears to be
why the thieves chose today to steal the silk and velvet cloth.
1882: “Obreight To Be Released” published today described the travails of
Samuel Obreight whose family has had him confined to an asylum because he was
“a lunatic” – a contention they based, in part, on “the indignation of his
Jewish relatives at his marriage to a Christian woman.”
1883: “Murderer Disappointed” published today described the failed
attempt by Theodore Hoffman to escape from prison. Hoffman is sentenced to die for murdering
Zife Marks, a Jewish peddler, who worked the area around Port Chester, NY.
1883: In Constantinople, Annetta and Pinchas Moses Papier gave birth to
Emily Papier.
1884(28th of Av, 5644): Seventy-five-year-old Jacob Strauss passed
away. Born in Frankfort, he has lived in
New Orleans for the last 50 years where he engaged in money-lending. At the time of his death, he lived on Carondelet
Street.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B01E5DD1338E033A25753C2A96E9C94659FD7CF
1885: In Austria, Shmuel Meyer Stettner and Rachel Stettner gave birth to
Nettie Stettner who became Nettie Kinsbruner when she married David (Aubie)
Kinsbruner.
1887: Gus Katz and Emanuel Sturm of Clinton, Illinois, each contributed
$1.00 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
1887: A hearse sent by the United Hebrew Charities took the body of
Julius Weisbaden from the morgue to the Marble Cemetery in New York where it
was interred without flowers or services.
1888(12th of Elul, 5648: Eighty-year-old historian Meyer Isler who earned
a doctorate and then began teaching at the school founded by his father Israel
Abraham Meyer passed away today in Hamburg.
1889: The funeral of Lewis Arnheim, a member of the Georgia State
Legislature took place in Atlanta today. He is survived by his wife, the former
Ida Mayer, daughter of David Mayer and two children.
1886: Birthdate of Khiva, Russia native and Boston University trained
attorney Elihu Alex Hershenson who in 1895 came to the United States where
member of the city council in Peabody, MA and director of the YMHA.
1890: Justice Duffy has ordered Samuel Cohen to be held for trial on
charges of falsely representing himself at he received five dollars from Morris
Beckwitz who thought he was making a contribution to the Hebrew Aid Society.
1891(15th of Av, 5651): Tu B’AV
1891: In Brussels, the International Socialist Workmen’s Congress adopted
a resolution “condemning both anti-Semitism and Jewish financial tyranny.”
1891: “Goldwin Smith and the Tribal God of the Jews” published today
included J.S. Moore’s expression of dissatisfaction with Goldwin Smith’s
contention that the Jews only worship a tribal God and “that there is no hope
for the Jews as to their social position as long as they adhere to this tribal
God.’ (Smith was a British born anti-Semitic Canadian history professor)
1892: A hearing will be held today in response to a complaint filed by
Meyer Reinherz an agent of the United Hebrew Charities against Edward Pollock
who allegedly attacked him.
1892: In, Minneapolis, “Joel Levi and Jennie (Groll) Erman gave birth to
Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery trained physician Jacob Martin
Erman, a U.S. Army surgeon assigned to
Base Hospital 64 in France during WW I and husband of Emma Ruth Dobrtin who settled in Omaha where
he was a member of B’nai B’rith and the “Omaha Hebrew Elks.”
1892: Leonard Stiebel, the son of Ada and Daniel C. Stiebel was buried
today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1892: In Des Moines, IA, “Isaac and Bertha (Meyer) Riegelman gave birth
to Cornell alum and Columbia trained attorney who rose to the rank of Major
while fighting at “St. Mihiel and The Argonne” after which he married Gladys B.
Bleiman and practiced law in NYC.
1893: Throughout the Lower East Side, an area occupied by Russian and
Polish Jewish thousands of circulars printed in Hebrew calling on
“Workingmen!! Organized and Not
Organized! All Suffering and Wretched
Ones!” to bring their wives and children to attend a mass meeting at Union
Square to be held this evening.
1893: Charles Wilfred, a self-described “anarchist-communist” who had
worked with Jewish tailors during their strike in London addressed a meeting at
Thalia Hall which was held to celebrate the release of Emma Goldman from
Blackwell’s Island.
1893: In Bialystok, Harris and Amelia (Malinsky) Bloom gave birth to
Julius Harry Bloom who in 1905 came to the United States where he became a
merchant in Greenville, SC, served as President of Congregation Beth Israel and
served in combat with the A.E.F. during WW I after which he married Leonora
Shatenstein.
1893: Birthdate of Springfield native Edward Adaskin, the
brother of Herman Adaskin and President and Treasurer of the Adaskin Furniture
Company who “was a member of the Board of Fellows of Brandeis University and
president of Temple Beth-El.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1951/12/10/96226027.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1894: One day after he had passed away, 21 year old Edward Jacobs, the
son of Solomon Jacobs and Sarah Cohen was buried today at the West Ham Jewish
Cemtery.
1894: In Newburgh, NY, founding of the Newburgh Progress Club which met
every Sunday and for which Sigismund Samuels served as President.
1895: Birthdate of “Forestville, CT” native labor organizer Vera Buch
Weisbord, whose autobiography A Radical Life was published in 1977, the same
year when her radical husband Albert passed away.
https://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/19/1895/this-week-in-history-birth-of-vera-weisbord-radical
1895: Eleven-year-old Sarah Russell, who had appeared in the Court of
Sessions on three charges of pickpocketing, was sent to the Hebrew Juvenile
Asylum because she “was not properly cared for at home” and could “receive
proper training”
1896: It was reported today that the bands of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum
and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum will perform at The
Summernight’s Festival
1897: Julies Harburger and Raphael Rosenberg of the Independent Order
Free Sons of Israel have expressed their support for New York Mayor William
Strong to become the first mayor “Greater New York” (what we call New York
City).
1897: Birthdate of Roman Vishniac, the Russian born American photographer
his many accomplishments included creating a pictorial record of the Shtetl
life.
http://vishniac.icp.org/roman-vishniac
1897: One day after she had passed away 42-year-old Sarah Bieberkraut,
the wife of Abraham Bieberkraut, was buried today at the Plashet Cemetery in
London.
1897: “Charity Funds Squandered” published today described a letter that
“J.S. Koenigsberg, the Secretary of the Jewish Society of Denver” received from
Edwin W. Wallace the American Consul at Jerusalem claiming that funds sent for indigent
American Jews who have moved to Palestine “to spend their last days” are being “squandered by the native Jews who
live in luxury.”
1897: Two days after she passed away, 34-year-old Annie Landau was buried
at the Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.
1899: “Picquart Gives His Evidence” published today described the five
hours of the Colonel’s testimony in which he proved details of the plots
against Dreyfus and confronts Generals Roget and Mercier.
1899: Joseph Weiler conducted an action today that raised over $200 to
aid the Hebrew Sanitarium of Rockaway, New York.
1899: In Rennes, three witnesses, all “enemies of Dreyfus – Major
Cuignet, Gener de Bolsdeffre and General Gonse –“testified from 6:30 until 11
A.M. Their testimony was mainly a
reiteration of the evidence they had given before.”
1900:Abe, The Little Hebrew" Attell’s
fought his first fight today. He knocked out Kid Lennett in two rounds. His
mother, who strongly opposed Attell's idea of being a boxer, later became one
of Attell's staunchest supporters, even betting on her son to win. He gained
the nickname "The Little Hebrew" in these early fights.
1901(4th of Elul, 5661): On the Jewish calendar yahrzeit of
German Reform rabbi who passed away in 1860
1902: Twenty-nine-year-old Rutgers University trained entomologist Jacob
Kotinsky, the Ukraine born son Joseph and M. Bessie (Sitkin) Kotinsky married
Sara Levin today in Philadelphia.
1902(16th of Av, 5662): Sixty-one-year-old Abraham Mendes
Chumaceiro, the native of Amsterdam who “moved to Curaçao in 1856, studied law,
and was admitted to the bar in 1872” passed away today.
1903: Today Jacob de Haas and his fellow Zionists were traveling on train
from Paris that would take them straight to Basle.
1904(8th of Elul, 5664): on the Jewish calendar yahrzeit of
“Talmudic scholar and scientist” David Gans who passed away in 1613.
1905(18th of Av, 5665): Parsashat Eikev
1905(18th of Av, 5665): Eighty-year-old German born French
Orientalist and Astrologist Jules Oppert whose accomplishments included making
the first definitive identification of the “site of ancient Babylon” while on
expedition to Mesopotamia in 1851.
http://www.aibl.fr/membres/academiciens-depuis-1663/article/jules-
1906: “The National Anti-Semitic Assembly of Bulgaria met a
Philippopolis” today.
1906: The newly formed Hebrew Congregation of Cuba changed its name to
the United Hebrew Congregation (UHC) of Cuba, and Robert Diamond was elected
treasurer. The pressing need for a Jewish cemetery was unfortunately
highlighted a month later when Diamond passed away suddenly. Joseph Steinberg
was appointed the new treasurer.
1907: Slain at Bialystok published today described the assassination of
Colonel Schroetter, the Commander of the Bialystok Military Station who “was
accused of organizing and helping to carry out the recent attacks on the Jews”
in this region.
1908: The strike by students at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological
Seminary Association continued because they “have received the $3.50 a week
which they are supposed to be paid while learning to be rabbis.
1909: It was reported today that ex-Police Commissioner Bingham recanted
his statement his statement that “about 50 per cent of the Jews” were crooks
1910: Two days after she passed away, funeral services are scheduled to
be held for sixty-five-year-old Anna Madeline Graff Kahn, the German born wife
of Sol Kahn which she will interred at the Hebrew Rest Cemetery.
1910: In Asia Minor, Ritual murder charges were raised against Jews in
Aiden.
1911(25th of Av, 5671): Parashat Re’eh
1911:Anti-Jewish riots began in Tredegar, New South
Wales, Great Britain. This was the worst
outbreak of anti-Semitic violence to take place in the British Isles in modern
times. The riots came at the end of the
miners’ strike and were so intense that the Home Secretary invoked the Riot Act
and called for the military to control the attackers.
1911: It was reported today that Justice Leon Sanders is the head of “a
union of Jewish immigrant aid societies in the United States and Canada which
has been formed” in New York City.
1912: Rabbi J. L. Magnes, the President of the Kehilla “aroused
enthusiasm at a meeting of that organization tonight when he declared that the
agencies investigating the Rosenthal case would bear watching.
1913(16th of Av, 5673): Forty-five-year-old Simon Stein, the
Pennsylvania born son of Daniel and Amelia Stein, the brother of Gertrude Stein
of literary fame, passed away today.
1914: At the beginning of WW I Albert Einstein, the recently appointed
director of the Institute of Physics writes from Berlin, “Europe, in her
insanity, has started something almost unbelievable. In such times one realizes to what a sad
species of animal one belongs. I quietly pursue my peaceful studies and
contemplations and feel only pit and disgust.
1914: Birthdate of Rose Heilbron who became the first woman judge to sit
at the Old Bailey in London.
1915: Practically everybody attending the meeting at Cooper Union tonight
voted “in favor of the resolution for” “holding a Jewish Congress” that would
unite Jews in an effort to abolish Jewish disabilities in Russia and to
establish “a Zionist State in Palestine at the close of the war.”
1915: The Imperial German Chancellor delivered a speech before the
Reichstag today in which he described the Russian scorched earth policy in
which for once Christians and Jews suffer the same fate as all Russians “are
transported to uninhabited regions to the East” or left to “perish in the
morasses of Russian roads.”(Editor’s Note – The Germans liked to portray
themselves as protectors of Western civilization in the face of the Slavic
masses, but as far as the Jews were concerned, in Poland, a year later they
were faced with a level of starvation that forced them to seek aid for soup
kitchens from Jews in Switzerland and the United States)
1915: Three days after he had passed away, Isaac Levy was buried at the
Plashet Jewish Cemetery in London.
1915: It was reported today that when the leader of the lynch mob asked
Leo Frank, “We want to know whether you are guilty or innocent of killing
little Mary Phagan,” Frank replied, “I think more of my wife and my mother than
I do of my own life.” These were the
last words he spoke.
1915: It was reported today that after the mob agreed not to mutilate the
body of Leo Frank, they cut him down and then vied to get pieces of the rope
for souvenirs.
1916: “The Joint Distribution Committee of the Funds for Jewish War
Sufferers which is made up of representatives from the American, the Central
and the People’s Relief Committees, the three largest organizations for
distributing America’s contribution to Jewish relief announced today that
between January 20 and August 15, it had sent $3,891,613” overseas which did
not include the $342,359.71in remittances that the committee’s Transmission
Bureau had sent to friends and relatives living in the War Zone or Palestine.
1916: “Motion Picture Publicity Men Organize” published today described
the founding of the Association of Motion Pictures whose original members
included Frohman Amusement Company, Paramount Pictures, Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players Film Company and Ben
Schulberg.
1917(1st of Elul, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1917: In London, “the Zion Association” adopted a resolution expressing
disapproval of the formation of a Jewish Legion because of the “harmful
effects” such a move could have on the interest of the Jews in Turkey and
Palestine.
1917: Seventy-five-year-old Edward Thomas O’Dwyer, the Roman Catholic
Bishop of Limerick, who after meeting with a delegation led by Saul Goldberg,
denounced the anti-Semitic pogrom in that Irish city – a denunciation which had
little effect since Fr John Creagh CSSR, spiritual director of the Arch
Confraternity of the Sacred Heart, the leader of the anti-Semitic riots was
beyond his ecclesiastical control passed away today.
1917: The Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the
War acknowledged receiving gifts of $100 or more including $380 from
Congregation B.I.A.S. in Brooklyn, $1,153 from the Young Peoples Hebrew
Association in Windsor, Ontario and $115 from Ohave Emnuna in Cleveland, Ohio.
1918: Birthdate of Sy Gomberg, an Oscar-nominated film screenwriter and
producer who taught screenwriting to University of Southern California students
for over ten years.
1918: “Famous Advocate Slain in Russia” published today described the
recent assassination Henry Sliosberg, the jurist and leader of the Jewish
community who was an opponent of the Bolsheviks. (Editor’s note – Only problem
was that this report was erroneous and Slisoberg would not pass away until
1937.)
1918: Approximately 150 service men are in training to take part in “Yip,
Yip, Haphank,” a musical revue written by Sergeant Irving Berlin that is
scheduled to begin a week long run in New York City today the proceeds of which
will be used “for the erection of a community house at Camp Uptown.
1919: According to summary of the bequests of the late Ludwig Dreyfus the
United Hebrew Charities will receive $627,000 and the Federation for the
Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies will receive $210,000.
1919: Today,Julius Harry Bloom, the Bialystok born son of,
Harris and Amelia (Malinsky) Bloom who in 1905 came to the United States where
he became a merchant in Greenville, SC, served as President of Congregation
Beth Israel and served in combat with the A.E.F. during WWI married Leonora
Shatenstein.
1919: Performances of “La La Lucille,” a
George Gershwin were suspended today when Actor’s Equity went out on strike.
1919: Afghanistan gains full independence from the United Kingdom. Jews
have lived in what is now known as Afghanistan for more than two thousand years
before the last family fled while the Taliban held sway in Kabul.
1920: “The Checkboard,” produced by Morris Gest premiered tonight at the
39th Street Theatre in New Yorik
1920: In Manhattan Louis and Martha Peskin Wershba gave birth to “Joseph
Wershba, who as a CBS television reporter working with Edward R. Murrow
revealed the story of Lt. Milo Radulovich, whose dismissal from the Air Force
because of his relatives’ leftist leanings became a symbol of the
anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1950’s.”
(As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1921(15th of Av, 5681): Tu B’Av
1921: Birthdate of Gene Rodenberry, the creator of sci-fi cult his “Star
Trek” staring those two Jewish spacemen – William Shatner as Captain James T.
Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock.
1922(25th of Av, 5682): Parashat Re’eh
1922: Purdue University trained Chemical Engineer Raymond V. Rosenbaum,
the Robinson, Il son of Lydia Myers and Edward Rosenbaum married Margaret M.
Ten Eyck in Springfield, MO today.
1923: Assistant Professor of Hebrew Literature and holder of a Ph.D. from
Yale Pinkhos Chugrin, the son of Debosha Hochstein and Rabbi Jonah Churgin
married Rosetta Seligson today in New York.
1923: Twenty-three-year-old Harry Schultz, the Sebastopol born son of
Lipman and Elizabeth Schultz who attended Columbia for a year and whose artwork
was shown in Sweden, Russia and America married Sonia Tcherniack today in
Petrograd.
1923: Birthdate of New York City native and Pratt Institute trained graphic
artist Tony Schwartz, the husband of Reenah Lurie Schwartz with who he had two
children – Anton and Michaela -- and the “sound archivist, sound designer,
pioneering media theorist, and advertising creator” who was known as the
"wizard of sound" and who is “perhaps best known for his role in
creating the controversial "Daisy" television advertisement for the
1964 Lyndon B. Johnson campaign.’
1924: Today, Moe “Berg was loaned to the Toledo Mud Hens, a poor team
ravaged by injuries after which he was immediately inserted into the lineup at
shortstop which led Major league scout Mike González sending a telegram to the
Dodgers evaluating Berg with the curt, but now famous, line, "Good field,
no hit."
1925: Funeral services are scheduled to be held
today for eighty-three-year-old
James Evan Creamer the husband of Sarah Florence Sheftall Creamer and the
son-in-law o Emanuel and Jane L. Theiss Sheftall who will be interred in Laurel
Grove Cemetery, North in Savannah, GA
1925: In Cracow, Hirsch and Mita (Rosenbaum) Karmel to Ilona Karmel, the
Holocaust survivor who wrote Stephania and An Estate of Memory
1926:
Birthdate of businessman Arthur Rock, the man who supposedly coined the
term “venture capitalism.”
1926(1st of Elul, 5686): Rosh
Chodesh Elul
1926(1st of Elul, 5686): Harris
Abelow, the son of Sholom and Rachel Bayle Davidson Abelow, who married Sophie
Abelow a year after his first wife Hannah had died passed away today in
Brooklyn.
1927: “The Conference of Jewish Rights after a
prolonged debate today accepted proposals of the Organization Committee for the
creation of a new body to supersede the committee of Jewish delegations, dating
from Paris peace conference days.”
1928: The conference of the Mizrachi World
Organization is scheduled to open in Danzig (As reported by JTA)
1929: Following attacks by Arabs on Jews
praying at the Western Wall Erev Shabbat and other attacks on Jews in
Jerusalem, a meeting was held last night at the home of Professor Joseph
Klausner, the chairman of the Pro-Wailing Wall Committee. The committee decided to issue an appeal to
the Christian world describing the attacks and asking for intervention on
behalf of the Jews. “We ask to be given
back what has always been ours, that which saturated with the blood and tears
of hundreds and thousands of the children of Israel. Christians throughout the world, you know and
realize the meaning of religious sanctity, you who know how to respect
century-old traditions and painful longing for sacred religious shrines, please
intervene and help us recover the Western Wall, so sacred and holy to us.”
1930: In Austria, labor researcher Kathe Pick who was murdered
at Ravensbruck in 1942 and Otto Leichter, a leading member of Austria’s Social
Democrats gave birth to Franz Sigmund Leichter the Harvard trained attorney who
gained fame as “a maverick New York State legislator for three decades whose
progressive views on abortion, gay unions and the decriminalization of
marijuana eventually became law in the state…” (As reported by Joseph Berger)
1930: It was reported today that the Palestine
Emergency Fund collected $2,083,818 in the United States and Alaska last
August.
1931: “Baron Edmond de Rothschild, a leader of
the Palestine movement and only living grandson of Mayer Amschel Rothschild”
celebrated his 86th birthday today quietly at his home” in Paris.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/08/20/96380590.html?pageNumber=7
1932: The anti-Communist movement in Argentina has developed into an anti-Semitic campaign,
which was described in the Chamber of Deputies this afternoon as alarming and
threatening to public order.
1933: In Toronto, Mayor Stewart forbids display
of swastika in the city.
1933: In Santiago, Zionist-Socialist party is
organized in connection with the campaign for Labor Palestine that has raised
15,000 pesos.
1933: The Jiidische Rundschau, official
organ of the German Zionist Federation, is suspended for six months because it
replied editorially to an attack on the Zionist Congress by Alfred Rosenberg,
Nazi leader.
1934(8th
of Elul, 5694): Russian born and Jefferson Medical College trained physician
Max Green the Hebrew scholar who came the United States at the age of 18 where
he first worked as a Hebrew teacher and who was translating “Boaz” by S.L. from
Hebrew into English passed away today in Philadelphia, PA.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1934/08/21/94558328.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
1934: A plebiscite in Germany approved the vesting of sole
executive power in Adolf Hitler as Fuhrer.
1934:
Congressman Henry Thomas Rainey who in 1906 attended a mass meeting held to
protest the “atrocities in Russia” and told the audience that the Romanoffs
“are inflaming the populace against the helpless Jews – and already the blood
of 100,000 Jews cries out for vengeance” passed away today while serving as the
40th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
(Editor’s note – we should always remember those who had the courage to stand
with the underground for that is the real “Profile in Courage.;)
1935:
More than 2,400 delegates from forty-three countries had registered here
tonight for the opening of the nineteenth biennial Zionist Congress being held
in Lucerne, Switzerland.
1936(1st
of Elul, 5695): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1936(1st
of Elul, 5695): Three days after the end of the Olympics, forty-year-old
Captain Wolfgang Fürstner who was identified as “one of the last non-Aryan
officers to retain his rank in the new German Army” committed suicide today
after he “had learned that according to the Nuremberg Laws he was classified as
a Jew and was to be dismissed from the Wehrmacht.
1937:
Birthdate of Ann Valerie, Lady Solti (née Pitts) a supporter of the Jewish
Music Institute and wife George Solit, who though not Jewish was violently
against any anti- Semitism and spoke loudly and clearly on behalf of the Jewish
community and many other Jewish institutions”
1937:
“Confession” directed by Joe May with a script by Julius J. Epstein was
released in the United States today by Warner Brothers.
1937(12th
of Elul, 5697): Author Abraham M. Dorfman passed away today in Philadelphia.
1937: The British government recommended to the Permanent Mandates
Commission of the League of Nations that if the Royal (Peel) partition plan is
accepted, a provisional cantonization of Palestine should be imposed during the
transitional period, immediately after the termination of the Mandate. If such
an arrangement would not be possible, an alternative was suggested, namely that
two separate Mandates should be held, one for the Jewish, and one for the Arab
state.
1938: Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, announced
today that Great Britain has issued 825 certificates for the immediate transfer
to Palestine of Jewish children from Germany and Poland.
1938: “In Strasbourg, France, fifty-one-year-old Polish born shoe
manufacturer” and 27 year old Friederike "Fritzi" Passweg gave birth
to Joseph Langerman who gained fame as “off the wall radio personality” Joe
Frank. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)
1938: In Scarsdale, NY Rabbi Lawrence W. Schwartz of the Jewish Community
Center of White Plains officiated at the wedding Ruth Aileen Aronson and Peter
Meyer.
1938: Switzerland closes its borders to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in
Austria.
1938: The Swiss Federal Council ordered the closing of their border to
refugees from the Third Reich, constituting a death sentence for many Jews.
(Editor’s Note - But not all Swiss officials obeyed the ruling. Swiss Police
Commander Paul Grüninger—known by many as the “Oscar Schindler of the
Swiss-German border region”—used bureaucratic loopholes to allow more than
3,000 Austrian Jews to enter the country. This drama, based on the true story,
unfolds like a suspense thriller as we witness the war of wits between the
commander and his superiors in the police force of officially neutral
Switzerland. It’s almost impossible to watch The Grüninger File and not think
about the difficult moral questions around today’s refugee asylum seekers.)
1939: As Stalin seeks to improve relations with Hitler, “the 1939
German-Soviet Commercial Agreement” was signed today – an agreement that would
move the two one step closer to the
non-aggression pact that would provide the Nazis with their green light for WW
II and give the Communist dictator half of Poland.
1939:In an impassioned speech frequently
interrupted by hecklers, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland, Ohio, appealed
today to the delegates attending the twenty-first session of the World Zionist
Congress here to do nothing that might bring the Jews in Palestine into
conflict with the British Government.
1940(15th of Av, 5700): Tu B’Av
1940(15th of Av, 5700): Thirty-one-year-old Henry H. Fleisher,
Jr. passed away today after which he was interred at Mt. Sinai Cemetery in
Philadelphia.
1940: Malvina Parnes, age 11, saw the Statue of Liberty from the deck of
the Quanza, a Portuguese cargo ship.
Parnes and her family were fleeing from Hitler’s Europe and were allowed
entry into the United States thanks to the personal intervention of Eleanor
Roosevelt, wife of the President of the United States.
1941: Einsatzkommando
8 as well as local collaborators in Mogilev, Belorussia, kill more than 3000
Jews.
1941: Eighty-six-year-old
Gustaf Hermann Dalman, “a German Lutheran theologian and orientalist. He did
extensive field work in Palestine before the First World War” who “was
appointed by Kaiser Wilhelm II as director of the Deutsches Evangelisches
Institut für Altertumswissenschaft des heiligen Landes zu Jerusalem (German
Evangelical Institute for Ancient Studies of the Holy Land in Jerusalem)”
passed aay today.
1942 Twenty-nine-year-old
New York native Aaron Bank enlisted in the Army and despite what some
considered an “advanced agent” became a field operative for the Office of
Strategic Services.
1942: An allied force
crosses the English Channel in what came to be known as the Dieppe Raid. One
thousand troops, mostly Canadian perished in this ill-begotten venture. It proved to the English and the Americans that
a cross-channel invasion of Europe was going to be a very difficult task that
would take massive amounts of man and supplies.
More importantly for the Jews of Europe whose only hope of survival lay
in liberation, such a landing would be at least a year if not more in the
making. In fact, almost two years would
pass between the disaster at Dieppe and the success at Normandy. Unfortunately for most of the Jews of Europe
this necessary two year hiatus meant death on an unheard of scale.
1942: Nazis murder the children of the
Rembertów (Poland) Ghetto. The town's adult Jews, more than 1000, are assembled
for deportation to the Treblinka death camp. About 300 of the people are
ordered eastward along the road to Wesola. Before they walk a mile, the 300 are
murdered. The 700 who remain are ordered to march south, and as the group
passes the town of Anin, one woman melts into a crowd of non-Jewish Polish
onlookers and escapes. Forty-five others are machine-gunned at Anin, ostensibly
because they attempted escape. Hours later the marchers reach the ghetto at
Falenica, where Jews already have been forcibly assembled; those who are
discovered in hiding are shot. Inside the ghetto, two Jews resist, using an axe
to kill the first German who steps through the doors of their apartment.
1942 At the Belzec extermination camp, 700 to 800 Jews
herded into a gas chamber wait in torment for nearly three hours until a balky
diesel engine can be started and the chamber filled with deadly exhaust. SS
gas/disinfectant expert but anti-Nazi Kurt Gerstein is on hand to observe
1942: For four days 17,000 Jews from Lutsk, Ukraine,
are taken to Polanka Hill and executed.
1942:
Esther "Etty" Hillesum went to visit her parents at Deventer for the
last time.
1942:
“The first large-scale aktion in the Łuck Ghetto took place today” when “about
17,000 Jews were rounded up by Nazi Orpo police and the Ukrainian Auxiliary
Police during a four-day period, assembled at the square by the pharmacy, and
taken in lorries along with women and children, to the Górka Połonka forest on
the outskirts of Łuck” where] “they were shot into the prepared trenches.”
1942:
In Bar, Ukraine, 3,000 Jews were herded together and held without food or water
while in a nearby cemetery the Nazis murdered 1,742 Jews. (Jewish Virtual
Library)
1942:
Fourteen-year-old Shmuel Shilo, the future Israeli actor, survived today’s
action that liquidated the Łuck, Ghetto by hiding “in a cellar with mother and
siblings.”
1942:
Today, “the remaining 43 Jews” living in Laupheim were transported to
Theresienstadt, marking the end of 200 years of Jewish habitation in this
German town.
1943: The Treblinka death camp receives its
final trainload of Jewish deportees. They come from Bialystok, Poland.
1943:
Nir Am “was established today by immigrants from Bessarabia who were members of
the Gordonia youth movement.
1944(30th
of Av, 5704): Parashat Re’eh; Rosh Chodesh Elul
1944:
The Liberation of Paris begins as the Resistance in Paris rises against German
occupation with the help of Allied troops. The long nightmare for the Jews of
France is about to end. Jews played an
active part in the Resistance. Contrary
to the popular myth, a significant portion of the French population
collaborated with the Nazis and the Vichy French worked tirelessly to ship
French Jews to the death camps.
1944:
Birthdate of Mordechai "Motaleh" Spiegler, the native of Scohi, in
the former Soviet Union who became a leading “Israeli footballer and manager.”
1945:
In Chicago, George and Sylvia Kalnitsky gave birth to University of Iowa
trained award-winning Spanish teacher at Marion High School Kathe Goldstein,
the wife of Gary Goldstein, who was a leader of Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids
and an ardent Democrat.
https://www.thegazette.com/obituaries/kathe-goldstein/
1945:
“Special services have been arranged for this morning for Jewish congregations
in response to President Truman's proclamation setting today aside as a day of
prayer…”
1946:
Ninety-eight known Nazis were rounded up in Tirschenreuth by the military
government officers and after having been given picks and shovels, “they
unearthed 36 bodies of Jews” who had died on a forced march from Buchenwald to
Flossenburg.
1947:
Today “His Eminence Haim Nahum Effendi Grand Rabbi of Egypt & Sudan
reminded his Alexandria audience that Jews had lived in Egypt for over 2,000
years and that the oldest known synagogue (Ben Ezra) exists in Old Cairo.”
1947:
Today, in Weehawken, NJ, two Jewish physicians gave birth to Julliard School of
Music graduate Gerard Schwartz the husband of Jody Greitzer with whom he had
four children and who gained famed as Gerry
Schwartz “an American symphony conductor and trumpeter who ‘serves as the
Artistic and Music Director of Palm Beach Symphony and the Director of
Orchestral Activities and Music Director of the Frost Symphony Orchestra at the
Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.”
1948:
Three-hundred-seventeen Jews who are “believed to the Last batch of immigrants
permitted to leave Cyprus during the Palestine truce,” tonight “sailed from
Famagusta for Palestine aboard the Jewish immigrant ship Hatikvah.”
1948:
“The Angel with the Trumpet,” the movie version of the novel by the same name written
by Ernst Lotha, the husband of actress of Adrienne Gessner who escape to the
United States after the Anschluss.
1949:
James McDonald, the United States Ambassador to Israel and his wife arrived in
New York aboard the Il de France and which Mr. McDonald will continue on his
trip to Washington where he will discuss events that have transpired during the
last 13 months of his posting and talk about future problems including housing
in Israel.
1950(6th
of Elul, 5710): Parashat Shoftim
1951:
A four-year agricultural development plan costing $610,000,000 and designed to
feed an Israeli population of 2,000,000 was introduced to the World Zionist
Congress today by Levi Eshkol, treasurer of Jewish Agency Executive, Israel...
1951:Arthur
Cremin, president of the Music Lovers League announced today that the league
was setting up an annual $500 scholarship in memory of Leopold Prince, the
deceased vice president the league.
1952: The Knesset voted by 70 to 11 for an increase in the period of
compulsory military service to 30 months.
1952: The S.S. Negba brought 112 immigrants from Hungary and 222 from
North Africa to Israel. According to the new arrivals there were some 100,000
Jews left in Hungary, 80 percent of them in Budapest.
1952: Officials in Washington agreed with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion
that the solution of Arab-Jewish difficulties would be of great economic
benefit to both sides and certainly help toward strengthening peace in the
world. The US State Department had made it clear in numerous background
announcements that it did not believe the Arabs could be returned to their
former homes in Israel. It felt, however, that some compensation although not
complete for the dispossessed might considerably ease the tension.
1953: The Knesset passed a law establishing the Holocaust Martyrs’ and
Heroes’ Remembrance Authority known as Yad Vashem (a monument and a memorial)
which takes it name from a verse from Isaiah
1953: Israel's parliament conferred
Israeli citizenship posthumously on all Jews killed by the Nazis during the
years of the Holocaust (1933-45) in Europe.
1953: An Arab terrorist from Gaza killed
a restaurant owner in Ashkelon severely injured his 25 year old daughter.
1954(20th of Av, 5714): Fifty-one-year-old
Hamburg born American art collector who left Nazi Germany in 1934 and
established what became the Curt Valentin Gallery passed away today.
https://www.moma.org/research-and-learning/archives/finding-aids/Valentinf
1954: Today, a press release announced
that WNBC would be broadcasting the first radio performance of Maria del Carmen
(Granados) and Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra by Nathaniel Shilkret,
1955: Birthdate of actor Peter Gallagher.”
1955: “Female on the Beach” a crime film directed
by Joseph Pevney and starring Jeff Chandler was released in the United States
today.
1956: In Brooklyn, “actor,
director and writer Alan Arkin and his first wife Jeremy Yaffe gave birth to
Adam Arkin who has been honored with Tony nominations and Emmy awards for his
work as any actor and director.
1956: In Philadelphia, Rabbi Abraham L. Poupko officiated at the wedding
of his daughter Shulamith Poupko and Emanuel Witty whose father, Cantor Noah
assisted in the performing the ceremony.
1957(22nd of Av, 5717): English
born artist David Bomberg passed away.
1959(15th of Av, 5719): Tu B’Av
1959(15th
of Av, 5719): Seventy-eight-year-old Jacob Epstein an American-born sculptor
who worked chiefly in England, where he pioneered modern sculpture, often
producing controversial works that challenged taboos concerning what public
artworks appropriately depict passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/08/23/88813259.pdf
http://www.artnet.com/artists/sir-jacob-epstein/
1960: As the U.S. Presidential elections get underway an announcement is
made that Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee for President will
address the upcoming sixty-third annual convention of The Zionist Organization
of America.
1960(26th of Av, 5720):Seventy-two-year-old Sir Lewis Bernstein
Namier an English historian passed away. http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/historians/namier_lewis.html
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Lewis-Bernstein-Namier
1962: Birthdate of Julius Genachowski “an American lawyer and
businessman” who became Federal Communications Commission Chairman during the
first year of Obama’s presidency.
1963: “Syrian forces murdered two civilians in Almagor,” a moshav north
of the Lake Kinneret.
1964(11th of Elul, 5724): Seventy-seven-year-old Berth Schefrin
Lisitkzy, the wife of Ephraim Elihyahu Lisitzky, the “Hebrew poet, translator
and educator” and winner of two awards for his poetry from the Jewish Book
Council of America whose original Hebrew works included “Smoldering Fires which
describes the life of the North American Indian as well translations of “Julius
Caesar” and “The Tempest” from Shakespeare English into modern Hebrew passed
away today in New Orleans after which she was buried in the Gates of
Prayer Cemetery.
1964: In Boston, MA, “Leo Kahn, co-founder of Staples” and Dorothy
Davidson gave birth to Harvard graduate Joseph Kahn, “the managing editor of The New York Times.”
1965(21st of Av, 5725): Seventy-seven-year-old Austrian born
“Rabbi Ezekiel Landau, the spiritual director of the United Hebrew Immigrant
Aid Society who came to the United States and was the husband of “the former
Helen Greenberg with whom he had three children – Mrs. Lotti Glover, Rabbi Sol
Landau and Brooklyn Philharmonia music director Siegfried Landau – passed away
today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1965/08/20/101562643.pdf
1965: Rolf Friedemann Pauls began serving as the first German (W.
Germany) Ambassador to Israel.
1967(13th of Av, 5727): Shabbat Nachamu
1967(13th of Av, 5727) Eighty-three-year-old Luxembourg City
native Hugo
Gernsbach the son “Berta (Durlacher), a housewife and Mortiz Gernsbacher, a
wine maker” “an inventor, author, editor
and publisher who has been called the father of modern science fiction passed
away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/08/20/107196605.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Gernsback#/media/File:Science_and_Mechanics_Nov_1931_cover.jpg
1967(13th of Av, 5727): Sixty-year-old Isaac Deutscher the
Galician born Marxist historian who spent most of his life pursuing his career
in Great Britain and not in any Communist country and who referred to himself
as a “non-Jewish Jew” passed away today.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/sedgwick/1967/xx/deutscher.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/bio-bibl_deutscher_i.pdf
1968: “Official circles today strongly denied that any deal was in the
making between Israel and Algeria for the release of the hijacked El Al jet
airliner and its 12 Israeli passengers and crewman.” (JTA)
1968: “The Israel-Jordan border echoed with gun fire today as forces of
both sides fought an hour long duel with artillery, mortars and machineguns
south of the Sea of Galilee…” (JTA)
1969: Ken Holtzman “pitched a no-hitter at Wrigley Field against the
eventual Western Division champion Atlanta.”
1969: Two days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled
to be held today for fifty-eight-year-old composer “Morris Goldenberg, the head
of the percussion department at the Juilliard School of Music” who was the
husband of “the former Isabella Leon” and the father of Lucille and William
Goldenberg.
1969: Two days after he had passed away, funeral services are scheduled
to be held “in Sinai Temple” in Mt. Vernon, NY for sixty-two year old “Rabbi
Henry Enoch Kagan” the graduate of the University of Cincinnati and HUC who was
“the first full-time rabbi to be licensed by New York State as a consulting
psychologist” and who was a tireless worker for better relations between
Christians and Jews which did not deter him from raising two sons – Jonathan
and Jeremy – with his wife “the former Esther Miller.”
1969: The hippie happening called Woodstock that was held on the farm
owned by Jewish dairyman Max B. Yasgur, came to an end. [Among the youthful attendees were a Jewish
doctor now living in Texas and a Jewish dentist in Arkansas whose name will not
divulged as mark of respect for their positions in their respective
communities.]
1970: Two days after he had passed away funeral services were scheduled
to be held for sixty-nine-year-old
to Dr. Frederick Lascoff, the recipient of a pharmacy degree from Columbia
where he taught for 20 years and a Doctorate in Pharmacy from the Connecticut
College of Pharmacy who operated the “Yorkville pharmacy started by his father”
and who was the husband of Emmy Lascoff with whom he had one son.
1971(28th of Av, 5731): Ninety-one-year-old “medical economist
Michael Davis,” the husband of “the former Alice Taylor” and father of Paul and
Michael, Jr. passed away today.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1971/08/27/79150057.html?pageNumber=36
1971: Three days after he had passed away, funeral
services are scheduled to be held today for ): seventy-six-year-old Edward Anthony, the
former director of public relations during Herbert Hoover’s successful
presidential campaign and magazine editor.
1971: In “George Meany and Morris Hillquit” published today, Benard K.
Johnpoll describes Hillquit’s 1924 proposal to Samuel Gompers for the American
labor movement forming its own political party.
1974(1st of Elul, 5734): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1974(1st of Elul, 5734): Eighty-four-year-old Hebrew Technical
Institute Graduate Morris Sprayregen the husband of the former Charlotte Kaiser
and “former member of the New York Stock Exchange” who had been “president of
the Cloak, Suit and Skirt Manufacturers' Protective Association and in 1925 was
chairman of the committee that organized the Wholesale Women's Wear Association
of America” passed away today in Palm Beach, FL.
1975: It was reported today that that effective September 1st,
54-year-old retailing executive will be the chairman and chief executive
officer of Gimbel Brothers Incorporated.
1975: It was reported today that Bruce Gimbel and Richard Shapiro have
stepped down from their leadership positions at Gimbel Brothers Incorporated.
1975:Hadassah announces that it will
increase its youth centers in Israel to integrate Jewish children of Middle
Eastern and African backgrounds who pose serious social and educational
problems in the Jewish state
1975: Jacob Austin began serving as a Senator from British Columbia.
1976: “Israel said today that it would ignore the demand by President Idi
Amin of Uganda for compensation for the Israeli raid on Entebbe airport last
month.”
1977(5th
of Elul, 5737): Eighty-six-year-old
comedian Groucho Marx passed away. When
told that he had been rejected for member ship in a club because he was Jewish,
Marx replied,“I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as
members.”
http://www.biography.com/people/groucho-marx-594094#career-breakthrough
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D03E4DD103DE532A25753C2A96E9C946690D6CF
1978:
Seventy-eight-year-old archeologist Max Mallowan who worked several sites in
Mesopotamia including Ur, reputed to be the Biblical home of Abraham passed
away today.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Max-Mallowan
1979:
Andrew Young, who resigned last week as chief United States delegate to the
United Nations, “characterized as ‘kind of foolish’ the United States policy of
shunning contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization…” While being interviewed on Face the Nation,
“Young called the Government of Israel ‘stubborn and intransigent’ for their
policy concerning negotiations with the PLO.
1979(26th
of Av, 5739): Ninety-two-year-old “Joel Teitelbaum, the founder and first
Grande Rebbe of the Satmar dynasty passed away today at Mt. Sinai Hospital
after which he was interred at the Kiryas Joel Cemetery.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/rabbi-joel-teitelbaum
1989:
Funeral services are scheduled to take place in Rockville Centre, NY for David
Kohut, the husband Bessie Kohut who was a member of Temple Israel in Long
Beach.
1980(7th
of Elul, 5740): Otto Heinrich Frank passed away. Born in 1889, he gained fame as the father of
Anne Frank.
1981(19th
of Av, 5741): Seventy-six-year-old Ukrainian born “Elias Picheny, a former
social worker and official of the National Jewish Welfare Board and husband of
“the former Dora Werthman” with whom he raised a son, Joel, passed away today
in Berkley, CA.
https://www.jta.org/1981/09/01/archive/elias-picheny-dead-at-76
1988(6th
of Elul, 5748): Sixty-one-year-old Sir John Boris Roderick Hazan, the “son of
an engineer from Russia” and mother from Poland whose legal career began in
1948 when he was called to the Bar by Lincoln’s Inn and reached its pinnacle
when he was appointed to the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division
passed away today.
1990: Leonard Bernstein conducted his final
concert, the Koussevitzky Memorial concert at Tanglewood. The performance
included Britten's Three Sea Interludes, LB's Arias & Barcarolles (Carl St.
Clair, conductor) and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.
1990:
In “a message broadcast over Baghdad television” President Sadamm said “if
President Bush gave an unequivocal, written pledge to pull military forces out
of the gulf” and lifted the economic blockade imposed after the takeover of
Kuwait” he would release the ten thousand foreigners, including 3,000 Americans
trapped in Kuwait and Iraq.”
1991:
Around 8:00 p.m. this evening, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the international
leader and Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch movement was returning to his home in
Crown Heights, Brooklyn after a visit to the Old Montefiore Cemetery in
adjacent Queens when there was a fatal accident that resulted in the death of
seven-year-old Gavin Cato, the son of Guyanese immigrants. Charles Price and
other demagogues harangued the angry crowd touching off several days of what
can only be described as a race riot.
1991(9th
of Elul, 5751): Three hours after seven-year-old Gavin Cato was killed in
automobile accident involving vehicles driven by Lubavitch Chasidim, Yankel
Rosenbaum--a 29-year-old Jewish student from Australia--was killed by a group
consisting mostly of neighborhood youth, in what would be interpreted as a
retaliatory slaying wrapped in the robes of anti-Semitism.
1991:
During the “August Coup,” Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under
house arrest while on holiday in the town of Foros, Crimea. The coup failed and
hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a wave of immigration to
Israel. It also made possible the
re-vitalization of Jewish Communities throughout most of the republics that had
made up the Communist Empire.
1993(2nd
of Elul, 5753): Sixty-one-year-old architect Norman Jaffe passed away today.
https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/6987979
1995(23rd
of Av, 5755): Seventy-year-old Danny Arnold, born Arnold Rothman, the actor
turned creator of sitcoms passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/22/obituaries/danny-arnold-70-creator-of-barney-miller.html
1997:
Brandeis University graduate Sidney
Stone Blumenthal, the Chicago born son of Hyman V. Blumenthal who was Jewish
began serving as a Senior Advisor toe President Bill Clinton.
2000(18th
of Av, 5760): Parashat Eikev
2000:
“The State Department's special peace envoy, Dennis Ross, opened new talks in
Jerusalem today with Prime Minister Ehud Barak in an effort to break an impasse
in the negotiations for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.” (As reported
by John F. Burns)
2000(18th
of Av, 5760): Eighty-seven-year-old Lee Tabor Shalom, the native of Paris,
Illinois, who directed more than 1300 shows “including both features and TV
episodes” during a 40 year career passed away today in Los Angeles.
2001(30th
of Av, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2001:
Israeli premiere of “The Switch” co-starring Jeff Goldblum with a script by
Allan Loeb.
2001:
The New York Times book section
featured reviews of The Darkness and
the Light by Jewish poet Anthony Hecht and How Charles Shavers Died And Other Poems by Jewish poet Harvey Shapiro
2001:
In “City Lore; The Little Red Summer
Camp,” published today, Ivy Meeropol reminisces about her summers at
Kinderland a camp that was founded in
1923 by secular Jews active in the New York City trade union movement, most of
whom were Communists or socialists.
2001: “U.S. Senator Lieberman's office was advised
that the Hiram Bingham IV stamp was (again) "on the agenda" of the
Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee.”
2002(11th of Elul, 5762): Eighty-five-year-old
philosopher and author Irving Marmer passed away today
http://archives.starbulletin.com/2002/09/01/news/story11.html
http://forward.com/culture/217470/alice-in-anti-semitic-land/
2003(21st
of Av, 5763): A Hamas planned suicide attack on Jerusalem bus #2 kills 23
Israelis, 7 of them children
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmuel_HaNavi_bus_bombing
Twenty-three
people, including two small children and two infants, were murdered and 134
wounded when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated himself on a #2 Egged bus
in Jerusalem’s Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood. Hamas claimed responsibility for the
attack. The victims: Avraham Bar-Or, 12, of Jerusalem; Binyamin Bergman, 15, of
Jerusalem; Yaakov Binder, 50, of Jerusalem; Feiga Dushinski, 50, of Jerusalem;
Miriam Eisenstein, 20, of Bnei Brak; Lilach Kardi, 22, of Jerusalem; Menachem
Leibel, 24, of Jerusalem; Elisheva Meshulami, 16, of Bnei Brak; Tehilla
Nathanson, 3, of Zichron Ya’acov; Chava Nechama Rechnitzer, 19, of Bnei Brak;
Mordechai Reinitz, 49, and Issachar Reinitz, 9, of Netanya; Maria Antonia
Reslas, 39, of the Philippines; Liba Schwartz, 54, of Jerusalem; Hanoch Segal,
65, of Bnei Brak; Goldie Taubenfeld, 43, and Shmuel Taubenfeld, 3 months, of
New Square, New York; Rabbi Eliezer Weisfish, 42, of Jerusalem; Shmuel Wilner,
50, of Jerusalem; Shmuel Zargari, 11 months, of Jerusalem. Fruma Rahel Weitz,
73, of Jerusalem died of her wounds on August 23; Mordechai Laufer, 27, died of
his on September 5; and Tova Lev, 37, died on September 12.(As reported by TIP
– The Israeli Project)
2004:
“Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said today that he would press ahead with his plan
to pull soldiers and settlers out of the Gaza Strip, even though his party
repudiated it once again in nonbinding votes late last night.”
2005(14th
of Av, 5765): Eighty-seven-year-old Dutch comedian Abraham ('Appie') Bueno de
Mesquita passed away. Born in 1918, he
escaped Auschwitz when he was chosen to play the cello by the Nazi camp
commander in Mechelen, Belgium. This
episode provided the title for his autobiography; Cello met één snaar (Cello
with one string).
2005(14th
of Av, 5765): David Sky, owner of the Rabbi L. Sky Bookstore passed away. The store was started by his father in Newark
in 1904 and was one of the "pioneering Judaica stores in the US
where" Jewish New Year’s cards were sold for the first time. The store moved to Maplewood in 1970. His widow sold the store in 2008.
2005:
Pope Benedict XVI, who was drafted into the German Army during World War II,
visited a synagogue in Cologne on Friday that had been destroyed by the Nazis
and warned of a growing anti-Semitism that he called a "reason for concern
and vigilance."[What follows is a
detailed description of this historic event]
"Today,
sadly, we are witnessing the rise of new signs of anti-Semitism and various
forms of a general hostility toward foreigners," the pope said in a
reverent hour-long visit to the Cologne synagogue on his first trip abroad.
"The Catholic Church is committed - and I affirm this again today - to
tolerance, respect, friendship and peace between all peoples, cultures and
religions."
The
visit - punctuated by the ancient call of the Shofar, the ram's horn - was
freighted with history, with a German who had taken part unwillingly in the
Hitler Youth as a boy becoming only the second pope to visit a synagogue.
Unlike his predecessor, John Paul II, who often spoke of his own life in Poland
during World War II, Benedict did not mention his own experiences during the
war, sticking mostly to his prepared text with a notable exception: He inserted
the word "love" in a sentence whose text on paper said Jews and
Catholics "need to show respect for each other."
But
he was greeted with great warmth by 500 people in the synagogue, which was
destroyed during the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, after which 11,000 Jews who
lived here were killed. It was rebuilt in 1959, and Jews in Cologne now number
5,000. "If someone told me 45 years ago, 'You are going to be in Cologne,
and the pope will visit you in a synagogue,' I wouldn't have believed it,"
Paul Spiegel, the leader of Germany's Jews, told reporters later. "We have
come a long way in mutual support and in mutual understanding and, as the pope
said, in mutual love."
Mr.
Spiegel called the visit "truly historic," words echoed by the pope's
spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, who said Benedict himself had asked for the
meeting. He said it was "an event of historic significance: a German pope,
who was on his first official trip, himself took the initiative for the
visit." The visit was an interreligious detour on Benedict's four-day
visit here as part of the 20th World Youth Day, which has attracted hundreds of
thousands of young Catholics from around the world. Benedict, 78, who has
pledged to make understanding between religions a centerpiece of his papacy, is
also scheduled to visit Muslim leaders in Cologne on Sunday.
Germany
is the home to 3.5 million Muslims, most of them Turkish, and since the
"This
is an issue that has to be settled between the state of Israel and the
Vatican," he told reporters at a news conference. Mr. Navarro-Valls, the
pope's spokesman, added at the same news conference that the "issue has
been settled, more or less."
2005:
Former Russian billionaire and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced that he
was on a hunger strike in protest at his friend and associate Platon Lebedev's
placement in the punishment cell of the jail. According to Khodorkovsky,
Lebedev had Diabetes mellitus and heart conditions, and keeping him in the
punishment cell would be equivalent to murder
2005:
During the evacuation of Israelis from Gaza, the Manchester Guardian reported
today “that some settlers had their children leave their homes with their hands
up, or wearing a Star of David badge, to associate the actions of Israel with
Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.”
2005:
“A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin” “a documentary short
subject about writer Norman Corwin” was released in the United States today.
2005:
“Honoring a ‘Righteous Gentile’: Hiram Bingham IV Commemorative Stamp Planned
for Next Year” published today described next year’s honoring of the late Hiram
Bingham IV with the issuance of commemorative stamp by the U.S. Postal Service
as a celebration of the humanitarian efforts of a so-called righteous gentile
who was personally responsible for saving the lives of thousands of Jews during
World War II as well as the celebration of an American diplomat who defied U.S.
State Department policy in order to do so. (As reported by David Brensilver)
2005:
In “Vikings’ Owner Makes a Name for Himself” published today Pat Borzi provides
a sketch of NFL owner Zygmunt Wilf, whose parents survived the Holocaust.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/19/sports/football/vikings-owner-makes-a-name-for-himself.html?_r=0
2005:
“Wordplay,” an exhibition assembled by curator Tamar Cohen came to a close at
the Julie Saul Gallery today.
2006(25th
of Av, 5766): Twenty-one-year-old Staff Sgt. Ro’I Farjoun was killed when
terrorists from the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades attacked a checkpoint he
was manning for the IDF.
2006(25th
of Av, 5766): Lt. Col. Emanuel A. Moreno of Moshav Tlamim was killed in a
daring commando raid designed to stop the shipment of weapons from Syria into
Lebanon for use by Hezbollah. Moreno is
survived by his wife Maya, their three children, his parents and three
brothers.
2007:
A retrospective of the works of Frida Kahlo which had been mounted to celebrate
the centenary of her birth comes to a close at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in
Mexico City.
2007:
The Sunday Washington Post book
section reviewed Amy Bloom’s new novel Away, featuring Lillian Leyb a
desperate young Jewish woman, fresh off the boat who has fled the pogroms of
Russia, trying to make her way in New York during the mid-1920s and Jews and
Power by Ruth R. Wisse the eighth title in a lively and distinguished
series, "Jewish Encounters," that has taken a fresh look at such
diverse figures in Jewish history as King David, the 12th-century rabbi and
physician Maimonides, the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza and the U.S.
boxer and World War II hero Barney Ross.
2007:
The Sunday New York Times book
section reviewed The Prince of Darkness by Robert D. Novak, the
Washington columnist who was raised Jewish but converted to Catholicism in
1998, Off the Record by Norman Pearlstine and UM by Michael Erard
author of “The Geek Guide to Kosher Machines.”
2008: In Little Rock, AR at the Chabad House, third
and final session of From Ruins to Glory, a course of study based on a virtual
tour of the Holy Temple.
2008: President Obama
appointed Dan Shaprio as Senior Policy Advisor and Jewish Outreach Coordinator.
2008(19th of
Av, 5768): Ninety-one-year-old Leo Abse, the longtime serving Welsh MP who was
the son “Rudolf Abse, a Jewish solicitor and cinema owner” from Cardiff passed
away today.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2590828/Leo-Abse.html
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/aug/20/labour1
2008(19th of Av, 5768): Binyamin Gibli,
a sabra born a Petah Tikva in 1919 who served as head of Israeli Military
Intelligence passed away.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3584976,00.html
2008:US
Airways announced today plans to operate nonstop service between its
Philadelphia hub and Tel Aviv, Israel, as the carrier moves to expand its
international service.
2008: The series “Modern Marvels: Jewish Adventures
in the Graphic Novel” explores The Rabbi’s Cat by Joan Sfaar
2009:
Amy Schapiro reads from and discusses Millicent Fenwick: Her Way, her
biography of the late New Jersey congresswoman, as part of the United States
Capitol Historical Society's "August Brown Bag Lecture Series" at the
VFW Building.
2009:
Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin is scheduled to convene a special session of the
Knesset House Committee to address the recent wave of violence in Israel.
Police, government officials and other law enforcement officials are scheduled
to attend.
2009(29th
of Av, 5769): Eighty-six-year-old Don Hewitt, the creator of “60 Minutes”
passed away today. (As reported by Jacques Steinberg)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/business/media/20hewitt.html?pagewanted=print
2009:
In another sign of the strong defense ties between Israel and India, the
government-owned Rafael defense company has secured a $1 billion deal to sell
advanced surface-to-air missiles to the Indian Armed Forces.
2010:
Tel Aviv native, Paula Valstein, is scheduled to perform at the Highline
Ballroom in New York City.
2010:
The International Mathematical Union awarded the prestigious Field's Medal to
mathematician and Hebrew University professor Elon Lindenstrauss
2010:
Funeral services are to held today for Harold Shpeena longtime dentist and
former president of the Jewish Federation of South Jersey, died
2010:
“The Switch” a romantic comedy co-starring Jeff Goldblum with a script by Allan
Loeb was released in Israel and Russia today.
2011: JCC Maccabi Games
are scheduled to come to an end in Philadelphia, PA and Springfield, MA.
2011: As her bat mitzvah
weekend begins, Gabriella “Gavi” Thalblum is scheduled to help lead Friday
night services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2011: The 31st
International conference on Jewish Genealogy is scheduled to come to an end.
2011:World-renowned
solo performer Yael Rasooly is scheduled to present the U.S. Premiere of her
award winning show Paper Cut tonight as part of the New York International
Fringe Festival.
2011:Friends and family
of those killed in yesterday's terror attacks near Eilat gathered to pay their
respects today as funerals took place across the country. Hundreds of people gathered at Mount Herzl
Cemetery for the funeral of 49-year-old Paskal Avrahami, a member of the YAMAM
Counter-terrorism Unit who was killed yesterday evening during a firefight with
terrorists north of Eilat on the border with Egypt. He was married and had
three children. "How can you be strong when the person you love is gone,"
asked Tal, Paskal's son at the funeral.
Wearing a torn black T-shirt, his son tried to find the words to
eulogize his father as he spoke to the thousands of mourners who gathered at
the Mount Herzl cemetery. "My dear father, I do not believe that I am
writing to you. It is the first time I have written something to you," he
said. "How do I even start?" he asked. "I will try to be strong
now because I think that is what you would want me to do, but I am not sure
that I will succeed.""We already miss you, your smile, your warm
hug, your eyes, the person that you were," he said. In Holon, friends and
family gathered this afternoon for the funeral of Yossef Levy, 57, who was
killed during the attacks while returning home from a vacation in the South with
his wife, who was also injured. Earlier this morning at Mount Herzl the funeral
took place of St.-Sgt. Moshe Naftali, who was also killed on Thursday
responding to the terrorist attacks near Eilat. US ambassador to Israel Dan
Shapiro and his wife Julie were among the hundreds of mourners who crowded
around the grave. Soldiers marched the flag draped coffin to the grave, as
family screamed and cried. "I just want to kiss him," his grandfather
told friends. Then he bent down and kissed the coffin, before it was lowered
into the grave as a rabbi recited psalms. Family members hugged each other,
some put their hands over their faces, as bags of earth were poured on the
grave. Shula Naftali, Moshe's mother, said yesterday "I know as a mother
that he fought bravely and fiercely, I have no doubt about it.”
2011:The IAF launched
an airstrike late tonight against a terrorist cell in the central Gaza Strip
after the cell fired a rocket into Israeli territory, the IDF Spokesman's
Office said in a statement.
2012: Susan Katzir is
scheduled to facilitate a “Make Your Own Tallit workshop” at Temple Shalom in
Auburn, Maine
2012: The Illinois
Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host a special
screening of “Elusive Justice,” a PBS documentary that recounts the decades
long struggle to apprehend Nazi war criminals and place them on trial for
crimes against humanity.
2012: “Soul Doctor,” a
musical about Shlomo Carlebach, is scheduled to have its final performance
today at the New York Theater Workshop.
2012: The New York
Times featured reviews of two books of special interest to Jewish readers –
The General, Jonathan Fenby’s biography of de Gaulle, the French leader
who stood against the Nazis and redefined the Franco-Israeli relationship after
the Six Day War and The Twilight War, David Crist’s history of the
conflict with Iran over the last 30 years.
2012(1st of
Elul, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Elul – Sound the shofar for the first time
2012: A musical version
“The Nutty Professor” with a score by Marvin Hamlish that was produced and
directed by Jerry Lewis was performed for the final time at the Tennessee
Performing Arts Center in Nashville.
2012:Vice Premier Moshe
Ya'alon today described two violent attacks against Arabs over the weekend in
Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem as "hate crimes" and "terrorist
acts." He called the attacks "totally unacceptable and outrageous"
and ascribed their incidence to a moral and educational failure that goes
against Jewish ethics and values.
2012:Police detained
four members of the Women of the Wall organization this morning for wearing
tallitot (prayer shawls) at the Western Wall plaza. According to a 2001 law, it
is illegal for women to perform religious practices traditionally done by men
in Orthodox Jewish practice at the Western Wall, such as reading from a Torah
scroll, wearing tefillin or a tallit, or blowing a shofar.
2013(13th of
Elul, 5773): Wedding anniversary of JewishPress.com Senior Internet Editor Yori
Yanover
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/photos/mazal-tov-2/2013/08/04/
2013:
The Center for Jewish and the American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to
co-sponsor a presentation by Lori Sternfeld, “The Jewish Community In Iran from
1914 until the Revolution”
2013:
Michael Fruend of Shavei is scheduled to speak about reconnection lost and
hidden Jews to the Jewish people and the Land of Israel this evening at Beit
Knesset Ma'alot David in Ma'ale Adumim.
2013:
The Oxnard Film Society is scheduled to show “Fill the Void” at Oxnard, CA.
2013: Israeli and Jewish
targets all over the world are likely to be sought out by terrorist
organizations in the coming weeks, the Israeli government’s Counter-Terrorism
Bureau warned in strikingly strident tones today, listing dozens of countries
where it said it had “concrete” indications of a terrorist threat. The threat is connected, in part, to the
upcoming Jewish holiday season. (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)
2013: “Leading up to an
end-of-the- week court-set deadline to clamp down on businesses operating on
Shabbat, the Tel Aviv Municipality’s legal counsel said today it is still
working on formulating the city’s official response. (As reported by Ben Hartman
and Yonah Jeremy Bob)
2013: “Justice Minister
Tzipi Livni announced late tonight that she had appointed renowned Prof. Ruth
Gavison to draft a constitutional provision defining the exact dimensions of
what it means for Israel to be a “Jewish and democratic state.” (As reported by
Yonah Jeremy Bob)
2013: Fifteen days after
journalist Steven Joel Sotloff, his fixer and the fixer’s brother and cousins
were kidnapped by ISIS terrorist in Aleppo, everybody was released except for
the Jewish journalist who would eventually be beheaded.
2013: “The Nazi Hunter:
Remarkable story of the Jewish refugee responsible for tracking down the
Auschwitz commandant who slaughtered 3million people” published today described
the role Hanns Alexander played “in the hunt for Auschwitz commander Rudolph
Hoss.”
2014: The Wiener Library
for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host an Online
Resource User-Testing Focus Group as part of its efforts to respond to the
digitization of more and more historical archives.
2014: Hamas broke this
truce this afternoon with a volley of rockets that “intensified through the
nights.” (As reported by Yifa Yaakov and Adiv Sterman)
2014:
New Jersey Rabbi David Wax who “pleaded guilty to kidnapping charges as part of
a scheme to force an Israeli man to give his wife a get” is scheduled to be
sentenced today. (As reported by JTA and The Jewish Daily Forward)
2014: “The United States views Hamas as responsible
for the violation of a renewed temporary truce in the Gaza Strip, and is “very
concerned” about the resumption of rocket attacks, a State Department
spokeswoman said this afternoon.”
2014:
“Israeli police issued a request today for assistance in locating IDF soldier
David Menahem Gordon, 21, who was last seen at an army base’s medical facility
at the beginning of the week.”
2014(23rd
of Av, 5774): Twenty-year old Corporal David Gordon who was reported missing
two days ago was found dead not far from the Tzrifin base, east of Rishon
Lezion, where he was last seen wearing his uniform and his purple Givati
Brigade beret.
2015:
The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to
host a noontime showing of “Easy Rider.”
2015:
A 22-month-old Jewish baby and her father “were rushed to Shaare Tzedek Medical
Center in Jerusalem” after she was wound tonight by an Arab terrorist “who
hurled rocks at the car driven by her father on Highway 443.” (As reported by
Hana Levi Julian)
2015:
“Why I Killed My Mother” by Dor Zweigenbom is scheduled to open in New York.
2015:
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet this evening
to discuss The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris.
2016(15th
of Av, 5776): Tu B’Av – Depending on your point of view, “a Jewish Valentine’s
Day” or a “Jewish Sadie Hawkins Day.”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/tubav.html
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/53680/jewish/15th-of-Av.htm
http://www.israeldailypicture.com/
2016:
In Memphis, TN is scheduled to host the L’dor Vador Shabbat Service and Dinner.
2016:
“According to filing with the Securities and Exchange” today, “Facebook founder
and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, sold company shares
valued at nearly $95 million to fund their charitable efforts.”
2016(15th
of Av): According to Bav Batra, on the Jewish calendar, anniversary of the
death of the last member of the exodus generation that was barred from entering
Eretz Israel. (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch)
2016(15th
of Av, 5776): Sixty-two-year-old Louis Jay “Lou” Pearlman, the record producer
turned imprisoned felon passed away today
https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/21/entertainment/backstreet-boys-nsync-lou-pearlman-dies/index.html
2016:
Oran Etkin is scheduled to perform at the Philadelphia Art Museum.
2017(27th
of Av, 5777): Parashat Re-ay
2017:
One hundred-year-old Big Band Singer Beatrice Ruth Wain who turned “radio
hostess” when she joined forces with husband Andre Baruch passed away today.
2017:
“Our Great Tchaikovsky” Hershey Felder’s one man show about the great Russian
composer is scheduled to open today in Hartford, CT.
2017:
After a complimentary dairy meal, members of the Queens Jewish Community are
scheduled to come together for a beautiful and easy-to-follow Havdalah service
followed by ice cream and drinks.
2017:
The Modern Dance Theater Istanbul of Istanbul State Opera and Ballet is
scheduled to perform for a second final time as part of Tel Aviv Dance 2017.
2017:
American singer-songwriter Regina Spektor Regina is scheduled to perform at
Ra’anana Amphitheater, at the outskirt of Tel Aviv.”
2017:
The Jerusalem Arts and Crafts Fair is scheduled to come to an end.
2017:
The Candles Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute, IN is
scheduled to sponsor its fall workshop today at Indiana State University where
middle and high school teachers will learn about “stories of individuals and
groups who “chose to participate” in a variety of ways during the Civil Rights
movement, specifically the desegregation of Central High School in 1957 and the
Freedom Rides in 1961.”
2018:
The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and or of
special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback
editions of Moving Kings by Joshua Cohen and Black Mad Wheel by
Josh Malerman.
2018:
The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington is scheduled to host Grand Slam
Sunday – an end of summer celebration featuring a baseball game between the
home town Nationals and the visiting Miami Marlins.
2018:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a
screening of “13 Minutes” which tells the story of Georg Elser’s failed attempt
“to kill Hitler on November 9, 1939.”
2019:
In New Orleans, Touro Synagogue, one of the Crescent City’s three Reform
Congregations, hosts it’s a meeting of its board.
2019:
In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Sarah” a film version of
the book by the same name.
2019:
As we mark, 219th anniversary of the birth of Bernard Barcuh, the
native of South Carolina the park bench philosopher whose name became
synonymous with the term “Wall Street financier” and who was the unofficial
advisor to Presidents from Wilson through Truman, it provides a whole raft of
people with a variety interests a year’s worth of warning so they can prepare
to celebrate his 2020th anniversary.
(Americans seem to love celebrating anniversaries that end in zero of
five.)
2019:
The McGill/Klezkanada Academic Seminar is scheduled to begin this evening with
an “orientation meeting for all McGill students.
2019:
Klezkanada 2019 is scheduled to open with a concert this evening.
2020:
“The Trump administration accelerated a push to sell the F-35 stealth fighter
and advanced armed drones to the United Arab Emirates, at a time when the Gulf
nation is working with the Trump administration on a historic plan to formalize
diplomatic ties with Israel, according to American officials familiar with the
discussions.”
2020:
It was reported today that Borough Park,home to many Hasidic Jews, is “a
particularly hard-hit demographic” when it comes to the Coronavirus. Large households are common, and the
tight-knit, communal way of life was likely also a factor. Many Hasidic Jews
fell sick in early March, right after Purim — a holiday of joyous celebration,
full of parties and mingling.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/nyregion/new-york-city-antibody-test.html?searchResultPosition=2
2021:
Leslie K. Barry is scheduled to discuss virtually her romance thriller Newark
Minutemen and soon-to-be motion picture based on the heroism of her uncle
and a group of New Jersey boxers who were recruited by the Mafia and U.S.
government to fight American Nazis in the 1930s.
2021:
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston is scheduled to
present online “Moving Forward in Israel’s Mixed City.”
2021:
The Illinois Holocaust Museum is scheduled to host Dr. David G. Marwell
discussing his new book Mengele: Unmasking the "Angel of Death."
2021:
In Cedar Rapids, IA Temple Judah is scheduled to hold the first choir rehearsal
in preparation for the High Holidays with mask required during rehearsal.
2022:
The East Bay International Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to host a final
screening of “Exodus 1947,” a “one-hour, 1997 PBS documentary about its voyage,
its U.S. backing and its role in getting Jewish refugees to what would be
Israel.”
2022:
“A significant court hearing is scheduled to be heard in the case which would
result in the closure of the Jewish agency in Russia is scheduled to take place
today.
2022:
In Washington, D.C., the historic Sixth and I Synagogue is scheduled to host an
“inclusive service led by Rabbi
Nora and musicians Aaron Shneyer, Sarah Fredrick, and Jeff Geld blends
contemporary and traditional elements for an experience that feels both
familiar and fresh.
2023: In the aftermath of the overnight
collapse of the ancient historical water arch in Caesarea, “the Antiquities
Authority has called upon the regional authorities to swiftly allocate funds
for the restoration of the water aqueduct and the stabilization of the
remaining parts of the aqueduct that are in jeopardy.”
2023: Despite protests “by hundreds of
anti-governments” at “the new rail Tel Aviv light rail” yesterday the
government stands by “its refusal to not operate public transportation” today
because it is Shabbat.
2023: Israel braces for the possibility of
another evening of the anti-judiciary bill which have become recurring part of
Saturday nights.
2023: Temple Judea is scheduled to present
“Torah Study” featuring the fascinating insights Rabbi Feivel Strauss.
2023(2nd of Elul, 5783): Parashat
Shoftim
2024: Agnon House is scheduled to present an
on-line lecture by Professor Chai Weiss who will trace the various stages in
the development of Esau's representation, from the Bible to Bible Now by
Meir Shalev.
2024: The Democratic National Convention is scheduled
to open in Chicago where “Mayor Brandon Johnson personally agreed to the
demands of anti-Israel protest groups and allowed them to set up a stage and
sound system for their planned demonstrations during the Democratic National
Convention” which will include 25,000 people brought in from all over the
United States to disrupt the proceedings and express their support for those
committed to the destruction of the state of Israel and the death of its Jewish
population.
2024:As
August 19th 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 318 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)