March 4
457BCE(1st of Nisan, 3303): According to chapter 7, verse 9 of the Book of Ezra, Ezra and his followers left Babylonia for Jerusalem
1193: Saladin, the great Moslem leader, passed away. Among Saladin’s many accomplishments was the re-taking of Jerusalem from the Crusaders and his subsequent defeat of Richard the Lionhearted. Saladin had begun his leadership career in Egypt where Maimonides served as physician to his court. There is some question as to whether Maimonides provided medical services to Saladin or to his brother-in-law and his entourage.
1152: Frederick Barbarossa was elected Roman-German king. Born in 1123, Barbarossa or Frederick I was Holy Roman Emperor for forty years. He was slated to lead the Third Crusade along with Phillip of France and Richard the Lion-Hearted. Unfortunately, Barbarossa drowned before he could help lead the Crusade. From the Jewish point of view, unfortunately is the correct word to use in describing his death. Unlike other Crusaders, Barbarossa sought to protect the Jews. He warned local priests and monks not to preach against the Jews. He told the Diet (Parliament) that anybody who killed a Jew would forfeit his own life. Thanks to Frederick's efforts, German bishops threatened those who attacked Jews with excommunication. As a Jewish commentator of that time wrote, "Frederick defended us with all his might and enabled us to live among our enemies, so that no one harmed the Jews."
1215: King John of England makes an oath to the Pope as a crusader to gain the support of Innocent III. While they may have been odds over many issues, the two leaders both held firm to the concept of allowing the Jews to exist, but in a state of humiliation. In 1210, John imprisoned the Jews of Bristol and demanded 66,000 in ransom as the price of their freedom. To move the process along, John reportedly had the teeth of the prisoners extracted one at a time until they agreed to the payment. Such was his treatment of the Jews, that Barons included special language about the treatment of the Jews in the Magna Carta. The Fourth Lateran Council over which Innocent actively presided adopted several cannons attacking Jews including the denying them the right to hold office and the requirement to wear distinctive dress.
1277: “Emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg granted a charter of rights to the Jews of Prussia.” P 140
1349: Birthdate of Prince Henry the Navigator. The Portuguese prince earned his sobriquet and place in history for supporting ever more ambitious efforts to explore the uncharted waters of the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. His efforts were financed and encouraged by the family of Don Judah Abarbanel a wealthy refugee from Spanish persecution who served as financer and confident to two generations of Portuguese monarchs.
1386: Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) is crowned King of Poland. The situation of the Jews in Poland had already begun to deteriorate prior to his kingship. In the middle of the century, the Jews were blamed for the Black Plague and attacked by the countrymen. Under Wladislaus II and his successors the first extensive persecutions of the Jews in Poland commenced, persecutions which the monarch did not act to stop.
1493: According to some records, today Columbus arrived in Lisbon from which he sent the letter that described the results of his first voyage. The letter was addressed to Luis de Santangel, the converso who, as finance minister, had convinced the Spanish monarchs to finance the voyage.
1524: In Cairo, Mohamed Bey freed the Jews who had been imprisoned by the viceroy Ahmed Schaitan on the day on which he planned to kill them. Ahmed had rebelled against the Sultan and when a Jewish leader, Abraham de Castro, exposed the plot, Ahmed responded by demanding a ransom from the Jews of Cairo and then imprisoning them once they had brought him the money. This day of deliverance is celebrated as the Purim of Cairo.
1648(8th of Adar): Rabbi Issachar Baer, author Arba’ah Hadashim passed away
1699: Jews of Lubeck, Germany, were expelled.
1743: Birthdate of Tuscan poet Solomon Fiorentino who wrote “Elegie” after the death of his wife Laura Gallico and was the father of Hebrew teacher Angiolo Fiortentino.
1791: Vermont is the 14th state to join the Union. It is the first state to join the original 13 states. Today Vermont boasts a vibrant, if small, Jewish community. This includes houses of worship in at least half a dozen cities, a Chabad in Burlington and Hillel chapters at two of the state’s universities.
1791: A Christian in Alsace was punished by the Church for lighting a fire for a Jew on Shabbat.
1791: Israel Jacobs of Pennsylvania took his seat as the first Jewish member of the United States House of Representatives.
1797: John Adams is sworn in as second President of the United States, succeeding George Washington. This orderly transfer of power, including the acceptance of the outcome of elections, is a uniquely American gift to the world of political science. At the national level, the U.S. failed to abide by this and the result was four violent years of Civil War. There are those who would say that the Jewish people have been able to thrive in America because of the stability of the society and because of its respect for the rule of law as epitomized by this seemingly simple event. Adams, like so many of his New England contemporaries was greatly influenced by his reading of what he called “the Old Testament.” The images of George III as Pharaoh and the colonists as the modern day Israelites fighting tyranny provide a couple cover for what others might have called treason. Adams was an early Zionist, writing to the Jewish leader Mordechai Manuel Noah, “I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation.” For more about the views of our Second President on the Jewish people see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/adams.html
1798: Catholic women were forced to do penance for kindling fire for Jews on Shabbat.
Either this is the same episode reported at two different times or being a "Shabbos Goy" was a big no-no among the Catholic hierarchy.
Either this is the same episode reported at two different times or being a "Shabbos Goy" was a big no-no among the Catholic hierarchy.
1799:Under cover of night, between the 3rd and the 4th of March, work commenced- the erecting of five batteries, four against the southern wall and one in support of the northern sector.13 The artillery park at Napoleon¹s command consisted only of field pieces, mostly of 12, 8, 6 and 3 "pouces" (=inches of 2.7 cm), of howitzers of 6 pouces and of 6-pouce mortars,14 since the heavy artillery had all been loaded for transfer to Acre bay onto the ships of the flotilla commanded by captain Standelet, and onto the freighters that had been collected for that purpose in the Egyptian harbors. Those ships were only just then commencing their journey north, without the means of contact with the land forces, and Napoleon was compelled to make do with the lighter ordnance at his command. However, he did not seem to have been unduly worried. Most probably, the outward appearance of these antiquated walls revived his confidence in the description of M. de Volney, who, in 1784, had called the ramparts of Jaffa "mere garden walls."
1820: Alexander I of Russia prohibited the employment of Christian servants by Jews.
1822(11th of Adar): Isaac Franks the American patriot from Philadelphia who served in the Continental Army passed away.
1837: Chicago receives its official charter by the state of Illinois. Jews first came to Chicago from Prussia, Austria, Bohemia and sections of modern-day Poland, fleeing oppression to settle in the Chicago area as early as 1832. Kehilat Anshe Mayriv (Congregation of the People of the West), Chicago's first Jewish congregation, was founded in 1847; in 1851 KAM built the city's first synagogue at Clark and Jackson streets, a site now occupied by the Kluczynski Federal Building. It was followed by B'nai Shalom, in 1852, and Chicago Sinai, the city's first Reform congregation, in 1861. The expansion of the Jewish community was slow but steady. In 1871, the Great Fire destroyed many residences near the downtown business district, forcing thousands of people to relocate. The more prosperous German Jews, who made up the majority, moved south along Michigan, Wabash and Indiana avenues, eventually settling in Washington Park, Kenwood, Hyde Park and South Shore; the Eastern European Jews moved west of the central business district in the vicinity of Maxwell Street. Between 1880 and 1900, a new wave of 55,000 Russian and Polish Jews crowded into the Maxwell Street market neighborhood. Yiddish was the language of choice. Dozens of Hebrew schools and Yiddish theaters were organized, and 40 Orthodox shuls were built within walking distance of Halsted and Maxwell streets. As successive waves of Jewish immigrants became settled and successful, the Jewish community began expanding. In addition to continued growth on the South Side, neighborhoods such as Lawndale and Douglas Park on the West Side and Albany Park, Humboldt Park, Lake View, Uptown and Edgewater on the North Side became vibrant Jewish communities. Many Chicago Jews today trace their roots in this city to one or more of these areas.
1838: The first Sunday School for Jewish students, under the direction of the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, opened today in Philadelphia, PA.
1849: Austrian Jews were granted equal civil and political rights under the new constitution. The imperial government would renege on its promise and full rights would not be finally granted until 1867.
1853: Philip Phillips began serving as a U.S. Congressman representing Alabama’s 1stDistrict.
1855: After having been out of office for four years, David Yulee, the first Jew elected to the United States, began his second term in office today.
1857: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Solomon Jacobs officiated at the wedding of Mr. Magnus of Rome, GA and Rebecca Alexander the youngest daughter of the late Abraham Alexander.
1861: Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th President of the United States. Lincoln sensitivity to Jewish can be seen in the way he handled the law that allowed Jews to serve as Chaplains and the aftermath of General Grant’s infamous order banning Jews from the area under his command. But Lincoln’s greatest contribution to the welfare of the Jewish people was his successful effort to save “the last best hope of man” which has provided Jews with unprecedented opportunity.
1862: “From the African Coast” published today described the travels of the USS Saratoga through the waters of the South Atlantic including a stop at the island of St. Helena where the ship took on provisions. According to the author, the Jews on the island exploited the plight of the American naval vessel, selling spoiled and overpriced supplies and even exchanging money at rate that exploited the Americans. “The Jews of St. Helena took money out of us and tucked sour flour and bad rice into us, sold us Spanish dollars at 4s. 2d., and took them at 3s. 9d., was a caution, never to come again if we can help it. Even the common necessaries of life were in price luxuries -- for instance, beef, 60c. per pound; mutton, do.; butter, 55c. per pound; eggs, 5c. each, &c., &c.” [It is difficult to know who these Jews were. During the 1820’s, Nathanial Isaacs uncle served on St. Helena as the counsel for France and Holland.Saul Solomon who converted to Christianity was born in St. Helena in 1817 but left to find fame and fortune in South Africa. “The few other St. Helena Jews who settled” on St. Helena “during Napoleon's banishment, the Gideon, the Moss, and the Isaacs families, were all related to” Solomon, and, like him “most of them drifted from Judaism.”
1863: A rumor from Jackson, Miss., says that a Jew has been arrested on the charge of offering to spike the guns at Port Hudson for $60,000.
1863: William Sprague completed his term as governor of Rhode Island and took his seat in the United States Senate representing his home state. While in the Senate Sprague would explain away the suffering of the Jews of Romania as being the result of their taking away the lands and livelihood of the Christian, a pattern that he implied could be repeated in the United States. Sprague’s words take on additional weight because he was not just an ordinary political hack. He was a successful businessman who supported Abraham Lincoln and was the son-in-law of Salmon Chase, the powerful Republican politician who served as Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
1865: Birthdate of Lieutenant General Sir George Mark Watson Macdonogh, that rarity among British officers, “a Zionist sympathizer” who was a close enough friend of Chaim Weizmann, that Jewish leader discussed the possibility of having Herbert Samuel removed as British High Commissioner following the issuance of the report issued by the Haycroft Commission of Inquirty.
1866: An article published today entitled “The Purim Ball: The Wonders or a Persian Temple-A Glimpse of the Glories of Babylon Fun, Frolic and Phantasmagoria” described the celebration of the Purim Ball in New York City which was “duly celebrated…with all the pomp, display an out-rivaling effectiveness which was promised for it by its promoters.”
1869: William Seward who had served as Secretary of State under Presidents Lincoln and Johnson completed his service in this office following which he took a tour around the world which included a stop in Jerusalem and Palestine which he had first visited in 1859. Seward described in the Jews as “the builders and the founders of “ Jeruslaem.
1870: President U.S. Grant appointed Civil War hero Edward Selig Salomon governor of Washington Territory (the future state of Washington, not D.C.)
1871: Robert C. De Large, the son of black woman and Jewish man, began serving in the U.S. Representatives as a member from South Carolina’s 2nd district. A Republican, he had served in the state legislature and as state land commissioner before being elected to Congress.
1874(15th of Adar, 5634): Shushan Purim
1874: “The Jews In Italy” published today contains a synopsys of an article by Dr. Berliner published in the Judische Presse. According to Dr. Berliner there are approximately 4,500 Jews living in Rome “most of who are destitute.” There are 5 synagouges in Rome two of which follow the Sephardic (Spanish) rite and three of which follow the Italian rite. One of the synagogues dates backs to the time of Titus, the Roman who destroyed the Second Temple. 1875: It was reported today that over 2,000 tickets have already been sold to the upcoming Hebrew Charity Ball sponsored by the Purim Association.
1875: William Sharon began serving as U.S. Senator from Nevada. When he passed away ten years later, his recipients of his bequests included several California charities including those established by the Jewish community
1875(27th of Adar I, 5635): Rabbi Joseph Saul Nathanson of Lemberg, author of Ner Ma’aravi, a novaellae on the Jerusalem Talmud passed away
1877: “The Russian Army of the South” published today provides a detailed description of Kishinev, the city that is the headquarters of the major Russian unit under the Grand Duke that has been mobilized in the war against the Turks. Kishinev has a population of 100,000, more than half of whom are Jews. [This is the same Kishinev that will be the site of future horrible Pogroms.]
1877: Emile Berliner invented the microphone. He would also invent the flat disc that replaced Edison’s cylinder and became the prototype for the record which would become the standard for the recording industry for the better part of a hundred years.
1879: It was reported today that the Purim Association will be sponsoring a fancy dress charity ball to be held later this week at the Academy of Music in New York City.
1879(9th of Adar, 5639): Leon Hyneman passed away. Born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in 1808, he “was the author of "The Fundamental Principles of Science" and of several works on masonic subjects, the chief among them being "The Origin of Freemasonry" and "Freemasonry in England from 1567 to 1813." Hyneman was one of the members of the Jewish Publication Society of America. Among his eight children were Leona Hyneman who “under the stage name of "Leona Moss," became a talented actress. Another daughter was Alice Hyneman, authoress; born in Philadelphia Jan. 31, 1840; contributor to "The North American Review"; "The Forum"; "The Popular Science Monthly"; and the author of "Woman in Industry," a treatise on the work of woman in America, and of "Niagara," a descriptive record of the great cataract and its vicinity.
1879: Edwin Jonas took his seat as a United States Senator from Louisiana making him the third Jew to serve in “the upper chamber.”
1879: Edwin Einstein, a native of Cincinnati, began to serve as a member of the U.S. House Representatives from New York’s 7thCongressional District.
1881: William Sharon, who would bestow a bequest of $5,000 on the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of San Francisco, completed his term as service as a U.S. Senator from Nevada.
1881: James G. Fair who would bestow a bequest of $25,000 on the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of San Francisco, began his term as service as a U.S. Senator from Nevada.
1884: Arthur Sebag-Montefiore and Harriett Beddington gave birth to Charles to English stock-broker Charles Edward Sebag-Montefiore, the husband of Muriel Alice Ruth de Pass.
1885: Grover Cleveland who relied on Isidor Strauss the co-owner of R.H. Macy and member of Congress as a trusted advisor and whom he appointed as Ambassador to Turkey was inaugurated as 22ndPresident of the United States.
1885: Charles Henry Grosvenor is elected to the House of Representatives from Ohio for the first time. His career will last until 1907, but he will represent 3 different congressional districts. During his career he will take part in several debates on immigration bills during which he said “he said he would not vote for a measure framed specially to restrict the entrance of the Russian Jews, for such a would be charged up to him as a vote against a man on account of his religion.”
1885: Edwin Jonas, who failed to win re-election, competed his term as a United States Senator following which he was appointed Collector of the Port of New Orleans.
1887: James G. Fair who would bestow a bequest of $25,000 on the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of San Francisco, completed his term as service as a U.S. Senator from Nevada.
1887: William Stewart, who will defend the Jews of Romania against persecution, begins serving as the U.S. Senator from Nevada.
1887: Isidor Rayner began serving as a Congressman from Maryland in the 50th U.S. House of Representatives.
1889:St. Louis newspaperman Nathan Frank began serving as a member of the House of Representatives in the 51stCongress.
!889: Benjamin Harrison who appointed Solomon Hirsch of Portland, Oregon as Minister to Turkey was inaugurated as 23rdPresident of the United States.
1890: Seventy-seven year old Franz Delitzsch, the “Lutheran theologian and Hebraist” who “wrote many commentaries on the books of the Bible and Jewish antiquities” and who “defended the Jewish community against anti-Judaic attacks” passed away today.
1890: Isidor Gunsburg was among the spectators of the chess match played between Delmar and Lipschutz at the Manhattan Chess Club.
1890: The 29th annual ball sponsored by the Purim Association took place this evening at the Metropolitan Opera House. Money raised this year will go to the aid of the United Hebrew Charities.
1890: Thieves attempted to rob Solomon Barnett, a Jewish tailor, while he was working at this shop on Lexington Avenue, near 83rdStreet in New York City.1891(24th of Adar I, 5651: Two students at the Hebrew Union College, Isador H. Frauenthal and Ernst Sallinger, passed away today in Cincinnati, Ohio.1891: James B. Eustis completed his last term as a United States Senator following which he would become U.S. Ambassador to France, a position from which he would study the Dreyfus Affair but die before he could deliver his report to the government in Washington.1892: It was reported today that Abraham Herrman, Simon Borg and Solomon B. Solomon have been unanimously elected to serve three year terms as Directors of the Hebrew Technical Institute.
1893: Grover Cleveland who would lend his support to those who objecting to the treatment of the Jews of Russia and opposed legislation that would have kept Jews from immigrating to the United States was inaugurated as 24th President of the United States.
1893: It was reported today that the proceeds from the upcoming ball sponsored by the Purim Association will be donated to the United Hebrew Charities.
1893: “Scenes in the Azores” published today provides a picture of life on these Atlantic Islands including the fact that “native Azorean Jews” have gradually come to dominate the banking business, the importation of coal and the ownership of the mail boats to Lisbon. The Jews now own homes in Tangiers and Lisbon.
1893: “Manifesto of Jewish Rabbis” published today described a document issued by 210 German Rabbis designed to counteract the increasing power of the country’s anti-Jewish movement.
1894: The Superintendent of the Bureau of Immigration, a section of the Treasury Department, “has received an official denial from the Russian Government that” it is aiding Russian Jews in their efforts to come to the United States.
1894(26th of Adar I, 5654):Rabbi Joseph Perles passed away. Born in Baja, Hungary in 1835, he received his early instruction in the Talmud from his father, Baruch Asher Perles, he was educated successively at the gymnasium of his native city, was one of the first rabbis trained at the new type of rabbinical seminary at Breslau, and the university of that city (Oriental philology and philosophy; Ph.D. 1859, presenting as his dissertation Meletemata Peschitthoniana). Perles was awarded his rabbinical diploma in 1862. He had already received a call, in the autumn of the previous year, as preacher to the community of Posen; and in that city he founded a religious school. In 1863 he married Rosalie, the eldest daughter of Simon Baruch Schefftel. In the same year he declined a call to Budapest; but in 1871 he accepted the rabbinate of Münich, being the first rabbi of modern training to fill that office. As the registration law which had restricted the expansion of the communities had not been abrogated until 1861, Perles found an undeveloped community; but under his management it soon began to flourish, and in 1887 he dedicated the new synagogue. He declined not only a call to succeed Abraham Geiger as rabbi in Berlin, but also a chair at the newly founded seminary in Budapest. Perles' most important essays were on folklore and custom. He also wrote an essay on Nachmanides, and a biography and critical appreciation of Rashba.
1894: As the United States grapples with the problem of unemployment brought by economic depression, the United Hebrew Charities is one of the organizations making daily requests to aid the needy.
1894: Among the donations made to the fund to help New York’s unemployed are R.H. Macy & Co ($100), Simon Borg ($100) and Emanuel Lehman ($100).
1895: “The Pope May Interfere” published today described the Pope’s plans to issue an “encyclical letter denouncing the anti-Semitic agitation in Europe. The Pope is reacting to the reports brought to him several weeks ago by Cardinal Schoenborn “concerning Jew-baiting in Austria.”
1895: A cased was “called today against the Adelphi Club” “among whose members are the wealthiest and most influential Jews of Albany, NY” which resulted in the Judge decreeing that private clubs were under the jurisdiction of the Excise Board and must be licensed accordingly.
1895: The 3 year old “waif” found wandering the streets and known only as “John Doe, No.19” moved to the Hebrew Sheltering Society’s Home where the Philip Goodhart, the President of the home gave him the name of Judah Touro.
1895: “Mrs. Ida Lieberman, the convicted fire-bug was taken to Auburn Prison” today to begin serving “her sentence of six years and eight months.
1895: The six year old daughter and eight year old son of prisoner Ida Lieberman, for whom no provision had been made, were provided with a home today at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1896: Among the facilities being visited by those attending the conference on “Improved Housing” is the Hebrew Institute on East Broadway, where they will be greeted Inspector Isaac Spectorsky
1897: Joseph Simon begins his term as U.S. Senator from Oregon. Born in Germany, Simon settled in Portland, Oregon where he became a member of the bar and played an active role in Republican Party politics.
1897: “Two Heroes Remembered” published today summarized a speech given by Hugo Hirsh in honor of the 1st and 16thpresidents of the United States in which he said that the “Hebrew race was typified by the institutions of the county in that the Hebrew was the most cosmopolitan among peoples and the United States the most cosmopolitan of nations.” Furthermore, “the principles of educational, religious and political freedom fostered by these two leaders had been of incalculable benefit to the Hebrew race.”
1897: William McKinley whom the Jews would be accused of assassinating was inaugurated as 25th President of the United States.
1899: A group of “prominent” Jews met in Cincinnati to plan for the reception and entertainment of the rabbis who will be attending the upcoming annual Central Conference of American Rabbis.
1899: It was reported today that among the three new novels in Houghton, Mifflin & Co.’s spring list is A Tent of Grace, a story of a Jew and a gentile in Germany by Adelina C. Lust.
1900: In Philadelphia, PA Joseph and Eva Biberman gave birth to screenwriter and director Herbert J. Biberman who was one of the Hollywood Ten.
1901: Birthdate of master bridge player, Charles Goren. The Philadelphia born lawyer probably did more to popularize the game bridge than did any other single American.
1901: Henry Mayer Goldfogle began serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York’s 9thCongressional District.
1903: Senator Joseph Simon, Oregon Republican, finishes his term in the U.S. Senate. Simon returned to Portland, Oregon where he resumed his law practice and would serve as mayor from 1909 to 1911.
1904: In Richmond, VA, Beth Ahabah, a Reform congregation that could trace its roots back to 1789, laid the cornerstone for a new house of worship popularly referred to as the Franklin Street Synagogue because of its address 1111 West Franklin Street.
1905 Isidor Rayner began serving as U.S. Senator from Maryland
1905: William M. Stewart completed his services as U.S. Senator from Nevada. During one debate on anti-Semitism in Romania, Stewart defended the Jews of charges from Senator Sprague that the Jews were the author of their own suffering because they had been so successful.
1906: Only days after Martial Law had come to an end a police officer name Kulchitsky was killed in Bialystok. This killing was one of the many acts of violence that would lead to the pogrom that took place in June of that year.
1907: John Simon Guggenheim, the son of Meyer and Barbara Guggenheim began serving as U.S. Senator from Colorado.
1909: Birthdate of Millionaire Real Estate Mogul Harry B. Helmsley.
1909: Ed “Cotton” Smith who as a member of the House of Representatives had opposed legislation that would have exempted Jewish immigrants from Russia from a literacy test began serving in the United States Senate.
1910(23rd of Adar I, 5670): Romanian born Yiddish dramatist Moses Horowitz passed away in the Montefiore Home at the age of 76. The Bucharest native came to the United States in 1882 and was hailed at his passing as being “the Pioneer Yiddish playwright in New York.” Five years before his death he lost all of his money while trying to produce a unique Yiddish opera at the Windsor Theatre.
1911: Victor Berger of Wisconsin became the first member of the Socialist Party to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
1911: Jefferson Monroe Levy, the nephew of Uriah P. Levy began serving as the U.S. Congressman from New York’s 13thDistrict.
1912: Birthdate of the actor John Garfield in New York. Born Julius Garfinkle, Garfield rose to stardom in the 1930's and 1940's playing a variety of wisecracking, “lover boy” type roles. One of his most famous roles was in the film hit, “The Postman Rings Twice.” Garfield was caught up in the Anti-Communist Witch Hunts of the 1950's.
1913: Dr. Joseph Hertz sailed from New York on the SS Mauritania bound for the British Isles where he will become Chief Rabbi of England which will make him not only the leader of British Jewry but one of the most influential Jewish clerics in the world.
1914: The General Orders issued on this date provided the official citation awarding Louis C. Hoseher the Congressional Medal of Honor. “The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Second Lieutenant Louis C. Mosher, United States Army, for most distinguished gallantry on 11 June 1913, while serving with the Philippine Scouts, in action at Gagsak Mountain, Jolo, Philippine Islands. Second Lieutenant Mosher voluntarily entered a cleared space within about 20 yards of the Moro trenches under a furious fire from them and carried a wounded soldier of his company to safety at the risk of his own life.”
1914: “Arthur Ruppin wrote in his diary, ‘Today I succeeded in buying from Sir John Gray Hill his largeand magnificently situated property on Mount Scopus, thus acquiring the first piece of ground for the Jewish University in Jerusalem.’”
1915: The United States naval collier Vulcan is scheduled to set sail from the League Island Navy Yard at Philadelphia today carrying supplies paid for by the Jewish Relief Society for “distribution to the starving residents” of Palestine.
1915: Dr. Robert Tuttle Morris, ex-President of the American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists delivered a talk tonight at the Cornell Club on “Warfare as Natural History” in which he “advanced the theory that the Jewish people would be the next to dominate” the world because, among other thing, “they are gathering in the citing, thriving under urban life” and “increasing more rapidly than any others.”
1915: Jefferson Monroe Levy completed his second and final term as a U.S. Congressman.
1915: Meyer London, the Jewish Socialist, began serving his first term in the U.S House representing New York’s 12th Congressional District.
1915: Among those whose contributions to the Fund of the American Jewish Relief Committee were received today included L.M. Jacobs of Tucson, AZ and the Dallas, TX, YMHA,
1915: “Assurance that the Jewish people of Palestine ‘enjoy perfect safety’ was given in an official communication” that arrived in Washington, DC today from Constantinople.
1919: After four years out of office, Henry Mayer Goldfogle began serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York’s 12th Congressional District.
1920: Birthdate of Leo Greenland, the Bronx born adman whose accounts included Tanqueray Gin, Johnnie Walker (Red & Black) Scotch and Olvatine. Do you think he ever confused his liquids? (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1920: In Harlem, Robert and Mary Habib Yohai, Jewish immigrants from Turkey, gave birth to Morrie Robert Yohai, the man who Cheez Doodles one of America’s most popular junk snack foods. (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1921: Having been out of office for two years, Meyer London again begins representing New York’s 12th Congressional District.
1922: Birthdate of British cardiologist David Mendel.
1922: Release date of German silent horror film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” co-starring Wolfgang Heinz, the stage name of David Hrisch.
1923(16thof Adar, 5683): Shushan Purim, since the 15th of Adar fell on Shabbat
1923(16thof Adar, 5683): Edward Lauterbach, prominent New York attorney and leader of the Republican Party who devoted four decades of his life to the Hebrew Orphan Asylum passed away today.
1923: Birthdate of Kurt Schubert, the founder of Austria's first Jewish museum after World War II and the founder of the Jewish Institute at the University of Vienna.
1923: Emmanuel “Manny” Celler began serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York’s 10th Congressional District.
1923: Royal Samuel Copeland begins serving as a U.S. Senator from New York. In June of 1933, when several Senators rose on the floor to condemn the treatment of the Jews of Germany, Copeland “paid tribute to the Jews as whole mentioning Nathan Straus as an example of Jews whose work set an example for the world.” He went on to say that the condemnation of Germany’s treatment of the Jews by Senator Pat Robinson of Arkansas, the Senate majority leader, “will bring hoe and cheer into the hearts of many persons…”
1924: In Manhattan, Isidor and Gussie Stein gave birth to their only son “Robert Stein who helped expand the scope of women’s magazines as editor in chief of McCall’s and Redbook in the early stages of the modern women’s movement, publishing articles about race and politics and introducing readers to the nascent writings of feminist leaders like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem.” (As reported by Paul Vitello)
1924:Iris Margaret Origo, an Anglo-Irish writer who helped to save Jewish children through the kindertransport including the painter Frank Helmut Auerbach “married Antonio Origo, the illegitimate son of Marchese Clemente Origo.”
1925(8th of Adar, 5685): Polish born composer Moritz Moszkowskipassed away at the age of 70 while living in Paris.
1927(30th of Adar I, 5687): Rosh Chodesh Adar II
1927(30th of Adar I, 5687): Solomon Cicurel, 46, was fatally stabbed - eight times - shortly after midnight today.The only witness to the crime was Cicurel’s wife Elvire Toriel. She had little to say except that she had been chloroformed by her husband’s assailants. The murdered victim was the eldest of three brothers. Solomon, Salvator and Joseph were the sons of Moreno Cicurel, a Sephardic Jew who came to Egypt during the previous century from Smyrna (Izmir), then a thriving cosmopolitan trading port in Turkey. A self-made man, Moreno, started his career as an employee with a coreligionist who owned a textile shop in the Mousky district, Cairo’s main commercial hub. Moreno Cicurel was the founder of one of the largest department stores in the Middle East.
1928: In Mannheim, Germany, cantor and composer Hugo Chaim Adler and Selma Adler gave birth to composer Samuel Adler who came to the United States in 1939 where he earned a B.M. from Boston University, and an M.A. from Harvard University. He has also received several honorary doctorates in recognition for his artistic accomplishments. During his tenure in the U.S. Army, he founded and conducted the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra, and because of the orchestra's great psychological and musical impact on the European cultural scene, he was awarded the Army's Medal of Honor.
1933: Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as 32nd President of the United States. Regardless of what one may think of Roosevelt's record during the Holocaust, there is no denying the positive things he did for Jews during the days of the New Deal. He had numerous Jewish advisors and appointed them to a variety of positions of power including Supreme Court Justice to Secretary of the Treasury. A hitherto untapped cohort of well-educated first or second generation American Jews gained access to positions through the newly emerging federal agencies that were part of Roosevelt's program to reform American government, business and labor practices.
1933: Cordell Hull began serving as U.S. Secretary of State a post he would hold until 1944. Hull would win the Nobel Peace Prize but he earned low marks from the Jewish community for his moves to thwart attempts to aid Jewish refugees and his failure to curb the genteel anti-Semitism found in his department.
1933: Seventy more people are imprisoned at Nohra on the second day of the operation of Germany's first Concentration Camp. This brings the total of prisoners to 170.
1935: The Jerusalem Shopkeepers Association plans to shutter its shops today in an attmpet to “force the Municipal Council to adopt a rent regulation ordinance” similar to the ones in force in Tel Aviv and Haifa.
1937: The 9th Annual Academy Awards, hosted by Jewish actor and Hollywood fixture, George Jessel, are held at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles.
1937(21stof Adar, 5697): Four year old Miriam Ruhama Pacifici the daughter of Rabbi Riccardo Reuven Pacifici passed away at Genoa.
1938(1st of Adar II, 5698): Rosh Chodesh Adar II
1938: The Palestine Post reported that Sir Harold MacMichael had arrived in Palestine and described the ceremony in which he was sworn as the fifth High Commissioner.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that The Lydda-Jerusalem train was sabotaged when the railway line was damaged by an explosion. Another bomb was found on the railway tracks near Khan Yunis. Curfew was imposed on Arab villages situated close to the railway tracks.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that there were 5,734,917 Palestine pounds in circulation and 15,641 registered vehicles in the country in 1937. There were also 95 credit cooperatives with 79,750 members.
1938: Birthdate of Allan Nathaniel Kornblum, the Brooklyn native who would help steer the F.B.I. into the post-J. Edgar Hoover era by drafting guidelines for its surveillance operations in the 1970s, and whose testimony would help convict the murderer of a black man in a celebrated civil rights case revived nearly 40 years after the event.
1941: A group of tailors who worked in shop supplying uniforms to the German Army were photographed in Nazi occupied Bendzin, Poland.
1941: "I. Segaloff" wrote “My best regards to my friend Tatsuo Osako," on the back of a photo. Segaloff was probably a Jewish refugee who had been helped by Osako who was a young employee of the Japan Tourist Bureau at the start of World War II. Osako probably worked with “Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania who granted transit visas to several thousand Jews in the early days of the war. In doing so, he defied strict stipulations from Tokyo that such recipients have proper funds and a clear final destination after Japan. He was one of a handful of diplomats such as Sweden's Raoul Wallenberg and Hiram Bingham IV of the U.S. who used their bureaucratic machinery, often without their government's knowledge, to issue the paperwork that would get Jews to safety. Dubbed the "Japanese Schindler," Sugihara was honored in 1985 by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, a high honor reserved for non-Jews who saved Jews at their own personal risk from the Holocaust, Hitler's destruction of 6 million Jews. A short movie about him, "Visas and Virtue," won an Academy Award in 1997. Museums at his home town and in Lithuania are dedicated to his memory.”
1942: Algiers radio announced that all firms, property and legal titles owned in part or full by Jews have been put under "Aryan" administration. This came after the dismissal of 3,000 Jews from the French civil service just a couple months prior.
1942: Birthdate of Peabody award winner and “feminist” Lynn Sherr.
1942: Eichmann met with all his territorial representatives to discuss the organizational problems of the deportations to come. Actual plans commenced months earlier.
1943:Most of the Jews living in Cuomotini, Greece were arrested and transported in 20 open train cars to the notorious Dupnitsa transit camp, and then dispatched from Lom by boat via the Danube. The Jews from Cuomotini and Kavala on the Karageorge were shot by the Bulgarians and the Germans; while three other boats, of which one held Cuomotini Jews, arrived in Vienna and from there the Thracian Jews were sent to Treblinka; where they were gassed upon arrival. The Bulgarians confiscated all of the Jewish properties and possessions.
1943:The Jews of Drama, a town in Macedonia, were arrested by the Bulgarian police and army, held in tobacco warehouses in the Agia Barbara quarter for three days, and then sent to the Gorna Djumaya camp in Bulgaria, where they were kept in extremely harsh conditions. From there, young men in their teens and early twenties were sent to forced labor in Bulgaria and 113 families (589 people) were dispatched by train to Lom and from there put on a boat to Vienna, where they were reloaded on trains to Treblinka and gassed upon their arrival.
1943: Jews continued to be sent from Paris to Chelmno, Sobibor, and Majdanek.
1943: At the 15th Annual Oscar award ceremony, “Mrs. Miniver” directed by William Wyler wins for Best Picture of 1942. Wyler, a refugee from Hitler’s Europe wins for Best Director.
1944(9th of Adar, 5704): In Warsaw, four Jewish women were shot in the ghetto along with 80 non Jews. All their bodies, dead and wounded alike, were thrown into a building that was then lit on fire.
1944(9th of Adar, 5704): In Ossining, New York, Louis Buchalter, the leader of 1930s crime syndicate Murder, Inc. was executed at Sing Sing.
1946: Birthdate of English impresario Harvey Goldsmith
1947: As much of Palestine’s Jewish community endured the third day of martial law, Joseph Saphir, the mayor of Petach Tikva reported that 4,000 men were out of work due to the clampdown and the number was growing. In Tel Aviv, the banks were closed due to a lack of coin and currency while the population worried about getting the necessities of life including fresh milk.
1948: U.S. premiere of “The Naked City,” a gritty, black and white film directed by Jules Dassin, produced by Mark Hellinger with a screenplay by Albert Maltz and Malvin Wald.
1949: The Security Council of the United Nations recommended Israel for membership in the international body.
1950: In an article about the proposed Israel-Jordan non-aggression pact entitled “Israel and Jordan Working for Peace,” Gene Currivan declares that “Israel decided long ago that while external advice is always welcome, she must rely principally – as the Jews have over the centuries – on her own resourcefulness where the future is concerned.”
1950: The Revocation of Citizenship Bill, which made it possible for Iraq's Jews to flee the country, went into effect. "By the end of May of 1950, at least ten thousand Iraqi Jews" many of whom were impoverished before leaving, "had crossed the border into Iran” as they made their way to Israel.
1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that the new, official US Middle Eastern policy was to “equalize the support for Israel and other countries in the area.” According to the explanation given to the Post by US Embassy officials in Tel Aviv, this new policy did not mean that the support hitherto given to Israel was to be lessened, but that the assistance offered to the Arab states was to be increased. [This new policy was a product of the newly elected Republican Administration of Dwight Eisenhower and his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Eisenhower and Dulles would show their true feelings about Israel when they took the side of the Egyptians over the Israelis during the Suez Crisis of 1956.]
1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that following the recent Israeli offer, the Barclay and Ottoman banks in Cyprus started accepting claims from Arab Palestine refugees for the release of their frozen accounts held in Israeli banks.
1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that a new draft for the Punishment of Crimes against the State was tabled in the Knesset. It provided for a death sentence for the high treason in time of war.
1954: As attempts were being to remove his security clearance, J. Robert Openheimer, the “father of the Atomic Bomb,” sent a letter to Major General Kenneth D. Nicholas describing his relationship with Jean Tatlock.
1955:Following the rape and murder of his sister Shoshana and the murder of her boyfriend Oded Wegmeister by Bedouin Tribesmen, Meir Har-Zion “and three ex-members of the 890 Battalion drove to the Armistice Line with Jordan where they captured six Bedouins.
1957: Israel, in compliance with the United Nations resolution, withdrew from the Gaza Strip and other territories. These territories had been seized in the Sinai Campaign of 1956, sometimes referred to as “the One Hundred Hour War” because of its short duration. The fighting in 1956 was an Israeli response to years of attacks by terrorists as well as the arming of the Egyptians by the Soviets with an arsenal of modern weapons. The history of the war is too complicated to summarize here. Suffice it to say that the Israelis withdrew with guarantees from the United Nations and the United States that the Sinai Peninsula would be a demilitarized zone and that Israel would enjoy unfettered access from Eilat, its southern port through the Straits of Tiran. In 1967, Egypt would completely break the agreements of 1957 and the U.N. would fail to honor its commitments which brought about the Six Days War.
1957: The Importance of Overweight by childhood obesity researcher Hilda Bruch was published.
1969(14TH of Adar, 5729): The first Purim during the Nixon Presidency
1969(14th of Adar, 5729): Pioneering movie mogul, Nicholas M. Schenck passed away.http://voices.yahoo.com/nicholas-schenck-motion-picture-production-pioneer-2133037.html
1971: The second of two part television production Clifford Odets’ Paradise Lost co-starring Eli Wallach was broadcast on American Public Television.
1973: Marcel Marceau appears at Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City, IA.
1974(10th of Adar, 5734): Adolph Gottlieb, prominent Abstract Expressionist painter passed away at the age of 71.
1974: "Five months after Israel's defeat of the Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, four young Syrian Jewish women were found raped, robbed and murdered in a cave on the Syrian side of the Syrian-Lebanese borders...The bodies were returned to their parents in sacks."
1975: Charlie Chaplin was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of England.
1984:The life of journalist and author Sidney Zion “was transformed” tonight “when his 18-year-old daughter, Libby, a Bennington College freshman with a history of depression and cocaine use, was admitted to New York Hospital with fever, chills and agitation. Her condition was not diagnosed, but two interns gave her a painkiller and sedative, a plan approved by phone by a senior clinician who had treated members of the family, and Ms. Zion was tied down to prevent injury. She died eight hours after admission.” This tragedy resulted in Zion leading a crusade that resulted in national reforms in the training, workload and supervision of young doctors.
1986: Today, “The New York Times reported on Kurt Waldheim’s wartime service in the Balkans and his prewar Nazi associations.”
1987: Jonathan Pollard was sentenced today by a Washington, D.C. court to life imprisonment for spying for Israel.
1988:Sir John Templeton, sponsor of the $369,000 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, has expressed surprise at charges that this year's prize winner was associated with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel causes. ''We'd heard absolutely nothing of that nature and I don't think any of the judges had either,'' Sir John said by telephone today from the Bahamas. ''We are completely surprised and will be trying to study the facts.'' The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and the American Jewish Committee protested the designation of Dr. Inamullah Khan, secretary general of the Pakistan-based World Moslem Congress, as the winner because Dr. Khan and the congress have linked to anti-Semitic groups, including those that deny the Holocaust occurred, and that Dr. Khan had rejected Israel's right to exist. Dr. Khan is the first Moslem to be chosen for the Templeton Prize.
1988: In Ramat HaSharon, Alon and Arela Mekel gave birth to professional Gal Mekel. Who played for Wichita State University before turning pro.
1993(11th of Adar, 5753): Ta'anit Esther observed since the 13th of Adar falls on Shabbat
1993(11th of Adar, 5753):Izaak Maurits (Piet) Kolthoff “a highly influential chemist, widely considered the Father of Analytical Chemistry” passed away. https://www2.chemistry.msu.edu/portraits/PortraitsHH_Detail.asp?HH_LName=Kolthoff
1994: The INS Hanit a corvette built by Northrop Gruman was launched today.
1995: President Clinton appoint Martin S. Indyk as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
1996(13th of Adar, 5756):A suicide bomber killed at least 10 people and and wounded at least 35 others. The Arab bomber, with explosives strapped to his body, blew himself up in the street near the indoor mall known as Dizengoff Center.
1996(13th of Adar, 5756): This morning, owner Abe Lebewohl the 2nd Avenue Deli was in his delivery truck, going to make his habitual deposit at a nearby bank when he was shot and killed, a victim of a robbery that remains unsolved to this day. His baby brother, Jack Lebewohl, who, unlike Abe, realized their parents’ American dream by becoming a “professional,” a real estate lawyer, gave up his practice and took over the deli. He made a go of it for almost 10 years, despite the fact that delis in New York have been disappearing for almost 40 years.
1998: “The Fourteenth Knesset re-elected Ezer Weizman for a second term. For the first time, an acting president was faced by an opponent, (MK Shaul Amor of the Likud), in the re-election. 119 members participated in the election: 63 votes were in favor of Weizman, 49 were in favor of Amor, and 7 were empty ballots.
2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Islam's Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora by Ronald Segal
2001(9thof Adar, 5761):Naftali Dean, 85, of Tel Mond; Yevgenya Malchin, 70, of Netanya and Shlomit Ziv, 58, of Netanya were murdered today by a Palestinian suicide bomber “in the center of the business district of Netanya.
2005: A German court ruled that the heirs of a once prominent Jewish-owned department store chain were entitled to compensation for what has in recent years become one of Berlin's most valuable pieces of real estate. Deciding one of the biggest and most bitterly disputed claims for restitution of property seized by the Nazis, the German Administrative Court awarded $17 million to Barbara Principe and her nephew, Martin Wortham. They are the main surviving heirs of the family of German Jews that, until the war, owned and operated the Wertheim department store chain, which even today is to Berlin what Macy's or Bloomingdale's is to New York. The Wertheim Company, founded in the 19th century, owned seven large stores in Berlin before the war, all of them appropriated by the Nazis in 1937 as part of the process by which Jews were squeezed out of German economic life and their holdings turned over to "Aryans." The Wertheim brothers arrived in the United States penniless in the 1940's. Gunther Wertheim, Mrs. Principe's father, ran a chicken farm in southern New Jersey.
2005: The New York Times reviewed The Great Morality by John Kelly. This book provided “an intimate history of the Black Death. Included in this acclaimed volume are references to the treatment of the Jews including reports of “survivors pointing accusatory fingers at Jews and Muslims and outsiders” and the “pogroms instituted against the Jews, who were scapegoated for spreading the plague; the abdication of responsibility on the part of many officials and community leaders; and the exploitation of the needy and grief-stricken by con men and opportunists.”
2005: An exhibition styled “The Power of Conversation of Jewish Women and Their Salons” opens at the Jewish Museum.
2006: Dalia Itizk a native of Jerusalem born into a family of Iraqi Jews, began serving Speaker of the Knesset, making her the first women to hold this post.
2007: The Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of The Art of Aging:A Doctor’s Prescription for Well-Beingby Jewish author Sherwin B. Nuland and a review of Becoming Judy Chicago: A Biography of the Artistby Gail Levin. “Judy Chicago, born Judith Sylvia Cohen in Chicago in 1939, is descended from a long line of rabbis, going back to the Vilna Gaon in eighteenth century Lithuania.”
2007(14th of Adar, 5767): Purim.
2008: As part of “Hadassah on Tour,” Dr. Michael Wilschanski, the Director of the Pediatric Gastroenterology Unit of the Division of Pediatrics at Hadassah Medical Center, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, speaks in Duluth, MN
2008: In New York, the 92nd Street Y presents “Breaking News from Israel: Reports from the Front Lines” featuring NBC journalist Martin Fletcher and moderated by New York Times editor and author Joseph Berger.
2008:James L. Kugel and Rabbi Harold Kushner are among the 20 writers honored tonight at the 57th annual Jewish Book Awards, to be held at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan. In January, the Jewish Book Council, which administers the awards, named Mr. Kugel's How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Nowthe Jewish Book of the Year for 2007, and chose Rabbi Kushner, the author of the 1981 best seller When Bad Things Happen to Good People, the recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award. The Jewish Book Council, founded in 1943, is the only organization in America devoted exclusively to promoting books reflecting the Jewish experience. The annual awards honor achievement in biography and memoir, children's and young adult literature, fiction, poetry, and history.
2008: According to Palestinian sources, the Arabs suffered 110 casualties during Operation Hot Winter. The Israelis launched Operation Hot Winter following a series of rocket attacks launched from Gaza that targeted Israeli towns, including Sderot.
2009: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Hadassah Book Club meets at the home of community leader Amy Barnum discuss a novel by Anita Dimant entitledGood Harbor
2009: In New York, the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Chinese Community Relations Council sponsor a presentation by Avrum Ehrlich, Professor at the University of Shandong, China, entitled China-Israel Relations: Geopolitical and Social Dimensions.
2009: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Ramallah before flying out of Israel as she completes her first official peace mission to the Middle East.
2009: Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander in chief of the Iran’s Revolutionary Gurad announced that Iran now has missiles that can reach Israeli nuclear sites. Iran’s Shahab-3 missles have a range of up to 1,250 miles, putting Israel within striking distance.
2009: According to the Proivdence Journal,the last two paid staff member of the Touro Synagogue in Newport, R.I., were let go and public tours were canceled because of financial difficulties.
2009(8th of Adar, 5769:Joseph Bloch, who was a professor of piano literature at the Juilliard School in New York passed away today at the age of 91. at his home in Larchmont, N.Y. For the better part of the past five decades, every Juilliard pianist passed through Mr. Bloch’s classroom. There was a brief interruption to this process in the 1980s when Mr. Bloch tried to retire but proved indispensable and was persuaded to return. His pupils included many of the best-known performers of the second half of the 20th century, among them Van Cliburn, Emanuel Ax, Garrick Ohlsson, Misha Dichter, Jeffrey Siegel, Jeffrey Swann and Yoheved Kaplinsky, the current chairwoman of Julliard’s piano department. A pianist trained as a musicologist, Mr. Bloch did not teach his students prowess at the keyboard; that was done by the conservatory’s studio teachers, eminent pianists like Rosina Lhévinne and Adele Marcus. What he taught was not so much the how-to of pianism but the who, the why and the what-if. Mr. Bloch also leaves behind a world of pianists, each of them,. Emmanuel Ax said, “a cultured musician, someone who retains curiosity throughout one’s life of music.” “Maybe all of us would have found another road that would have led us to the same end,” Mr. Ax added. “But we were lucky enough not to have had to look beyond him.”
2010: YIVO is scheduled to present a program entitled Goebbels in Arabia during which Jeffrey Herf, eminent historian and a professor at the University of Maryland, discusses his new book, Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World (Yale University Press), a detailed account of how Hitler's Germany planted the seeds of its own brand of virulent anti-Semitism in the Middle East.
2010: The Twentieth Annual KOACH Kallah is scheduled to begin today at the Pearlston Conference and Retreat Center in Reisterstown, MD. KOACH is the is the college program Conservative Movement.
2010: In Washington, D.C., Norman Shore is scheduled to lead a “learn over lunch” that examines the reign of Solomon as described in Book of I Kings.
2010: Rabbi Joshua Maroof, the spiritual leader of the Magen David Sephardic Congregation in Rockville, Maryland is scheduled to conduct another class designed to discover the fascinating world of Sephardic Jewish thought in which attendees delve into the legacy of great philosophers such as Maimonides and Joseph Caro (author of the Shulchan Aruch) and discuss monotheism, free will and other ever-contemporary themes.
2010:The High Court today refused to throw out a lawsuit by Peace Now against construction in Kiryat Netafim, even though the government says it has evidence that shows that construction was approved before the lawsuit was undertaken, contradicting the contention of the suit that the building was illegal. The court, however, rejected a demand by Peace Now that the town and the Samaria Regional Council be held in contempt of court for allowing construction to continue, even though the court had ordered building frozen until the lawsuit was heard.
2010: Michigan Congressman Sandy Levin took over as chairman of the committee today when Charles B. Rangel of New York stepped aside in due to a number of ethics violations. (Levin is Jewish; Rangel is not.)
2011: Agudas Achim in Iowa City is scheduled to celebrate Shabbat Across America.
2011: In Rockville, MD, Tikvat Israel is scheduled to explore the world the Jews of Ethiopia in a program styled: “From Tesfa to Tikva: A Lens on Ethiopian Israelis.”
2011: Congregation Adat Reyim is scheduled to celebrate a Shabbat Service Honoring Military Families.
2011:Several hundred people gathered in central Tel Aviv today to protest government plans to deport hundreds of children of foreign workers and illegal residents of Israel.
2011: Twenty year old Jessica Feibler, a U.C. student has brought a federal civil rights lawsuit against the University of California, Berkeley, saying the university did not protect her from being attacked because she is Jewish. The case, filed in U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif., today against the university, the regents of the University of California and their ranking officials, is the first of its kind.
2011(29thof Adar I, 5771):Vivienne Harris, 89, who worked with her husband to found the Jewish Telegraph, now a regional publishing powerhouse in northern England with editions in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Glasgow, passed away. Harris received an Order of the British Empire -- MBE -- for her professional and charitable works, and was still active as the company's financial director until days before her death. Her son, Paul, the Telegraph's editor, said that "I always said that she had three children -- myself, my brother and the Jewish Telegraph. The paper was very much her baby, and she nurtured it like a child for 60 years. Even in her 90th year, she was devoted to the company." Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdon, Ron Prosor, said that Harris "embodied what we should all be proud of: Jewish values, Zionistic determination and motivation of someone who established the Jewish Telegraph with her late husband with just the 10 fingers that she had, against all the odds. A remarkable woman who I had the privilege of meeting and talking to. It's a great loss (As reported by the Eulogizer)
2012: The AIPAC Policy Conference is scheduled to begin in Washington, DC
2012: Jeremy Skidmore (director) and the Designers of “New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch De Spinoza” are scheduled to take part in a “Talk Back” which is part of “a month-long national conversation about Spinoza’s impact and legacy.”
2012: Rabbi Jeffery Saks is scheduled to lead the first in a three part mini-series, “Aganon’s Eretz Yisrael” that examines the work of Nobel Prize Winner, S.Y. Agnon.
2012: Virginia’s Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader and the only Jewish Republican serving in the U.S. House of Representatives endorsed Mitt Romney for president and said that he is not interested in the vice-presidency.
2012(10thof Adar): Ninety seven year old Shmuel Tankus, who commanded Israel’s navy from 1954 until 1960 passed away today.
2012: President Barak Obama addressed the AIPAC Policy Conference.
2013: Josh Sussman is scheduled to host a Montreal Aliyah Fair this evening.
2013: Dr. Brian Horowitz is scheduled to be the first speaker at today’s session of the a day-long conference at Tulane University - “Jewish Music in New Orleans”
2013(22ndof Adar, 5773):Sixty-eight year oldRabbi Menachem Froman died tonight at his home in Tekoa in Gush Etzion, where 200 of his students and followers sang and prayed instead of learning with him a weekly lesson in the mystical Zohar.
2013: Pawel Frenkel, who fought alongside Mordecai Anielewicz is to be remembered today at an event marking anniversary of the Jewish rebellion
2014: Sandy, Larry and Michael Levin, from suburban Chicago, are among those scheduled to attend the final day of the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, DC.
2014:Emily Casden, Coordinating Curator for “Art Spiegelman’s Co-Mix: A Retrospective” is scheduled to participate in a Q & A following a screening of “The Art of Spiegelman.”
2014: “Dancing in Jaffa” and “An Evening of Yiddish Song” are scheduled to be shown at the 24th Washington Jewish Film Festival.
2014: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue is scheduled to host “Judaism on Trial: The Barcelona Disputation of 1263”
2014: The Library of Congress is scheduled to host a screening of Regina, Diana Goo’s documentary about Regina Jonas the first female Rabbi ordained in Germany who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1944.
2014:Arab terrorists hurled a firebomb today at the community of Beit El, in the Binyamin region, north of Jerusalem. No one was hurt and no damage was caused. A similar attack took place on yesterday, too.
2014(2ndof Adar II, 5774): Fifty-nine Rabbi Daniel Moscowitz, the Chicago native who “has led Chabad in Illinois since 1977” died suddenly today.
2014: GW’s Rabin Chair Forum and Middle East Forum and the Middle East Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars are scheduled to host a program about the making of “JERUSALEM” a “film that tells the…story of Jerusalem through the viewpoints of…Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
2014: YIVO is scheduled to host “Jacob Glatstein: A Yiddish Genius in Anglicizing America.”
2015(13thof Adar, 5775): Fast of Esther
2015: In the evening, Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids has a “Pizza” Purim complete with costumes and the traditional Megillah Reading