February 14
842: Charles the Bald and Louis the German swear the Oaths of Strasbourg in the French and German languages. The two monarchs were grandsons of Charlemagne making them cousins. Charles, like the other Carolingian monarchs he refused to enforce the anti-Jewish decrees promulgated by the Church. This was a matter of economic reality; not a an example of philo-Jewishness.
1014: Henry II who was already King of Germany and King of Italy was crowned as Emperor of the Holy Roman Emperor. The first serious persecution of the Jew in Germany began at the start of the 11th century under the reign of Henry. Among other things, Henry issued a decree expelling the Jews from Mayence because they refused to be baptized. Some of Henry’s enmity towards the Jews may be traced back to the conversion of Wecelinus, the chaplain to Duke Conrad to Judaism. Conrad was a relative of Henry’s and Christian nobility did not take kindly to such changes. The poet Simon ben Isaac and Gershom ben Judah both composed dirges to mark this sad turn of events.
1076: Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor. This dispute between Pope and Royal Ruler was one of many struggles that ranged between Princes of the Church and Temporal Princes for political power. This one did not involve the Jews but it did affect them. For his time, Henry treated his Jewish subjects well. He challenged the anti-Semitism of the many church officials by claiming his Jewish subjects as “belonging to our Chamber.” In other words they came under his jurisdiction and protection. Seeing the economic benefit of allowing the Jews to play an active role in his realm, Henry exempted the Jews from “custom duties in imperial towns and they enjoyed trade and travel privileges throughout his empire.” History may remember the penitent Henry shivering in the snows outside the Papal Palace. For the Jews, he is was a bright beacon in world growing ever darker under the menace of crusader mobs.
1130: “The Jewish Cardinal” Pietro Pierleone was elected Pope under the name of Anacletus II. The Church counts him as one of the anti-popes. According to at least one source, Anacletus II was a member of one of the most powerful and wealthiest senatorial families in Rome. At the same time, the family was reported to have Jewish roots and had supposedly amassed its fortune through money lending. Apparently the Church’s difficulty in knowing how to deal with Jewish converts was not just a 20th century phenomenon.
1349: In Strasbourg, a riot ensued in the town after corn prices fell. The Jews were accused (despite the protests of the city council) of a conspiracy. The entire Jewish population (2000) were dragged to the cemetery and burned to death. Only those who accepted Christianity were allowed to live. A new council was elected which voted that Jews could not return for 100 years and their property and possessions were divided among the burghers. Twenty years later, the Jews were readmitted.
1546: Three days before his death, Martin Luther preached his final sermon. “The subject of his final sermon…is ‘obdurate Jews’ and the urgency of expelling them all from German lands. According to Martin Luther, ‘we want to practice Christian love toward them and pray that they convert, [but they are] our public enemies ... and if they could kill us all, they would gladly do so. And so often they do.’ Thus the expulsion or even killing of Jews can be viewed by Christians as form of self-dense. This is exactly the excuse given by anti-Semites in Europe for centuries to come…”
1556: Thomas Cranmer who named Archbishop of Canterbury by Henry VIII was condemned as a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church. Whatever his difference with Rome, Cranmer took a pretty traditional view of things when it came to Jews. Citing St. Augustine, Cranmer declared that even if “Jews…do good works” like clothing the naked, feeding the poor and performing “other good works of mercy” they will be lost because they do not believe in Jesus.
1623: Moshe Zacut who is buried in the Portuguese cemetery in Altona and who may have been the father of Rabbi Moshe Zacut known as the “Remez” passed away today.
1667: The end of the practice known as “Black Monday.” Prior to this date, the Jews of Rome had been subjected to a humiliating medieval practice of running a race in the Roman carnivals, scantily clad, amid insults and blows. This practice of "Black Monday" named for the day of the week during the Carnival Season on which it took place was not practiced after 1667.
1670: Leopold I ordered Jews to be expelled from Vienna within a few months. Although Leopold was reluctant to lose the large amount of taxes (50,000 Florins) paid by the Jews, he was persuaded to do so by his wife Margaret, the daughter of the Phillip IV Spanish Regent, and a strong follower of the Jesuits Margaret blamed the death of her firstborn on the tolerance shown to the Jews.
1674: Barbados passed a law granting the Jewish community the permission they requested. In the 1660's the Jewish community of Barbados became established and of considerable importance. The Jewish community, however, had a decided disadvantage in that their testimony was not admissible in court cases due to their refusal to take an oath on a Christian Bible. In October 1669 the Jewish community presented the king a petition requesting permission to take be able to take oaths on the Five Books of Moses, the Jewish Bible’
1685(10th of Adar): Rabbi Joseph Chajes of Lemberg, author Ben Porot Yosef passed away today.
1727: Benedict XIII issued Emanavit nuper, a Papal Bull, dealing with “the necessary conditions for imposing Baptism on a Jew.”
1743: Henry Pelham, a member of the Whigs, became British Prime Minister. In 1753 Pelham “brought in the Jew Bill of 1753, which allowed Jews to become naturalized by application to Parliament.” The House of Lords approved the bill. But the Tories in the House of Commons tried to defeat it claiming it was “an abandonment of Christianity.” However Pelham and the Whigs prevailed and the bill passed and then was approved by the crown.
1766: Birthdate of economist Thomas Malthus whose theories were examined by Gertrude Himmelfarb in The Idea of Poverty. (She was Jewish, he was not)
1859: Oregon admitted as the 33rd U.S. state. By the time Oregon joined the Union, Portland already boasted an active Jewish community which “launched its first congregation” in 1858. Despite their comparatively small numbers, several Jews have held public office in Oregon including Senators Joseph Simon and Richard L. Neuberger and Governors Julius L. Meier and Neil Goldschmidt. (Senator Neuberger’s wife who was also a Senator from Oregon was not Jewish; hence she is not listed.)
1861: During the session of the New York State Legislature, Mr. Woodruff introduced a bill today to appropriate $35,000 out of the State Treasury to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New-York City, for a building, as soon as $20,000 has been expended by the Trustees.
1862(14th of Adar I, 5622): Purim Katan
1864: Birthdate of Israel Zangwill. Zangwill is a name known to few today, but in his time he was an intellectual power. Zangwill was born in London and achieved fame by writing a number of novels many on Jewish themes including Children of the Ghetto, Ghetto Tragedies and The King of Schnorrers. Zangwill first met with Herzl in 1896 and attended the First (and all successive) Zionist Congress. He supported Herzl's Uganda plan and following its rejection, led the Territorialists out of the Zionist organization in 1905. He established the Jewish Territorialists Organization (ITO) whose object was to acquire a Jewish homeland wherever possible. Following the securing of the Balfour declaration, the ITO fell into decline and by 1925 it was officially dissolved. Zangwill supported Zionist efforts in Eretz Israel calling for a radical approach both as regards the demand for the early establishment of a Jewish State and the solution of the Arab question. He passed away in 1926
1864: Birthdate of Samuel Schulman the Russian born rabbi who served as the spiritual leader of Montana’s first synagogue, Temple Emanuel before eventually moving to New York where he succeeded Kaufman Kohler as head of Temple Beth-El and then served as the rabbi for Temple Emanu-El when it absorbed his former congregation.
1871: During the Franco-Prussian Adolphe Crémieux, a leading member of the French Jewish community, along with several of his parliamentary colleagues, resigned their positions in the government France
1872: In Bucharest, members of the diplomatic corps, united in demanding that Prince Charles von Hohenzollern who is King Carol I of Romania, provide protection for his Jewish subjects. [The issue of Romania’s Jews would plague European affairs up to WW I.]
1877: In Berlin, gynecologist Leopold Landau and Johanna Jacoby, a member of the famous Jewish banking Jacoby family gave birth to Edmund Georg Hermann Landau the famed mathematician.
1878: Mrs. Hyam Benjamin hosted a musical evening in a Mayfair (London) drawing room.
1881: Birthdate of German psychologist Otto Selz. Selz’s works were suppressed by the Nazis. According to some, Selz was a major influence on his students including Sir Karl Raimund Popper who was one of the major figures in the world of 20th century philosophy.
1881: The New York Timesfeatures a review of “Hours with the Bible: From Creation to the Patriarchs by Dr. Cunningham Geikie.
1881: It was reported today that an altercation had taken place during a Paris musical between Gaetan de Monticlin, a socially prominent Frenchman and Arthur Meyer owner of Le Gaulois. According to de Monticlin, he had been mocked in an article published in Meyer’s newspaper. Meyer was a Catholic who was the grandson of a rabbi and who would support those who did not believe in the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus
1882: Birthdate of composer and pianist Ignaz Friedman.
1882: Dr. John Lord delivered a lecture on “Moses” this morning at Chickering Hall to a “fashionable and cultured” audience. Lord told his audience that the moral code of Moses “is of the most importance, and rests on the fundamental principles of morality, and has been generally accepted as the basis of moral obligation. The primary principle of this code is the sin of idolatry and the recognition of the one God who created and rules the world.”
1887: Alexander Kohut, the rabbi of Congregation Ahawath Chesed married Rebekah Bettleheim in Baltimore, MD. She was the daughter of Rabbi Albert Bettelheim. Her marriage not only made her a wife it made her an instant wife since Kohut was a widower who had 8 children, six of whom were under the age of 13.
1891: It was reported today that the late Ellen M. Phillips has bequeathed $113,000 to various charities most of which were Jewish. The bequests ranged from $1,000 to $15,000 “including $5,000 to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Ms. Phillips lived in Philadelphia, PA
1892: It was reported today that a Conference of the Russian-American Hebrew Agricultural Fund Association will take place this week in New York City.
1892: As New York City deals with its latest outbreak of typhus the President of the Board of health said that to have all of the Russian-Jewish passengers who arrived on the SS Masilia placed in quarantine on North Brother Island. An undetermined number of the passengers have shown symptoms and this is a way of preventing the spread. (Please note – the Jewish passengers were not singled out. The source was thought to lie in Russia, and it so happened that all of the Russian passengers were Jewish)
1894: Birthdate of Benjamin Kubelsky, better known as Jack Benny. The cry of Rochester saying, "Mr. Benny, Mr. Benny" in that gravely desperate tone was a signature of Jack Benny's humor in movies, radio and television. Benny loved to clown around with the violin and he created the self-portrait of a "miser." In one of his most routines, Benny is being held up at gunpoint. When the robber says "Your money or life" Benny pauses and using his great sense of comedic timing ponders his response. When the frustrated thief repeats his demand, Benny responds, "Wait a minute, I am trying to make my mind." (It is a lot funnier when you heart it or see it.) I must confess I am a fan of Jack Benny’s but I do not think I have been too lavish in my praise. Benny passed away at the age of eighty in 1974
1895:Birthdate of philosopher and sociologist Max Horkheimer
1895: In New York City, Isaac Newton and Greta (Loeb) Seligman gave birth to Margaret Seligman who gained fame as Margaret Lewisohn after she married Sam A. Lewisohn in 1918.
1895: It was reported today that lawyer and economist Simon Sterne expressed his opposition to the Single Tax Plan and in favor of tenement improvement programs in New York City
1896 Theodor Herzl published "Der Judenstaat" which outlined his vision for a Jewish State. For a complete copy of the text in English
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/herzl2.html1897: Grand Master M. L. Sexias presided over the opening of the annual convention of District Grand Lodge, No.1, Independent Order Free Sons of Israel which is being held at the Lexington Opera House.
1898: “Hebrew Charities Building Bill” published today described that the purposes of legislation that would incorporate The Hebrew Charities Building in New York to allow for the erection, establishment and maintenance of a building in which Jewish charitable organizations could have their headquarters. It would also allow for the building to house a public library “with a special department in Judaica.”
1902: Herzl and Joseph Cowen arrive in Constantinople with hopes of starting negotiations to further the project of creating a Jewish homeland in Ottoman controlled in Palestine.
1903: US Department of Commerce & Labor established. Oscar Straus was appointed Secretary of Commerce and Labor in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt and he served in the position until 1909. Straus was the first Jew to serve as a cabinet secretary.
1904: In South Carolina, Rabbi J. J. Simenhoff officiated at the wedding of Morris Finger to Sarah Plesskin.
1904(28th of Shevat, 5664): Seventy-five year old George Lewis Lyon, the founder and the editor of The Jewish World, passed away today.
1910: Herbert Samuel completed his first term of service as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the cabinet of Prime Minister Asquith. (Samuel was Jewish; Asquith wasn’t)
1910: Herbert Samuel succeeded Sydney Buxton as Post Master General in H.H. Asquith’s cabinet. This would be the first of two times that Samuel would serve in this position.
1911(16th of Shevat): Rabbi Shalom Mordecai, author of Da’at ha-Torah, passed away
1912: Arizona is admitted to the Union becoming the 48th and last contiguous state to become on the United States. Jews had been a part of the Arizona landscape from its earliest territorial days. According to Pioneer Jews, Nathan Benjamin Appel, a native of Hochstadt Germany, was an early pioneer of the Arizona Territory serving as a delegated to the First Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1863 as well as the Tucson chief of Police from 1883 to 1884. According to the 1880 census, there were approximately 316 Jews living in such places as Tucson, Phoenix and Tombstone. William Zeckendorf and Zadock Staab opened a Tucson based mercantile operation in May of 1878. The business had its ups and downs, finally failing in 1883 as a result of market fluctuations and competition from less expensive goods being brought in by the railroads. As can be seen from the successful career of Michael Wormser, a native of Lorraine who settled in Arizona, Jews engaged in agriculture as well as mercantile pursuits. By the time he died in 1898, his “agricultural kingdom” was worth $250,000, a considerable sum in those days. Samuel Barth was another of the colorful Jews who helped to settle Arizona. He worked as a miner, pony express rider and sutler. While trading with the Indians, he claims to have signed a treaty that “granted him title to nearly all of the northern Arizona Territory, including the Grand Canyon.” Barth, and his brothers Nathan and Morris, founded St. Johns where they damned parts of the Little Colorado River so that they could farm and raise livestock. Jews were not adverse to risk when it came to gunfighting as can be seen by the career of Louis Ezekiels who served as the Deputy Sheriff of Pima County and Jim Levy, the Irish born gambler and gunfighter, who ironically was shot by an angry gang who caught him when he “was not packing.” These early Jews worked hard to mainitain their Jewish identity. “Anna and I.E. Solomon, who found Solomonville in Arizona’s southeastern corner, refused to let their daughter Lillie marry a non-Jewish lawyer with whom she had fallen in love. Mother Solomon stepped in, put an end to the relationship and arranged for Lillian to marry a “Hebrew haberdasher from Globe. Anna Solomon is prime example of the Jewish matriarchs he stood shoulder to should with their husbands in establishing successful business enterprises while striving to maintain Jewish heritage and identity in the inhospitable desert of the Southwest. Two of early Arizona’s most famous Jewish citizens were Josephine Sarah Marcus who was the paramour of Wyatt Earp (because of Earp, is buried in a Jewish cemetery) and Mike Goldwater, the merchant king whose family, in later generations would give up the faith of their fathers as can be seen by the career of Barry Goldwater.
1913: Birthdate of Mel Allen. The mellow-toned sportscaster who was the voice of the New York Yankees was born Melvin Allen Israel in Birmingham, Alabama.
1915: “A mass meeting will be held at Congregation Shearith Bnai Israel this afternoon under the auspices of the Young Israel of Harlem to help raise funds for Jews suffering because of the war.”
1915: “Dr. J.L. Magnes, Chairman of the Jewish National Fund Bureau of the America and Louis D. Brandeis, Chairman of the Provisional Executive Committee for the General Zionist Affairs issued a statement today explaining the situation brought about by the proposed forced auctioning off at this trime of the Jewish Institute of Technology at Haifa.”
1915: According to figures compiled by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America there are officially 143,000 Jewish communicants in the United States but that number, in keeping with Jewish custom is really only the number of heads of households and “that the total number connected with Jewish congregations is 700,000.” (Editor’s note: This figure is strange since it is estimated by some that by the start of WW I, two million Jews had come to the United States from Eastern Europe.)
1915: In “Danger to Jewish Religion” published today provides Dr. Samuel Schulman’s belief that his nationality is “American” and when it comes to religion he is “a Jew” and that the future of the Jewish people lies in remaining “part and parcel of the western world” since “there is nothing to be gained in setting up a small nation in Asia among other small nations.”
1915: The correspondent for The London Daily Mail who was traveling from the front lines to Warsaw had to “bump” his “way through an endless convoy of Jews where huddled in wagons with all their furniture and worldly belongings” which “was the result of a stern order which had been issued requiring the Jews to move to a distance fifty miles from the front” because of doubts about their loyalty.
1915: It was reported today that “the Bund, the Committee of Lithuanian, Polish and Russian Jews living abroad has published an appeal to the civilized world in regard to the treatment of the Jews by the Russian government” which “begins by saying that, in spite of statements made to the contrary, the legal situation of the Jews in Russia is unchanged; they are still confined to the Ghetto and subject to all the same disabilities as before the war.”
1915: “Outlook Good For Jews” published today provided the views of banker and philanthropist Adolph Lewisohn on a post war peace conference for which “all the great Jewish organizations of American need to get together now and work out a plan for Jewish representation at the time of peace negotiations” because he believes that the United States government “will take a special interest in the question of equal rights for all Jews” regardless of where they live.
1915: Herman Bernstein, editor of The Day, announced today that a limited amount of space will be made available aboard the Vulcan to carry supplies to the suffering people living in the Holy Land.
1915: “To Take Aid To Palestine” published today described plans approved by Secretary of the Navy Daniels to ship supplies from the Jewish Relief Society for the starving residents of that region aboard the United States collier Vulcan which will be sailing to the eastern Mediterranean with coal for armored cruisers North Carolina and Tennessee.
1915 Congregation Shearith Israel abolishes family pews from its synagogue.
1915: Jules Hurert, who authored Sarah Bernhardt, a biography of the famous Jewish performer passed away.
1916: A telegram sent today from American Embassy at London to the U.S. State Department stated that the British had turned down the request to allow the shipment of whole wheat to be used for the making of unleavened bread for the upcoming holiday of Passover by Jewish agencies in the United States through neutral Holland to Jews in Germany and Austria and countries occupied by their armies because “it appears that the supply of flour at present in German is amply sufficient to furnish pure flour when required for special purposes.”
1917: Birthdate of Herbert A Hauptman, a mathematician who shared the 1985 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with the chemist Jerome Karle for their development of revolutionary methods for determining the structure of molecules vital to life. (As reported by William Grimes)
1917: Birthdate of Herbert A Hauptman, a mathematician who shared the 1985 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with the chemist Jerome Karle for their development of revolutionary methods for determining the structure of molecules vital to life. (As reported by William Grimes)
1918: Birthdate of Yosef A.A. (Alfredo Antonio) Ben-Jochannan an Ethiopian born American historian. “According to his own biographical sketches, Ben-Jochannan was born to a black Puerto Rican Jewish mother and an Ethiopian Jewish father who were both black.” “Ben-Jochannan, also known as ‘Dr. Ben’, is the author of numerous books, primarily on ancient Nile Valley civilizations and their impact on Western cultures. Dr. Ben-Jochannan claims to be fluent in ‘over a half dozen languages.’ In his writings, he states that the original Jews were Black Africans from Ethiopia, while the ‘white Jews’ later adopted the Jewish faith and its customs.
1919(14th of Adar I, 5679): Purim Katan
1919: Birthdate of Fred Gilbert. A native of Warsaw, Mr. Gilbert would enter the first of 19 concentration camps at the age of 20. He stayed alive by serving as the chief barber for German officers at a concentration camp. He would meet his wife Ann, who had also been a prisoner at Dachau, on liberation day. They raised three children – Lena, Jack and Doris. Fred and Ann would become active in the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance. Fred would spend his final years living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
1922: Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent“abruptly” ended publication of article on the “Jewish Problem” that included portions of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
1927: Birthdate of Jerry Wolman, the native of Shenandoah, PA who owned both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Philadelphia Flyers.
1927: Mortimer L. Schiff appeared on the cover of Time Magazine. Schiff, the only son of Jacob Schiff, was a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Co and active leader of the Boy Scouts of America.
1929: “Nathan Straus received a cablegram today from Meir Dizengoff, Mayor of Tel Aviv and Chaim Nachmann Bialik, the famous Hebrew poet both of whom had participated in the dedication of the Nathan and Lina Straus Health and Welfare Center in Jerusalem at which John Hyanes Holmes of the Community Church of New York was one of the principal speakers. “Following elated words regarding your high aspirations and great enterprise for the benefit of your national and the land of your forefathers in the presence of your envoy, Mr. Holmes and representatives of all creeds, the assembly expresses feeling of veneration and great love to the great man and Jew, Nathan Straus, and sends you and your wife blessings and wishes for a long and happy life.”
1929: In the Bronx, Jean (née Kress) and Harry Morozoff, an electrical engineer, gave birth to Victor Morozoff who gained fame as actor Victor “Vic” Morrow whom many remember for his portrayal of Sgt. Sanders in the WW II based television series “Combat!”
1929: It was alleged, but never proven, that the trigger men at today’s St. Valentine’s Day Massacre were supplied by the Jewish dominated “Purple Gang.”
1934: Birthdate of Harriet Gasway.
1935(11th of Adar I, 5695): Joseph Simon, the first Jewish U.S. Senator elected from Oregon, passed away.
1937: The New York Times features a review of Palestine at the Crossroads by Ladislas Farago based on the journalist visit to Palestine in 1936.
1937: “Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Bavaria delivers a sermon in Munich in which he explains how the signing of the Concordat between the Vatican and Nazi Germany substantially increased Hitler's prestige around the world.”
1938: The Palestine Post quoted the text of Colonel R. Meinertzhagen's letter to The Times of London in which he wrote that both the former British Prime Minister Lloyd George and Mr. Balfour envisaged the whole of Palestine as a future Jewish sovereign state. In Meinertzhagen's view the partition recommended by the Lord Peel Committee only complicated the issue, insofar as it had crystallized Arab opposition. The colonel called for continued Jewish determination to achieve this goal, not only for the Jews, but also in a direct British interest.
1941: In Amsterdam Hendrik Koot a member of the pro-Nazi NSB movement died of the wounds he sustained when and he his fellow thugs in the WA attacked the Jews who, much to their surprise, fought back. (The Jewish “victory” would be short-lived and in the next few days over four hundred Jews would die)
1942: Birthdate of millionaire businessman and Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.
1942(27th of Shevat): Yiddish poet Menachem Bareisha passed away
1943: In an article entitled “Visitor from Shangri-La” Theodore Strauss described the visit of veteran British actor H.B. Warner to New York where, among other things he his promoting “Hitler’s Children” an anti-Nazi film that has broken all records at the theatres in which it has been shown. Warner said that he is using the personal appearance tour to promote his own ant-fascist views.
1943: The Soviets drove the Nazis out of Rostov-on-Don. While the city was under German control thousands of Jews were murdered including 13,000 on August 11, 1942. Immediately after the liberation, the Jews were allowed to use the former Soldier’s Synagogue with Shaia-Meier Aronovich serving as rabbi starting in 1944. In the postwar years, the community suffered as Stalin adopted increasingly anti-Semitic policies.
1944:The national board of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, yesterday cabled $100,000 to Hadassah's founder, Miss Henrietta Szold, head of the youth immigration bureau of the Jewish Agency for Palestine in Jerusalem, as its part of an international celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Youth Aliyah (immigration) movement.
1944: Birthdate of Carl Bernstein, one of the two journalists who broke the Watergate Scandal.
1945: Henrietta Szold, of blessed memory, was buried today at 3 pm on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Among the attendees were representatives of the 12,000 Jewish refugees whom she helped to rescue through Youth Aliyah. As a sign of mourning all Jewish institutions flew their flags at half-mast and all of the Jewish newspapers were published with black borders on their front page. (As reported by JTA)
1945: President Franklin Roosevelt met with Ibn Saud where they discussed the future of the Jews and settlement in Palestine. Churchill received a full report of the meeting, but the report was kept secret from the rest of the world. Among other things Ibn Saud expressed his total opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine and said that Holocaust survivors should be returned to their countries of origin. FDR expressed his essential agreement with the King’s position.
1947: Foreign Minster Bevin “announced that he was referring the entire Palestine imbroglio to the United Nations.”
1948: “The young Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin who was among those Churchill asked to scrutinize the text of volume one of his memoirs” sent the former Prime Minister a proposal about changes in content with a reminder that “You did, I recollect, order me to quite candid.” Berlin praised Churchill’s handling of the “tremendous story of the Rise of Hitler.”
1948: Archbishop Conrad Gröber who opposed the Nazis passed away.
1949: Russian-born English chemist and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, 74, was elected first president of the newly restored modern state of Israel.
1949 (Tu B’Shevat, 5709): The Knesset opened its first session. Political democracy has been part of the Jewish state since before its official founding. The Knesset is a unicameral legislature that many critics agree is quite unwieldy. The political party system is based on proportional representation which leads to coalition governments. Israel's critics like to forget that about ten percent of the members of the Knesset are Arabs. During the days of the Cold War, Israel's detractors liked to point out that members of the Communist Party were elected to the Knesset. What they forget to mention that Israel, unlike the Arab states, held free elections so of course it was the only country in the Middle East to have elected Communist officials. It was the only country in the Middle East to have democratically elected officials of any kind. Also, with approximately ten per cent of its members being Arabs, the Knesset also boasts the largest number of democratically elected Arab legislators in the Middle East.
1951: The door was opened for the elections for the second knesset when the government resigned today after the Knesset had rejected the Minister of Education and Culture's proposals on the registration of schoolchildren
1951: In Dublin, Elaine and Reuben Shatter gave birth to Irish political leader Alan Joseph Shatter
1952: Premiere of Le Plaisir, also known by its English title House of Pleasure, a French comedy-drama anthology film directed by Max Ophüls
1952: The Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America established the Lena and Henry J Perahia Scholarship Foundation Award as a permanent endowment
1952: Comedian Joey Adams marries gossip columnist Cindy Heller
1954: In “Sharp Eyes for the Multiple Things” published today, William Barrett reviews The Hedgehog and The Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History by Isaiah Berlin.
1955: The cover of Time features Carl Jung, the one-time follower of Freud who split with his master and reportedly enjoyed an “unconventional” relationship with one of his Jewish patients.
1958: In a move to counter the newly created UAR which joined Egypt and Syria, Jordan and Iraq formed a union which created “a unified military command.” (Editor’s note – any move that created unified military commands among the Arab states posed an additional threat to Israel. At the same time, it should be noted that much of jockeying and hostility in the Arab world came from Arab fears of the fellows and had nothing to do with Israel.)
1961: Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, accused the government of Morocco of bias against Jews and appealed to the Human Rights Commission of the United States to urge the Moroccan Government to stop what it termed “repressive action” including police brutality.
1962: Philanthropist Nehemiah M. Cohn, founder of the Giant Grocery Chain in Washington, D.C. stated that “Giving to those less fortunate than we are...brings us contentment and true happiness. The Talmud says that a man’s greatness is measured not by how much money he can acquire, but rather how much he can part with. Cohen’s view of philanthropy is carried on through the Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation. http://www.nncf.net/
1967(4th of Adar I, 5727):Francis Benedict Hyam Goldsmith, a British Conservative Member of Parliament and luxury hotel tycoon in France and the United Kingdom, passed away. “Born Franck Adolphe Benedict Goldschmidt in 1878 in Frankfurt, Germany, he was the son of Adolphe Benedict Hayum Goldschmidt, who permanently moved to London in 1895, already a multi-millionaire, and Alice Emma Moses Merton (1835-98), daughter of Joseph Benjamin Moses aka Moses Merton. Benedict Hyum Goldshmidt who was a millionaire in his own right, moved to London in 1895. Goldsmith’s “grandfather was Benedict Hayum Salomon Goldschmidt, a banker and consul to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, founder of the B.H. Goldschmidt Bank.” He grew up on his family's 2,500 acre country estate in Suffolk. Educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, he gained an honours degree in law and was called to Bar by the Inner Temple in 1902. In 1903 he was elected to Westminster City Council, remaining a member for four years. In 1904 he was elected a member of London County Council representing St Pancras South with W.H.H. Gastrell as municipal reformers, having defeated both George Bernard Shaw and Sir William Geary, who were standing as Progressives. From 1904 to 1910 Goldsmith was active on many committees showing great interest in education and special schooling, becoming whip of the Municipal Reform Party. He was also involved in many Jewish charities, assisting in the organizations involved in the emigration of Jews from the Russian Empire and became a member of the emigration committee of the Jewish Board of Guardians. In 1910 Goldsmith was elected Conservative M.P. for Stowmarket, close to his family home of Cavenham Park. Although remaining an M.P. until 1918, his political career was ended by anti-German hysteria during World War I. During the war he served in Gallipoli and Palestine with the Suffolk Yeomanry. After the war Goldsmith moved to France where he set up a hotel business. He married Marcelle Moullier in June 1929. Goldsmith eventually built up a portfolio of 48 hotels including the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo, the Carlton in Cannes and the Lotti in Paris. He was director of the Savoy Hotel company for many years and one of the founders of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. He was Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur.”
1968(15th of Shevat, 5728): Tu B’Shevat
1973: U.S. premiere of “The World’s Greatest Athlete” with music by Marvin Hamlisch.
1978: The Jerusalem Postreported that hundreds of Lebanese men, women and children in southern Lebanon demonstrated in an open space at the "Good Fence," an open Israeli-Lebanese crossing point, demanding that Syrian army leave the Lebanese territory.
1978: The Jerusalem Postreported that Israeli officials in Washington noted that US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's hardening stance and his assertion that the settlements in the occupied areas "should not exist" was a deliberate shift of US policy, arrived at only after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visited Washington and influenced US President Jimmy Carter in this direction.
1982(21stof Shevat, 5742): Seventy-seven year old William Lee Wilder “the Austrian-born American screenwriter, film producer and director who was the older brother of Oscar winner William “Billy” Wilder.
1983: Manchem Begin replaced Ariel Sharon as Minister of Defense.
1985: The U.S. Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism announced their decision to begin accepting women as rabbis.
1988(26th of Shevat, 5748): Composer Frederick Lowe passed away. The Austrian native teamed with Alan Jay Lerner to create a number of hit musicals including “Brigadoon,” “Paint Your Wagon” and most famous of all, “My Fair Lady.” (As reported by Stephen Holden
1989 ( 9th of Adar I): Rabbi Sheldon Haas Blank, a professor of Bible who was a faculty member at the Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion for more than 60 years, passed away at Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati. He was 91 years old and lived in Cincinnati.
1989:In “Fossil Findings Fan Debate on Human Origins” published today, John Noble Wilford reported that “new fossil discoveries” in caves in Israel “and genetic evidence have fueled a resounding debate among anthropologists over the timing and circumstances of the last major event in human physical evolution, the emergence of the anatomically modern Homo sapiens.
1991:Today, a victim of last Saturday's missile attack on a Tel Aviv suburb -- military censors do not permit publication of his name -- held a prayer service in the yard of his damaged house. He and several friends prayed and danced with Torah scrolls as a bulldozer sat poised to push the building down. As soon as they finished singing Hatikvah, the national anthem, the bulldozer driver raised his shovel, pushed forward and leveled the remains of the house.
1992:The McCrory Corporation, the financially troubled parent of a chain of five-and-dime variety stores, said today that it would miss a debt payment and hinted that it might file for bankruptcy court protection.McCrory is part of the Riklis Family Corporation, a privately held concern headed by Meshulam Riklis, an Istanbul native who came to America from Tel Aviv in 1947. Other Riklis holdings have included the Samsonite Corporation, Elizabeth Arden, the Culligan International Company, Martha White Foods Inc. and Botany 500.
1996(24th of Shevat, 5756): Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, daughter of Mordechai Kaplan and the first bat mitzvah ever, passed away at the age of 86.
1997: Eve Ensler, the daughter of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, who “identifies as a Nichiren Buddhist” established the first V-Day that demands “that violence against women and girls must end.”
1999: Bruce Fleisher won the American Express Invitational with a three round score of 203.
1999: The New York Timesbook section featured a review Why Not Me? The Inside Story of the Making and Unmaking of the Franken Presidencyby Al Franken.
2001(21st of Shevat, 5761): Eighty-four year old Maurice Levitas (Moishe ben Hillel) the Dublin born academic and activist who served with the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War passed away today. His daughter Ruth Levitas is the author of The Concept of Utopia and his brother Max was took part in the “Battle of Cable Street.”
2003: University of California outfielder Brian Horowitz was responsible for a record-breaking RBI’s in today’s game. (Editor’s note – Brian Horowitz, the Golden Bear’s outfielder is not to be confused with Professor Brian Horowitz, the distinguished author and member of the Tulane University faculty)
2005:Effi Eitam was suspended from the party chairmanship by the National Religious Party's internal court, after he left the government against the center decision. The suspension caused Eitiam and Yitzhak Levi to leave the party.
2005(5th of Adar I, 5765): Seventy nine year old Henry Wolf passed away. (As reported by Steven Heller – note that the Times originally and incorrectly reported that he was 80)
2005: The Taipei Times features an article in which Taiwan’s only rabbi, Ephraim Einhorn, recounts the history of Taiwan’s small Jewish community that has existed since the 1950’s and its links to the Holocaust.
2006: Indian Jewish cricketer Bensiyon Sonavkar played for Saurashtra in the match again Maharashtra .
2006(16th of Shevat, 5766): Eighty three year old Shoshana Damari, whose unique throaty voice and larger-than-life performances embodied the Hebrew revival myth, passed away today after a short bout with pneumonia. (As reported by Steven Erlanger)
2007: Haaretz featured an article on the state of the Jewish community entitled “Las Vegas: Lots of Jews, not much Judaism.” According to a comprehensive study released recently by Dr. Ira Sheskin, of the University of Miami, Las Vegas is now home to the country's 23rd-largest Jewish community. His research found that the Jews of Las Vegas are less observant and less connected to Judaism than the vast majority of U.S. Jews. Only 50 percent report attending a Passover Seder, only 14 percent report belonging to a synagogue and only a minority light Shabbat or Hanukkah candles or keep kosher.The one category where the Jews of Las Vegas do excel is intermarriage, with 48 percent of all currently married Jewish respondent/spouse couples being mixed. On the positive side, La Vegas does not lack for wealthy Jews willing to support Jewish causes. After all, Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas, one of the richest men in the country, underwrote Sheskin's study and is a major philanthropist in the Jewish arena.
2007:Gabi Ashkenazi received the rank of Lieutenant General and was appointed Chief of the General Staff.
2008: The 12th New York Sephardic Jewish Festival comes to an end with a showing of “Nuba of Gold and Light.”
2008: In The Financial Express, an article entitled “Guitar in Tow, Rabbi Set to Spread Jewish Traditions in Poland,” describes the work of Rabbi Tanya Segal..
2009: Ninety year old publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Jr. the only child of Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Wolf passed away today. (As reported by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt)
2009: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a one-of-a-kind, award-winning exhibit of hundreds of pieces of World War II era mail and documents related to the Nazi’s attempted extermination of Jews and others will be publicly displayed at Coe College in the Perrine Gallery of Stewart Memorial Library. The collection is owned by the Deerfield, Illinois-based Florence and Laurence Spungen Family Foundation, which acquired the extraordinary items to preserve and offer them for public use at Holocaust and genocide educational venues around the world. According to a press release, “The insured value of the collection is $1 million, but the educational value to future generations is incalculable,” said Daniel Spungen, a member of the board of the Spungen Family Foundation. “One of the most heartbreaking artifacts and historical evidence of Nazi desecration is a torn fragment of a hand-written Hebrew parchment from a Bible scroll (Tanakh). A German soldier used the holy scripture to wrap a parcel he mailed from Russia to Austria in 1942,” explained Spungen. “The sacred parchment was pillaged from a Russian synagogue. Ironically, the portion that was used as wrapping paper has passages from the first book of Samuel about the story of David and Goliath.” George J. Kramer, chairman of the New York-based Philatelic Foundation, described the scroll fragment as “one of the most important items of Judaic postal history.” This is only the third public exhibition since the acquisition of the historic items from a private collector was formally announced by the Spungen charitable foundation last September. Steve Feller, past President of Temple Judah, a Coe professor of physics and co-author of the book, “Silent Witness: Civilian Camp Money of World War II,” will present an educational program about Holocaust-related money in conjunction with the exhibit of the collection. The postal artifacts in the collection are evidence of the torments, ravages and terror of war and genocide in Europe from 1933 to 1945. They also show that many prisoners never lost hope, and the human spirit survived. “We will be giving educational institutions and museums around the world the opportunity to use the exhibit materials for displays, lectures and research,” said Florence Spungen, Founder of the Foundation. “This is a permanent educational tool for all generations to document this important period of time that cannot be forgotten.” The Holocaust exhibit was acquired intact from noted researcher, writer and collector, Ken Lawrence, of Bellefonte, Pa., a former vice president of the American Philatelic Society, who began assembling the material in 1978. Including items contributed by Spungen, the foundation now will be the guardian of the more than 250 envelopes, post cards, letters, and specially-designated postage stamps used exclusively by concentration camp inmates, Jewish ghetto residents and prisoners of war. In addition, the collection includes counterfeit Bank of England paper money created by slave laborers during “Operation Bernhard,” the Nazis’ failed plot to undermine England’s economy and the subject of the recent motion picture, "The Counterfeiters."Frequently exhibited by Lawrence, the display won awards and medals at stamp shows including an international exhibition in Washington, D.C. in 2006. “The scroll page that was used for mailing a parcel is the most viscerally disturbing item. Some scholars have told me it is among the most important surviving evidence of Nazi desecration,” said Lawrence. “Chronic, flagrant desecration exemplified by violating that sacred scripture imbued the cultured German nation and historically honor-bound German army with an inhuman attitude toward Jews that made the Holocaust both possible, and given the opportunity, inevitable.” Some of the ghetto and concentration camp letters have coded or hidden messages about the plight of the senders. Research about the postal materials has led to discovery of a previously unreported undercover address in Lisbon, Portugal, used by Jewish resistance fighters, and the location of two camps in Romania for slave laborers and political detainees. In addition to the Bible scroll fragment used to wrapping a package, the collection includes:
· Rare examples of mail sent to prisoners and mail sent between inmates at different camps;
· A card sent by an inmate at Dachau soon after it opened in 1933 is the earliest known prisoner mail from any Nazi concentration camp;
· An October 3, 1943 letter to his parents in Rzeszów, Poland from Eduard Pys, a 21-year-old who arrived on the first transport at the Auschwitz concentration camp in May 1940;
· The only known surviving piece of mail sent by Rabbi Leo Baeck, the leader of German Jewry (Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden), while he was confined to the Theresienstadt ghetto;
· A postal checking account receipt imprinted with a crude anti-Semitic caricature denoting payment for a subscription to a Nazi propaganda newspaper, Der Stűrmer;
· Mail secretly carried by children through the sewers of Warsaw during the 1944 uprising;
· Mail clandestinely carried from Nazi-occupied Poland to the exhibit Polish Navy headquarters in London and to a Jewish resistance leader in Switzerland; and,
· A December 1945 postal card addressed to Dr. Eugen von Haagen, a Nazi war criminal on trial after the war at Nuremberg, that is the only recorded example of the censor mark of the International Military Tribunal.
Arrangements are being worked out for the entire collection to be housed at the new facilities of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center that will open in April in Skokie, Ill. “We are genuinely excited about the prospect of being the central repository for this remarkable collection,” said Richard Hirschhaut, Executive Director of the museum. The Florence and Laurence Spungen Family Foundation was established in 2006 to support charitable and educational causes. Many of the historic artifacts now can be viewed online at the foundation’s Web site, www.SpungenFoundation.org.
2009: In Baltimore, Theatre Hopkins’ production of Lisa Kron’s innovative comedy “Well”,appears at JHU’s Swirnow Theatre on the Homewood campus.
2010(30 Shevat, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Adar
2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Capitalism and the Jews byJerry Z. Muller and the recently released paperback edition of We Can Have Peace In the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work by Jimmy Carter.
2010: Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said todat that the Chabad house in Pune had been under surveillance by David Headley, an American of Pakistani descent in prison in Chicago for allegedly scouting out targets for the Mumbai attack. Pune was the sight of a bombing on Saturday night..
2010: A third of the children in Israel live below the poverty line, according to data published by the National Insurance Institute today.
2010: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Military, Admiral Michael G. Mullen, is scheduled to arrive in Israel today as part of a tour of the region. Admiral Mullen will be hosted by IDF Chief of the General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, who will hold a festive dinner in his honor later tonight.
2010: The Counter-Terrorism Bureau of the National Security Council published a travel warning advising Israeli citizens against visiting Sinai during Pessah.
2011: “Hidden Children,” a movie “based on true events” that tells “the gripping story of two young Jewish brothers sheltered by a devout Catholic woman in Nazi occupied France, setting the stage for a political and legal battle that made headlines across the country” is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.
2011: A documentary entitled “Over 90 and Loving It” is scheduled to be shown at the 21st Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.
2011: The official transition ceremony between 19th General Gabi Ashkenazi the Israel Defense Forces' 19th chief of staffand Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz, the Israel Defense Forces' 20th chief of staff is scheduled to be held this morning at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem. The farewell ceremony for Ashkenazi is scheduled to be held at Tel Aviv University.
2011: A former Hungarian military officer has been charged with war crimes in the 1942 slaughter of 1,200 civilians in Serbia, prosecutors said today. The charges against Sandor Kepiro, 96, stem from his alleged participation in a raid by Hungarian forces on the northern Serbian town of Novi Sad in January 1942 that left more than 1,200 civilians dead, the Budapest Investigating Prosecutor's Office said.
2012: “Mahler on the Couch” is scheduled to be shown at the Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival in Palm Beach, FL.
2012: Shachiv Shnaan, an Israeli-Druze political leader “returned to the Knesset today as a replacement for Matan Vilani.
2012: “Restoration” is scheduled to be shown at The Yeshiva University Ring Family Israel Film Festival in NYC.
2012: Likud Party officials said today that it expects to hold its first party convention in over a decade on March 22nd.
2012: Congress is set to significantly increase funding for Israeli missile defense to more than make up for White House cuts to the program, Capitol Hill sources told The Jerusalem Post today.
2013: In London, The Wiener Library is scheduled to host a presentation entitled “A Personal Story of the Holocaust” by Agnes Grunwald Spier who “was a baby when she and her mother were saved from deportation to Auschwitz by an unknown official.” She is the author of The Other Schindlers’
2013: In honor of Valentine’s Day, UK Jewish Film is scheduled to sponsor a screening of “Paris Manhattan.”
2013: “It was announced that Martin Mann had been developing an untitled thriller film with another screenwriter for over a year, for Legendary Pictures.”
2013(4th of Adar, 5773): Eighty-one year old legal scholar Ronald Dworkin passed away today (As reported by Adam Liptak)
2013: Eighty-nine year old Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey announced today that he will not seek a sixth term.
2014: “Focus on the Family Weekend” sponsored by Frum Divorce is scheduled to open at White Plains, NY.
2014: “Commie Camp” is scheduled to be shown at the Jewish Film Festival in San Diego, CA.
2014: The Jewish Museum is scheduled to offer guided tours of “Art Spiegelman’s Co-Mix: A Retrospective” which celebrates the career of one of the most influential living comic artists, best known for Maus, his Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel about his parents' survival of the Holocaust
2014: Friends and family prepare to celebrate the 80th birthday of Harriet Gasway, wife of Bill Gasway, and a pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community.
2014: In today’s edition of Yedioth Ahronoth, Cameron Kerry, Secretary of State John Kerry’s Jewish brother recalled relatives who died in the Holocaust and labeled “vile” recent personal attacks on the US secretary of state.
2014: Alexei Bychenko made took part in the final round of competition in the men’s figure skating at Sochi. (As reported by Yoel Goldman)
2014: After an Israeli passenger found a grenade safety catch aboard his plane at Ben Gurion Airport, all of the passengers aboard a Ukrainian International Airlines plane were evacuated along with their own baggage. (As reported by Tova Dvorin)
2014: Residents of southern Israel were subject to two separate rocket attacks this evening.
2014: As the world prepares to celebrate St. Valentine’s Day, consider the following for the Jewish twist on a holiday connected with the three “c’s” – Cupid, Chocolate and Carats (as in diamonds)
2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a piano recital by Ran Zemach.
2015: Shabbat Shekalim http://downhomedavartorah.blogspot.com/