July 23 In History
501: A violent earth quake hit Eretz Yisrael. The town of Akko was totally destroyed.
636: Following the Battle of Yarmuk Arabs took control of most of Eretz Yisrael from the Byzantine Empire.
1253: The Jews were expelled from Vienne, France by order of Pope Innocent III
1298(13th of Av): Massacre of the Jews of Wurzburg, Germany.
1312: King Frederick II order today that in Palermo Jews must live outside the city wall in a ghetto; and although they were soon afterward allowed to come into the city, they were still compelled to live in one quarter.
1626: Birthdate (on the secular calendar) of Sabbatai Zevi, the most famous of the Jewish false messiahs. He died in 1676 after converting to Islam and becoming a low-level official in the Turkish government.
1649: Birthdate of Giovanni Francesco Albani, the future Clement XI. In 1704, Clement issued a bull that dealt with Jewish converts to Catholicism. “The bull dealt with the education of potential converts, encouraged forced preaching to Jews, and emphasized the importance of providing financial assistance to Jews who converted. It asserted that new converts were to be fully accepted into the Catholic community.”
1713: Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch ben Yaakov Ashkenazi placed Nehemiah Chiya Chayun under the ban, because the investigating committee appointed by the Sephardic directorate had not yet made its report. In consequence of this measure, both Ashkenazi and Moses Chagiz were subjected to street attacks, more particularly at the hands of the Portuguese, who threatened to kill them. In the midst of the constantly increasing bitterness and animosity, the report of the committee, which had been prepared by Solomon Ayllon, Chacham of the Portuguese congregation, alone, was publicly announced. It was to the effect that the writings of Chayun contained nothing which could be construed as offensive to Judaism. It was publicly announced in the synagogue that Chayun was to be exonerated from every suspicion of heresy.
1768(9th of Av): Rabbi Isaac Spitz, author of Birkat Yizhak passed away.
1787: The Jews of Austria were required to take family names.
1846: “The Montefiore Baronetcy, of East Cliff Lodge in the Isle of Thanet and County of Kent, was created in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom today for the banker and philosopher Moses Montefiore in recognition of his services to humanitarian causes on behalf of the Jewish people. He was childless and the title became extinct on his death in 1885.”
1846: Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise arrives in New York from Europe.
1847: Prussian Jews were granted equality.
1857: The resignation of Baron Rothschild was announced today and new writ was published in London calling for an election to choose his successor. In London, the electors responded by holding a public meeting in which they pledged to return Rothschild to Parliament as their representative. They also passed a resolution calling the government to do everything in its power to immediately settle the Jewish question
1858: Passage of the Oaths and Jewish Relief Acts in Great Britain. The act allowed each House to decide the wording for the oath of office. It allowed Jewish office holders not to have recited the words, “I make this declaration upon the true Faith of a Christian. For the full text of the oath see: http://books.google.com/books?id=52INAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA531&lpg=PA531&dq=Oaths+and+Jewish+Relief+Acts+in+Great+Britain&source=bl&ots=uqsqgiu8t-&sig=vPWUAn-B9_B3E9pCbleZBi9SdsE&hl=en&ei=qbpITKi2CobmsQOo8_VI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
1860: A review of Life in the Desert; or Recollections of Travel in Asia and Africa by Colonel L. Du Couret, entitled “Asiatic Exploration.; The Journey of Du Couret through the Arabian Desert” reports that “in the heart of Arabia, our traveler found a considerable number of Jews, whose social condition seems to have been even worse than their, political state, which, in itself, is bad enough. More Jews are found at Doan, a populous place, some leagues further on the route to the eastward. "Many of these Jews," says Du Couret,, "are brokers, and some of them make a living by the manufacture of buskins and palm leaf mats. They also lend out money at usurious interest to merchants trading to Sana, the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf; but they carefully avoid any display of wealth, to save themselves from the extortion of the Mussulmans, who exact tribute from them. Such, under the rod of the Islam, are the modern descendants of the prophet Isaiah and of King Solomon." There is something unpleasantly suggestive in the following passage from our author's narrative: "Doan, which is, in all probability, the Dan spoken of by Ezekiel, is, at the present day, one of the largest and most important towns in Hadramaut, ranking next after Schibam and Terim.”
1862: Jacob and Amalia Nathansohn Freud gave birth to Pauline Regine (Pauli), a sister of Sigmund Freud who was deported to Treblinka in 1942.
1862: An article entitled "Escape of Mr. W.H. Hurlbert from Richmond" published today described the year-long Southern sojourn of Charleston born author William Hurlbert, a Union sympathizer who claimed that he visited the Richmond at the invitation of Judah P. Benjamin, “the eminent Jew” with whom he found himself in total disagreement. Hurlbert then visited Charleston where he was seized by a mob that refused Secretary Benjamin’s order to set him free. Hurlbert was then imprisoned in Richmond over the objections of Secretary Benjamin where he languished for almost a year before escaping. [Editor’s note - For those trying to figure how much credence to give Hurlbert’s account consider the following. He was in Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign and later reported that the Confederate forces numbered between 80,000 and 90,000 (wildly exaggerated) most of whom were facing Union General Fitz Jon Porter (accurate) which means that had General McClellan pushed forward he would have Richmond virtually unoccupied (accurate)]
1872: W.P. Wood and a Jew from Baltimore named Blumenberg are scheduled to arrive in Raleigh, North Carolina tonight. The two men have reportedly been sent to North Carolina by the Liberal Republican Committee in an attempt to carry out a Tammany style ballot box stuffing. Wood has been given $9,000 for his part in the scheme. Blumenberg, who has served two years in the State Prison for Perjury was given $7,000.
1872: E.A. Rosenbluth wrote a letter to the New York Times in which he declared that he “and all my Jewish acquaintances” “will vote for” General Grant.
1874: It was reported today that as soon as $160,000 can be raised for a new Hebrew Theological College will be built in Cincinnati. The late Emanuel Deutsch was the leading candidate to head the school but since his demise, Dr. Wise has renewed his efforts to obtain the services of the best available scholar to lead the effort. The school is to be so amply endowed that students will not have to pay tuition or fees. Henry Mack has been elected to serve as President of the Board of Governors.
1874: Melissa Rogers Pinner and Moritz Pinner gave birth to Rogers Adolphe Pinner, a senior partner of the Mutual Electric Company
1874(9th of Av, 5634):Tish'a B'Av
1876: A reported published today described the scene witnessed by a group of “Cook pilgrims” when they visited the “The Wailing Place of the Jews on the west side of the Temple enclosure” in Jerusalem. The Jews come to the Wall where they can touch the stones (which the writer erroneously believed were from the times of King Solomon) and read from Lamentations and Psalms “in a wailing voice.” The Jews “occasionalyly cry aloud in a chorus of lamentation, weeping. Blowing their longs notes with blue cotton handkerchiefs” while “kissing the stones” worn smooth “owing to centuries of osculation.”
1879: Mr. Austin Corbin told a TIMES reporter today that he had received numerous letters from "nice people" approving the course he had taken in relation to the Jews, and urging him to persevere. He refused to permit copies to be taken for publication, on the plea that the matter had had enough notoriety, and he wished to let it die out.
1879: Birthdate of German archaeologist Ernest Herzfeld who contended that structure currently identified as Queen Esther’s tomb “may actually belong to Shushan Dokht, the Jewish queen of King Yazdagerd I (ca. 399-420 CE), who is credited with securing permission for Jews to live in Hamadan.
1879: It was reported today that “A Berlin dispatch to the Pall Mall Gazette says: ‘Germany has declined to entertain any proposals from the Roumania for the modification of the provisions of the treaty of Berlin relative to the emancipation of the Jews.’”
1882: “The Jews and Wagner” published today expressed bewilderment at the German composer’s expression of disdain for Jews. According to the author, it was an un-named Jew who gave him his first piano. And Giacomo Meyerbeer, the German-Jewish composer, was the “first men who helped him.” Wagner claims that the Jews of Vienna have conspired to harm his career, but his three most noted critics –Hanslick, Scheel and Speidl- are Viennese Catholics.
1884(1st of Av, 5644): Rosh Chodesh Av
1884: Robert Pinkerton, whose detectives had arrested Mrs. Fredericka Mandelbaum yesterday, described what he said was her 25 year career as the “most successful…receiver of stolen goods – silks, diamonds” and other “swag” from burglars” that had brought her to the attention of law enforcement officers throughout the United States. (Mandelbaum was Jewish; Pinkerton was not)
1889(24th of Tammuz, 5649): Miss Openheimer, an 18 year old Jewess who was the daughter of well-known Pittsburgh clothing merchant, died today at Harmony, PA when a horse-drawn wagon in which she was riding collided with a train. Miss Oppenheimer was vacationing in Butler Country. Her brothers and father who were in Atlantic City have not heard about the tragedy.
1890: Plans for the upcoming festival intended to raise funds for the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews sponsored by the B’nai Brith were published today.
1890: In memory of Mrs. Stern, Isaac Stern is paying all of the expenses related to today’s excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children for enjoyment of impoverished Jewish youngsters and their mothers.
1891: Birthdate of movie mogul Harry Cohn, The son of Russian Jewish tailor, Cohn quit school and found work in vaudeville. He began working in the infant motion picture industry in 1913. He founded Columbia Pictures where, as a producer he won an Academy Award in 1934 for It Happened One Night. Cohn was noted for his vulgarism and bizarre quotes. One of his most famous was, "Give me two years and I will make her an overnight success." Cohn was one of several Jews who dominated the film industry in its early years. The interesting thing is that they did not make Jewish movies or movies about Jews. They gained success by giving the audiences slices of Americana. The created, or at least nurtured a vision of America that Middle America wanted to see. He passed away in 1958.
1891: In Philadelphia, PA, the Jewish Alliance of American presented its plan of action for dealing with the immigration of Russian Jews.
1892: “Reacting to claims that Jews don't really murder Christians to get their blood, L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, carries an article stating: ‘Unfortunately, although they tried to deny that the Talmud's followers commit such an atrocious act, one cannot reasonably deny its existence.’"
1893(10th of Av, 5653): Tish’a B’Av observed the 9th of Av fell on Shabbat
1893(10th of Av, 5653): Issac Burnheimer, a retired millionaire who was over the age of 80 and suffering from ill health passed away today at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs.
1894: Young men “went among the audience selling copies…of The Arbeiter Freund, an anarchist paper printed in Hebrew and published in London” before tonight’s meeting of anarchists at Clarendon Hall.
1894: “What Shall Royalties Do?” published today speculates on how Europe’s impecunious nobility will support themselves and includes the possibility that someday, we may see “a Hapsburg taken into partnership with a Rothschild.”
1894: Lizzie Berus, a 17 year old Russian Jewish immigrant from Paterson, NJ is to go on trial in New York today on charges of having “procured diamonds by bogus check from several jewelry firms in Upper Broadway.
1894: Police are currently looking for George Patterson, the nephew of a prominent Presbyterian minister, who is the husband of Lizzie Berus and thought to be the mastermind behind a series of jewel robberies.
1895: As Wolf Silverman sits in jail facings charges of fraud related to an insurance policy purchased for his wife, the district attorney has also brought charges against the woman known as “Jane Doe” who impersonated his wife when he bought the policy and the insurance agent known as “Richard Roe” who sold the policy. It is believed that Silverman is involved in a wider fraud ring that involves several insurance companies and their employees.
1897: Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Black, Russian Jews from Kiev who are 104 and 100 respectively were awakened early this morning by a barking dog which is what saved them from dying as their apartment at 184 Clinton Street went up in smoke.
1899: The United Hebrew Charities acknowledged that it had collected $148.50 (with contributions ranging from 50 cents to $25) to help settle a poor family that had become chronic invalids from overwork in rural location where they can work and take care of their children.
1899: The United Hebrew Charities acknowledged that it had collected $148.50 (with contributions ranging from 50 cents to $25) to help settle a poor family that had become chronic invalids from overwork in rural location where they can work and take care of their children.
1903 (28th of Tammuz, 5663): Sixty-five year old British born author Benjamin Farjeon passed away today.
1906(1st of Av, 5666): Rosh Chodesh Av
1912: Birthdate of Meyer Howard “Mike” Abrams, the son of Jewish immigrants, who became a leading American literary critic.
1913: Arabs attacked the Jewish settlement of Rehovot.
1918: Birthdate of Abraham ('Appie') Bueno de Mesquita, the Amsterdam born comedian who survived the Holocaust.
1920: The Zionist Conference here, probably the most important gathering of Jews ever held, concluded today with the election of United States Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis as honorary President of the Zionist organization; Professor Chaim Weizmann, President, and Nahum Sokolow, Chairman of the Executive Committee.
1923: The New York Timesreviews volume 4 of The Life of Benjamin Disraeli; Earl of Beaconsfield by George Earle Buckle which covers the years 1855 to 1868.
1926: Fox Film buys the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film. Sol M. Wurtzel was the producer responsible for Fox moving its operations to California and for making this purches. Following the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Fox would be purchased and become part of production giant 20th Century Fox.
1928: Birthdate of famed pianist, teacher and conductor, Leon Fleisher. Fleisher is doubly famous. When at the height of his successful career as a pianist, he lost the ability to use his right hand. Fleisher then discovered a body of music written for the left-hand and gained greater fame for this accomplishment.
1931(9th of Av, 5691):Tish'a B'Av
1933: More than twenty leaders of the extreme wing of the Zionist Revisionist party were arrested today in various parts of the country, including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and two Jewish villages, Kfarsaba and Kalmania, when the police simultaneously raided houses in connection with the murder of Dr. Chaim Arlosoroff, member of the Jewish Agency Executive of Palestine. Dr Arslosoroff was killed while walking on beach at Tel Aviv with his on June 16. This was no random killing since Arslosoroff’s killer held a flashlight into his face, asked “Are you Dr. Arslosoroff” and only fired the three fatal shots after the doctor had answered in the affirmative.
1936: The Palestine Post reported that a British soldier was killed in an Arab ambush near Tulkarm. Arab attacks were reported from Ein Harod and Kfar Yehezkel. Arabs celebrated the 100th day of their insurrection with demonstrations, calls for prayer and donations. But the Arab Nashashibi Party proposed that the Arab Higher Committee should resign as a protest against the non-fulfillment of their promises and leave the people to decide the fate of their prolonged general strike by themselves.
1936: Arab terrorists threw a bomb at a small religious school (Talmud Torah) in the Yemenite Quarter of Tel Aviv. Nine children were injured. One of the terrorists was later caught by a British constable and arrested.
1936: The British government officially declared that there would be no change of policy in regard to the issue of Jewish immigration into Palestine until the Royal Commission was able to visit the country, study the subject and publish its findings. Britain expected that all Arab terrorist activities would stop before the commission's arrival in the country. The British were wrong. The violence did not stop.
1938: Jews in Germany are ordered to apply for identity cards to be shown to police on demand.
1940: Birthdate of Daniel Saul Goldin who was appointed as the 9th Administrator of NASA by President Bush in 1992 and served under three different Presidents.
1940: Hans Frank issues order revoking the autonomy of all Jewish, Ukrainian and Jewish independent aid organizations in the General Government.
1941: In White Russia an Einsatzkommando unit commander reported that some Jews were able to ‘escape into the surrounding forests and swamps’ because they “had managed to organize a ‘signal service’ between villages” that warned of the approach of the Nazi killing squads.
1942 (9th of Av, 5702): Tisha B’Av
1942 (9th of Av, 5702): Adam Czerniakow took his own life. Born in 1880, Czerniakow was the leader of the Jewish council of Warsaw, the Judenrat. Czerniakow had held the position for 3 years and kept a diary of over 1000 pages chronicling the formation of the ghetto up to the beginning of the forced transports. The Germans had ordered him to provide them with a list of names for deportation. His response was a list of his own name written hundreds of times. The day before his suicide, the Nazi officer in charge of the deportation procedure threatened to shoot his wife if he didn’t cooperate. In his suicide note he wrote "I am powerless, my heart trembles in sorrow and compassion. I can no longer bear all this."
1942: SS Senior Colonel General Viktor Brack advises Heinrich Himmler that all healthy Jews should be castrated or sterilized, and the remainder annihilated.
1942: The German Foreign Minister, Von Ribbentrop, warned the Italian Chief of Staff, that Italy should not resist efforts to deport the Jews of Croatia.
1942: The Nazis opened the Treblinka Extermination Camp.
1942: Deportation of Jews from Dobsina, Slovakia, to Auschwitz
1943(20th of Tammuz, 5703): Forty-year-old Mandel Langer, a Jewish French partisan who was active as an anti-Nazi saboteur since the end of 1942, is captured and executed in Toulouse, France.
1943: Colonel Josiah Clement Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood, passed away. Swimming against the establishment stream, he opposed the British decision to create an Arab state east of the Jordan River, seeing it as a betrayal of promises to the Zionists. He opposed the 1939 White Paper on the same grounds.
1944: Soviet troops liberate the abandoned death camp at Majdanek, where about 500 inmates are alive.
1944: The Nazis deport 1700 Jews from Rhodes to Auschwitz.
1948(16th of Tammuz, 5708): In Jerusalem, two more Israeli soldiers were killed by Arab firing from Abu Tor.
1948: Arab shelling from the village of Silwan damages the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
1948: The possibility loomed today that the Israeli Government might conduct negotiations with Soviet Russia for a supply of crude oil to be refined at Haifa.
1949: The Turkish government authorized an Israeli, Victor Elyachar, to open an office in Istanbul to answer questions about the new state of Israel. In October of the same year, Elyachar was appointed Consul General of Israel at Turkey.
1950: Based on the wording of the Official Citations, today marked the beginning of a series of heroic acts on the part of Corporal Tibor Ruman during the darkest days of the Korean War that would lead to him being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibor_Rubin
1951: Thousands of mourners led the black-draped gun carriage carrying the coffin of King Abdullah of Jordan to the royal cemetery in Amman. The Jordanian police rounded over 70 suspects in connection with the king's assassination, including two relatives of the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini. There were clashes in the Jordanian-occupied Old City of Jerusalem between Arab Legion Bedouin and the local Arabs.
1951: The first immigrant from the U.S.S.R., 73-year-old Tova Lerner from Soviet Bessarabia, arrived in Israel together with 993 newcomers from Romania
1952: General Neguib overthrew the monarchy and seized power. Some Israelis thought this change presaged a possible improvement in relations with the Egyptians. The last King of Egypt, Farouk, was man known for his personal and political corruption. The Israelis thought the revolutionaries would bring Western style reforms and that they would be more accepting of the Jewish State. Obviously this did not happen. One of the men behind what was known as "The Colonels’ Revolt" was Nasser. Nasser would soon seize the reins of power and make the destruction of Israel a cornerstone of his Pan-Arab policy. In a lesson that has still not been learned, Nasser said that he did not hate the West because of Israel but hated Israel because it was Western. In other words, anti-Western philosophy has been a staple of the Arab/Moslem world long before the appearance of Bin Laden.
1955: Cordell Hull, Tennessee political leader and U.S. Secretary of State passed away. Appointed by FDR, he served in the post until 1944 which made him the longest serving Secretary of State. He won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1945 for his role in creating the United Nations, which at its inception, played a positive role in the creation of Israel. Hull blocked the admission of Jews fleeing Hitler as can be seen in his role with the SS St. Louis and the SS Quanza. Hull’s wife was reportedly Jewish, a fact they worked to keep from public knowledge lest it impede his public career.
1960: In New York City, Edie and Ely A. Laundau gave birth to Jon Landau, the producer of Titanic and co-producer of science fiction blockbuster Avatar.
1967: Herb Gray, Canada's first Jewish federal cabinet minister, Gray married lawyer Sharon Sholzberg, with whom he had two children: Jonathan David and Elizabeth Anne.
1968: For the first time, the PLO hijacked an El Al plane. El Al was the first airline to put sky marshals on its flights and the first airline to introduce the security measures that many tried to emulate after 9/11.
1969(8th of Av, 5729): Erev Tish’a B’Av
1969(8th of Av, 5729): Seventy-seven year old “Sidney J. Weinberg, whose financial acumen earned him the sobriquet ‘Mr. Wall Street’” passed away today. (As reported by Alden Whitman)
1969: Birthdate of Rachel Goslins, the director of “God’s House,” a documentary about Albanian Muslims who save Jews during World War II based on Besa: Muslims Who Save Jews in World War II by Norman Gershman. A member of Adas Israel, she has served as the Executive Director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.
1971: Birthdate of journalist Joel Stein.
1973: Birthdate of White House Intern, Monica Lewinsky.
1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that the visiting governor of the Bank of Spain, Luis Coronel del Palma, expressed hope of "a considerable improvement of relations between Spain and Israel."
1978: The Israeli cabinet rejected Sadat's call for return of 2 Sinai areas.
1978: In “Sex, Torah, Revolution,” Alan Lelchuk reviewed Shosha by Isaac Bashevis Singer.
1980(10th of Av, 5740): Eighty-four year old Dr. Max Kadushin, a leading Conservative Rabbi, passed away today.
1987: Fifty American volunteers pulled out of an archeological excavation site here today after a group of rigorously Orthodox Jews mobilized international pressure to halt digging in the area, which they say is an ancient burial ground.
1997: According to a report released today the July 14 collapse of a pedestrian bridge at the Maccabiah Games was caused by a chain of failures involving the bridge's planning and construction. Despite the attempts to shift blame, the commission of inquiry found fault at all levels -- from the engineer, to the contracting company that built the bridge, to the Maccabiah organizing committee.
2001: 16th Maccabiah comes to a close.
2001: Matt Bloom lost the WWF Intercontinental Championship to Alliance member Lance Storm in Buffalo, New York
2002: The IDF bombed the building in which Hamas leader Salah Shehade was sleeping. He was the mastermind behind a series of suicide attacks that claimed the lives of hundreds of Israeli civilians.
2003: Best-selling author Peggy Orenstein and Academy Award winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki gave birth to their daughter Daisy Tomoko.
2003: President Bush presents Edward Teller with the Medal of Freedom, six weeks before Teller’s death.
2005: Pitcher Craig Breslow made his major league debut with the San Diego Padres.
2005: Several explosions rocked the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Shiek in the early morning hours. The attacks were aimed at a number of resort hotels catering to tourists from Egypt, Europe and Israel.
2005: The Jerusalem Post reported that Ariel Sharon will not change the date of the evacuation from Gaza. The evacuation date is August 17.
2006: The San Francisco Chronicle reviewed How This Night Is Different by Elisa Albert
2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz - An Essay in Historical Interpretation by Jan T. Gross and the recently released paperback edition of Freud's Requiem: Mourning, Memory, and the Invisible History of a Summer Walk by Matthew Von Unwerth an “elegantly meandering look at Sigmund Freud's life and the intellectual world he moved in that examines an obscure 1915 essay, ‘On Transience,’ in which Freud records a conversation with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke and the psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé.”
2006: The following were among a total of 43 Israeli civilians (including four who died of heart attacks during rocket barrages) and 116 IDF soldiers were killed in the Israel-Hizbullah war: Shimon Glickblich, 60, of Haifa; Habib Awad, 48, of Ibellin.
2007: In Krakow, Poland, the Cinema Pod Baranami / Festival of Jewish Culture presents a screening of “Hungry Hearts,” which is “based on the short stories of Anzia Yezierska, the first writer to bring stories of American Jewish women to a mainstream audience.”
2007: The New Republic features reviews of 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed The Middle East by Tom Segev and Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets’ Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War by Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez and well Nathan Glazer’s review of Robert Moses and the Modern City: The Transformation of New York.
2008:At the Karmiel amphitheater Let Us Growshowcases 3,000 children from all over the country in a mosaic of dances choreographed especially for them featuring such singers as Tal Mosseri and Yoav Yitzhak.
2008: Dina Gottliebova-Babbitt an artist and Holocaust survivor had surgery today after having been “diagnosed with an aggressive form of abdominal cancer.”
2008: Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook Connect, a version of Facebook Platform for users.
2008:In an example of interfaith at its best, members of Temple Judah load their cars with clothing items shipped to Cedar Rapids by Chabad of Des Moines and take them to Community of Christ Church for distribution to victims of the Cedar Rapids Flood of 2008.
2008(25th of Tammuz, 5768:Officer David Chriqui of Rishon Lezion, 19-year-old border policeman who was shot near the Lions' Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem on July 11 died of his wounds today. Officer David Chriqui of Rishon Lezion was shot in the head at close range by a man thought to be a Palestinian. Jerusalem police officer Imad Gadir from Kafr Zarzir in the Western Galilee has recovered from his wounds.
2008: Senator Barack Obama opened a day of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders sharing breakfast with Ehud Barak before traveling to the West Bank to meet ith Mahmoud Abbas.
2009: Closing ceremony of the 18th Maccabiah takes place at Latrun
2009: Chicago’s Millennium Park celebrated its fifth anniversary with a blockbuster event of song and spoken word called SHELebration: A Tribute to Shel Silverstein. This night of song and performance honoring the legendary Chicago poet, author, illustrator and Grammy Award-winning songwriter took place at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion.
2009: In New York City, rooftop premiere of Keren Cytter's feature length film, "The Great Tale." The Tel Aviv native “creates films that appropriate and transform different cinematic genres, such as film noir, melodrama, documentary, and soap opera. Often set in cheap domestic interiors, Cytter's films depict dysfunctional families and alienated friends on the verge of nervous breakdown.”
2009: Several rabbis were arrested as part of a public corruption and international money-laundering investigation in New Jersey. According to reports, among the 44 people arrested this morning by the FBI along with the rabbis were the mayors of three New Jersey towns, a deputy mayor and a state assemblyman.
2010: As part of “Downtown Shabbat”Robyn Helzner, one of the leading interpreters of world Jewish music, and Cantor Larry Paul are scheduled to lead a Carlebach-inspired service at the Historic Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington, D.C.
2010:An Israeli government decision to shelve a controversial bill on Jewish conversions drew praise today from liberal Jewish groups in Israel and the U.S. who opposed the legislation and waged a vocal campaign to get it thrown out.
2010: From L.A. to Cedar Rapids and points unknown, family and many friends celebrate the birthday of Charlene Wolfe, a “balabus” par excellence.
2010((12th of Av, 5770): Daniel Schorr, whose aggressive reporting over 70 years as a respected broadcast and print journalist brought him into conflict with censors, the Nixon administration and network superiors, died today at the age of 93. (As reported by Robert D. Hershey, Jr.)
2010: In “At War With Itself” Leo Damrosch provides a detailed reviews of Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion and the Scandal of the Century by Ruth Harris.
2011: In Iowa City, Agudas Achim Sisterhood's annual Mitzvah Fund Event will include this evening’s University Repertory Theater production of Neil Simon's "Lost in Yonkers."
2011: The Daniel Ori Trio is scheduled to perform three sets of originals and new arrangements from the upcoming album Emuna at the Barn Next Door in NYC.
2011:Ten of thousands gathered in central Tel Aviv tonight for a mass rally against soaring housing prices and Israel's high cost of living.
2011:The first-ever reunion of the Ritchie Boys began today at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
2011(21st of Tammuz, 5771):Jewish-British singer Amy Winehouse, whose hit single "Rehab" became the anthem for troubled celebrity culture, has been found dead at her home in north London, Sky News reported today.
2011(21st of Tammuz, 5771): Ninety-two year old Robert C.W. Ettinger, the “founding father” of the cryonics movement, passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)
2012: Shiva services for Lauren Becker, of blessed memory, are scheduled to be held at the home of her father Harold in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2012: “One Day After Peace” is scheduled to have its American premiere at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2012:The Knesset Control Committee is scheduled to discuss the aspects of the annual State Comptroller’s Report that deal with the Temple Mount, including security and unsupervised building. (As reported by Melanie Lidman)
2012: As it prepares to move to its new location, members of Agudas Achim under the leadership of Rabbi Jeff Portman gather at the Agudas Achim Cemetery to bury old prayersbooks, bibles, talisim and other religious artifacts in the time honored manner of the Jewish people.
2012: Today President Shimon Peres condemned Syrian government statements that it would deploy chemical weapons in the event of a foreign invasion, and said Israel would do whatever it takes to eliminate the threat these weapons pose to the Jewish state.(As reported by Ilan Ben Zion)
2012: DNA evidence believed to belong to the culprit and his female accomplice in last week’s bombing at the Burgas Airport was reportedly found at the Hotel Perfekt in Varna, Bulgaria, Bulgarian TV station BTV reported today (As reported by Aaron Kalman and Ilan Ben Zion)
2013: The 17th annual Jerusalem 3x3 Streetball tournament sponsored by the Jerusalem Municipality is scheduled to open at Safra Square.
2013: From Cedar Rapids to California and lots of other places, people celebrate the birthday of Charlene Wolff, a culinary wizard and pillar of the Jewish community.