August 31
12 CE: Birthdate of Gaius Caligula, Roman Emperor. Caligula was crowned in 37 and murdered in 41. Life for Jews during his reign was part of the downward spiral that would result in three rebellions by the Jews over the next one hundred years. Caligula was crazy. Unfortunately his insanity had additional negative impact on the Jews. Caligula thought he was divine and insisted on his statue being placed in the Temple at Jerusalem. His efforts were twice thwarted and his untimely death prevented him from taking vengeance against his Jewish subjects.
38 CE: Riots broke out in Alexandria, Egypt after the Jews spurned an order by the Roman Prefect Flaccus to place a statue of Emperor Caligula in the local synagogue. This was an outgrowth of antagonism between the Jews of Alexandria and some of their pagan neighbors. The pagans were angered by the Jews celebrating Caligula’s decision to restore Agrippa, a descendant of the Hasmoneans to the Jewish kingship in Palestine. They knew that the Jews could not worship a statue so by forcing a statue of Caligula into the synagogue, Apion, the pagan leader knew he was asking for trouble. The violence ended and Flaccus was recalled to Rome. But this was not the end of the trouble much of which was rooted in the fact that some pagans begrudged the Jews their commercial success and wished to do away with them as competitors. This would not be the last time that those who sought to oust the Jews from commercial ventures did so under the guise of religion.
161; Birthdate of Commodus, the Roman Emperor who reigned while Judah ha-Nasi was compiling and editing the Mishna
1056: Byzantine Empress Theodora becomes ill, dying suddenly a few days later, without children to succeed the throne ending the Macedonian dynasty. This was a period of relative calm for the Jews of the Byzantine Empire. The last official persecution had taken place at the end of the 10th century. Conditions would not seriously deteriorate until the arrival of the waves of Crusaders that began at the end of the 11thcentury.
1481: Coronation of John II, the Portuguese monarch who employed Abraham Zacuto whose accomplishment included the development of a new type of astrolabe as Royal Astronomer and Historian.
1506: The first printed edition of Lashon Limudim, a Hebrew grammar by David ben Yahya was published today in Constantinople.
1694:A difference between the Jewish and Christian relations with the slave population in the Antilles is evidenced in an act passed today by the Dutch Leeward Council and Assembly. “The act was specifically directed at the Jews and states that it is: 'An Act against Jews ingrossing Commodities imported in the Leeward Islands, and trading with the slaves belonging to the inhabitants of the same.’”
1801: Birthdate of Pierre Soule,a United States politician and diplomat from Louisiana during the mid-19th century. He is best known for his role in writing the Ostend Manifesto, which was written in 1854 as part of an attempt to annex Cuba to the United States. The Manifesto was roundly denounced, especially by anti-slavery elements, and Soulé himself came under severe attack. According to an article published in the New York Times, Soule was Jewish.
1834: Birthdate of Simon Kayserling, a German educator and writer; who was the principal teacher and inspector of the M. M. David'sche Freischule from 1861, and taught for several years in the Jewish teachers' seminary in Hanover.
1842: Birthdate of Adolf Pinner, the German chemist who began his schooling at the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau before attending the University of Berlin where he earned a doctorate in Chemistry in 1867.
1842: In London, George Palmer Putnam and Victorine Haven Palmer gave birth to Mary Corinna who became Mary Corinna Jacobi when, in 1873, she married Dr. Abraham Jacobi, the Jewish physician known as the “father of American pediatrics”
1862:This afternoon the Congregation Baith Israel dedicated their new synagogue to public worship. The synagogue, which is a very handsome brick structure, stands upon the lot at the corner of State and Boerum streets, Brooklyn, and cost in the neighborhood of $10,000. Rabbis Raphael and Isaacs entered the sanctuary which was packed with congregants leading a procession that carried the synagogues “sacred scrolls.” They were greeted by Baith Israel’s spritiual leader, Rabbi Joel Alexander “who said or rather intoned the sacred welcome "Boruch habo" -- when the choir, which was composed of several beautiful black-eyed Hebrew maidens led by Felix Sanger, and accompanied by Sanger's brass band, sang with strange effect one of their quaint and sacred songs. The procession then marched around the room seven times, the Rabbis successively chanting an appropriate song to which the choir responded with the proper chorus. The eternal fire was lighted, the sacred rolls were deposited behind the altar, the Synagogue was irrevocably dedicated to the worship of God, the Father; and after other songs were given, Rabbi Raphael delivered the consecration sermon. [Editor’s Note - Baith Israel was also known as Baith Israel Anshei Emes and is now known as the Kane Street Synagogue,, the oldest continually running synagogue in Brooklyn. Among the congregations Bar Mitzvah “boys” was Aaron Copland.]
1864:The New York Times reviews a new translation of the Book of Job by J.M. Rodwell, “an eminent Oriental scholar who has lately published the first readable English version of The Koran, in which the chapters are chronologically arranged, and the poetical portions rendered metrically.” His translation of the Book of Job, “the most sublime of the Hebrews scriptures” follows the same pattern. Instead of following the normal pattern of chapters and verses, Rodwell’s translation “divides the book according to the stages of the narrative, arranging the text in couplets of measured prose, that represent the simple energy of the original. "
1864(29th of Av, 5624): Thirty nine year old Ferdinand Lassalle died of wounds he sustained while fighting a duel two days ago that had been precipitated by a star-crossed love affair.
1864: The Union Army under General William T. Sherman began the final assault on Atlanta. Among those leading the way was Frederick Knefler, an immigrant from Hungary who rose to the rank of Major General in the Army of the Cumberland.
1865: A writer who simply signs his letter to the editor of the New York Times“A Subscriber” took issue with Max Maretzee’s description of his dispute with the New York Herald. In defending The Tribune, the unnamed letter writer accuses Max of using “all the cunning of his Jewish origin.” Max Maretzee probably refers to the German born composer and impresario Max Maretzek
1867: The Detroit Free Press published a description Temple Beth El at Washington Avenue and Clifford Street.
1868: In Pilsen, Elise Herz, neé Edle von Lämmel, contributed 40,000 florins to establish a foundation that would help “respectable craftsman” to set up their own business regardless of their religious affiliation – a caveat that should not come as a surprise since the benefactor came from a prominent Jewish family.
1875: The New York Times published a detailed description of Sir Moses Montefiore’s visit to Jerusalem in the last weeks of July, 1875.
1876:After only three months on the throne, Ottoman sultan Murat V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid II. During his reign, the Jews celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of their arrival from Spain. Abd-ul-Hamid II is the first Sultan to meet with Herzl. Unfortunately, this meeting does not result in approval for Herzl’s plan to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine as part of the Ottoman Empire.
1877: The recently re-built synagogue of Washington Hebrew Congregation was dedicated this evening. President Rutherford B. Hayes who was supposed to attend the service sent a message expressing his regret that official business kept him from fulfilling his obligation. Rabbi Benjamin Szold of Baltimore’s Temple Oheb Shalom preached the sermon at the service. [Rabbi Szold was the father of Henrietta Szold.]
1877: “The Life of Midhat Pasha” published today described the rise to power of the leader of “Young Turkey,” the party of reform in the Ottoman Empire. Pasha, who was born in 1822, is the son of a Bulgarian Jew “who embraced Islam in order to make his fortune.” (Sounds almost like a Turkish Disraeli)
1878: In New York, Judge Van Brunt rejected Lowenthal Cohen’s attempt to use a writ of Habeas Corpus to regain “possession” of his daughter Rebecca who had married Thomas F. Fallon. The young couple had eloped and the Judge found the marriage to be perfectly legal. Cohen’s real objection to the marriage may have stemmed from the fact that Fallon was not Jewish.
1878: As the Yellow Fever Epidemic continues in the Deep South, The Young Men’s Hebrew Association of New York City has received an appeal for aid from those living in New Orleans Contributions can be sent to the offices on West 42nd Street.
1878: It was reported today that the world’s population includes 8 million Jews. Other reports have placed this number anywhere from 3,500,000 to 15,000,000. The claim that there are only 73,000 Jews living in the United is thought to be low since it commonly assumed that the U.S. Jewish population is approximately 150,000. The European portion of the Russian Empire has the largest Jewish population (2,610,179) followed by Austria with 1,600,000. Surprisingly, Asia, not counting Turkey is reported to have a total Jewish population in excess of 2,000,000 while Canada has one of the smallest number of Jews ranging anywhere between 1,500 and 7,000. Spain and Scotland are reported to have the fewest number of Jews of all the places surveyed.
1878: Albert Chapsky who died of Yellow Fever in St. Bernard Parish was buried today in the Hebrew Cemetery in New Orleans, LA. [In Louisiana, the term Parish as used here refers to a county and is not a religious designation.]
1879: Birthdate of Alma Mahler. She passed away in 1969.
1879: William Price died in a freak accident while driving a wagon filled with the bodies of three children who were to be interred in the Hebrew Cemetery at Cypress Hills.
1879: It was reported today that Mme. Caroline Bertrand, the daughter of Samson Bertrand has written a placed called “Le Noveau Juif Errant” or in English, “The New Wandering Jew.”
1879: In New York, Judge Van Brunt was satisfied that Rebecca Cohen, a 15 year Jewish girl, was legally married to Thomas Fallon, a Roman Catholic and vacated the write of habeas corpus that he had previously issued. The writ had been granted when the girl’s father, Lowenthal Cohen, came before the court and claimed that his daughter had been taken against her will or had been deceived into going off with Fallon.
1879: At the Essex Market Police Court, Justice Smith decided that Henry O’Brien was justified in hitting Harris Goldstein in the face with a shovel and breaking his nose. O’Brien had tricked Goldstein into eating a piece of pork and then tried to escape from him by taking refuge in his apartment. The judge felt Goldstein had earned his punishment for letting his temper get the better of him and for breaking into O’Brien’s apartment. The judge sent both of the boys on their way.
1883: In a letter to the Times, Herman Strack, a Christian theologian who was an expert on rabbinic literature and a supporter of the Jews against the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Germany, provided his evaluation of the recently discovered scroll of the book of Deuteronomy which he feels is a forgery.
1884(10th of Elul, 5644): Daniel Weinberger, a German Jewish peddler was found dead in his room on South Halsted Street in Chicago, Illinois.
1885: A fight took place today in Montreal, Canada during the annual meeting at the German and Polish Synagogue.
1886(30th of Av, 5646): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1886: It was reported today that the 9 Russian Jews who arrived in the United States two days ago and have not found sponsors will probably be sent back to Europe.
1886: An earthquake kills 100 in Charleston, South Carolina. The earthquake occurred in the same year that members of Sheartih Israel reunited with members of Congregation Beth Elohim, Charleston’s (and the nations) oldest continually functioning Reform Temple.
1887: The expenses for today’s excursion under the auspices of the Board of Managers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will be defrayed by the widow and children of the late Edward J. King are doing this to honor his memory.
1887: Birthdate of Austrian born, British scientist Friedrich Adolf Paneth. Paneth was a Protestant but his parents were Jewish. Knowing what he did of Hitler’s racial rules and being opposed to his politics, Paneth did not return from a speaking tour during the 1930’s and remained in Britain
1888(24th of Elul, 5648): In New Jersey, two Jewish men from New York were killed when they were struck by Pennsylvania Railroad express train. Louis Greenburg suffered internal injuries and Israel Cohen was killed instantly.
1883: It was reported today anti-Jewish riots are continuing at Egerszeg, Hungary despite the declaration of martial law. After having burned the homes of Jews and destroyed their crops, the peasants are now threatening to attack their gentile landlords.
1890: Rabbi Taubenhaus is scheduled to deliver his inaugural sermon at Mount Sinai Temple on East 72nd Street.
1892: It was reported from the Hague today that the man who was identified as a cholera victim last night was a Jew from Vilna who had arrived here from Hamburg.
1894(29th of Av, 5654): In his 62ndyear, Jacob F. Bamburger the husband of Pauline Bamburger passed away today at his home on West 56th Street.
1895: During a meeting at the Hebrew Institute, the Street Cleaning League adopted a resolution dealing with the “pushcart nuisance.
1897: A meeting of the Old Fifth Street School Association will take place today in the office of Maurice B. Blumenthal who is the secretary of the organization.
1897: In Basel, “Dr. Theodor Herzl…presided at the morning” session of The Zionist Congress. The delegates discussed” a plan “to centralize the Zionist Movement” with the formation of Central Committee that would be headquartered in Vienna.” The committee would “consist of twenty-three members representing” all of the major Jewish “natural groups” who would be expected to contribute to a central operating fund.
1898: Major Hubert- Joseph Henry, one of those who was arrested yesterday on charges of having forged the evidence used against Alfred Dreyfus was found dead in his cell. The assumption was that he had committed suicide.
1898:”Boy Kills A Rabbi” published today described the murder of Rabbi Rosenbloom who was kicked to death by a mob of a half a dozen “young men” led by seventeen year old John Schlechta who had been terrorizing the Levi family.
1899: “It was learned” today “that as soon as the State Board of Charities” approves “the plans of incorporation for the Emanuel Hospital and Dispensary of New York, Dr. Maurice J. Burstein will select a site” and begin erect a building.
1899: As a result of his role in creating forgeries during the Dreyfus Case, the Minister of War struck Major Esterhazy from the army lists.
1899: “The Degenerates” which premiered in London tonight includes a series of “well drawn characters” including “the rich Jew who sneers at his own race.”
1899: Today’s session of the court martial of Captain Dreyfus “opened behind closed doors” so that General Deloye and Majors Hartmann and Ducros could testify about the secret artillery information contained in the documents that had been given to the Germans.
1900(6th of Elul, 5660): Eighty-year old Ferdinand Falkson, the German physician and doctor possibly best known for his three battle to have his marriage recognized passed away today.
1903: Herzl's last meeting with German nobleman Grossherzog Friedrich of Baden on the island of Mainau. Herzl presents his difficult dilemma between East Africa and Palestine East Africa for the poor land of Palestine
1902: Mrs. Adoph Landenburg introduces the split skirt for riding horseback.
1905(30th of Av, 5665): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1905: Birthdate of Dore Schary, American screenwriter, playwright, producer and director. The son of immigrant Russian parents, Schary’s first name came from shortening the original which was Isadore. Shary provided the Oscar winning script for the film “Boys Town.” He also produced another all-American film, “Lassie come Home.” Shary was part of that gaggle of first generation American Jews who created the cinematic version of the American Myth. Shary’s greatest success came late in his career when he wrote the script for “Sunrise At Campobello” the popular play and film that focused on FDR’s fight with polio. Shary was active in numerous Jewish organization including the Anti- Defamation League. He passed away in 1980.
1905: Birthdate of Sanford Meisner, American actor, teacher and creator of the Meisner Technique
1906(10th of Elul, 5666): Edward Rosewater, the founder of the Omaha Bee and unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate from Nebraska passed away. His son Victor took over leadership of the paper
1907: In Chicago, Illinois, Benjamin T. and Anna (née Bransky) Chon gave birth to William Shawn the editor of The New Yorker magazine.
1909(14th of Elul, 5669: Joseph Goldberg passed away.
1909: Nobel laureate Paul Ehrlich began the first chemotherapy when with his assistant Sahachiro Hato, a rabbit infected with syphilis was injected with "Preparation 606." This number marked the 606th chemical devised and tested by Ehrlich's team at his Frankfort
1914: In response to an appeal by the Yishuv’s leaders and his own knowledge of the desperate condition of the thousands of Jews living in Palestine Henry Morgenthau, Sr., the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire sent a cable to Jacob Schiff that read, in part, “PALESTINIAN JEWS FACING TERRIBLE CRISIS … BELLIGERENT COUNTRIES STOPPING THEIR ASSISTANCE … SERIOUS DESTRUCTION THREATENS THRIVING COLONIES … FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS NEEDED.” Within a month the appeal produced $50, 000 (the equivalent of 1 million dollars in the 21st century)
1916: Birthdate of broadcast journalist Daniel Schorr. To the current generation, Schorr is the wild old political voice on NPR. To an earlier generation, he is one of the journalists who made Richard Nixon’s infamous “Enemies List.” To an even older generation, Schorr was the voice of CBS news from Moscow during the coldest days of the Cold War in the 1950’s. The Soviets finally go disgusted with Schorr that they expelled. This gave Schorr the singular distinction of antagonizing the Communist Russians and the ant-Communist Nixon.
1917: Birthdate of Henrik, the native of Budapest who gained fame as communist politician György Aczél
1918: For the past 7 months, ending today, Lt. Hugo Gutman, a Jewish officer serving with Kaiser’s army commanded Adolph Hitler who received the Iron Cross First Class thanks to Gutman’s efforts.
1918:The Australian Corps under the command of Sir John Monash crossed the Somme River tonight of and broke the German lines at the Battle of Mont St. Quentin and the Battle of Péronne.
1918: Birthdate of Alan Jay Lerner, American librettist and lyricist for stage and screen. Lerner was yet another of a myriad of Jews who created and refined that most original American art form – the Broadway musical. One of his most famous contributions was “My Fair Lady.” He passed away in 1986
1919: Thirty five members of the Jewish Defense Organization were disarmed and shot after the Ukrainian National Army recaptured Kiev from the Bolsheviks. As an organized unit, the Jews had played an important role in the defense of Kiev. This was part of massacre of the Jews at Kiev.
1921: Birthdate of Madeline Rochelle Barotz who as Madeline Rochelle Amgott was a pioneer in the early days of broadcast television news – a role made all the more difficult because was the first and only member of her sex to do this in the 50’s and early 60’s.
1924(1st of Elul, 5684): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1924: Birthdate of actor and comedian Buddy Hackett.
1926: Robert and Lillian Mulwitz gave birth to their daughter Ruth at Port Chester New York. The family changed their name to Roberts and it was as Ruth Roberts that she gained fame as the “songwriter best known for her cheerful and durable baseball anthem ‘Meet the Mets.’”
1927:Dr. Leon Motzkin presided over today's session of the Fifteenth Zionist Congress in Basel.
1929: Bedouins attacked nearly a dozen Jewish settlements in the northern Galilee pillaging the houses and burning the crops.” According to at least one report, at least 22 Jews were wounded in the attacks. “In Jerusalem, houses of Georgian Jews located near the Damascus Gat which were reportedly left open by police during their unsuccessful search for weapons were looted by Arab marauders.
1929:A party of thirty-seven Jewish settlers left for Palestine today on the steamer Carnaro bound for Jaffa. Dr. A. Kligler of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, Professor Roth, the Palestine labor leader Ben Gurion, Dr. Benzion Mossensohn, director of the Hebrew High School at Tel Aviv, and other Palestinian Jewish leaders sailed on the same steamer
1932(29th of Av, 5692):Moyshe-Leyb Halperndied of a heart attack in New York City. Born in 1886, he was a Yiddish-language modernist poet raised in a traditional Jewish household in Zlotshev, Galicia and brought to Vienna at the age of 12 in 1898 to study commercial art. Halpern began writing modernist poetry n German while living in Vienna. Upon returning to his hometown in 1907, he switched to writing in Yiddish. In 1908, Halpern emigrated to New York City in order to avoid the military draft. There he became associated with a group of Yiddish poets called Di Yunge (The Young Ones). He published his first book of poetry in 1919, In nyu york (In New York). That same year, he married. He had a son in 1923. His second book, Di goldene pave (The GoldenPeacock), was published in 1924. Halpern also wrote for satirical magazines and Frayhayt (Freedom), a communist Yiddish newspaper.
1933: Rabbi Joseph Zvi Dushinsky becomes the Chief Rabbi of the Agudath Israel in Jerusalem.
1933: The Jiidische Rundschau is permitted to reappear. The popular Jewish weekly, which had been published since 1902, had been forced to suspend publication for producing editorials that had challenged Nazi charges against the Zionists. The magazine would be forced to close in 1938
1933:The eighteenth World Zionist Congress adopted a resolution providing for sending a commission to Palestine to investigate charges of terrorism in connection with the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, the Zionist leader who had been killed in Tel Aviv.
1933:Professor Selig Brodetsky told members of the World Zionist Congress that Zionist organization has inaugurated conversations with Arab leaders of Syria and other neighboring lands for the extension of Jewish colonization.
1933: The Council of the Warsaw Jewish Community sends a protest to the Zionist Congress against agreements for exchange of goods between Nazi Germany and Palestine.
1933(9th of Elul, 5693):Nazi agents murdered Theodore Lessing in Marienbad, Czechoslovakia. Lessing was an anti-Nazi Jewish philosopher and Zionist who had taught at Hanover Technical High School. He had moved to Czechoslovakia because he feared for his safety.
1935(2nd of Elul, 5695): Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook known as Rav Kook passed away. Rabbi Kook was the first Chief Rabbi Ashkenazic of Palestine, serving from 1921 until his death in 1935. Born in Russia in 1865, Kook was a child prodigy and star student at the famed yeshiva in Volozhin He served as a Rabbi in several communities in Europe before moving to Eretz Israel in 1904 where he served as a rabbi in Jaffa as well as for the new Zionist settlements. "Kook was the outstanding leader and thinker of the religious Zionist movement at a time when the great majority opposed of Orthodox Jewry Zionism. He endeared himself to the nonreligious elements in Israel by sympathy and support for the secular sector, particularly in the agricultural settlements." He regarded all who made Alyiah, "regardless of their beliefs to be inspired by holy sparks "since they were laying the foundation for the ultimate messianic redemption."
1935(2nd of Elul, 5695):Herman Bernstein an American journalist, writer, translator, and diplomat, passed away. Herman Bernstein was born in 1876, at Vladislavov which was on the Russo-German border to David and Marie Bernstein. In 1893, he emigrated to the United States, where he completed his education and married Sophie Friedman on December 31, 1901. “His first stories were published in 1900. He contributed to the New York Evening Post, The Nation, The Independent, and Ainslee's Magazine. He was the founder and editor of The New London Day and an editor of the Jewish Tribune and of the Jewish Daily Bulletin. As a correspondent of the New York Times, Bernstein regularly travelled to Europe. In 1915, he went to Europe to document the situation of Jews in the war zones. He documented the Russian Revolution in 1917 for the New York Herald, which led him to both Siberia and Japan with the American Expeditionary Forces. He also covered the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 for the same newspaper. In 1921 Bernstein published a book History of a Lie, an account of the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. According to GPU agent Pavlovsky (Yakshin), arrested in Germany in 1929, Bernstein worked for both GPU and Comintern, arranging pro-Soviet coverage in American press. One of his main goals was to describe White army and White emigres as anti-Semitic instigators of pogroms and suppress coverage of pogroms by units of the Red Army and other forces allied to Bolsheviks during the Russian civil war. GPU supplied Bernstein with forged documents for publication. In 1921 Bernstein received 17 000 gold rubles for his services.
1936: Dr. Alexander Rosenfeld, vice president of the Tel Aviv Sports Organization received a cable today saying that the Maccabees Palestine Soccer team is scheduled to arrive in New York on September 14.
1937: The violence orchestrated by Arab leaders that was designed to end Jewish immigration and land purchases continued with seven Arab attacks on Jews in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Karkur. Three Jews and four Arabs were killed and there were many wounded. Moshe Goldenberg, the mukhtar (village elder) of Beit Alfa, had a narrow escape when shot at in Beit Shean. (Yes, this is the same Beit Shean where the bodies of Saul and his sons were taken as described in the Book of Samuel.) Jewish and Arab leaders were summoned by district commissioners who appealed for the restoration of law and order.
1938: Moslem terrorists sought to extend their power by killing other Arabs. “Tewfik Shantin an Arab broker was shot dead in the waiting room of an Arab doctor in Jaffa” while an unnamed Arab village chieftain was shot to death while walking with a friend in the Old City of Jerusalem.
1938(4th of Elul, 5698): Mordecai Leznick, a Jewish policeman riding on an Arab owned bus traveling between Lydda and Jaffa was shot to death by an Arab passenger.
1938(4th of Elul, 5698): In Tel Aviv Schmuel Weiner died from wounds sustained when he was stoned last Friday while riding through Ramleh.
1939: The last day of peace in Europe before the outbreak of World War II. Every one waited to see if the Poles would cave into German demands. Every one waited to see if the British would betray the Poles as they had the Czechs in 1938. What the world did not know was that Hitler issued Directive no.1, 1939 ordering the attack on Poland to begin at dawn the following day. Already, 1,500,000 German troops were poised to enact Case White, the invasion of Poland, The plan to create a fake attack by Polish troops on a German transmitter was about to be enacted. By noon the next “Polish casualties” (actually the corpses of concentration camp inmates) would provide Hitler’s proof of Polish perfidy and the Blitz of Poland would be on its way.
1939: Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on Gleiwitz radio station giving them an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II.
1940: From July 9 through today, Chiune Sugihara, the Vice Counsel for the Empire of Japan in Lithuania issued over 2,000 visas to Polish Jews so that they could escape from the Nazis. This does not count the three to five thousand visas issued to Lithuanian Jews without his government’s approval that enabled them to escape as well.
1941: Churchill received 17 reports of the shooting of Jews and Russians in numbers ranging between 61 and 4,200. These reports covered the two month period beginning with June, 1941 when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union and the special Killing Squads began their work.
1941: In response to a Jewish reprisal raid on a German patrol, all Jews were confined to their homes. That evening the "action" commenced. The entire Jewish section of Vilna was raided. As a result 2,019 women, 864 men, and 817 children were taken away to pits in Ponar forests and all shot dead. This event is notable for two reasons. First it is unusual because it includes the report of Jewish resistance. Second it is unusual because the Nazis supplied a specific reason for killing Jews other than their usual anti-Semitic drivel.
1942: A story headlined "Jewish Children Interned by Vichy" appeared in today’s Chicago Sun.
1942: By the end of August SS officer Kurt Gerstein has failed in his attempt to publicize his knowledge of the mass gassings of Jews. He is rebuffed in his approach to the German papal nuncio, Cesare Orsenigo
1942: In Ternopil, western Ukraine, at 4.30 am, German SS organize the first deportation of Jews from Ternopil ghetto to death camp in Belzec, about 5,000 Jews were deported to face death in Belzec. When the Germans captured Ternopil, about 18,000 Jews lived in the city.
1943(30thof Av, 5703): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1943:The Swedish ambassador in Copenhagen was given clearance by the Chief Legal Officer Gösta Engzell to issue Swedish passports in order to "rescue Danish Jews and bringing them here".
1943: The USS Drum, an American submarine, with Maurice Rindskopf serving as Executive Officer sank a Japanese cargo ship while patrolling off New Georgia
1943: During its meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria the “American Jewish Conference adopted a resolution accusing the American Council for Judaism of an ‘attempt to sabotage the collective Jewish will to achieve a unified program’ by its statement made public” yesterday “in Philadelphia opposing the creation of a Jewish state.”
1943: By the end of August, 47 Jewish women and 50 Jewish men are executed after being discovered in the "Aryan" section of Warsaw.
1943: “Vice Chancellor John O. Bigelow ordered an audit of the first accounting of the estate of Abraham Wolff of Morristown, NJ who was a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Co.
1943: In Toronto, the Group on Racial Relations presented a report today in which “Christians were called up to accept Jews a members of the community on a basis of complete equality and to take drastic action in opposing discrimination” in both the personal and social interactions.
1943: “Zionists in England have exceeded the £250,000 goal set for this year’s Palestine Foundation Fund campaign, Mrs. Archibald Silverman reported today at a luncheon in her honor held at the Belmont Plaza Hotel by the Palestine Fund and the Jewish National Fund.”
1943: In “Army Show Opens Here” published today the Halifax Mail described the “enthusiastic reception given to a an entertaining program staring the comedy team of Frank Shuster and Johnny Wayne who came to be known simply as Wayne & Shuster.
1944: Jews liberated from the Novaki labor camp joined the battle for Banska Bystrica. Four weeks later Eichmann exacted revenge for the Slovak Uprising by deporting 8,975 Slovak Jews to Birkenau where most met their deaths.
1944: Over the next four days Jews formerly interned at the Nováky labor camp fight in a Slovakian uprising against the Germans. In all, more than 1500 Jews join 16,000 Slovak soldiers and partisans. One partisan battalion commander, a Jewish woman named Edita Katz, covers the retreat of her men with a machine gun and hand grenades until she is killed by Germans and the Hlinka Guard. Another Jewish partisan, Tibor Cifea, is shot by Germans and left hanging for three days.
1944: A photograph was taken of a small group of survivors from the Kovno, a town in Lithuania that had been liberated on August 1. At the start of the war there were approximately 40,000 Jews living there. There were only 2,000 still alive at when the Soviets liberated the city.
1945: The Liberal Party of Australia is founded by Robert Menzies. During the Parliamentary elections in August, 2010, The Liberal Party sought the support of the Jewish community by picturing itself as being a better friend of Israel than the Labor Party.
1945: President Truman endorsed a proposal for 100,000 Jews to be immediately admitted to Palestine
1945: Birthdate of Itzhak Perlman. Born in Tel Aviv, Perlman was stricken with polio. He triumphed over the adversity to become one of the world’s greatest violinists.
1945: Lt. Col. Louis Geffen, a judge advocate in the US Army who was sailing across the Pacific to his new duty station was allowed to use an area on the bow of the ship for Kabbalat Shabbat services.
1947: UNSCOP, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, published its report. Under the plan, Palestine was to be partitioned into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. Jerusalem was to be a demilitarized, neutral city governed as an international trusteeship under the United Nations.
1948: Birthdate of screenwriter Lowell Ganz
1948: Birthdate of Steve Soboroff, successful businessman, Republican political leader and executive for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
1950: Business leaders, Cabinets members and leading representatives from the Knesset held an all day session to discuss Israel’s worsening economic coniditons. “The economic troubles stem mainly from the fact that the expansion of production is unable to keep up with the growth of the population, which increased in 27 months from 655,000 to 1,125,000.”
1951(29thof Av, 5711): Ninety-one year old Abraham Cahan the socialist newspaper editor whose name is synonymous with the Jewish Daily Forward passed away today.
1952: IN Monmouth County, Sidney Goldman, Justice of the Superior Court of New Jersey was the principle speaker at the cornerstone laying for Temple Beth Miriam’s new facility.
1952: The final draft of the Reparations Agreement signed at The Hague was sent to Bonn. It was still waiting for the West German government's formal approval. The UN submitted to Bonn for special consideration a list of more than 380 survivors of the Nazi scientific experiments conducted in concentration camps. More than 200 such victims were still living in Germany.
1954: Operation Binyamin 2 led by Ariel Sharon and Meir Har-Zion came to an end with the capture of 3 Jordanian soldiers.
1959: Premiere of “Middle of the Night” a drama featuring a May to December romance deftly told in a script by Paddy Chayefsky.
1961: Those “sons of Moses,” the Sherry brothers, combined their efforts to give the Dodgers a 5 to 2 victory over the Cubs. Norm Sherry hit a two-run homer for the Los Angeles Dodgers today and Larry Sherry pitched well enough in relief to get credit for the “save.”
1962(1st of Elul, 5722): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1962: Trinidad and Tobago become independent. The Jewish community dates back to the 18th century. At the time of independence there were approximately 700 Jews living in the two islands.
1967(25th of Av, 5727): Ilya Ehrenberg, Soviet author, journalist, apologist and political survivor par excellence, passed away.
1977: US Undersecretary of State Philip Habib assured Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz that the US would block any Arab attempt to change UN Security Council Resolution 242. This UN Resolution included a guaranteed of the right of Israel to exist and was part of the diplomatic efforts surrounding the Six Day War. Various Arab leaders have erroneously claimed that this resolution required Israel to return to the truce lines that existed in June, 1967.
1981(1st of Elul, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1981(1st of Elul, 5741): Eighty-five year old Prof. Elias J. Bickerman, a historian and authority on the influence of the Greeks in the Middle East at the time of Jesus and before, died today in Tel Aviv, where he was on vacation.
1990: Rabbi Bonnie Koppell, the first female Jewish chaplain in the U.S. Omaha
1994(24th of Elul, 5754): Harry Rosenblatt, one of the last survivors of the Jewish Legion of World War I, which fought with the British against the Turks in Palestine, passed away. He was 101 years old. A native of Rovno , Ukraine New York Union Square Palestine Ottoman Empire . “Mr. Rosenblatt was among the troops entering the city, and his picture and biography are on display in the Museum of the Israeli Defense Forces.” After the war, “he returned to New York U.S.
1995: Ninety-four year old Gertrude Luckner, a Christian social worker who resisted the Nazis and provided food and assistance to Jews during the Shoah passed for which was named as a righteous among the nations by Yad Vashem passed away today.
1997: The New York Times featured a review ofPrivate Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life by Janna Malamud Smith the daughter of Bernard Malamud.
2000: Graveside services for Gertrude Schaefler, the widow of the later Leon Schaefler.
2000(30th of Av, 5760): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2001: Adel Mughrabi purchased the MV Karine A so that the Palestinian Authority could use it to smuggle a large shipment of arms to terrorists
2001: An exhibition entitled “Moritz Daniel Oppenheim: Jewish Identity in 19th-Century Art” comes to a close at Yeshiva University Museum Manhattan
For complex reasons, you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Jewish artists who made it in Europe in the early 19th century. One of the first was Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800-82), whose chief claim to fame was as a portraitist to the Rothschild family. (He was called ''the painter of Rothschilds, and the Rothschild of painters.'') He was also known for his biblical paintings and narrative scenes of 19th-century Jewish life. Born in the ghetto of Hanau, Germany, Oppenheim studied in Munich, Paris and Rome as a youth. In 1825 he settled permanently in Frankfurt, where he built a thriving career and became a pillar of the city's artistic and intellectual community. What was unusual about his path was that from the Middle Ages Jewish artists had been confined to the ghetto, kept from studying in professional art schools or with prominent artists. They could work only in their own Jewish communities. Thanks in part to the gradual liberalization of German ethnic laws (although Oppenheim could not become a citizen of Frankfurt until 1852), and also to his own skills at painting and politicking, Oppenheim was the first Jewish artist to be in touch with mainstream currents of his own era. Born a generation earlier than the better-known Dutch Jewish artist Josef Israéls, Oppenheim is said to have been the first Jewish painter to receive major academic training, and the first to make his Jewishness a subject of his work. Although his name has largely been forgotten in Germany, in recent years his hometown museum in Hanau has begun to build up a substantial Oppenheim collection. And to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth, it collaborated with the Jewish Museum of Frankfurt last year to mount an Oppenheim retrospective in Frankfurt. A rich slice of that show, unlyrically titled ''Moritz Daniel Oppenheim: Jewish Identity in 19th-Century Art,'' is now on view at the Yeshiva University Museum (which moved last June from the campus of Yeshiva University to handsome new quarters at the Center for Jewish History on 16th Street). The exhibition includes more than 90 paintings and 14 works on paper, many of them confiscated by the Nazis but recovered after World War II. A talented painter with solid grounding in technical skills, Oppenheim was by no means an innovator. More important to him than style was the content of his work, and artistic movements and trends passed him by. He identified with the upper classes, wanting to assert himself on several fronts: as an artist, a citizen and a Jew. Much of his work depicted representatives of the up-and-coming Jewish bourgeoisie: intellectuals, politicians, businessmen and artists. Rooted in Jewish tradition but challenged by political emancipation, they claimed their right to full participation in German society. One of Oppenheim's first self-portraits, done at the age of 16, shows a self-confident youth in elegant clothes with a kerchief around his neck, holding a palette in one hand and a mahlstick in the other. Two years later, at the Munich Academy, he asserted his Jewishness by doing a powerful life-size portrait of Moses in a toga, holding the Tablets of the Law, his first ''invented'' painting aside from portraiture. Later, studying in Rome, Oppenheim gravitated, oddly, to the Nazarenes, a brotherhood of Austrian and German artists centered in Italy whose goal was to restore meaning and vitality to Christian art. He admired their color-drenched Pre-Raphaelite romanticism. But although he also did New Testament subjects like ''The Virgin and St. Anne in the Garden'' (1821-22), he concentrated on Jewish themes, among them ''Abraham and His Family'' (1821-22; shown in this exhibition as an oil sketch because of the loss of the original painting). By 1825, Oppenheim had established himself as a freelance painter in Frankfurt and was beginning to turn out portraits, genre scenes and landscapes for the well-heeled families of the city. One of his major early efforts on view is ''Mary Stuart and Elizabeth'' (1829), a dramatically painted episode from a popular play by Schiller, in which Queen Elizabeth arrogantly rejects her cousin, the Scottish queen, who kneels at her feet in a plea for reconciliation. The painting was probably commissioned by the du Fays, a prominent merchant family in Frankfurt. Considered lost, it came to light when its current owners attended the Frankfurt retrospective last year and told curators of its existence. Oppenheim's efforts to obtain portrait commissions from the Rothschild family, rooted in Frankfurt, began early; in 1821 he succeeded in painting a portrait of James de Rothschild in Paris. During his stay in Italy, three of his religious tableaux were bought by Carl Mayer von Rothschild, who directed the family banking operation in Naples. Von Rothschild's commissioning of a fourth painting, ''Susanna and the Elders,'' gave a real boost to the artist's reputation. His success at portraiture in Frankfurt (his sitters included the poet Heinrich Heine, for whom he had unflattering words) brought more Rothschild commissions. His likenesses of the five sons of the banking fortune's founder, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, done from 1836 on, helped create a public image for the family bank. Of the number of works on view here of the sons and their sons, the most engaging is that of Nathan Mayer (1836), founder of the London branch. In a black suit and proper white cravat, his bald head gleaming, he wears a knowing, slightly amused smile, befitting a man owed by the crowned heads of Europe. In 1836 Oppenheim also painted a pair of elegant but warm portraits of a Rothschild bridal couple: Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, who was the son of Nathan Mayer and also the first Jewish member of the British Parliament, and his cousin Charlotte, whom he married when she was 17. Each is seated in a lavish fantasy landscape. During World War II, the paintings were taken by the Gestapo from a home for the elderly in Frankfurt that Rothschilds founded and were not reclaimed until after the war. Although his subjects were by no means restricted to Jewish life, Oppenheim repeatedly returned to the theme as his career developed, producing works like ''The Return of the Volunteer'' (1833-34). It depicts a young soldier in the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon who has defied Sabbath travel prohibitions to visit his family. Showing the emancipated son as he clasps the hand of his tradition-observing father, Oppenheim touches on the conflict between the demands of religion versus new responsibilities of Jews as citizens. Oppenheim's most popular work, begun in his later years, was a lithograph cycle of scenes from traditional Jewish life. Probably suggested to the artist by a book publisher or a rabbi, they were modeled on the well-loved genre scenes of other ethnic groups then current in Europe. Because color reproduction was not yet technically available, Oppenheim painted the works in grisaille (gray and white). The first edition of six was received enthusiastically when it appeared in 1866, and it sparked additional works and further editions. In 1882, ''Scenes From Traditional Jewish Family Life'' was issued as a bound volume with 20 plates, a number of which are shown here. Depicting such rites and occasions as Passover, a wedding, a Purim celebration, Sabbath observances and so on, they are schmaltzy souvenirs through which an increasingly emancipated Jewish public could hang on to the good old days.
2002:The Israeli Defense Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, issued a statement expressing "regret" over "harming" civilians in Tubas when an Israeli helicopter fire four missiles at a car in which the local leader of the al-Aqsa brigade was thought to be riding but which actually contained five civilians and one teenager accused of being part of the terrorist organization
2003: Luis Sandoval and two unidentified co-conspirators went to Cafe Bazel, a chic restaurant popular with expatriate Israeli artists in the Encino area, and fatally shot a man suspected of stealing 76 kilograms of Ecstasy tablets from Moshe Malul and Itzhik Abergil.
2003: The Sunday New York Times book section includes a review of Off With Their Heads:
Traitors, Crooks and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media and Businessby Jewish political consultant Dick Morris.
Traitors, Crooks and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media and Businessby Jewish political consultant Dick Morris.
2004(14th of Elul, 5764):Hamas suicide bombers blew up two buses in Beersheba, Israel, killing 16 passengers and wounding 100’s more. The dead included Shoshana Amos, 64; Aviel Atash, 3; Vitaly Brodsky, 52; Tamara Dibrashvilli, 70; Raisa Forer, 55; Larisa Gomanenko, 48; Denise Hadad, 50; Tatiana Kortchenko, 49; Rosita Lehman, 45; Karine Malka, 23; Nargiz Ostrovsky, 54; Maria Sokolov, 57; Roman Sokolovsky, 53; Tiroayent Takala, 33; Eliyahu Uzan, 58 and Emmanuel Yosef (Yosefov), 28 all from Beersheba.
2004: The Philadelphia Inquirer featured a review of a biography of Jewish born violinist Efrem Zimbalist entitled Efrem Zimbalist: A Life by Roy Malan.
2005(26th of Av, 5765): Sir Joseph Rotblat passed away at the age of 96. The physicist was the only scientist who quit working on the development of the atomic bomb for “moral reasons.” The Polish born scientist awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to him and the Pugwash conferences in 1995 for their work in trying to limit and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.
2005:Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russian born Jewish oligarch and businessnman, announced that he would run for parliament
2006: A mass rally calling for the release of the three kidnapped IDF soldiers, Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser attracted thousands to Tel Aviv Rabin's Square.
2006(7th of Elul, 5766): Bernard J. Wohl passed away at the age of 76. An advocate for New York Goddard Riverside Community Center
2007: In Jerusalem, clarinetist Karl-Heinz Steffens joinsmembers of the Jazz Faculty of the Israel Conservatory of Music for a Jazz Concert.
2007: The ZF conference entitled “Israel at 60” opens in London.
2007: In an address given at the annual meeting of the Islamic Society of North America Rabbi Eric Yoffee, president of the Union for Reform Judaism “pleaded with American Muslims to transcend the differences that have their people for decades and Join Jews to confront the extremist factions and prejudice that plague both religious traditions.”
2007: Today,Rabbi Israel Rubin took his students on an unusual field trip. They went to Barn 70 on the backside of Saratoga Race Course on Friday morning to see a trainer about a horse. The trainer was Bob Baffert, and the horse, Maimonides, was a fast one, who just may capture the Kentucky Derby next May. Maimonides cost $4.6 million at last year’s Keeneland September Sale, and last month he appeared as if he was worth every penny when he won his debut by 11 ½ lengths. He is one of the favorites Monday to win the Grade I $250,000 Hopeful Stakes, a seven-furlong sprint for 2-year-olds. None of that, however, interested Rubin or his charges. He does not attend horse races or gamble. In fact, upon hearing about the colt, Rubin thought long and hard before arranging to take his students here. “Some may think this is sacrilegious,” he said. Ultimately, however, the rabbi and his students were drawn here from the Maimonides Hebrew Day School Albany Cairo Egypt New Jersey San Diego Del Cairo Iraq New York Finland Yeshiva University Spain New York Spain Córdoba , Spain Spain
2008: The Sunday New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including g Still Alive! A Temporary Condition: A Memoirby Herbert Gold and two books by Adam Krisch; Invasions and The Modern Element: Essays on Contemporary Poetry.
2008: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Man in the Dark by Paul Auster, Dough: A Memoir by Mort Zachter, issued in paperbackand Norman Mailer's Miami and the Siege of Chicago, now reissued for the 40th anniversary of those groundbreaking 1968 presidential conventions.
2008: At Yeshiva University Museum, an exhibition entitled “The Six Day War Series: Painting by Ira Moskowitz” comes to an end. “Eight oil paintings gifted to the Museum Collection by the family of Ira and Ann Moskowitz in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem Israel Poland Prague Israel
2008: Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, author of The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History a book that describes what it was like living as Jew under Moslem rule, was interviewed on Israel National Radio's Tamar Yonah Show. During the interview he “shared the dramatic account of a young Moroccan Jewess in her teens who lived in the 1800's, named Sol Hachuel. Falsely accused on charges of "apostasy" from Islam, she was offered riches and special rights if she embraced Islam - or prison, torture and death if she did not. Sol Hachuel chose to be imprisoned, starved, tortured and then decapitated in the town square rather than give up her Judaism. "I was born a Jew, and I shall die a Jew," she boldly stated to the Islamic court, according to Bostom's accounts. On the show, Bostom read her historic speech that inspired the Fez Jewish community to remain committed to their Judaism despite the hardships of constant false charges, unfair heavy taxes, violence and murder.”
2009: Opening night of the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival.
2009The Education Ministry announced this evening that an agreement to enroll Ethiopian students initially banned from some of the city's schools had been reached following a meeting between Petah Tikva Mayor Yitzhak Ohayon, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar (Likud) and other Education Ministry officials.
2009: The stock of Africa Israel investments, a real estate firm owned by Lev Leviev “fell another 13.7 percent today as the firm floated the idea of renegotiating the terms of its debts with bond holders and banks.” (As reported by Marcy Oster)
2010: An exhibition, The Works of Mordechai Rosenstein, on display at the Fine Family Art Gallery and the Katz Family Mainstreet Gallery of the MJCCA is scheduled to come a close today in Atlanta, GA.
2010:Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his negotiating team took off for Washington on this morning, ahead of the relaunch of peace talks with the Palestinians.
2010(21stof Elul, 5770): Sixty-five year old Gail Koff a partner in Jacoby & Meyers, passed away. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
2010(21stof Elul, 5770): Four Israelis were shot dead in their car today near the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba less than a day before Israeli and Palestinian leaders meet in Washington for a summit to announce the resumption of direct peace talks. The attack, for which Hamas has claimed responsibility, shattered years of relative calm in the West Bank. The victims are a couple from the settlement of Beit Hagai and two residents of Kiryat Arba. One of the dead was a woman believed to have been pregnant. The Beit Hagai couple has been identified as Yitzhak and Tali Ames, 45 and 47. They are survived by six children, the oldest 24 and the youngest 5. Just six months ago, the Ames couple celebrated the birth of their first granddaughter. Tali worked as an account manager in various offices in the area and Yitzhak was a tour guide who accompanied groups to the Temple Mount area. A Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, said the Islamist group praises the attack and considers it a natural response to "the crimes of occupation."
2011(1stof Elul, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2011: Rami Feinstein, “a widely popular Israeli artist who has developed a diverse and devoted following over the last seven years” is scheduled to perform at the Bitter End in New York City
2011:Today, the head of the government-appointed committee on socioeconomic change in Israel, Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg, defended the recent criticism cast upon the leaders of the social protest, and explained they were simply "inexperienced."
2011:Summer rainfall took Israelis by surprise today when slight showers were felt in Hadera, Netanya, and even Tel Aviv. A day before children were headed back to school, Israelis got a taste of fall with unusually low temperatures last night and this morning in the Sharon region.
2011: The Israel Air Force deployed a third battery of the Iron Dome rocket defense system outside the southern city of Ashdod today in the face of continued rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.Ashdod Mayor Yehiel Lasri issued a statement thanking the defense establishment for deploying the system outside of his city. Ashdod has been bombarded by rockets in recent weeks during the current escalation of violence in the South in which over 160 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza. Earlier this year, the Obama Administration gave Israel $205 million to purchase four more Iron Dome batteries. Each battery consists of three launchers equipped with 20 Tamir interceptors and is reportedly capable of protecting an urban area of approximately 150-square kilometers.
2011:Over 20,000 are expected to attend the 7th Annual Jerusalem Beer Festival tonight and tomorrow night at the Old Train Station in Jerusalem.
2012: Israel responded bitterly today to comments by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, who said yesterday that he did not want “to be complicit” if Israel were to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities.
2012:The White House today dismissed statements made by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney yesterday that the Obama administration had “thrown allies like Israel under the bus” regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. “Cooperation with Israel between our military and intelligence communities has never been closer” under the Obama administration, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.
2012: The Fifteenth Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival is scheduled to open today.
2012: In Leesburg, VA, Congregation Sha'are Shalom is scheduled to greet the Sabbath Queen with a Musical Shabbat and Ice Cream Social
2012: “Labor on the Bimah” is scheduled to begin Erev Shabbat.
2013: An exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Columbus (Ohio) Jewish Center which was developed by the Columbus Jewish Historical Society is scheduled to come to an end today.
2013: The Tel Aviv Woodwind Quintet is scheduled to play Ligeti’s “6 Bagatelles For Wind Quintet” at the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival.
2013: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa Temple Judah marks Selichot with a study session, services and the Changing of the Torah Covers ceremony.
2013: “Ivri Lider, one of the most successful Israeli musicians of his generation” is scheduled to perform at the Budapest Music Center.
2013: Israeli communications company Spacecom has successfully launched a state of the art satellite to space tonight from the Zenit launching pad in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
2013: Labor MK Omer Bar-Lev today criticized Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avigdor Liberman for refusing to call a meeting of the committee to discuss a possible US strike on Syria and its implications on Israel.
2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness by Joel Gold and Ian Gold and a Q & A with Rick Pearlstein whose most recent work is The Invisible Bridge: The Fall Nixon and the Rise of Reagan.
2014: Dr. Judith Rosenbaum is scheduled to succeed Dr. Gail Reimer as Executive Director of the Jewish Women’s Archives.