January 30
1349: The Jews of Freilsburg Germany were massacred.
1592: Clement VIII began his papacy during which enacted numerous anti-Jews moving including the issuance of Cum Saepe Accidere, a papal bull that “forbade the Jewish community of the Comtat Venaissin of Avignon, a papal enclave, to sell new goods, putting them at an economic disadvantage” and Caeca et Obdurata, a papal bull that “banned Jews from living in the Papal states outside the cities of Rome, Ancona, and Avignon” which among other things had the effect of expelling the Jews from Umbria and Bologna. Last but not least, he issued Cum Hebraeorum militia a papal bull that “forbade the reading of the Talmud.”
1648: Spain and the United Netherlands sign The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück marking the end of the eighty yearlong Dutch revolt against Spanish rule. The treaty guarantees the independence of the Protestant Netherlands from the rule of Catholic Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. It means that the Jewish community in the Netherlands, which includes many Sephardic refugees and Marranos, will be able to grow and flourish.
1649: King Charles I was beheaded. One of those who took part in the trial was Isaac Dorislaus, the son of Dutch Reform minister who has been misidentified by some as being Jews. There was a “converso community” living in England but the Jews would not be formally re-admitted until after Oliver Cromwell came to power following the King’s death.
1667: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceded Kiev, Smolensk, and left-bank Ukraine to the Tsardom of Russia in the Treaty of Andrusovo. According “to the treaty...arranged with John the Jews, who then lived in the towns and districts that became Russian territory, were permitted to remain "on the side of the Russian czar," under Russian rule, if they did not choose to remain under Polish rule. Jewish wives of Greek Orthodox Russians were permitted to remain with their husbands without being forced to change their religion.
1807: Sir Robert Grant was “called to the bar” and began the practice of law. This was but one step on the ladder that led to Grant’s successful career as a member of the House of Commons. Grant was not Jewish. Robert Grant was a strenuous advocate for the removal of the disabilities of the Jews, and twice carried bills on the subject through the House of Commons. They were, however, rejected in the Upper House, which did not yield on the question until 1858, twenty years after Grant’s death.
1817(13th of Shevat): Rabbi Yom Tov Netel, author of Tehor Ra’ayonim passed away
1823: Birthdate of Ida Warburg the future wife of Eduard Wolf.
1831: In Paris Edmond Rochefort and his wife gave birth to Victor Henri Rochefort allied himself with anti-Semite Edouard Drumont and the infamous Hubert-Joseph Henry during the campaign to convict Dreyfus and then to destroy as much of the Jewish community as possible.
1839(15thof Shevat, 5599): Tu B’Shevat
1842(19thof Shevat, 5602): Sixty-five year old Branca Brendel Bernisse Hartog Kann the daughter of Jacob Hirsch Pinto and Levia Leonora Liebe Pinto and the wife of Hirschel Eliazer Kann passed away today in Nederland.
1852: The horribly mutilated body of Jacob Lehman was found today in the Delaware River. Lehman was the son of Aaron Lehman, a German Jewish peddler living in Philadelphia. When last seen, Jacob had in his possession $200 worth of watches, jewelry and other items that constituted most of his father's inventory.
1852: A jury in Philadelphia rendered the following verdict: "That the lad Jacob Lehman came to his death at the hand or hands of some person or person to the Jury unknown." Lehman was the son of a German Jewish peddler whose gruesomely dismembered body had been found floating in the Delaware River
1854(1st of Shevat, 5614): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1854: In Riga, Eleazar Frommer and his wife gave birth to Jacob Frommer the Rabbi of Congregation Bikur Cholim Bnay Abraham, New Haven, CT.
1855: Henry Fitzroy, the husband of Hannah Rothschild and the son-in-law of Nathan Mayer Rothschild completed his term as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department.
1857: The will of Marcus Cone was offered for probate today. Included in the will were instructions for establishing Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of New York, Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of Syracuse and Cone's German Human Benevolent Society of Albersweiller, the Germany city in which he was born. Cone wanted to establish the two societies in the United States because neither of these cities had any organized way to provide aid for their indigent Jewish citizens.
1860: It was reported today that "In England, astonishment is expressed” that Emperor Napoleon has not appointed the Duc de Persigny to the Foreign Ministry. Unbeknown to the public M de Persigny will not join the cabinet because he refuses to serve with Achille Fould, the Minister of State. M Fould is a favorite of the Empress who “absolutely clings” to him “as the only man competent to” serve as “Minister of State and of the Household of the Emperor.” Furthermore, M Fould is Jewish, a millionaire and is connected to “other rich Jews” through his banking connections.(“Nearly all the millionaires of Paris at this moment are Jews.”) The Emperor is reportedly “afraid to offend so important” a component needed to ensure the stability of his government. “There are people malicious enough to suggest that the Empress' wish in the matter goes for very little, however, and that she is made to bear the blame because that is more convenient in these personal matters than a reason of State.”
1863(10thof Shevat, 5623): Phineas Mendel Heilprin passed away today in Washington, D.C. Born at Lublin in 1801, he moved to Hungary in 1842 and then left in 1848 when the revolutionary movement failed. He arrived in the United States where he gained a reputation as a scholar and author. His son Michael, who was born in 1823 came to the United States after the failure of the Kossuth led revolution. On the eve of the Civil War, he refuted Rabbi Raphall’s position on slavery in the United States describing it as being immoral and contrary to the teachings of Judaism. He continued to espouse liberal cause until his death in 1888.
1863: In Warsaw, Talmud scholar Marcus Jastrow and his wife gave birth to American psychologist Joseph Jastrow.
1867(24thof Shevat, 5627): In Bristol, UK, Joseph Abraham the London born son of Moses Abraham and the brother of John Abraham with whom he worked as a wine merchant and who served as both the President of the Bristol Hebrew Congregation and Mayor of Bristol passed away today.
1873(2ndof Shevat, 5633): “French ship-builder and philanthropist Jacques Isaac Altaras, a native of Aleppo who tried to help settle Russian Jews in Algeria and who “founded a school for Jewish children at Marseilles, passed away today.
1875: The London Punch has a cartoon of Disraeli shaking hands with Gladstone and saying: "Sorry to lose you. I began with books; you’re ending with them. Perhaps you're the wiser of the two." Disraeli is Benjamin Disraeli the English Prime Minister who began as an author. Gladstone was his political opponent who held the post of Prime Minister.]
1876: It was reported today that Jews had joined with Gentiles to raise twelve thousand dollars for the Woman’s Christian Home in St. Louis, MO.
1876: It was reported today that a Jewish synagogue has been opened in Toronto, Canada.
1877: The Downtown Hebrew Benevolent Society is schedule to host a ball tonight as part of the New York City 1876-1877 Ball Season.
1878: It was reported today Marcuse Woodle has been elected President of the Literary Society of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and Samson Lachman has been elected Vice President.
1879(6thof Shevat, 5639): Fifty-nine year old Abraham Treunefels the son of Rachel and Gershon Hirsch Treuenfels passed away today.
1882: Birthdate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States. Roosevelt’s New Deal created a variety of career opportunities for a whole generation of newly college educated generation of Jewish professionals. For several generations of Jews, FDR was a near-saint. Starting in the 1970’s, questions were raised about Roosevelt’s failure to do more to rescue the Jews of Europe. The problem with criticizing Roosevelt is the need to come to grips with the level of anti-Semitism that existed before, during and after the war. This reality played a part in Roosevelt’s dealing with the furor of the Holocaust.
1889: In Kiel, Germany, Jewish businessman and communal leader Julius Frankenthal and his wife Cäcilie, née Goldmann., gave birth to Käte Frankenthal who gained fame as a psychiatrist and a socialist political leader who served on the Berlin City Council and in the Prussian State Parliament during the days of the Weimar Republic.
1892: The SS Massilia arrived in New York with “250 Russian Jews among her steerage passengers.” After having been expelled from Russia they sailed to Palestine where the Ottoman authorities issued orders banning them from landing at Jaffa. A Jewish society then paid for their passage to America. The Superintendent of immigration said that the refusal of the Turks to let them land would not influence his decision as to whether or not they can enter the United States.
1893: Birthdate of Rabbi Yitzhak-Meir Levin a Haredi, politician, member of the Kensett and one of 37 people to sign the Israeli declaration of independence.
1893: Charles Barton’s production of “The Outsider,” a play whose villain is a Cockney Jew, is scheduled to open at the Park Theatre in New York
1894: In Pennsylvania, Isadore Engel and Emelia (Molly) Schwartz gave birth to Dorothy Engel, the future wife of Herman Maltz who owned and operated Maltz Furniture Store in Los Angeles.
1894: Samuel Gompers and Henry Weisman are scheduled to address a mass meeting at Madison Square Garden sponsored by the Trades and Labor Conference.
1894: When his father passed away today Yissachar Dov Rokeach became the third Belzer Rebbe,
1894: Members of the Hebrew Typographical Union No. 317 are among those who will join in a march led by the E.H. Wade Post of the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic, whose members were all Civil War veterans) which is scheduled to held this evening in New York City to call attention to the plight of the unemployed during the worst economic depression to hit the United States that started in 1893.
1896(15thof Shevat, 5656): Tu B’Shevat
1896: “What’s In A Name” published today described campaign being conducted by the sister of the late Abraham Hayward to disprove “the damnatory suspicion” that the two of them have “some mixture of Jewish blood.” The efforts which have included a letter writing campaign to the London Athenaeum are proof that there “is the existence of …prejudices in the British Islands.”
1896: In Philadelphia, President Oscar Straus is scheduled to preside over the opening session of the 4th annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society
1897: It was reported today that the Municipal Library at Leipzig has a manuscript entitled “The Tree of Life” written by Jacob Ben Judah. The manuscript is date 1287 and “it contains the liturgy of the Jews in England and their hymns.
1897: Rabbi de Sola Mendes is scheduled to deliver a sermon at West End Synagogue entitled “The Truth About Jonah”
1897: Based on information that first appeared in The American Hebrew, it was reported today that Rodef Shalom has selected Dr. Rudolph Grossman to serve as it next Rabbi, a move “that seems strange for an old conservative congregation” since he was trained at the Hebrew Union College, the Cincinnati based school that trains Reform rabbis.
1898: It was reported today that police had to be called when a riot broke out following an anti-Jewish speech by Lucien Millevoye in Bordeaux.
1898: The Young Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Circle of the Auxiliary Society of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Social Orphan Asylum held its regular monthly meeting this afternoon.
1898: The Hebrew Infant Asylum Association held its third annual meeting this afternoon.
1898: It was reported today that next month’s Purim Ball sponsored by the Purim Association will be held at the Waldorf-Astoria
1898: Doctors Richards, Greenfield, Taubenhaus and Singer were among those who addressed a group of Jews in Brooklyn tonight as part of a campaign to gain support for the construction of a Jewish hospital in Brooklyn
1899: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil preached a sermon at Temple Emanu-El this morning in which he praised the value and role of daily newspapers.
1899: “The Jews in Palestine” published today provides a summary of the report submitted in December of 1898 by U.S. Consul General B. Bie Randal in which he said that “960 families, numbering 5,000 souls inhabit 22 Jewish colonies in Palestine which have been founded and subsidized by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, representing the Alliance Israelite Universelle..” Jacob’s Memorial (Zikhron Ya'akon) is the largest of the colonies with a population of 1,600 people. The colony includes a synagogue, a school with five teachers and 4,000 acres on which the settles are growing fruit, mostly grapes, honey and mulberry leaves which is part of a plan to raise silkworms. (More 2014)
1899: It was reported today that of the four bills introduced in the New York legislature seeking a exemption from property tax, on was seeking such relief for the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1899: Rabbi Isaac C. Noot, principal of the Hebrew Free Schools delivered a lecture today at Temple Beth-El on “Thou shalt not bear false witness against the neighbor.”
1900: Birthdate of Russian composer Isaak Iosifovich Dunayevsky.
1902: Birthdate of Nikolaus Pevsner, the native of Leipzig who became a noted British expert on art and architecture.
1903: Leopold Greenberg, Herzl's representative in London, left for Cairo to carry on political negotiations.
1904: Herzl finished his visit to Italy.
1907(15thof Shevat, 5667): Tu B’Shevat
1908: Caught up in the dispute between the Territorialists and the Jews who will only settle for a homeland in Palestine, Churchill drafted a letter at the behest of British Zionist, Rabbi Dr. Moses Gaster. Seeking not to offend either party, Churchill expressed his support for the Zionist dream of settling in Palestine while allowing that a temporary refuge may have to be found if such is the wish of the Jewish people. The Territoralists were those Jews were willing to accept the British offer of a homeland in Uganda or Kenya as an immediate solution to the suffering of the Jews in Russia. The Russian Jews were among those who were the strongest opponents of the solution.
1909: Birthdate of activist and author Saul David Alinsky
1912:In response to an appeal by Dr. J. L. Magnes the New York City Jewish community announces subscriptions amounting to over sixty thousand dollars annually for five years for Jewish education in New York City.
1912: In Brooklyn, N. Y, The Atlantic Union Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist convention adopts resolutions protesting against the recent massacres of Jews in Russia and outbreaks of anti-Jewish feeling in so-called Christian countries as un-Christian and affirming their belief that the Jew is entitled to religious and civil rights.
1912: Birthdate of Barbara Tuchman. Ms. Tuchman was a prolific popular historian who won a Pulitzer Prize for The Guns of August a book that President Kennedy urged people to read so that his generation might avoid the folly which led to World War I. Ms. Tuchman won a second Pulitzer for Stillwell and the American Experience in China, a very readable tome that uses the experiences of Stillwell's career in Asia to explain the events that would ultimately lead to the victory of the Communist Chinese. Although she was Jewish, Ms. Tuchman wrote only one book related to Jewish History - Bible and Sword (England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour). Ms. Tuchman passed away in 1989 at the age of 77.Born in New York City, New York she is best known for her book The Guns of August (1962), a history of the outbreak of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China, (1970). She won Pulitzer Prizes for both books. Tuchman's father was a one-time owner and publisher of The Nation, as well as the founder of the Theatre Guild. Her maternal grandfather was the ambassador to Constantinople under President Woodrow Wilson, and her uncle was the Secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She said, "The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard." Tuchman never went to graduate school, and never took a single course in writing. In deciding to write, she said, "The single most formative experience, I think, was the stacks at Widener Library where I was allowed to have as my own one of those little cubicles with a table under a window, queerly called, as I have since learned, 'carrels,' a word I never knew when I sat in one. Mine was deep in among the 940's (British History,that is) and I could roam at liberty through the rich stacks, taking whatever I wanted. The experience was marvelous, a word I use in its exact sense meaning full of marvels. It gave me a lifelong affinity for libraries, where I find happiness, refuge, not to mention the material for making books of my own."Tuchman said, "Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library." She also said, "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill."
1916(25th of Shevat, 5676): Joseph Jacobs passed away. Born in 1854, he “was an Australian literary and Jewish historian who was a writer for the Jewish Encyclopedia and a notable folklorist, creating several noteworthy collections of fairy tales.
1915(15thof Shevat, 5675): Tu B’Shevat
1915: In Atlanta, the defense rested this afternoon in the case of Dan S. Lehon, CC. Felder and Arthur Thurman who are on trial subornation of perjury in an effort to secure a new trial for Leo Frank who was convicted of murdering Mary Phagan.
1915: From Berlin, the Overseas News Agency reported that in Russia,“Jews ae being prosecuted officially and demonstrations against the are being organized by the government.”
1918: In New York City, Joseph Opatovsky, who gained fame as Yiddish author Joseph Opatoshu and his wife gave birth to David Opatovsky who gained fame as actor and screenwriter David Opatoshu.
1919: The Versailles Conference decided that the Arab provinces should be wholly separated from the Ottoman Empire and the newly conceived mandate-system applied to them. This decision clashed with the expectation of Faisal's Arab delegation that his state would include Palestine, and the conditional understandings reached in the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement.
1920(10thof Shevat, 5680): Henriette Goldschmidt, the wife of Rabbi Abraham Meyer Goldschmidt, who was a social worker, educator and one of the founders of the Women’s Educational Association passed away today in Leipzig.
1922(1st of Shevat, 5682): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1923: In Newark, NJ, Jacob Israel Gersten and Henrietta (Henig) Gersten gave birth to Bernard Gersten, the Executive Producer of Lincoln Center Theater.
1926(15thof Shevat, 5686): Tu B’Shevat
1927: Birthdate of Zeev (Heinz) Raphael, a native of Germany who escaped to safety in Sweden three days before the German invasion of Poland.
1927(27thof Shevat, 5687): Rabbi Joseph Israel Deutsch passed away today.
1928: Birthdate of Irwin Michnick who gained fame as Mitch Leigh, “an American musical theatre composer and theatrical producer best known for the musical Man of La Mancha.”
1928: Birthdate of Harold “Hal” Prince, Tony Award winning theatrical producer and director.
1930(1stof Shevat, 5690): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1930(1stof Shevat, 5690): “Prominent philanthropist in colonial India, Alice Edith Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading GBE, née Alice Edith Cohen the daughter of London merchant Albert Cohen, the first wife of Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading passed away today.
1930: Simcha Hinkas, a Jewish policeman, went on trial in Tel Aviv. He is accused of leading a crowd of Jews who reportedly killed five adults and wounded two children in an Arab family on August 25, 1929 during the Arab Uprising. According to the government, while Hinkas was on duty at a crossroad on Herzl Street during the Arab riots he saw a truck filled with Jews fired on by Arabs who killed four and wounded five. Hinkas allegedly went back to his barracks, got his rifle and led a Jewish mob in an attack on an Arab house. A government witness identified the bullets in the dead Arabs as having come from a government issued rifle, but could not tie them to the gun belonging to Hinkas. Two Arabs later identified Hinkas from a group of 13 Constables, but other Arabs identified different Constables. Alfred Riggs, assistant superintendent of the police “declared that Hinkas was one of the mildest and best of the police” but, “for reasons of his own,” the British police official seemed certain that the Jewish policeman was guilty.
1931: Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" premieres at Los Angeles Theater.
1933: On the day that Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, Eli Boschwitz, a judicial abriter came home and told his wife, 'We are leaving Germany forever.'" Boshwitz was the father of 5 year old Rudy Boschwitz the future Republican leader who would eventually serve 12 years as U.S. Senator from Minn.
1933: Youth Aliyah opens its offices in Berlin. The previous year Recha Freier, a rabbi's wife decided it would be a good idea to send young people from Germany to Kibbutzim. She founded the Juedische Jugendhilfe organization to help facilitate the work. That same year it became a department of the World Zionist Organization under Henrietta Szold. Five thousand adolescents were rescued before the war and another 15,000 after the war.
1934: Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Chasan of the Bronx announce the engagement of their daughter Shulamith Chasan to Theodore S. Chazin, son of Cantor and Mrs. Hirsch L. Chazin. Mr. Chazin is a practicing attorney and the secretary of the Jersey City Zionist District.
1934: Moses Mendel Penn, the oldest patient ever cared for at Montefiore Hospital for Chronic Diseases, will observe his 109th birthday there today. He has partly recovered from a stroke that paralyzed one side of his body eight months ago. Mr. Penn entered the hospital on the application of the Bronx Young Men's Hebrew Association, of which he is the oldest living member.
1935: “Three Men on a Horse,” a comedy starring Garson Kanin and Sam Levene opened on Broadway at the Playhouse Theatre where it ran for 835 performances.
1935: Birthdate of Albert “Albie” Louis Sachs, the South African born son of Lithuanian Jews who fought against Apartheid and was appointed a Judge of the Constitutional Court by Nelson Mandela.
http://whoswho.co.za/albert-sachs-5369http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za/site/judges/justicealbiesachs/index1.html
1937: Rabbi Samuel Goldenson delivers a sermon entitled “The Ten Commandments and Social Problems” during Saturday morning services at New York’s Temple Emanu-El.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that a Jewish constable, Mordechai Schwartz, who was charged with the premeditated murder of Police Constable Mustapha Khoury, was sentenced to death. The court refused to accept evidence that the previous murder by Arabs of two Jews in Karkur had influenced Schwartz to an immediate act of reprisal. Schwartz continued to claim his innocence.
1939: Hitler, in his anniversary speech in Berlin, talked about the event of war, "The result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." Hitler also spoke in warm terms about its friendship with Poland.
1940: The Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA), a special committee created by the Joint Distribution Committee signed a contract with the Trujillo regime that was part of plan to settle Jewish refugees in that Central American country.
1942: In a speech at the Sports Palace in Berlin, Hitler told of his confidence in victory and his hatred for the Jews. "The hour will come when the most evil universal enemy of all time will be finished, at least for a thousand years." By the spring, four labor camps would be converted to death camps for the purpose of extinguishing the Jews; joining Chelmno were Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz.
1942: Birthdate of Marty Balin of the Jefferson Airplane.
1943 (24th of Shevat, 5703): In Letychiv, Ukraine, German Gestapo commences mass shootings of Jews from Letychiv Ghetto. 200 surviving Jews from Letychiv slave labor camp were ordered to undress and were shot with machine-gun into a ravine. Some 7,000 Jews were murdered in Letychiv. For those with a sense of irony, this was Shabbat and the Torah reading was Yitro.
1943: The SS Pierre Soule, a liberty ship, was launched today 45 days after its keel was laid. The ship was named after Pierre Soule a Louisiana political leader who was an ally of Judah P. Benjamin, and according to one story in the New York Times, was Jewish.
1944: Seven hundred Jews are deported from Milan, Italy, to Auschwitz.
1945: Hitler gives his last ever public address; a radio address on the 12th anniversary of his coming to power.
1948: Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist. While Gandhi was a figure revered by many, some Jews have their reservations about this proponent of civil disobedience and non-violence no matter what the threat. After Kristallnacht Gandhi wrote, "If the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary sacrifice, even the massacre I have imagined by Nazis could be turned into a day of thanksgiving that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of a tyrant...the German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity." Apparently Ghandi lacked any concept of the evil that was Hitler. But even after the war when the total horror was known, Gandhi said that the Holocaust was "the greatest crime of our time, but the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from the cliffs....It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany."
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported from Bonn that the West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, assured Israel that his country would pay the first installment of 47 million marks of the German-Israeli Reparation Agreement within the next two months.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that IDF patrols had beaten back two attacks by Jordanian marauders at two points along the armistice lines, inflicting heavy casualties. Jordan falsely claimed that a number of Israeli soldiers were killed in both encounters. Both sides complained to the UN Israeli-Jordanian Mixed Armistice Commission.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that traces of copper were found near Jenin.
1958: “Sunrise at Campabello” the play written by Dore Schary that provided a dramatic depiction of FDR’s struggle with Polio premiered at the Cort Theatre in New York City.
1964(16thof Shevat, 4724): Writer and theatrical producer Allen A. Adler passed away today in New York City at the age of 47. Adler was part of a famous Jewish theatrical family. His grandfather was actor and producer Jacob Adler. His father was theatre manager and owner, Adolph Adler. His uncle was Luther Adler and his aunt was Stella Adler.
1971: Carole King's “Tapestry” album is released. This recording by Brooklyn born Jewess Carol Klien would become the longest charting album by a female solo artist and sell 24 million copies worldwide.
1974: The Mayor and City of West Berlin hosted a reception to mark the 85thbirthday of Dr. Kate Frankenthal. A psychiatrist and socialist political leader during the Weimar Republic she fled Germany in 1933 and settled in the United States in 1936 where she became a consultant to the Jewish Family Service of New York.
1975: The final part of the Agranat Commission’s report was published today. The commission had been set up after the Yom Kippur War to find out why the IDF had failed to perform as expected prior to, and during, the hostilities.1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that US President Jimmy Carter sent a sharp note to Prime Minister Menachem Begin, complaining over the plan to establish Shilo, a new West Bank settlement. 1978(22nd of Shevat, 5738): Mordechai Yehuel, 27, of Ramat Gan was stabbed and killed in Ramallah.
1979: The civilian government of Iran announced it had decided to allow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to return from exile in France. The subsequent Islamist revolution would end the reign of the Shah, a regime which was much friendlier to Israel than the government that would follow. In retrospect, one can draw a straight line between the French decision and the Iranian nuclear threat that the West and Israel face in the 21st century.
1982: U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig “filed a reported with President Reagan that revealed” his “fear that Israel might, at the slightest provocation, start a war against Lebanon.”1990: The Israeli Government said today that it had no official policy of settling Soviet Jewish immigrants in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir dismissed the debate over the issue as an ''artificial storm'' created by panicked Arab leaders.
1991(15th of Shevat, 5751): Tu B'Shvat
1991: The New York Times reviews The Smile of the Lamb by David Grossman; translated by Betsy Rosenberg.
1991: In Amman, around 3,000 Jordanians demonstrated in favor of Iraq, burned American and Israeli flags and urged Mr. Hussein to fire chemical weapons at Israel. The demonstration reflected Jordan's tilt toward Baghdad throughout the gulf crisis. "O Saddam, hit, hit Tel Aviv!" some chanted. "With chemical weapons, O Saddam!" others replied. Jordan's population is more than half Palestinian, and many have voiced support for the Iraqi leader as a champion who will lead them to statehood.
1991: The Young Professionals of the American Friends of Tel Aviv University is sponsoring a black-tie cocktail party and dance, at Stringfellows to benefit the Adopt-a-Student Endowment Fund at the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University.
1992: Publication date of “Hideous Kinky, an autobiographical novel by Esther Freud, daughter of British painter Lucian Freud and great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud.
1992: "ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD," by Tom Stoppard, adapted by Yosef Brodski, staged by Yevgeny Arye and featuring the Gesher Theater Company is scheduled to be performed in Brooklyn, NY.
1992: As Israel presses the United States for loan guarantees to cope with a projected huge influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, officials here said today that the immigrant flow this month had sunk to its lowest in almost two years and could dwindle even further
1998: Premier performance of Paul Simon's "The Capeman."
1998: U.S premiere of “Zero Effect” a detective move directed and written by Jake Kasdan.
1999(13thof Shevat, 5659): Ninety-three year old Professor Mirra Komarovksy the Russian born daughter of “Zionists and land owning Jews” who came to the United States where she became a leading authority in the field of Women’s Studies passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)
2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Einstein’s German World by Fritz Stern and The Greenspan Effect:Words That Move the World's Marketsby David B. Sicilia and Jeffrey L. Cruikshank.
2001: Two people were injured during at the Tayibe Bridge bombing for which Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
2001: Prime Minister Ehud Barak saw 20 immigrants' representatives inside his Jerusalem office and then presided tonight over a modest support rally at the city's convention center as he continued his campaign against Ariel Sharon.
2003: In “A Burst of Light Provides Privacy,” published today Elaine Louie discusses the work of Ayala Sefaty of Tel Aviv who designed her own underwater restaurant in Eilat.
2003: “The Israeli experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia has accomplished its goals of studying the effects of dust storms on weather and recording electrical phenomena atop storm clouds, scientists said today. Researchers from Tel Aviv University said their Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment had gathered solid information on the plumes of dust and other aerosol particles blown from deserts by storms before being carried worldwide by high winds. The particles affect rain production in clouds, deposit minerals in the ocean and scatter sunlight that affects global warming, the scientists said. ''The experiment has worked without a hitch,'' Dr. Joachim Joseph, a principal investigator, told a briefing at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. ''We have very good data, very unique data.'' A twin-camera multispectral instrument in the payload bay of the shuttle has been scanning desert particles whipped into the atmosphere and, at night, making images of the tops of some of the thousands of thunderstorms that rumble through the atmosphere every hour. The shuttle, nearing the end of a 16-day mission, is to return to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Saturday with its crew of seven, including the first Israeli astronaut, Col. Ilan Ramon, a combat pilot in the Israeli Air Force. The flight, which had been delayed almost two years, finally went into orbit at a time when storms in the Sahara that push dust into the Mediterranean Sea are infrequent. But researchers said luck was with them and they were able to obtain images of dust plumes. The first was made on Sunday, blowing from the western coast of Africa into the Atlantic. The big payoff was on Monday, on the last scheduled pass over the Mideast. ''On the last orbit over the Mediterranean,'' Dr. Joseph said, ''we got a nice dust storm over Israel. ''We just lucked out.'' Israeli scientists said they had clear images of cloud-to-space lightning, called sprites, and the first scientific pictures recorded from space that show an elf, a luminous doughnut-shape electrical glow above a thunderstorm that lasts less than a millisecond. Aside from the successful science, the mission is important to Dr. Joseph because Colonel Ramon is carrying a keepsake, a small Torah scroll used at Dr. Joseph's bar mitzvah almost 60 years ago while he was in a concentration camp in Germany. The elderly rabbi performing the ceremony, who died soon afterward in the camp, gave the Torah to the boy and told him to tell people what had occurred there. Dr. Joseph said Colonel Ramon saw the Torah when visiting his house and was so moved by the history that he asked to take it into space as a tribute. In an interview from space last week with Israeli officials, the astronaut displayed the Torah. ''This represents more than anything the ability of the Jewish people to survive despite everything from horrible periods, black days, to reach periods of hope and belief in the future,'' the colonel said. Because of the gesture from space, Dr. Joseph said, he feels he has finally fulfilled his promise to the rabbi.”
2004: Airing of the 13th episode of “Boston Public” co-starring Fyvush Finkel, Michael David Rapaport, Anthony Heald, Jessalyn Gilsig and Joey Slotnick following which it was announced that the series would be cancelled due to low ratings.
2005: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lot’s Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority by Robert M. Polhemus and the newly released paperback editions of Growing Up Fast by Joanna Lipper and Oracle Night by Paul Auster
2005: In “The Observant Reader,” Wendy Shalit provides a prescient synopsis of the varying ways in which Orthodoxy is portrayed in contemporary literature.
2005: A Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Pacific Overtures” which had opened at Studio 54 in 2004 closed today
2005: In “The Nation; One Clear Conscience, 60 Years After Auschwitz,” published today Roger Cohen tells the story of Miecyslaw Kasprzyk, an unsung hero of the Holocaust.
2006(1st of Shevat, 5766): Playwright Wendy Wasserstein, author of the Heidi Chronicles and The Sisters Rosensweig passed away at the age of 55.
2007: It was announced today that Michael Abraham Levy who had been named Baron Levy, had been “arrested by police on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice regarding the cash for peerages investigation and immediately released on bail” Six months later he would be cleared of charges related to a scandal regarding charges of granting life peerages in exchange for political contributions.
2007: The House of Love and Prayer, a new multi-lingual musical based on the life of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, had its final performance at the JCC in Manhattan
2007: In Derby, UK, as part of Holocaust Memorial Day observances a screening of 'Into the Arms of Strangers,” for students from the Millennium Centre, with a Q&A session to follow with Steven Mendelsson who traveled on the “Kindertransports.”
2008: In Manhattan, the 92nd St Y presents Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in debating “Does God Exist?” Two of today’s most provocative voices as debate the ultimate religious question: Is there a God? Best-selling authors Christopher Hitchens and Shmuley Boteach pull no punches as they discuss organized religion and its place in American life.
2009: Maira Kalman started a new illustrated blog in the New York Times called “And the Pursuit of Happiness” about American democracy today
2009: Lillian Hellman’s “Scoundrel Time” opens at the City Lit Theatre in Chicago.
2009:“Batsheva Dance Company, one of the most inspirational and sought-after companies in the dance world, presents its acclaimed production, ‘Three’ at the Performing Arts Center in Purchase, New York.
2009: A swastika was discovered today at Congregation Shaarey Tphilohan Orthodox synagogue in Portland, Maine which claims to be Portland's oldest Jewish congregation.
2009 (5th of Shevat 5769: Milton Parker, who brought long lines and renown to the Carnegie Deli in Manhattan with towering pastrami sandwiches and a voluble partner who kibitzed with common folk and celebrities alike, passed away today at the age of 90. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/nyregion/05parker.html?_r=02010: The Museum of Modern Art is scheduled to present a musical event featuring Israeli pianist Menahem Pressler with the New York Chamber Soloists.
2010: The JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, NJ, is scheduled to observe Tu B’Shevat with a program of stories and songs led by Miki Rahav, of Kibbutz Yagur entitled “Celebrating 100 years of Kibbutz Life with Stories and Songs.”
2010(15thof Shevat, 5770): Tu B’Shevat
2010(15thof Shevat, 5770): Eighty-seven year old British historian Jack Richon Pole, the son of Ukrainian Jews who had found refuge in the UK, whose most famous work was Political Representation in Britain and the Origins of the American Republic passed away today.
2010(15thof Shevat, 5770): Aaron Ruben, who was a producer, writer and director for some of the most popular television comedies of the 1960s and ’70s, notably “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.” and “Sanford and Son,” passed away today at his home in Beverly Hills, at the age of 95. (As reported by William Grimes)http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2010/02/04/aaron_ruben_tv_producer_for_andy_griffith/
2010: Joëlle Alexis won the World Cinema Documentary prize for Editing tonight at Sundance for her work on Yael Hersonski's “A Film Unfinished.” The movie examines an unfinished Nazi propaganda film about life in the Warsaw ghetto.
2011: Blood Relation, a documentary film by Noa Ben Hagai is scheduled to shown on the final day of the Seventh Annual Brooklyn Israel Film Festival.
2011: At the 92nd Street Y Drawing on a compendium of more than 600 New York Times articles on the Civil War, Harold Holzer and Craig L. Symonds are scheduled to discuss revelations about America’s great conflict that are still affecting Americans today.
2011: Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit is scheduled to sponsor Super Sunday, the community wide telethon to benefit the Federation's 2011 Campaign.2011: “Return to Haifa” is scheduled to have its last performance at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater, Washington DCJCC
2011: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Neoconservative Persuasion: Selected Essays, 1942-2009 by Irving Kristol, Panoramaby H.G. Adler and Zero-Sum Future: American Power in an Age of Anxietyby Gideon Rachman
2011:Cyprus has recognized a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said on today, following similar recent declarations coming mostly from South American states.
2011(25thof Shevat, 5771): Eugene Lubin, whose men and boys clothing store in suburban New York provided bar mitzvah suits for decades, and who was a longtime leader in Jewish organizations, passed away today at the age of 88. The store, Lubin's Men's World, has operated in several locations throughout Westchester County, just north of New York City. In 2010 it opened an operation within Rothman’s, an upscale men’s clothier in Scarsdale. “What happens when upscale specialty men’s clothier Rothman’s invites Lubin’s, the 56-year-old young men’s clothing institution (it has dressed generations of bar mitzvah boys), to move into his Scarsdale shop? Y-chromosome clothing kismet. From boys to men, all are suitably attired here at this brilliant -- and stylish -- pairing of retail roomies,” a Westchester magazine raved. Eric Schoen, who is active with the Jewish Council of Yonkers, said that “Gene Lubin was a man who cared greatly about the city of Yonkers and was involved in its business, civic, religious and philanthropic community." But, like others, Schoen also returned to Lubin’s bar mitzvah suits. "He also cared that bar mitzvah boys and anyone celebrating a special occasion looked perfect," Schoen said. "People traveled far and wide to get that perfect fit." Lubin was a former president of the Westchester Jewish Council and was a member of the Yonkers citizen budget commission in 1993. (As reported by the Eulogizer)
2011(25thof Shevat, 5771): Meyer O'hayon Tapiero, a Morocco native who was among the founders of the new Jewish community of Marbella in Andalusia, Spain, passed away at the age of 94. Tapiero and and his wife came to the resort town of Marbella in 1955 on a holiday from their home in Casablanca, where they had a successful men’s clothing business, and decided to set up their home and family in the Spanish region because he “felt the political change coming in Morocco and decided to look at new prospects beyond its borders.” His wife had come to Morocco from Berlin, which she fled in 1942. Tapiero convinced two brothers to join him in Spain, and they and other family members from Morocco built a synagogue and helped redevelop the community, which had been devoid of Jews since the Inquisition. The community is now a popular destination for Jewish tourism and has a Chabad house and other Jewish services (As reported by the Eulogizer)
2012: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host “Terezin Between Celebration and Investigation” a frank and challenging discussion about the dual function of the art of Terezín led by Hanna Arie-Faifman and Michael Beckerman.
2012: The Israel Prisons Service parole board decided today to reduce the sentence of former minister Shlomo Benizri, a member of the Shas party who was recently sentenced to four years in prison for bribery and other offenses. The parole board decided to cut Benizri's sentence down by a year and four months, so the former minister is due to be released in April.
2012: President Bill Clinton will receive the Tikkun Olam Lifetime Achievement Award of the Jewish Federation of Arkansas. The federation made the announcement today and will bestow the honor at a Feb. 4 ceremony in Little Rock marking its 100th anniversary celebration dinner.
2013: The Library of Congress is scheduled to host a presentation on the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design featuring Professor Ezri Tabari, the founder and former chair of the Bezalel MA degree program in industrial design
2013: Jori Slodki is scheduled to teach a two hour class “Oy Vay! A History of Yiddish” at (of all places) Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City, Iowa.
2013: The ORT Braude Academic College of Engineering in Karmiel is scheduled to host the opening session of “From There to Here,” a month long event that will give 15 Oleh artists living in northern Israel showcase their works.
2013: Yeshiva University Museum with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Jewish Theological Seminary are scheduled to present a panel discussion featuring David G. Roskeis and Naomi Diament, the co-authors of the newly published Holocaust Literature: A History & Guide
2013: Former Representative Gabby Giffords gave a brief emotiaonal opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee that was holding hearings on gun violence.
2013: Israeli forces attacked a convoy on the Syrian-Lebanese border today, sources told Reuters, after Israelis warned their Lebanese enemy Hezbollah against using chaos in Syria to acquire anti-aircraft missiles or chemical weapons.
2013: Beitar Jerusalem soccer club welcomed Muslim Chechen players Zaur Sadayev and Gabriel Kadiev to the team in a press conference today attended by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and dozens of foreign reporters.
2014: “Nazi-looted paintings recovered by the Allies platoon known as the Monuments Men are scheduled to be sold at auction in New York” today. The four lots will go on the block at Sotheby’s in New as part of a sale of Old Master paintings and sculpture. Some of the works were owned by the Rothschild family. Two of the family’s paintings to be auctioned were placed in the private collection of Nazi leader Hermann Goering, Reuters reported.” (As reported by JTA)
2014: Joan Dodek (Past President, Washington Committee for Soviet Jewry) and Marcia Weinberg (Former Chair, Soviet Jewry Committee of Jewish Community Council) are scheduled to discuss their daring trips to visit refuseniks in the Soviet Union and involvement in the struggle to free Soviet Jewry at Washington Hebrew Congregation.
2014: In New York, the Jewish Museum is scheduled to host an evening of entertainment “featuring a live performance by Mirah” to mark the upcoming closing of “Chagall: Love, War and Exile.
2014: Rocket launched from the Gaza Strip hit in an open area in the Sdot Negev Regional Council. No injuries or damage were reported.
2014: Oxfam accepted actress Scarlett Johansson’s resignation as a global ambassador, calling the role “incompatible” with her work for the Israeli company SodaStream.“Oxfam has accepted Scarlett Johansson’s decision to step down after eight years as a Global Ambassador and we are grateful for her many contributions,” the global anti-poverty charity said in a statement issued today. “While Oxfam respects the independence of our ambassadors, Ms. Johansson’s role promoting the company SodaStream is incompatible with her role as an Oxfam Global Ambassador.” (As reported by JTA)
2014: The editors of an ultra-Orthodox daily newspaper today accused the State of Israel of encouraging anti-Semitism throughout the world, claiming that lax religious adherence in the nation and “harassment” of the Haredi community were to blame.
2015: Ernst Lutisch’s “Angel” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Cinematheque
2015: “Born Yesterday” is scheduled to be shown at the 92nd St Y as part of the Women on Top series.
2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “Piano Games” featuring Ariel Halevi, Dror Semmel and Michaek Serzekel.