February 12
553: Byzantine Emperor Justinian ordered the public reading of the Greek translation to Parshat Hashavuah (weekly Torah portion) on Shabbat morning and prohibited Rabbis from giving drashot on the Torah portion.
1049: Beginning of the papacy of Leo IX, one of the major players in the creation of the Schism of 1054 that would result in the official split of Christianity into the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Over the next several centuries, Jewish communities would get caught in the cross-fire between these completing Christian sects resulting in death and destruction. One example was the Great Cossack Uprising that would pit Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians against their Polish Catholic masters. The worst example is World War I which started, in part, when the Tsar saw himself as the protector of the Serbs who were Orthodox against the Austrians who were Roman Catholics.
1130: Innocent II was elected Pope. He presided over the Second Council of the Latern which did not issue any canons aimed at the Jews. But it did issue one that forbade Christians from lending money for interest which would have a long-range impact on the Jews.
1481: The first Auto de Fe took place in Seville, Spain. Six Morrano men and six women were burned for allegedly practicing Judaism. These practices could include not eating pig - for whatever reason, washing hands before prayer, changing clothes on the Sabbath, etc. Over two thousand Inquisitions are said to have taken place in the Iberian Peninsula and its colonies. The number of victims in Spain alone is estimated at 39,912.
1486: Over 750 people would be mandated to participate on this very cold day as prisoners in an auto-de-fe in Toledo. They were forced to march barefooted and bareheaded through the streets. Many people came from the countryside to howl and scorn at the prisoners. Among some of the many stipulations of punishment, was the fining of 1/5 of their property, to which the funds went to battle the Muslims in Granada, as well as public self-flagellation over six consecutive Fridays.
1541: Santiago, Chile is founded by Pedro de Valdivia. One of those accompanying de Valdivia was a Converso named Rodrigo de Orgonos. Any “Jews” settling in the lands of the Inquisition would have been Conversos so lineage can be a difficult thing to establish.
1663: Birthdate of Cotton Mather the famous Puritan minister who wanted the Jews to convert to his brand of Christianity but who was not an anti-Semite willing to use secular power to bring this about.
1689: The Declaration of Rights which had been drawn by the Convention Parliament was finalized today. The Declaration created the legal fiction that would protect the rights of Protestants in England and pave the way for William and Mary to ascend to the throne. The latter event was in the best interest of England’s fledgling Jewish population.
1699: A committee consisting of António Gomes Serra, Menasseh Mendes, Alfonso Rodrigues, Manuel Nunez Miranda, Andrea Lopez, and Pontaleão Rodriguez signed a contract with Joseph Avis, a Quaker, for the construction of a building that would serve as a new synagogue in London at a cost of £2,750. Avis would later decline to collect his fee, on the ground that it was wrong to profit from building a house of God. In 1698 Rabbi David Nieto had taken charge of a congregation of Spanish and Portuguese Jews or Sephardim who met in a small synagogue in Creechurch Lane. A significant growth in the Jewish community had made it necessary to find larger quarters for the congregation. The result of this quest was this new construction which would eventually take place on a tract of land at Plough Yard in a section called Bevis Marks; hence the synagogue came to be known as the Bevis Marks Congreaton.
1753: Birthdate Bernhard Eskeles, the Viennese son-in-law of Daniel Itzig who established the banking house of Arnstein and Eskeles with his brother-in-law Nathan Arnstein and who provided financial guidance to “Emperors Joseph II and Francis II.”
1768: In Tuscany Emperor Leopold I and Maria Luisa of Spain gave birth to Frederick II, the last of the Holy Roman Emperors and Fredrick I, the first of the Emperors of Austria.
1737: Prince Carl Alexander, the duke of Württemberg, declared in a decree today "that the privy councillor of finance Joseph Süß Oppenheimer was a faithful servant of his prince and of the state, and was intent in every way upon the welfare of both, for which he deserved the thanks of all. Since instead he was persecuted by envy and ill-will to such an extent that attempts were even made to bring him into disfavor with the duke, the latter accorded him his especial protection and expressly forbade the continuation of such attacks." This was the Duke’s way of protecting Oppenheimer. The protection would end with the Duke’s death.
1762: In London, Hirschel Levin, the Chief Rabbi of London and his wife gave birth to Solomon Hirschell who served as Chief Rabbi of Great Britain from 1802 until his death in 1842.
1798(26th of Shevat, 5558): Johann Jacob Rabe, who translated both the Babylonian and Jersualem Talmuds into German passed away today.
1804: German philosopher Immanuel Kant passed away. Like many other philosophers of the Enlightenment Kant had less than positive things to say about the Jews. While this should not be the full measure of the man he did “note in a lecture on practical philosophy, ‘Every coward is a liar; Jews for example, not only in business, but also in common life.’" In “German Idealism and the Jew, Michael Mack, a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, argues there is a deep affinity between modern anti-Semitism and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, perhaps the greatest thinker to emerge from the Enlightenment.” According to Mack, “for Kant, motives could only be good if they were not aimed at any material benefit. He saw Judaism as an inherently materialist religion, based upon a quid pro quo between God and His chosen people. In order to fully define the formal structures of his philosophy (autonomy, reason, morality and freedom), Kant almost unconsciously fantasized about the Jews as it’s opposite. He posited Judaism as an abstract principle that does nothing else but, paradoxically, desire the consumption of material goods.”
1809: Birthdate of Charles Darwin, the naturalist who developed The Theory of Evolution. For the most part Jewish leaders have been able to harmonize Darwin with the Bible. One of the exceptions is Rabbi Moshe Feinstein who opposed the theory of evolution and issued rulings forbidding the reading of text on evolution
1809: Birthdate of Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States. Jews made up a comparatively miniscule part of the American population during the Age of Lincoln. When Lincoln was born there were approximately seven million people living the United States of whom approximately 2,000 were Jewish. By 1850, when Lincoln’s political career was extremely active, there were approximately 50,000 Jews living among a population of over 23 million Americans. In Illinois, the Jewish population could not have numbered much more than 200, most of whom lived in Illinois. By the time Lincoln was elected President, there were approximately 150,000 Jews living among 31,000,000 Americans. Of the 1,700,000 people living in “the Land of Lincoln,” approximately 1,500 were Jewish. Given these comparatively miniscule numbers, there was a surprising close connection between Lincoln and the Jewish people on both a personal and communal basis. At the personal level, Abraham Jonas of Quincy, Illinois, the brother of Joseph Jonas, the first Jewish settler of Cincinnati was one of Lincoln’s closest friends and earliest supporters. According to the City of Quincy Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, Jonas arrived in Quincy I838 and was the town’s first Jewish citizen. The friendship between Jonas and Lincoln began that same year and was to last for the next quarter of a century. Their personal bond was cemented by a politics when the two served together in the Illinois legislature during the 1840’s. Jonas and Lincoln were early members of the Republican Party and Jonas “handled arrangements for his friend’s arrival for the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate in Quincy.” Jonas and his law partner, Henry Asbury, may have been the first two to “float” Lincoln’s name as Presidential candidate. When Horace Greely, the powerful New York newspaper publisher spoke in Quincy in December of 1858, the two proposed that the eastern powerbroker might want to consider Lincoln as candidate for the top spot on the Republican ticket in 1860. Jonas did go to the Republican convention in 1860 where “he worked the floor to help secure the nomination” for his long time personal and political friend. Louis Naphtali Dembitz a twenty-eight year old lawyer, civic leader and prominent member of the Louisville, KY. Jewish community was one of the three delegates who placed Lincoln’s name in nomination at the Republican Convention held in Chicago. Dembitz was the uncle of Louis Dembitz Brandeis who was four at the time of the convention and who would become the first Jewish Justice to sit on the Supreme Court. Abraham Kohn, City Clerk of Chicago, was another Jew who was an early supporter of Lincoln and who worked at the Republican Convention to secure his nomination. After Lincoln’s nomination, Kohn gave him a flag that included the following verse from the Book of Joshua, “Be strong and of good courage; be not affrighted, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”
1815: Birthdate of Hermann Ottomar Friedrich Goedsche the anti-Semitic author who wrote under the pseudonym Sir. John Retcliffe.
1818: Bernardo O'Higgins signs the Independence of Chile near Concepción. According to the Virtual Jewis Library“The Inquisition was abolished with the establishment of Chilean independence in 1818. Many Jewish citizens or descendants of Converso families were involved in the country's struggle for independence, including General Jose Miguel Carrera, who traced his lineage back to Diego Garcia de Caceres. Carrera was nominated to be the first president of Chile, although Manuel Blanco Encalada actually became the Chilean leader. Diego Portales, father of the 1833 Chilean constitution, also claimed descent from Caceres. Many non-Jewish leaders of the revolution had close ties with Jewish individuals. The first president of the Republic of Chile, Bernard O'Higgins, spent time in the home of Juan Albano Peyreyra, possibly of Jewish ancestry.”
1826: Birthdate of German Chemist Moritz Traube whose work was sought after by many leading scientist of the time and whose marriage to Bertha Moll in 1855 produced chemist Wilhelm Traube and mineralogist Hermann Traube.
1829: Birthdate of Leonce Cohen, the Parisian musician who received the "Prix de Rome," in 1851 “and became soon afterward one of the violinists at the Thétre Italien at Paris.”
1837(8thof Adar I, 5597): Fifty-year old Karl Ludwig Börne the German author and political philosopher who had changed his name from Lion Baruch when he became a Lutheran, passed away today.
1842: Birthdate of Henri Jean Baptiste Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu author Les Juifs et l'Antisémitisme; Israël chez les Nationswhich was translated as Israel Among the Nations: A study of the Jews and Antisemitism by Frances Hellman and published by Putnam andL'Antisémitisme in 1897.
1849: An article published in Wetumpka Daily Standard published was critical of Judge Solomon Heydefeldt's plan to put an end to "unlimited slave immigration" in Alabama. Heydefeldt was no abolitionist. He was afraid that "the state would become impoverished through the uncontrolled 'dumping' of slaves in Alabama." His critic claimed that the Judge's plan would cause the price of slaves to soar and would deprive "the poor who hoped ... to become slave owners of any expectation of economic advancement.
1855: Birthdate of Yankev P. Adler, a native of the Russian Empire who, as Jacob Adler would gain fame as an actor and a star of the Yiddish Theatre in Odessa, London and New York City.
1855: Michigan State University was established. According to recent figures, MSU has 3,000 Jewish undergrads out of a total of 36,000 students and 500 Jewish grad students out of a total of 10,000 graduate students. MSU offers approximately 25 Jewish Studies courses as well as a Major in Jewish Studies. The university offers a study program in Israel and is home to a Hillel chapter.
1860(19thof Shevat, 5620): Seventy-one year old Isaac Baer Levinsohn, the Russian leader of the Haskalah whose seminal work was Bet Yehuda published in 1837, passed away today.
1862: After having been arrested and imprisoned at Warsaw in November, 1861 for activities construed supportive of the Polish Revolution, Talmudist Marcus Jastrow was released because he was a Prussian after which he was deported.
1864: During the Civil War, "the Confederate Congress voted in secret to create "bodies for the capture destruction of the enemies' property." Officially known as the Bureau of Special and Secret Service, the unit was funded by the Department of State which was headed by Judah P. Benjamin who now "took on the most dangerous assignment Jefferson Davis had given him, that of spymaster."
1870: Women gained the right to vote in Utah Territory. At this time, the Watters family, Ichel and his new bride Augusta were active members of the community. According to one account, “Augusta thrived on the challenge of frontier life, becoming a hardy pioneer and eventually a mainstay of the Salt Lake City Jewish Community.
1873(15thof Shevat, 5633): Tu B’Shevat
1874: The Young Ladies’ Charitable Union is scheduled to host a fund raiser at the Lyceum Theatre for the Home for Aged Hebrews.
1877: It was reported today that the Ottoman government “will not press its condition regarding the treat of the Jews of Serbia.” [Editor’s note: This has little to do with the Jews and everything to do with the Great Powers jockeying for control over the Ottoman Empire. In an attempt to discredit the Constantinople Conference at which the great powers began slicing up the European portions of the empire, the Turks announced the adoption of a constitution that included a declaration of equal rights for all religious minorities in the Islamic Empire. This brief statement, which proved to be true, was the Porte’s way of saying that the Christians of Serbia would not have to grant equal rights to the Jews which the Sultan hoped would be a way of guaranteeing Serbian loyalty.]
1880(30th of Shevat, 5640): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1882: It was reported today that the Times of London has published an article written by a mysterious Russian woman known as “O.K.” in tone that offers an apology for the treatment of the Jews living in Russia. The veracity of this author is questionable since she also extols the virtues of Siberia which she described as a land of promise which will soon be over-run by Russian emigrants seeking to live there.
1883: The United States State Department sought Adolphus Simeon Solomons’ advice and assistance regarding the distribution of charity funds to Americans in Ottoman Palestine. Solomons was as a Sephardic Jew born in New York in 1826 who moved to Washington, DC where he made several influential friends and was important enough to have been offered the position of Governor of the District of Columbia by President U.S. Grant. Solomons did not accept the offer.
1884(16th of Shevat): German author and religious reformer Aaron Bernstein passed away
1884: Birthdate of Max Beckmann, German-born post-modernist painter
1885: Birthdate of vicious anti-Semite Julius Streicher, the Nazi leader who created such publications as Der Strumer
1886: Ha-Yom, the first Hebrew daily newspaper was published in St. Petersburg
1890: A summary of the activities of the United Hebrew Charities for the month of January published today described the aid given to 963 families containing 4.4042 members for the month.
1890: “Among the East Side Hebrew Poor” published today described a meeting at Temple Beth-El attended by a large number of young Jews as well as prominent leaders including Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler and Mark Ash of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association where “plans were formulated “ to create an organization to aid the Jews living “on the east side between 42nd and 86thStreets and from Fifth Avenue to the River.”
1890: It was reported today that Rudolph Grossman, the assistant Rabbi at Temple Beth El has been elected president of newly form organization designed to bring aid to the poor Jews of the East Side from their wealthier coreligionists. Charles S. August has been elected Secretary.
1892: As New York public health officials start to deal with an outbreak of typhus it was reported that some of the first victims were fifty-seven Jewish men, women and children who had been “driven out of Russia” who finally made their way to Marseilles where they board the SS Massilia. They arrived in New York after twenty nine days at sea. These public health officials connect the outbreak of typhus with conditions aboard the ship and debilitated conditions of the immigrant passengers.
1893: It was reported today that at the University of Pennsylvania, Professor Jastrow has begun teaching a special course in Hebrew designed primarily for (Protestant) clergyman. (Editor’s note: Professor Jastrow is Morris Jastrow, Jr., who the librarian-in-chief at the school and the son of Marcus Jastrow, the rabbi at Philadelphia’s Rodeph Shalom.)
1893: “Priests and Pigeons” published today described a humorous episode during a Sunday school lesson being taught to youngsters about Haggai and Zachariah.
1893: “Interesting News From Other Schools And Colleges” published today described newly created Harvard Semitic Museum which included Hebrew “rolls of the law and rolls of the prophets” as well as “some translation of the Hebrew Bible into Arabic.
1894: Sixty-four year old musical leader and reputed anti-Semite Hans von Bulow passed away today
1894: “Ingersoll Praised and Censured” published today summarized the disagreement that Rabbi Joseph Silverman has with agnostic Robert Ingersoll over the latter’s views on Moses. Silverman does not blame Ingersoll for his mischaracterization of the Jewish sage because “The spirit of the Hebrew Scriptures can never be translated. A man, to read the Bible rightly must hot only understand the language in which it was written, but he must know the customs and traits of the people.”
1895: The Purim Association will sponsor a performance of Verdi’s “Falstaff” at the Metropolitan Opera House. The associated has been sponsored an event like this each at Purim time since 1868. Since 1874 each of these events has raised on the average of $15,000 in net proceeds which go to a variety of charities including Mt. Sinai Hospital, the Montefiore Home and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1895: The district of B’nai B’rth that includes the states of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia opened its annual convention in Atlanta, GA today.
1896: Herzl writes a "Literary Testament".
1897: During today’s dedication of the new building belong to the Hebrew Technical Institute; Joseph B. Bloomingdale presented the key to the building to James H. Hoffman, President of the Institute.
1897: In the course of his talk at the dedication exercise of the Hebrew Technical Institute, Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt explained that he had a duty to see to it that Herr Alwardt, the German anti-Semite could speak publicly and that he was fully protected by the police. To that end, Roosevelt “selected a cordon of forty officers to preserve the peace, and they were all Hebrews, and what is more, they did preserve the peace.” (Editor’s Note: This year, an episode of “Blue Bloods” a television show featuring Tom Sellick as the NYC Police Commissioner drew on this event to resolve part of it plot line.)
1897: Birthdate of Louis "Lepke" Buchalter. Known as "Czar Lepke," Buchalter was a product of the Brooklyn underworld. During the 1920's he formed the notorious gang called "Murder Incorporated." The gang specialized in the protection racket. They began with furriers and leather goods and eventually branched out into the entire garment industry. During the 1930's, Murder Incorporated was being a small fortune by the movie studios in Hollywood. Lepke's two decade long reign of terror came to an end when Thomas Dewey went after a variety of gangsters during the late 1930's and 1940's. Lepke was convicted of murder and electrocuted in March, 1944. Yes, there were other Jewish gangsters. But they were a small part of the Jewish population and their criminal activities were never a source of pride.
1897: It was reported today that Secretary Edward T. Devine has said that “The Department of Charities finds no material increase of destitution this year…except among the” Jews because so many of them worked in the garment making industry which is in a slump. The Department sends all of the “destitute” Jews to the United Hebrew Charities which takes care of them. (These comments came during a debate about the advisability of providing free food to the poor, something Devine and others opposed)
1897: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil of Temple Emanu-El delivered the opening prayer at today’s dedication of the new building that will be part of the Hebrew Technical Institute on Stuyvesant Street.
1898: Professor C.H. Toy delivered the second in a series of lectures on “The Dawn of Literature” entitled “The Dawn of Literature in Babylonia and Egypt” which included numerous comparisons between these two cultures and the literature created by the Jews that is preserved in the Bible.
1899: Among the bills introduced in the New York State Legislature seeking tax exemptions was one brought forward by Mr. Sanders, “exempting the real estate now owned or which may hereafter be acquired by the Beth Israel Hospital Association in the City of New Yorkk”
1901: Herzl meets Lady Battersea, Rothschild's cousin in the apartment of Israel Zangwil.
1903(15thof Shevat, 5663): Tu B’Shevat
1909: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded. Henry Moskowitz a Jewish physician, and civil rights activist, was one of the six co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Jewish attorney Jack Greenberg played a prominent role in one of the most famous moments in the history of the N.A.A.C.P. He was Assistant Counsel from 1949 to 1961 for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and then, from 1961 to 1984, he succeeded Thurgood Marshall as Director Counsel. Greenberg was one of the attorneys who argued Brown v. Board of Education before the United States Supreme Court as co-counsel for the plaintiffs with Thurgood Marshall.
1912: Arrangements were made today by the family of Washington Seligman to move his body from the Hotel Grand where he had shot himself to Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue.
1912(24thof Shevat, 5672): Louis Heilprin, the Hungarian born historian and encyclopedia editor who was a follower of Lajos Kossuth passed away. He was part of an intellectual family including his brother Angelo, his grandfather Pinchas and his father Michael who was an editor for the American Cyclopedia and a contributor to The Nation.
1915: Birthdate of Canadian actor Lorne Greene. Greene’s most famous role was that Ben “Pa” Cartwright on Bonanza. Considering the fact that Little Joe was also played by a Jewish actor, half of America’s favorite cowboy family were MOT- “The Ponderosa” as western homeland for the Jews.
1915: Joseph Zimmerman was award the Pell Gold Medal for the student who ranks highest in all the studies of the year and the Prager Memorial Prize for the student who ranks highest in the senior year at today’s commencement exercise for the College of the City of New York today.
1915: A list of contributors to the American Jewish Relief Committee published today included the Jewish Charities of Cleveland, Ohio, Calgary J.R.C., Lafayette Indiana Orthodox Jews, and the Young Russian Friends Association.
1916: Birthdate of Dutch born actor Max Geldray. Born in Holland and living in France and touring under such names as "Mac Geldray and his Mouth-Accordion Band", Van Gelder fled to England during the early days of WWII and was injured participating in the Normandy landings in 1944. Tragically, his sister died in a concentration camp during the war. After the war Geldray continued his career as a jazz harmonica player. He was part of the original cast of the 1950's radio show The Goon Show sharing the stage with Peter Sellers. He stayed on the show for its entire run of nine years. Afterwards, he retired to California, playing at gigs in Reno and Los Angeles, later volunteering at the Betty Ford Center and similar institutions. He passed away in 2004.
1918: In New York City, Belle (née Rosenfeld) and Benjamin Schwinger, a garment manufacturer, gave birth to Nobel Prize winning American theoretical physicist Julian Seymour Schwinger
1922: Achille Ratti is formally installed as Pope Pius XI. Early in his papacy, Pius did sign concordats with various fascist governments. But he must have had a change of heart. By the time he died he spoken out against fascism and racism and called for measures to protect Jews.
1923: Twenty-five year old Gene Barry (born Eugene Klass) married Betty Claire Kalb
1924: George Gershwin's ''Rhapsody in Blue'' premiered in New York City.
1924: George Kaufman's "Beggar on Horseback" premiered in New York City.
1924: The Eveready Hour was the first commercially sponsored variety program in the history of broadcasting which featured repeated appearances by conductor Nathanial Shilkret on WEAF Radio in New York.
1925:”The Estonian government passed a law pertaining to the cultural autonomy of minority peoples. This was a logical step forward in the national policies of the Estonian Republic. The Jewish community quickly prepared its application for cultural autonomy. Statistics on Jewish citizens were compiled. They totaled 3,045, fulfilling the minimum requirement of 3000 for cultural autonomy. In June 1926 the Jewish Cultural Council was elected and Jewish cultural autonomy was declared. The administrative organ of this autonomy was the Board of Jewish Culture, headed by Hirsch Aisenstadt until it was disbanded in 1940.”
1925: After arriving in New York yesterday, Dr. Chaim Weizmann reports on the vibrant condition of the economy in Palestine and of “the numerous business opportunities of which Americans may take advantage.” Weizmann said that while in the United States he will be seeking a loan of $2,000,000 at seven per cent interest designed to pay for development in Tel Aviv and four large near-by settlements. The government in Palestine had already given its approval for Weizmann to try and raise the funds.
1926(28thof Shevat, 5686): Fifty-six year old René Worms, a scion of the distinguished French family whose accomplishments including the establishment of the"Revue Internationale de Sociologie”, the "Bibliothèque Sociologique Internationale," the Institut International de Sociologie and the Société de Sociologie de Paris which earned him being named a chevalier of the Legion of Honor, passed away today.
1929: “The Christian and the Moslem communities of Palestine were urged to lend their best cooperation to the efforts of the Jewish people in the rebuilding of the Holy Land by John Haynes Homes, pastor of the New York Community church, was the guest of honor at a reception given to him today by the municipality of Tel Aviv at City Hall.
1929: Birthdate of Gyorgy Braun, the native of Mateszalka, Hungary, who survived the Holocaust and made a new life for himself in Los Angeles as George Brown
1930: Birthdate of Arlen Specter, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. During the twentieth century, most Jewish office holders were Democrats. Specter was unusual because he rose to prominence as a Republican. Today, there are a record number of Jews serving in the U.S. Senate. For most Americans, Jewish public officials are such an accepted fact of life that both Senators from California are Jewish. And places like Minnesota, hardly a state with a large bloc of Jewish voters, elect Jews to Congress (As reported by Peter Jackson)
1932: Birthdate of economist and author Julian Simon.
1932: Birthdate of pianist Jerome Lowenthal.
1935: The first Palestine-owned ships of modern times will start service here today, restoring to the Jewish people a profession in which they have had little part since the ancient Phoenicians. Two new ships Mount Zion and Tel Aviv sail between Palestine, Constananza and Trieste. While the ships are of “British naval design” they will have Jewish skippers and crews.
1936: Birthdate of American actor Paul Shenar described as being of Turkish and Jewish ancestry. Count this as a maybe.
1936(19th of Shevat): Yiddish historian and journalist Peter Wiernik passed away
1936: Birthdate of Binyamin Fuad Ben-Eliezer, a native of Iraq who made Aliyah in 1950. He served in the IDF from 1954 through 1984 and then entered into a successful political career that included service as the Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister.
1937: U.S. Premiere of “On the Avenue,” with a story and songs by Irving Berlin and Samuel Pokrass, co-starring the Ritz Brothers.
1937: Wilhelm Zoellner resigned as head of the Confessing Church “after the Gestapo had denied him the right to visit some imprisoned pastors.”
1938: German troops entered Austria in an event known as the Anschluss. After the war, Austrians tried to present themselves as the first victims of the Nazis. The cheering crowds that greeted Hitler at that time tell a different story. The Austrians were quick to adopt the German attitude toward Austrian Jews.
1938: Birthdate of author Judy Blume. “Her most famous book, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; focused on an 11-year-old girl being brought up by Jewish and non-Jewish parents, and the difficulties she faced in trying to decide which religion to follow.” Blume grew up with two Jewish parents in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
1938: Hitler met with Chancellor Schuschinigg of Austria, claiming that the acts of Austria were treasonous. Hitler put forth extreme written demands designed to make way for Nazism in Austria. Hitler threatened to end a civil relationship between their two countries.
1939: Birthdate of Leon Richard Kass the Chicago born son of “Yiddish speaking, secular, socialist” Jewish immigrants whose exciting life has included everything from Civil Rights Summer with his wife Amy Apfel to serving as chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics during the George Bush’s first term in the White House.
1940: The British War Cabinet discussed the 1939 White Paper to limit Jewish land purchase in Palestine. Despite a protest from Churchill, the land limitation regulations would be put into force.
1941: The Nazis established the JewishCouncil for Amsterdam under Abraham Asscher, prominent Amsterdam businessman and David Cohen, a professor of ancient history at the Municipal University of Amsterdam.
1941: In Amsterdam, German soldiers, assisted by Dutch police, encircled the old Jewish neighborhood and cordoned it off from the rest of the city by putting up barbed wire, opening bridges and putting in police checkpoints which meant that this neighborhood was now forbidden for non-Jews effectively making it a Ghetto.
1941: Occupation Police arrested the "Jewish Foursome"1942(25th of Shevat, 5702): The Nazis rounded up and murdered 3,000 Jews in the Ukrainian town of Brailov. The Jewish community in the Shtetel of Brailov can be traced back at least to the start of the 17th century. After the war Brailov was the subject of a 52-minute documentary called “Judenfrei: A Shtetl Without Jews.”
1942: Birthdate of Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel.
1942(25th of Shevat, 5702): Avraham Stern was killed after being captured by British authorities in Tel Aviv. Stern was the leader of Lechia Hebrew acronym for Lohamei Cherut Israel, "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel", לח"י - לוחמי חירות ישראל) also known as the Stern Gang. The Polish born Stern had become progressively more violent as he moved from the Haganah, to the Irgun, to his own Stern Gang. Stern reportedly approached the German and Italian regimes offering to swap helping them in defeating the British for the creation of a Jewish state. Needless to say, the leaders of the Yishuv disowned Stern and his gang, labeling them as terrorists operating in a way unacceptable to the Jewish community. 1943: Aizik Feder smuggled a letter out of Drancy, France, to his wife. "Tomorrow I am leaving. . . Courage! Courage! Courage!" The next day he is one of 1,000 Jews sent to Auschwitz. He and 311 others were tattooed with a number. The rest were killed. Only 20 of the 311 would survive the war.
1944: Incendiary bombs that exploded simultaneously in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv tonight damaged immigration offices in all three cities. The bombings were thought to be the work of those who sought to destroy the buildings where the anti-Jewish immigration policies are given practical application. “Responsible Jewish” leaders expressed their disapproval of the “criminal methods of fighting the immigration issue.”
1947(22nd of Shevat, 5707): Dr. Kurt Lewin, German born social psychologist, passed away. A believer in Gestalt psychology, Lewin, a veteran of the Kaiser’s Army, came to United States in 1933 and became a U.S. citizen in 1940.
1947(22nd of Shevat, 5707): Moses Gomberg passed away. Born in Russia, he was educated in the United States and became a chemistry professor at the University of Michigan. “In 1896–1897 he took a year's leave to work as a postdoctoral researcher with Baeyer and Thiele in Munich and with Victor Meyer in Heidelberg, where he successfully prepared the long-elusive tetraphenylmethane.”
1949: An unidentified aircraft bombed Jerusalem. Based on various sources the plane might have been Egyptian or British.
1950: Albert Einstein warned against the building of the hydrogen bomb.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that 20 persons were injured in the course of a Communist demonstration held in Tel Aviv by the Israel-USSR Friendship League. Skirmishes broke out, outside the previously bombed Soviet Legation, between Communists and Israelis outraged by the recent vicious anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli Soviet campaign. The Soviet Ambassador, Mr. Pavel Yershov, received Mr. S. Mikunis and Dr. Moshe Sneh, in the presence of reporters, an unusual diplomatic occurrence. Israeli police arrested 27 persons in connection with the bombing of the Soviet Legation. Moscow radio accused Israeli police of a "clear connivance" in the bombing.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that in his address to UN officers, Syrian Colonel Ghassan Shabib, a senior Israeli-Syrian Mixed Armistice Commission delegate had declared, "This country has no room for both peoples. There should be either Jews or Arabs."
1956: Birthdate of Paula Zahn, CNN news anchor
1956(30thof Shevat, 5716): Forty-six year old German born Israeli journalist Ezriel Carlebach died of a heart attack. There is no way that this blog can do just to the fascinating life of this man, whom if you did not know he was real, would swear that Ian Fleming or David Baldacci, had created for one of their novels.
1964: The Beatles performed at a sold-out concert in Carnegie Hall arranged by impresario Sid Bernstein who repeated the same success later with the Rolling Stones.
1966: Birthdate of Mario Javier Saban, the native of Buenos Aires who “who is descended from Spanish Jews who took refuge in the Ottoman Empire” and is the author of the best-selling Converted Jews.
1969(24thof Shevat, 5729): Sixty-one year old James Joseph Packman, the native of Biala who came to the United States in 1910 and carved out a career as a “banker, journalist and publicist passed away today.
1969: In Brooklyn, public school teachers Charlotte and Abraham Aronofsky, who are Conservative Jews of Ukrainian Jewish descent gave birth to film director Darren Aronofsky
1973(10th of Adar I, 5733): British composer Benjamin Frankel passed away at the age of 67. Born to Polish parents who had moved to England, the first major work to bring Frankel to wider public attention was the Violin Concerto dedicated " In memory of the six million'", a reference to the Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that the US Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, called on Israel to cease all settlement activities in the administered areas and dismantle the existing ones in the Rafiah salient.
1979(15thof Shevat, 5739): Tu B’Shevat
1980(25th of Shevat, 5740):Muriel Rukeyser, poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism, passed away. “Her poem To be a Jew in the Twentieth Century(1944), on the theme of Judaism as a gift, was adopted by the American Reform and Reconstructionist movements for their prayer books, something Rukeyser said ‘astonished’ her, as she had remained distant from Judaism throughout her early life.”
1982: U.S. premiere of “Making Love,” “one of the earliest films to deal with homosexuality” directed by Arthur Hiller, co-produced by Daniel Melnick with a story by A. Scott Berg.
1986: After spending eight years in Soviet prisons and labor camps, human rights activist Anatoly Scharansky was released. The amnesty deal was arranged by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan at a summit meeting three months earlier. Scharansky was imprisoned for his campaign to win the right for Russian Jews, officially forbidden to practice Judaism, to emigrate from the USSR. Convicted of treason and agitation, Soviet authorities also labeled him an American spy. After his release, he immigrated to Israel, where he was given a hero's welcome. Later, as a member of Israel's parliament, he was an outspoken defender of Russian Jews.
1990: Vanities on the Bonfire published today described the fall from financial grace of Peter Cohen, Chairman of Shearson Lehman Hutton.
1990: In the following article entitled “As Jerusalem Labors to Settle Soviet Jews, Native Israelis Slip Quietly Away,” Joel Brinkley describes Israel’s attempts to deal with the challenge of Yoradim.
1991: In the early morning hours Iraq carried out its 13th Scud attack. The Scud was hit by the Patriot over a populated section of Tel Aviv and flaming missile parts slammed into the city. At least seven people were lightly injured. The Army reported extensive damage to houses and businesses. Rescue workers, firemen and ambulance crews rushed to the scene and set up barricades to keep curious neighbors away from the damaged area. The light injuries were typical of those sustained by hundreds of Israelis in three weeks of Scud missile attacks by Iraq. Most people have been hurt by shrapnel, flying glass, falling furniture or shock. One man was killed when his house collapsed during an early Scud attack, and three elderly Israelis died of heart failure during another assault
1991: The first Lincoln Prize, funded by Lewis Lehrman, was awarded today to “film-maker Ken Burns for his Civil War Series on PBS” that was narrated by Shelby Foote. (Lehrman and Foote were Jewish; Burns was not)
1991: The Knesset passed a law whereby a Knesset member who changed political parties while still able to serve and vote in the Knesset itself, could not be made a Minister or a deputy minister and could not be promised a seat in the next Knesset.
1993: U.S. premiere of “Groundhog Day,” the classic comedy directed by Harold Ramis who also co-authored the script.
1994(1stof Adar, 5754): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1998: Yehuda Lev writes about “The Truth About the Media and Jews.”
2002(30thof Shevat, 5762): Rosh Chodesh Adar
2002(30thof Shevat, 5672): One hundred eleven year old Theresa Bernstein, the Krakow native who became a leading American artist passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
2004: Mattel announced the split of Barbie and Ken. Barbie and Ken were named for the children of Jewish businesswoman Ruth Handler, the guiding light behind Mattel who gave the world these iconic toys.
2006: Professional Indian-Jewish cricketer played for Saurashtra in their match against Maharashtra
2006: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Lovers & Players by Jackie Collins (Jewish father, Anglican mother)
2007: Bar-Ilan University is resisting pressure to fire history professor Ariel Toaff for writing a book arguing that there is a factual basis to some of the blood libels against the Jews in Europe in the Middle Ages, university president Moshe Kaveh's media consultant said today.
2008: The 12th New York Sephardic Jewish Festival continues with showings “Italian Jewish History & Identity,” two programs of documentaries, television shorts, and fiction films exploring little-known aspects of Italian Jewish history and identity presented by Centro Primo Levi
2008:James L. Kugel, a professor of Hebrew at Harvard University from 1982 to 2003, discusses How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now at the D.C. Jewish Community Center.
2008: The social component of the Oscar award season kicked off for Beaufort with a screening and reception sponsored by the Israeli consulate and the entertainment division of the Jewish Federation.
2008: The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission voted this afternoon to designate as a landmark what is believed to be the oldest structure in Queens built as a synagogue. Estée Lauder once worshiped there, and Madonna once lived at a former yeshiva nearby. The synagogue, Congregation Tifereth Israel, at 109-18 54th Avenue in Corona, was built in 1911, when only 20,000 or so of New York’s 1.5 million Jews lived in Queens, according to a report by Kathryn E. Horak, a researcher at the commission. Designed by Crescent L. Varrone, the two-story, wood-frame synagogue combined Gothic and Moorish design with Judaic ornament: pointed-arched windows, a roundel with a Star of David in colored glass, and a gabled parapet. The original wood stoop and railing have been replaced with a brick porch with an iron railing, and the wood clapboard siding has been covered with stucco. The congregation, established in 1906 or 1907, primarily served Jews who had moved to Queens from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and its design mimicked that of synagogues in the neighborhood, which had been shoehorned into narrow tenement lots, similar in scale and material to neighboring tenements and commercial buildings, and featured symmetrical tripartite facades, with a central entrance and corner towers. According to Ms. Horak, there were two Jewish neighborhoods in Corona in the early part of the 20th century: an older and poorer one along Corona Avenue, where Jews managed shirtwaist factories, and a newer and more prosperous one along Northern Boulevard. Josephine Esther Mentzer, later known as Estée Lauder, the cosmetics pioneer who died in 2004 at age 97, was a member of Congregation Tifereth Israel as a young woman. An affiliated yeshiva, on 53rd Avenue, closed in the 1970s and was converted into a residence and music studio; Madonna lived there from 1979 to 1980. The synagogue continued to be used by a dwindling number of congregants until the 1990s, but fell into a state of disrepair, although a small community of Bukharan Jews from the former Soviet Union began meeting there in the mid-1990s. In 2002, the synagogue was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Estée Lauder once worshiped at Tifereth Israel and Madonna once lived at a former yeshiva nearby.
2009: The American Friends of Tel Aviv University present a lecture by Professor Asher Susser, one of Israel's foremost policy analysts and a director of Tel Aviv University's Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies entitled "After the Vote: What's Next for Israel?"
2009: Eric Weissberg joined the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College orchestra and chorus, along with the Riverside Inspirational Choir and NYC Labor Choir, in honoring Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday at the Riverside Church in New York City. Under the direction of Maurice Peress, they performed Earl Robinson's "The Lonesome Train: A Music Legend for Actors, Folk Singers, Choirs, and Orchestra" in which Weissberg was the banjo player
2009: By a voice vote, the New York State Senate confirmed the appointment of Jonathan Lippman as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals.
2009:One Hundred Years Ago today, WEB Dubois, Julius Rosenthal, Lillian Wald, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, Stephen Wise and Henry Malkewitz formed the NAACP
2010: The Winter Olympics are scheduled to open in Vancouver, Canada. Israel will field a team of three in Vancouver: Mykhaylo Renzyhn, an alpine skier originally from Latvia, and the brother-sister duo Alexandra and Roman Zaretsky, born in Belarus, who compete in ice dancing. Chicago native Ben Agosto, a 2006 Olympic silver medalist, is returning to compete in the ice-dancing pairs. Steve Mesler, a bobsledder from Buffalo, N.Y., is back for his third Olympics. Laura Spector, 22, had qualified for the U.S. Olympic biathlon team that will be competing this month in Vancouver.
2010: Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim an exhibition featuring the work of Tel Aviv native Dror Benshtrit is scheduled to open at the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
2010:The Israel Defense Forces thwarted an attempted stabbing attack by a Palestinian in Hebron today.
2010: IDF soldiers opened artillery and gun fire on a group of four Palestinians rigging explosives near the Gaza border.
2010: Anders Hogstrom was arrested today in Stockholm for allegedly ordering the theft of the metal sign reading “Arbeit macht frei” from the front gate at Auschwitz. He was reportedly acting as angent for an unnamed British Nazi sympathizer who wanted to own the sign.
2010(1 Adar, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Adar
2010(1 Adar, 5770): Seventy-one year old Allan Kornblum, who helped steer the F.B.I. into the post-J. Edgar Hoover era by drafting guidelines for its surveillance operations in the 1970s, and whose testimony helped convict the murderer of a black man in a celebrated civil rights case revived nearly 40 years after the event, died today in Gainesville, Fla. (As reported by Patricia Sullivan)
2010: The Art Market Monitor reported that The Jewish Museum in New York went shopping in London last week, where it bought a 1913 painting by Vuillard at Christie’s. The museum paid $464,430 for the painting, well above its $288,554 high estimate. The money was provided by a patron who wishes to remain anonymous.
2011:The Matchmaker, “enchanting coming-of-age drama that tells the story of a relationship between an Israeli teen and a Holocaust survivor who makes ends meet by brokering marriages and has been nominated for 7 Israeli Academy Awards, including Best Film, is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.
2011: “The Yankles” and “Army of Crime” are scheduled to be shown at the 21st Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.
2011:Egypt's ruling military reassured its international allies today that there would be no break in its peace deal with Israel following the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak
2011(8th of Adar I, 5771): Ninety-six year Sofia Cosma the concert pianist who survived the Gulag, passed away today.
2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “All The Time In The World: New and Selected Stories” by E. L. Doctorow.
2012: “Ahead of Time” and “Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray” are scheduled to be shown at the Athens Jewish Film Festival in Athens, GA.
2012: As we celebrate the 203rd anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, Edmon Rodman, has suggested that we take some time to remember Alfred W. Stern a Jewish clothing manufacturing executive who was “one of the greatest private collectors of works about Abraham Lincoln. (As reported by Edmon J. Rodman for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
2012:A man was killed and three others were injured in an attack by the Israeli Air Force on tunnels and a weapons depot in the Gaza Strip today.
2012:The Israel Air Force may stop the production of the Iron Dome and David Sling missile interception systems in 2012 as a result of insufficient funds, a military budget breakdown revealed today.
2013: A multi week-course entitled “The Supreme Court in the Age of Holmes and Brandeis” is scheduled to begin this afternoon. How the scion of a prominent New England family and Kentucky-born son of Jewish immigrants came to make common bond on the High Court should make for a fascinating trip through the legal and social history of the United States.
2013: “The Final Journey of King Herod the Great” is scheduled to open today at the Israel Museum. (As reported by Jessica Steinberg)
2013: Prisoner X,” who hanged himself in an Israeli jail in 2010, was an Australian citizen who worked for the Mossad but apparently committed a heinous crime, perhaps treason, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported today.
2013: Emergency services were in Jerusalem were placed on high alert today due to intelligence reports of a terror threat to the capital.
2014: The Center For Jewish History is scheduled to present “Threshold to the Sacred: The Ark Door of Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue.”
2014: “Zaytoun” and “Aftermath” are scheduled to be shown at the 14th Annual Jewish Film Festival at the David Posnack Jewish Community Center
2014: “The Eleventh Day – The Survivors of Munich 1972” – a documentary in which the seven Israeli Olympians who survived the massacre tell their own story – is scheduled to be shown at San Diego’s Jewish Film Festival.
2014: “Some of France’s most esteemed culinary artists, including the head chef at the official residence of the French president, are scheduled to join the kitchens of some of Israel’s most popular restaurants, from Haifa to Beersheva, for a week of special menus and fusion cuisine.”
2014: One hundred fifth anniversary of the founding the NAACP, America’s leading Civil Rights organization whose founding 6 members included Dr. Henry Moskowitz
2014:’Israeli pairs skaters Evgeni Krasnopolsky and Andrea Davidovich finished the free skate finals in 15th place in the Sochi Winter Olympics today.”
2014(12thof Adar I, 5774): Ninety-one year old comedian and early giant of live nighttime television Sid Caesar passed away today.
2014(12thof Adar I 5774): Eighty-four year old New York real estate developer William Zeckendor, Jr. passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
2015: In Skokie, Illinois, Lyric Opera Orchestra is scheduled to perform chamber music by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, composer of The Passenger at Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center
2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host the Commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz which was re-scheduled from January 27.
2015: The Legacy Council at the Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “The History of Matchmaking in the Jewish Community” with Dr. Ruth Westheimer
2015: The Skirball Center is scheduled to host a Night of Israeli Cinema.
2015: Observance of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, the 16th President of the United States who is the subject of the soon to be published Lincoln and the Jews: A History by Jonathan Sarna and Benjamin Shapell which should be as informative and interesting as Sarna’s previous Civil War efforts Jews and the Civil War and When Grant Expelled the Jews.