OCTOBER 20
1855: Reverend Findlay is scheduled to deliver a sermon tomorrow evening at the Presbyterian Church in the Williamsburg section of NYC entitled "The Restoration of the Jews."
1859: Birthdate of John Dewey, the American educational philosopher who met Anzia Yezierska in 1917 while she was auditing one of his seminars at Columbia. Despite the differences in their ages, they became romantically involved which led to his writing her poems and she describing their relationship in a novel, All I Could Never Be.
1865: Sir Saul Samuel began his second term as Treasurer of New South Wales.
1876: Samuel A. Lewis, who is a candidate for Alderman at Large in New York City, was described as a native New Yorker and a Hebrew who “occupies a god social position.” He has served as a School Commissioner, and has twice been elected Alderman at Large. Currently he is President of the Board of Alderman and editor of the Hebrew Leader. He had unsuccessfully sought the nomination to serve as Mayor of New York.
1889: “Russian Converts” published today described the pressure brought to bear on Jews to convert to the Orthodox Church. As a result, “young men” who were “once honest Jews” are now “spurious Christians.”
1899: In ParisGaston Michel Calmann-Lévy and Hélène Koenigswarter gave birth to
Robert Paul Michel Calmann-Levy
1986: Shimon Peres completes his second term in office as Prime Minister of Israel.
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1409 BCE (10 Cheshvan 2351): This is the traditional date of the death of Gad, son of Jacob, one of the Twelve Tribes (born 2196).
460: Aeilia Eudocia, the Byzantine Empress who allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem in 438, passed away today.
1650: Coronation of Queen Christina of Sweden, who became a Catholic, moved to Rome in December 1655 and made Clement X prohibit the custom of chasing Jews through the streets during the carnival.
1722: Wolf Popper “a Primator of the Jews of Bohemia” and his wife gave birth to banker Joachim Edler von Popper, “commonly known as ‘Court Jew’ to the Habsburgs.”
1740: Maria Theresa takes the throne of Austria. France, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony refuse to honor the Pragmatic Sanction and the War of the Austrian Succession begins. At the end of the war, unfortunately for the Jewish people, she would still be on the throne. She attempted to expel all of the Jews from Bohemia. She imposed a myriad of restrictions on the Jews living in her realm but was not averse to gouging them for as much money as she could. Like her Russian counterpart, she sought to limit the number of Jews living in her empire. And then, with the partition of Poland the number of her Jewish subjects soared when she acquired Galicia. The famous Jewish historian Simon Dubnow said that this Empress caused the Jews more trouble than all of the Emperors who had come before her.
1772(23rd of Tishrei, 5533): As relations between Britain and her American colonies begin to deteriorate to a level that will eventually lead to revolution, Jews on both sides of the Atlantic observe Simchat Torah
1779: During the American Revolution, the Supreme Council of Pennsylvania passed a series of resolution related to Solomon Bush who had been wounded and taken prisoner by the British before being paroled so he could recuperate at the home of his father, Matthias Bush.
1781: The Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II of Austria issued the Patent of Toleration which was an edict extending to religious freedom to non-Catholic Christians living in the Habsburg Empire. The Jews would have to wait another year. In 1782 Joseph II issued the Patent of Toleration for the Jews of Lower Austria, thereby establishing the civic equality of his Jewish subjects.
1803: The United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase. The tiny Jewish population of New Orleans and the surrounding bayou country were now “American Jews.” The first Jews probably came to the Louisiana coast at the start of the 18th century when they brought trade goods from the Caribbean. Ironically, Judo Turo, the famous merchant and philanthropist who would contribute to the development of Jewish communal institutions arrived the same year that the Louisiana Purchase was ratified. St. Louis, the other “city” the United States acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase would not see its first Jewish settler until 1807.
1820: Birthdate of Whilhelm Wolfensohn the Odessa born author and playwright.
1827: During the Greek Liberation War, an allied fleet made up of British, French and Russian ships defeated a combined Turkish and Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino. The battle effectively marked the end of the war and paved the way for the creation of the independent nation of Greece which had been part of the Ottoman Empire. According to Nikos Stavrolakis one of the founders and director of the Jewish Museum in Greece from 1977 until 1993, “The Greek War of Independence brought disaster to the Jewish communities in the Peloponnesos the place where the revolution erupted in 1821. The Jews, because of their close association with the Ottoman administration, were massacred along with the Turks. The Jewish communities of Mistras, Tripolis, and Kalamata were decimated; the few survivors moved north to settle in Chalkis and Volos, still under Ottoman rule. Patras lost its ancient Jewish community, which was re-established only in 1905.”
1828: Birthdate of Horatio Gates Spafford , the New York born lawyer who was one of the founders of the “American Colony,” whose members “engaged in philanthropic work amongst the people of Jerusalem regardless of their religious affiliation and without proselytizing motives”
1829(23rd of Tishrei, 5590): Simchat Torah is celebrated for the first time during the Presidency of Andrew Jackson.
1840:Solomon Benedict de Worms, Hereditary Baron of the Austrian Empire, and Henrietta Samuelde Worms gave birth to their third son, Henry de Worms, a leading member of the Conservative Party in the UK.
1848(23rd of Tishrei, 5609): As Europe is racked by Revolutions and thousands head for California in search of the newly found gold, Jews observe Simchat Torah
1850: Birthdate of Adolf Rosenzweig, the Hungarian born Biblical and Talmudic scholar.
1852: It was reported today that “An insane Jew died at the House of Industry in Boston, last week, at the age of 30 years. This is the 1st Jew that ever became a public charge in the City of Boston within the memory of one of its oldest city officials.”
1874: Adolf Aharon Rosenzweig “entered the rabbinate of Pasewalk in Pomerania.
1878(23rd of Tishrei, 5639): Simchat Torah
1878: According to a report published today on conditions in the French colony on the island of Cyprus the native (non-European) “community consists of Muslims, Jews and Christians. Of these a European merchant can always believe the first upon his simple word, the two latter he can rarely credit on oath, and the harder they swear the more certain one may be that they are stating what is not the case.” [The report is unusual for two reason – first it lumps Jews and Christians together and second it speaks highly of the trustworthiness of a local Muslim population, two things that western writers rarely, if ever, did.
1879: According to a letter published today reported that Joseph Barclay, the recently consecrated Bishop of Jerusalem, “showed an extraordinary interest in the conversion of the Jews” even when he was a “mere child.” Before being appointed Bishop, Barclay served as the Superintendent of the Church of England’s Missions to the Jews of the Continent and served in Jerusalem for ten years where he became a noted Orientalist. [Barclay was one of a large cast on English characters who showed an unusual interest in Palestine and the Jewish people.]
1880: In Jackson, CA, Dora Steckler gave birth to her third child who was born two months after the death of his Charles Steckler, a local merchant who is buried in Givoth Olam Cemetery.
1882(7th of Cheshvan, 5643): Eighty-one year old Solomon Benedict de Worms thhe grandson of Mayer Amschel Rothschild who was successful British stockbroker and plantation owner in Ceylon before being named as a Baron by Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, passed away today.
1883: It was reported today that the families that recently arrived from Odessa aboard the SS Canada will be sent back to Europe because they are destitute.
1883: It was reported that Henry J. Greenberg a Jewish peddler from Pennsylvania, whose body was found in a hotel in the Bowery probably committed suicide. Before coming to New York, he had visited his brother Marcus in Boston.
1883: This morning, Isaac Cohen, President of Ansche Chesed on Hester Street, visited the Tenth Precinct and requested that a police officer be sent to the synagogue that evening because he feared that there might be an “uprising” during the scheduled business meeting.
1883: Violence broke out during the business meeting of Ansche Chesed B’nai Kovanah that was held tonight at the Hester Street Synagogue.
1884: It was reported today that in the past year St. Luke’s Hospital in New York treated 1.497 patients, 18 of whom were Jewish.
1884: Professor Felix Adler was among the members of the Tenement House Commission that met this afternoon in New York.
1884: Isaac Hamburger, Grand Master of The Grand Lodge of the United states of the Independent Order of Free sons of Israel and H.I. Goldsmith, the organization’s Grand Secretary sign an address on behalf of its 12,000 members living throughout the United States, that is being sent to Sir Moses Montefiore on “the one hundredth anniversary” of his birth “recognizing his unique greatness to which no one nation can lay claim.”
1885: “A Suicide At Riverside” published today describes events surrounding the death of Albert Unger whose body was found by a police officer after he heard two gunshots. Unger, who belong to several Jewish organizations, had recently been discharged by Steinhardt Brothers where he had worked for 12 years, but Abraham Steinhardt refused to discuss the matter.
1887(2nd of Cheshvan, 5648): Baron Hermann de Stern passed away in London. Born at Frankfort in 1815 he and his brother moved to London in 1844 where they became respected members of the financial community through their company, Stern Brothers
1892: Eduard Schnitzer passed away. He was born in 1840 to assimilated German Jewish parents. His parents had him baptized at the age of two because they thought it would advance his career. Schnitzer later converted to Islam and took the Turkish name of Emin Pasha. As, Emin Pasha, he traveled throughout the world as an explorer, adventurer and doctor, spending much of his time in Khartoum in the Sudan. He was a tireless fighter against the slave trade which was still rampant. He returned to Central Africa on a semi-political voyage for Germany and was killed there by slave traders.
1890: Sixty-nine year old Sir Richard Francis Burton a British orientalist and explored who antagonized the Jewish population of Damascus while serving there as consul in 1869, passed away. Burton’s The Jew, the Gipsy and el Islam which was published 8 years after his death was critical the Jews and “asserted the existence of Jewish human sacrifices.
1893: “George Samuel’s Big Estate” published today described the disposition of his estate which was valued at $2,365,000 most of which went to his nephew Baron Henry de Worms who represents a Liverpool borough in the House of Commons.
1893: In Germany, the annual report of the Social Democrats published today complained that when the right wing Anti-Semites boycott Jews firms nothing is done but when the Social Democrats do the same they are prosecuted with the full “rigors of the law.”
1894: Seventy-six year old James Anthony Froude who in 1869 “was elected Lord Rector of St. Andrews, defeating Benjamin Disraeli by a majority of fourteen” and who wrote Lord Beaconsfield, a biography of Benjamin Disraeli published in 1890, passed away today.
1894: When Alexander III died in Crimea today, “according to Simon Dubnow: ‘as the body of the deceased was carried by railway to St. Petersburg, the same rails were carrying the Jewish exiles from Yalta to the Pale. The reign of Alexander III ended symbolically. It began with pogroms and concluded with expulsions.’"
1894(20th of Tishrei, 5655): Shabbat Sukkoth Chol Hamoed
1894(20th of Tishrei, 5565): Fifty-four year old Austrian neuroanatomist and ophthalmologist Ludwig Mauthner who discovered “Mauthner Cells” passed away today.
1894: Dr. Charles Henry Parkhurst, the leader of the “municipal purity movement” in New York told a reporter today of the broad support he has found among women in New York including “Mrs. Frederick Nathan, who belongs to an old and highly distinguished Hebrew family of great wealth and social position.”
1894: French police officer and handwriting expert Alphonse “Bertillon's provisional report, submitted today inferred ‘without any reservation whatever’ that Dreyfus was guilty.”
1894: Samuel Greenbaum, the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Educational Alliance took issue with the a request by the Women’s Municipal League for the use of the Hebrew Institute Building which is controlled by the Alliance was handled; especially the influence the of Nathan Straus who is neither an officer or a director of the Alliance.
1899: In ParisGaston Michel Calmann-Lévy and Hélène Koenigswarter gave birth to
Robert Paul Michel Calmann-Levy
1904(11th of Cheshvan, 5665): Sixty-one year old Joseph Bernhardt Bloomingdale the husband of Clara Koffman and the father of Rosalie Stanton Bloomingdale passed away today in New York City.
1905: A two day pogrom at Kishinev came to an end. According to some reports only 19 Jews were killed and 56 were injured. This was the second pogrom that had taken place at Kishinev in the first decade of the twentieth century. The first pogrom in 1903 was the more infamous and deadly of the two. Jewish self-defense leagues formed in 1903 helped to hold down the casualties in the second pogrom.
1905: A two day pogrom at Rostov came to an end leaving more than 150 Jews murdered, 500 more wounded and great damage done to the “Jewish shops, stores, warehouses and mills” despite the efforts of “a small self-defense detachment organized by the Po’
1909: Birthdate of silent screen actress Rebekah Isabelle "Carla" Laemmle, “the niece of Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/20/movies/carla-laemmle-actress-with-silent-screen-debut-dies-at-104.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&_r=0
1916(23rd of Tishrei, 5677): Simchat Torah
1916: Producer Joseph M. Schenck who was Jewish married actress Norma Talmadge following which the couple formed the Norma Talmadge Film Corporation.
1917: In Berlin, Helen and Franz Hessel gave birth to Stéphane Frédéric Hessel, the naturalized French citizen who “was a diplomat, ambassador, writer, concentration camp survivor, French Resistance member and BCRA agent.”
1917: During WW I, a German submarine commanded by Martin Niemoller sank a British steamer. This is the same Martin Niemoller who as Pastor Niemoller became an anti-Nazi who went to the camps in 1937 where he remained until the end of WW II.
1918: The New York Branch of the Jewish Welfare Board has transformed the dormitories of the Jewish Theological Seminary into a canteen for soldiers. Among other things, the canteen will provide meals for the troops and their visiting family members. The effort is being led by Mrs. Solomon Schechter whose son, a graduate of Columbia, is serving with the Army in France.
1918: The founding conference of Yevsektsiya took place today. Yevsektsiya was the Jewish section of the Soviet Communist party and was established to popularize Marxism and encourage loyalty to the Soviet regime among Russian Jews. “For most of its existence, the Yevsektsya was headed by Semyon Dimanstein. Yevsektsiya was entirely subordinate to leadership of the Soviet Communist party. Yevsektsiya members were people of Jewish origin, but they were hostile to traditional Jewish culture and instead sought to assimilate Jews into the new Soviet society, often by repressive measures. In line with official Soviet doctrine, Yevsektsiya was deeply opposed to Bundism and Zionism, labeling them forms of "bourgeois nationalism”. The Yevsektsia was disbanded in 1929. Many leading members perished in the Great Purge. Dimanstein was arrested and received death sentence in 1938 and was executed. He was rehabilitated posthumously in 1955, 2 years after the death of Joseph Stalin.”
1920: Max Bruch passed away. The German composer and conductor was a Protestant. However, he wrote a piece for cello and orchestra which remains quite popular, Kol Nidrei based on Hebrew melodies, most notably the melody of the Kol Nidre, which gives the piece its name.
1920: Birthdate of Janet Rosenberg, the Chicago native who married Cheddi Jagan and as Janet Jagan played a key role in the political life of Guyana including serving as its sixth President.
1923: Birthdate of actor Herschel Bernardi who is best remembered as Lt. Jacobi on the television hit, “Peter Gunn,” the voice of Charlie the Tuna and the second person to play Tevye in the Broadway hit, “Fiddler on the Roof.”
1924(22nd of Tishrei, 5685): Shemini Atzeret
1925: Birthdate of columnist Art Buchwald. The cigar-chomping humorist first gained popular acclaim for his daily column written from Paris. His annual Thanksgiving column where he would explain the holiday to the French was a classic.
1927: In Brooklyn, Estelle (née Rapaport) and Morris K. Bauer, attorneys who shared a law practice gave birth to Joyce Diane Bauer who gained famed as psychologist, quiz show contestant and columnist Dr. Joyce Brothers.
1930: Lord Passfield issued his "White Paper" banning further land acquisition by Jews and slowing Jewish immigration. Chaim Weizmann who had always toed a pro-British line resigned in protest.
1928: “In the presence of 400 Jewish leaders representing twenty-five States and Canada, Mr. Louis Marshall opened the Non-Zionist Conference at the Hotel Biltmore” this evening. (As reported by JTA)
1934: Birthdate of Martin Landau. The actor gained early fame on the television hit “Mission Impossible.”
1935: Birthdate of Jerry Orbach. The actor has played everything from the father in the film “Dirty Dancing” to Detective Lenny Briscoe in “Law & Order.”
1935(23rd of Tishrei, 5696): Simchat Torah
1936(4th of Cheshvan, 5697): Mrs. Sarah Sandler, mother of New York Attorney Bernard Sandler, passed away in Tel Aviv today at the age of 85. Mrs. Sandler had lived in Palestine for the last 18 years. She was active in numerous charitable activities and refused her son’s request that she return to New York after the most recent outbreak of Arab violence.
1937(15th of Cheshvan, 5698): Felix M. Warburg, a member of the Jewish family known for its financial acumen and philanthropies passed away today at the age of 66.
1937: In response to discrimination policies, Jews of Poland, assorted liberals and students went on strike. Within a few weeks the government succeeded in putting down the strike and enforcing its decrees. The environment of anti-Semitism obviously existed before the Nazis arrived and made their work much easier.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that a loud explosion which shook the American Colony was found to be due to a bomb thrown at a Jewish shop at the Simon the Just Quarter, just off the Nablus Road in Jerusalem. Shots were also fired at Jewish buses and an Armenian photographer was hit. A £2,000 fine was imposed on the Adh Dahariya village for raiding a police post. An immediate fine collection began in kind, livestock, wheat and other movables.
1940: More than 7000 Jews from the Saar region of Germany are interned at the camp at Gurs, France.
1942(9th of Cheshvan, 5703): Twelve thousand Jews are murdered at Bar in the Transnistria region of the Ukraine.
1942(9th of Cheshvan, 5703): Seventy-four year old classical scholar Friedrich Münzer who had been officially classified as Jewish in 1935 by the Nazis died today at Theresienstadt concentration camp.
1942: The deportations of Jews from Slovakia were halted today after a group of Jewish citizens, led by Gisi Fleischmann and Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl, built a coalition of concerned officials from the Vatican and the government, and, through a mix of bribery and negotiation, was able to stop the process. By then, however, some 58,000 Jews had already been deported, mostly to Auschwitz. The deportations would be resumed in 1944.
1943: Mrs. Moses Schorr, her daughter Felicia and the grandchildren of Moses Schorr arrived in the French town of Vittel where they were supposed to be exchanged for German POW’s.
1943: Irene Sendler was arrested in a Gestapo night raid on her apartment and taken to Pawiak prison where she was tortured. Sendler held out and did not betray any of confederates with whom she worked to smuggle 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto.
1944: Nazis put 25,000 Hungarian Jewish men and 10,000 Jewish women to work digging anti-tank trenches in the path of the advancing Red Army.
1944: Men of the Polish Home Army attack Jewish houses in the freshly liberated village of Ejszyszki. The village's Jews subsequently retaliate against the Poles.
1944: 22,000 Budapest Jews are entrained for deportation to Auschwitz.
1944: Nazi administrators at Auschwitz burn documents related to prisoners and their fates.
1944: Nazis initiate death-march deportations of Jews from Budapest, Hungary, to Germany.
1944(21st of Tishrei, 5769): At Birkenau, 600 of 650 boys between the ages of 14 and 16 who had been locked in barracks since the Revolt at Birkenau on October 7, would be gassed. Most of them were Hungarians. Many race about the camp, naked and panicked, before being clubbed by the SS guards who pursue them. The 50 survivors are put to work unloading potatoes from railcars.
1944: On this day the deportations from Hungary begin again. Despite the uprisings, more Jews from Theresienstadt were selected for death. Another 1,416 would be gassed.
1946: Birthdate of Austrian Novelist Elfriede Jelink, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature. “Elfriede Jelinek was born in the village of Mürzzuschlag in Styria, Austria. Although Jelinek’s father was classified a Mischling (a person of “mixed races”) under National Socialism, he and his wife escaped the most extreme excesses of anti-Semitic persecution due to his work as a chemist in war research. Jelinek is not considered a Jewish writer per se, but the author herself positions her writings within the Jewish tradition and history. Critics, too, prompted by the scathing irony underlying her texts, traces a continuity between the Austrian Jewish satirical tradition - represented in the writings of Karl Kraus or Elias Canetti - and Jelinek, while recognizing the latter’s radicalization of that tradition.”
1947: The leaders of the Jewish refugees living in DP camps under British control sent a telegram that “makes clear the wishes and determination of the refugees to find a home in Palestine.’Nothing will deter us from Palestine. Which jail we go to is up to you (the British). We did not ask you to reduce our rations; we did not ask you to put us in Poppendorf and Am Stau.’" [Poppendorf and Am Stau were in Germany.]
1947: HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) opened hearings into alleged Communist influence in Hollywood. While engaging in its highly publicized search for alleged Communists, HUAC certainly had a tendency to stir up a lot of collateral anti-Semitic dust. Ironically, many of the cooperative witnesses who were the first to take the stand were Jewish including Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer (ex-chairman of the Republican Party's California State Committee) and Ayn Rand. Warner told HUAC: "Ideological termites have burrowed into many American industries, organizations and societies. Wherever they may be, I say let us dig them out and get rid of them. My brothers and I will be happy to subscribe generously to a pest-removal fund. We are willing to establish such a fund to ship to Russia the people who don't like our American system of government and prefer the Communistic system to ours." Ayn Rand who was identitified as a “Russian émigré” attacked "Song of Russia," complaining that the Soviet peasants smiled too much. Red-baiter Adolphe Menjou testified on Oct. 21 that he believed the Communist Party should be "outlawed." HUAC and its right-wing supporters were quick to tie Jews to Communists, making the two seem to be one in the same. However, they never identified the friendly witnesses as Jews. This would have interfered with the Right Wing prejudice and conspiracy theoris.
1948: After five days of fighting along the Jerusalem Corridor, there is no major change in territorial holdings.
1948:The internal Negev road from Julis to Bror Hayil through Kawkaba and Huleiqat was taken today by Givati's 52nd and 54th battalions. Upon taking Huleiqat, the Israelis discovered a mass grave where the Egyptians buried Israeli casualties of the failed July Negev Brigade attack.
1950: The SS Benjamin Peixotto, a decommissioned Liberty ship was refloated in a harbor in Hong Kong after having been damaged by a typhoon. The ship was named after the 19th century American-Jewish leader who had served as U.S. Consul to Bucharest.
1952: Birthdate of Dalia Itzik, the native of Jerusalem born to a family of Iraqi Jews who was the first female Speaker of the Knesset.
1953: CBS broadcast an episode of “See It Now” entitled "The Case of Milo Radulovich" co-produced by Edward R. Murrow and Joseph Wershba which was a landmark in exposing the Red Scare led by Joe McCarthy and other reactionaries. (Wershba was Jewish; Murrow wasn’t)
1953: General Kenneth Nichols retired from the Army which enabled to became a senior management at the AEC which would enable him to lead the fight to take away the security clearance for J. Robert Oppenheimer.
1954(23rd of Tishrei, 5715): Simchat Torah
1954: The 1954 musical version of “Peter Pan” directed by Jerome Robbin with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Jule Styne opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City.
1963: In Moscow, Rudolf Naumovich Solovyov, and Inna Solomonovna Shapiro gave birth to Russian electronic journalist Vladimir Rudol'fovich Solovyov who “was awarded the TEFI Russian television prize as the best interviewer.”
1964: Herbert Hoover 31st President of the United States passed away. Hoover named Benjamin Cardozo as Associate Justice to the Supreme Court in 1932. How a Hawkeye Quaker came to name a liberal Sephardic New York Jew to the High Court without incurring a burst of anti-Semitic diatribes is one of the under-told stories of the 20th century
1964:Henry David Leonard George Walston, the son of Florence and Sir Charles Waldestein began serving as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a position he would hold until the “beginning of 1967.
1967: Seven men were convicted in Meridian, Miss., of violating the civil rights of three murdered civil rights workers. Two of the three victims were Jewish youngsters who had come South during the summer of 1964 to work on a voter registration project. Their deaths helped bring about the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
1972: In Ann Arbor, Michigan, cardiologist Irwin Schatz and his wife gave birth to Brian Emanuel Schatz, the future Senator from Hawaii.
1973: When their F-4E Phantom Jet was hit by an Egyptian SAM, Aharon Sagi and Moshe Barton were recovered by the IDF after safely ejecting from their aircraft.
1973: David Zeit and Yoram Rubenstein were taken prisoner after their F-4E Phantom Jet was hit by an Egyptian SAM. The Israeli Air force faced a Soviet designed air defense network that was more sophisticated than anything any air force had had to cope with in modern warfare. The willingness of these flyers to take to the skies is a tribute to their individual courage and those who were shot down were no less heroes than those who made it safely back to base.
1973: William Shatner married Marcy Laffert. Yes, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock were both played by Jewish actors.
1973: The Israelis shot down Syrian aircraft on its way to bomb the oil refineries at Haifa. The IDF force on the west bank of the Suez Canal continued to widen its area of activity. The Israelis were actually taking control of some of the roads between Cairo and the Canal – between the Egyptian capital and the attacking Egyptian armies. While the Israelis understand what is happening, the Egyptian high command either is not aware of what is going or is hiding the truth from its battlefield commanders.
1982: Revival performance of Abraham Goldfaden’s “Shulamith” presented by Ben Bonus, Lively and Yiddish Productions, in association with the Yiddish Musical Theater of Israel, producer, Dr. Rabbi Israel Walin at the Norman Thomas Theater in New York City.
1985: In a review entitled “A Place Like No Other,” Michael Grant, the author of The Jews in the Roman Empire and A History of Ancient Israel examines Jerusalem: The Holy City in the Eyes of Chroniclers, Visitors, Pilgrims, and Prophets From the Days of Abraham to the Beginnings of Modern Times by F. E. Peters.
1986: Yitzhak Shamir began his second office term as Israel's prime minister
1989(21st of Tishrei, 5750): Hoshana Rabah
1989(21st of Tishrei, 5750): Sixty-five year old “Israeli radio broadcaster, journalist, playwright, and author” Dahn Ben-Amotz who made Aliyah in 1938 and whose parents died in the Holocaust lost his battle with liver cancer and passed away today.
1990: Among those celebrating today’s Cincinnati’s four game sweep that made them World Champions is Larry Rothschild the former pitcher now serving as a coach for the Reds.
1992(23rd of Tishrei, 5753): Simchat Torah is celebrated for the last time during the Presidency of George Bush.
1994(15th of Cheshvan, 5755): Shlomo Calbach passed away. Words cannot describe what he has done. Everybody has their favorite Carlbach tunes or songs. Here are two sites where you can sample some of his work by BenZion Solomon. I do not get any royalties. I just happen to like them. http://www.israel-music.com/ben_zion_solomon_sons/nishmas_kol_chai/
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1998: “After eighteen years of using the Sabin vaccine, the federal government recommended that children use the Salk vaccine exclusively” today
2000(21st of Tishrei, 5761): Hoshana Rabah is observed for the first time in the 21st century.
2002: In an article entitled “Funny, You Don't Look Jewish,” Judith Shulevitz reviews Hillel Halkin's Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe of Israel“Across the Sabbath River relates an improbable story: a people on a remote border of India, Tibet and Burma want to migrate to modern Israel because they believe themselves to be descended from one of the 10 tribes exiled from ancient Israel 2,700 years ago, and close analysis of their folklore hints that they may be right.”
2002: Ceremonies marking the dedication of Har Sinai’s new facility in Owings Mill, a reform congregation with roots in pre-Civil War Baltimore came to an end.
2004:The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported on a speech given by Schindler's List survivor Rena Finder. Now 75 and living in Massachusetts, Finder told of what it was like to be a ten year old in Krakow, Poland in 1939 when the Nazis arrived. "Nobody saw us, nobody helped us, nobody cared." In speaking about Schindler she said, "What Oskar Schindler did for us and for the world, nobody, nobody had achieved."
2004: The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that "a Holocaust-era diary and love letters written by a Jewish woman for her Dutch boyfriend in an internment camp in 1943 have been donated to a Dutch archives." The woman who was named Helga Deen died at Sobibor.
2005: Mikhail Khodorkovsky was delivered to the labor camp YaG-14/10.”The labor camp is attached to a uranium mining and processing plant and during Soviet times had a reputation as a place from which nobody returned alive.”
2006: “The Great Conjurer,” a new play about Franz Kafka, premiers at the Kirk Theatre in New York City.
2007: As part of the Daniel Pearl Memorial Concert the Alei Gefen Chorus performs "A Ceremony of Songs" at Kol Haneshama Synagogue, to mark the fifth anniversary of the murder of Jewish journalist, Daniel Pearl, in Pakistan.
2007: In a story with dateline of Fayetteville, Arkansas, The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that “a Jewish synagogue is rising in the hills of Arkansas, in large part because of the generosity of the project contractor: a Muslim immigrant from the West Bank. Fadil Bayyari, a Springdale, Ark., general contractor, agreed to waive his regular fee for Temple Shalom, saving the Reform congregation at least $250,000. Bayyari, who built the mosque in Fayetteville, cited both religions’ ties to Abraham and said the fact that his faith community, too, lacked its own building until the mosque was completed.”
2008(21st of Tishrei, 5769): Hoshana Rabbah
2008: “The re-trial of Phil Spector for murder in the second degree in the death of Lana Clarkson began today.
2008: Haaretz reports that “the Foreign Ministry is examining an initiative aimed at reaching a long-term non-belligerence pact with Lebanon to prevent renewed fighting along the northern border.”
2008: The Menier Chocolate Factory production of Jerry Herman’s “La Cage aux Folles” transferred to the West End at the Playhouse Theatre co-produced with Sonia Friedman Productions, Robert G. Bartner, David Ian Productions, The Ambassador Theatre Group, Matthew Mitchell and Jamie Hendry Productions
2009: The first group of Kaifeng Jews arrived in Israel, in an aliyah operation coordinated by Shavei Israel.
2009: Opening session of the National Jewish Democratic Conference Washington Conference.
2009: Opening session of the Presidents’ Conference in Jerusalem.
2009: At the Hyman S. Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival Zoë Heller discusses The Believers in a conversation with Ron Charles, Senior Editor of The Washington Post Book World
2009: International Harp Contest in Tel Aviv-Jaffa comes to an end.
2010: A program entitled “Miryam Kabakov, ed., Keep Your Wives Away from Them: Orthodox Women, Unorthodox Desires” is scheduled to be presented at The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival in Washington, D.C.
2010: The American Jewish Historical Society and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research are scheduled to present :Revisiting the American Soviet Jewry Movement: A Panel Discussion Honoring the Publication of Gal Beckerman's book When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry
2010(12th of Cheshvan, 5771):Ninety-five year old Coleman Jacoby, “a comedy writer during the golden age of television who, with his partner Arnie Rosen, created some of Jackie Gleason’s most memorable characters and engineered one of the great match-ups in television history, Gleason and Art Carney,” passed away today (As reported by William Grimes.’)
2010(12th of Cheshvan, 5771):Seventy-seven year old Robert Katz, an author and screenwriter who incurred the wrath of the Vatican by accusing Pope Pius XII of failing to act to stave off a Nazi massacre of Italians in 1944, passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
2011(22nd of Tishrei, 5772): Shemini Atzeret
2011:Today, two Israeli soldiers were struck by a Palestinian vehicle at a checkpoint near Beit Ur al-Fauqa south of Ramallah in the West Bank. The soldiers were lightly injured and evacuated to a hospital in Jerusalem after a Palestinian driver reportedly sped past other cars waiting in line at the checkpoint, ramming the soldiers, and then speeding away.
2011: Noam Shalit, father of recently released Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, said on today that claims his son was not tortured during his time in Hamas captivity should be taken "with a grain of salt."
2011: Ninety-year old Jerzy Bielecki, a World War II resistance fighter, passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
2012(4th of Cheshvan, 5773): Eighty-five year old science writer and Timemagazine editor Leon Jaroff passed away today. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi
2012: Temple Beth-El in Bloomfield, Michigan, is scheduled to host a special ceremony blessing pets belonging to members of the congregation.
2012: The Israeli band, Flora, is scheduled to perform at Muchmore’s in Brooklyn, NY
2012: Shalom Bard is scheduled to make his debut as RBC resident conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra today “at a special concert featuring violinist and conductor Maxim Vengerov.”
2012:Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid called to "finally get rid of the Palestinians" by giving them their own state at a cultural event in Kiryat Motzkin today.
2012: The Israeli Navy today surrounded a ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists intent on breaching Gaza’s blockade as it approached the coastal strip.
2013:In Baltimore,Barry Steelman is scheduled to present “Standing by Their Flags,” exploring the Jewish military experience on both sides of the Civil War at the Jewish Museum of Maryland
2013:Folk/Reggae/songwriting Rabbi Jack Gabriel, a leader in the Jewish Renewal Movement is scheduled to perform in Alexandria, VA.
2013(16thof Cheshvan, 5774): Ninety-year old Sid Yudain, the founder of “Roll Call” passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
2013: In Australia, “The Songs They Sang,” a musical narrative of the Vilna Ghetto during World War II is scheduled to be performed at the South Melbourne Town Hall
2013: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host a walking tour that will showcase Jewish life in the historic Seventh Street, NW Community from 1850 to 1950
2013: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host as special of book launch of Out Chaos:Hidden Children Remember the Holocaust edited by Elaine Saphier Cox
2013: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Performing Captivity, Performing Escape: Cabarets and Plays from the Terezín/Theresienstadt Ghetto”
2013:The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats is scheduled to close today.
2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Roth Unbound: A Writer and His Books by Claudia Roth Pierpont, Norman Mailer: A Double Life by J. Michael Lennon, Identical by Scott Turow and Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation by Yossi Klein Halevi
2013: In Milwaukee, WI, Meaghan Meredith Reider, daughter of Sue and Dr. Ron Reider, pillar’s of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa Jewish community married Mikhail Iosifovich Guterman son of Dina Gezhes and Iosif Guterman.
2013: 2013: In Milwaukee, WI, Meaghan Meredith Reider, daughter of Sue and Dr. Ron Reider, pillars of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa Jewish community married Mikhail Iosifovich Guterman son of Dina Gezhes and Iosif Guterman.
2013: While no injuries or significant damages afflicted surrounding areas, a string of minor earthquakes have rattled Israel’s North over the past few days – including two today alone.
2013: News of Karnit Flug's appointment as the head of the Bank of Israel has been well received, with opposition leader Shelly Yacimovich of Labor even hailing the appointment as "enlightened." Her appointment along with that of Janet Yellin as Chair of the Federal Reserve Board means that Jewish women occupy the two highest financial positions in their respective country’s for the first time in history
2014: John Adams’ “The Death of Klinghoffer” which is consistently accused of being anti-Semitic because of its sympathetic and factually inaccurate portrayal of the terrorists who hijacked the “Achille Lauro” and murdered wheelchair-bound Jewish-American Leon Klinghoffer” is scheduled to have its debut at the Met in New York today.
2014: The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival is scheduled to host “Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks for a multi-media concert based on the story of the Sarajevo Haggadah and featuring Bosnian-born composer and accordionist Merima Kljuco.”
2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present an evening of film and discussion with historian Linda J. Borish, examining “Women in American Sport: Settlement Houses to the Olympics.”
2014: In Coralville, IA, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its inaugural Sisterhood Lunch Out for 5775.