September 6
1899: Birthdate of composer and showman Billy Rose. Born William Samuel Rosenberg inNew York City America America Billy Rose Sculpture Garden Jerusalem
1927:Dr. Lee K. Franked a member of the Jewish Agency Commission, who returned today on the Isle be France from an extended visit to Palestine on behalf of the Commission declined to make any statement as a result of his study. "I cannot make any statement until the Jewish Agency Commission meets." Dr. Frankel told the representative of the Jewish Daily Bulletin on his arrival. (As reported by JTA)
1929: Henry Goldman of Rochester New York “made public” a letter written on June 18, 1929 by Jacob Goldman a former student at New York University living in Tel Aviv “telling of demonstrations by young Aras and the circulation of songs calling Moslems to ‘take up the sword’ against the foreign ruler and the Jews.’”
1931: Premiere of “Merely Mary Ann,” a cinematic adaption of the play by Israel Zangwill featuring an appearance by Harry Rosenthal.
1936: In an article entitled “Toscanini’s Palestine Concerts,” G.E.R. Gedye, The New York Times correspondent in Vienna reported on a conversation with Professor Bronislav Huberman that included details of the completion of Toscanini’s scheme for a Palestine symphony orchestra that will include an opening festival in Tel Aviv on December 26.
1937(1stof Tishrei, 5698): Rosh Hashanah
2003(9th of Elul, 5763): Harry Goz, an actor who was an understudy in ''Fiddler on the Roof'' and wound up playing the lead, passed away today at the age of 71. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/01/obituaries/01GOZ.html
2007: In Jerusalem, the weeklong festival known as Jewish Music Days continues with a fifth concert at Beit Avi Chai entitled “In Those Days at This Time, Prayers and Piyutim in the Italian Jewish Tradition.”
3761 B.C.E.: The first day of the Hebrew Calendar. "The epoch of the modern Hebrew calendar is Monday, October 7, 37 61 BCE , being the tabular date (same daylight period) in the proleptic Julian calendar corresponding to 1 Tishri AM 1 (AM = Anno Mundi = in the year of the world). This date is about one year before the traditional Jewish date of Creation on 25 Elul AM 1! A minority place Creation on 25 Adar AM 1, about six months after the modern epoch. Thus adding 3761 to a Gregorian year number will yield the Hebrew year number beginning in autumn (add 3760 for that ending in autumn). This holds until the Gregorian year 1 BCE . After that (due to the lack of year 0), adding 3760 to the Gregorian year yields the Hebrew year beginning in autumn (3759 for that ending in autumn). Because the Hebrew year drifts relative to the Gregorian year, this actually only works until the year 22,203, but it's a fairly good rule of thumb." IF this makes any sense to any of you, you are a better at this than I am. I included it because I found it, not because I understand it.
394: The Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeats and kills the pagan usurper Eugenius on the second day of the Battle of the Frigidus. This marked the final triumph of Christendom in the Roman Empire . The pagans, including those found among the Roman nobility could and did convert. For the Jews, it was a different matter. In one of those strange twists of fate, the victory actually helped to weaken the Empire and led to a further of the split between the Western and Eastern empires.
1556: The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent came to an end. Suleiman provided a welcoming Oriental home to the Jews as could be seen by arrival and rise to power of Dona Garcia and Joseph Nassi, the settlement of thousands of Jews on the shores of Lake Kinnerth and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. He was willing to protect Jews against all-comers including the powerful Pope Paul IV who had wanted to subject the Jews of Ancona to his Inquistion.
1628: The Puritans settle Salem which will be incorporated into the Massachusetts Bay Colony which was also controlled by the Puritans. The Puritans were heavily influenced by what they called “The Old Testament.” They saw themselves as “modern Israelites.” The name of the town “Salem” is a form of the Hebrew word Shalom. Oliver Cromwell, the most famous leader of the English Puritans, was a key player in the return of the Jewish people to the British Isles. English Puritans were part of the early Christian Zionist movement which championed the return of the Jewish people to Palestine hundred years before Herzl held his first congress in Switzerland. While the American branch of the Puritans was influenced by Jewish tradition in the form of the Old Testament, the Puritans had no use for Jews (or anybody else) who did not conform to their stringent form of Christianity.
1666: Birthdate of Czar Ivan V. During his reign his elder sister Sophia supported a program of persecution aimed at Jews and pagans.
1683: Jean-Baptiste Colbert passed away. He was Finance Minister to Louis XIV at the time of his death. Colbert’s drive to improve the economic condition of France Marseilles
1705: On this day an auto-de-fe took place in Lisbon square of Lisbon
1729: Birthdate of German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Regardless of how one views his work, he was an important Jewish figure of the 18th century. To some he was the third Moses (the other two being the Biblical lawgiver and Moses Maimonides) with whom a new era opens in the history of the Jewish people. To others, he was a step into the beginning of assimilation and loss of identity for Jews and the dilution of traditional Judaism. He passed away in 1786. None of his grandchildren were Jewish.
1784(20th of Elul, 5544): Thirty three year old Bible scholar Nathan Wolf Ben Abraham author Pesher Dabar, a commentary on the Book of Job that was praised by Moses Mendelssohn and Naphtali Wessely passed away today at Dessau.
1785(2ndof Tishrei, 5546): As Jews observe the 2nd day of Rosh Hashanah, they can ponder the view of God presented in Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s controversial tome - Letters on the Teachings of Spinoza which was published this year.
1794: Gabriel and Lucy Freeman were married in Wilkes County, GA. Gabriel’s father was a Jew from England. In an all too common occurrence on the American frontier, he married a Methodist woman.
1812(29thof Elull, 5572): In the first year of what Americans call the War of 1812, Erev Rosh Hashanah
1826: Birthdate of German newspaper publisher Leopold Ullstein who founded the published house of Ulletein-Veglag.
1840: Mehemet Ali released the surviving Jewish prisoners bringing an end to the infamous Damascus Affair.
1842(2ndof Tishrei, 5603): Second Day of Rosh Hashanah
1847: Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts. Emerson supported the efforts of many unconventional literary figures including the Jewish poetess Emma Lazarus. Their first meeting when she was seventeen led to a mentor-mentee relationship that included a correspondence that lasted until his death.
1854: Birthdate of Georges Picquart, the French Army Major who first discovered the evidence that the documents that were used to convict Dreyfus were a forgery. He risked his career to save Dreyfus.
1860: According to an article published today predicting how the people of Baltimore will vote in this fall's election states that " those interested in lager-bier concerns, tobacco establishments, including Hebrews and others, not scrupulous of working and making money on Sundays, may go against reformers, who now rigidly enforce the Sunday law, causing all such concerns to be peremptorily closed during the Sabbath." The author of the article failed to make the connection between Jewish opposition to the reformers and the fact that they were being led by a former "Know-Nothing," a now defunct political party that was anti-immigrant.
1861(2nd of Tishrei, 5622): In the first year of the American Civil War, Jews on both sides observe the second day of Rosh Hashanah.
1861: During the Civil War, Union forces under General Grant take control of Paducah, KY, helping to keep that state from falling into Rebel hands. A year later, the Jews of Paducah would be victims of one of the most overt act of anti-Semitism in U.S. history when they are expelled from their homes by the same General Grant. President Lincoln would rescind the order showing that the American Jewish experience was indeed different. Grant never explained the order but the Jews apparently did not hold it against him. They supported him when he ran for President. And Grant was no anti-Semite as can be seen by his support for Washington’s traditional congregation, Adas Israel.
1865: According to a Ketubah that would be later be used in evidence for the first time in an English Court hearing a suit for divorce, Benjamin Isaacs, the son of Elias Isaacs married Deborah Levy, the daughter of Hyman Levy in New York City.
1867: The Israelite published a “concise account of the dedication of Temple Beth El in Detroit which had taken place on August 30.
1869(1stof Tishrei, 5630): Rosh Hashanah
1869. Birthdate of author Felix Salten author of the children’s classic Bambi. Born Siegmund Salzmann in Budapest, Hungary he moved to Vienna as a toddler because the Jews had been granted full citizenship in the Austrian capital. Salten was inspired to write Bambi after a trip to the Alps, in 1923. In 1933, he sold the rights, and he did not make any money from the Disney movie based on Bambi released in 1942. He moved to Switzerland to escape the Nazis. He died there in 1945.
1879: In Étretat, France, playwright Ludovic Halévy and his wife gave birth to historian Élie Halévy
1872: Sculptor Mark Antokolski married Jelena Apatovas, the daughter of Vilnius merchant Judelis Giršovičius Apatovas.
1872: In St. Louis, MO, Progress Lodge No. 53 of the Independent Order of Free Sons of Israel was founded today.
1879: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society opened today in New York City.
1879(18th of Elul, 5639):Leonard Montefiore, son of Nathaniel Montefiore, of London, England, grand-nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore, and nephew of the late Sir Anthony Rothschild, died this morning of acute rheumatism, at the Ocean House, Newport. He was only 27 years of age.
1879: A large crowd gathered today at New York’s Temple Beth-el to hear Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler’s inaugural address which was given in German.
1879: “The Religious Condition of Germany” published today Jews make up 1.2% of the nation’s population, 9.9% of the students in the gymnasia, 8.4% in the commercial schools and 5% of the students in “the higher grammar schools.”
1880(1st of Tishrei, 5641): Rosh Hashanah
1880(1st of Tishrei, 5641): Forty-nine year old German architect Edwin Oppler passed away today.
1880: The Memphis Avalanche Appeal printed a notice today stating that “‘Jewish ladies’ like Hattie Schwarzenberg, Birdies Hiesse and Mattie Goldsmith will tomorrow receive at their home the country boys who came to the city for the high holy days.”
1883: In Chicago, the house detective at the Grand Pacific Hotel arrested a man who was supposed to Max Guggenheim, the New York hotel thief but who claimed he was Theodore Katz.
1888(1st of Tishrei, 5649): Rosh Hashanah
1889(10th of Elul, 5649): German author and scholar Raphael Kircheim who was critical of the way funds for Palestine were distributed under the administration of Dutch community leader Hirsch Lehren and who criticized the work of Samson Raphael Hirsch passed away today.
1891: “Russia’s War On The Jews” published today relied on an eyewitness who wrote “that we are only at the beginning of the Jewish persecution…The situation of the Jews in Russia” is “far more terrible than the outside world imagines and that its miseries now literally defy adequate description.” (Reports like this explain the rising tide of desperate immigrants in Poland and Russia flooding the United States)
1891: “The Antiquity of Civilization” published today described the impact of recent discoveries that demonstrate the existence of “walled towns, chariots” and items fashioned from gold, silver, bronze and iron among the Egyptians, Acadians and Phoenicians at a time before “the pastoral Hebrew patriarchs found their way along the Euphrates, through Syria to Egypt.
1891: The reviewer of A Girl in the Carpathians points out that the author, Menie Muriel Dowie relies on the writings of the Jewish author Karl Emil Franzos for much of her information about life in Galicia.
1892: The 125 Russian Jews who arrived in Boston aboard the steamship Michigan were transferred by tugboat to the disinfecting rooms at Gallop’s Island outside of Boston.
1892: “Jewish Colonization Experiment” published today described a plan of Jews in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to purchase a farm near here which will be worked by three or four immigrant families. If the experiment works, the community will appeal to the Baron Hirsch Fund for assistance.
1893: Moses Bernstein who was driving a hearse carrying a Jewish infant that was struck by a trolley car “went to the office of the Brooklyn City Railroad Company to make a complaint against the motorman.”
1893: This afternoon a deputy sheriff seized the old Eagle Distillery owned by Bernard Weinberger where “kosher whisky drank principally during Jewish holidays” is made to satisfy a series of claims made by creditors including George Shapiro and M.O. Moses.
1895: A committee consisting of 13 year old Harry Bernstein, 15 year old Charles Glusker and 14 year old Isidior Krember from the Institute Street Cleaning League met with Mayor Strong gain his support for resolutions concerning pushcarts that had been adopted when the group met at the Hebrew Institute.
1896: John Zynoski, a Jewish pack peddler who was found bound to a tree in the woods between Kingston, N.H. and Brentwood tonight claimed that he had been robbed of ten dollars by two tramps.
1897: Mandolin player Fred Barris and Dave Edison were among the entertainers who were reported to have provided entertainment free of charge for a group of children at the Hebrew Institute.
1898: “No Chance For Dreyfus” published today included the claim that even that even if Colonel Henry “did admit to forging the letter naming Dreyfus…there is not the remotest chance of Dreyfus getting a new trial” because “the aristocratic element and great masses of French would be opposed to it” and “there would certainly be a revolution if a new trial were ordered.”
1899(2nd of Tishrei, 5660): Rosh Hashanah Second day
1899: It was reported today that the value of the late Clara Baroness von Hirsh estate in England has been assessed at (£)51, 277 3s while the total value of her estate was so great that her will “appears to have disposed of over (£)5, 350,000.
1899: With the release of the last will and testament of Clara, Baroness, von Hirsch, widow of the late Baron Moritz von Hirsch, The Times of London and The New York Times published a list of the bequests and legacies which includes $600,000 to a home for Jewish working girls in New York.
1899: Birthdate of composer and showman Billy Rose. Born William Samuel Rosenberg in
1901: President William McKinley was assassinated by Leon Czologosz in Buffalo, NY. You may be surprised that McKinley supported a Jewish homeland in Palestine Palestine America Europe , including the mass of Jewish immigrants which had been coming from those parts of the world since the 1880’s.
1902: “The Jewish World published a detailed balance sheet of the accounts of the Jewish Colonization Association the trust created by the late Baron de Hirsch with a donation of $50,000 for the purpose of helping persecuted Russian Jews.” The Association was best known for establishing colonies of European Jews in Argentina. Israel Zangwill had recently challenged he administrators to produce a public accounting of the Association’s here-to-for secret financial dealings.
1904: The funeral for Dr. Hermann Baar, who had been Superintendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum for 23 years will be held this morning at that institution
1904: Birthdate of "Slapsie" Maxie Rosenbloom light heavyweight boxing champ from 1930 to 1934. Born in Harlem, Rosenbloom gained his nickname because sometimes he seemed to slap his opponents instead of punching them. Rosenbloom fought during a period when Jewish fighters dominated several of boxing various divisions. Rosenbloom enjoyed success in Hollywood
1911: As the Melvin Bellis Affair raged, Dimitri Bogrov, a young Jewish terrorist tried to shoot Czar Nicholas II while he attended the Kiev Opera. He missed and ended up killing Pytor Stolypin, the powerful minister of the interior. Bogrov was summarily hung for his crime.
1911: Following the outbreak of anti-Semitic riots at Tredegar, Wales, the Monmouthsire Welsh Baptist Association, meeting at Blackwood refused to pass a motion expressing sympathy for the plight of the Jews. “One delegate argued that ‘resolutions did more harm than good and they encouraged the Jews. There were about 100 Jews at Tredegar now, and if they had many more resolutions they would have 500 there.’”
1912(24thof Elul, 5672): Twelve year old Markusch Wassermann passed away today.
1913: Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes, President of the Union of Orthodox Congregations wrote a letter to the New York Timesin which he described the emerging doctrine of Zionism which had included a political variant, a practical variant and now contains a “spiritual” variant championed by such intellectuals as Achad Ha’am.
1914: While the French were fighting desperately at the Battle of Marne, units of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) leisurely marched passed the country home of “Jimmy” Rothschild “where they longed to be able to stop and get some” of the pheasants running about the place.
1914: The English gamekeeper on the French estate of James Rothschild found an English private from the Royal West Kents hiding in a shed wearing civilian clothes during the Battle of the Marne. (He would be shot as a deserter two days later)
1916: Birthdate of Montague Ullman “a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and parapsychologist who founded the Dream Laboratory at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York” and was a faculty member at Yeshiva University.
1918(29thof Elul, 5678): Erev of Rosh Hashanah
1923:in a letter replying to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's recent inquiry in regard to the introduction of Jewish immigrants to Australia, the Australian Government stated that it “is not in a position at present to offer any special encouragement to Jews at present resident in southern European countries to migrate to Australia"."The Australian assisted immigration activities of the Commonwealth are for the present being confined mainly to the introduction of farmers, farm workers and female domestic servants from Great Britain, and the British government is cooperating with the Commonwealth Government in facilitating such immigration", states the official Secretary to the N.Y. Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Australia.
1923: JTA reported today that “Max Warburg, the well-known Jewish banker of Hamburg, has announced that he will file a suit for libel against the anti-Semitic organ "Der Hammer".The Paper which is the organ of the so-called "Aryan faction" charged that Warburg's banking firm had profited greatly by the war. The "Hammer" further charges that Warburg had been very intimately connected with the German military and official headquarters and had exploited the knowledge gained from these sources for his own profit. Warburg brands both of these charges as absolute lies declaring that his banking firm far from making money through the war, had actually suffered a considerable loss as a result of it. Mr. Warburg is a brother of the New York banker and social worker, Felix Warburg, of whom the "Hammer" spoke as the leader of the "banking world in America". This assertion, too, Herr Max Warburg characterizes as false.”
1923: JTA reported today that “The Hungarian government has promised to legalize Zionist activity in Hungarian government has promised to legalize Zionist activity in Hungary.The change of attitude on the part of this government was announced by Israel Cohen, General Secretary of the British Zionist Organization, following his conference with the Hungarian officials.”
1923: JTA reported today that “Dr. Leo Motzkin, engineer Tiomkin and Rabbi Jochelman of London will compose the delegation of the Jewish World Relief Conference which will visit the United States on behalf of the organization. A delegation will also be sent to South America and northern Europe with a view to awakening the public sentiment of the various countries to the need of continuing the relief work in Europe.”
1923: JTA reported today that “officials of the Belgian government attended the funeral of Rabbi Armand Bloch, the Belgian chief Rabbi since 1891. As a tribute to the exceptional patriotism displayed by the late rabbi during the war and the German occupation, the funeral was marked by military honors.”
1923: JTA reported today that Reuter's news service has declared “that the report of the anti-Zionist London "Daily Express" that 400 employees of the Palestine Administration were slated for dismissal in the interests of retrenchment of expenses is unfounded.” According to Reuters it was decided some time ago “to start a gradual reduction of the number of employees, but it was never contemplated to make it as sweeping as the Express report indicated. Moreover, instead of the Palestine natives losing their jobs, as the Express story stated, natives are gradually replacing the British officials.”
1924(7th of Elul, 5684): Fifty-six year old Nachman Syrkin passed away. Born in Russia, he was a founding member of the labor Zionist movement who is created with being the first to promote the use of collective settlements in Palestine. He died in New York before he could make Aliyah and it would take until 1951 for his remains to be re-interred at Kibbutz Kinneret
1924: “Aaron Benjamin, a delegate of the Immigration Aid Society to the Jewish World Relief Conference in Carlsbad, sailed today aboard the SS Aquitania, for New York. It is understood here, that he will make definite proposals to the Hias concerning the co-operation between this body and the Jewish World Relief Conference in the aiding of Jewish immigrants.”
1924: JTA reported today that “The Government of the French Republic has conferred the Order of the Legion of Honor on Rabbi Mosche Sitruk, Chief Rabbi of Tunis, on the recommendation of the Resident General of Tunis.” [Rabbi Sitruk served in this position from 1921 until 1927. Rabbi Israel Zeitoun was his predecessor and Rabbi Nissim Yarhi was his successor.]
1927:Dr. Lee K. Franked a member of the Jewish Agency Commission, who returned today on the Isle be France from an extended visit to Palestine on behalf of the Commission declined to make any statement as a result of his study. "I cannot make any statement until the Jewish Agency Commission meets." Dr. Frankel told the representative of the Jewish Daily Bulletin on his arrival. (As reported by JTA)
1929:According to a preliminary estimate of the rioting, made by the Zionist Executive, Jewish damages amount to several million dollars and 1,000 families, homeless and reduced to destitution, need $1,000 each for rehabilitation.” More than 1,500 refugees from areas under attack including Gaza and Hebron are staying in school houses in Tel Aviv.
1929:Criticism of the British authorities in Palestine, charging "betrayal" of the Jews during the Arab uprisings, is incorporated in a statement sent to the Zionist Organization of America today by Dr. Wolfgang von Weisl, a German newspaper man, who was in Jerusalem during the outbreak. He accused the British of a massive cover-up over the incident at the Wall. The government said that 2,000 Arabs “’visited’ the holy site of the Jews” and that a table was broken by “the pressure of the crowd and Jewish prayer books were burned.” Based on his visit to the site and meetings with the Jews who were there, the “Jews had been beaten” during the “visit.” The table on which the Torah scrolls are placed had not been broken; it had been stolen y the mob. They also stole a variety of other items including chairs wash bowls and towels. Dr. von Weisl saw heaps of ashes which he assumed were burned copies of the books of Psalms and Lamentations.
1929: Henry Goldman of Rochester New York “made public” a letter written on June 18, 1929 by Jacob Goldman a former student at New York University living in Tel Aviv “telling of demonstrations by young Aras and the circulation of songs calling Moslems to ‘take up the sword’ against the foreign ruler and the Jews.’”
1931: Premiere of “Merely Mary Ann,” a cinematic adaption of the play by Israel Zangwill featuring an appearance by Harry Rosenthal.
1936: In an article entitled “Toscanini’s Palestine Concerts,” G.E.R. Gedye, The New York Times correspondent in Vienna reported on a conversation with Professor Bronislav Huberman that included details of the completion of Toscanini’s scheme for a Palestine symphony orchestra that will include an opening festival in Tel Aviv on December 26.
1937(1stof Tishrei, 5698): Rosh Hashanah
1938(10th of Elul, 5698): “In Tiberias, an Arab dressed in peasant clothes entered a Jewish owned shop, drew a revolver and shot the proprietor dead and then fired on an aged Jew, wounding him fatally, then aimed at another Jew and Arab in the shop, wounding both.”
1938(10th of Elul, 5698): While traveling on the highway between Haifa and Tel Aviv Yechiel Weizmann, Chaim Weizmann’s brother and Yechiel’s son were injured when their car overturned after being fired on by gunmen lying in ambush. Another passenger, the son a prominent Haifa lawyer, died in the crash.
1938(10th of Elul, 5698): A Jewish policeman was killed and another was severely wounded when Arabs attacked the orange groves at Pardress Hanna.
1938: Romanian King Carol resigned leaving the way for Ion Antonescu, the former Minister of Defense to take power. This paved the way for Romania Romania Germany Romania
1938: Pope Pius XII informally tells Belgian pilgrims that anti-Semitism is a movement in which Christians should not involve themselves. However, Pius says, each Christian has the right "to defend himself, to take means to protect himself against all that threatens his legitimate interest."
1939: Germany Cracow , Poland Europe .
1939: As the Nazi blitz across Poland
1941: Despite establishment of ghetto at Vilna , Poland
1941: The Germans establish a "working ghetto" at Vilna , Lithuania
1941: All Jews over age 6 in German territories were ordered to wear the Star of David.
1942(24th of Elul, 5702): More than 1000 Polish Jews are killed by Nazis in the streets of the Warsaw Ghetto.
1942: Over the next two weeks, early 48,000 Jews from Warsaw
1942: The Nazis ordered the liquidation of the Bialystok
1943:Hanns Albin Rauter ordered the entire Hillesum family to be placed on the next transport to the death camps.
1943: Thirteen year old Zedenk Weinberger was shipped from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz today. He was never heard of again. The Czech boy who had arrived at Theresienstadt in the summer of 1942 at the age of 12 had written a poem entitled “Vadem” a poem which described the desperate plight of the Jews as they confronted what he called “the German weasel” who “wants more and more blood.
1943: German and Estonian soldiers marched through the Vilna Ghetto with orders to seize two thousand Jews for Nazi work camps. The Resistance Movement led by Abba Kovner was prepared to fight. Kovner had divided his force into two battalions. The fighters assembled at their rallying points as the Nazis began moving through the ghetto. One of the battalions was surrounded by the Nazis before its arms arrived. The unit had been betrayed, probably by an unnamed informer working for the ghetto’s Jewish governing body. When word of the betrayal of the unit reached Kovner he prepared his battalion for battle and called upon the Jews of the ghetto to rise against their oppressors. The Jews did not heed his call, responding instead to the governing Jewish body that still believed it could some how save more Jewish lives by wheeling and dealing with the Nazis. Many considered Kovner and his colleagues to be rebellious youth who would make matters only worse. The failure of the uprising led Kovner to eventually lead his followers out of the ghetto and become resistance fighters hiding in the neighboring swamps and woods. For more about this fascinating chapter in Jewish history, read The Avengers by Rich Cohen.
1944(1stof Tishrei, 5755): Unbeknownst to everybody, the last Rosh Hashanah of WW II.
1944(1stof Tishrei, 5755): The sister-in-law and niece of artist Felix Nussbaum were murdered at Auschwitz. When his brother died in December, it marked the end of the Nussbaum family.
1944: Paramount Pictures released “Double Indemnity” directed by Billy Wilder.
1944: Today, Salmen Gradowski, who had been forced to work as a Sonderkommando at Auschwitz, “buried the notes which he had managed to write over the previous nineteen months…in which he described his own deportation and subsequent events in the camp.” He put the notes, which were discovered after the war, into a metal canister and buried them in one of the pits of human ash. A letter buried with notes said, “I have buried this under the ashes, deeming it the safest place where people will certainly dig to find the traces of millions of men who were exterminated.” According to Sir Martin Gilbert, who supplied this story, “Gradowski dedicated his notes to the members of his family ‘burnt alive at Birkenau,’ his wife Sonia, his mother Sara, his sisters Estera-Rachel and Liba, his father-in-law Rafael and his brother-in-law Wolf. In his letter he also wrote: ‘Dear finder, search everywhere, in every inch of soil. Dozens of documents are buried under it, mine and those of other persons, which will throw light on everything that was happening here. Great quantities of teeth are also buried here. It was we, the Kommando workers, who expressly have strewn them all over the terrain, as many as we could, so that the world should find material traces of the millions of murdered people. We ourselves have lost hope of being able to live see the moment of liberation.’” Shortly after burying the canister, Gradowski was murdered. [Editor’s note – I apologize for this lengthy entry. It is the normal style. However, in writing it, it is as close as we can come to saying Kaddish for those for whom there is nobody to say Kaddish. With the approach of Rosh Hashanah (2010), it seemed like the least we could do.]
1944: An Einsatzkommando unit commanded by SS Captain Hauser entered Topolcany, Slovakia, to quell a Jewish uprising. Many leaders of the local Jewish community were arrested and killed, including former Deputy Mayor Karl Pollak, his wife, and Moritz Hochberger, who were set upon by SS troopers.
1944: Of the people with Anne Frank on a transport to Auschwitz , 549 Dutch Jews are gassed. Anne is saved for the time being because she is 15 years old. If she were 14, she would be immediately killed. Like all prisoners, she is tattooed and her head is shaved.
1949:Allied military authorities relinquish control of former Nazi Germany assets back to German control. This is another example of the realities of the Cold War trumping the quest for justice for the victims of Axis atrocities.
1951: Pitcher Duke Markell made his major league debut with the St. Louis Browns
1953: Sons of Jacob, the Conservative Congregation in Waterloo, Iowa, dedicated its new facility on Mitchell Avenue. The congregation was found in August of 1905.
1955: A Pogrom began in Istanbul that is aimed at the city’s Greek minority. Unfortunately, the Jewish and Armenian communities became targets of the mobs as well. The attacks were well planned in advance. The triggering event was the false news that the house in Thessaloniki, Greece, where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the father of modern Turkey, was born in 1881, had been bombed the day before. According to some reports, Ataturk was descended from Spanish Jews who had come to the Ottoman Empire seeking refuge from the Inquisition.
1963:Larry Sherry collaborated on a five-hit shutout tonight as the Los Angeles Dodgers maintained their five-game National League lead
1966:"Star Trek" premiers on NBC TV. Little did most people realize that Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock were played by Jewish actors.
1968: In Chernovtsi, Alexander and Malka Ivanir gave birth to Mark Alexandrovich Ivanir, the grandson of Yiddishist Meshulem Surkis the Israeli actor who has gained success in American made films and television shows.
1970:In the Dawson's Field hijacking four jet planes bound for New York City were hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
- TWA Flight 741 from Frankfurt and rSwissair Flight 100 from Zürich-Kloten Airport landed at Zerqa, also known as Dawson's Field, a remote desert airstrip in Jordan formerly used as a British Royal Air Force base.[1]
- The hijacking of El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam was foiled; hijacker Patrick Arguello was shot and killed, whilst his partner Leila Khaled was subdued and turned over to British authorities in London. Two hijackers prevented from joining the El Al flight instead hijacked Pan Am Flight 93, a, Boeing 747 diverting the large plane to Beirut and then Cairo rather than the small Jordanian field.
- A fifth plane, BOAC Flight 775 from Bahrain, was hijacked on September 9 by a PFLP sympathizer and brought to Dawson's Field in order to pressure the British to free Khaled.
David Raab, a seventeen year old from Trenton, N.J. was among the Jewish hostages. He would write his account of the event in Terror in Black September.
1972: The Munich Massacre comes to an end. At 3:24 a.m., Jim McKay who has been reporting the events on ABC received the official confirmation:
“ When I was a kid, my father used to say "Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized." Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They’ve now said that there were eleven hostages. Two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning, nine were killed at the airport tonight. They’re all gone."
1975(1st of Tishrei, 5735): Rosh Hashanah
1976: On the day after the cabinet decided to appoint Asher Yadlin governor of the Bank of Israel, Police Minister Shlomo Hillel and Attorney-General Aharon Barak were informed that the police had been inquiring into allegations against Yadlin of improper conduct in the management of Kupat Holim
1978(4th of Elul, 5738): Seventy-seven year old Benjamin Sonnenberg, a Russian-born American press agent who represented celebrities and major corporations, who was best known for the lavish entertaining he did for his clients and other notables passed away today.(As reported by William Grimes)
1980: Birthdate of Joshua Cohen, the native of Somers Point, NJ whose novels include Witz.
1985: A “staged concert” of the Follies a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman was performed at the Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center.
1986(2nd of Elul, 5746): In Istanbul, two Arab terrorists from Abu Nidal’s terror organization kill 22 and wound six inside the Neve Shalom synagogue during Shabbat services.
1986: Barbra Streisand gave her first live concert in 20 years.
1991(27thof Elul, 5771): Seventy-one year old Eliyahu Moyal the native of Sale, Morocco who helped found Kibbutz Bror Hayil , served in the Knesset and was Deputy Minister of Communications, passed away today.
1992(8thof Elul, 5752): Eighty year screenwriter Henry Ephron passed away today.
1994(1stof Tishrei, 5755): Rosh Hashanah
1998: The New York Times book section included reviews by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including War Crimes: Brutality, Genocide, Terror, and the Struggle for Justice by Aryeh Neier, The Doctor Stories by Richard Selzer, The Seekers:The Story of Man's Continuing Quest to Understand His Worldby Daniel J. Boorstin and An Empire Wilderness: Travels Into America's Future by Robert D. Kaplan.
1999(25thof Elul, 5759): Eighty-seven Yair Sprinzak the Israeli political leader whose affiliations were the opposed of his father Yosef Sprinzak, a member of Mapai, passed away today.
2003(9th of Elul, 5763):Fred Kort, Holocaust survivor, philanthropist and founder/CEO of Imperial Toy Corporation, passed away at the age of 80http://articles.latimes.com/2003/sep/11/local/me-kort11
2003(9th of Elul, 5763): Harry Goz, an actor who was an understudy in ''Fiddler on the Roof'' and wound up playing the lead, passed away today at the age of 71. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/01/obituaries/01GOZ.html
2003(9th of Elul, 5763:Jules Engel, a Jewish-Hungarian American innovative animator and educator best known for choreographing dance sequences in the 1940 Disney animated feature ''Fantasia,'' passed away today at the age of 94.
2004: Gideon Ezra was named acting Minister of Public Security today replacing Tzachi Hanegbi.
2005: The Jerusalem Post reported on plans of Chabad Rabbi Shraga Sherman to renovate the historic General Wayne Inn and turn it into a synagogue, community center and upscale kosher restaurant. The Philadelphia landmark dates back to 1704 and has served the likes of George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette and General “Mad Anthony” Wayne for whom the tavern is now named. Wayne was a hero of the American Revolution who also led American forces in the Whiskey Rebellion which was the first test of the new government of the United States. The historical society supports the renovation since the building has been vacant for several years. Well, it hasn’t been totally vacant; supposedly the inn is haunted by the ghost of a Hessian Soldier. But if anybody can cope with a specter from the Other World, it would be people who are not strangers to Spiritual World.
2006: New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer dropped several of the civil charges that had been included in the filings brought against, Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chairman and chief executive of the insurance giant American International Group.
2006: “Richard H. Jones, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, was sworn in as Ambassador to Israel by Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick” today.
2007: In Jerusalem, the weeklong festival known as Jewish Music Days continues with a fifth concert at Beit Avi Chai entitled “In Those Days at This Time, Prayers and Piyutim in the Italian Jewish Tradition.”
2007: Pope Benedict XVI and President Shimon Peres discussed peace efforts in the Middle East with the Vatican saying the time seemed particularly favorable for Israelis and Palestinians to work to end decades of conflict.
2007:An Israeli commando unit carried out a reconnaissance mission at an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor that was later destroyed by the Israel Air Force; the Swiss daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung reported today.The 12-man unit was dropped by two helicopters onto the site, according to the report, where they proceeded to take soil samples and photographs.
2007: The IAF conducted Operation Orchard, during which Israel bombed a nuclear reactor in Syria that had been set up in collaboration with North Korea.
2007: Opening of the Jewish Film Festival in Dallas, TX.
2008: The Annual Tefillah, Torah and Tailgate Shabbat Minyan at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa combined the Day of Rest with the start of the Iowa and Iowa State football seasons.
2008: Temple Judah’s very own Bentlee Birchansky plays Clarence the clarinetist and a newsboyin Theatre Cedar Rapid’s production of Gypsy at McKinley Middle school.
2008:The Young Leadership of ELEM - Israeli Youth in Distress sponsor “From Punk to Pink” Art for ELEM, an auction inspired by the personal story of a rescued teenager. Over 40 Israeli artists including Michal Rovner, Barry Frydlender, Buky Schwartz, Yigal Ozeri, Miriam Cabessa along with the freshest names in Israeli art today have generously contributed their work for ELEM’s Hafuch Al Hafuch program.
2008: Three Jewish counselors from the Bnei Akiva youth movement were attacked not far from the organization's central branch in Paris this afternoon. According to the head of Bnei Akiva's French desk, Binyamin Tuati, the boys, aged between 17 and 18, had just finished the Sabbath minha prayer when they were attacked by a group of Muslims, According to a press statement released by World Bnei Akiva spokesman Tzvika Klein, the youths were initially approached by a group of three Muslims and African immigrants who began to hurl chestnuts in their direction. When one of the counselors complained, the assailants began yelling out anti-Semitic remarks. Between 10 to a dozen other attackers wearing knuckle dusters joined the original three and began beating up the Jewish group until police arrived at the scene. The movement is now concerned over the fact that the incident occurred in an area central to the French capital's Bnei Akiva members at the 19th Quarter in Paris
2008: The Beaux Arts Trio featuring pianist Manahem Pressler performed their final concert at Lucerne, Switzerland.
2009(17th of Elul, 5770):Ninety-three year old Gerhart Friedlander, the pioneer nuclear chemist who helped develop the Atomic Bomb as part of the Manhattan Project passed away today. (As reported by Vicki Glaser)
2009: At the Avalon Theatre, a screening of Aviva Kempner’s “Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” which “looks at the life and career of Gertrude Berg, the creator, writer and star of “The Goldbergs,” a popular 1930s radio show that was subsequently a weekly TV program.
2009: Irish-Jewish cricketer Jason Molins married Aoife Mulholland in Marbella, Spain,
2009: The Washington Post features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Why Jews Are Liberal by Norman Podhoretz and The Year That Changed The World: The Untold Story Behind The Fall of the Berlin Wall by Michael Meyer
2009:A rally against the drought tax, held in Tel Aviv today, turned into a shouting match between rival protesters over how to demonstrate and against whom.
2010:BuckUSY a United Synagogue Youth (USY) Chapter, based out of Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus, Ohio is scheduled to complete its road trip to Sandusky, Ohio.
2010: The JCC of Dallas (TX) is scheduled to sponsor its annual Labor Day Beach Party.
2010:Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called on his partner in peace negotiations Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas not to give up on a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today.
2010: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu can put an end to the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians "if he wants to," according to a statement made by opposition leader Tzipi Livni (Kadima) today.
2010:As the Jewish New Year 5771 approaches, Israel's population continues to grow, according to Central Bureau of Statistics data released today. The population now stands at 7,645,000 people, continuing to grow at a steady rate of 1.8 percent per year for the seventh year in a row.Jews number some 5,770,000, or 75.5 % of the population; Arabs total 20.3%, or 1,559,100 people. The remainder, 4.2%, is classified as "other," and are mostly immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not registered by the Interior Ministry as Jews.
2010 Haifa-born Dieter Graumann announced today that he plans to run for president of Germany’s 106,000-member Jewish community The 60-year old Graumann would be the council’s first Israeli-born, non-Holocaust-survivor leader.
2010:Israel's Holocaust museum Yad Vashem signed an agreement with Poland today that gives it access to World War II-era documents held in archives across the eastern European country.
2010:The long fleet of luxury cars with white CD license plates that drove along the capital’s Jabotinsky Street today disgorged scores of ambassadors and chargés d’affaires at Beit Hanassi, for the annual Rosh Hashanah reception hosted by President Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
2011: The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, the American Jewish Committee and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists are scheduled to sponsor a brown bag lunch program entitled “The Battle Over Collective Bargaining and Public Employees.”
2011: Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum are scheduled to appear the 92nd St Y where they will promote their latest book.
2011:Concern grew tonight that rocket fire would increase against the western Negev after a member of the Popular Resistance Committees was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip. The IDF said that the Air Force bombed a cell of terrorists which had moments earlier fired two mortar shells into Israel during a gunfight with Israeli soldiers along the border opposite the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
2011:Hospital department managers and senior members from dozens of hospitals were scheduled to meet tonight at the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Army Radio reported. The meeting will address the next step in the doctors' protest, including the possible establishment of a hospital organization as an alternative to the Israel Medical Association.
2011: Jill Abramson began serving as the Executive Editor of New York making her the first woman to serve in this position.
2012: In the UK, The Wiener Library is scheduled to sponsor the Tour for European Day of Jewish Culture
2012: The Jewish Sacred Music Festival is scheduled to begin in Jerusalem.
2012: A symposium sponsored by the American Folklife Center entitled “The Stations That Spoke Your Language: Radio and the Yiddish American Cultural Renaissance” is scheduled to open in Washington, DC.
2012: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present a panel discussion entitled “Gefilte Talk.”
2012: Defense Minister Ehud Barak called today for a law allowing Israel to shut its sole border-crossing with Egypt, saying that Israelis needed to be protected from entering the region during times of high danger
2012(19th of Elul, 5772): Ninety-three year old Jerome Horwitz, the creator of AZT passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)
2012(19th of Elul, 5772): Eighty-seven year old football mogul Art Brown who made history as the owner of the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens and quietly left his mark as generous philanthropist passed away today.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/art-modell-hero-and-villain-of-cleveland-football-dies/
2013(2ndof Tishrei, 5774): Traditional Jews observed the 2nd day of Rosh Hashanah
2013: This evening, the Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform in Arlington, VA.
2013: The Jewish community in Dusseldorf is urging a boycott of today’s concert by former Pink Floyd band member Roger Waters because he is an “intellectual arsonist” who used “anti-Semitic and National Socialist imagery.” (As reported by Naama Barak)
2013: Israeli police fired stun grenades to disperse Palestinian worshippers who threw rocks at them after morning prayers at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third holiest site, a police spokesman said.
2014: Comedian and social commentator Lewis Black is scheduled to perform at the MGM Grand Theatre in Ledyard, CT.
2014: In Cedar Rapids, the traditional-egalitarian minyan is scheduled to observe Labor Day Shabbat reminding us all to “Honor the Dignity of Work and Protect the Dignity of Workers.”
Rabban Gamliel the son of Rabbi Judah HaNassi would say: An excellent thing is the study of Torah combined with some worldly occupation, for the labor demanded by them both makes sin to be forgotten. All study of the Torah without work must in the end be futile and become the cause of sin. (Pirke Avot - Saying of the Fathers: Chapter 2, Verse 2