April 15
1191: Coronation of Henry VI as Holy Roman Emperor during whose reign anti-Semitic riots took place stretching from the districts along the Rhine all the way to Vienna. Ephraim Ben Jacob of Bonn was one of the leading Talmudist during this period.
1250: Pope Innocent III refused the Jews of Cordova permission to build a synagogue.
1402: Pope Boniface IX granted "liberal privileges" to the Jews of Rome.
1452: Birthdate of Leonardo Di Vinci. Di Vinci painted what, according to some, was the most famous Seder ever held - The Last Supper.
1642: Birthdate Suleiman II, Ottoman Sultan. His short reign would prove to be uneventful for his Jewish subjects, which included two doctors, one named Levi and the other named Hayati Zade, who served as court physicians.
1677: Today The City Council of Lubeck decreed that no Jew should be permitted to stay in the city overnight without the express permission of the senate, which was rarely given.
1698(4thof Iyar, 5458): Jacob ben Aaron Sasportas, the native Oran, who was the father of Isaac ben Jacob Sasportas and who was rabbi of the Portuguese community until his death at Amsterdam today.
1714: Esther Liebmann (née Schulhoff)a German Jewish financier who served as Court Jew to King Friedrich I of Prussia, inheriting the title and also the Münzregal from her second husband, Jost Liebmann.”
1715: The Yamasee War, a two year conflict in which Native Americans tried to drive the colonial settlers out of South Carolina, began today. At the outbreak of the war Jews had already begun settling in the colony. The original constitution of South Carolina which had been written by John Locke in 1669 granted liberty to “Jews, Heathens and Dissenters.” Simon Valentine is the first Jewish settler whose presence can be officially confirmed. A resident of Charleston, he served as an interpreter for Governor Archdale. There must have been more Jews living there since “as early as 1703 protest was raised against "Jew strangers" voting in the election of members to the Common House of Assembly.”
1788(8th of Nisan, 5548): Joseph Levy, the first Jew to be buried in Australia, passed away. Apparently his burial was not marked by any special Jewish ceremony.
1802: William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy see a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring the former to pen I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. According to N.I. Matar, “Wordsworth” described the Wandering Jew without considering that Jews had been established in England for decades, and that Jews were ‘eagerly’ trying to change their ‘homeless’ image.”
1802: In New York, Solomon Levy and Rebecca Eve (Hendricks) Levy gave birth to Juliet Levy who became Juliet Moss when she married Joseph Lyons Moss.
1806(27th of Nisan): Rabbi Isaac Ashkenazi of Lemberg, author of “Taharot ha-Kodesh” passed away.
1808(18thof Nisan 5568): Benjamin Goldsmid, a leading English financer, passed away. Born in Holland in 1755, he was the eldest son of Aaron Goldsmid and the brother of Abraham Goldsmid who was also his business partner. Goldsmid married Jessie Salmons making him the son-in-law of Israel Levin Salomons which benefited him financially and socially. He was a friend of Pitt the Younger and the founder of the Naval Asylum.
1813(15thof Nisan, 5573): As the second year of the War of 1812 grinds on, Jews in the United States and the United Kingdom are united in their observance of Pesach.
1815: Birthdate of Lazar Zweifel the native of Moghilef who defended the Chasidim saying that “persecutions which they were forced to endure at the hands of their opponents were as unjust as the oppression of Jews by Christians.”
1819(20thof Nisan, 5579): Sixth day of Pesach
1819(20thof Nisan, 5579): David Maurtiz, the nephew of Rabbi Samuel Marx whose other more famous nephew was Karl Marx, passed away today.
1819: Birthdate of Ludwig Lewysohn, the native of Posen who served as a rabbi in Frankfort-on-Order, Worms and Stockholm.
1832(15thof Nisan, 5592): As Andrew Jackson seeks a second term as President, Jews observe Pesach.
1833: Birthdate of Viennese born French astronomer Maurice Loewy.
1834: Birthdate of Joseph Kohen Moline, the Brussels born poet.
1837: Birthdate of Horace Porter, the American Civil War hero who served as U.S. Ambassador to France during the Dreyfus Affair, which Poerwe was falsely accused of attributing to an English plot to weaken the French.
1840: In London, a split took place between the liberal Reform Jews and the Orthodox
1840: The West London Synagogue of British Jews, a Reform Jewish congregation of London was established today
1841: Karl Marx received his Doctorate from the University of Jena
1843: Birthdate of American author Henry James. For an interesting insight into this great American authors view of the Jewish people see The Jewish East Side by Milton Hindus, specifically the entry entitled “Henry James – The American Scene” pages 65-78
1847: In Warsaw, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter and his wife gave birth to Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, the author of Sfas Emes and the Rebbe of the Gerrer Hasidim.
1848(12thof Nisan, 5608): Shabbat HaGadol
1848: Now that the church on Chrysitie Street between Walker and Hester streets has been successfully re-modeled to meet the needs of its new Jewish owner the building of what would become Congregation Temple Emanu-El was dedicated today.
1849: In Trieste, Elisa Morpurgo and Giuseppe/Joseph Baron von Morpurgo gave birth to Irène Renée Cahen d'Anvers (de Morpurgo)
1853: In New York, Henry and Sophie Waldstein gave birth to Louis Waldstein the New York trained physician who moved to London in 1898 to continue his practice and who wrote “The Sub-Conscious Self in its Relation to Education and Health.
1858: Birthdate of Emile Durkheim French the sociologist who is regarded as one of the most important founders of the modern field of sociology. One of his most significant contributions is his development of the term and concept of "social facts," what Durkheim believed should be the primary focus of the scientific study of society. Durkheim grew up in a Jewish family and it was assumed by his relatives that he would eventually become a rabbi. However, he displayed impressive intellectual capabilities and earned a position at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, the most prestigious teachers' college in France. Around this time he also generally lost his religious faith, although he retained a strong desire for moral reform and moral studies. Instead of religion, he hoped that science - and in particular the scientific study of society - would help bring about moral reformation. As a Jew, even if he wasn't very religious, he experienced the bitter anti-Semitism of France of that era. The end of the century saw the advent of the Dreyfuss Affair, when a Jewish army officer was falsely accused and convicted of espionage. This led to an increase in anti-Semitism, especially towards those like Durkheim who worked to have Dreyfuss exonerated. For example, Durkheim's record indicates that he almost certainly should have been elected to the Institut de France, but he was passed over entirely. During World War I he was also accused of disloyalty and preference for the German enemies, something perhaps motivated not only by his Jewish heritage but also his German name and his origins in the disputed Alsace-Lorraine region. Durkheim died in 1917 a year after his son died during World War I, fighting for the French.
1858: In New York City, Moses Richman and Rosa Mellis gave birth to Isabel R. Wallach, the wife of Joseph G. Wallach who was vice president for the New York State Council of Jewish Women and President of the Shaaray Tefila Sisterhood.
1861 “From the West Indies” published today provides a potpourri of information about Santa Domingo and Cuba including the fact that there is one Jew among the 15 or 20 slave-traders working the markets in Havana.
1861: Following the attack on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln issues a call for 75,000 volunteers to serve for three months. This would turn out to a mere down payment in terms of the number of soldiers it would take to save the Union. Among them would be thousands of Jews including Frederick Knefler, an immigrant from Hungary who would rise to the rank of Major General under William Tecumseh Sherman, Brigadier General Blumenberg who had previously escaped the wrath of Secessionist mob in Baltimore, and General Max Einstein whose troops covered the retreat of the Union Army following the First Battle of Bull Run.
1861: As President Lincoln issues a call for volunteers to fight the Confederates, Major Alfred Mordecai makes a last ditch effort to stay in the U.S. Army without having to fight against his southern kinsman. He sends a letter to his superiors asking that he be relieved of duty at the Watervliet Arsenal so he would not be making munitions to fire against family and friends from North Carolina and Virginal. He requested that he be transferred to California or some other such distant posting where he felt he could stay in the Army, serve his country and still avoid fighting his fellow Southerners.
1862(15th of Nisan, 5622): First Day of Pesach
1862(15th of Nisan, 5622): The first Jewish services were held in Dubuque, Iowa during Pesach
1862: Business was off today at the New York Cattle Market because “the Jewish dealers” were absent today “being their Passover.”
1865(19th of Nisan, 5625): Fifth Day of Pesach
1865: President Abraham Lincoln dies after having been shot the night before at Ford’s Theatre. For more see Lincoln and the Jews by Jonathan Sarna and Benjamin Shapell http://www.shapell.org/lincoln-and-the-jews/lincoln-and-the-jews-a-history/ OR
1867: “New York Jewish merchants met at Congregation Shearith Israel to consider action against insurance companies which refused to insure Jewish business establishments.” (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch).
1870(14th of Nisan, 5630): Erev of Pesach
1871: An article published today provided “further details of religious disturbances at Odessa” (Russia) during which “the Hebrews’ gave been the victims “religious intolerance.” According to the article, The Standard, a paper published in London “has a dispatch from Vienna stating that a religious riot has occurred at Odessa. The Jews were despoiled” and have suffered “great devastation.” According to the dispatch, the “authorities were powerless” to quell the riot.
1872: On the eve of Greek Easter Sunday, Greeks attacked Jews in a bloody riot. "The Christians were set loose, and beat, massacred, and demolished the houses of Jews…" It was reported one Jews was stabbed to death, and others were injured. It was only after Turkish soldiers guarded the Jews that the violence ended.
1874: Birthdate of Johannes Stark. A Nobel Prize winning physicist, he is known for the Stark Effect. Stark attacked Einstein and other Jewish scientists because they were Jewish. He also disparaged their scientific accomplishments. He joined the Nazi party. After the war, he was sentenced to four years in prison by a De-Nazifcation Court. He died in 1957. Just because you win the Nobel Prize does not mean you are "smart."
1875: The "Jewish Exponent" was first issued for the first time. R. Charles Hoffman, Ephraim Lederer, and Felix Gerson served as the editors.
1878: Birthdate of Dr. Felix Kornfeld, the native of Bohemia who was the husband of Paul Mandl
1880: In New York, the District Attorney delivered a lecture entitled “Some Phases of Crime” at tonight’s meeting of the Young Men’s Hebrew Associations.
1880: In Heldesheim, Rabbi Jakob Guttmann and his wife gave birth to Rabbi Julius Guttman who became Professor of Jewish Philosophy at Hebrew University in 1934.
1881: During the four day observance of Russian Orthodox Easter, a Pogrom begins in Elizavetgrad, Russia.
1883: Pauline Moses and David Holtz were married today in New York City.
1886: A group of Sephardic Jews formed a corporation for a congregation named in honor of Moses Montefiore.
1886(10th of Nisan, 5646): Eighty-five year old German jurist Moritz Warburg the native of Altona who was elected to the Schleswig -Holstein constituent assembly in 1848 passed away today.
1887:Herzl is installed as an editor of the "Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung" but holds the post only a short time.
1887: The Jewish Exponent, a weekly publication servicing the Philadelphia Jewish community was published for the first time today.
1889(14th of Nisan, 5649): Ta'anit Bechorot
1890: Representatives of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association and the Emma Lazarus Club were among those attending the opening session of the convention of the Association of Working Girls’ Societies being held at the Metropolitan Opera House.
1892: Birthdate of Corrie ten Boom, Dutch devotional author whose family was arrested by the Gestapo during WWII for hiding Jewish refugees in their home. Corrie's experience with the Nazis was depicted in the 1971 film, "The Hiding Place."1892 Birth of Corrie ten Boom, Dutch devotional author whose family was arrested by the Gestapo during WWII for hiding Jewish refugees in their home (Corrie's experience with the Nazis was depicted in the 1971 film, "The Hiding Place").
1892(18thof Nisan, 5652): Fourth day of Pesach
1892(18thof Nisan, 5652): Sixty-six year old New York City builder Marc Eidlitz, the brother of architect Leopold Eidlitz and the father of Cyrus. L.W Eidlitz whose construction projects included the Temple Emanu-El sanctuary located at 5thAvenue and 43rd Street, passed away today.
1893: “Ahlwardt’s Promise Not Kept” published today described the rejection by the President of the Reichstag of Hermann Ahlwardt’s written statement that purported to prove that high government officials were guilty of “corrupt conduct.” Ahlwardt is a notorious anti-Semite who contends that the Jews are behind plots to bribe German leaders.
1894: Jacob Green, the four year old son of a Jewish peddler, accidently fell from the fifth floor fire escape at a 19 Allen Street on the lower east side.
1895: “The certificate of incorporation of the Hebrew Infant Asylum of the City of New York was filed” today in the office of the country clerk.
1896: Birthdate of Pesach Burstein, the Polish born American entertainer who among other things was a director in the Yiddish theatre. (At least two sites attribute his first name to the fact that he was born on Pesach but he the 15th of April corresponds to the 2nd of Iyar 5656. To have been born on Pesach, 1896, his birthdate would have been March 29)
1897: The date on which Oscar Altman and Rosie Wachtel were to be married in New York City.
1898(23rdof Nisan, 5658): Fifty-five year old Italian lawyer and Senator Cesare Parenzo passed away today.
1899: Birthdate of Karl Bernhardt, the native of Worms who gained fame as director Kurt Bernhardt who fled Germany in 1933 and pursued his career in France and Great Britain before settling the United States where his last picture was “Kisses for My President” – a film that Hilary Clinton should appreciate since it is comedic look at the first female President.
1900: The head of nineteen year old Ernst winter was recovered from a pool in Konitz, West Prussia. Other parts of his dismembered body had been recovered at various times since his disappearance in early March. Local anti-Semites began to accuse the Jews in what would become a 20th century blood libel.
1902: In New York City, at a meeting of the Board of Alderman, Alderman Devlin introduced a resolution asking the Mayor to instruct Commissioner Partridge not to interfere with Jewish peddlers selling their wares on the east side next Sunday because that day was the day before Passover. The resolution was denounced by Aldermen Walkley and Oatman because it was asking the mayor to sanction a violation of the city’s “blue laws. The Council adopted the resolution.
1903(18th of Nisan, 5663):Gustav Gottheil, one of the leading Reform Rabbis of his time passed away. Born in Prussia, in 1827, he was trained in Berlin before holding pulpits in Great Britain and the United States where he was the Senior Rabbi at New York’s Temple Emanu-El. While this brief entry cannot do justice to his many accomplishments it must be noted that he was unique among Reform rabbis for his early support of the Zionist movement. In fact, he was a delegate to the First Zionist Congress.
1903: Herzl arrives in Paris and confers with Lord Rothschild, Zadoc Kahn and other members of the ICA on ways to further the project of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine with the British government.
1905:Thousands of dollars in money and great quantities of matzoth were distributed tonight among the poor Jews of the lower east side, as is the custom every year before the feast of the Passover, which opens on Wednesday and will be observed by all Jews throughout the world for the next eight days.
1905: Birthdate of Herman Steiner the native of Slovakia who became “a United States chess player, organizer, and columnist.
1907: Birthdate of chess master Gerald Abrahams. Born in Liverpool, Abrahams wrote “Teach Yourself Chess.”
1907:Dr. Stephen Samuel Wise “so inspired those who heard his message that today more than a hundred of his followers met at the Hotel Savoy to establish a free synagogue. Henry Morgenthau, Sr., who would become the congregation’s first president, declared that day, "The Free Synagogue is to be free and democratic in its organization; it is to be pewless and dueless." A religious school opened that October, and six months later had an enrollment of 150 students. Dr. Wise’s Sunday morning services, held at the Universalist Church of Eternal Hope on West 81st Street, drew more than 1,000 people.
1907: Birthdate of Esther Gottlieb the wife of abstract expressionist painter Adolph Gottlieb and the founder and president of the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation.
1908: In Bavaria, Max Neuberger and his wife Bertha Hiller gave birth to Albert Neuberger, the British Professor of Chemical Pathology the University of London’s St. Mary’s Hospital.
1908 (14th of Nisan, 5668): A Seder is scheduled to be held this evening on Ellis Island for Jews who have not been able to enter the United States. The Acting Commissioner of Immigration has given permission for the service to be held in the dining room of the facility’s main building.
1912: H.M.S. Titanic sank. According to some, there were enough Jews on board that kosher meals were served. The Jewish passengers represented a cross section of Jewish society. Two unusual women on board were Edith Louise Rosenbaum and Mrs. Henry B. Harris. Mrs. Rosenbaum was a writer for Women’s Wear Daily. During World War I, she would become the first female war correspondent. Mrs. Harris went on to become a famous New York theatrical producer. Three of the most famous passengers were Benjamin Guggenheim and Isidor and Ida Straus. Guggenheim was a ne’er do-well from a famous New York family. His most famous accomplishment was to give the world his daughter Peggy Guggenheim the famous patron of the arts. Isidor Straus was part of a fabled New York family that had ownership interests in Macy’s and Abraham & Straus. He was mourned as one of New York’s greatest philanthropists.
1912(28thof Nisan, 5672): Forty-six year old Benjamin Guggenheim died aboard the Titanic today.
1912: Albert Einstein refers to time as “the fourth dimension.”
1916: Birthdate of Helene Hanff, the Philadelphia born screenwriter and author who most famous work was 84, Charing Cross Road.
1916: In New York City Hiram Bloomingdale and Rosalind Schiffer gave birth to Alfred S. Bloomingdale, the grandson of Lyman Bloomingdale, who along with his brother Joseph founded Bloomingdale’s Department Store
1919(15thof Nisan, 5679): First observance of Pesach following WW I
1919: At Le Mans, France, Rabbi Lee J. Levinger held a Seder on the second night of Passover for members of the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) who had been issued furloughs so they could observe the holiday
1920: Birthdate of Hank Kaplan, noted boxing historian and writer.
1920: In Stuttgart, Marianne (von Graevenitz) von Weizsäcker and Ernst von Weizsäcker gave birth to Richard von Weizsäcker the President of West Germany.
1920: In what would become the “first act” of the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, two security guards are murdered during a robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts. Among those who would rally to Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti would be convicted of and executed for the crime, amid much controversy. Among their defenders were several prominent Jews including Professor (and later Supreme Court Justice) Felix Frankfurter, Judge Julian Mack and Harold Laski.
1922: Birthdate of Michael Ansara who played “Haman” in the television miniseries entitled “The Greatest Heroes of the Bible.”
1922(17thof Nisan, 5682): Third day of Pesach
1922(17thof Nisan, 5682): Fifty-five year old Isaac David Broydé who served as librarian to the Alliance Israélite Universelle from 1895 to 1900 and then “joined the editorial staff of the Jewish Encyclopedia” passed away today.
1923:Insulin first became generally available for use by diabetics. Sir Frederick Banting, one of the two men who won a Nobel Prize for their work with Insulin based his work on the 1889 discoveries of the Jewish Polish-German physician Oscar Minkowski.
1923: Dr. Spiegel, the representative of the German Red Cross who was working on the transmigration of 300 Jewish refugees who had been expelled from Poland arrived in Warsaw. The refuges must leave Poland by September 1 and they are seeking to stay in German until they have obtained visas to enter the United States. (As reported by JTA)
1923: Preparations have been made along the White Russian border to provide food and shelter for Jewish refugees from Poland who are being forced to return to their former homes in the Soviet Union. (As reported by JTA)
1923: Hugo Riesenfeld “co-presented a show at the Rivoli Theater in New York City of 18 short films made in the Phonofilm sound-on-film process.”
1923: BirthdateofNaomi Bronheim Levine, the first woman to become executive director of the American Jewish Congress.
1923: “A Few Minutes With Eddie Cantor” opened “at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City.
1931: Brooklyn Outfielder Alta Cohen played in his first major league game.
1931: Birthdate of Yitzhak Zamir, the native of Warsaw who made Aliyah at the age of 3 and enjoyed a successful career in the law including serving as Attorney General of Israel and as a member of the Supreme Court.
1936(23rd of Nisan, 5696): On the day after Pesach, Arabs in Palestine renewed their riots which quickly grew into a full-scale uprising.The uprising began with an attack today on a convoy of trucks on the Nablus to Tulkarm road during which the assailants shot and murdered two Jewish drivers, Israel Khazan, who was killed instantly, and Zvi Dannenberg, who died five days later
1938: The Palestine Post reported that Arab terrorist gangs, searching for money and valuables, killed four Arabs in the vicinity of Nazareth.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that for the first time in many years, the annual Nebi Musa procession failed to take place in Jerusalem.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that new regulations warned that wearing any uniforms of His Majesty Forces, or attire resembling such uniforms, was punishable by life imprisonment.
1938: The Palestine Post commented on the tragedy of a new immigrant, imprisoned for carrying an allegedly false passport, who committed suicide. The message from his relatives, promising assistance and legal defense, failed to reach him in time due to the lack of an interpreter.
1938(14th of Nisan, 5698): Jews are killed and injured during an anti-Semitic pogrom at Dabrowa Tarnowska, Poland.
1940: Birthdate of Yossef Romano a Libyan-born, Jewish Israeli weightlifter with the Israeli team that went to the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany where he was murdered by Black September terrorists.
1941: Birthdate of Howard Berman, Congressman from California’s 28thDistrict.
1941: In the Belfast Blitz, two-hundred bombers of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) attack Belfast, Northern Ireland killing one thousand people.During World War II, a number of Jewish children escaping from the Nazis, via the Kindertransport, reached and were housed in Millisle. The Millisle Refugee Farm (Magill’s farm, on the Woburn Road) and was founded by teenage pioneers from the Bachad movement. It took refugees from May 1938 until its closure in 1948.
1943: In Cleveland, Ohio, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver delivered the eulogy at the memorial service for Zvi Hirsch Masliansky which “was held …in the Straus Auditorium of The Educational Alliance at 197 East Broadway. This was the place to honor his memory, for it was the hall where he had spoken so often to a generation of Jewish immigrants.
1944: Prime Minister Churchill “pondered the question of who should succeed Sir Harold MacMichael, whose term as British High Commissioner was coming to an end.” Churchill put forth two possibilities, Lord Melchett, a British Jew and the son of the distinguished industrialist Sir Alfred Mond and Chaim Weizmann. Of course, Weizmann did not get the post and within a year’s time Churchill would betray his Jewish friend and ally by holding firm against Jewish immigration to Palestine and postponing the creation of a Jewish state.
1944: Seventy Jews and ten Russians attempted to escape from the forests surrounding the two of Ponary. Lithuania. From July 1941 until July 1944, approximately 100,000 people (mainly Jews) were murdered in the forests surrounding Ponary a resort town in Lithuania. As the Red Army approached a group of 70 Jews and 10 Russians were given the task of burning all the bodies to cover up the mass murder. Realizing that at the end of their work they too would be killed they (over a period of three months) dug a tunnel 30 meters long with spoons. On the night of April 15 they escaped. Only 13 reached safety alive.
1945: British forces liberated the Bergen-Belsen camp. The British soldiers were horror-stricken at the spectacle that greeted them. They found some 60,000 human beings alive under appalling conditions. Most of them were seriously ill. Alongside them were thousands of unburied corpses, strewn in every direction, and vast numbers of emaciated bodies in mass graves and piles. Because the British Army was not geared to treat everyone who needed assistance, 14,000 additional prisoners died in the first few days and a similar number perished in the following weeks. The British forces began to treat and rehabilitate the rest of the survivors.
1945: Esti Reichman and some of her fellow prisoners including a woman named Dora encountered one “disappointment” following the liberation of Bergen-Belsen when they discover that they have missed celebrating Passover. The women had thought it was a leap year and had been hoarding their meager rations to make a Seder. At the time of their liberation they discovered that this was not a leap year. There was no Adar and Pesach had begun on March 29. [Hopefully somebody told them about Pesach Sheini.]
1945: Leonard Mlodinow’s father was liberated by forces under the command of General Patton. At the time, he weighed 80 pounds.
1945(2ndof Iyar, 5705): The mother of Holocaust survivor Zoltan Zinn-Collis died in Belsen on the same day the Red Cross had come to rescue her. He brother Aladar died earlier in the year in the same camp and his father Adolf is believed to have died in Ravensbruck in 1944. Zoltan and his Edit were brought to Ireland after the war where he was able to rebuild his life.
1945: Special services were held in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem honoring the later President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1946(14th of Nisan, 5706):Ta'anit Bechorot/Erev Pesach
1946: First Seders were held in Germany following WW II.
1946: Golda Meir is joined by her children for a Seder.
1946: As the hunger strike in Palestine designed to show support for the Jews from Spezia who being detained in Italy entered the third day, “thousands of people carrying flowers came to Jerusalem to show their support. The chief rabbis, who” had join the “fast preside over an unusual Seder.” Everyone “would eat a single piece of matzah, no bigger than an olive.” As they went through the Haggadah, those fasting consumed cups of teas instead of cups of wine.
1946: In Germany, a group of children was photographed at the Foehrenwald D.P. Camp
1947: Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, breaking that sport's color line. Hank Greenberg reportedly gave moral support and guidance to Robinson based on his experiences. Brooklyn was a heavily Jewish borough where winning the pennant and beating the hated Yankees was more important than issues of pigmentation.
1948: Birthdate of American composer Michael Kamen whose work included “Mr. Holland’s Opus.”
1948: Arabs attacked a convoy of armored buses on their way to the Hadassah hospital enclave on Mt. Scopus. Seventy-seven Jewish doctors, nurses and patients were killed in the ambush.
1948: The National Opera (Israel) held its first performance in Tel Aviv. The opera was the creation of Edis de Philippe from Brooklyn and Mordechai Galinkin from Leningrad. The debut was an act of supreme optimism since the Arabs were busy trying to destroy the state before it had even been created. As one observer wrote at the time, "Noisy accompaniment was supplied by the gunfire from nearby skirmishes between Tel Aviv and Jaffa."
1948: Jewish forces seized Meggido, the sight of the Biblical Battle of Armageddon and one of Lord Allenby’s great victories during World War I.
1948: Jewish forces defeated Arab fighters at Tel Litvinsky, six miles from Tel Aviv. The camp had served as a base for the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II.
1948: The Harel Brigade captured the village of Saris the “strategic hilltop position” “overlooking the highway to Jerusalem” which the Arabs had used to fire on Jewish vehicles thus helping to blockade the city.
1948: The Haganah won a costly victory at Mishmar Ha-Emek fighting against overwhelming odds. This was part of the famous "battle for the Jerusalem Road."
1948: Soldiers from Iraq and Jews fought for control of the Wadi Sara camp fifteen miles south of Tel Aviv. Iraqi forces were reported have reached the camp first but after encountering attacking Jewish forces fled because they feared encirclement and capture.
1952(20thof Nisan, 5712): Sixth day of Pesach
1952(20thof Nisan, 5712): Seventy-one year old Issac Lowi passed away today following which he was buried in the Beth Israel Cemetery in Gadsden, Alabama.
1953(30th of Nisan, 5713): Rosh Chodesh Iyar
1953:The Jerusalem Post reported on the strange ruling of the chairman of the UN Israeli-Jordanian Mixed Armistice Commission who claimed that civilians were allowed to shoot at each other across the border. The Israeli delegation took exception to this "astonishing stand."
1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that an Israeli patrol captured a boat and a terrorist who tried to infiltrate by sea from Lebanon. The second boat escaped.
1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that "Yemin Orde," a Youth Aliya village at Nir Etzion on the Carmel Hills was opened by Lorna Wingate in memory of her husband, Capt. Charles Orde Wingate, who formed the Jewish "night squads" and helped settlers to defend themselves.
1953:The Jerusalem Post reported that The Jerusalem YMCA was crowded with well-wishers who came to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the building, a landmark and a significant cultural center in the Capital.
1955: Birthdate of Anthony Horowitz, an English novelist and screenwriter
1958: Birthdate of Canadian poet and novelist Anne Michaels the author of Fugitive Pieces and Winter Vault.
1959: US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles resigned. Dulles was viewed as the architect of the Eisenhower Administration’s foreign policy. He was Cold Warrior in the truest sense of that term seeing everything in terms of Communists versus Anti-Communists. The one time he broke with this view was during the Suez Crisis of 1956. There he sided with the Soviets against the Israelis, the British and the French. Eisenhower and Dulles saved the Egyptian dictator Nasser by allowing the Soviets to threaten the British with atomic weapons and threatening Israel with economic destruction if she did not withdraw from the Sinai. Israel did withdraw and the disastrous policy of Dulles led to war in 1967 and the volatile situation that exists on the West Bank to this day.
1960: In Copenhagen, Hennie Jonas and Rudolf Salomon Bier gave birth to Susanne Bier who won “the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film for ‘In a Better World.’”
1962: Catcher Joe Ginsberg plays in his last major league baseball game as a member of the expansion New York Mets.
1965(13th of Nisan, 5725): Syd Chaplin, actor and half-brother of Charlie Chaplin passed away at the age of 80.
1965: Paddy Chayefsky’s “The Americanization of Emily” directed by Arthur Hiller with music by Johnny Mandel premiered in the United Kingdom today.
1968: Future Anglo-Jewish author Anthony Horowitz received a human skill from his mother on his 13th birthday.
1972: Barbra Streisand joined other recording industry stars performing at a benefit for George McGovern for President.
1975(4th of Iyar, 5735): Yom HaZikaron
1975: “A Chorus Line” with music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Edward Kleban “opened Off Broadway at the Public Theatre.
1976(15thof Nisan, 5736): Pesach is observed for the last time under President Ford.
1980: The Nobel Prize winning existentialist author and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre passed away at the age of 74. Sartre was not Jewish. But he did write about the Jewish people.
In 1946, immediately after World War II, Sartre published his brilliant dissection of anti-Semitism and the Jewish condition, “Reflections sur la Question Juive.” “The little booklet has gone through a number of editions, has been widely reviewed, and is still undoubtedly among Sartre's most famous works. As one would expect in the case of a controversial writer, a number of reviewers had important criticisms. If Sartre's analysis had striking insights, some of his assertions were remarkably naive. He thought that "socialism" would do away with anti-Semitism. He was preoccupied-occupied with rabid anti-Semitism but gave little thought to the perhaps more prevalent genteel hatred of Jews. Many Jewish reviewers felt that he short-changed "Jewish self-consciousness" by asserting that anti-Semitism is the only basis for it. We now know, from Sartre's own words a few weeks before his death that at the time of writing his book he had been incredibly ignorant, and willfully so, of all things Jewish. Nevertheless, Sartre was a man much listened to, as he is still today after his death, and his writings were given close attention.” Frenchmen would do well to heed the words of one of their most famous citizens, “The cause of the Jews would already be half won if only their friends found in their defense a little of the passion and the perseverance that their enemies devote to their destruction. To awaken this passion, it is useless to appeal to the generosity of the Aryans because even among the best of these this virtue is disappearing. But it may well be pointed out to each of them that the fate of the Jew is his own fate. No Frenchman will be secure as long as a Jew, in France or elsewhere in the world, has reason to fear for his life.”
1981: In Hamilton, Ontario, Dr. Mark Levy and his wife Lisa gave birth actress and singer Caissie Shira Levy, the younger sister of Robi and Josh Levy.
1982: Five Muslim extremists who murdered Egyptian President Sadat were executed.
1983: During a burglary at the L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art “200 items, including paintings and dozens of rare clocks and watches, were stolen.”
1986: Edwin R. Theile, who is “best known for his chronological studies of the pre-exilic Jewish kingdoms and the author The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings passed away today.
1988: Anglo-Jewish author Anthony Horowitz married Jill Green in Hong Kong.
1989: “Brenda Starr,” a film based on the comic strip character of the same name with script co-authored by Delia Ephron and with music by Johnny Mandel premiered in the United States today.
1992: William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were inducted into National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Yes the number one and number two leaders crossing space, the last frontier, were Members of the Tribe. For those of you wondering who is Jewish, when Shatner's wife passed away her "mourned her in the Jewish fashion" and was reported to be working on a script called "Shiva" based on his mourning experiences.
1992: Billionaire Leona Helmsley was sent to jail for tax evasion.
1993:In a last-minute letter apparently intended to defuse the controversy on the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Pope John Paul II told Roman Catholic nuns today to move from their convent at the Auschwitz death camp. The Pope's letter, made public by the Polish news agency
The new center and convent have been completed for some months, but the nuns had refused to move. This prompted Rabbi Weiss to threaten another demonstration and made the World Jewish Congress contemplate a boycott of the anniversary. A prominent Polish Jewish writer, Konstanty Gebert, said today that the Vatican appeared to have acted on the Carmelites after realizing the consequences of demonstrations at the convent this weekend. Mr. Gebert said that if Rabbi Weiss staged another demonstration at the convent, local anti-Semitic supporters of the nuns, known as the Committee for the Protection of the Carmelite Nuns, would come out and counterattack. "Jewish demonstrators being attacked at Auschwitz!" Mr. Gebert said. "Can you imagine the headlines? I really think that got the Vatican moving." But at the same time, Mr. Gebert pointed out that important elements in the Catholic Church in Poland were still resistant to the nuns' moving. The acting Secretary of the Warsaw episcopate, Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, said in an interview published in a Polish newspaper today before the release of the Pope's letter that the church was not "in unison" on the nuns' moving. "You cannot liquidate a convent with a bulldozer," the bishop said in the interview.
1994:In an article entitled “No New Arab Attack, but Israelis Celebrate Independence Tensely,” Clyde Haberman described how the Jewish state celebrated its independence day despite threats by Arab terrorists to turn it into a day from hell.
1995(15thof Nisan, 5755): First Day of Pesach coincides with Shabbat
1997(8th of Nisan, 5757): Sam Moskowitz, author, critic and the teacher of the first college level course on Science Fiction passed away at the age of 76.
1999: A symposium entitled The History of American Jewish Political Conservatism opens at American University in Washington, D.C.
2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Paintings of Our Lives” by Grace Schulman and “Maurve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World”by Simon Garfield.
2002: Following the Battle of Jenin, Palestinian Red Crescent Society and International Committee of the Red Cross staff entered the camp, accompanied by the IDF.
2002:A pro-Israel rally in Washington, organized in less than a week, attracted a crowd estimated at 100,000 people from across the spectrum of American Jewry.
2005: “Or” the Israeli film starring Dana Ivgy in the title role premiered in Sweden today.
2005: An exhibition entitled “Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak” opens at the Jewish Museum in New York.
2005:David Baddiel discusses “The Secret Purposes” at The Sunday TimesOxford Literary Festival
2006: The inauguration of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ein Kerem is postponed. Construction of the church began in the first decade of the 20thcentury but was never completed because of the Russian Revolution. The dedication of the recently completed church was postponed at the request of Russian President Putin. Putin wanted the inauguration delayed until Prime Minister Sharon had sufficiently recovered from his stroke to attend the ceremonies.
2007:At the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an exhibition styled “From Shtetl to the Sooner StateCelebrating Oklahoma's Jewish History In conjunction with the Centennial Celebration of Oklahoma Statehood” comes to a close.
2007: Major League Baseball and the Israel Baseball League (IBL) hold a tryout in California for players who did not make major or minor league rosters.
2007: “The Last Jew In Europe” is performed at the Triad Theatre.
2007: As Jews all over the world begin the observance of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day,Haaretz reported that the first comprehensive study of the incidence of cancer among Holocaust survivors has shown that Holocaust survivors were found to be 2.4 times more likely to have cancer than their peers who had not been through the Holocaust.
2007: As reported in Haaretz Israel fell silent as a two-minute siren wailed across the country this morning in commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day. The siren followed memorials at the Knesset and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. Holocaust victims' names were read aloud at ceremonies held at both locations. At the Knesset, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert read the names of the members of the Richter family, relatives of his wife Aliza, who were killed in the Holocaust and opposition chair Benjamin Netanyahu read the names of his wife Sara's relatives. Vice Premier Shimon Peres told of parting from his grandfather, Rabbi Zvi Melzer, at the railway station. Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog told of his father's cousin who was caught trying to cross the French border and was sent to her death in Auschwitz. The ceremonies began after Israelis stood silently for two minutes to remember the victims of the Holocaust on yesterday morning. Pedestrians froze in their tracks, buses stopped on busy streets, and cars on highways pulled over as the country paused to pay respect to the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis.
2007: The Sunday New York Times book section featured a review of All Whom I Have Loved by Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld. In his new novel set on the eve of the Holocaust, the Israeli writer Aharon Appelfeld tells the story of Paul Rosenfeld, a 9-year-old Jewish boy in Czernowitz, Romania (now Chernovtsy, Ukraine).
2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section featured reviews of Jurgen Neffe's Einstein: A Biography, Walter Isaacson”sEinstein: His Life and Universe and Once Upon a Country by Sari Nusseibeh, who joined Ami Ayalon, the former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, in unveiling a “courageous peace plan”in 2002.
2008(10th of Nisan, 5768):Hendrik Samuel "Hank" Houthakker a Dutch Jewish American economist passed away. Houthakker was born in Amsterdam. In 1924. His father was a prominent art dealer. As a teenager he lived through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and, according to an interview he gave to the Valley News, was once arrested by the Gestapo but escaped and was sheltered for some months by a Roman Catholic family. He completed his graduate work at the University of Amsterdam in 1949. He taught at Stanford University from 1954 to 1960 and then completed the rest of his career at Harvard University. Houthakker served on President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisers from 1969 to 1971. Houthakker's contributions to economic theory have been summarized by Pollak (1990). He is particularly well known for the Strong Axiom of Revealed Preference, to which his name is often attached (see Houthakker 1950). This paper reconciles Paul Samuelson's revealed preference approach to demand theory with the earlier ordinal utility approach of Eugene Slutsky and Sir John Hicks, by showing that demand functions satisfy his Strong Axiom if and only if they can be generated by maximising a set of preferences that are "well-behaved" in the sense that they satisfy the axioms of choice theory, that is, they are reflexive, transitive, complete, montononic, convex and continuous—essentially the conditions required for a Hicksian approach to demand theory.”
2008: In Cedar Rapids, Hedy Epstein, whose parents died in concentration camps during the Holocaust speaks at Kirkwood Community College and at Xavier High School.
2008: The Washington Post reviews The Much Too Promised LandAmerica's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace by Aaron David Miller
2008:Todaythe Jewish prayer for the dead echoed across what was once the heart of the Warsaw ghetto as Israeli and Polish leaders marked the 65th anniversary of the doomed battle by young Jews against Nazi troops. President Shimon Peres and his Polish counterpart, Lech Kaczynski, led a crowd of 1,000 gathered beneath the stark granite Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto in ceremonies honoring the Jews who rose up on April 19, 1943. Israeli and Polish flags fluttered in the afternoon breeze as Poland's chief orthodox rabbi, Michael Schudrich, read out the Kaddish, or Jewish prayer for the dead. Then, to the beat of a military drum, Peres, Kaczynski and survivors of the ghetto uprising placed wreaths at the foot of the monument, which was flanked by two large iron menorahs. Peres praised the young fighters, who he said displayed "a heroism that our children will proudly carry with them in their hearts.""The majority of the uprising fighters died, murdered in cold blood. They lost the fight, but from the point of view of history, there has never been such a victory," Peres said. "A victory of men over human bestiality, of pure souls over fallen ones.""Yes, the Germans won, thanks to thousands of soldiers shooting without thought and gassing bunkers," Peres said. "What did those terrible Nazis leave to the generations that followed?""Only shame, a curse and damnation." Later in the day, the presidents met with former ghetto fighters and Holocaust survivors, and attend a concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta at Warsaw's national opera house. The anniversary of the uprising's start falls on Saturday, but commemorations were moved forward to Tuesday to avoid coinciding with the Jewish sabbath. On Saturday, the last surviving leader of the ghetto's struggle, 89-year-old Marek Edelman, will lay flowers at the ghetto monument, and the Jewish community is planning a seder meal in memory of the ghetto victims. The uprising was the first act of large-scale armed civilian resistance against the Germans in occupied Poland during World War II. The Nazis walled off the ghetto in November 1940, cramming 400,000 Jews from across Poland into a swath of the capital in inhuman conditions. On April 19, 1943, German troops started to liquidate the ghetto by sending tens of thousands of its residents to death camps. In the face of imminent death, several hundred young Jews took to arms in defense of the civilians. Outnumbered and outgunned, they held off German troops for three weeks with homemade explosives and a cache of smuggled weapons. The Nazis killed most of fighters, and then burned down the ghetto street by street.
2008:Poking into crevices between the ancient stones of the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, today a senior rabbi and his helpers removed thousands of handwritten notes placed there by visitors who believe their requests will find a shortcut to God by being deposited at Judaism's holiest site. The operation is carried out twice each year: before the Passover festival which begins this weekend and at the Jewish New Year in the fall. "Millions of people place notes here at the Western Wall with their requests, we take them out in order that more people can place these notes," said the site's rabbi, Shmuel Rabinowitz. "So that these notes are not defiled and don't fall out, we collect then in a seemly and respectful way and bury them on the Mount of Olives," just across a valley from the Old City. Rabinowitz and a squad of helpers coaxed the pieces of paper from the crevices with sticks. The notes fell to the ground and were scooped in handfuls into plastic-lined garbage bins for later transfer to the ancient Jewish cemetery. As Jewish religious practice forbids the destruction of any written material that includes one of the names of God, worn or damaged Torah scrolls, prayer books and other religious articles are buried. "We treat these notes as holy, as something that people wrote to the creator," Rabinowitz said. "We treat them according to Jewish law and inter them along with all holy writings." He said neither he nor his staff read the notes. "It's like a prayer, it's an expression of a person's request from the heart to the Creator," he added. For those unable to reach the wall in person, religious and postal authorities deliver notes that arrive by mail, e-mail or SMS. Postal authorities say letters, some addressed simply to God, come from all corners of the globe, including a few from predominantly Muslim nations like Indonesia. Rabinowitz said the ancient temple, built by King Solomon, was intended as a house of prayer for all nations. "God promised that every prayer uttered here would be heard in heaven, from Jews and gentiles alike," he said.
2008: “History Awaits the Pope and the Rabbi” published today described Rabbi Arthur Schneier’s preparations for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.
2009(21st of Nisan, 5769): Seventh Day of Pesach; Reform recite Yizkor
2009: Roseanne Barr made an appearance on Bravo's 2nd Annual A-List Awards in the opening scenes.
2010: A showing of “War Against The Weak” is scheduled at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2010: Prof. Jerome Copulsky, Director of Jewish Studies at Goucher College, is scheduled to present a talk entitled “Zionism: Past, Present & Future” at George Mason University sponsored by the GMU Religion Department and GMU Hillel.
2010: The Sarah Silverman Program had its final showing on Comedy Central.
2010: Israeli customs officials said today that they have already confiscated at least 10 iPads in response to Israel’s ban on the importation of Apple’s newest product.
2011: After having pleaded guilty to charges of corruption, former New York state Comptroller Alan Hevesi was sentenced to a term of 1 to 4 years in the state penitentiary.
2011:The Jerusalem Fair, the Annual Fundraising Bazaar for the Jerusalem Rape Crisis Center is scheduled to take place at the Jerusalem Cinematheque
2011: Beth Chaverim Reform Congregation in Ashburn, VA is scheduled to host a Chocolate Passover Seder where attendees can “learn about and taste the symbols of Passover” by sampling a “variety of chocolate items including chocolate covered matzah, chocolate eggs, bitter chocolate, chocolate for dipping” and an Elijah's cup filled with chocolate milk.
2011: The works of Israeli composer Chaya Czernowin are scheduled to be featured at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre.
2011:Following nearly a week of quiet for the residents of the South, warning sirens were heard in the Ashdod area this afternoon after two Grad rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip
2011:U.S. President Barack Obama extended a warm greeting today to all those celebrating Passover and likened the holiday's story to the revolutions sweeping the Middle East.
2011:Defense Minister Ehud Barak welcomed today a decision by the U.S. House of Representatives to approve a budget which includes $205 million intended for continuing development of the Iron Dome anti-missile system
2012: Filmmaker Judy Lieff and poets Aneta Brodski and Tahani Salah are scheduled to appear at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2012: In Fairfax, VA, Congregation Olam Tikvah is scheduled to sponsor a silent auction combined with a post Passover Pizza Party.
2012: Mitzvah Day, sponsored by Agudas Achim, is scheduled to take place in Iowa City, Iowa
2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Crisis of Zionism” by Peter Beinart and ‘Schmidt Steps Back’ by Louis Begley.
2012:Jacob Ostreicher, a 53-year-old Chasidic Jew from New York who is in a jail in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, launched a hunger strike following 10 months of appeals to the U.S. State Department.
2013: The Hartford Jewish Film Fest is scheduled to close with a screening of “Hava Nagila – The Movie.”
2013: “A Work-In-Progress Screening: On Becoming A Soldier” is scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2013: Dr. David Kraemer is scheduled to deliver the first in a series of lectures – All of Rabbinic Literature in Seven Sessions – at the Skirball Center.
2013(5th of Iyar, 5773: Yom Hazikaron – All places of entertainment are closed. Twice during the day, at the sound of a siren throughout the country, everything—and everyone— stops completely for two minutes.
2013:The head of the security network for US Jewish organizations said the community is "standing vigilant" following bombings at the Boston Marathon.
2013: The annual torch-lighting ceremony at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl marked the end of Remembrance Day this evening and touched off Israel's 65th Independence Day celebrations.
2013: Bret Stephens, a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, has won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for commentary for The Wall Street Journal, the prize committee announced today.
2013: Ceremonies, festivities and general revelry around the country marked Israel’s 65th Independence Day anniversary today.
2013:Israel must prepare for the possibility of striking Iran’s nuclear program on its own, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned today, during an Independence Day speech he delivered in Herzliya
2014(15thof Nisan, 5774): Pesach
2014:Yuli Kosharovsky best known for his work as an active leader of the Jewish refusenik movement passed away today. (As reported by Laura Bialis)
2014: In the evening Chuck Friedman is scheduled to lead the Agudas Achim Community Seder catered by the Motley Cow Café.
2014; In “Golda Meir, late Israeli prime minister, vitally revealed in ‘Golda’s Balcony’” published today Peter Marks reviews the performance of Tova Feldshuh.
2015: The Oregon Board of Rabbis is scheduled to present Yom HaShoah: The Holocaust, Memory and the Future Congregation Beth Israel in Portland.
2015: Peter Appelbaum is scheduled to discuss “Loyal Sons: Jewish Soldiers in the German Army in the Great War” at the Center for Jewish History.
2015: Professor of History and the Jeremy Zwelling Professor of Jewish Studies from Wesleyan University are scheduled to present “Connected Histories: Sephardic and Ashkenazi Responses to Blood Libels in Pre-modern Europe” at the University of Connecticut.
2015: “Jews, Judaism and American Law” with Rabbi Lance J. Sussman is scheduled to open at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.
2015: Just in time for the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, Marshal Weiss provides us with “Kosher deli in England a Titanic survivor’s legacy.”