August 19
43 BCE : Octavian later known as Augustus compels the senate to elect him Consul. As the first Emperor of Rome (in fact, if not in name) Augustus would follow the policies of “moderation and accommodation” towards Judea begun by his Uncle, Julius Caesar
14CE: Augustus, Roman Emperor passed away. For the Jews, Augustus was a comparatively benign ruler. He left Judea under a Jewish king (even if it was Herod) and only converted the homeland of the Jews to a province during the turmoil that followed Herod's death. Under Augustus Roman governors were ordered to follow policies that would not antagonize the Jews including. They were not to permit pagan altars to be built in Jerusalem and their troops were not to parade through the city carrying standards with the picture of the Emperor. He followed a similarly benign policy towards the Jews in the Diaspora including allowing them to contributions to support the Temple and exempting Jews from appearing in court on the Sabbath, starting with Friday night.
1099: The armies of the First Crusade defeated the Saracens at the Battle of Ascalon (an historic Palestinian city on the Mediterranean), one month after they had captured Jerusalem. Neither the Jews nor the Moslems fared well at the hands of the Crusaders. They slaughtered the Jews of Europe as they marched away and slaughtered the Jews of Jerusalem when they took the city. The Crusaders did win the Battle of Ascalon, but they actually did not capture the city of Ascalon Middle East did not result in long term conquests.
1203: “A fire started by Flemish crusaders burned down the Jewish quarter of Constantinople including the synagogue.” (History of the Jewish People)
1263: King James I of Aragon takes the lead in one of the earliest recorded instances of Christian censorship of Jewish writings.
1274: Coronation of King Edward I of England. Under Edward’s reign things went from bad to worse. For example in “1279 and edict imposed the death penalty on Jews accused of uttering blasphemy about Christianity. In 1280, “Edward ordered Jews to listen to Cominicans preaching conversion.” In one of his “last acts of extortion…he arrested the heads of Jewish families and demanded their communities…raise a 12,000 pound ransom payment.” Finally, in 1290, the King ordered the expulsion of all Jews from his realm. He would be the last ruler of England to officially deal with the Jewish people until the days of Oliver Cromwell.
1338: Host desecration riots destroyed the Jewish community of Wolfsberg, Austria. The Jews were accused of having stolen the Eucharist, making it bleed, and trying to burn it. Over 70 Jews were burned at the stake and the community destroyed. The community was never revived.
1439: Frederick III, the Holy Roman Emperor passed away today. “To his last hour” he “protected those outlawed by all the world,” a reference to the Jewish people. “He had a Jewish physician” and made Jacob ben Yehicel Loans a knight. On his deathbed, “Frederick is said to have strongly recommended the Jews to his son, enjoining on him to protect them, and not to listen calumnious accusations, whose falsity he had fathomed. (As reported by Graetz)
1509: The Battle of the Books took place in Frankfurt (Germany): Johann Pfefferkorn, an apostate Jew, convinced Maximilien I to destroy all Jewish books, especially the Talmud. The books were defended by a gentile, Johann von Reuchlin, a noted humanist, scholar and student of the Zohar. The battle was decided in his favor, and the decree was rescinded. Such challenging of the Church by Christian scholars - on its own ground - helped bring about the Reformation and the revolt against the Church.
1555: First printing of Orech Chaim a section of the Shulchan Aruch in Eretz Yisrael. The Shulchan Aruch(The Set Table in English) is a major compilation of Jewish Law created by Rabbi Joseph Caro. He began writing the work while living in western Turkey Israel
1662: French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal passed away. Unlike some other French philosophers Pascal thought highly of the Jewish people as the following quote proves, "It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people…. This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singularly long time… For whereas the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation was foretold… My encounter with this people amazes me…."
1629: Rabbi Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller was dismissed from office today and imprisoned at the order of the imperial court of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II for “insulting Christianity” – a charge which led to a fine of being levied on the rabbi, one fifth of which was paid for byJacob Bassevi von Treuenberg, the financier and “Court Jew” who served three different emperors including Ferdinand II.
1654: Gershon Shaul Yom Tov Lipman Heller, "Tosfot Yom Tov" passed away today. “He served as chief Rabbi of Prague and of Vienna. His most famous work was a commentary on the Mishnah entitled Tosafot Yom Tov. The word Tosafot is translated as “additions.” There are those who contend that the Tosafot are not actually “additions” or commentaries on the Talmud but commentaries on Rashi’s commentary. Regardless Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller was a great scholar, sage and communal leader.”
1800: Birthdate of “German poet” Michael Beer “brother of Giacomo Meyerbeer, the composer, and of Wilhelm Beer, the astronomer.”
1835: A Jew Bill (legislation intended to complete the political and civil emancipation of English Jews) passed its first reading in the House of Lords.
1840: Today, Israel B. Kursheedt who had “played a key role in the establishment of Hebra Terumath Hakkodesh, which aided the poor of Israel, chaired a gathering of New York’s Jewish community to protest” the arrest of several Jews living in Damascus on charges of having killed a Franciscan friar so that they could use his blood for Passover in what is called the Damascus Affair.’
1843: In Strasbourg, Alsace, France, Louis and Babette Block gave birth to Adolphe Bloch, the husband of Noémie Bloch whose children included Marcel Dassualt, a leader in the French aviation industry.
1845:in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-sur-Seine, Haut-de-Seine, James Mayer Rothschild and Betty von Rothschild gave birth to their youngest child Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild
1848: The California Gold Rush really gets under way as news of the strike appears in the New York Herald alerting Americans living in the East that “there is gold in them thar hills.” Jews joined the thousands of others who streamed west looking for fortune. According to Pioneer Jews by Harriet and Fred Rochlin, local newspapers provided documentary proof of the Jewish presence: “The Cohen claim at Vallecito made another whopping clean-up.” “Nathan Rhine has one of the best ledges…He expended about $8,000 to develop it.” “A Jew named Heyman and several others have worked for some weeks some claims on the new ledge. These claims were jumped by a man named Moore
1851: Birthdate of Ferdinand-Camille Dreyfus the French journalist and office holder who was not related to Captain Alfred Dreyfus but who ended up fighting a duel with the notorious anti-Semite, the Marquis de Mores at the same time that the embattled French captain was being railroaded.
1852: In Wilkes-Barre, PA, Abraham Strauss and Emilie Bodenheimer gave birth to Joseph Seligman Strauss, the husband of Miriam Weiss, who took time from his legal practice to serve as a member of the Wilkes-Barre School Board and a member of the Executive Committee of B’nai B’rith.
1856: Birthdate of Harold Frederick, the native of Utica, NY, who wrote The New Exodus: A Study of Israel in Russiawhich displayed a sympathy for the subject – the way in which the Czar’s government treated its Jewish subjects.
1861:Derogatory stereotypes were part of the American linguistic landscape as can be seen in this report published in the Charleston Courier describing an episode among Union prisoners being held at Richmond. A newsboy who had been in the habit of selling his papers at three, suddenly ran his price up to five cents, and on making his accustomed sale in the morning to one of the prisoners, the latter first refused to "come down." The young vender was equally inexorable, and finally carried his point, and received the amount of his demand. This rise in stocks was reported to the Yankee conclave, whereupon the question was raised whether it was right for the man to jew the boy, or the boy to jew the man. The discussion thus commenced in the social circle was carried into the debating society, and after the usual pros and cons, it was finally decided that the boy, being the sole and undisputed owner of the property, and the said property not being contraband of war, and no concatenation of circumstances having arisen to obstruct the right thereby vested in the original possessor of the aforesaid vehicle of information, the right was undoubtedly inherent in the adolescent merchant to determine for himself the incipient value of his goods, and to charge for the same accordingly, ad valorem duties to the contrary notwithstanding.
1862: Birthdate of Auguste-Maurice Barrès, the French author and politician who could not be convinced by Leon Blum that was Dreyfus was innocence because, as he wrote in one of his anti-Semitic pamphlets, "That Dreyfus is guilty, I deduce not from the facts themselves, but from his race."[1870: Birthdate of Bernard Baruch financier and unofficial adviser to several U.S. Presidents. He passed away in 1965. Born in South Carolina New York City United States
1870: “A Hebrew Church Schism” published today described a case that is being heard by Judge Pinkney in the Circuit Court which centers around a dispute among the members of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation on the corner of Lloyd and Watson streets over the introduction of changes in ritual that the plaintiffs claim were not adopted in accord with the charter of the congregation.
1872(15th of Av, 5632): Seventy-three year old Karl Feust, the son of the Chief Rabbi of Bamberg who decided to be a lawyer, despite all of the obstacles facing a Jew in that profession, and who also served as the secretary of the Jewish community passed away today.
1872:“The Bells,” a “one act play that tells the story of a man named Mathias who secretly murdered a Jew 15 years ago and the consequences of his act” opened tonight at Booths Theatre in New York City.
1874: The Grand Lodge of the ancient Jewish Order Kesher Shel Barzel met at Albany, NY, today. Of the 5,404 members, 4,934 are men and 530 are women. During the past year, Lodge has paid $23,000 to “the heirs or legal representatives of twenty-three deceased brethren.” The Lodge has $7,000 on hand “to pay the endowment of the next seven deaths.”
1876: Thirty-six year old George Smith, the translator of the Epic of Gilgamesh whose study of ancient Assyrian texts “threw light” on material contained in the Bible passed away at Aleppo, Syria after having suffered from a bout of severe dysentery.
1877:“The Polish Jews and Where They Worship described the dissatisfaction which “some of the prominent Jews of this City, of the class which is represented by the Jewish Messenger, have” expressed because of “the freedom with which certain rabbis and other Hebrews of importance with their people among the Polish Jews, and the other poorer classes of Israelites “on the lower east side “marry and divorce members of their congregations without regard to the laws of the State of New York.”
1877: It was reported today that many Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland do not trust the civil courts and look to their rabbis for decisions in legal matters.
1877: It was reported that the Jews in the United States have access to 15 newspapers and magazines devote to Judaism. One of them is printed in German while others have German departments.
1877: It was reported that there are 15 Jewish newspapers and/or magazines published in the United States. One of them is printed in German and “others have German departments.”
1878: As New Orleans was in the grip of a Yellow Fever Epidemic, New York City Alderman Lewis received the following telegram from some of the prominent Jewish resident of New Orleans, LA: The following telegram from prominent Hebrew residents of New-Orleans was received today by Alderman Lewis: “Sickness, disease and suffering among the poor increasing daily. Our funds are nearly exhausted in this sad calamity. We deem it our melancholy duty to appeal to the sympathies of our brethren throughout the United States for speedy aid.”
1879(30th of Av, 5639): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1879: The Commissioner of Emigration took the three Neumann brothers – Joseph,10; Ignatz,8; Max, 7 – to Justice Flammer to the Police Court in the Tombs. He “committed them to a Hebrew charitable insitutio to be educated and cared for.” Peter Groden of Castle Garden had found the three boys huddled together three weeks ago in Battery Park where they were trying to sleep. They said their mother had died and they had no food and not place to go. Groden took them to the Emigration Commissioners who found out that that the boys’ father “had abandoned them and gone to the West.” Since there were no other friends or relatives, the court system was the only other alternative.
1879: “Mysteries of the Royal Arch” published today described he connection between the Masons and the ancient Hebrews including the fact that their initiation room “is a representation of the tabernacle erect on the old site of the Temple” built in the time of Haggai, Joshua and Zerubbabel.
1880(12thof Elul, 5640): Fifty-nine year old Herman Bodek, businessman and Hebraist who wrote These Are the Words of Covenant, “a catechism of the ritual signs, allegories, and objects of Freemasonry” passed away today in Leipzig.
1881: It was reported today that based on figures collected in Germany, there are 6,139,662 Jews living in the world. Of these, over 5 million live in Europe and slightly more than 300,000 live in America. In Europe Russia, with 2,552,594 has the most Jews and Norway with 34 has the fewest.
1882: Two Russian Jewish girls named Mary and Hannah Rabeteck arrived in New York from Hamburg aboard the SS Cimbria. The two girls who are aged 6 and 8 respectively, claim they have an uncle with the same last name living in the city, but do not know his first name so they will have to stay at Castle Garden for the time being.
1882: Burglars stole $250 worth of materials from the workshop of Meyer Norden on Broome Street in New York. Norden is Jewish and his shop is closed on Saturday which appears to be why the thieves chose today to steal the silk and velvet cloth.
1882: “Obreight To Be Released” published today described the travails of Samuel Obreight whose family has had him confined to an asylum because he was “a lunatic” – a contention they based, in part, on “the indignation of his Jewish relatives at his marriage to a Christian woman.”
1883: “Murderer Disappointed” published today described the failed attempt by Theodore Hoffman to escape from prison. Hoffman is sentenced to die for murdering Zife Marks, a Jewish peddler, who worked the area around Port Chester, NY.
1884(28th of Av, 5644): Seventy-five year old Jacob Strauss passed away. Born in Frankort, he has lived in New Orleans for the last 50 years where he engaged in money-lending. At the time of his death, he lived on Carondolet Street.
1887: Gus Katz and Emanuel Sturm of Clinton, Illinois, each contributed $1.00 to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
1887: A hearse sent by the United Hebrew Charities took the body of Julius Weisbaden from the morgue to the Marble Cemetery in New York where it was interred without flowers or services.
1888(12th of Elul, 5648: Eighty-year old historian Meyer Isler who earned a doctorate and then began teaching at the school founded by his father Israel Abraham Meyer passed away today in Hamburg.
1890: Justice Duffy has ordered Samuel Cohen to be held for trial on charges of falsely representing himself at he received five dollars from Morris Beckwitz who thought he was making a contribution to the Hebrew Aid Society.
1891: In Brussels, the International Socialist Workmen’s Congress adopted a resolution “condemning both anti-Semitism and Jewish financial tyranny.”
1891: “Goldwin Smith and the Tribal God of the Jews” published today included J.S. Moore’s expression of dissatisfaction with Goldwin Smith’s contention that the Jews only worship a tribal God and “that there is no hope for the Jews as to their social position as long as they adhere to this tribal God.’ (Smith was a British born anti-Semitic Canadian history professor)
1892: A hearing will be held today in response to a complaint filed by Meyer Reinherz an agent of the United Hebrew Charities against Edward Pollock who allegedly attacked him.
1893: Throughout the Lower East Side, an area occupied by Russian and Polish Jewish thousands of circulars printed in Hebrew calling on “Workingmen!! Organized and Not Organized! All Suffering and Wretched Ones!” to bring their wives and children to attend a mass meeting at Union Square to be held this evening.
1893: Charles Wilfred, a self-described “anarchist-communist” who had worked with Jewish tailors during their strike in London addressed a meeting at Thalia Hall which was held to celebrate the release of Emma Goldman from Blackwell’s Island.
1895: Eleven year old Sarah Russell, who had appeared in the Court of Sessions on three charges of pickpocketing, was sent to the Hebrew Juvenile Asylum because she “was not properly cared for at home” and could “receive proper training”
1896: It was reported today that the bands of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum will perform at The Summernight’s Festival
1897: Julies Harburger and Raphael Rosenberg of the Independent Order Free Sons of Israel have expressed their support for New York Mayor William Strong to become the first mayor “Greater New York” (what we call New York City).
1897: “Charity Funds Squandered” published today described a letter that “J.S. Koenigsberg, the Secretary of the Jewish Society of Denver” received from Edwin W. Wallace the American Consul at Jerusalem claiming that funds sent for indigent American Jews who have moved to Palestine “to spend their last days” are being “squandered by the native Jews who live in luxury.”
1899: “Picquart Gives His Evidence” published today described the five hours of the Colonel’s testimony in which he proved details of the plots against Dreyfus and confronts Generals Roget and Mercier.
1899: Joseph Weiler conducted an action today that raised over $200 to aid the Hebrew Sanitarium of Rockaway, New York.
1899: In Rennes, three witnesses, all “enemies of Dreyfus – Major Cuignet, Gener de Bolsdeffre and General Gonse –“testified from 6:30 until 11 A.M. Their testimony was mainly a reiteration of the evidence they had given before.”
1900:Abe, The Little Hebrew" Attell’s fought his first fight today. He knocked out Kid Lennett in two rounds. His mother, who strongly opposed Attell's idea of being a boxer, later became one of Attell's staunchest supporters, even betting on her son to win. He gained the nickname "The Little Hebrew" in these early fights.
1902(16th of Av, 5662): Sixty-one year old Abraham Mendes Chumaceiro, the native of Amsterdam who “moved to Curaçao in 1856, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1872” passed away today.
1906: The newly formed Hebrew Congregation of Cuba changed its name to the United Hebrew Congregation (UHC) of Cuba, and Robert Diamond was elected treasurer. The pressing need for a Jewish cemetery was unfortunately highlighted a month later when Diamond passed away suddenly. Joseph Steinberg was appointed the new treasurer.
1910: In Asia Minor , Ritual murder charges were raised against Jews in Aiden.
1911:Anti-Jewish riots began in Tredegar, New South Wales, Great Britain. This was the worst outbreak of anti-Semitic violence to take place in the British Isles in modern times. The riots came at the end of miners’ strike and were so intense that the Home Secretary invoked the Riot Act and called for the military to control the attackers.
1914: At the beginning of WW I Albert Einstein, the recently appointed director of the Institute of Physics writes from Berlin, “Europe, in her insanity, has started something almost unbelievable. In such times one realizes to what a sad species of animal one belongs. I quietly pursue my peaceful studies and contemplations and feel only pit and disgust.
1914: Birthdate of Rose Heilbron who became the first woman judge to sit at the Old Bailey in London.
1915: Practically everybody attending the meeting at Cooper Union tonight voted “in favor of the resolution for” “holding a Jewish Congress” that would unite Jews in an effort to abolish Jewish disabilities in Russia and to establish “a Zionist State in Palestine at the close of the war.”
1915: It was reported today that when the leader of the lynch mob asked Leo Frank, “We want to know whether you are guilty or innocent of killing little Mary Phagan,” Frank replied “I think more of my wife and my mother than I do of my own life.” These were the last words he spoke.
1915: It was reported today that after the mob agreed not to mutilate the body of Leo Frank, they cut him down and then vied to get pieces of the rope for souvenirs.
1916: “Motion Picture Publicity Men Organize” published today described the founding of the Association of Motion Pictures whose original members included Frohman Amusement Company, Paramount Pictures, Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players Film Company and Ben Schulberg.
1917(1st of Elul, 5677): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1918: Birthdate of Sy Gomberg, an Oscar-nominated film screenwriter and producer who taught screenwriting to University of Southern California students for over ten years.
1919: According to summary of the bequests of the late Ludwig Dreyfus the United Hebrew Charities will receive $627,000 and the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies will receive $210,000.
1919: Afghanistan gains full independence from the United Kingdom. Jews have lived in what is now known as Afghanistan Kabul
1920: In Manhattan Louis and Martha Peskin Wershba gave birth to “Joseph Wershba, who as a CBS television reporter working with Edward R. Murrow revealed the story of Lt. Milo Radulovich, whose dismissal from the Air Force because of his relatives’ leftist leanings became a symbol of the anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1950’s.” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1921: Birthdate of Gene Rodenberry, the creator of sci-fi cult his “Star Trek” staring those two Jewish spacemen – William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock.
1925: In Cracow, Hirsch and Mita (Rosenbaum) Karmel to Ilona Karmel, the Holocaust survivor who wrote Stephania and An Estate of Memory
1926: Birthdate of businessman Arthur Rock, the man who supposedly coined the term “venture capitalism.”
1928: The conference of the Mizrachi World Organization is scheduled to open in Danzig (As reported by JTA)
1929: Following attacks by Arabs on Jews praying at the Western Wall Erev Shabbat and other attacks on Jews in Jerusalem, a meeting was held last night at the home of Professor Joseph Klausner, the chairman of the Pro-Wailing Wall Committee. The committee decided to issue an appeal to the Christian world describing the attacks and asking for intervention on behalf of the Jews. “We ask to be given back what has always been ours, that which saturated with the blood and tears of hundreds and thousands of the children of Israel. Christians throughout the world, you know and realize the meaning of religious sanctity, you who know how to respect century-old traditions and painful longing for sacred religious shrines, please intervene and help us recover the Western Wall, so sacred and holy to us.”
1933: In Toronto, Mayor Stewart forbids display of swastika in the city.
1933: In Santiago, Zionist-Socialist party is organized in connection with the campaign for Labor Palestine that has raised 15,000 pesos.
1933:The Jiidische Rundschau, official organ of the German Zionist Federation, is suspended for six months because it replied editorially to an attack on the Zionist Congress by Alfred Rosenberg, Nazi leader.
1934: A plebiscite in Germany approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler as Fuhrer.
1935:More than 2,400 delegates from forty-three countries had registered here tonight for the opening of the nineteenth biennial Zionist Congress being held in Lucerne, Switzerland.
1937: “Confession” directed by Joe May with a script by Julius J. Epstein was released in the United States today by Warner Brothers.
1937: The British government recommended to the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations that if the Royal (Peel) partition plan is accepted, a provisional cantonization of Palestine should be imposed during the transitional period, immediately after the termination of the Mandate. If such an arrangement would not be possible, an alternative was suggested, namely that two separate Mandates should be held, one for the Jewish, and one for the Arab state.
1938: Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, announced today that Great Britain has issued 825 certificates for the immediate transfer to Palestine of Jewish children from Germany and Poland.
1938: Switzerland closes its borders to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in Austria.
1939:In an impassioned speech frequently interrupted by hecklers, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland, Ohio, appealed today to the delegates attending the twenty-first session of the World Zionist Congress here to do nothing that might bring the Jews in Palestine into conflict with the British Government.
1940: Malvina Parnes, age 11, saw the Statue of Liberty from the deck of the Quanza, a Portuguese cargo ship. Parnes and her family were fleeing from Hitler’s Europe and were allowed entry into the United States thanks to the personal intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the President of the United States.
1941: Einsatzkommando 8 as well as local collaborators in Mogilev, Belorussia, kill more than 3000 Jews.
1942: An allied force crosses the English Channel in what came to be known as the Dieppe Raid. One thousand troops, mostly Canadian perished in this ill-begotten venture. It proved to the English and the Americans that a cross-channel invasion of Europe was going to be a very difficult task that would take massive amounts of man and supplies. More importantly for the Jews of Europe whose only hope of survival lay in liberation, such a landing would be at least a year if not more in the making. In fact almost two years would pass between the disaster at Dieppe Normandy
1942: Nazis murder the children of the Rembertów (Poland Anin
1942 At the Belzec extermination camp, 700 to 800 Jews herded into a gas chamber wait in torment for nearly three hours until a balky diesel engine can be started and the chamber filled with deadly exhaust. SS gas/disinfectant expert but anti-Nazi Kurt Gerstein is on hand to observe
1942: For four days 17,000 Jews from Lutsk, Ukraine, are taken to Polanka Hill and executed.
1942: Esther "Etty" Hillesum went to visit her parents at Deventer for the last time.
1942: In Bar, Ukraine, 3,000 Jews were herded together and held without food or water while in a nearby cemetery the Nazis murdered 1,742 Jews. (Jewish Virtual Library)
1942: Today, “the remaining 43 Jews” living in Laupheim were transported to Theresienstadt, marking the end of 200 years of Jewish habitation in this German town.
1943: The Treblinka death camp receives its final trainload of Jewish deportees. They come from Bialystok , Poland
1943: Nir Am “was established today by immigrants from Bessarabia who were members of the Gordonia youth movement.
1944: The Liberation of Paris begins as the Resistance in Paris rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops. The long nightmare for the Jews of France is about to end. Jews played an active part in the Resistance. Contrary to the popular myth, a significant portion of the French population collaborated with the Nazis and the Vichy French worked tirelessly to ship French Jews to the death camps.
1951:A four year agricultural development plan costing $610,000,000 and designed to feed an Israeli population of 2,000,000 was introduced to the World Zionist Congress today by Levi Eshkol, treasurer of Jewish Agency Executive, Israel...
1952: The Knesset voted by 70 to 11 for an increase in the period of compulsory military service to 30 months.
1952: The S.S. Negba brought 112 immigrants from Hungary and 222 from North Africa to Israel. According to the new arrivals there were some 100,000 Jews left in Hungary Budapest
1952: Officials in Washington agreed with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion that the solution of Arab-Jewish difficulties would be of great economic benefit to both sides and certainly help toward strengthening peace in the world. The US State Department had made it clear in numerous background announcements that it did not believe the Arabs could be returned to their former homes in Israel
1953: The Knesset passed a law establishing the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority known as Yad Vashem (a monument and a memorial) which takes its name from a verse from Isaiah
1953: Israel Europe .
1953: An Arab terrorist from Gaza killed a restaurant owner in Ashkelon severely injured his 25 year old daughter.
1955: Birthdate of actor Peter Gallagher
1956: Birthdate of actor Alan Arkin
1957(22nd of Av, 5717): English born artist David Bomberg passed away.
1959(15th of Av, 5719): Seventy-eight year old Jacob Epstein an American-born sculptor who worked chiefly in England, where he pioneered modern sculpture, often producing controversial works that challenged taboos concerning what public artworks appropriately depict passed away today.1960: As the U.S. Presidential elections get underway an announcement is made that Senator John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee for President will address the upcoming sixty-third annual convention of The Zionist Organization of America.
1960(26th of Av, 5720):Seventy two year old Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier an English historian passed away. http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/historians/namier_lewis.html
1962: Birthdate of Julius Genachowski “an American lawyer and businessman” who became Federal Communications Commission Chairman during the first year of Obama’s presidency.
1963: “Syrian forces murdered two civilians in Almagor,” a moshav north of the Lake Kinneret.
1969: The hippie happening called Woodstock that was held on the farm owned by Jewish dairyman Max B. Yasgur, came to an end. [Among the youthful attendees were a Jewish doctor now living in Texas and a Jewish dentist in Arkansas whose name will not divulged as mark of respect for their positions in their respective communities.]
1975:Hadassah announces that it will increase its youth centers in Israel to integrate Jewish children of Middle Eastern and African backgrounds who pose serious social and educational problems in the Jewish state
1976: “Israel said today that it would ignore the demand by President Idi Amin of Uganda for compensation for the Israeli raid on Entebbe airport last month.”
1977(5th of Elul, 5737): Eighty-six year old comedian Groucho Marx passed away. When told that he had been rejected for member ship in a club because he was Jewish, Marx replied,“I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
1979: Andrew Young, who resigned last week as chief United States delegate to the United Nations, “characterized as ‘kind of foolish’ the United States policy of shunning contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization…” While being interviewed on Face the Nation, “Young called the Government of Israel ‘stubborn and intransigent’ for their policy concerning negotiations with the PLO.
1980(7th of Elul, 5740): Otto Heinrich Frank passed away. Born in 1889, he gained fame as the father of Anne Frank.
1990: Leonard Bernstein conducted his final concert, the Koussevitzky Memorial concert at Tanglewood. The performance included Britten's Three Sea Interludes, LB's Arias & Barcarolles (Carl St. Clair, conductor) and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.
1991: Around 8:00 p.m. this evening, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the international leader and Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch movement was returning to his home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn after a visit to the Old Montefiore Cemetery in adjacent Queens when there was a fatal accident that resulted in the death of seven-year-old Gavin Cato, the son of Guyanese immigrants. Charles Price and other demagogues harangued the angry crowd touching off several days of what can only be described as a race riot.
1991(9th of Elul, 5751): Three hours after seven year old Gavin Cato was killed in automobile accident involving vehicles driven by Lubavitch Chasidim, Yankel Rosenbaum--a 29-year-old Jewish student from Australia--was killed by a group consisting mostly of neighborhood youth, in what would be interpreted as a retaliatory slaying wrapped in the robes of anti-Semitism.
1991: During the “August Coup,” Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest while on holiday in the town of Foros, Crimea. The coup failed and hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a wave of immigration to Israel. It also made possible the re-vitalization of Jewish Communities throughout most of the republics that had made up the Communist Empire.
1995(23rdof Av, 5755): Seventy year old Danny Arnold, born Arnold Rothman, the actor turned creator of sitcoms passed away today.
2001(30th of Av, 5761): Rosh Chodesh Elul
2001: Israeli premiere of “The Switch” co-starring Jeff Goldblum with a script by Allan Loeb.
2001: The New York Times book section featured reviews of The Darkness and the Light by Jewish poet Anthony Hecht and How Charles Shavers Died And Other Poems by Jewish poet Harvey Shapiro
2001: In “City Lore; The Little Red Summer Camp,” Ivy Meeropol reminisces about her summers at Kinderland a camp that was founded in 1923 by secular Jews active in the New York City trade union movement, most of whom were Communists or socialists.
2001: “U.S. Senator Lieberman's office was advised that the Hiram Bingham IV stamp was (again) "on the agenda" of the Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee.”
2002(11th of Elul, 5762): Eighty-five year old philosopher and author Irving Marmer passed away today
2003(21st of Av, 5763): A Hamas planned suicide attack on Jerusalem bus #2 kills 23 Israelis, 7 of them children Twenty-three people, including two small children and two infants, were murdered and 134 wounded when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated himself on a #2 Egged bus in Jerusalem’s Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. The victims: Avraham Bar-Or, 12, of Jerusalem; Binyamin Bergman, 15, of Jerusalem; Yaakov Binder, 50, of Jerusalem; Feiga Dushinski, 50, of Jerusalem; Miriam Eisenstein, 20, of Bnei Brak; Lilach Kardi, 22, of Jerusalem; Menachem Leibel, 24, of Jerusalem; Elisheva Meshulami, 16, of Bnei Brak; Tehilla Nathanson, 3, of Zichron Ya’acov; Chava Nechama Rechnitzer, 19, of Bnei Brak; Mordechai Reinitz, 49, and Issachar Reinitz, 9, of Netanya; Maria Antonia Reslas, 39, of the Philippines; Liba Schwartz, 54, of Jerusalem; Hanoch Segal, 65, of Bnei Brak; Goldie Taubenfeld, 43, and Shmuel Taubenfeld, 3 months, of New Square, New York; Rabbi Eliezer Weisfish, 42, of Jerusalem; Shmuel Wilner, 50, of Jerusalem; Shmuel Zargari, 11 months, of Jerusalem. Fruma Rahel Weitz, 73, of Jerusalem died of her wounds on August 23; Mordechai Laufer, 27, died of his on September 5; and Tova Lev, 37, died on September 12.(As reported by TIP – The Israeli Project)
2005(14th of Av, 5765): Eighty-seven year old Dutch comedian Abraham ('Appie') Bueno de Mesquita passed away. Born in 1918, he escaped Auschwitz when he was chosen to play the cello by the Nazi camp commander in Mechelen, Belgium. This episode provided the title for his autobiography; Cello met één snaar (Cello with one string).
2005(14th of Av, 5765):David Sky, owner of the Rabbi L. Sky Bookstore passed away. The store was started by his father in Newark in 1904 and was one of the "pioneering Judaica stores in the US where" Jewish New Year’s cards were sold for the first time. The store moved to Maplewood in 1970. His widow sold the store in 2008.
2005:Pope Benedict XVI, who was drafted into the German Army during World War II, visited a synagogue in Cologne on Friday that had been destroyed by the Nazis and warned of a growing anti-Semitism that he called a "reason for concern and vigilance."[What follows is a detailed description of this historic event]
"Today, sadly, we are witnessing the rise of new signs of anti-Semitism and various forms of a general hostility toward foreigners," the pope said in a reverent hour-long visit to the Cologne
The visit - punctuated by the ancient call of the Shofar, the ram's horn - was freighted with history, with a German who had taken part unwillingly in the Hitler Youth as a boy becoming only the second pope to visit a synagogue. Unlike his predecessor, John Paul II, who often spoke of his own life in Poland during World War II, Benedict did not mention his own experiences during the war, sticking mostly to his prepared text with a notable exception: He inserted the word "love" in a sentence whose text on paper said Jews and Catholics "need to show respect for each other."
But he was greeted with great warmth by 500 people in the synagogue, which was destroyed during the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, after which 11,000 Jews who lived here were killed. It was rebuilt in 1959, and Jews in Cologne Cologne Germany
Mr. Spiegel called the visit "truly historic," words echoed by the pope's spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, who said Benedict himself had asked for the meeting. He said it was "an event of historic significance: a German pope, who was on his first official trip, himself took the initiative for the visit." The visit was an interreligious detour on Benedict's four-day visit here as part of the 20th World Youth Day, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of young Catholics from around the world. Benedict, 78, who has pledged to make understanding between religions a centerpiece of his papacy, is also scheduled to visit Muslim leaders in Cologne
Germany is the home to 3.5 million Muslims, most of them Turkish, and since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and again after the bombings in London last month, many European Muslims say they are being eyed with increasing suspicion. Although Benedict spoke of "hostility" toward foreigners, he did not elaborate. In his speech at the synagogue, he noted the long history of Jews in Cologne Alps . He said that while Jews and Christians had at times lived together peacefully, he noted the expulsion of Jews from Cologne Rome Cologne Vatican Israel Vatican London Israel Vatican Israel
"This is an issue that has to be settled between the state of Israel Vatican
2005: Former Russian billionaire and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced that he was on a hunger strike in protest at his friend and associate Platon Lebedev's placement in the punishment cell of the jail.
2005: During the evacuation of Israelis from Gaza, the Manchester Guardian reported today “that some settlers had their children leave their homes with their hands up, or wearing a Star of David badge, to associate the actions of Israel with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.”
2005: “Honoring a ‘Righteous Gentile’: Hiram Bingham IV Commemorative Stamp Planned for Next Year” published today described next year’s honoring of the late Hiram Bingham IV with the issuance of commemorative stamp by the U.S. Postal Service as a celebration of the humanitarian efforts of a so-called righteous gentile who was personally responsible for saving the lives of thousands of Jews during World War II as well as the celebration of an American diplomat who defied U.S. State Department policy in order to do so. (As reported by David Brensilver)
2005: In “Vikings’ Owner Makes a Name for Himself” published today Pat Borzi provides a sketch of NFL owner Zygmunt Wilf, whose parents survived the Holocaust.
2006(25thof Av, 5766): Twenty-one year old Staff Sgt. Ro’I Farjoun was killed when terrorists from the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades attacked a checkpoint he was manning for the IDF.
2006(25th of Av, 5766): Lt. Col. Emanuel A. Moreno of Moshav Tlamim was killed in a daring commando raid designed to stop the shipment of weapons from Syria Lebanon Moreno
2007: A retrospective of the works of Frida Kahlo which had been mounted to celebrate the centenary of her birth comes to a close at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.
2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section reviewed Amy Bloom’s new novel Away, featuring Lillian Leyb a desperate young Jewish woman, fresh off the boat who has fled the pogroms of Russia, trying to make her way in New York during the mid-1920s and Jews and Power by Ruth R. Wisse the eighth title in a lively and distinguished series, "Jewish Encounters," that has taken a fresh look at such diverse figures in Jewish history as King David, the 12th-century rabbi and physician Maimonides, the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza and the U.S. boxer and World War II hero Barney Ross.
2007: The Sunday New York Times book section reviewed The Prince of Darkness by Robert D. Novak, the Washington columnist who was raised Jewish but converted to Catholicism in 1998, Off the Record by Norman Pearlstine and UM by Michael Erard author of “The Geek Guide to Kosher Machines.”
2008: In Little Rock, AR at the Chabad House, third and final session of From Ruins to Glory, a course of study based on a virtual tour of the Holy Temple.
2008: President Obama appointed Dan Shaprio as Senior Policy Advisor and Jewish Outreach Coordinator
2008(19th of Av, 5768): Binyamin Gibli, a sabra born a Petah Tikva in 1919 who served as head of Israeli Military Intelligence passed away.
2008:US Airways announced today plans to operate nonstop service between its Philadelphia hub and Tel Aviv, Israel, as the carrier moves to expand its international service.
2008: The series “Modern Marvels: Jewish Adventures in the Graphic Novel” explores The Rabbi’s Cat by Joan Sfaar “
2009:Amy Schapiro reads from and discusses Millicent Fenwick: Her Way, her biography of the late New Jersey congresswoman, as part of the United States Capitol Historical Society's "August Brown Bag Lecture Series" at the VFW Building.
2009:Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin is scheduled to convene a special session of the Knesset House Committee to address the recent wave of violence in Israel.
2009(29th of Av, 5769): Eighty-six year old Don Hewitt, the creator of “60 Minutes” passed away today. (As reported by Jacques Steinberg)
2009:In another sign of the strong defense ties between Israel and India, the government-owned Rafael defense company has secured a $1 billion deal to sell advanced surface-to-air missiles to the Indian Armed Forces.
2010: Tel Aviv native,Paula Valstein, is scheduled to perform at the Highline Ballroom in New York City.
2010:The International Mathematical Union awarded the prestigious Field's Medal to mathematician and Hebrew University professor Elon Lindenstrauss at its quadrennial International Congress of Mathematics in Hyderabad, India..
2010: Funeral services are to held today for Harold Shpeena longtime dentist and former president of the Jewish Federation of South Jersey, died
2010: “The Switch” a romantic comedy co-starring Jeff Goldblum with a script by Allan Loeb was released in Israel and Russia today.
2011: JCC Maccabi Games are scheduled to come to an end in Philadelphia, PA and Springfield, MA.
2011: As her bat mitzvah weekend begins, Gabriella “Gavi” Thalblum is scheduled to help lead Friday night services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2011: The 31stInternational conference on Jewish Genealogy is scheduled to come to an end.
2011:World-renowned solo performer Yael Rasooly is scheduled to present the U.S. Premiere of her award winning show Paper Cut tonight as part of the New York International Fringe Festival.
2011:Friends and family of those killed in yesterday's terror attacks near Eilat gathered to pay their respects today as funerals took place across the country
2011:The IAF launched an airstrike late tonight against a terrorist cell in the central Gaza Strip after the cell fired a rocket into Israeli territory, the IDF Spokesman's Office said in a statement.
2012: Susan Katzir is scheduled to facilitate a “Make Your Own Tallit workshop” at Temple Shalom in Auburn, Maine
2012: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center is scheduled to host a special screening of “Elusive Justice,” a PBS documentary that recounts the decade’s long struggle to apprehend Nazi war criminals and place them on trial for crimes against humanity.
2012: “Soul Doctor,” a musical about Shlomo Carlebach, is scheduled to have its final performance today at the New York Theater Workshop.
2012: The New York Times featured reviews of two books of special interest to Jewish readers – The General, Jonathan Fenby’s biography of de Gaulle, the French leader who stood against the Nazis and redefined the Franco-Israeli relationship after the Six Day War and The Twilight War, David Crist’s history of the conflict with Iran over the last 30 years.
2012(1st of Elul, 5772): Rosh Chodesh Elul – Sound the shofar for the first time
2012: A musical version “The Nutty Professor” with a score by Marvin Hamlish that was produced and directed by Jerry Lewis was performed for the final time at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville.
2012:Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon today described two violent attacks against Arabs over the weekend in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem as "hate crimes" and "terrorist acts."
2012:Police detained four members of the Women of the Wall organization this morning for wearing tallitot (prayer shawls) at the Western Wall plaza.
2013(13th of Elul, 5773): Wedding anniversary of JewishPress.com Senior Internet Editor Yori Yanover
2013: The Center for Jewish and the American Sephardi Federation are scheduled to co-sponsor a presentation by Lori Sternfeld, “The Jewish Community In Iran from 1914 until the Revolution”
2013: Michael Fruend of Shavei is scheduled to speak about reconnection lost and hidden Jews to the Jewish people and the Land of Israel this evening at Beit Knesset Ma'alot David in Ma'ale Adumim.
2013: The Oxnard Film Society is scheduled to show “Fill the Void” at Oxnard, CA.
2013: Israeli and Jewish targets all over the world are likely to be sought out by terrorist organizations in the coming weeks, the Israeli government’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau warned in strikingly strident tones today, listing dozens of countries where it said it had “concrete” indications of a terrorist threat. (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)
2013: “Leading up to an end-of-the- week court-set deadline to clamp down on businesses operating on Shabbat, the Tel Aviv Municipality’s legal counsel said today it is still working on formulating the city’s official response. (As reported by Ben Hartman and Yonah Jeremy Bob)
2013: “Justice Minister Tzipi Livni announced late tonight that she had appointed renowned Prof. Ruth Gavison to draft a constitutional provision defining the exact dimensions of what it means for Israel to be a “Jewish and democratic state.” (As reported by Yonah Jeremy Bob)
2013: “The Nazi Hunter: Remarkable story of the Jewish refugee responsible for tracking down the Auschwitz commandant who slaughtered 3million people” published today described the role Hanns Alexander played “in the hunt for Auschwitz commander Rudolph Hoss.”
2014: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host an Online Resource User-Testing Focus Group as part of its efforts to respond to the digitization of more and more historical archives.
2014: Hamas broke this truce this afternoon with a volley of rockets that “intensified through the nights.” (As reported by Yifa Yaakov and Adiv Sterman)
2014: New Jersey Rabbi David Wax who “pleaded guilty to kidnapping charges as part of a scheme to force an Israeli man to give his wife a get” is scheduled to be sentenced today. (As reported by JTA and The Jewish Daily Forward)
2014: “The United States views Hamas as responsible for the violation of a renewed temporary truce in the Gaza Strip, and is “very concerned” about the resumption of rocket attacks, a State Department spokeswoman said this afternoon.”
2014: “Israeli police issued a request today for assistance in locating IDF soldier David Menahem Gordon, 21, who was last seen at an army base’s medical facility at the beginning of the week.”
2014(23rdof Av, 5774): Twenty-year old Corporal David Gordon who was reported missing two days ago was found dead not far from the Tzrifin base, east of Rishon Lezion, where he was last seen wearing his uniform and his purple Givati Brigade beret.
2015: The Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to host a noontime showing of “Easy Rider.”
2015: “Why I Killed My Mother” by Dor Zweigenbom is scheduled to open in New York.
2015: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Hadassah Book Club is scheduled to meet this evening to discuss The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris.