August 13 In History
236: The body of Hippolytus, the author of Contra Judaeous, which blamed the harsh conditions of the Jews on their rejection of Jesus was buried in a cemetery on the Via Tiburtina
339: The Roman Emperor “issued a decree forbidding intermarriage between Jews and Christians with transgressors to be punished by death.” (As reported by Austin Cline)
339: The Roman Emperor “issued a decree imposing the death penalty on Jews who circumcise non-Jewish slaves.” (As reported by Austin Cline)
339: The Roman Emperor issued a decree imposing the death penalty on an Jews who hired women weavers that had been “in imperial service.” (As reported by Austin Cline)
1311: Birthdate of King Alfonso XI of Castile. During his reign, in 1348, Alfonso issued decrees prohibiting Jews from charging interest when lending money and prohibiting them from collecting unpaid debts. (The same rules applied to Moslems, but not Christians.) At the same time, Jews were still allowed to own land during his reign.
1315: Louis X of France marries Clemence d'Anjou.In 1315, Louis X also overturned the decree of his predecessor that allowed the Jews to return to France, and accorded them a charter "in answer to the demands of the people."
1391: In Spain, anti-Semitic mobs attacked the Jews of Lerida, reportedly killing 75. Other Jews were forcibly baptized and were forced to see their synagogue turned into a church.
1453: Seventeen Jews were burned at the stake in Silesia Poland Czech Republic
1516: The Treaty of Noyon between France and Spain is signed. Francis recognized Charles's claim to Naples, and Charles recognized Francis's claim to Milan. Twice, Charles would issue edicts expelling the Jews from Naples. The second one, issued in 1533, would take effect despite Jewish attempts to dissuade him.
1551: Jews of Great Poland were granted limited self-government.
1620(4th of Av): Rabbi Menachem Azariah da Fano (Rama), author of Alfasi Zuta, passed away
1624: In France Cardinal Richelieu was named first chief minister of finance by King Louis XIII. The Cardinal gave new meaning and depth to the term “power behind the throne.” Many historians contend that any decree issued by King Louis XIII was really the work of Richelieu. This would include a decree issued in 1632 after the French had taken the fortress city of Metz that allowed the Jews to remain in the city. The decree was necessitated by the fact that the King had issued a decree in 1615 banning all Jews from living in France. This decree is an oddity in its in own right since when it was issued Jews were supposedly not living in the Gallic realm to start with.
1713: Birthdate of David Franco Mendes, the native of Amsterdam, a successful businessman who used his leisure time to write poetry, study Talmud and play a prominent role in the Spanish-Portuguese community.
1804: Birthdate of Israel Franklin Moses the native of Charleston, South Carolina who became known as Franklin J. Moses, Sr. – prominent planter, politician and jurist.
1823: Birthdate of Goldwin Smith, “a pathological anti-Semite” who spent his last years in Canada.
1846: Birthdate of Sir Otto Jaffe, the Hamburg native who became a successful British businessman and Lord May of Belfast.
1847(30th of Av, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1851: Birthdate of Felix Adler. Born in Germany New York City Cornell University
1860:In response to a public call, signed by a number of influential citizens, a meeting was held at the Tract-Society House today afternoon, to consider the subject of the Christian massacre in Syria, and to adopt measures for rendering assistance to the sufferers. About twenty persons were present, among them some of our most prominent clergymen. During the meeting it was noted that meetings for the same purpose were being held in England and France by Jews as well as Christians.
1861: Birthdate of Dr. Marcus Jastrow, Jr., the Warsaw native who moved to Philadelphia with his father, the famed Talmudist Marcus Jastrow and became a noted Orientalist.
1867: Birthdate of Arthur Eichengrün, the German-Jewish chemist who holds 47 patents but is best known for his claim to really have been the inventor of Aspirin.
1867: Birthdate of Dr. Lee K. Frankel, the Philadelphia native who gained fame for his work with various Jewish philanthropies.
1867: Birthdate of Dr. Charles Foster Kent, the American Biblical scholar who wrote dozens of works on ancient Israel including Outlines Of Hebrew History, A History of the Hebrew People (2 volumes) and A History of the Jewish People during the Babylonian, Persian and Greek Periods.
1871:The Grand Lodge of the Ancient Jewish Order of Kesher Shel Barzel held their annual banquet this evening at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 14th Street in New York City. The lodge has 4,000 members. The dinner was attended by 110 members including thirty delegates from various parts of the United States.
1871: In Chicago, Rabbi Elkan Herzman was physically forced to leave his synagogue on Fifth Avenue. Some of the congregants had complained because Herzman had violated Jewish law by eating ice cream on a day when he should have been fasting. When Herzman arrived at the synagogue he found another rabbi in his usual place. Following the altercation, Herzman complained to the police who said that there was nothing they could do about. Herzman has threatened further political action. (I have not been able to find any further reference to this Rabbi or a synagogue on fifth avenue, so if you have, please let me know.)
1872: Birthdate of German born chemist, Richard Willstätter. Willstatter won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1915 for his study of the structure of chlorophyll and other plant pigments. He resigned his position on the faculty at a university in Munich Switzerland
1872: Birthdate of Jacob de Haas, an English journalist who was one of Herzl’s earliest supporters. After Herzl’s death, de Haas became a lead of the Zionist movement in Israel.
1874(30thof Av, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1874: It was reported today that George Walling, the Superintendent of the New York Police Department had written to Henry Honscheidt, the Sheriff of McLean County, Illinois, telling him that in his opinion the man who had confessed to the Sheriff that he had killed Benjamin Nathan was “either insane or an imposter.”
1875: Birthdate of Arthur Yitzhak Biram, Israeli philosopher, philologist, and educator, who died on the first day of the Six Days War.
1877: Midhat Pasha, the head of the “Young Turkey” Party is in Vienna where he hopes to negotiate a treaty with Austria and England that will protect the Ottoman Empire and avoid a Holy War. Pasha is the son of a Bulgarian Jew who converted to Islam to enhance his commercial opportunities in the lands of the Sultan.
1876: The Anglo-Jewish Association’s description of a Jewish community living in India was published today. According to the reported the community is known as the Beni-Israel (Children of Israel) and has been in existence for a thousand years. They dress like Hindus and speak the Hindu language. While they know little Hebrew, they follow the Levitical Code and strictly observe the Sabbath. They are separate from other Jewish communities in the subcontinent.
1881: It was reported today that the government is taking “strong measures” to suppress the anti-Semitic riots in Pomerania including the arrest of 21 rioters at Koslin.
1883: The New York Times published a letter to the editor from Raphael Lewin in which the author disputes the account of the Damascus Libel of 1840 published in the Times on August 6 describing it as being slanted and anti-Jewish.
1884: The Board of Governors of the Hebrew Union College re-elected Bernhard Bettmann as President. Rabbi Henry Berkowitz of Mobile, Alabama and Rabbi Max Landsberg of Rochester, NY, were chosen to serve as new members on the board.
1884: It was reported today that Russian Jew on his way to his brother’s wedding in Paris was detained for 4 days by authorities because he did not understand French and could not answer their questions. While in custody, a rope was kept around his neck; he was handcuffed and knocked about by those holding him. When the mayor heard of the incident he called for an investigation
1884: It was reported today that Mrs. Morris Cohn, the daughter of Michael Englemann (the Salt King of Manistee, Michigan) has gone left her husband and returned after his arrest on charges of numerous counts of forgery. Cohn, a prominent Jewish businessman had spent the $50.000 wedding gift from Englemann and turned to criminal activity to support their lifestyle.
1886: It was reported today that numerous homes of Jews living in Kiev have been destroyed during anti-Jewish riots in the Russian province.
1887: It was reported today that Israel Lipski’s solicitor has new facts that will prove that he did kill Miriam Angel, the woman he was convicted of killing. Lipski’s lawyer has met privately with Judge Stephen convinced him of his client’s innocence.
1887: Henry Mathews, the Home Secretary has refused to interfere in the case of Israel Lipski who has been sentenced to hang for murdering Miriam Angel.
1889: It was reported today that Theodore Cohn, the young man who stole $610 from A.H. & King is in the Tombs awaiting trial on a charge of grand larceny.
1890: The expenses of today’s excursion sponsored by the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children will be paid in full by an anonymous female donor who has been paying for one such excursion for each of the last seven years.
1890: In London, “the meeting at the Mansion House to protest against” Russian persecution has been postponed following reassurance by the Lord Mayor offers reassurances that there is no reason to believe that the Czar’s government will enforce the edicts of 1882.
1890: Godfrey Taubenaus has been selected to serve as Rabbi of Mount Sinai Temple on East 72nd Street.
1891: The Russian government prohibited the collection of funds or the publication of appeals for financial assistance to Jewish immigrants today
1892: “A Chicken Too Much for the Police” published today described the uproar at police stations throughout New York caused by Davis Rubenstein bringing a decayed chicken to each police station in his attempt to have action taken against Berman’s Butcher Shop which is “selling impure food.” The foul fowl was turned over the Sanitary Bureau to use in its investigation.
1893(1st of Elul, 5653): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1893: “Parties in Austria” published today described the political divisions in the polyglot central European kingdom that include “anti-Semites, who conscientiously hold that hell is not hot enough for the Jews, whose torments ought, in strict justice, to begin in this life and be continued in the next.”
1893: Birthdate of Monnet Bain Davis who served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel from 1951 through 1953
1895: According to Charles Bernstein, the settlement committee of the striking tailors, most of whom were Jewish, will meet for the last time tonight.
1896: Herzl meets with the Turkish ambassador, Mahmud Nedim Bey, in Vienna.
1896: Since American commanders did not know that an armistice had been signed yesterday they proceeded to capture the Philippine city of Manila, the climactic moment in the Battle of Manila. Sergeant Maurice Justh of the First California Volunteers, a regiment with 100 Jewish members, was the first soldier “to fall in the attack on Manilla.”
1898: “Hebrew Charities Building” published today described “the new Hebrew Charities Building, just now rising above the ground level on the corner of Second Avenue and Twenty-first Street” next to the Post Graduate Hospital.
1898: An entry in a Swiss hotel log showed that Freud stayed at the hostelry possibly with “a woman who was not his wife” and may have been his sister-in-law Minna Bernays.
1899: As tensions rise in France during the re-trial of Captain Dreyfus, Paul Deroulede, the poet who is also a member of the Chamber of Deputies and 23 of his allies were arrested today. (The Dreyfus affair was symptomatic of deep divisions in French society that pitted Republican secularists against Royalist Roman Catholics.)
1899: Three duels are scheduled to be fought by journalists cover the court martial of Captain Dreyfus and Rennes, France.
1899: In Paris, demonstrations took place this evening outside of the offices of the Anti-Semite League where the President of the League and Max Regis, “the former Jew-baiting Mayor of Algiers” are hiding.
1899: “London Sympathy With Dreyfus” published today described a rally where a resolution was adopted calling for “a meeting of rejoicing” “in the event of the acquittal of Dreyfus.”
1900:The Fourth Zionist Congress convened in London with five hundred delegates in attendance. Max Nordeau gave the opening in address which included an account of the appalling conditions faced by the Jews of Romania and a tribute to the Kaiser for his treatment of the Jews of Pomerania and East Prussia
1900: In London
1903: In Salt Lake City, Utah President Joseph F. Smith of the LDS (Mormon) Church gave the dedicatory address at the cornerstone laying for Congregation Montefiore.
1907: The first American taxicabs appear on the streets of New York City. At least two Jews played a major role in the introduction of this type of conveyance in the United States. In 1915, John Hertz, a Hungarian born Jew started the Yellow Cab Company in Chicago, Il. In 1922, a Russian born Jew named Morris Markin formed the Checker Cab Company and in 1929 he bought the Yellow Cab Company from Hertz
1911: At Basel , Switzerland Berlin
1912: Franz Kafka met Felice Bauer in Berlin. The relationship between these two had a profound effect on Kafka’s literary output as well as his personal life. One critic recently wrote that Kafka’s correspondence with Bauer “is the most useful key to Kafka’s thoughts and actions during the decisive years of his emergence as a writer.”
1912: Birthdate of Italian born biologist Salvador Luria. In 1969 he and Max Delbruck shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for the “Luria-Delbruck experiment” which “demonstrates that in bacteria, beneficial mutations arise in the absence of selection, rather than being a response to selection. This reinforces the Darwinian notion of evolution by natural selection acting on random mutations.”
1916: Birthdate of Connie Polan who became Connie Wald when she married Jerry Wald.
1917: The Turkish military leader Djemal Pasha announces the Turkish government has become convinced that the Jewish colonies inside Palestine Turkey
1918: Birthdate of Judith Iris Martin, the Newark native who created the long-lived children’s theater group, the Paper Bag Players which would become a New York City institution (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1922: Birthdate of Ruby Burman, the native of Columbus, Ohio, who as Ruby Cohn became “a theater scholar who espied the genius of Samuel Beckett early on in Paris and became a leading authority on his work as well as his friend…” (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1922:Samuel Untermeyer, President of the Palestine Foundation Fund made public a letter from Dr. Arthur Ruppin describing the future establishment of Jewish suburbs at Jerusalem and other sites in Palestine which show the likelihood of the development of major municipalities throughout the area.
1925: In the “Free City of Danzig” Eliezer and Dina Sterenberg gave birth to Meir Shamgar who served as President of the Israeli Supreme Court from 1983 until 1995
1928: Birthdate of Yehuda "Nimrod" Lapidot “an Israeli historian and former professor of biochemistry. Lapidot was a member of the Irgun and an officer in the Israel Defense Forces. In 1980 he was appointed head of Lishkat Hakesher by former Irgun commander and then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Lapidot received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Hebrew University in 1960 and later became a professor.”
1928: At the casino in Deauville, Charles A. Levine punched the editor of The Boulevardier after the latter admitted that he was the one who had been taking “dirty cracks” at Levine. The two were separated and Miss Mabel Boll, who was reportedly Levine’s mistress, took him away. Levine, a non-observant Jew, claimed to be the first passenger to fly the Atlantic in 1927.
1929: New York State Supreme Court Justice Frankenthaler is scheduled to hear arguments regarding a petition to have the question of the sanity of Alfred Dreyfus be determined by a jury.
1929: Jewish financier Felix Warburg and Lord Melchett, the famous British nobleman whose picture appeared on the cover of Time Magazine on October 29, 19 28
1933:The Jewish Telegraphic Agency published an article that estimated that there were about 660,000 non-Aryans living in Germany of which 500,000 are "official" Jews and 160,000 of Jewish descent.
1934: The comic strip “Li’l Abner,” created by Al Capp, made its debut. Born Alfred Gerald Caplan in New Haven
1936:Felix M. Warburg, New York
1937:A proposal to settle 200,000 Jews in Palestine Palestine
1938(16th of Av, 5698): As they bicycled from Ramatayim to Petah Tikva Benjamin Babayoff and his wife were shot and killed by gunmen firing from an orange grove and their seven year old daughter who was riding on the handlebars was severely wounded.
1940(9th of Av, 5700): Tish'a B'Av
1940: During World War II, the Battle of Britain begins as the Luftwaffe attacks British airfields. Field Marshall Goering told Hitler that the Luftwaffe could bomb the British into submission making an invasion unnecessary. On the other hand, by destroying the RAF, the Germans would be able to invade the British Isles with complete control of the skies insuring a Nazi victory. If the British had lost the Battle of Britain, the Final Solution would have been that much closer to being truly “final.” For more about the role of Jews in actually fighting the Battle of Britain see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/sugar4.html. Failure to win the Battle of Britain soured Hitler on the capabilities of the Luftwaffe and caused him to turn his face eastward towards the Soviet Union . The invasion of the Soviet Union would result in the millions of Jews coming under the sway of the Final Solution.
1942(30thof Av, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1942: The Jewish communities at Mir , Belorussia Gorodok , Ukraine
1942: Switzerland Switzerland Switzerland
1942: For the next fourteen days, 53,750 Jews from Warsaw
1942: United States State Department officials and the British Foreign Office decide that the Riegner Cable outlining details of the Holocaust be kept secret.
1943: Y. Ben Ami wrote a letter to Peter H. Bergson proposing “the creation of a ‘Free Palestine League’ to influence United States policy on the Middle East and to wage a publicity campaign to create public support for an independent Palestine.” (Ben Ami would have a son, Jeremy who became the executive director of “J Street.”)
1945: Thirty-five Jews sacrifice their lives to blow up Nazi rubber plant in
1946: British authorities open detention camps on the island of Cyprus Palestine
1946: In Brooklyn Anna Blumenthal and Dr. Julius Yellen gave birth to Janet Louise Yellen the American economist who has a career as an academic and public service including chairing the Council of Economic Advisers and holding senior positions with the Federal Reserve.
1948(8th of Av, 5708): Silent screen star Elaine Hammerstein, daughter of Arthur Hammerstein and granddaughter of Oscar Hammerstein, died in an automobile accident.
1952: In New York Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt welcomed the 50,000th visitor to the Bond Drive Israel
1953(2nd of Elul, 5713): Seventy-three year old history Eugen Täubler who began his career teaching ath the Higher Institute for Jewish in Berlin and finished it teaching at HUC in Cincinnati, Ohio, passed away today.
1955: Two years after the death of Joseph Stalin, old-line Bolshevik Semyon Dimanstein was rehabilitated by the Communists running the Soviet Union. Born in 1886, Dimanstein reportedly became a Rabbi after studying at a Chabad Yeshiva before becoming a Russian revolutionary. He was widely identified with Jewish issues inside the Soviet Union including the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Far East and Yidn in FSSR (Jews in the Soviet Union). He was a victim of Stalin’s murderous purges in 1938. Rehabilitation is sort of like the Communist version of Resurrection.
1959(9th of Av, 5719):Tish'a B'Av
1973(15th of Av, 5733):Maurice Bisgyer, retired executive vice president of B'nai B'rith, the Jewish service organization, died today at the age of 75.
1973:The body of Sir Moses Montefiore, father of modern Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel, will be returned to Jerusalem a century after his death, the Israeli Government said today. The body will be moved from Ramsgate to Israel in 1975.
1977: President Carter’s administration rejected the Israeli request for the co-production rights of the F-16 fighter-bomber and announced that Israel
1978(1st of Av, 5738): Rosh Chodesh Av
1991:The publisher Robert Maxwell said today that he had reached a private agreement with the publisher and other shareholders of Israel New York
1995: Aharon Barak succeeded Meir Shamgar as President of the Supreme Court of Israel.
1999(1st of Elul, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2000: The New York Times book section featured a review of Half-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Pastby Susan Jacoby and Rodinsky’s Room a mystery about David Rodinsky coauthored by Iain Sinclair and Rachel Lichtenstein, granddaughter of Polish Jewish refugee Gedaliah Lichtenstein.
2001: In the fight against West Nile Virus, pesticides are applied at Baron Hirsch Cemetery In New York
2003: “The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rules to refuse to reconsider a three-judge panel ruling that a Ten Commandments plaque from 1920 can remain on the Chester County courthouse in Pennsylvania. The appeals court was overruling a decision that the plaque with the commandments “violated the separate of church and state.” (As reported by Austin Cline)
2005:The 20th annual Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education (CAJE) opens at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst
2006: A Woman in Jerusalem
2006: The Book Section of the Washington Post featured a review of Peter Hartcher’s Bubble Man: Alan Greenspan and the Missing 7 Trillion Dollars which the reviewer describes as a “flawed jeremiad” that attempts to blame Greenspan for the collapse of the dot com bubble and the losses that may or may not have taken place.
2006(19th of Av, 5766): Mahadi Hiyat, 83, was killed when a rocket crashed directly into his house near the town of Shlomi. Hiyat was the sole Egyptian resident of the northern Jewish community of Ya'arah.
2007: A copy of Faye Kellerman’s latest novel, The Burnt House is contributed to the Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, thus insuring that its library will have a complete collection of her detective mysteries. With The Burnt House, Kellerman returns to her literary roots with Rina and Peter Decker, the Jewish couple that solves murders. Besides the fact they are slick yarns, where else can you be on the trail of multiple murderers while one of the characters talks about “hashgacha pratite” and another reassures his spouse that they could enjoy a visit to Santa Fe since “they have a Chabad there.”
2007: Some 75 people from the Jewish community of Rochester, New York, attended a dedication ceremony today to honor a rediscovered burial plot, long unknown to the community, where over 100 Jews from the 19th century were buried.
2008: "Forty Reform Jews land in Israel
2008: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met with Jewish leaders today, pledging to work together against anti-Semitism and open up channels of communication despite differences on Middle East politics.
2009: Funeral for Robert William Levine, the businessman and philanthropist who worked to aid Russian immigrants is scheduled to take place at Temple Emanuel in Newton, MA followed by burial at Memorial Park in Sharon, MA.
2009: In Jerusalem, the Yiddishpiel Theatre helps prepare people for the High Holidays by presenting a “unique musical event which combines stories about the great cantors and Jewish and cantorial soul songs.
2009: In Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chai,A cultural center that explores concepts of Jewish and Israeli identity and creativity presents a workshop led by Dr. Meir Buzaglo, Department of Philosophy, at Hebrew University entitled Rambam in the 21st Century that asks the questions, “How does the Rambam’s thinking relate to the basic questions of the modern age?”
2009:The Israel Defense Forces said today that they were investigating reports of a kidnapped soldier.
2009: Rai Ephraim Simon, co-director of Friends of Lubavitch and a father of nine donated one of his kidneys to Samar Chasid living in Williamsburg who is the father of ten.
2009 Patriot’s rookie Julian Edelman scored his first professional points on today in a pre-season game with the Philadelphia Eagles returning a punt 75 yards for a touchdown
2010(3rd of Elul, 5770): On the Hebrew calendar today marks the 75th anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook. He passed away on the 3rd of Elul, 5695. During the British Mandate, “Rabbi Kook was the first Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of the Jewish population in the Land of Israel in modern times, and had great love and respect for the secular Zionist movement…”
2010: Temple Judah is scheduled to celebrate the 88th birthday of Marianne Bern at the Oneg following Friday night services.
2010: The man who killed Meir Kahane in 1990 claims he did not carry out the shooting alone, as previously thought, but was part of a three-man terrorist cell with links to al-Qaida.
2010:The reopening of Shaarei Torah,the synagogue of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, luminary sage and father of modern religious Zionism, coincided with the 75th anniversary of Rabbi Kook's death.
2011(13th of Av, 5771): Shabbat Nachamu
2011: The Summer Israeli Folk Dance Mostly Couples Marathon is scheduled to take place at Buttenwieser Hall in New York City.
2011: Social protests took place throughout Israel today, with demonstrators turning out en masse in Haifa, Be’er Sheva and Afula.
2011:Gunmen abducted an American Jew after breaking into his house in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore today in an unusually brazen raid that illustrated the threat to foreigners in this militancy-wracked, US-allied country.
2012: Five short films created by Israeli directors - Occupy Rothschild, Wall to Wall, Busted, Word Games, A Wonderful Day – are scheduled to be shown in NYC
2012: Hezbollah has rockets that can hit any Israeli city, a leading official of the organization said this afternoon.
2012:Israel may need to destroy parts of Lebanon and Gaza if Hezbollah and Hamas rain missiles upon the country in response to an Israeli attack on Iran, former Mossad head Danny Yatom said today
2013: “Israel: A Home Movie” is scheduled to be shown at the Morris Cafritz Center for the Arts as part of the Year-Round Washington Jewish Film Festival.