February 20
390: Emperors Valentinian II., Theodosius, and Arcadius issued a decree that thwarted the attempt of the association of "navicularii" (ship-and cargo-owners) of Constantinople to force the Jews and the Samaritans to join them and to share in the burdens of the society. They “decided that the communities of the Jews and the Samaritans could not legally be forced to join the navicularii, and that at most their wealthy members only could be taxed ("Codex Theodosianus," xiii. 5, 18). This decree was most important to the Jews, for many of them were ship-owners, and more than one-half of the shipping in Alexandria was controlled by Jews.” (As reported by the Jewish Encyclopedia)
1194: King Tancred of Sicily died effectively ending the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and bring it under the German Hohenstaufens. This would prove beneficial to the Jews because 15 years later, Emperor Frederick II would intervene on behalf of his Sicilian Jewish subjects to temporarily put an end to their persecutions by the Crusaders.
1422: Pope Martin V (1417-31) issued a Bull reminding Christians that Christianity was derived from Judaism and warned the Friars not to incite against the Jews. The Bull was withdrawn the following year amidst allegations that the Jews of Rome attained the Bull by fraud.
1431: Pope Martin V, the author of Sicut Judaeis ("and thus to the Jews," passed away,
1547: Edward VI of England crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey. Edward was the male heir sought by his father Henry VIII. Edward’s reign was short since he died at the age of 15. Reportedly small numbers of Conversos made their way to the kingdom during his reign as they had during Henry VIII’s time and worshipped secretly in London and Bristol.
1662(1stof Adar, 5422): Shabbatai ben Meir HaKoehn, the Lithuanian-born Moravian rabbi whose works included Siftei Kohn or the Shakh, a commentary on the Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De'ah passed away today.
1667(26th of Shevat, 5427): Rabbi David ben Samuel Halevi passed away. Born in Cracow in 1586, he was known as TA"Z an acronym for his response Turei Zahav – Rows (or Rock) of Gold. During the Chmelnitsky Uprisings which resulted in the massacre of thousands of Jews he found refuge in the castle of Prince Radziwill in a narrow room at the top, near the clock – the symbol of the Polish eagle that could be seen for miles. A folktale says that when Chmelnitsky and his hooligans approached the town Olyka, the rabbi and a large number of Olyka Jews took refuge in the Prince's castle and prayed to God. They fought alongside the Prince's men against the cruel enemy. Two ancient huge cannons that were not even usable suddenly shot out by themselves and killed off many of the enemy. In any event, the fear of God befell the hooligans and the quickly retreated and ran away. In memory of this miracle, Rabbi David composed special penitential prayers for the 20th of Nisan, the day the miracle occurred. The descendants of Rabbi Ha-Levi were the Russian rabbinical family Paltrowitch. This family produced 33 rabbis over several generations. One of these rabbis, Simcha Paltrowitch (1843-1926) served the Pine street “shul” in Buffalo from 1890 to 1914. His brother’s descendant is the producer-director Bruce Paltrow (Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere), the father of the actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
1751: Benedict XIV issued Elapso proxime Anno, a papal bull dealing with the issue of what the
Church called “Jewish heretics.”
1790: Austrian Emperor Joseph II passed away at the age of 49. Joseph II actually reigned over the Holy Roman Empire which was "neither holy nor Roman." For his time he was a benign despot who sought to reform his empire. Jews viewed him with mixed feelings. On the one hand he abolished many of the archaic restrictions on Jewish social and commercial life. He abolished laws pertaining to wearing the yellow badge and prohibiting Jews from practicing law and medicine. At the same time, he called for an end to writing public documents and contracts in Yiddish or Hebrew and the abolition of certain aspects of self-governance in the Jewish community. On the one hand even a reformer like Moses Mendelssohn was concerned about the impact of Joseph's plans on Jewish identity. On the other hand, a century and a quarter later, Adolph Hitler expressed his disdain for this Austrian monarch. I guess you will have to be the judge after you have had a chance to the history of Jews in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries.
1790: At Strasbourg, The Society of the Friends of the Constitution admitted its first Jewish member.
1792: “Jews who lived in the vicinity of Strasbourg were granted permission to enter the city to take an oath of allegiance.
1798(4thof Adar): Following Napoleon’s conquest of Italy, the ghetto at Rome was abolished. When the Pope regained power the ghetto was re-established. It would finally be abolished after the re-unification of Italy in 1870.
1804: At Hobart, Australia a penal colony was established which included 8 Jews among its prisoners.
1808: In Canada, the assembly resolved by a vote of 35 to 5 that "Ezekiel Hart, Esquire, professing the Jewish religion cannot take a seat, nor sit, nor vote, in this House.”
827: Sir Moses Montefiore and Lady Judith Montefiore began their first trip to Palestine (As reported by Jennifer Breger)
1829: In Florence, Italy, British Major-General Lord George Russell and Elizabeth Rawdon gave birth to Odo William Leopold Russell, the British diplomat who worked with Sir Moses Montefiore in an unsuccessful attempt to get the Pope to return Edgardo Mortara to his Jewish parents.
1832: A version of Robert le diable (Robert the Devil) an opera in five acts composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer was presented in London today at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane under the title “The Fiend-Finder.
1839: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Poznanski officiated at the wedding of Lew Hertz and Esther Peixotto, the eldest daughter of the late Solomon C. Peixotto.
1845(13thof Adar I, 5606): Seventy-two year old Polish born author and poet Shalom Ben Jacob Cohen who was educated in Berlin and whose works in “Light of David,” an epic poem about the Israelite king and He Who Calls The Generations, “a history of the Jews from Maccabean times to the present.”
1852(30th of Shevat, 5612): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1855: “The inauguration of the Touro Literary Institute took place this evening, at the rooms of the Institute at Number 448 Broome-street in New York City.” Most of those attending the meeting were described as “intelligent” and of “Hebraic descent.” Benjamin H. Myers, the president of the Association presided over the meeting. Jonas B. Phillips and Rabbi R.J.M. Raphall addressed the meeting. In their speeches, the speakers traced the history of Jewish literature and literary societies from ancient Jerusalem, through Spain and London to modern times.
1857: According to an article published today, the boot manufactures of Hopkinton, MA, have discovered, much to their consternation, that some of their workmen have been selling some of their footwear to "certain Jew pedlars and others" at a fraction of their cost. The plan was to purchase the goods in one town and sell them in another, thus avoiding detection. [Please note, only the Jews are identified by their religion. This was often in the case in newspapers and journals of the day including the New York Times.]
1863: Ha-Levanon, the first Hebrew language periodical in Palestine, was published today
1864: Ellen Terry, the British actress who gained fame for her portrayal of Portia in The Merchant of Venice marred George F. Watts, the artist who painted her portrait.
1871: Baron Jozsef Eotvos, Hungarian statesman and who supported the emancipation of the Jews passed away today while serving as Minister of Religion and Education of Hungary.
1872: According to reports published today, a dispute has arisen in New York over the ritual purity of wine being supplied to the Jewish community. According to Rabbi Aronson, the wine being supplied to the local synagogues has not been prepared in accordance with Jewish law. But the wine dealers say that their wine bears the seal and signature of Rabbi A.J. Ash of the Grand Beth Hamedrash of New York City proving that the wine is Kosher. Rabbi Isaacs has also certified the wine as ritually fit.
1874: Benjamin Disraeli began serving his second and final term as Prime Minister of Great Britain. Disraeli was a leader of the Conservative Party. But as can be seen by the reform legislation passed by his government these Conservatives have more in common with the liberal Democrats of the 21st century than they do with those on the American right who call themselves Conseratives. “Disraeli's government introduced various reforms, including the Artisan's and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875, the Public Health Act 1875, the Sale of Food and Drugs Act (1875), and the Education Act (1876). His government also introduced a new Factory Act meant to protect workers, the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875 to allow peaceful picketing, and the Employers and Workmen Act (1875) to enable workers to sue employers in the civil courts if they broke legal contracts. As a result of these social reforms the Liberal-Labour MP Alexander Macdonald told his constituents in 1879, ‘The Conservative party have done more for the working classes in five years than the Liberals have in fifty.’” When it came to foreign policy, Disraeli’s government supported the concept of Empire. He engineered the first British acquisition of financial interest in the Suez Canal. He understood the great issue of the time as being the management of the decline of the Ottoman Empire and showed his mastery of the diplomacy at the Congress of Berlin.
1876: It was reported today that The Alliance Israélite Universelle, which is headquartered in Paris, is providing a variety of services to Jews throughout the world. Among other things, the Alliance is providing care for a large number of Russian Jewish orphan, supporting an Agricultural School in Jaffa and operating a normal school for Jewish women from Asia Minor in Paris. The Alliance is supporting numerous other schools throughout North Africa and western Asia, including ones at Aleppo, Baghdad and Constantinople.
1878: Leo XIII is elected Pope. “In reaction to the painful loss of the papacy’s temporal power…Leo XIII lashed out against modernity.” “The Vatican increasingly viewed the Jews who were beneficiaries of the demise of the church’s temporal rule as part of the array of dangerous forced against it. In 1880, apparently with the approval of Leo XIII, “Civilta Cattolica kicked off a decades-long campaign against the Jews accusing them of all the old sins and then many new ones such as being responsible for both capitalism and communism and of being disloyal to the countries in which they lived.’ (As reported in Antisemitism by Richard S. Levy)
1879: “The Jews Oath” was “abrogated” today in Dresden, Germany.
1880: In Prescott, AZ, the Pauline Markham troupe that included Josephine Sarah Marcus, the eccentric Jewess who became the lover and wife of Wyatt Earp completed their performances of HMS Penifore.
1880: “Oil in the World,” an article published today that describes the conditions of oil fields throughout Asia, Europe and the United States, the some of the fields in Eastern Galicia are controlled by Polish Jews. The Jews of Boryslaw are more interested in gaining the wax found in their fields because it is part of the highly profitable candle business. Therefore, they have resisted spending the money necessary to develop the oil production in the area.
1882: Birthdate of Polish -born “American sculptor, draughtsman and collector” Elie Nadelman.
1882: This morning, Philadelphia’s Mayor King received a telegram from J.M. Brown of Galveston Texas offering to provide one hundred acres of land in Motely County, Texas to any of the 50 Jewish families who are on their way to Philadelphia from Russia who are willing to settle in the Lone Star State. Motely County is one of those under populated expanses in the northwest part of the state.
1882: The Grand Lodge of the order Kesher Shel Barzel, District No. 1 continued with its annual convention at the Pythagoras Hall.
1886: “Undesirable Immigrants” published today described the condition of 300 Romanian Jews who were expelled from their native land and are now being held at Castle Garden. While few of them had any money, most of them had tickets that would take them to American cities where they say that have friends who will assist them.
1886: Birthdate ofBéla Kun head of Hungarian Soviet Republic formed in 1919 in the aftermath of World War I. Neither the Soviet nor Kun survived for very long.
1888: Henry de Worms, the Lord Pirbright, began serving as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in the government of Marquess of Salisburgy.
1888: Rabbi Joseph Silverman finished his service with Congregation B'nai Israel in Galveston, Texas, where he had been serving since July, 1885. The Ohio born rabbi was on his way to a pulpit in New York City.
1890(30thof Shevat, 5650): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1890; It was reported today that Mrs. Phillip J. Joachimsen is President of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York and C.W. Meyer is serving as Secretary.
1892: The Cunard Line Etruria was being held in quarantine because of the need to take extra precautions because there are Jews from Russia among the steerage passengers.
1893: Birthdate of playwright and librettist Russel Crouse whose interaction with Jews included collaborating with Rodgers and Hammerstein on the “Sound of Music” and making “a casual remark” which resulted in Arthur Laurents having to go before the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee “to account for his political views.”
1893: “Some New Publications” published today includes a review of Studies by a Recluse in Cloister, Town and Country in which Augustus Jesopp describes the history the Abbey at Bury St. Eduunds including a period in the Middle Ages during which Abbott Sampson drove out the Jews who had legitimately acquired much of the property following a period of gross mismanagement.
1893: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian and Orphan Asylum will give a concert at the Lenox Lyceum this evening under the sponsorship of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Society.
1894: It was reported today that Jesse Seligman, Nathan Straus and Perry Belmont were among those who attended the meeting of the Distribution Committee established by the Citizens’ Relief Committee. The committee had been set up to deal with the suffering caused by the Depression that began in 1893. Belmont was the son of August Belmont, Jr. the Jewish born financier. Perry’s mother was not Jewish.
1895: Ferdinand Forzinetti, the commandant of the Cherche-Midi military prison, and one of the first to be convinced of Dreyfus's innocence was granted his retirement today while his most famous prisoner sailed to Guyana. Later, Alfred Dreyfus paid homage to his jailer who had dissuaded him from taking his own life and "who knew how to combine the strict duty of a soldier with the highest feelings of humanity."
1896: It was reported today that the last year’s charity ball sponsored by the Young Ladies and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home raised $10,088.12.
1896: It was reported today that among those who included on the lists as patrons for the upcoming charity ball sponsored by the Young Ladies and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home are Governor
1897: “Insane on Religion” published today described the disappearance of Mrs. Rolla Hewitt who “a demented woman” who “wandered away from her home” “several days” after “a converted Jew preached” at her Church having declared that “she had a mission to perform and her objective” was to convert every Jew at the Baron Hirsch settlement in Woodbine, NJ.
1898: As the Dreyfus Case continued to embroil France a mob of three thousand Parisians “marched toward the Pantheon yelling ‘Down with Zola!’ and “Death to the Jews.’”
1898: Ludovic Trarieux, Emile Duclaux, Edouard Grimaux and Francis de Pressensé are among those who founded “The Ligue des Droits de l'Homme et du citoyen” [League for Human and Civic Rights] which was founded to defend Alfred Dreyfus who had been wrongly convicted of treason Ludovic Trarieux served as its first President,
1898: A mass meeting was held in New Jersey synagogue tonight to protest the statements by William J. Corssley, the Prosecutor in Mercer County, who while trying a case against a peddler, said “The god of the Jew is gold. They are not fit to be citizens, as they only come here to hoard wealth, that they may go back to Jerusalem and spend it.
1899: “Christ and His Religion” published today provides Rabbi Gustav Gottheil’s views on Jesus whom he does not believe would be comfortable with the practices and the preachings of today’s Christian churches.
1901: Birthdate of famed architect Louis I. Kahn
1902: The state of New York approved a charter for the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
1905: Miss Annie Russell appeared to-night in the leading role of "Jinny, the Carrier," a four-act comedy by Israel Zangwill, which was presented for the first time before a packed house at the Park Theatre in Boston, MA.
1907(6th of Adar, 5667): French Chemist Henri Moissan passed away. Moissan isolated fluorine and won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1906
1912(2ndof Adar I, 5672): Eighty-three year old Jewish communal worker William Cobe passed away in Boston, MA.
1915: “Louis Marshall of New York, counsel for Leo M. Frank, now under sentence of death by State court in Georgia for the murder of a factory girl in Atlanta in 1913 today filed a brief in the Supreme court of the United States Support their appeal from the judgment of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia denying to Frank a writ of habeas corpus.”
1916: “A profile of Theda Bara (born Theodosia Burr Goodman) that appeared in the New York Times, reported that 500,000 fans followed Bara everywhere she went. She was said to have received over a thousand marriage proposals from adoring fans. Others named children after her. One critic called her "a clever actress with...a marvelously mobile and expressive face."’
1916: Today, Rabbi Joseph Karuskop, the founder and President of the National Farm School said "He who does not voluntarily do more than he is obliged to do will in time do less than he ought, and in the end will find himself unable to do what he must."
1917: The musical “Oh Boy” with the score composed by Jerome Kern, premiered in New York City.
1917: Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, is appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Germany. This will make him the eyes and ears and representative of the Vatican during the rise of Hitler.
1918: In New York, Clara and Maxwell Cohn gave birth to Lenore Cohn. A niece of movie mogul Harry Cohn, she gained fame as Lee Annenberg, the wife of Walter Annenberg
1919: Victor Berger was convicted of having violated the Espionage Act of 1917 and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. “The trial was presided over by Judge Kenesaw Landis, who later became the first commissioner of Major League Baseball. His conviction was appealed, and ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court which found that Judge Landis had improperly presided over the case after the filing of an affidavit of prejudice.” Berge was Jewish and was the first member of the Socialist Party elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In the eyes of many, these were his real crimes.
1920(1st of Adar, 5680): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1920(1st of Adar, 5680): Pauline Einstein, the mother of the physicist Albert Einstein, passed away. Born in Cannstatt, Württemberg, in 1858, she “had an older sister, Fanny, and two older brothers, Jacob and Caesar. Her parents were Julius Doerzbacher, who had accepted the family name Koch in 1842, and Jette Bernheimer.”
1920: Birthdate of Tidor Rudas, the Budapest born impresario who spent 6 months in a concentration camp because his father was Jewish. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1924: Birthdate of Mordechai Ofer, the Krakow native who made Aliyah a year later and served in the Knesset from 1965 until his untimely death in 1971 at the age of 47.
1924: Birthdate of Gerson Goldhaber, the German born “American particle physicist and astrophysicist who was one of the discoverers of the J/ψ meson which confirmed the existence of the charm quark.”
1926: Chief Justice Walter I. McCoy in Equity Court ruled today that Mrs. Beta Isenberg, 80 years old, widow of Paul Isenberg, a citizen of Bremen and also of the Hawaiian Islands, is an American citizen because of the Hawaiian citizenship and is entitled to the return of $2,500,000 worth of property despite the protest of Howard Sutherland, Alien Property Custodian
1926: In Marshalltown, Iowa, Louis Bucksbaum and the former Ida Gervich gave birth to Matthew Bucksbaum the co-founder of “a family shopping mall empire that helped transform the landscape of suburbia and the habits of American consumers.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1927: Birthdate of Roy Cohn the lawyer, who gained fame or infamy as the council for the (Joseph) McCarthy Committee. McCarthy and Cohen took advantage of American fears of Communism to conduct a witch hunt that ruined reputations and lives without saving us from any Communist spies. Publicly homophobic, Cohn's death from AIDs was the subject of an HBO movie.
1931: U.S. premiere of “The Night Belongs to US” a German film co-starring Otto Wahlberg who would be murdered at Auschwitz in 1944.
1932: In the Bronx, Mae and Nathan Ader gave birth to Doctor Robert Ader, the Tulane University graduate and experimental psychologist who was among the first scientists to show how mental processes influence the body’s immune system; a finding that changed modern medicine. (As reported by Paul Vitello)
1933: Industrialists met at Goering's Reichstag President's Palace to show support of Hitler. Hitler promised to rid the world of Marxists and restore the Wehrmact (the Germany Army). Hitler and his anti-Semitic policies enjoyed support from Germany’s business community from the outset.
1936: Bronislaw Huberman, the Polish violinist and founder of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, announced today that “the first concert of the newly organized Palestine Symphony Orchestra will be broadcast to the United States from Tel Aviv late in October over the facilities of the National Broadcasting Company.” He also said that “negotiations have been started for regular visits of the orchestra to Egypt and Greece” as well as a world tour that would include a visit to the United States.
1937: Tiberias, one of the towns of Palestine known for its friendly relations between Arabs and Jews, was the scene of disorder today. Thirty Jews, thirty Arabs and two British policemen were slightly injured and two Jews were seriously hurt before order was restored.
1937: “Polish Jews Face Dismal Future published today provides a snapshot of the anti-Semitism faced by Jews in inter-war Poland. (It is also worth the read to see how much misinformation the Literary Digest, the magazine that predicted FDR would lost to Alf Landon could provide about the origins of the Jews of Europe)
1938: Louis Lipsky, chairman of the administrative committee of the United Palestine Appeal presided over a meeting of Jewish leaders held under the auspices of the Zionist Organization of America at the Hotel Pennsylvania. The Jewish leaders, including Dr. Bernard Joseph, legal adviser of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, expressed a desire for a peaceful solution to the problems separating Jews and Arabs in Palestine.
1938: Hitler addressed the Reichstag and served notice that the future of Austria and the Sudeten Germans were in the direct interest of Nazi Germany. The annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland would be two of the landmarks on the road to World War II and the Final Solution.
1938: Franz Josef Rarkowski is consecrated as espiscopus castrensis, bishop of the military chaplains in the German Army, by Papal Nuncio Cesare Orsenigo.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that one British officer was shot dead and two others wounded when their car was shot at in the vicinity of Haifa. British troops and police cordoned off the whole area and one Arab was shot dead when he tried to break through. A number of Arab suspects were arrested. There were many other cases of sniping at traffic and sabotage throughout the country.
1939: Twenty thousand Nazi supporters gather in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. While there were only a limited number of such displays, the power of the isolationists led by Lindbergh and the America First movement provided a socially acceptable cover for anti-Semites and fascists. FDR’s decisions about European Jewry were made against this hostile background.
1939: In an apparent attempt to strengthen the Axis Alliance, Mussolini shifts policy by banning Jews from his Fascist Party. According to some, as many as 10,000 Jews had been members of the party. Years later, Mussolini’s mistress would claim that Il Duce had claimed that he always had been an anti-Semite.
1941: The Nazis ordered Polish Jews barred from using public transportation
1941: The first transport of Jews from Plotsk, Poland to be sent to a concentration departed. "We remember so that nobody will forget. We remember lest anybody try and forget."
1941: The first transport of Jews from Plotsk, Poland to be sent to a concentration departed. "We remember so that nobody will forget. We remember lest anybody try and forget."
1942: In France, Jacques Bielinky described the responses of his non-Jewish fellow citizens to anti-Jewish policies, expressing contempt for their lack of making any attempt to prevent the dismissal of their Jewish colleague. “They did not make the move; cowardice has become a civic virtue.”
1943: Birthdate of English movie director Mike Leigh.
1943: U.S. premiere of “The Hard Way” a musical drama directed by Vincent Sherman with a screenplay by Daniel Fuchs and Peter Viertel.
1943: Birthdate of Moshe Cotel, the Baltimore native who would become an acclaimed pianist and composer whose works were often infused with themes emanating from his deep Jewish roots. Cotel’s “Jewish reconnection” would lead him to the rabbinate. He would be ordained five years before his death in 2008 while he was serving as spiritual leader of Temple Beth El of Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn.
1947: A female member of The Irgun Zvai Leumi telephoned newspapers correspondents stating the Irgun was responsible for cutting an oil pipeline in two places and attacking an Royal Air Force installation near Hadera.
1947: The British government announced that it would withdraw from India. This decision signaled a change in the U.K.’s foreign policy. Its willingness to give up the Palestine Mandate would be triggered in part by the realization that protecting the Suez Canal as the lifeline to an imperial possession was no longer a critical need.
1950: King Features Syndicate “launched” the daily version of the comic strip “Big Ben Bolt” co-created by Elliot Caplin.
1951: Rostam Bastuni, the first Israeli Arab to represent a Zionist party in the Knesset left Mapam and “set up the Left Faction with Adolf Berman and Moshe Sneh.
951: Birthdate of Dr. Robert “Bob” Silber, a fine physician, a devoted husband and father, an ardent Hawkeye fan, a pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community and a real mensch, who is smart enough to have more questions than answers.
1952: The film The African Queen opened at the Capitol Theatre in New York City. The African Queen marked the film debut of Theodore Bikel.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that Washington Senator William Langer, a Republican, introduced a resolution asking Congress to investigate the plight of Arab refugees, a roadblock to the "stability and security" of the Middle East. (The Republican Party was not always friendly territory for supporters of the State of Israel.)
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Jewish Agency opened a hostel in Tel Aviv for skilled Western immigrants.
1958: A UK production of Where's Charley?, a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser “opened in the West End at the Palace Theatre where it ran for 404 performances.
1958(30th of Shevat, 5718): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1958(30th of Shevat, 5718): Sixty-nine year old Al Lichtman, who produced “The Young Lions” and whose career was such that her earned a “Star” on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1959(12th of Adar I, 5719): Israeli poet Zalman Shneur, the native of Belarus who wpm the Bialik Pririze in 1951 and the Israel Prize in 1955 passed away today in New York City.http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=883&dat=19590306&id=VfBOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=W0wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3543,5060391
1960: Sir Charles Leonard Woolley passed away at the age of 80. This non-Jewish British archaeologist is remembered for having excavated Ur of the Chaldees, and for discovering the ancient Sumerian civilization. Yes, these are the actual places which produced Abraham, Lot and Sarah.
1963: Opening performance of Rolf Hochhuth’s “The Deputy” which provides a controversial view of Pious XII’s behavior during the Holocaust.
1965(18th of Adar I, 5725): Director and producer Michał Waszyński passed away.
1971: “Follies”a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim began its pre-Broadway tryout at the Colonial Theatre in Boston.
1972(5th of Adar, 5732): Walter Winchell passed away at the age of 74. According to some, Winchell was the creator of the modern newspaper gossip column. Starting out with the New York Graphic and then the Daily Mirror in the nineteen twenties, Winchell's column was eventually syndicated in papers across the country. At one time he had 30 million readers. The column coupled with his radio show gave Winchell an amazing amount of power - sort of cross between Rush Limbaugh and Entertainment Tonight. The right mention in a Winchell column could make you; the wrong mention or the lack of a mention could break you. How Jewish were Kun, Cohn and Winchell? Who really is a Jew in Jewish History? These are questions that will plague us and challenge us on many Monday nights to come
1973(18th of Adar I, 5733): Joseph Szigeti Hungarian born US violinist, passed away at the age of 80.
1976(19th of Adar I, 5736): French born human rights activist, Renee Cassin, passed away. Jurist, combat veteran of World War I, member of the Resistance in WW II and leader of the French Jewish community, Cassin received the Nobel Prize Winner for Peace,
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that in a chaotic gun battle at Larnaca, Cyprus, 38 Egyptian commandoes freed the 11 Egyptian hostages held aboard a Cypriot Airways DC-8 airliner and apprehended the two Arab terrorists who held them.
1981(16thof Adar I, 5741): Seventy-six year old “Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, a former senior fashion editor at Vogue magazine whose panache and sense of quality earned him the reputation of one of the fashion industry's great men of style” passed away today. (As reported by Sheila Rule)
1989: Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl” was released to the public today.
1992: The clashes between Israelis and Iranian backed guerrillas in Lebanon culminated with an Israeli armored push today into the villages of Kafra and Yater, about a mile north of what Israel calls its security zone in southern Lebanon.
1992: German premiere of the Israeli film “Cup Final.”
1995(20thof Adar I, 5755): Eighty-four year old Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Kol Torah Yeshiva in Jerusalem passed away today. Over a quarter of a million people attended his funeral.
1996(30th of Shevat, 5756): Dr. Solomon Asch, leading Gestalt Psychologist and pioneer social psychologist passed away.
1999(4th of Adar, 5759): Film critic Gene Siskel passed away. As the article below indicates, he was not just a successful critic he was also, a committed Jew, a real `mensch'
People the world over have eulogized him as a master movie critic, a dedicated family man and a modest person whose fame didn't detract from his friendliness.A lesser-known but equally important side to Siskel reflected his Jewish upbringing and his continued dedication to Judaism and his community. Siskel, who died of cancer at age 53, was an active supporter of Israel and Jewish educational initiatives. He spent his early childhood in a historically Jewish neighborhood on Chicago's North Side. After his parents died when Siskel was very young, he and his siblings were raised by their mother's sister and her family in a north Chicago suburb. His aunt and uncle were founding members of Conservative Synagogue Beth El, where he celebrated his bar mitzvah and later became a member with his wife, Marlene. Their daughter celebrated her bat mitzvah at Beth El in January, the last time he was out in public. More than 1,200 people attended his funeral there on Monday, among them his film-critic partner and longtime friend Roger Ebert. Just days before he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, Siskel emceed at Chicago's community celebration of Israel's 50th anniversary. At the time he was suffering from migraine headaches due to his illness. “Gene was a revolutionary at his craft, known the world over, yet he never forgot where he came from," said Steven Nasatirof the Chicago area Jewish federation." In an era when public figures often have little to do with their community, Gene was a mensch, whose Judaism was paramount in his life and who was a very willing and active member of his community." Siskel's dedication to Israel was strongly influenced by a family trip there two years ago when his oldest daughter, Kate, was in eighth grade. Siskel's children attended Moadon Kol Chadash, a small, family-run Hebrew school whose first graduating class was taken to Israel. Believing that such a trip should be offered to a greater number of local Hebrew-school students, Siskel took the project under his wing. As a result a group of eighth-graders went to Israel last February, and a second, much larger group, went earlier this month. Siskel compiled a video chronicling Jewish stereotypes and anti-Semitism in Hollywood, which he used as an educational tool. Friends say Siskel expressed Judaism with modesty and little fanfare. "He was very low-key and never took himself too seriously," said his longtime friend Howard Caroll, a retired Illinois state senator, "but he was fervent about his Jewish beliefs." Beth El Rabbi Vernon Kurtz said in his eulogy Monday that just weeks ago, prior to their second daughter's bat mitzvah, Siskel and his wife told her that the two most important values in life were family and Judaism. "Judaism," Siskel said, "has taught me right from wrong,"
2000: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans by Eric A. Johnson and The Arcades Projectby Walter Benjamin; edited by Rolf Tiedemann; translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin.
2000(14thof Adar I, 5760): Purim Katan
2000(14thof Adar I, 5760): Eighty-six year old Elliot Caplin the comic strip writer who “co-created The Heart of Juliet Jones, Big Ben Bolt and Dr. Bobs” and who was the younger brother of Al Capp, the creator of Li’s Abner, passed away today.
2000: Bruce Lee Fleisher won the GTE Classic.
2002: The Israeli Defense Ministry awarded Elbit Systems, the Haifa based electronics manufacturer founded in 1967, a ground-breaking tender to purchase new trainers for the air force
2003(18th of Adar I, 5763): Daniel Aaron, a refugee from Nazi Germany and an orphan who went on to become a founder of Comcast, the largest cable company in the country, died today in Philadelphia, where he lived. He was 77. The cause was Parkinson's disease, according to the company. In 1990, speaking at a dinner for his retirement as vice chairman of Comcast in Philadelphia, Mr. Aaron described himself as something like the conscience of the operation. He pictured the young company as a car, with Mr. Roberts, the chairman, behind the wheel, Julian A. Brodsky, the principal fund-raiser, stepping on the gas, and Mr. Aaron himself with a foot on the brake. In 1963, Mr. Aaron persuaded Ralph J. Roberts, a Philadelphia entrepreneur who had recently sold a men's wear business, to buy a small cable television system in Tupelo, Miss. As part of the deal, Mr. Aaron agreed to help run it, and over the next 30 years they built or acquired dozens of other cable systems around the country. Last fall, the company they started, Comcast, acquired AT&T Broadband to become the largest cable television service provider in the country
2005: At the DCJCC, the final performance of Joyce Carol Oates’ The Tattooed Girl.
2005: The Jew of Iowa Jima published today.2006: Right-wing British historian David Irving was convicted in Austria on Monday of denying the Holocaust - a crime in this country once run by the Nazis - and was sentenced to three years in prison. Irving, 67, who had pleaded guilty and insisted during his one-day trial that he had a change of heart and now acknowledged the Nazis' World War II slaughter of 6 million Jews, had faced up to 10 years behind bars for the offense. "The court did not consider the defendant to have genuinely changed his mind," presiding judge Peter Liebetreu told the court after pronouncing the sentence. "The regret he showed was considered to be mere lip service to the law."
2005: The New York Times included reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Nice Big American Baby by Judy Budnitzan, the recently released paperback edition of Apprentice to the Flower Poet Z. by Debra Weinstein and
essay by the recently deceased Susan Sontag entitled “Report on the Journey.”
essay by the recently deceased Susan Sontag entitled “Report on the Journey.”
2007: Former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak speaks at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2007(2nd of Adar I, 5767): Eighty-five year old symphony conduct Siegfried Landau passed away today.(As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
2007: Jon Scheyer of the Duke Blue Devils “grabbed a career-high 12 rebounds against Pittsburgh.”
2008: Jon Scheyer “scored 27 points at Miami, matching the most points by a player off the bench in Duke history.”
2008: Chelsea Football Club announced that Avraham Grant had received anti-Semitic death threats from unknown sources
2008: At the Jerusalem Cinematheque a showing of “Le Viel Homme et L’Enfant” ( הזקן והילד). Set in WW II France, the story revolves around the relationship between a young Jewish boy sent to hide with a rural family and the older man who is a WW I hero, a supporter of Petain and a vocal anti-Semite.
2008: The Washington Post reported on the results of a cancer study conducted by Itai Kloog, of the University of Haifa. According to the study, “women who live in neighborhoods with large amounts of nighttime illumination are more likely to get breast cancer than those who live in areas where nocturnal darkness prevails, according to an unusual study that overlaid satellite images of Earth onto cancer registries
2008: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met in Jerusalem in an attempt to further latest round of peace talks which appear to be faltering. These talks are an outgrowth of the negotiations held in Annapolis, MD in November of 2007.
2009: The 24th Annual Jerusalem International Book Fair comes to an end.
2009:A barrage of 10 mortar shells was fired at Gaza Belt communities, in what military sources said might have been the first stage of an attempted two-part combined terrorist attack. The attack, which was preceded by a Grad missile attack on the Negev town of Netivot, was repulsed by IDF forces operating near the Kissufim Crossing, who returned fire.
2010:Singer, actress and playwright Rebecca Joy Fletcher is scheduled to perform her acclaimed one-woman show “Cities of Light” at Congregation Beth Emeth in Herndon, VA.
2010: “A Matter of Size” is scheduled to be shown on the opening night of The 12th Annual Northern New Jersey Israel Film Festival.
2010: Birthday celebration of Dr. Bob Silber, a pillar of the Jewish community and a mensch in the truest sense of the word.
2011(16th of Adar I, 5771): Jay Landesman, a writer and editor whose journal Neurotica analyzed the anxieties of postwar America and whose Broadway musical, “The Nervous Set,” has been called the first (and only) Beat musical passed away today in London at the age of 91.
2011: The 21st Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.
2011: Amos Oz: The Nature of Dreams, a documentary based on the memoirs of Amos Oz, that “delves into the persona of one of Israel's greatest and most controversial authors and political commentators” is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.
2011: English author Ian McEwan is scheduled to be awarded the Jerusalem Prize, Israel's highest literary honor for foreign writers at the opening of the Jerusalem International Book Fair.
2011: The family and myriad friends of Dr. Bob Silber celebrate the 60th natal day of this die-hard Hawkeye fan, ardent Zionist and all-around good-guy.
2011: The New York Times featured a profile of author Walter Isaacson who has been the chairman and chief executive of CNN and the editor of Time magazine and the recently released paperback edition of Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, a “philosophical novel about love, Jewish cultural identity and academic infighting.”
2011:The Environment Ministry reported that the recent appearance of an extensive bout of haze has brought the concentration of dust in central Israel to a level four to 10 times more than the average rate as of today
2012:US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon's three day trip to Israel brought on by rising tensions over the creation of an Iranian nuclear capability is scheduled to come to an end today.
2012: MesorahDC is scheduled to sponsor Café Nite at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, DC.
2012: As the United States celebrates Presidents’ Day, the Jewish community may reflect on the unique interaction between it and various Chief Executives including: Washington’s letter to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island; Franklin Pierce’s appointment of the first Jew to serve as the U.S. Minister to a foreign country; Abraham Lincoln’s role in making it possible for Rabbis to serve as Chaplains in the U.S. Army and revoking Order #11; U.S. Grant’s attempt to appoint the first Jew to the Cabinet and his attendance at the dedication of Adas Israel; Teddy Roosevelt’s appointment of the first Jew serve in the Cabinet; William H. Taft’s at the first seder ever to be graced by a U.S. President; Woodrow Wilson’s appointment of the first Jew to serve on the Supreme Court; President Herbert Hoover’s appointment of the second Jew to serve on the Supreme Court; President Harry Truman’s role in the creation of the state of Israel; Lyndon Johnson’s role in saving Jews from the Holocaust, passing legislation that outlawed discrimination based on religion and support Israel during the 1967 War. (And this is a short list)
2012: If Cairo unilaterally decides to alter the peace treaty with Jerusalem, Israel will ask why sign agreements with other neighbors if these accords are not kept, Intelligence Agencies Minister Dan Meridor said today..
2012: US President Barack Obama will meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on March 5, the White House said today. Netanyahu will be in Washington to address the annual policy conference of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, which will be held on March 4-6.
2012: Ammunition Hill will not close after an emergency meeting this evening with representatives from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Defense Ministry, and the Finance Ministry,
2012: “Iran Raid Seen as a Huge Task for Israeli Jets” published today describes the great challenge that the IAF would face if it had to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability.
2013: My German Children,” which premiered at Jerusalem’s Jewish Film Festival in December, is scheduled to air for the first time on Israeli TV today as part of a Yes Doco series on children. (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)
2013: Happy Birthday Dr. Bob
2013: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is scheduled to present a ”discussion on the groundbreaking anthology Choosing Yiddish: New Frontiers of Language and Culture, “featuring editors Lara Rabinovitch, Shiri Goren, Hannah S. Pressman, editors, along with Gennady Estraikh (NYU), Eddy Portnoy (Rutgers), Jennifer Young (NYU/YIVO), and many others.”
2013: Nigerian security forces this evening arrested three people belonging to an Iranian-linked terror cell that was reportedly planning to launch an attack against Israeli and American targets, Army Radio reported.
2014: Friends and family of Dr. Bob Silber, pillar of the Jewish committee, President of the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Committee and diehard Hawkeye celebrate his natal day.
2014: Hemi Rudner, “one of the finest musicians in the Israeli rock scent” who is the leader of “Eifo Hayeled” at CAFÉ WHA?
2014” The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “The Power of the Geniza.
2014: “Bethlehem.” winner of 6 Ophir Awards, is scheduled to be shown at the DPJCC's 14th Annual Jewish Film Festival
2014: “Bulgaria announced today that it has confirmed the existence of a third suspect in the 2012 bombing that killed five Israeli tourists and their tour bus driver in the city of Burgas.” (As reported by Spencer Ho)
2014: German police arrested three Auschwitz guards; names take from a list of thirty that had been turned over to authorities by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. (As reported by JTA)
2014: “The Israeli government and Jerusalem Municipality finalized plans for an initiative to invest NIS 22 million ($6.25 million) in movies and television series that film in the capital, Jerusalem City Hall announced today.” (As reported by Spencer Ho)
2014: “Finance Minister Yair Lapid praised a Knesset committee’s approval of a bill pushing for the enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men to the military, saying it was a resurgence of Zionism that fixed a major flaw in Israeli society.”(As reported by Israel Hayom and Times of Israel)
2015: Jewish filmmaker Aviva Kempner, is scheduled to screen a clip of her work in progress focusing on the Rosenwald schools funded by Julius Rosenwald, Sears-Roebuck magnate as part of the Visionaries of Black Education program in Washington, DC.
2015: “Love, Marilyn” is scheduled to be shown in the last of the Women On Top film series at the 92nd Street Y.
2015(1stof Adar, 5775): Rosh Chodesh Adar