OCTOBER 6
1014: Samuil of Bulgaria passed away. He was the Emperor of the First Bulgarian Empire from 986 until his death in battle while fighting the Byzantines. Jews fleeing from the persecution of the Byzantine Empire had found refuge among the Bulgarians. Samuil was a member of the Comitopuli dynasty whose leaders had names like Samuel (Samuil), Moses and David,which “could indicate partial Jewish origin, most likely maternal, though this is disputed.”
2013: “Threshold to the Sacred: The Ark Door of Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue” is scheduled to open at Yeshiva University Museum.
2013: The Tulane University Jewish Studies Department is scheduled to sponsor a lecture by Jack Kulgelmas of the University of Florida, "Sifting the Ruins: Jewish Journalists Return to Poland, 1945-1947"
877: Charles the Bald, King of France, passed away.Regardless of whatever others may think of him, Charles the Bald, who was King of France, comes up on the plus side in Jewish history when compared to other monarchs since he resisted enforcing the anti-Semitic edicts of the Archbishop of Lyon. Charles motives were political and economic, not religious.
1014: Samuil of Bulgaria passed away. He was the Emperor of the First Bulgarian Empire from 986 until his death in battle while fighting the Byzantines. Jews fleeing from the persecution of the Byzantine Empire had found refuge among the Bulgarians. Samuil was a member of the Comitopuli dynasty whose leaders had names like Samuel (Samuil), Moses and David,which “could indicate partial Jewish origin, most likely maternal, though this is disputed.”
1552: Birthdate of Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit missionary to China who provided one of the first records of Jewish settlement in "the middle kingdom. His "manuscripts indicate there were only approximately ten or twelve Jewish families in Kaifeng in the late 16th and early 17th century, that they had reportedly resided there for five or six hundred years, that there was a greater number of Jews in Hangzhou which could be taken to suggest that loyal Jews fled south along with the soon-to-be crowned Emperor Gaozong to Hangzhou.”
1755(1st of Cheshvan, 5516): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1755(1st of Cheshvan, 5516): A.M. Rothschild’s father died of small pox.
1759(15thof Tishrei, 5520): Sukkoth
1776(23rdof 5537): Simchat Torah is celebrated for the first time since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
1783(10thof Tishrei, 5544): As the American Revolution reaches its final conclusion with a treaty between Great Britain and her former colonies Jews on both sides of the Atlantic observe Yom Kippur in peace.
1795(23rdof Tishrei, 5556): Simchat Torah
1806: The Assembly of Jewish notables is required to answer 12 questions intended to inform the authorities about the nature of Judaism and to test the knowledge of French among the Jews.
1808(15thof Tishrei, 5569): Sukkoth
1821(10thof Tishrei, 5582): Yom Kippur
1843: Birthdate of Herman Rosenthal, the Russian born American author, editor and librarian.
1844(23rdof Tishrei, 5605): Simchat Torah
1846: In India, Jessie Sarah and Henry Edward Goldsmid gave birth to Albert Edward Goldsmid. A graduate of Sandhurst, the famed military school, he held a series of progressively more important positions in the British army until he was “selected by Baron de Hirsch to supervise” the colonies being established in Argentina for Jewish refugees from eastern Europe. He went to serve with distinction during the Boer War.
1849: The victorious Austrian general orders the execution of 13 rebel Hungarian generals in Arad. These men are known as the 13 Martyrs of Arad. Their execution marked an end to the revolt by Kossuth against the repressive Austrian regime. Kossuth had supported emancipation for the Jews of Hungary and the Jews had supported the revolt. The Jews of Hungary suffered cruelly at the hands of the victorious Austrians as well as the local Slavic population that had viewed the uprising as a Magyar dominated event. The defeat of the liberal forces in Hungary United States
1851: “The Hungarians” published today reported that the U.S.S. Mississippi, “commanded by Captain Levy” had arrived in Constantinople for the purpose of providing Louis Kossuth, the exiled Hungarian political leader, with safe passage to France. The Mississippi was one of the first ocean-going steam vessels belonging to the U.S. Navy and would be part of the fleet that entered Tokyo Bay with Commodore Perry. Captain Uriah P. Levy would not be part of that voyage.
1851(10th of Tishrei, 5612): Yom Kippur
1851: The first recorded Jewish religious observance in Southern California was held at the home of Lewis Abraham Franklin in San Diego Franklin San Francisco San Diego San Diego
1852(23rdof Tishrei, 5613): Simchat Torah
1853:The Foreign Items column published today reported that Alexander Weill, a Jew who converted to Catholicism attributes the diseases attacking crops in parts of Europe "to the non-observance to the precepts of Moses who ordained that the soil should be left fallow during every seventh year, as God rested on the seventh day.
1856:" Pleasant Prospect for Foreign Voters" published today reported that, “Some ‘Jew’ having interrupted Governor Floyd, when he was avowing his readiness to vote for Fillmore, with the pertinent inquiry, ‘how about the foreign vote?’ the Governor replied, that they should be treated as the Greeks proposed to do with Hector, feed him on one day and disembowel him the next. Fillmore is Millard Fillmore former President of the United States who had been a member of the Whig Party. When the Whigs collapsed, Fillmore joined the American Party, the political party of the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic Know-Nothing Movement. John Floyd was a prominent member of the Democrat Party who had served as Governor of Virginia. Considering the surge in Jewish immigration to the United States during the 1850’s Fillmore and the Know-Nothings were a great concern to all Jews.
1863(10thof Tishrei, 5764): Yom Kippur
1863: During the U.S. Civil War, Union authorities began the process of mustering the 15th Kentucky Cavalry (a unit formed by Lt. Col. Gabriel Netter) out of active service. There is a note of irony that this process affecting a unit formed by a Jewish soldier, should begin on the Day of Atonement.
1864: In Náchod, Czech Republic, Isaac and Julie Judith Josephine Mautner gave birth to Adelheid Mauter who became Adelhied Goldschmid when she married Otto Goldschmid.
1870: “Loss of Life in War” published today described what is considered to be “the shocking slaughter” taking place on 19th century battlefields. In making comparison, the article reports that when Titus took Jerusalem, “more than a million Jews are believed to have perished.”
1871(21stof Tishrei, 5632): Hoshanah Rabah
1873(15thof Tishrei, 5634): Sukkoth
1873: According to published reports today’s “Jewish festival of ‘Succoth’ or the Feast of Tabernacles…is the harvest feast of the Jews and is a season for rejoicing and thanksgiving…The observance of this festival is not general, being confined almost entirely to the orthodox portion of the Jewish community.
1873: At a meeting of leading Christians held at Steinway Hall in New York City a person from Cincinnati claimed “the Jews in that section of the country asserted that America was their promised land, and they no longer believed the ideas taught by their forefathers.” [Cincinnati was the stronghold of the Reform Movement.]
1877: In New York City, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association sponsored a program at the Lyric Hall that was attended by “the elite of Jewish society. Mr. I.S. Isaacs presided over the event. He was joined on the platform by Dr. De Sola Mendez and Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs. General Stewart L. Woodford, who had served with distinction in the Civil War and was active in the New York State Republican Party delivered an address entitled “Toleration.” Professor J.L. Rice played a piano solo and Miss Gertrude Emanuel sang a ballad. The evening ended with a recitation of “Phil Blood’s Leap by Joseph Michaels.
1878(9thof Tishrei, 5639): Erev Yom Kippur
1878: “The Hebraic Day of Atonement” published today reported that “the Jewish fast of Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, commences at sundown this evening. This fast is more generally observed than any other o the numerous fasts and feasts in the Hebraic calendar…This is particularly the case among the orthodox Jews who keep a strict fast for 24 hours…The Reformed Jews, while they have discarded the fast, still regard the day as one of solemn import…”
1879: On the Gregorian calendar, birthdate of Russian born Yiddish author Nohum Shtif who wrote under the pseudonym of Baal Dimon (Master of Imagination)
1882(23rdof Tishrei, 5643): Simchat Torah
1883: In New York City, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association hosted a meeting of Jewish immigrants from Germany and Russia at the Five Points House of Industry. The YMHA shared its plans to start classes in English and American social customs.
1884: Gabriel Richter, a Hebrew teacher, who had been arrested on charges of setting fire to his apartment at 219 Division Street was released today following a hearing at the Tombs Police court during which he said he was innocent because he was not at home and the police officer “could not swear” that the defendant “was the man whom had seen descending the stoop after the alarm was given.
1884: It was reported today that three alleged accomplices of Gabriel Richter who have conspired to set the three fires in the last 15 months set one at 203 East Broadway, “a three story tenement, occupied by” three Jewish families from Poland.
1884: Birthdate of Felix Weltsch, a German-speaking Jewish librarian, philosopher, author, editor, publisher and journalist who was a close friend of Max Brod and Franz Kafka, he was one of the most important Zionists in Bohemia.
1887: “Dr.M’Glynn and the Jews” published today briefly described the views of Edward McGlynn about religious doctrine stating that the difference between Judaism and Christianity was that the former placed a premium on universal justice while the latter placed a premium on “blind faith.” (McGlynn was a Roman Catholic priest who had been excommunicated earlier in the year because of his political positions including the support of Henry George.)
1889: Attorney Alexander Rosenthal, representing Joseph Linkowitz, the President of the synagogue at 91 Delaney has charged Officer Gebhard of entering the institution as the second day of Rosh Hashanah was ending and Shabbat was beginning and turning out the lights thus forcing the worshippers out into the street.
1889: “Talk of the Day Abroad” published today described the latest act of anti-Semitism in Leipzig as transcending “the ordinary in sheer stupidity.” In response to the thousands who visit the home of Mendelssohn, the citizenry raised money for a stained-glass window at the church of St. Thomas, to honor the composer of “Elijah.” However, the project came to a grinding halt when “somebody started an outcry that the Mendelssohns were Jews.
1890: During today’s meeting of the Trustees of Columbia University, it was a reported that Jesse Seligman had donated another $1,000 for the Seligman Fellowships.
1892(15thof Tishrei, 5653): Sukkoth
1892: Birthdate of U.S.
1894: Mrs. Elke Rubenstein, the widow of convicted murderer Pesach N. Rubenstein and her sister Basche Ragleski were sent back to Jerusalem today after having been denied entrance to the United States because they “had only $50 and government authorities are not permitted to land anyone who may become a public charge.
1894: Those in charge of the Bureau of Elections are concerned that they will have completed their list of polling places in time for the first day of voter registration which begins on October 9 and continues on October 10. Several the locations used in the past are owned by Jews and they do not want to sign a lease that will have their property being used Erev Yom Kippur and Yom Kippur.
1894(6thof Tishrei, 5655): Shabbat Shuvah
1894(6thof Tishrei, 5655): Seventy year old German botanist Nathanael Pringsheim who ranks as the founder of our scientific knowledge of the algae” passed away today.
1895: Professor Cyrus Adler explained how the United States National Museum acquired two Persepolitan cast one of which he says resembles “a frieze of enameled bricks found at Susa which is now in the Louvre.
1895: “Prof. Haupt’s Literary Treasures” published today described the return of “Professor Paul Haput of the Oriental department of Johns Hopkins University” to Baltimore from Europe, where among other things he met with Professor Howard Furness who is working on a the new translation of “The Hebrew Bible” of which Professor Haupt is the editor in Chief.
1896: The list of gifts received by Columbia University published today provided by the Secretary of the Board included $5,000 from Jacob F. Schiff to aid needy students get through college.”
1897(10thof Tishrei, 5658): Yom Kippur
1897: “Jew’s Greatest Fast Day” published today included a description of the preparation for Yom Kippur by “the orthodox Jew” who has for the past nine days been preparing himself for this day by doing “penance” which has entailed rising early “every morning since the New Year’s festival and repairing to the Beth Hamiderash (house of learning)” where he recited psalms and prayers for forgiveness and seeking “out his enemies” and making “peace with them” while discharging “all his worldly obligations.
1897: Dr. Gustav Gottheil led the services at Temple Emanu-El
1897: “There was a general suspension of business among the” Jewish merchants in Camden, NJ, because they were attending Yom Kippur Services.
1897: At Temple Elohim in Brooklyn Rabbi Taubernhaus delivered a sermon based on the Sayings of the Father that begin “Bear in mind three things and thou shalt escape sinning.
1897: At Temple B’nai Jeshurun, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise delivered a sermon entitled “Moses and Aaron.
1897: At Temple Rodoph Sholom, Dr. Rudolph Grossman delivered a sermon entitled “Home, Religion and Reconciliation.”
1897: At Temple Beth-El, Dr. Kauffman Kohler delivered a sermon on the “Dove of Peace.”
1897(10thof Tishrei, 5658): Fifty-three year old Lewis Stark, successful clothing merchant, passed away today at the home of his sister today from the effects of Bright’s disease.
1898: In London, Sime Zamremba and Avroam Kohen, a tailor from Lodz gave birth to Jacob Edward Kohen who gained fame as Jack Cohen, the founder of Tesco Supermarket Chain – an accomplishment that led to him being honored as Sir John Edward Cohen.
1898:Herzl arrives in Berlin for another conversation with Graf Eulenberg.
1901(23rdof Tishrei, 5662): Simchat Torah
1903(15thof Tishrei, 5664): Sukkoth
1903: The High Court of Australia sits for the first time. In the early 1930’s Sir Isaac Alfred Isaacs would be the first Jew to serve as Chief Justice of Australia.
1907: Birthdate of Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch, a German-born geneticist and co-founder of developmental genetics who fled Hitler’s German to pursue her career in the United States. Winner of the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal in 1993 and the National Medal of Science in 1996, she passed away in November of 2007, a month after celebrating her 100thbirthday.
1909(21st of Tishrei, 5670): Hoshanah Rabah
1909: The funeral for Rabbi Falk Vidaver who passed away yesterday at the age of 65, is scheduled to be held today at his home in New York City. Burial will take place in the cemetery belonging to the Temple at 72nd and Lexington Avenue where Falk served as rabbi for twelve years.
1909:Miss Clara L. Clemens, daughter of Samuel L. Clemens, (Mark Twain,) was married at noon to-day to Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the Russian pianist. The wedding took place in the drawing room at Stormfield, Mr. Clemens's country home, with the Rev. Dr. Joseph H. Twitchell of Hartford, a close friend of Mr. Clemens, as officiating clergyman. The groom was Jewish. The bride was not.
1914: The battleship U.S.S. North Carolina brings $50,000 from the Jews of the United States to the Jewish community in Palestine.
1917: As politicians sought to appeal to the Jewish vote on the Lower East Side William Hard, a supporter of New York Mayor John Mitchell wrote in today’s New Republic that Socialist Morris Hillquist who was Jewish had “a very considerable skill in the management of practical negotiations and an excellent command of quotations from standard authorities of his intellectual club and a manifest dislike for new and painful ideas.
1917: Today, during World War I, the 65th U.S. Congress passed an act that allowed for the creation of an additional twenty chaplains to serve in the United States Army. These positions were for repesentatives of "religious sects" not usually represented in these positions. The language of the act was convoluted but what Congress was really doing was creating positions to be filled by Jewish and Unitarian chaplains - religious sects that had hitherto been under-represented or unrepresented in chaplaincy.
1918: On the Lower East Side of Manhattan the former Jennifer Garlick and her first husband gave birth to Joseph Nathaniel Glassman who gained fame as Joseph Frank author of the five volume life of Fydor Dostoevsky which is viewed as one of the greatest literary biographies of the 20th century. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1921: Great Britain, the mandatory power governing Palestine, announced that Haifa will become a free port and that a new harbor will be constructed by a British company with a loan from the Palestine Mandatory Government of 10,000,000 English pounds. As part of a tariff agreement reached with the French, the mandatory power governing Syria, goods entering Haifa bound for Syria will be treated as duty free. This should be a boon to trade with those living in Mesopotamia as well.
1921: Birthdate of Soviet mathematician Yvgeny Landis who is known for his work on partial differential equations. (I do not have clue as to what that means)
1923: In Oshkosh, Wisconsin, scrap metal dealer Isadore Block and his wife gave birth to Allan Forrest Block “a leather craftsman and fiddler who made sandals and music in his Greenwich Village shop — which became a bubbling hub of folk music during the 1950s and ’60s.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1925(17th of Tishrei, 5686): Chol Hamoed Sukkoth
1925(17th of Tishrei, 5686): “The noted Jewish scholar, Dr. Israel Abrahams, reader in Talmudic and Rabbinic literature at Cambridge University passed away today in Cambridge” (UK) at the age of 66. Dr. Abrahams came from a family of scholars. “His father, Barnett Abrahams, was the Dayan of the Spanish & Portuguese Congregation in London.” Two of his brothers are rabbis including Dr. Joseph Abrahams, the Chief Rabbi of Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Abrahams has been at Cambridge for the last twenty three years. He was the first President of the Union of Jewish Literary Societies and held several leadership positions with the Jewish Historical Society of England. Dr. Abrahams was a prolific author whose best known work maybe “Jewish Life in the Middle Ages” which was published in 1896. In his later years he identified with the more liberal wing of Judaism. Abrahams’ first speaking tour in the United States was in 1912. He returned again in 1924. [Abrahams comment that anti-Semitism is on the wane in Germany made in 1912 stands in stark contrast to the reality of the post war years.]
1925: Birthdate of journalist Shana Alexander who gained national fame as part of the Point/Counterpoint segment on “Sixty Minutes.” As the liberal, she fenced with conservative columnist James Kirkpatrick.
1927(10th of Tishrei, 5688): Yom Kippur
1927: The era of talking pictures arrived with the opening of ''The Jazz Singer,'' starring Al Jolson.
1927: Jewish editor Herman Bernstein post a $15,000 bond so that Mordechai Golinkin, conductor of the Palestine Opera and former director of the Petrograd Opera, his wife Lea and a fellow traveler can be released from their three day detention on Ellis Island. Authorities detained the party because Golinkin had no contracts to perform in the United States which meant he did not meet the legal requirement of being able to demonstrate that he had a means of support.
1928: In the aftermath of the Massena (NY) Blood Libel that Assemblyman Julius Berg said that the apology by Mayor Gilbert Hawes “showed conclusively that he had been guility of a serious injustice against the Jews of Messina. Berg said no apology could make up for the wrong done and that unless the mayor resigned he would go to court to have him removed from office. When a four year child had been reported missing on the eve of Yom Kippur, the mayor had suggested that the disappearance might be due to a ritual murder. This resulted in Rabbi Brennglass being summoned to the police station for questioning.
1933: Birthdate of Ludwik Begleiter, the native of Stryj, Poland who survived the Holocaust ,graduated from Harvard Law School and who as Louis Begley became a successfully and author whose first book Wartime Lies was published in 1991.
1935(9thof Tishrei, 5696): Erev Yom Kippur
1935(9thof Tishrei, 5696): Eighty-three year old composer and conductor Sir Frederic Hymen Cowen passed away.http://www.btinternet.com/~john.parker17/index.html
1935:Daniel Persky, editor of the Hebrew-language newspaper Hadoar and its sister publication for youth, Doar L’Noar wrote to Aliza Dworkin that ““In my opinion, Sara Kucikowicz’s future will be that of a great Hebrew poet,” who wrote “The Cruel Winter” and “The Vicious Spring.”
1936:Sir Oswald Mosley planned a provocative meeting of his British Union of Fascists in the East End for today. The inhabitants of the area determined that ''They shall not pass!'' and congregated at Gardner's Corner. When in response Mosley and his Black Shirts, with a fair degree of police support, changed direction, the protesters dashed along the Commercial Road, surged down Christian Street and turned right into Cable Street. At the junction with Royal Mint Street, now marked by a plaque, the Fascists indeed ''did not pass.'' They were later ordered to disperse, and Mosley thundered: ''The government surrenders to Red violence and Jewish corruption. We never surrender.'' In fact, Fascism in Britain, at least as an organized political movement, was soon a dead letter.
1936: The New York City Public School system announced today that it is beginning a series of radio broadcast as part of its educational efforts. Among the broadcasts will be a series aimed at language students including those studying Hebrew who will hear programs about Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the Waves of Galilee.
1937: The Palestine Post reported from Berlin
1937: The Palestine Post reported that he Arab Defense Party, which had broken away from the Husseini-run Arab Higher Committee, was allowed to meet in Jerusalem
1938:The last casualty of the International Brigades, Haskel Honigstern, was given a state funeral in Barcelona. The Spanish poet Jose Herrera wrote of him: "Haskel Honigstern, Polish worker of the Jewish race, son of an obscure land, killed in the light of my homeland." Coincidentally, the first casualty of the International Brigades was Leon Baum, a Jew from Paris
1939: In an address to the Reichstag, Hitler offers peace to England France Germany Germany Britain France Germany
1940(4th of Tishrei, 5701): Tzom Gedaliah
1940(4th of Tishrei, 5701): Illinois Governor Henry Horner passed away today at the age of 62. Horner was a distinguished jurist before entering state politics as a reformer. Henry Levy was the son of Solomon Levy and Dilah Horner. When his parents divorced, his mother resumed using her maiden name and young Levy became Horner.
1941(15th of Tishrei, 5702): First Day of Sukkoth
1941(15th of Tishrei, 5702): Over the next 48 hours, the majority of Jews in Dvinsk, Latvia, are murdered.
1941(15th of Tishrei, 5702): In Kovno, 1,500 Jews without work passes were taken away to be shot. The Kovno hospital was sealed shut and burned to the ground with everyone still in it.
1943: Helen Manaster a Jew posing as a Catholic, is called out of the delivery room in the Kraków, Poland, hospital while in the throes labor pains to face two Gestapo agents. She keeps her calm and the Gestapo agents tell her to go back to bed.
1943: This is “The Day the Rabbis Marched on Washington
1944(19th of Tishrei, 5705): During Sukkoth Chol Hamoed, a two day uprising begins at Auschwitz. Sonderkommando Jews from Poland Hungary Greece Auschwitz , attack SS guards with hammers, stones, picks, crowbars, and axes. They also blow up one of the four crematoria with explosives smuggled into the camp from a nearby munitions factory. Russian POWs throw an SS man alive into a crematorium furnace. The SS fights back with machine guns, hand grenades, and dogs. 250 Jews are shot outside the camp wire. An additional 12 who escape will later be found and executed.
1946: Eleven kibbutz settlements were established in a single night.
1946: Establishment of Kfar Darom, not far from Gaza
1946: Establishment of Gal-On (Monument of Strength
1946: Shoval, named for a nearby ancient biblical town, was established by South African Jews sixteen miles north of Beersheba
1946: “Bill Steiner, representing the Maccabiah club of New York, captured the U.S. national title in the 30 kilometer run today” with a time of 1 hour, 38 minutes and 2 seconds. Steiner’s win was no fluke. He had won the AAU 20 mile run in Philadelphia in 1932 and won the Maccabiah marathon championship in Tel Aviv in 1935.
1948: Frederick Sylvester, a former employee of the Jerusalem Electric Corporation was found guilty of espionage in connection the Ben Yehuda Street Bombing and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
1949: Birthdate of Les Moonves, President and CEO of CBS television
1950: Birthdate of science fiction author David Brin.
1951(6th of Tishrei, 5712):Shabbat Shuva
1951(6th of Tishrei, 5712):Otto Fritz Meyerhof, German born American physician and biochemist passed away. Mayerhof shared the 1922 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Archibald Vivian Hill. Meyerhof left Germany in 1938, settling in Philadelphia in 1941 where he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prof. Nelson Glueck was invited by the Israel Exploration Society to head a projected 10-year archeological survey of Israel Israel Middle East including the copper mines of King Solomon and the Red Sea port of Ezion Geber
1953(27th of Tishrei, 5714):Doctor Rahel Hirsch the German born doctor who became the first woman in the Kingdom of Prussia to be appointed as a professor in medicine passed away. Born in 1870 in Frankfurt am Main, she was one of eleven children of Mendel Hirsch, the director of the girls’ school of the Jewish religious community in Frankfurt am Main. From 1885 to 1889, she took a degree in education in Wiesbaden. She then worked until 1898 as a teacher. After her doctorate she was assistant to Friedrich Kraus at Charité. Since she was Jewish, the takeover by the Nazis meant she could not practice medicine. In October of 1938 she moved to London, where one of her sisters lived. Since her degree was not recognized by the British, she worked as a laboratory assistant and later as a translator. The last years she spent plagued by depression, delusions and persecutory fears. She was in a mental hospital on the outskirts of London, where she died on October 6, 1953 at 83 years old.
1955(20thof Tishrei, 5714): Chol HaMoed Sukkoth
1955(20thof Tishrei, 5714): Sixty year old English poet John Rodker, one of the “Whitechapel Boys” passed away today.
1956: Prime Minister David Ben Gurion rejects Moshe Dayan’s demand for a reprisal raid, assuring his chief of staff that plans were in the works for a major operation against the Egyptians.
1960(15thof Tishrei, 5721): Sukkoth observed for the last time during the Presidency of Dwight David Eisenhower.
1963:Barbra Streisand appears on "The Judy Garland Show"
1963: Sandy Koufax leads the LA Dodgers to a four game sweep of the Yanks in the 60th World Series. Koufax pitched victories against Yankee ace Whitey Ford in games one and four.
1965(10thof Tishrei, 5726): Yom Kippur
1965: Sandy Koufax refuses to pitch in the first game of the World Series because it is Yom Kippur. “In October 1965, the Los Angeles Dodgers were playing the Minnesota Twins in the World Series. The opening game was on Yom Kippur and Sandy Koufax, who had won 26 games that season and struck out 382 batters to set a major league record, did not pitch for his team. Koufax was not treated with respect by the local press in St. Paul
1968: Eighty-nine year old Maurice Arnold de Forest passed. He was the adopted son of the millionaire Baroness Clara de Hirsch, née Bischoffsheim, wife of Jewish banker and philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch de Gereuth and/or the illegitimate son of Juliette Arnold de Forest fathered by the Baron. Regardless, the motor car race, aviator and British politician converted to Catholicism
1969: Israeli officials reported today that three Egyptian MIGs (Soviet built warplane) had been shot down in a battle over the Suez Canal .
1973(10th of Tishrei, 5734): Normal life grinds to a halt in Israel on Yom Kippur which also happens to fall on Shabbat.
1973: At four o’clock in the morning, Israeli intelligence had hard proof that war would break out before sundown on October 6. The information had come from the head of Mossad. Moshe Dyan, the Defense Minister, refused the request of the IFD Chief of Staff General Elazar to mobilize and launch a pre-emptive strike against Syria
1973: Prime Minister Golda Meir convened an emergency meeting in Tel Aviv with senior defense officials at 8:05 this morning. Six hours before the outbreak of the war, Israeli preparations for a general offensive by Arab armies finally began. The warnings of the intelligence source were being taken seriously, as was the fact that the Russians were pulling families out of Egypt and Syria, a sign of approaching war. But U.S. intelligence was not predicting war. Minister Yisrael Galili said a source had suggested the war could be prevented by leaking information that would reach the Egyptians and Syrians, so they would knew their plans for attack had been discovered. The Israeli officials at the meeting were concerned about Jordan because it wasn't clear if the kingdom would join in the assault on Israel. Initially, Mrs. Meir deliberated between Chief of Staff Elazar's call for a full mobilization of the reserves and Moshe Dayan's request for a limited call-up. "If you approve a major mobilization of the reserves, I won't resign," Dayan said. But with an eye to international reaction, he added, "A full mobilization before even one shot is fired - they will say right away that we are the aggressors." At 9:20 A.M., a full mobilization was approved.
1973: War erupted in the Middle East as Egypt Syria Israel
1973: According to ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak he personally started the Yom Kippur War today “by attacking an Israeli communications base in his fighter jet six minutes before the rest of the Arab Armies’ surprise attack on the Jewish state began.” (As reported by Naama Barak)
1973:On the first night of the Yom Kippur War five boats led by flotilla commander Michael Barkai sailed north to engage in the first-ever missile battle at sea off the main Syrian port of Latakia. The feisty Barkai told his captains that their objective was to draw the Syrian missile boats out of harbor. "If they don't come out, I mean to sail in and get them with guns." Two Syrian picket boats were encountered well off the Syrian coast. The first, a torpedo boat, was sunk with gunfire. The second, a minesweeper, was hit with missiles, the Gabriel's first blood. Three Syrian missile boats already at sea turned to meet the intruders. With their 25-kilometer advantage, the Syrians got in the first salvo. The Israeli boats raised their electronic umbrella and charged. In naval headquarters, officers monitoring Barkai's radio net heard him report the Syrian launch. His voice was level but taut. Herut Tzemah braced. The lives of 200 men as well as the fate of the missile boat program hung now on whether he had assessed the Styx's parameters correctly. The radio remained silent for the two minutes it took for the Syrian missiles to complete their flight. Then Barkai's voice. "They missed." The three Syrian boats ran for harbor, but one, the only one with missiles remaining, turned on the closest Israeli pursuer. As the two boats raced at each other, the Syrian fired first. The Israeli vessel again put up its electronic and chaff umbrella and at maximum Gabriel range launched two missiles. The Styx and Gabriel missiles passed each other, the former hitting the sea, the latter exploding on the deck of the Syrian vessel. A second Syrian boat was sunk a few moments later. The Soviet-built vessels had no countermeasures and were doomed once the Israelis reached Gabriel range. The captain of the third Syrian boat, realizing the situation, ran his vessel onto the shore to escape.
1973(10th of Tishrei, 5734): Yadin Tannenbaum, a young flautist was killed in 1973 while fighting in the Yom Kippur war. The 1981 Halil, Leonard Bernstein’s nocturne for flute, percussion, and strings, it is dedicated “to the spirit of Yadin and to His Fallen Brothers.”
1973: For action today simply described as delaying enemy armor, Captain Zvika Greengold earned Israel’s Medal of Valor. The events that earned him Israel’s highest commendation are as follows. Twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Greengold was home on leave when Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack on two fronts. He was not attached to any unit as he was about to take a course for company commanders. Once he realized war had broken out, he hitchhiked to Nafekh, a command center and important crossroads in the Golan Heights, where he initially helped with the wounded, as no tanks were available. When two damaged Centurion tanks were repaired, Greengold was put in charge of them and sent with hastily-assembled scratch crews down the Tapline Road. Greengold's "Koah Zvika" (Zvika Force) spotted Syrian tanks belonging to the 51st Independent Tank Brigade of the Syrian Army which had broken through the line and were advancing unopposed northwest along the road to Nafekh. Greengold's two tanks engaged the opposing T-55s at 2100 hours, with Greengold destroying six. Later, he had lost contact with his other tank when he spotted the advancing 452nd Tank Battalion. He engaged the enemy, taking advantage of the darkness and moving constantly to fool the Syrians into thinking the opposition was stronger than it was. Greengold destroyed or damaged ten enemy armored vehicles before the confused Syrians withdrew, believing they were facing a sizable force. Even Greengold's superiors were deceived; as the fighting wore on, he did not dare report how weak he actually was over the radio for fear it would be intercepted; at best he could only hint "the situation isn't good". At a time when Force Zvika was only one tank, Colonel Yitzhak Ben-Shoham, the brigade commander, assumed it to be "of at least company strength". For the next 20 hours, he fought, sometimes alone, sometimes in conjunction with other tanks, displaying an uncanny knack for showing up again and again at the critical moment to tip the scales of a skirmish. He had to change vehicles "half a dozen times" as his tanks were knocked out. He soldiered on, even after he was wounded and burned. When Nafekh itself came under attack from a fresh force of T-62s, he rushed over to bolster the defense. In a lull in the fighting, an exhausted Greengold got out of his latest tank and dropped to the ground, murmuring, "I can't anymore." Afterward, he claimed 20 enemy tanks destroyed; other estimates place his tally at 40 or more.
1973:“The Syrian 7th Infantry Division attacked the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade in the area between Mount Hermonit and a southern ridge known as "Booster" in Israel” in what was the first day of the Battle for the Valley of Tears.
1981: Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Moslem fanatics angered by the peace treaty with Israel. Sadat was murdered on the 14th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.
1981:Israel, using the United States as a go between to gain Saudi cooperation, rescued a grounded Israeli missile ship from a sandbar off the coast of Saudi Arabia, Israeli military sources said today. The sources confirmed reports in Washington earlier today on the unusual arrangement. American intelligence and diplomatic sources said that a French built Saar II Class patrol boat, armed with Israeli-made Gabriel ship-to-ship missiles, ran aground Sept. 26 about halfway down the 100 miles of Saudi coastline on the Gulf of Aqaba. Israel notified Saudi Arabia of the grounding through the American Embassy in Tel Aviv and asked the Saudis not to interfere because two Israeli tugboats were trying to free the ship, the American sources said. The Saudis complied, they said, and did not make public the incident. The Gabriel missiles and most of the ship's crew were removed, and the ship was freed within 48 hours. Israel, using the United States as a go-between to gain Saudi cooperation, rescued a grounded Israeli missile ship from a sandbar off the coast of Saudi Arabia, Israeli military sources said today. The sources confirmed reports in Washington earlier today on the unusual arrangement American intelligence and diplomatic sources said that a French-built Saar II Class patrol boat, armed with Israeli-made Gabriel ship-to-ship missiles, ran aground Sept. 26 about halfway down the 100 miles of Saudi coastline on the Gulf of Aqaba. Israel notified Saudi Arabia of the grounding through the American Embassy in Tel Aviv and asked the Saudis not to interfere because two Israeli tugboats were trying to free the ship, the American sources said. The Saudis complied, they said, and did not make public the incident. The Gabriel missiles and most of the ship's crew were removed, and the ship was freed within 48 hours.
1983: During the Israel bank stock crisis, “Black Thursday.”
1984(10thof Tishrei, 5745): Yom Kippur
1985(21stof Tishrei, 5746): Hoshanah Rabah
1985(21stof Tishrei, 5746): Seventy-nine year old Czech engineer Vilém Klíma passed away today.
1986: CBS broadcast “My Sister Sam” co-starring Rebecca Schaeffer for the first time.
1986: NBC broadcasts the first episode of the 6th Season of the “Cosby Show,” a sit-com created by Ed Weinberger.
1996(23rdof Tishrei, 5757): Simchat Torah
1996: The New York Times features Meyer Levin’s review of The Diaryof a Young Girl by Anne Frank
1997(5thof Tishrei, 5758): Eighty year old Yevgeny Khaldei the Soviet combat photographer best known for the iconic picture of a Russian soldier raising a flag over the Reichstag at the end of the Battle of Berlin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reichstag_flag_original.jpg
(This means that three of the iconic photos of WWII were taken by Jews, the others being Joe Rosenthal and Robert Capa)
1999:A 75-year-old American woman sued the Hungarian Government today for the return of art masterpieces looted by Nazis from the Jews and now held by Budapest Budapest
2000: U.S. premiere of “Meet the Parents” with a score by Randy Newman and a script co-authored by Jim Hamburg.
2002: The New York Times featured a review of Mr. Strangelove, Ed Sikov’s biography of Peter Sellers the son of a Jewish motherand a descendant of famed Anglo-Jewish prize fighter Daniel Mendoza.
2003(10thof Tishrei, 5674): Yom Kippur
2003: Aviel Barclay has become the first certified Soferet, or female Torah scribe. She is currently writing a Sefer Torah, the first ever known to be written completely by a woman's hand. The Women's Torah project of Seattle
2005: The High Court of Justice established the absolute illegality of using Palestinian civilians in a military operation, whether in the "neighbor procedure" or the related "early warning procedure."
2005: The Jerusalem Post reported that two Israelis have undergone successful transplants over Rosh Hashana, in Israel Europe . Efrat Rinot-Koren, the 30-year-old mother whose liver failed from acute hepatitis a month after having a baby, had undergone a liver transplant in Belgium
2005: In the Jewish Journal, Jonathan Kellerman who along with his wife Faye, are writers of murder mysteries, publishes “Boy Do We Need Teshuvah Now!”
2006(14th of Tishrei, 5767): Erev Sukkoth and Erev Shabbat
2006: Robert Adler's latest patent application was filed on today for his work on touch-screen technology
2007(24th of Tishrei, 5768): Parshat Bereshit – the cycle begins again.
2007: “D.M. synagogue’s all-female leaders a rare feat,” published today reported that Tifereth Israel Synagogue in Des Moines is unique among Conservative Congregations because it boasts both a female rabbi and a female cantor. Rabbi Beryl Pador and Cantor Deborah Bletstein make up this dynamic duo. Rabbi Pador had been leading the congregation for several years when the decision was made to hire Cantor Bletstein in time for the 2007 High Holiday season. In the Mid-Continent Region of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism which is composed of 48 congregations only one other has a female lead rabbi and only two others have female cantors.
2007: In “A Priest Methodically Reveals Ukrainian Jews’ Fate” published today Elaine Sciolino describes the efforts of a French Roman Catholic Priest named Patrick Desbois to discover and document the fate of the Ukrainian Jews.
2007: The New York Times featured a review of Francisco Goldman’s The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop?
2008: At Rutgers University New Jersey Tel Aviv University Israel
2008: Sports Illustrated Magazine includes a review of Boys Will Be Boys by Jeff Pearlman and an article about Joe Maddon, “Tampa Bay’s progressive contrarian skipper” who “was hired by” Matt Silverman, the Jewish President of the team whose primary owner is Jewish financier Stuart Sternberg.”
2009(18th of Tishrei, 5770):Raymond Federman, the French born American author who wrote Double or Nothing, passed away today.
2009: Mark A. Grey, Michele Devlin and Aaron Goldsmith are scheduled to discuss their new book Postville, U.S.A. at Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City, IA.
2009:MK Yossi Beilin, former head of the Meretz Party, announced tonight that he is quitting politics to enter business.
2009(18th of Tishrei, 5770:Ruth L. Kirschstein, a National Institutes of Health pathologist, passed away today.
2010: A program styled Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín, “We Will Sing to the Nazis What We Cannot Say to Them” is scheduled to be performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
2010:The New York Public Library (NYPL) has named Anthony W. Marx as the new president.
2011: The Jewish Museum is scheduled to offer the last of its High Holiday Themed docent tours of the permanent exhibition, “Culture and Continuity.”
2011: Timothy Shriver is scheduled to moderate a program based on “War of the Worldviews” by Deepak Chopra and Leonard Llodinow, whose father led the Jewish resistance against the Nazis in Częstochowa, Poland and survived imprisonment at Buchenwald.
2011:Thirty-eight years after the Yom Kippur War broke out, the IDF held a surprise drill today for two reservist divisions in an effort to prepare the Reserve Corps for possible emergency call-up orders. The drill was overseen by IDF Chief of General-Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, and included units from the Northern Command and the Central Command.
2012: Arnon Goldfinger’s “The Flat” is scheduled for a second and final screening at the Hampltons International Film Festival.
2012: Director Erez Laufer’s “One Day After Peace” is scheduled for a second and final screening at the Hampltons International Film Festival.
2012: In Washington, DC the annual Cleveland Park Sukkah walk is scheduled to take place after Kiddush.
2012: The Alexandria Kleztet is scheduled to perform at the “Art on the Avenue” festival in Alexandria, VA.
2012: In Grand Forks, ND, Cantor Alane Katzew is scheduled to lead services at B’nai Israel Synagogue that will encompass the themes of Sukkoth, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.
2012: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the traditional Saturday morning includes a special memorial to mark 39th anniversary of the start of the Yom Kippur which began on October 6, 1973.
2012:Police carried out raids across France today after DNA on a grenade that exploded last month at a kosher grocery store led them to a suspected jihadist cell of young Frenchmen recently converted to Islam.
2012:The IDF shot down a foreign drone that had penetrated deep into Israeli airspace this afternoon, flying for half an hour before it was intercepted.
2012:Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak seemed to turn the page on their recent public bickering during a one-and-a-half-hour meeting tonight, saying that they had agreed to continue working together to overcome Israel's security threats.
2013: In New York the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Hidden from History: The Pinkas of the Metz Rabbinic Court, 1771-1789,” “a conference that explores French and German rabbinic courts of the late 1700s.”
2013: “Threshold to the Sacred: The Ark Door of Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue” is scheduled to open at Yeshiva University Museum.
2013: The Tulane University Jewish Studies Department is scheduled to sponsor a lecture by Jack Kulgelmas of the University of Florida, "Sifting the Ruins: Jewish Journalists Return to Poland, 1945-1947"
2013: E.L. Doctorow is scheduled to give an exclusive preview of his newest book, Andrew's Brain: A Novel at the opening of The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival in Washington, DC.
2013: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Hotel Francforts by David Leavitt and “Unzipped,” an essay by Erica Jong “about storytelling – why certain stories stick with us and others don’t.”
2013: The formal ceremony installing Rabbi Asher Lopatin as the new president of Yeshivat Chovevi Torah is scheduled to take place today.
2013: The Jewish Endowment Foundation (JEF) of Louisiana is scheduled to honor several Jewish community leaders “who have exemplified giving and charity.”
2013: “Israel Prize winner David Kazhdan, 67, was severely injured when he was hit by a truck while riding his bike in Jerusalem.” (As reported by Spencer Ho)
2013: Eli Zeira and Zvi Zamir, former heads of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate and the Mossad respectively, bitter rivals who stood at the center of the drama leading up to the surprise Arab attack on Israel that launched the 1973 Yom Kippur War, shared their sharply divergent narratives about the outbreak of the fighting today. (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)
2013: “Hundreds of Labor party activists, volunteers and supporters gathered in Tel Aviv tonight for the formal launch of MK Shelly Yachimovich’s campaign for reelection as party leader.” (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur
2013: Two of the three winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine winners were Jews – James Rothaman of Yale and Randy Schekman of the University of California. Two of the candidates who did not win were Israelis – Professors Howard Cedar and Aharon Razin from Hebrew University.
2013(3rdof Cheshvan, 5774): Ninety three year old Rabbi Ovad Yosef, the spiritual leader of the Sephardi community passed away today.
2014: Roman Rabinoivich who “made his Israel Philharmonic debut…before his 11thbirthday is scheduled to perform with the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players.
2014: In Washington, DC, the Lillian & Albert Small Jewish Museum is scheduled to host a panel discussion “From Church to Condo: D.C.'s Urban Evolution.”
2014: Sweden’s Ambassador is scheduled to come to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem “for a reprimand meeting” following that country’s announcement that it intends to recognize Palestine. (As reported by Itamar Eichner)