August 18
1393: King John I, in an effort to prevent "backsliding" by converted Jews, prohibited them from living in the same quarter or even eating together.
1889:“Right or Left” published today described Dr. Friedrich Erlenmeyer’s “proof” that “the ancient Hebrews” were “a left-handed people.”
1904: Birthdate of Max Factor Jr. Max Factor, Jr. would follow in his father’s footsteps asCEO of Max Factor Cosmetics. He passed away in 1996.
1918: Due to massive fires in Salonica, 50,000 Jews are homeless. This represents nearly the entire Jewish population of the city
1926: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service reported that “the number of families to be settled in the Ukraine during the years 1927 and 1928 is not to be less than during the present year, that is, not less than 4,000 families each year, the Ukrainian Government Commission for Jewish Land Settlement decided at its meeting here. Since the number to be settled outside the Ukraine during 1927 will not exceed 1,000 families, and in 1928 will be 3,000 families, it has been decided that sufficient land should be allocated in the Ukraine for the settlement in 1927 of 3,000 families and in 1928 of 1,000 families.”
1952: TheUS Israel
1201: Founding of Riga Latvia Riga
1227: Genghis Khan dies. According to Arthur Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe, Genghis Khan wiped out the Khazar Empire.
1307: Jaime II (James) of Majorca expelled the Jews from the provinces of Rousillon and Montpellier. Many escaped to Barcelona
1393: King John I, in an effort to prevent "backsliding" by converted Jews, prohibited them from living in the same quarter or even eating together.
1533: The Queen of Poland granted the Jews of Pinsk all the rights already granted to the Jews of Lithuania.
1670: A church called the Leopoldskirche was dedicated today in Vienna. The church had been a synagogue but it was no longer used as such because the Jews had all been expelled from the Upper and Lower Austria.
1765(1st of Elul, 5525): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1765: Samuel Levy Maduro, son of Moses Levy Maduro married Leah Cohen Peixotto in Curacao
1775: The Spanish established a presidio (fort) and the town that came to be called Tucson, Arizona. The first openly Jewish settlers did not arrive in Tucson until the 18th century. They included Nathan Appel, a noted merchant who served as a delegate to the first Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1863 and Chief of the Tucson Police, William Zeckendorf, the Tucson merchant who was the grandfather of the famous real estate magnate and the brewer Alex Levin, founder of Levin’s Park, the three-acre entertainment center that was the site of every important social and communal event in Tucson during Arizona’s territorial days. Country Singer Linda Ronstadt is one of Levin’s descendants.
1822(1st of Elul, 5582): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1822(1st of Elul, 5582):Joshua Zeitlin passed away. Born in 1742, he “was a Russian rabbinical scholar and philanthropist. He was a pupil of the Talmudist Rabbi Aryeh Leib ben Asher Gunzberg who was the author of Sha'agat Aryeh; and, being an expert in political economy, he stood in close relations with Prince Potemkin, the favorite of Catherine II. During the Turko-Russian war Zeitlin furnished the Russian army with various supplies, and managed that business so cleverly that he was afterward appointed imperial court councilor. On retiring from business in civil rank of Court Counsellor, Zeitlin resided on his estate Ustzia, where he was consulted by the rabbis with regard to rabbinical questions. He rendered pecuniary assistance to many Talmudists and scholars, and supported a magnificent beit midrash, in which many Jewish scholars were provided with all the necessaries of life, so that they could pursue their vocations without worries of any kind. Among the scholars who benefited by his generosity: Rabbi Nahum, author of Tosafot Bikkurim; Mendel Lepin, author of Cheshbon ha-Nefesh; and the physician Baruch Schick. Zeitlin was the author of annotations to the Sefer Mitzwot Katan, printed with the text (Kopys, 1820), and supplemented by some of his responsa.”
1823: Birthdate of Phoebe Yates Levy Pember. During the Civil War, Pember served as the chief matron of Richmond’s Chimborazo Hospital. After the War, she wrote her memoirs, which were published as A Southern Woman's Story: Life in Confederate Richmond, in 1879. This book, which details her daily life through anecdotes of the war years, remains one of the best sources for understanding the experiences and ideas of upper-class Southern Jewish women before and during the Civil War. Following the War, Pember maintained her elite social status, and traveled extensively through the U.S. and Europe. She died on March 4, 19 13
1826: Birthdate of William Isaac Wolf (Ritter von Gutman) who founded the largest coal company in the Austro-Hungarian empires and served as the President of the Jewish Community of Vienna from 1891 through 1892.
1830: Birthdate of Franz Joseph I, the penultimate Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During his long reign, for whatever reason or reason(s), Franz Joseph improved the conditions of his Jewish subjects to the point that “three years after he celebrated his Jubilee the Jewish Chronicles’ Vienna correspondent wrote “the Jews owe a great deal to their Emperor Franz Joseph” and that they do not blame him for any “retrogressive measures” taken against them. At the same Franz Joseph’s enemies derisively referred to him as the “Judenkaiser.”
1830: Birthdate of Henry Strauss, the native of Alsac who moved to Jackson, Mississippi before the Civil War.
1834: Birthdate of department store owner, Marshall Field. Marshall Field was not Jewish but his partner Levi Ziegler Leiter was. In 1865 Field and Leiter bought a dry goods store which they named Field and Leiter. They built and re-built the signature State Street Store. When Leiter retired, the company was renamed Marshall Field and Company.
1835: Birthdate of Amalia Nathansohn Freud, the mother of Sigmund Freud.
1838: Birthdate of Emil Ganz a Civil War veteran who went West and became a successful businessman and three-time mayor of Phoenix, Arizona.
1846: The Jewish Oath, originally established by Charlemagne, was abolished in Austria. Until then, a Jew who took oath in a Christian court against a Christian was forced to stand on the skin of a dead animal or be surrounded by thorns and call down the curses of Korach or Naaman if he were not telling the truth. In Romania
1855:The New York Timesreported that Solomon Rothschild who died in Paris in July was buried "with a certain degree of financial pomp. The hearse was followed by a large number of artistic and literary celebrities by the old men supported at the hospital endowed by the deceased and by 1,200 children educated at his school. Then, in the procession, was the Grand Rabbi and the Israelite Consistory. The body was buried in the tomb of the Rothschild family, which is in the Jews' corner of Pere La chaise."
1856: Birthdate of Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg who gained fame using the Hebrew pan name Ahad Ha'am (אחד העם,). A pre-eminent essayist he was the founder of Cultural Zionism with a vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Palestine. Ha'am strived for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews." In what would appear to have been a detour from his intellectual pursuits Ahad Ha’am managed the Anglo-Asiatic tea company established by Kaloniumus Wolf Wissotzky, the founder of the Wissotzky Tea Company which prior to the Bolshevik Revolution was the largest tea company in the world.
https://archive.org/details/at_the_crossroads_0902_librivox1860: An article entitled “Sunday at Newport” states that the Jews might teach the current inhabitants “a lesson of reverence; for, although long since departed from Newport, where their social and commercial position was once superior, by ample testamentary provision, their Synagogue and Cemetery are preserved in admirable order -- reproachful to Christian neglect and indifference…It was startling, when the remains of the benevolent Judah Turo were brought here for interment, to hear the Rabbi, who pronounced the funeral discourse -- alluding to his change of abode and the vicissitudes of his life -- say, as a matter of course, "Like his great ancestor, Jacob, he was a pilgrim and sojourner.”
1863: Birthdate of Victor-Guillaume Basch, the native of Budapest who was the son of journalist Raphael Basch and who became a professor at the Sorbonne and a French political leader.
1869: Henry Fileman, the second son of John Fileman marred Theresa Clara Leopold, the eldest daughter of Louis Leopold at the Masonic Hall, Bedford Row, Holborn, WC,
1870: The Baltimore American reported that members of the Lloyd Street Synagogue had filed suit against various officers of synagogue in Circuit Court over what they considered violations of the charter as it pertains to matter of ritual and the hiring of a Chazan, among other matters.
1871: It was reported today that a large quantity of diamonds, rubies and other precious stones which had been concealed in the luggage of three French Jews has been seized by Custom House authorities on suspicion that they had been smuggled in to the country aboard the SS Italy.
1878: “The Happy Californians” published today described the surprise expressed by Christians in California that Michael Reese, the recently deceased German-Jewish millionaire had bequeathed “large sums to different institutions irrespective of their denomination.”
1878: During the Yellow Fever epidemic that has gripped New Orleans Rabbi J.K. Gutheim, Edward J. Krsheidt and other officers of the Hebrew Benevolent Assoication made the following appeal today, “ Sickness, distressand suffering amont the poor are increasing daily. Our funds are nearly exhaustaed. In this sad calamity we deem it our melancholy dutry to appeal to the sympathies of our brethern throughout the United States for speedy aid.”
1879: The Notes of Foreign News column reported the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs has issued a circular to its missions abroad concerning the condition of the Jews living in the country. On the one hand the government claimes that “In the future every foreigner” Jewish or non-Jewish, will be eligible to become naturalized citizens regardless of religion. At the same time, the government claimes that “the Jews in Roumania at the present moment have never been Romanian citizens. The government questions how it can make them citizens “in one day” since it will that Moldavia will be over-run by 300,000 Jews who are “uneducated fanatics, having a different language, a different language, a different different customs, different sentiments and whom the” Romanians have always considered foreginers. Granting the Jews currently living in Romanaia would “stirke a terrible blow to the economic interest of the county…and would drive the population to revolt…” [The treatment of the Jews living in Romania was a cause that had been taken up by the Great Powers. The Romanians wanted recognition as an independent state while working tenanciously to avoid improving the lot of its Jewish citizens.
1879: It was reported today that The Pall Mall Gazette (an English publication) “says that a Mr. Austin Corbin has ‘gone so far as to exclude Jews from the Manhattan Beach Railway…’” The columnist concludes that this “will be news to Corbin and the Jews.” (Apparently, the English author did not know that report of Corbin’s ban was quite true.]
1880: A barge filled with children on an excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children narrowly avoided colliding with a yawl-boat as it came through the Narrows today.
1880: Mr. Mendel denied recent reports that the Sharon Hotel at Sharon Springs does not accept Jewish guests is false. He has been staying there for the last three summer seasons as have been several other guests whom the proprietors know are Jewish. (This comes on the heels of the Saratoga Springs incident)
1881: The SS Bellevue will leave for an excursion to Hart’s Island today at 11 am sponsored by the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society
1881: “A Pawnbroker Swindled” published today described the victimization of Ellis Silbertsein, a Jewish pawnbroker who owns a shop on North 9th Street in Philadelphia, PA.
1882(3rdof Elul, 5642): Forty-two year Leon Jacob Wetheim the Dutch bank employee turned author who was the brother of A.C. Wertheim and the son of Dina Minden and Carel Wertheim, passed away
1883: It was reported that “Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice, Under Foreign Secretary stated in the House of Commons…that the government…has asked the Russian government to” explain why a British Jewish businessman who had “a proper British passport” was expelled.
1886: Birthdate of Sholom Schwartzbard a Bessarabian-born Jewish anarchist known primarily for the assassination of the Ukrainian politician Symon Petliura. Schwartzbard held Petliura responsible for the death of his parents who had been murdered in a pogrom in 1919.
1887(28th of Av, 5647): Julius Weisbaden a miser who has no friends or family in the United States died today Bellevue Hospital
1887: It was reported today that Adolph Stern a commercial traveler who passed away yesterday will be buried by the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society at the Salem Fields Cemetery. Stern, who was a member of the society, died alone since his wife and grown daughter still lived in Germany.
1888(11th of Elul, 5648): Prominent New York merchant Marks Laski died suddenly today at his home on West 36th Street.
1888: “Jews in Prussia” published today relied on reports from the London Times to report that in 1880 there were 363,790 Jews living in Prussia which made them 1.33 percent of the population. Five years later the number of Jews had grown to 366,543 but they were now only 1.29 per cent of the population.
1889:“Right or Left” published today described Dr. Friedrich Erlenmeyer’s “proof” that “the ancient Hebrews” were “a left-handed people.”
1889: Jacques Damala, the non-Jewish husband of Sarah Bernhardt, passed away.
1889(21stof Av. 5649): Thirty-seven year old Lewis Arnheim, a member of the Georgia State Legislature passed away today.
1890: Rabbi E.M Chapman of Dallas and Samuel Gompers delivered the eulogies at the funeral for Montague L Marks who was buried at Washington Cemetery on Long Island “according to the practice of the Orthodox Jews.”
1890: “Baron Hirsch, the well-known Jewish financier and philanthropist sent the Hebrew Young Men’s Benevolent Society of Montreal a check for $20,000 after it was discovered that the Canadian society could not participate in the benefits of the American trust fund which he had created.”
1890: Birthdate of Solomon Rosenthal, the Lithuanian born chess master.
1890: Fifty-three year old Samuel Cohen was arrested today on charges that he was falsely representing himself as an agent of the Hebrew Aid Society and was collecting money which was intended to help poor Jews.
1890: Sixty-two year old John Cooper Vail, the librarian at Bellevue Hospital and author of the prize winning poem “The Hebrew Gladiator” which was first published in the New York Clipper passed away today.
1891: “City and Suburban News” published today described an appeal that Rabbi William M. Krauskopf made that raised $165 for the Hebrew Sheltering House.
1891: “Brazil Wants Farmers” published today that a large number of Russian Jews have gone to the Brazilian Consul’s office in New York to apply for permission to go that country where they can work as farmers. Many of those who have already gone there do not know anything about farming and seemed to be more interested in pursuing the profession they know best – peddling.
1892: “The Pope on Jews and Frenchmen” published today provided a summary of Mme. Severine’s interview with the Pope that appeared in Figaro in which he discussed his views about the Jews and anti-Semitism.
1892(25thof Av, 5652): Sixty-one year old German author Elise Henle, the wife of Leopold Levi, passed away today at Frankfurt-on-Main.
1893: The Park Departments has issued a permit to allow the thousands of unemployed Jewish workers to hold a mass meeting in Union Square.
1893: Emma Goldman the wife of the man who shot Chairman Frick of Carnegie Steel delivered “a violent speech’ at a meeting in Golden Rule Hall on Rivington Street.
1894: Seventy-one year old Eugene Lawrence, the author of The Jews and Their Persecutors, passed away in New York City.
1895: “Kesher Shel Barzel” published today traces the history of the organization from its founding in 1860 as a mutual aid society in New York City to becoming one the largest national Jewish benevolent and protective societies in the United States. Kesher Shel Barzel means “Iron Knot.”
1896: The body of the man with the Hebraic features which was found yesterday in a New Jersey barnyard was identified as Arthur Malke of Newark who has been missing for four days.
1897: A crowd of 15,000 heard Mayor Strong when he delivered an address at the Summer Festival given tonight by District Grand Lodge, No.1 Independent Order Free Sons of Israel at Sulzer’s Harlem River Park.
1897: J. S. Koenigsberg, a leading member of the Jewish community in Denver received a letter for Edwin Wallace, the American Counsel at Jerusalem “giving an account of gross misappropriation of money sent by American Jewish societies for the relief of their fellow countrymen” living in that city.
1898: All the children living at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum should have been removed today from the facility at 138th Street and Amsterdam Avenue as officials dealt with an epidemic of dystentery.
1899: When the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus resumed this morning at 7:25 AM in Rennes, “Colonel Picquart, former Chief of the Intelligence Department of the War Office, was called to the witness stand and continued his deposition which was interrupted yesterday by the adjournment of the court.”
1899: The meeting of the Third Zionist Congress comes to an end.
1899: It was reported today that Rigmund Albert, a Jewish cadet, had left the Military Academy at West Point because of he had been persecuted because of his religion.
1899: Thirty-one year old Siegfried Wolf and Ida Wolf gave birth to Alfred Emil Wolf.
1902: Herzl receives a letter from Rothschild, filled with warnings against ambitious and over-hasty plans, and characterizing the idea of Palestine
1904: Max Factor, Sr. moved to the United States
1904: Birthdate of Max Factor Jr. Max Factor, Jr. would follow in his father’s footsteps as
1908: The New Jersey
1910:Ossip Gabrilowitsch and his wife Clara Clemens (the daughter of Mark Twain) gave birth to their daughter Nina who turn out to be the last known lineal descendant the great American humorist and author.
1911: In Great Britain University of Birmingham
1911: The Alliance Israelite Universelle sends ten thousands francs to relive the suffering resulting from the fires at Constantinople .
1911: Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres awards Captain Raymond Weill a grant of six thousand francs to continue excavations in Egypt Palestine Jerusalem
1911: Anti-Semitism took on many faces in Russia as Jewish families were expelled from two more cities that had been part of the Pale of Settlement. The Czar’s government also enforced restrictions on the number of Jewish students attending high schools and confiscated property owned by Jews outside of the Pale.
1911: James Simon, President of Hilfsverein der Deuteshcne Juden, gave one hundred thousand marks to the Technical Institute in Haifa
1912: In Chicago, Illinois, dedication of Temple Beth Israel.
1914: “In Trachin, an outbreak of fires as Russian troops marched through the town was immediately blamed on the Jews” whose goal, according to the locals, was to let the Germans know where the Russians troops were located. In this case 14 Jews were arrested and although they were later released their “pillaged goods” were neither returned or paid for. (During August and September, the Jews of Poland were subject to numerous pogroms, usually at the hands of the Cossacks forcing them to flee to Warsaw from which they would later be forcibly be deported eastward (As reported by Max Hastings)
1915(8thof Elul, 5675): Schumel Itzig Gordon, the son of Salman Yehuda Gordon, passed away today.
1916(19thof Av, 5676): Eighteen year old Samuel Salomo Israelsohn passed away.
1916: Rabbinical seminaries in Florence and Leghorn, Italy merged due to lack of funds.
1917:Vilmos Vázsonyi completed his term in office as Minister of Justice of Hungary.
1917: A Great Fire in Thessaloniki , Greece Thessaloniki Thessaloniki Thessaloniki Israel Europe . Business was generally conducted in the Sephardi language of Ladino and, on Friday afternoons, almost all commercial life stopped since most of the city’s workers were Jewish. A sprawling Jewish cemetery that was destroyed during World War II to make room for a new university lay in the center of the city (. The Jewish population was varied and included both Kararites and followers of the false messiah Shabbatai Zevi. The city had a strong Judaeo-Spanish culture. For all intents and purposes, this all disappeared with the Holocaust.
1917(30th of Av, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1918: Due to massive fires in Salonica, 50,000 Jews are homeless. This represents nearly the entire Jewish population of the city
1919: An appraisal of the estate of Ludwig Dreyfus filed today shows “that the total was worth $1,305, 318.”
1920: The Tennessee State Legislature approved the Nineteenth Amendment providing “the final ratification necessary to add the Amendment” that gave women the right to vote “to the United States Constitution.
1920: In Holyoke, Vincent and Antoinette D’Addario gave birth to Raymond D’Addario, “an Army photographer whose images of Hitler’s top henchmen during the Nuremberg war crimes trials put their faces before the world as it became increasingly aware of Nazi atrocities.” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1920: Alfred Mond was the subject of a cartoon in Punch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred_Mond_cartoon_from_Punch_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_16707.png
1922: Birthdate of Shelley Winters. Born Sylvia Schrift, in St Louis Mo
1926: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service reported that “the number of families to be settled in the Ukraine during the years 1927 and 1928 is not to be less than during the present year, that is, not less than 4,000 families each year, the Ukrainian Government Commission for Jewish Land Settlement decided at its meeting here. Since the number to be settled outside the Ukraine during 1927 will not exceed 1,000 families, and in 1928 will be 3,000 families, it has been decided that sufficient land should be allocated in the Ukraine for the settlement in 1927 of 3,000 families and in 1928 of 1,000 families.”
1926: The Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service reported that “The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America has this year produced a new form of collapsible Succah, which can be erected within an hour. These Succahs give an opportunity to the Jews of America to have their observance not only in the Synagogue, but at their homes. Applications can be made to the office of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, 131 West 86th St., New York City.”
1928: In Manhattan, “Abner Millon, a tailor, and the former Mollie Gorkowitz” gave birth to Theodore Millon “a psychologist whose theories helped define how scientists think about personality and its disorders, and who developed a widely used measure to analyze character traits.” (As reported by Benedict Carey)
1929:Arabs, following their attack Friday on the Wailing Wall and on groups of Jews yesterday, today stoned Rabbi Nical of the College of Torah Chaim.
1929(12th of Av, 5689)A young Sephardic Jew named Abraham Mizrachi who was stabbed at the Maccabi grounds near Mea Shearim, in the Bukharan Quarter on Shabbat by Arab rioters died of his wounds today.
1930: Birthdate of Liviu Librescu, Israeli professor, who was killed in the Virginia Tech massacre
1933: Birthdate of director Roman Polanski
1933: According to press reports published in Jerusalem, Mrs. Sarah Levi of Singapore has set aside her fortune of £100,000 to rebuild Safed, which suffered during the 1929 riots.
1933:It was reported from Jerusalem that Aba Achimeir, a Revisionist, has been charged with having conspiring to assassinate Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff.
1933: The British High Commissioner issued an order that in all towns of mixed population a third of the wages spent in public works shall be assigned to Jewish labor.
1933:According to the official count, there are a total of 297 accredited Zionists delegates to the Zionist Congress meeting in Prague: 139 are Laborites, 79 General Zionists, 47 Revisionists and 32 Mizrachi.
1933: The meeting of the International Congress of Mizrachi meeting in Cracow, Poland, comes to an end. Before adjourning delegates the delegates called for the reorganization of the Jewish Agency, expressed opposition to the leadership of Chaim Weizmann and called for a world Orthodox religious congress to be held in Jerusalem no later than 1935.
1933: In Germany, the Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment prohibits the filming of a scenario based on Stefan Zweig's "Amok."
1936: Fifty thousand Jewish residents of Tel Aviv attended the funeral today of two nurses killed by Arab snipers yesterday. “Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, British High Commissioner in Palestine, expressed his ‘deepest sorrow and abhorrence of the recent brutal murders and attacks on a perfectly innocent people.’”
1937: In Geneva, the Permanent Mandates Commission had completed its sessions and submitted a secret report on the British partition of Palestine scheme to the Council of the League of Nations.
1937: In Zurich Britain
1938: Birthdate of Marcia Lewis who received an RN from the Jewish Hospital School of Nursing in Cincinnati before gaining fame as a Tony nominated actress and singer. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1938:A British military column was ambushed this afternoon by a gang of well armed Arabs near Acre. The troops assisted by aircraft fought back and in the battle at least twenty-seven Arabs were killed by the fliers and ten more by the troops.
1938: As Arab violence continued, an eight year old Jewish boy was killed and four others were wounded when a bomb was thrown at a crowd on the border between Tel Aviv and Jaffa while another Arab threw a bomb at truck carrying eleven Jewish workers, wounding nine of them.
1938: As Arab violence continued to escalate in Palestine, hundreds of Moslems took to the streets of London shouting “Down with the ignorant Wells” as they protested the publication of A Short History of the World by H.G. Wells. At the same time a Moslem delegation complained to the High Commissioner of India that the book “insulted the memory of Mohammed and the Koran.”
1940: Birthdate of Nelli Abramova the Jewish volleyball player who helped the Soviet Union win a Silver Medal at the Olympics in 1964
1941: The Nazis took over authority of Kovno and sealed off the ghetto. Five hundred Jews were taken from the ghetto to be killed. Looting and killing of the Intelligentsia would soon follow.
1941: Adolf Hitler ordered the end to the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and handicapped persons due to protests within Germany
1942: The Nazis deported 998 Jews, including 287 children, to the East from Belgium
1943: Thousands of more Jews were deported from Bialystok
1943: The last transport from Salonika arrived in Auschwitz consisting of 1,800 laborers, the last of 48,533 people to be deported from that town. Almost 38,000 of them would be exterminated on arrival.
1943: The process of destroying the evidence of mass murder that took place at Babi Yar , a suburb of Kiev
1945:A group of refugees in the “Beriha” movement in Komo, Italy were captured by the camera.
1950: First performance of "The Village I Knew," choreographed by Sophie Maslow.
1951: Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive's American section, appealed tonight to the delegates to the twenty-third World Zionist Congress to shelve the ideological debate on whether it was the duty of all Zionists to settle in Israel
1952: The
1952: Birthdate of comedic talent Elayne Boosler
1957(21st of Av, 5717): English born film composer Louis Levy passed away
1957(21st of Av, 5717):Rabbi Aharon Rokeach the fourth Rebbe of the Belz Hasidic dynasty passed away. Born in 1877, he led the movement from 1926 until his passing in 1957.
1969: Premiere of Woody Allen’s “Take the Money and Run” with music by Marvin Hamlisch.
1969: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair which was held on the land of Max B. Yasgur came to an end.
1977: The US Israel West Bank and the Gaza Strip and to approve, by the Ministerial Committee for Settlement, the three new settlements on the West Bank : south of Tulkarm, at Mevo Horon and between Hebron Beersheba US Israel
1977: The ambassador to the UN, Chaim Herzog, lashed out at UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, who had also expressed regret that Israel
1978: In Berkley, CA, Marjorie and Joe Samberg gave birth to American entertainer David A.J. “Andy: Samberg.
1981: Jerry Lewis appears on "Donahue" to defend Telethons.
1983: The Park East Synagogue building at 163 East 67th Street (NYC) which had been established as Congregation Zichron Ephriam by Rabbi Bernard Drachman was [laced on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places today.
1983(9thof Elul, 5743): Eight-one year old Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (Bernhard Leon), the German born son of a Jewish furrier who became the British art historian “best known for his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England“ passed away today.
1986: Morton Abramowitz was commissioned as Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.
1994: In Copenhagen, the fifth congress of the EAJS came to an end.
1994(11th of Elul, 5754): Latvian born Israeli scientist and philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz passed away. (As reported by Joel Greenberg)http://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/19/obituaries/yeshayahu-leibowitz-91-iconoclastic-israeli-thinker.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm
1996:Devorah Zlochower, Leora Bednarsh, and Laura Steiner were recognized for completing a three-year program of Talmud study at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education in New York City
1996(3rdof Elul, 5756):Sixty-six year oldHugo Gabriel Gryn , a leader in the Reform movemtn, passed away. A native of Berehovo, he survived Auschwitz, trained in America and served as the Rabbi for West London Synagogue for 32 years
1999(6th of Elul, 5759): Fifty-five year old award winning playwright and author Hanoch Levin passed away today.
1999: The Drisha Institute for Jewish Education graduated its first class. According to its mission statement the Drisha Institute “provides women with the opportunity to engage in traditional Jewish text study in an environment which encourages seriousness of purpose, free inquiry and respect for classical texts. Drisha offers a wide variety of study options for women of all backgrounds and levels.”
2002: The Sunday New York Times featured a review of Stone Kiss by Jewish mystery writer Faye Kellerman and a printing of the poem “Like a Seal” by Abba Kovner translated from the Hebrew by Eddie Levenston
2003(20th of Av, 5763): Seventy-eight year old bookseller and former “Timesman” Julius Ochs Adler, Jr. passed away today. (As reported by Robert D. McFadden and Eric Pace)
2004: Eighty-two year old domposer Elmer Bernstein passed away. Born in 1922, the Academy Award winning composer gave us memorable scores for many movies including The Magnificent Seven, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Escape, The Man With A Golden Arm. (As reported by Adam Bernstein)
2004(1stof Elul, 5764): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2005: Kfar Darom was evacuated as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan.
2006: Congressman Steve Rothman married Jennifer Beckenstein, the community affairs coordinator at the Center for Food Action in Englewood , New Jersey
2006: Haim Ramon resigned as Justice Minister.
2006: “On Sontag: Essayist as Metaphor and Muse” published today provides Holland Cotter’s description of the photography show at the Metropolitan Museum designed to honor the memory of Susan Sontag.
2007: In Jerusalem, "Music in All the Shades" presents "A Musical Trip in the Balkan Countries," featuring Constantine Kitlin on the clarinet, Olga Dshbeski on the flute, Yulia Sinaibeski on the mandolin, and Yuri Pobolotskion on the accordion.
2007:The Shabbat observance of the San Diego Humanistic Jewish Congregation will celebrate Individualism with an investigation of the Essenes, Jews who settled at Qumran and created the Dead Sea Scrolls.
2008: James B. Cunningham presented his credentials as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
2008(17th of Av, 5768):Manny Farber, a painter whose spiky, impassioned film criticism waged war against sacred cows like Orson Welles and elevated American genre-movie directors like Howard Hawks and Sam Fuller to the Hollywood pantheon, died today at his home in Leucadia, California at the age of 91.
2008: Time magazine includes an article about the critical swing vote that begins, “The most important demographic for Barack Obama in November might be old Jews in Florida, and the most important old Jew in Florida is my grandmother” and a review of Neillie Hermann’s novel, The Cure for Greif featuring Ruby Bronstein, her “strong, loving family” including her father a “Holocaust survivor father, whose observance of Jewish customs persists despite his professed loss of faith” with whom she visits the camp where he was interred as a young boy
2008:Tzfat [Safed] Klezmer Festival opens.
2008: In an article entitled “Under ‘Kafkaesque’ Pressure, Heir to Kafka Papers May Yield Them,”Ethan Bronner described the fate Franz Kafka’s personal papers which had been rescued by Max Brod and eventually became the property to Esther Hoffe who has now passed away.
2009: “It was reported today that Paula Abdul was negotiating to return to Idol after not taking part in season nine of Dancing with the Stars
2009(28thof Av, 5769):Ninety-eight year old Rose Friedman, the widow of Milton Friedman with whom she was an intellectual and personal soul-mate, passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
2009:Dan Zofi and Jack Germany led and evening of Israeli & International Folk dancing at Beit Shalom Synagogue, the Jewish Congregation of Maui.
2009: Today Israeli novelist David Grossman was named a finalist for the only international literary peace prize awarded in the United States - the Dayton Literary Peace Prize
2010: "A Film Unfinished" directed by Yael Hersonski is scheduled to be shown at the Film Forum in New York.
2010:In Cedar Rapids, IA, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet at the home of Andrea Liu where Ina Loewenberg is scheduled to facilitate a program entitled “Reading Aloud: Poems on Jewish Themes.”
2010:With the mid-August heat showing no mercy on the Holy Land, locals broke an all-time single-day record for electricity use this afternoon, the Israel Electric Corporation announced. The corporation said demand topped 11,200 megawatts, following 19 straight days of unprecedented energy usage
2010(8thof Elul, 5770):Ninety-nine year old Benjamin Kaplan who as an U.S. Army officer played a critical role in the Nuremberg trials and then went to become a Harvard Law Professor and jurist passed away. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
2010(8thof Elul, 5770): Ninety-four year old Martin Dannenberg the man who “found the Nuremberg Laws Document” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
2011: David McKenzie, JHSGW Interpretive Programs Manager is scheduled to lead a Walking Tour of Jewish Washington in which participants will learn what it was like to live and worship as a Jew in Washington from 1850 to 1950 in the historic Seventh Street, NW, neighborhood, now known as Chinatown but originally settled largely by German Jews.
2011: The Fourth Annual Pickle eating contest is scheduled to take place at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. The pickles are being supplied by Sixth & Rye, a food truck that travels the streets of the Nation’s Capital offering a variety of kosher delights including corned beef on rye.
2011: Attackers mounted at least three separate strikes on Israeli civilians and soldiers around the popular Red Sea resort of Eilat today, killing seven and wounding at least 20, in what the country’s defense minister called a “grave terrorist incident.” The Israeli military said the attacks originated in Gaza, and were the result of increased lawlessness eastern Egypt following the country’s revolution.
2011:The IDF attacked terror targets in Rafah in the Gaza Strip today, in response to a three-stage terrorist attack which killed seven Israelis and wounded dozens in the South earlier in the day.
2011:Social justice protests have been canceled for the coming days, including a mass rally planned for Jerusalem, following combined terror attacks in the South of Israel that left seven Israelis dead and over two dozen wounded this afternoon.
2011: The New York Times featured a review of Wendy and the Lost Boys:The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein by Julie Salamon
2011: Members of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community gather at Temple Judah for a Surprise Birthday Party celebrating the birthday of Marianne Bern.
2011(18thof Av, 5771): Eighty-two year old Sally Goodgold, an activist who defied ‘pigeon-holing’ passed away today. (As reported by David W. Dunlap)
2011(18thof Av, 5771): Forty-nine year old “Paskal Avrahami, a member of the YAMAM Counter-terrorism Unit was killed this evening during a firefight with terrorists north of Eilat on the border with Egypt. He was married and had three children.”
2011(18thof Av, 5771):St.-Sgt. Moshe Naftali was killed today while responding to the terrorist attacks near Eilat.
2011(18thof Av, 5771): Fifty-seven Yossef Levy was killed during a terrorist attack and his wife was injured during today’s terrorist attack.
2011(18thof Av, 5771): Ninety-one year old biochemist Maruice M. Rapport passed away today in Durham, NC. (As reported by William Grimes
2012:Nicole Wolf-Camplin is scheduled to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah at Agudas Achim in Iowa City, IA
2012:In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah is scheduled to host an open house in honor of Marianne Bern’s 90th birthday.
2012: Kippah-wearing Jews and non-Jews are expected to march today in Sweden as a sign of solidarity with Malmö’s Jews.
2012(30thof Av, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2012: Three Egyptian policemen and a soldier were injured near the Sinai town of Sheikh Zuwaid today when armed men fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their convoy during an operation against militants following the killing of 16 border guards.
2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies by Jonathan Alter and the recently release paperback edition of Iron Curtain” The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum
2013: Starting today the Health Ministry is scheduled to “offer oral polio vaccine to children up to the age of nine-and-a-half years.” (As reported by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich)
2013: In Coralville, Iowa Congregation Agudas Achim under the leadership of Rabbi Jeff Portman is scheduled to host its annual synagogue picnic.
2013: “When Comedy Went to School” is scheduled to shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival.
2013: “The campaign to recall Mayor Bob Filner amid accusations of sexual harassment” began gathering signatures today. (As reported by Tony Perry)
2013: “Archaeologists working in Jerusalem have discovered what they say is a 2,700 year-old pottery fragment with an ancient Hebrew inscription possibly containing the name of a Biblical figure.” (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)
2014: Klezkanada, the international festival of Jewish/Yiddish culture and the arts is scheduled to open today.
2014: “Alive Inside, A Story of Music and Memory” and “Alive Inside, A Story of Music and Memory,” a film about “a downed Israeli fighter pilot and a Palestinian boy” are scheduled to be shown at the Berkshire Jewish Film Festival.
2014: The 16th Street Book Club at the Jewish History Center is scheduled to host a discussion of Stations West Allison Amend’s novel about Jewish life in the early days of the Oklahoma Territory.