August 27
1892:The first passenger train belonging to the Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway arrived in Jerusalem today. Reactions were mixed, with some local inhabitants declaring it to be the work of the devil. However, the Jewish Chronicle wrote: "The year 5653, which is about to burst upon us, will witness one of the grandest sights that have been known in many centuries. May it prove an unmixed blessing." The Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway was the first modern railway line to open in the Middle East. The railway was built in response to the increasing demand of all the pilgrims who began visiting the Holy Land and specifically Jerusalem starting in the middle of the 19th century. In writing about the history of the railroad Anthony S. Travis notes that “building the railway was a tremendously ambitious undertaking, considering the local conditions. Hundreds of tons of rails were brought from Belgium, coal from Britain and rolling stock from France. The unloading of all this in Jaffa's primitive harbor presented an immense challenge. A report in Railway Magazine said it was "a wonder that all the materials for the railway were safely and without loss conveyed to their destination... Bulky but light articles, such as boiler barrels or water tanks, were thrown into the sea and tugged ashore..." The weather also presented difficulties, as heavy rains washed away the jetty, and in some places along the track bridges were destroyed. Despite other problems related to construction crews leaving to tend their crops, and outbreaks of disease in the work camps, work progressed fairly rapidly, and by December 4, 1891, the line had reached Deir Aban (today's Beit Shemesh). From there, construction was much more difficult, owing to the mountainous terrain. While the first train did reach Jerusalem in August, the official opening would not take place until September of 1892. Theodor Herzl, who took the train in 1898 on his way to meet Kaiser Wilhelm II, was not very impressed, calling the line a "miserable little railway." It was in stark contrast to the earlier part of his journey, in the luxurious Orient Express, with dining cars and sleeping accommodation. The Jaffa-Jerusalem railway coaches did not have ashtrays or toilet facilities, and according to Herzl, not even drinking water. He said the heat was "frightful... sitting in the cramped, crowded, scorching compartment was torture." As if that were not enough, when Herzl and his party arrived at the hotel for which they had reservations, it turned out there were no rooms available, as they had been appropriated by Turkish officials and members of the Kaiser's entourage.” As an avid fan of science and technology, Herzl expressed his belief in the future of rail travel when in Altneuland he predicted that by the 1920s there would be high-speed electric railways throughout the country. Unfortunately even now, more than a century later, Israel has not yet reached that stage, although railway development has certainly come a long way in the last 20 years.
1893: “The Correspondence of 3,500 Years Ago” published today described new information that described the role of clay tablets in ancient Palestine. In the past such evident has been ignored “by those who regard the early Hebrews a savages and who think that, though place in the very center of the ancient civilized world between the the Egyptians and Assyrians they were unacquainted with arts” or culture. This evidence shows that “the art of writing was known in the time of Moses” and that the inhabitants of Palestine wrote on thin clay tablets in the same way we write on a sheet of notepaper.
1893: Among the dead bodies taken to Henry Skelton’s undertaking establishment in Newton, LI following the collision in Berlin 38 year old Max Stein who was employed by Abram Stein & Co, Mrs. Bertha Weinstein and her young son Sidney Weinstein who was identified by a medal of merit given to him Temple Rudolph Sholom.
1893: In Camden, NJ, the Jewish shopkeepers and merchants are second are scheduled to meet tonight to organize themselves to provide protection from the thieves and marauders who have been attacking them.
1894: Rabbi Bernhardt Hailperin was chosen chief rabbi by the Orthodox Jews of Newark.
1894: In Rixdorf, Germany, the police broke up a meeting of anarchist because the chairman “urged those present to use guns and dynamite to exterminate the Jews.”
1895: A coroner’s jury exonerated Solomon Pulka of charges that he had caused the death of nine year old Benjamin Pincus by kicking him in such a manner that it caused peritonitis.
1895: “Over on the East Side” published today described the changes in the district bounded by Catharine Street, the Bowery, Houston Street and the East River where can now be found “the children of Israel in their new exodus out of the Russian Egypt and house of bondage into the Canaan of the West.” More for 2015
1896: Abraham Gruver, Myer S. Isaacs, Julius Lowenthal and Edward Lauterbach were among those who listened to Benjamin Harrison’s speech last night at Carnegie Hall.
1897(29th of Av, 5657) Forty-eight year old David J. Seligman, the husband of Addie Walter Seligman, the eldest son of Babette and the late Joseph Seligman passed away today at Hollywood, NJ.
1897: The funeral of the late Albert Tobias who had been a member of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and Chevra B’nai Israel will take place at his home this morning.
1897: A list of the bequests by the late David Blumenthal published today included two hundred dollars each to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the Montefiore Home and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society. Mt. Sinai Hospital will receive either two hundred or five hundred dollars.
1898: Based on information that first appeared in The Jewish Messenger, it was reported that Colonel Teddy Roosevelt intends to recommend four men in his command be promoted for gallantry including one Catholic, one Jew, one Protestant and one whose religion is not known. The Messenger sees this an example of American brotherhood and unique cooperation of those of all creeds.
1898: “Zangwill’s Visit” published today described the anticipation with which New Yorkers are filled now that that Israel Zangwill, the author of Without Prejudice and The Children of the Ghetto is about to arrive in the Big Apple.
1898: A review of Alexander Harkavy’s Yiddish Dictionary was published today.
1898: “Books and Authors” published today described “an extensive collection of 2,500 Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts that has recently been acquired by the British Museum.” The collection which “includes a number of Arabic deed, written both in Hebrew and Arabic characters” has items that date fro the 9th through the 14thcenturies.
1899: In Chicago, trade unionist and newspaper man Benjamin "Ben" Schlesinger married Rae Schenhause with whom he had three children – two sons and one daughter.
1899: “Answers To Correspondents” published includes a reply to J.F. which tells him that there are between 350,000 and 400,000 Jews living in New York
1899: “Meyerbeer’s Posthumous Works” described yet another delay in the posthumous publication of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s compositions which according to his will should have been published in 1894. One of his daughters Cornelie Meyerbeer who was married to Gustav Richter refuses to allow the publication to take place.
1899: Fernand-Gustave-Gaston Labori the French attorney who defended Zola and Drefyus was featured on the cover of “Le Petit Journal.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Petit_journal_8_27_1899_Fernand_Labori.jpg
Cedar Rapids , Iowa
410: The sacking of Rome by the Visigoths ends after three days. Some view the Visigoths as just one more group of barbarians that helped to bring an end to the Roman Empire. But that is only part of the story. The Visigoths were Arians and they supplanted the anti-Jewish Catholic hierarchy, when they took control of parts of what is now Spain later in the 5th Century. For the Visigoths, the Catholics were synonymous with their Roman enemy but they had no animosity for the Jews. They took advantage of their unique skills and the Jews repaid them by taking a leading role in defending the passes of the Pyrenees against invasion from the Catholic Franks and Burundians. All this would come to an end in the last half of the sixth century when the Visigoth kings converted to Catholicism and adopted the anti-Jewish policies espoused by the Church.
1097(16th of Elul): Samuel ben Shealtiel ha-Nasi passed away.
1255: The day on which Hugh of Lincoln reportedly died. Discovery of his body two days later touched off one of the first Blood Libels.
1490: The Grand Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada issued an indictment ordering the transfer of the prisoners from Segovia to Ávila to await trial on charges of having murdered an alleged victim of Jewish ritual murder who came to be known as The Holy Child of La Guardia.
1523: Cardinal Domenico Grimani who when asked by the German scholar Johann Reuchlin for a tutor on Hebrew Literature, recommended Rabbi Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno, passed away today.
1590: Papacy of Sixtus V came to end. There seem to be competing view on how he treated the Jews. According to one source “the condition of the Jews was somewhat improved. He repealed many of the regulations established by his predecessors, permitted Jews to reside in all parts of his realm, and gave Jewish physicians freedom to practice their profession.” While another contends that “he revoked Pope Gregory’s policies allowing Jews to reside in the Papal States and to print the Talmud.”
1698:(18th of Elul): Birthdate of Rabbi Yisroel (Israel) ben Eliezer (רבי ישראל בן אליעזר often called Baal Shem Tov or Besht. There is no way to even begin writing about his effect on Judaism.
1770: Birthdate of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. In his article “Sublimity and Resentment: Hegel, Nietzsche, and the Jews,” Yirmiyahu Yovel offers the following comment about Hegel and the Jews. ‘According to the Hegelian dialectic, every cultural form makes some true, genuine contribution to world history (and the world Spirit), after which it is sublated (aufgehoben) and disappears from the historical scene. Yet the Jews continued to survive long after their raison d'tre had disappeared--indeed, after they no longer had a genuine history in Hegel's sense but merely existed as the dead corpse of their extinguished essence. With the French Revolution, the Jews were entering the modern world and claiming their rights and place within it. Hegel, despite his anti-Jewish bias, was perfectly disposed to grant these rights, but he did not know what to do with the Jews in modernity as Jews, nor could he explain their survival in terms of his system.”
1743: Henry Pelham, the Prime Minister who would pass the Jew of Act of 1753 assumed office today.
1776: The British defeated American forces under the command of George Washington at the Battle of Brooklyn Heights in the first of a series of military actions that will lead to the British taking control of the city of New York for the duration of the war. While most of New York’s Jewish population favored independence, the community was split between Rebels and Tories; a split which was even felt at Shearith Israel.
1779: In Charleston, SC, Gershon Cohen married Rebecca Sazrzedas, the daughter of the late Abraham Sarzedas from Georgia.
1794:Simon Magruder Levy distinguished himself at the Battle of Fallen Timbers while serving as an Orderly Sergeant under General "Mad Anthony" Wayne.
1801: Birthdate of Ludwig Hirzel who taught Hebrew at the Carolinum in Zurich and whose included a Commentary on the Book of Job that was so popular it went through three editions after having first appeared in 1839.
1813: Birthdate of Moses Polydore Millaud, a native of Bordeaux who gained fame as the found of Le Petit Journal
1816: Birthdate of Polish born Jewish journalist Aleksander Zederbaum who in 1860 founded Ha-Meliz, the first Hebrew language periodical published in Russia
1834: In New Orleans, LA Clarice Allain and George Eustis gave birth to James B. Eustis who was the U.S. Ambassador to France during the Dreyfus Affair.
1858: Sixteen year old Nathan Cohen arrived in Tamworth, Australia so he could go to work in his uncle William Cohen’s store on Ebsworth Street
1864: The New York Times published a letter in which the author complained about the difficulty in getting a naval substitute. He ties his complaints about the process to involvement of the Jews. He claimed that all of the locations where one goes to complete the forms are “all located either above or alongside of Jew clothing stores,” that the naval substitutes are coerced into buying their outfits at these Jewish clothing stores and that Jews attempt to extort cash from the participants that they then split with government officials. [Ed. Note – The author is a draft dodger. Under the law, a draftee could buy a substitute to serve in his place. This reinforced the concept that it was rich man’s war and poor man’s fight. The system was amazingly corrupt and led to the infamous Draft Riots of 1863 in New York City.
1867: In Tamworth, Australia, Esther and Nathan Cohen gave birth to Ida Cohen who married her first cousin Victor Cohen in 1901 with whom she had three sons: George, Nathan and Alan
1867: Following his trip to Romania, Sir Moses Montifore wrote a letter to Prince Charles concerning the treatment of the Jews of Romania. Prince Charles will eventually be crowned as King Carlos I.
1869(20th of Elul, 5629); Rebecca Gratz passed away. Born in 1781 to a prominent Jewish family in Pennsylvania Philadelphia Israel United States
1871: It was reported today that the editor of the Jewish Times supports “American Jewish Seminary” for the training of rabbis in America. The editor contends that the Hebrew Orphan Asylum would provide a platform for creating such an institution since it would have a ready-made group of candidates and the additional training could be added on to the courses already offered by the Asylum.
1875: Birthdate of Albert M. Hyamon who was honored with the OBE for his work as the immigration officer in Palestine and who lost both of his sons during WW II in the fight against the Nazis.
1877: Jacob Emanuel “Jay” Pike played in his first and last major league baseball game today when he took the field for the Brooklyn Hartfords of the National League. Pike went 1 for 4 giving him a batting average of .250. He was charged with 1 error but there is no record of his fielding average. Pike may have been part of the first Jewish Family entry in major league baseball. His brother was Lipman Emanuel Pike whose career spanned sixteen seasons. Pike “batted and threw left-handed. He is credited as the first ballplayer named Jay to appear in a major league game…Pike also played the outfield for the Lowell, Massachusetts team that won the 1875 state championship and claimed the New England title. That same year, he also served as an umpire in the National Association.”
1880: In Leadville, Colorado, Eva Schloss and Lottie Beaumont performed with the Pinafore Company at the Windsor Hotel.
1882: According to some, birthdate of movie mogul Sam Goldwyn. The confusion about his natal day was created by Sam himself. He is the ‘G’ in MGM . As has been noted in previous items, Goldwyn was one of many Jewish immigrants who created Hollywood and the American Entertainment Industry. He passed away in 1974.
1882: “The Jews of York” published today described the conditions under which “the persecuted race” lived in this English city during the 12th century. During the reign of Henry II and his son Richard the Lionhearted, they enjoyed royal protection and prospered as could be seen by the “splendid houses” on Jubbergate. All of that change when Richard left for the crusades and the citizens of York massacred the Jews. While Richard expressed his displeasure, “no serous punishment was inflicted on the murderous people of York for their fiendish cruelty.” Ironically, the city’s long term punishment came in the loss of commerce and prosperity. Without the Jews to lend money, business went elsewhere.
1882: It was reported that Professor Robertson Smith has written the article on “Lamentations” the new published edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica. According to Smith, Jeremiah is traditionally viewed as the author of the text. He sees a shift in the stance of the author as the book unfolds going from “an isolated figure among unsympathetic countrymen” to “a representative of Israel among the heathen.”
1882: It was reported today that little Jacob Greenhaldt a Hungarian Jewish immigrant “who was badly injured by a street car about a month ago” is out of the hospital and back at work on the streets of Cleveland. The boys are said to be “imbued with the spirit of trade” so characteristic of his race. They may make hard bargains but they are never beggars.
1882: “Facts About Street Gamins” published today described changing conditions on the streets of Cleveland, Ohio. Immigrant Jewish boys from Hungary have replaced the Irish. The Hungarians begin as shoe shine boys. But as soon as they learn enough English, they begin work selling newspapers.
1883: It was reported today that Nathan Gottgetren, a 35 year old Jew who uses the alias Nicholas Gilbert, will be appearing before the District Attorney in New York to faces multiple charges of forgery.
1884(6thof Elul, 5644): Schaje Tripock an octogenarian Polish Jew living with his son in an apartment on Essex Street apparently took his own life today. He was reported to “suffering from senile insanity.”
1886: The Pope approved of the Hungarian Diet’s vote to reject a bill that would legalize marriages between Jews and Gentiles.
1887: It was reported today that The Board of Managers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children has received a total of $3,238.95 in contributions.
1889(30thof Av, 5649): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1890: Birthdate of Emmanuel Radnitzky, the native of Philadelphia who gained fame as “American modernist artist” Man Ray.
1890: The 10thfree excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will set sail on the East River at 9 a.m. this morning.
1891: In today’s editorial, the New York Times expresses its sympathy with the plight of the Russian Jews on board the SS Marsala who were barred from entering the United States but insists that under the law Superintendent O’Beirne had no choice in the matter. “The whole subject matter is a complicated one and it is like that the law will have to be amended in some particulars….” (Sounds as if this could have been written in 2014 just as easily as 1891)
1892: As cholera threatens to spread across Europe, “Hamburg is plague stricken today because it humanely too on itself the brunt of the burn of the” exodus of Jews from Russia.
1892: A representative of “the Hebrew branch of the Federation of Labor” investigated conditions at Ziontown, NJ, where Jewish settlers who have been on strike for six weeks face “actual starvation.”
1892: Four year old Ida Samyan the daughter of Russian Jews arrived today in London on a ship that came from Hamburg, Germany.
1892: In New York, the Board of Health said that it does not know anything about a group of Jews from Odessa who were supposed to come to this city but instead went to Havre where they were to go to Boston. (These reports are all given against the background of a cholera epidemic that is breaking out in Europe)
1892: It was reported today that near Mariapol, Russia a mob ten thousand “terrorized the village killing several Jews” as they expressed their resentment over governmental measures to control cholera.
1892:The first passenger train belonging to the Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway arrived in Jerusalem today. Reactions were mixed, with some local inhabitants declaring it to be the work of the devil. However, the Jewish Chronicle wrote: "The year 5653, which is about to burst upon us, will witness one of the grandest sights that have been known in many centuries. May it prove an unmixed blessing." The Jaffa-Jerusalem Railway was the first modern railway line to open in the Middle East. The railway was built in response to the increasing demand of all the pilgrims who began visiting the Holy Land and specifically Jerusalem starting in the middle of the 19th century. In writing about the history of the railroad Anthony S. Travis notes that “building the railway was a tremendously ambitious undertaking, considering the local conditions. Hundreds of tons of rails were brought from Belgium, coal from Britain and rolling stock from France. The unloading of all this in Jaffa's primitive harbor presented an immense challenge. A report in Railway Magazine said it was "a wonder that all the materials for the railway were safely and without loss conveyed to their destination... Bulky but light articles, such as boiler barrels or water tanks, were thrown into the sea and tugged ashore..." The weather also presented difficulties, as heavy rains washed away the jetty, and in some places along the track bridges were destroyed. Despite other problems related to construction crews leaving to tend their crops, and outbreaks of disease in the work camps, work progressed fairly rapidly, and by December 4, 1891, the line had reached Deir Aban (today's Beit Shemesh). From there, construction was much more difficult, owing to the mountainous terrain. While the first train did reach Jerusalem in August, the official opening would not take place until September of 1892. Theodor Herzl, who took the train in 1898 on his way to meet Kaiser Wilhelm II, was not very impressed, calling the line a "miserable little railway." It was in stark contrast to the earlier part of his journey, in the luxurious Orient Express, with dining cars and sleeping accommodation. The Jaffa-Jerusalem railway coaches did not have ashtrays or toilet facilities, and according to Herzl, not even drinking water. He said the heat was "frightful... sitting in the cramped, crowded, scorching compartment was torture." As if that were not enough, when Herzl and his party arrived at the hotel for which they had reservations, it turned out there were no rooms available, as they had been appropriated by Turkish officials and members of the Kaiser's entourage.” As an avid fan of science and technology, Herzl expressed his belief in the future of rail travel when in Altneuland he predicted that by the 1920s there would be high-speed electric railways throughout the country. Unfortunately even now, more than a century later, Israel has not yet reached that stage, although railway development has certainly come a long way in the last 20 years.
1893: “B’nai B’rith’s Jubilee” published today described the plans that are being for the celebration of “the well-known Hebrew benevolent organization’s” golden anniversary which will take place this October.
1893: “The Correspondence of 3,500 Years Ago” published today described new information that described the role of clay tablets in ancient Palestine. In the past such evident has been ignored “by those who regard the early Hebrews a savages and who think that, though place in the very center of the ancient civilized world between the the Egyptians and Assyrians they were unacquainted with arts” or culture. This evidence shows that “the art of writing was known in the time of Moses” and that the inhabitants of Palestine wrote on thin clay tablets in the same way we write on a sheet of notepaper.
1893: Among the dead bodies taken to Henry Skelton’s undertaking establishment in Newton, LI following the collision in Berlin 38 year old Max Stein who was employed by Abram Stein & Co, Mrs. Bertha Weinstein and her young son Sidney Weinstein who was identified by a medal of merit given to him Temple Rudolph Sholom.
1893: In Camden, NJ, the Jewish shopkeepers and merchants are second are scheduled to meet tonight to organize themselves to provide protection from the thieves and marauders who have been attacking them.
1894: Rabbi Bernhardt Hailperin was chosen chief rabbi by the Orthodox Jews of Newark.
1894: In Rixdorf, Germany, the police broke up a meeting of anarchist because the chairman “urged those present to use guns and dynamite to exterminate the Jews.”
1895: A coroner’s jury exonerated Solomon Pulka of charges that he had caused the death of nine year old Benjamin Pincus by kicking him in such a manner that it caused peritonitis.
1895: “Over on the East Side” published today described the changes in the district bounded by Catharine Street, the Bowery, Houston Street and the East River where can now be found “the children of Israel in their new exodus out of the Russian Egypt and house of bondage into the Canaan of the West.” More for 2015
1896: Abraham Gruver, Myer S. Isaacs, Julius Lowenthal and Edward Lauterbach were among those who listened to Benjamin Harrison’s speech last night at Carnegie Hall.
1897(29th of Av, 5657) Forty-eight year old David J. Seligman, the husband of Addie Walter Seligman, the eldest son of Babette and the late Joseph Seligman passed away today at Hollywood, NJ.
1897: The funeral of the late Albert Tobias who had been a member of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and Chevra B’nai Israel will take place at his home this morning.
1897: A list of the bequests by the late David Blumenthal published today included two hundred dollars each to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the Montefiore Home and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society. Mt. Sinai Hospital will receive either two hundred or five hundred dollars.
1898: Based on information that first appeared in The Jewish Messenger, it was reported that Colonel Teddy Roosevelt intends to recommend four men in his command be promoted for gallantry including one Catholic, one Jew, one Protestant and one whose religion is not known. The Messenger sees this an example of American brotherhood and unique cooperation of those of all creeds.
1898: “Zangwill’s Visit” published today described the anticipation with which New Yorkers are filled now that that Israel Zangwill, the author of Without Prejudice and The Children of the Ghetto is about to arrive in the Big Apple.
1898: A review of Alexander Harkavy’s Yiddish Dictionary was published today.
1898: “Books and Authors” published today described “an extensive collection of 2,500 Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts that has recently been acquired by the British Museum.” The collection which “includes a number of Arabic deed, written both in Hebrew and Arabic characters” has items that date fro the 9th through the 14thcenturies.
1899: In Chicago, trade unionist and newspaper man Benjamin "Ben" Schlesinger married Rae Schenhause with whom he had three children – two sons and one daughter.
1899: “Answers To Correspondents” published includes a reply to J.F. which tells him that there are between 350,000 and 400,000 Jews living in New York
1899: “Meyerbeer’s Posthumous Works” described yet another delay in the posthumous publication of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s compositions which according to his will should have been published in 1894. One of his daughters Cornelie Meyerbeer who was married to Gustav Richter refuses to allow the publication to take place.
1899: Fernand-Gustave-Gaston Labori the French attorney who defended Zola and Drefyus was featured on the cover of “Le Petit Journal.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Petit_journal_8_27_1899_Fernand_Labori.jpg
1902:Herzl wrote to the Polish writer Pauline Korvin-Piatrovska asking her to obtain an audience with the Czar.
1904: Rogers Adolphe Pinner, a senior partner of the Mutual Electric Company, was shot by his `former girlfriend', one Mrs. Augustina Hermann, a pretty hat-maker/designer of French extraction, who was a two-time widow.”
1908: Birthdate of Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States. Unbeknownst to most people, Johnson played an active role in rescuing Jews from Hitler’s Europe. According to Ladybird LBJ wept when he visited Auschwitz in 1945. . Lyndon Johnson was a staunch supporter of Israel. He helped the Israelis exhaust all diplomatic possibilities to avoid the Six Day War in June, 1967. The real test for Johnson came on June 10 when the Soviets threatened Israel Syria Israel Israel Israel United States United States Israel
1908: Samuel Gompers to-day announced that he would take to the stump in a personal effort to drive Speaker Cannon from the House. The President of the American Federation of Labor will open the campaign, which he intends to make a general fight for the Democratic ticket, at the Labor Day exercises at Danville , Ill.
1919(1st of Elul, 5679): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1919: During the Russian Civil War, forces of the White Army occupied Boguslav a Ukrainian city, “pillaged all the houses” and “massacred” approximately forty Jews. [This was the war between the Reds (Bolsheviks) and the Whites (supporters of the former Czarist regieme). The Jews were often caught in the middle and slaughtered by both sides]
1921: The New York Times published a letter from Samuel Gompers in which he corrects the Times report of his speech to the Kiwanis Club of Atlantic City. Gompers contends that the “misquote” of his remarks changes them so that they read like support for business instead of support for the workers of America
1922:"The League of Nations is a Jewish idea, and Jerusalem someday will become the capital of the world's peace," declared Dr. Nahum Sokolow, Chairman of the Zionist Executive Committee, at a special meeting of the Zionist Conference today.Dr. Sokolow “said the Jews of the world will back the League and that Jerusalem will be the International Peace Capital.”
1929: Birthdate of Ira Levin, author of many popular novels including Rosemary's Baby
1929:While Moslem leaders in Jerusalem Palestine
1933: Birthdate of magazine editor, author and Presidential speech writer, Ben Wattenberg.
1933: Birthdate of Leonard Irving Weinglass who was according to some “the nation’s pre-eminent progressive defense lawyer, who represented political renegades, government opponents and notorious criminal defendants in a half century of controversial cases, including the Chicago Seven, the Pentagon Papers and the Hearst kidnapping.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1933: In Prague, The economic development of Palestine is outlined in a report of the Zionist Executive to the Congress, which reveals the following: During the past two years £3,252,000 has been invested in Palestine, of which £1,350,000 or 42% went into agriculture, mainly citrus planting, £1,400,000 or 43% went into building, and the remainder into industry and handicraft. A survey of 213 immigrants of the capitalist class shows that 54% of their total capital of £697,000 was invested in agriculture. During this period 21,767 immigrants came into the country; 11,384 workers on labor schedule, 3,122 capitalists, 2,697 certificates went to relatives of residents and 4,168 people came under unspecified classifications.
1933:Testimony given in the magistrate's court at Jaffa, on August 25th,alleging that Revisionist extremists had contemplated recourse to murder over shadowed all other issues here as the eighteenth World Zionist Congress entered its second week of deliberations today
1934: In Iraq many Jews were dismissed from public service[ and quotas were set up in colleges and universities
1935: In Switzerland, Rabbi Dov Yehuda and Sarach Schochet gave birth to Rabbi Dov Yehuda Schochet.
1935:The Federal Theatre Project is established. Elmer Rice, the Manhattan born son of Jacob and Fanny Lion Reizenstein, was the first director of the New York office of the Federal Theatre Project, but resigned in 1936 to protest government censorship of the FTP's "Living Newspaper" Ethiopia, about Mussolini's invasion of that country. The FTP included a Yiddish Unit.
1936: “Leaders of the Arab Youth party began collecting signatures for a memorandum demanding an Arab boycott of the Royal Commission” coming to Palestine to investigate the causes of the violence begun by the Arabs in April, 1936. The Arabs are demanding that Jewish immigration and land sales must be stopped before there will be any negotiations.
1937(22nd of Elul, 5697): Lionel Walter Rothschild passed away. The 2nd Baron Rothschild was a British zoologist who became a great collector and founded the Rothschild Natural History Museum in London Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum
1937: Birthdate of Philip Arthur Shulman, the native of Glasgow, Scotland who gained game as Phil Shulman, “a member of the progressive rock group Gentle Giant.”
1938(30thof Av, 5698): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1938:As British forces sought to bring an end to the latest wave of Arab terror two Arab youths were wounded, one fatally, when troops today opened fire on a group that refused to disperse when caught setting fire to a closed wine shop at Jaffa. Meanwhile “armed Arab completed the evacuation of the Jewish settlement of Jamam in the Beersheba district and set fire to every building there.”
1940(23rd of Av, 5700): One of first to reprisals against the Germans, Israel Karp was shot by Germany military authority in France.
1940(23rd of Av, 5700): Sixty-seven year Alice Lillie Seligsberg “a social worker and Zionist who helped to found Hadassah:” passed away today. (As reported by Marilyn J. Sladowsky)
1940: The Vichy French government rescinded the law forbidding racial hatred. This made hating Jews legal.
1941(4th of Elul, 5701): First group of 11,000 Jews from Kamenets are taken out of town to a pit and gunned down in bomb craters.
1941(4th of Elul, 5701): The Nazis massacred the Jewish community of Posvol, Lithuania
1942: Thirty-six year old Mohammad Essad Bey, who was Lev Nussimbaum before converting to Islam passed away today.
1942(14th of Elul, 5702): Eight thousand Jews from Wieliczka, Poland, are killed at the Belzec death camp.
1942(14th of Elul, 5702): When a transport train carrying 6000 Jews from Miedzyrzec, Poland, arrives at the Treblinka extermination camp, guards discover that all 6000 have died of suffocation during the 75-mile journey.
1942(14th of Elul, 5702): Several thousand Jews from Chortkov, Poland, are assembled in the town square and forced to witness the murders of the community's children
1943(26th of Av, 5703): All the Jews working at a cement factory at Drogobych, Ukraine, near the Janówska labor camp, are murdered. One of the victims is Dr. Mojzesz Bay, a 36-year-old graduate of the Sorbonne.
1944: Bruce Sundlin the U.S. bomber pilot who had been working the Marquis (French Resistance) and serving with OSS was among those who took part in the battle at Marseilles today during which most of the city was liberated from German control.
1944: As of today Victor Cavendish Bentinck, assistant under-secretary in the British Foreign Office still doubted the existence of gas chambers when he said, 'I think we weaken our case against the Germans by publicly giving credence to atrocity stories for which we have no evidence.
'These mass executions in gas chambers remind me of the story of the employment of human corpses during the last (1914-18) war for the manufacture of fat, which was a grotesque lie and led to the true stories of German enormities being brushed aside as being mere propaganda.'
1945: Premiere of “True Glory” -- “a documentary account of the allied invasion of Europe during World War II compiled from the footage shot by nearly 1400 cameramen” – directed by Garson Kanin with a script created by Paddy Chayefsky and Eric Maschwitz among others.
1945 Hermann Göring is the first Nuremberg defendant to be interrogated intensively by the Allies.
1946(30th of Av, 5706): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1947: Birthdate of actress Barbara Bach
1951:Rabbi Israel Goldstein was re-elected today president of the World Confederation of General Zionists, and Mrs. Rose Halprin and Dr. Emanuel Neumann vice presidents. They are all from New York
1952: Birthdate of comic actor Paul Reubens who gained fame as Pee-Wee Herman.
1952: The Knesset endorsed by an overwhelming vote the agreement with the US Washington
1952: Reparation negotiations between West Germany and Israel end in Luxembourg; West Germany to pay 3 billion Deutschmarks.
1957(30th of Av, 5717): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1964: The Democratic National Convention comes to an end having nominated to pro-Israel candidates – Lyndon Johnson for President and Hubert Humphrey for Vice President. Johnson had helped Jewish refugees enter the United States through Mexico in the 1930’s, passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and would stand up to Russians on behalf of Israel in 1967 in stark contrast to the craven behavior of the Eisenhower administration during the Suez Crisis of 1956)
1967: Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles, passed away. Yes, the lads from Liverpool were managed by an English Jew.
1968(21st of Av, 5727): Movie Director Robert Z. Leonard passed away
1971(6th of Elul, 5731): Bennett Cerf, founder of Random House and panel member on the television hit What’s My Line, passed away at the age of 73
1973:“The Recipes of Chairman Mao" byMarshall Brickman's appeared in The New Yorker. (Brickman was Jewish; Mao was not)
1977: The US State Department confirmed that a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization had applied for a visa to the US PLO Information Center
1977: In Bucharest Prime Minister Menachem Begin described his Sabbath visit to the Bucharest Israel
1979: After Lord Mountbatten was murdered by a terrorist bomb he was buried in Romsey Abbey which
was celebrated for its collection of Hebrew books.
was celebrated for its collection of Hebrew books.
1980(15th of Elul, 5740): Sam Levenson passed away at the age of 68. Levenson was a Brooklyn school teacher who became a television star in the 1950’s. The Sam Levenson Show was quite popular in its day. This was quite since surprising considering the source of Levenson’s humor. He was the son of Jewish immigrants who had worked as a school teacher in Brooklyn . These experiences were the basic material for his witty stories and quips.
1988(14th of Elul, 5748): Seventy-nine year old Dr. Max Black passed way today in Ithaca, NY.
1995(1st of Elul, 5755): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1997(24th of Av, 5757): Television whiz-kid executive Brandon Tartikoff passed away.
1998: Eric Edelman began serving as U.S. Ambassador to Finland.
2000: The New York Times book section featured reviews of Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms by Jewish born education reformer Diane Ravitch.The Secret Parts of Fortune Three Decades of Intense Investigations and Edgy Enthusiasmsby Ron Rosenbaum andThe Presidential Difference: Leadership Style From FDR to Clinton
2000(26th of Av, 5760):Sixty-five year old Gilbert de Botton, the financial manager who was a descendant of the rabbinical scholar Abraham de Botton passed away. (As reported by Paul Lewis)
2001: Israeli helicopters fired a pair of rockets through office windows and killed Mustafa Zibri,Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He was also known as Abu Ali Mustafa. “The PFLP is designated a terrorist organization by Israel and many western states. Israel held Mustafa personally responsible for 10 different car-bomb attacks undertaken by the PFLP during his time as general secretary.” He had been allowed to return to the West Bank in a deal worked out between Arafat and Barak. But apparently killing Israelis was more attractive than following the path of peace.
2002: Moshe "Bogie" Ya'alon told Haaretz; "The Palestinian threat harbors cancer-like attributes that have to be severed. There are all kinds of solutions to cancer. Some say it's necessary to amputate organs but at the moment I am applying chemotherapy."
2003(29th of Av, 5763): Ninety-one year old Austrian born American architect and designer Henry P. Glass who survived Dachau and Buchenwald passed away today.
2004(10thof Elul, 5764): Sixty-four year old actress Susan Peretz passed away today from Breast Cancer.
2005: The Jerusalem Post reported on the Red Sea Jazz Festival at Eilat , Israel Israel Jordan
2006:In an article entitled “Green's Chase Revives Greenberg's Name and Fame,” Murray Chass notes that “Shawn Green, with 314 career home runs, is only 17 from matching Hank Greenberg's standard as the career leader among Jewish players? '’I would say the chances are outstanding; he'll probably do it as a New York Met next year,'’ said Steve Greenberg, Hank's son and the former deputy baseball commissioner. Green's passing his father would not bother him, Greenberg added. ''Why would it bother me?'' he said. ''Ed Kranepool broke my dad's record at James Monroe High School
2006: The Sunday New York Times book section included a review of Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn (St. Louis
2006: As those who study history know, history is determined, in no small part, by the person writing the history. With that in mind, please excuse this shameless orgy of self-adulation in publishing the following letter as it appeared in The New York Times Sunday Book Review.
Letters
A Man in Cedar Rapids
To the Editor:
After a lifetime of reading about Jewish lawyers, doctors, brilliant writers and Nobel Prize winners, I cannot tell you how excited I was to read about A Woman In Jerusalem by A. B. Yehoshua (Aug. 13). I am totally blown away — a novel where the leading character is a Jewish human resources manager. I am a longtime Jewish human resources director and I never thought I would make it as a character in a novel, let alone the main character. Of course, I do this in Cedar Rapids Jerusalem
Mitchell A. Levin
2007: An article published today entitled “The Kibbutz Sheds Socialism and Gains Popularity,” described the changing face of kibbutz movement in Israel.
2007: As Phil Spector stood trial for the murder of Lana Clarkson, Bruce Clarkson, his second defense lawyer withdrew and was replaced with Linda Kenney Baden.
2007: In Cedar Rapids Cedar Rapids
2007: The New Republic featured a review of Davide Ferrairo’s film, “Primo Levi’s Journey,” which follow, figuratively, Levi’s footsteps as made his way from Auschwitz back to his home in Turin
2007(13th of Elul, 5767): Seventy-two year old, Gad Yaacobi passed away. A native of Kfar Vitkin he was an MK and held several ministerial positions.
2008(26th of Av, 5768):Eighty one year old Abie Nathan the Israeli air force trained pilot and self-declared peace activist who flew a plan from Israel to Egypt a decade before Sadat flew to Jerusalem passed away today.
2008: Yale University announced that Peter Salovey will succeed Andrew Hamilton as Provost, making him the fourth provost appointed by President Richard Levin
2008:Second night of the inaugural Gilboa Coexistence Festival taking place throughout the Gilboa region featuring David Broza with Yair Dalal and Ibrahim Eid.
2008 Florida Congressman Robert Wexler addressed the Democratic National Convention for the first time on the subject of national security and foreign policy. Wexler represents Florida United States Israel Washington
2008: The Washington Postfeatured a review of The End of the Jews, the new novel by Adam Mansbach.
2009: Opening of the Ceremonies commemorating the 65thAnniversary of the Liquidation of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto in Lodz by German authorities.
2009:The Israeli unemployment rate rose to 8 percent in the second quarter despite encouraging economic indicators pointing to a recovery, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported today.
2009:Sketched on yellowing parchment, the 29 blueprints presented to Israel’s prime minister today lay out the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in chilling detail, with gas chambers, crematoria, delousing facilities and watch towers drawn to scale. The document will go on display at Yad Vashem next year.
2009:The publicly funded Multicultural Center's (Werkstatt der Kulturen) decision to remove educational panels of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini, who was an ally of Adolf Hitler, from a planned exhibit, sparked outrage today among a district mayor, the curator of the exhibit, and the Berlin Jewish community. The curator, Karl Rössler, said that it is a "scandal" that the director of the Werkstatt, Philippa Ebéné, sought to censor the exhibit. "One must, of course, name that al-Husseini, a SS functionary, participated in the Holocaust," said Rössler. The exhibit covers the "The Third World during the Second World War" and three exhibit panels of 96 are devoted to the mufti's collaboration with the Nazis. The grand mufti delivered a talk to the imams of the Bosnian SS division in 1944, and was a key Islamic supporter of Nazi Germany's destruction of European Jewry.
2010: In Cedar Rapids, IA, Temple Judah celebrates the start of the fourth season of “Musical Shabbat.”
2010: In “Black and Jewish, and Seeing No Contradiction,” published today Trymaine Lee describes the life of African-Americans who are Orthodox Jews.
2011:Hutzot Hayotzer, the popular international arts and crafts fair that has become a Jerusalemite ritual, is scheduled to come to a close today.
2011:Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets tonight to participate in demonstrations protesting the high cost of living in Israel. In Tel Aviv, around 10,000 protesters marched from Habima Square to the intersection of Ibn Gvirol and Shaul Hamelech streets, where a rally was held.
2011: Saeb Erekat repeated his claim thatConsul-General Daniel Rubenstein had threatened that the US would cut off aid to the Palestinians if they insisted on going to the UN., adding that the Americans have threatened to veto the PA statehood bid and cut off financial aid to the Palestinians. The U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem denied Erekat’s claim when he first made it yesterday.
2011: Norfolk’s Beth El Synagogue did not hold service today as Hurricane Irene barreled its way up the East Coast.
2011(27th of Av, 5771): Eighty-three year Ezat Delijani, Iran born businessman and philanthropist passed away today. (As reported by Dennis McLellan)
2012: Christian Dawid is scheduled to appear tonight at The Montreal Jewish Music Festival.
2012: “Hutzot Hayotzer, the popular international arts and crafts fair that has become a Jerusalemite ritual” is scheduled to come to an end.
2012(9th of Elul, 5772): Seventy-one year old Duke Basketball start Art Heyman passed away today. (As reported by William Yardley)
2012:President Shimon Peres said today that he could not understand the stupidity of the ongoing rocket campaign being waged by Palestinian terrorists, which has escalated in the lead in to Israel's 2012-2013 school year. "If they fire, we will fire," Peres said at the opening of the Sha'ar Hanegev Technological High School.
2012:An IDF soldier was critically injured during a joint exercise involving infantry units and armored corps in the Golan Heights this morning, according to the IDF Spokesman's Office.
2013: The Muzsikás Ensemble is scheduled to perform tonight as part of the Jewish Summer Festival in Budapest.
2013:With the US poised for military action in Syria and amid uncertainty as to how Damascus will react, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon made clear today that while Israel will not get involved, it will respond severely if attacked. (As reported by Herb Keinon)
2013: “The 5774 (2013-2014) school year formally opened today with over 2.13 million schoolchildren arriving in more than 4,500 schools nationwide for their first day of classes.” (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur)
2014(1st of Elul, 5774): Rosh Chodesh Elul – the shofar is blown for the first time
2014: Dr. Eric Goldman is scheduled to present the final session of “Hollywood Zion: Israel Through the Lens of American Film Makers.”
2014: Noa Meir, Director of Israel Action Center & International Affairs for Jewish Community Relations is scheduled to speak at Shaare Tefila in Olney, MD on “Current Events and How to Advocate for Israel.”