February 5
517/519: Alcimus Avitus, the Archbishop of Vienne in Gaul who in 576 on Easter temporarily succeeded in calming a crowd angered when a recent convert to Christianity was doused with oil. Four days later local Christians burned down the synagogue and began attacking Jews. The Bishop offered the Jews a choice baptism or exile, he reported that 500 Jews accepted conversion. The rest fled, mostly to Marseilles. Many of those who ostensibly converted managed to eventually return to practicing Judaism.” (As reported by “The History of the Jewish People)
1191: King Richard I (the Lionheart) whose coronation touched off anti-Semitic riots and Tancred, the King of Sicily, the island where Jews had been living since the first century met today at Catania.
1265: Clement IV began his papacy during which he “authorized the Spanish Inquisition to investigate the live of Jewish people, especially those who had chosen to join the Catholic Church.”
1428: King Alfonso V, ordered Sicily's Jews to attend conversion sermons.
1523: The first printed edition of Zeror ha-Mor, a popular commentary on the Pentateuch by Rabbi Abraham Sebag was published in Venice.
1576: Henry of Navarre, who will become Henry IV, converts to Roman Catholicism in order to ensure his right to the throne of France. Although there were no Jews living in France at this time, Henry reportedly was acquainted with one, a man named Manuel Pimentel whose Jewish name was Isaac Abenacar whom the French king called the “king of players.” Pimentel or Abenacar would be the first person to be buried at the Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk, near Muiderberg, not far from Amsterdam.
1631: Roger Williams emigrated to Boston. A believer in religious toleration, Williams would be forced to leave Boston which populated by the intolerant Puritans. In Rhode Island, Williams would practice the religious toleration that became part of the American fabric and would make the United States a unique experience for the Jews.
1678(13th of Shevat): Yuspi Shammah of Worms passed away
1705: Seventy year old German theologian Phillip Spener who differed from his fellow Lutherans because he did not believe that “the expectation of the conversion of the Jews” was a “prelude to the triumph of the Church” – an expectation
1718: Adriaan Reland the professor of Oriental languages at the University of Utrecht who “taught Hebrew Antiquities passed away today. He was a contemporary of Willem Surenhuis another Dutch Hebraist who published a completed Latin translation of the Mishnah from 1698 to 1703.
1778: During the American Revolution South Carolina became the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation, which was the first document of national governance for the newly created United States of America which was still fighting Great Britain to gain its independence. Francis Salvador, who had served as a delegate to the Provincial Council that had voted for independence was not present for this vote since had been killed by Indians while fighting against the British. But most of the Jews, including David Cardozo and Joseph Solomon who were members of a “Jewish company” were probably quite supportive of the ratification since they supported the cause of American Independence.
1781: Two days after capturing St. Eustatius, Admiral Rodney “asked for an inventory of all merchants and their nationality” followed a week later by an order from Rodney that “all male Jews report to the weigh house for deportation at which time he “extorted a total of 8000 ponds in cash from some 250 males.”
1791: As the Jews worked to gain full citizenship in Hungary, Judge Stephen Atzel read the following at today’s session of the Diet: “In order that the condition of the Jews may be regulated pending such time as may elapse until their affairs and the privileges of various royal free towns relating to them shall have been determined by a commission to report to the next ensuing Diet, when his Majesty and the estates will decide on the condition of the Jews, the estates have determined, with the approval of his Majesty, that the Jews within the boundaries of Hungary and the countries belonging to it shall, in all the royal free cities and in other localities (except the royal mining-towns), remain under the same conditions in which they were on Jan. 1, 1790; and in case they have been expelled anywhere, they shall be recalled."
1799(30th of Shevat, 5559): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1782: The Spanish defeated British garrison on Minorca and captured the island. When Minorca had become an English possession in 1713, the English willingly offered “asylum to thousands of Jews” who responded in large enough numbers to justify the building of at least one synagogue. However, when the English left the island after this defeat, the Jews left too. After all, Spain was still the land of the Inquisition.
1801: In Frankfurt, Benedikt Moses Worms and Schönche Jeannette Rothschild gave birth to Salomon Benedikt Worms the grandson of Mayer Amschel Rothschild who became a leading member of the Anglo-Jewish community as the 1st Baron de Worms.
1812: In Amsterdam, Jacob Abraham, “the Levite” “took the family name Rabbie and became Jacob Abraham Rabbie
1817: “The Rothschilds took up a Prussian loan of 1,500,000 gulden at 5 per cent.”
1817: Moses and Dinah Meyer were married to at the Western Synagogue.
1819: Birthdate of Rabbi Bernhard Gotthelf who served as a Chaplain in the Union Army during the Civil War.
1840: The Damascus Affair started with the disappearance of Father Thomas, a Franciscan superior. The French consul accused the Jews of ritual murder and extracted a "confession" by torture in which one of the victims died. The consul then requested permission from Mahemet Ali to kill the rest of his suspects. Others, including sixty children, were arrested and starved to convince their parents to confess. Sir Moses Montefiore, Adolphe Cremieux and Salomon Munk intervened on behalf of the Jews and the charges were dropped.
1848(30th of Shevat, 5608) Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1851: David Davis married Esther Hart at the Great Synagogue at the Great Synagogue.
1852: “Otto Goldschmidt married the world-famous soprano Jenny Lind. To please his wife, he converted to Protestantism.”
1852(15th of Shevat, 5612): Tu B'Shevat
1855: French artist Eugène Delacroix wrote the following description of the deteriorating condition of Fromential Halevy, the French composer who was the son of a cantor. “I went on to Halévy’s house, where the heat from his stove was suffocating. His wretched wife has crammed his house with bric-a-brac and old furniture, and this new craze will end by driving him to a lunatic asylum. He has changed and looks much older, like a man who is being dragged on against his will. How can he possibly do serious work in this confusion? His new position at the Academy must take up a great deal of his time, and make it more and more difficult for him to find the peace and quiet he needs for his work. Left that inferno as quickly as possible. The breath of the streets seemed positively delicious.”
1857: Rabbi Philipp Ehrenberg and Julie Ehrenberg gave birth to Richard Ehrenberg.
1857: In Philadelphia, PA, Leopold Sulzberger and Sophia Lindauer gave birth to Solomon Sulzberger the husband of Clara Frank who moved to Chicago in 1876 where he served as a Director of Michael Reese Hospital, a Director of the National Paint, Oil and Varnish Association of Chicago and Chairman of the Relief Committee of the United Hebrew Charities.
1859: Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexander John Cuza as the United Principalities, an autonomous region within the Ottoman Empire, which ushered the birth of the modern Romanian state. When the Jews failed to provide financial support for Cuza, he “inserted in his draft of a constitution a clause excluding from the right of suffrage all who did not profess Christianity.”
1861: Birthdate of history Julius Aronius, the native of Rastenburg whose most famous work was a study of the “history of the Jews in Germany during the Middle Ages” which he was not able to complete before his death.
1864(28thof Shevat, 5624): Fifty-three year old Mortiz Veit the “author, publisher and politician who was chairman of the Association of German Booksellers and leader of the Jewish community in Berlin passed away today.
1864; “Physician, children’s health advocate, and community activist Dr. Zemach Szabad was born today in Vilna. Szabad began his career as a doctor providing care and support to Jews whose shtetlach were devastated by World War One. When the war ended, Szabad played an active role in public life, quickly becoming one of the most prominent figures in the city, working to improve the health of the Jewish community—especially children and women—and participating in numerous cultural projects and organizations.” (As reported by Yiddishkayt)
1864: Birthdate of “Physician, children’s health advocate, and community activist Dr. Zemach Szabad” who served in the Senate of the Second Polish, was a co-founder of YIVO and who was the father of Regina Weinreich, the father-in-law of Max Weinreich and the grandfather of Uriel and Gabriel Weinreich
1865(9thof Shevat, 5625): Fifty-nine year old Joseph Schwarz the native of Bavaria whose devotion to the history and geography of Palestine led him to move there passed away today in Jerusalem.
1866: Barbe-bleuean opéra bouffe, or operetta, in three acts (four scenes) by Jacques Offenbach with a libretto co-authored by Ludovic Halevy was first performed at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris where it played for five months.
1867 (30th of Shevat, 5627): In a decree from the Sultan, brought about by the intervention of Moses Montefiore, the Jews of Morocco were ordered not to be harmed, and to be treated in accordance of the laws of Allah. However, it was reported many Jews became "arrogant and reckless" after hearing this ruling, especially the Westernized Jews who worked the ports.
1867 (30th of Shevat, 5627): Salomon Munk, German-born French Orientalist passed away. Born in 1803, Munk had a thorough Jewish education before pursuing secular interest. He was unique among Europeans and Jews of his time because he was fluent in Arabic. Munk “devoted himself to the study of the Judæo-Arabic literature of the Middle Ages and to the works of Maimonides, more especially the latter's Moreh Nebukim or Guide to the Perplexed." This enabled him to publish his three volume Arabic edition of the Moreh in the years from 1856 to 1860. This accomplishment is all the more amazing because it was done after Munk had lost his eyesight in 1850 while cataloguing manuscripts written in Hebrew and Sanskrit. Munk was a leader of the French Jewish community. His position of prominence in the community along with his Arabic linguistic skills enabled him to serve as one of the three Jewish leaders who went to Egypt to deal with the Damascus Affair. Munk’s Yahrzeit should help us to remember that Maimonides was a Jewish scholar who belonged to the Arab world as well.
1875)30thof Shevat, 5635): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1879(12th of Shevat, 5639): Moses S. Cohen passed away unexpectedly today at the age of 70. A prominent New Yorker, he had served as President of B’Nai Israel on Stanton Street and as Master Mason. A native of Holland, he had lived in the United States for almost fifty years.
1881: Phoenix, Arizona is incorporated. Jews played a prominent part in the development of the Arizona Territory in general and Phoenix in particular from early pioneer times. For example, Michael Wormser, the poor son of a butcher, who made his fortune in the Arizona territory donated the land for the Phoenix Beth Israel Cemetery before his death in 1898. Sol Lewis and Martin Kaltes established the National Bank of Arizona in Phoenix. The Goldwater family is the Jewish family many think of when they hear of Phoenix. From a Jewish point of view, this is not such a point of pride since the most “famous son” was Barry Goldwater. Senator Goldwater was raised as a member of the Episcopal Church.
1881: Thomas Carlyle passed away. While many remember him as the historian who chronicled the French Revolution and the life of Frederick the Great others remember as an author “Negro hating,” anti-Semite who believed in the superiority of the Teutonic Race. T. Peter Park examined Carlyle’s anti-Semitism in an article entitled “Thomas Carlyle and the Jews.”
1883(28thof Shevat, 5643): Seventy-four year old Jonathan-Raphaël Bischoffsheim a member of Bischoffsheim dynasty who co-founded the bank of Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt and the National Bank of Belgium while also serving as a Liberal member of the Belgium Parliament where he was an advocate for public education, passed away in Brussels.
1885: In Philadelphian, PA, The Young Women's Union which “was originally a branch of the Hebrew Education Society, “ was organized today through the efforts of Mrs. Fanny Binswanger. “The object of the union was to educate the younger children of immigrant Jews. It maintained a kindergarten, day-nursery, sewing-school” and other such programs under the Presidency of Mrs. Julia Friedberger Eschner.
1887(11thof Shevat, 5647): Eighty-year old Asher Sammter who served as the rabbi in Liegnitz (Prussia) from 1837 to 1854 and who moved to Berlin in 1869 where he pursued a career of literary scholarship passed away today.
1890(15thof Shevat, 5650): Tu B’Shevat
1890: Rabbi Zeev Yavet, one of the founders of the Misrachi movement, took his students to plant trees at Zichron Yaakov. The Jewish Teachers Union adopted this custom in 1908. This is also the origin of the JNF Tree Planting Drive which is tied to the modern observance of Tu B’Shevat.
1890: Based on information that appeared in the 15th annual report of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children during 1889, the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society provided care for 149 children that the New York Society had placed with them.
1890: It was reported today that Jesse Seligman, J.H. Schiff, Simon Schafer and Henry Rice were among the prominent members of the Jewish community who have bought boxes for the upcoming Purim Ball, a major fund-raising event.
1891(27thof Shevat, 5651): Forty-seven year old Nehemiah Brüll the native of Moravia who served as the rabbi at Frankfurt am Main and was a leader of the Reform movement as well as a scholar whose “reading in Jewish literature was” unparalleled and who “who evinced a peculiar acumen found in no other scholar in modern times” passed away today.
1889: Birthdate of Zeev (Wolf) Gold, the son of Mariampol Rabbi who lived in the United States from 1907 to 1924 where he served as Preside of the Mizrachi in the United States and Canada before moving to Israel in 1924 where he lived until his death in 1956.
1892: It was reported today the late Benjamin Russak made bequests of $500 each to Mount Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, United Hebrew Charities, Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids and the Hebrew Technical Institute. He made bequests of $250 each to B’nai Jershurun, the Bikur Cholem Society, and the Hebrew Free School.
1892: As the Chamber of Commerce made plans to raise funds to help alleviate those suffering from the famine in Russia, Jacob H. Schiff, said, “he belonged to the race which had suffered so much at the hands of the Czar’s government” and while the Jews would be generous in supporting the effort, they would not support any effort that sent money to the Russian government. The money must go directly to those who were suffering.
1892: Samuel J. Cohn was arraigned this morning on charges of fraud. Specifically he solicited funds while falsely claiming to be a collector for the United Hebrew Charities.
1892:”Mr. Bigelow Talks on Russia” published today included a description of a dispute that broke between Poulteney Bigelow and a Russian Jew named Coplik. When describing the persecution of the “Christian Jews” in Russia, Bigelow described the Czar as a kindly man, Coplik rose from the audience and said that “the Czar was a savage tyran and went on to prove it” by providing several anecdotes to support his statement.
1893: The first of the series of Sunday Grand Opera Concert’s at Oscar Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera House is scheduled to take place today.
1893: In New York City, the Central Labor Union endorsed several resolutions including one that called upon the state legislature “to take action in regard to alleged misuse of the Baron Hirsch Fund by the United Hebrew Charities.”
1894: The Cincinnati Enquirer described the marriage ceremony of Maurice Bear and Miss Bertha Levy of Birmingham, Alabama at her home. The bride and the groom, who is a successful businessman, are each about four feet tall.
1899: In Harrisburg, PA, founding today of the Jewish Literary and Musical Society which meets on the first Sunday of each month and whose members included Mrs. George Rosenthal and J.S. Lowengard.
1899: In the Ukraine, Peter J. Schweitzer and his wife gave birth to Louis J. Schweitzer who came to the United Sates at the age of four and eventually used the family fortune to work for reforms in the penal and judicial systems.
1899: It was reported today that Senor Castelar, the Spanish Republican political leader has expressed his concern with the political situation in France including what he sees as “as a tendency…to go back to the barbarous old-time expulsions of the Jews” “when Jews have to be protected from massacre by the armed intervention of the Government…”
1899: It was reported today that in defending the Zionism, Professor Richard Gottheil has stated that “Palestine is the place where we can live that Jewish life we are called upon to live and only there can we take up the greater work for preparing for the Messianic time….We Zionists are the most ideal of all Jews because we want to prepare the basis upon which the building, seen by our prophets in visions may be reared.” (What may make this sound surprising to some is that Gottheil was a professor at Columbia and the son of on America’s most prominent Reform Rabbis.)
1901: In Chicago, Nettie Green Sheekman and Charles Grover Sheekman gave birth to Arthur Sheekman the brother of Edith and Harvey Sheekman the writer whose big break came while collaborating with the Grouch Marx.
1901: Herzl met with the French banker Reitlinger in Paris and discussed the idea of buying the Turkish Public Debt as a way to negotiate for the Charter for a Jewish Homeland in Eretz Israel.
1902: Herzl begins a trip Constantinople where he is scheduled to arrive on the 14thso that he may begin negotiations for the creation of Jewish homeland.
1903: Birthdate of John Michael Cohen, the Cambridge graduate who gave up a career in the family furniture business to become a teacher, translator and author whose “works included The History of Western Literature,The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations and a biography of Ludwig Mond.
1903: Funeral services were to be held this morning for Morris Tuska at his home in Manhattan followed by burial in Salem fields. A native of Hungary, the seventy-two year old Tuska passed away two days ago. He found success in a wholesale upholstery supply business which he operated from 1857 until 1871. He was a co-founder of the United Hebrew Charity Organization, founder of the Hebrew Technical Institute, President of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum and an active member of Temple Emanu-el for 45 years.
1904: Sixty-three year old “French microbiologist and chemist” Émile Duclaux who was “a vocal supporter of Alfred Dreyfus” passed away today.
1905: Birthdate of Mirra Komarovsky, the Russian born American Sociologist.
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/01/us/mirra-komarovsky-authority-on-women-s-studies-dies-at-93.html
1906: As of today, “many Jews” in Kiev” have received by mail sentences of death in the name of the Pan Russian League in Defense of the Holy Cross.”
1908: At Setatt, Morocco two days of riots and killings riots and massacres have devastated the Jewish community.
1908: In Bridgeport, CT, music store own Joseph Gilman and Rebecca Ives Gilman gave birth to Yale Medical School graduate and pharmacologist Alfred Zack Gilman, Sr.
http://theinfolist.com/php/SummaryGet.php?FindGo=Alfred Gilman, Sr.
1913(28thof Shevat, 5673): Fifty-one year old Baltimore merchant Isaac L. Kemper passed away today.
1913: New York attorney Harry Newburger was “appointed Third Deputy Police Commissioner” today.
1913: At the Hotel La Salle in Chicago, Dr. Joseph Stoltz officiated at the marriage of Samuel Lee Dinkelspiel of Louisville, KY and Lilian R. Phillipson, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Phillipson.
1913: “A dispatch received” today “at St. Petersburg” reported “that a crowd of roughs invaded the Jewish quarter” and beat a number of the inhabitants, several whom are believed to have been fatally injured” while also “sacking a number of stores.
1914: Hyman J. Reit presided over today’s special meeting of “the Executive Committee of the Federation of Jewish Organizations of New York State” where arrangements were made “for sending a memorial and resolutions to President Wilson and Congress protesting against the Burnett Immigration bill…and against other pending legislation restricting immigration.”
1914: Birthdate of Sol Libsohn, the New York native and CCNY graduate who became a noted photographer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/25/arts/sol-libsohn-86-photographer-who-captured-ordinary-life.html
1915: After Herbert Samuel had “submitted a Zionist memorandum entitled ‘The Future of Palestine’ to the British cabinet” in January, today “Samuel had another discussion with Foreign Minister Lord Grey: who said that “it might be possible to neutralize the country (Palestine) under international guarantee ... and to vest the government of the country in some kind of Council to be established by the Jews.
1915: Birthdate of Robert Hofstadter, American atomic physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in 1961.
1915(21stof Shevat, 5675): David Cahn the native of Cracow who in 1872 came to the United States where served as the cantor at numerous New York Congregations in Temple Shar Hashomayim and Temple Rodeph Sholem passed away today.
1915: In “Turks Near Armageddon” published today described the encampment of the fourth Turkish army near “the historic highway connecting three continents” which “is passed through daily by Jews and Christians fleeing to the seacoast.”
1915(21stof Shevat, 5675): David Cahn, who was born in Cracow in 1852 and came to the United States in 1871 where served as a Cantor passed away today.
1916: Albert Lucas, the Chairman of the Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering the War received word from Secretary of the Navy Daniels” today “that space allotment for the consignment of medicines” bound Palestine has been made on the naval collier Sterling which will probably set sail from New York within the next ten days.
1916: In “Brandeis,” Felix Frankfurter described the impact of the nomination of this distinguished lawyer to the Supreme Court.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/brandeis
1917: Birthdate of Rephoel Baruch Sorotzkin, the native of Lithuania who was the son of Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin and became the Rosh Yeshiva of Cleveland’s Telz Yeshiva.
1917(13th of Shevat, 5677): Paul Alfred Rubens an English born song writer who found success in composing works for musical comedies in the UK and the USA passed away today at the age of 41.
http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/british/composers/rubens.html
1917: The Congress of the United States overrode President Wilson’s veto of the Immigration Act of 1917, which contains a literacy test, making the act the law of the land. This override marked the end of a twenty yearlong battle that had begun in 1897 when President Grover Cleveland vetoed an immigration act passed by Congress. President Taft vetoed a similar bill in 1913. Jewish groups opposed the act, especially the literacy test, because they saw it as a thinly veiled way to exclude Jewish immigrants from eastern and southern Europe from coming to the United States. Jewish immigration to the United States peaked in 1906 when 150,000 Jews made their way to the United States. In 1914, even with the war having broken out in, 140,000 Jews came to the United States. By 1917, only 14,000 Jews were admitted to the United States.
1917: The news that President Wilson had broken off diplomatic relations with Germany over that country’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare and had seized German auxiliary cruisers in American ports was greeted with joy by the British, fear for how American diplomats in Germany might be mistreated and concern that the result of all of this would U.S. entry into the war which would make it that much harder to provide aid to the Jews trapped in eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire.
1918: Rabbi Wise, the Chairman of the Provisional Zionist Committee, provided a list of the name of European statesman “who had approved the plan for the Jewish State in Palestine.
1918: This evening, the UB-77, a German submarine, torpedoed the S.S. Tuscania, a U.S. troopship that sank with a loss of life that included at least eight Jewish servicemen.
1919: In New York City, Jewish immigrants Sophie (née Baker) and Michael Chwatt gave birth to Aaron Chwatt who gained fame as comedian and actor Red Buttons. Buttons got his first name from the color of his hair. The last name was a reference to the shiny buttons on the coat he wore as waiter while waiting tables before his career took off. Bronx New York NY, comedian/actor (Sayonara, Poseidon Adventure).
1919: Charlie Chaplin joined three other Hollywood stars in starting United Artist Studios, one of the early giants of the motion picture industry. It was unique, because as its name indicates, this studio was owned and controlled by the creative people.
1919: Today, Julius Kahn, the Jewish Congressman from California expressed his “regret…that President Wilson had come out openly in favor of a” proposal for an independent Jewish state because “consideration of this question should place at the peace table” and because “one of the great dangers of Zionism is the face that the non-Jew will begin to look upon the American Jew as always having a lurking desire to return to the so-called Jewish homeland and the Jew will be accused by the non-Jew of being merely a sojourner in the United States.”
1920: Office and members of the Hebrew Mutual Benefit Society will be attending the funeral for Rabbi Isaac C. Noot, the father of Kittie Lazarus, Simon, George and Louis Noot which is scheduled to be held this morning at the family’s residence.
1921: The “second annual reception and dance” sponsored by “the Bronx Free Synagogue” is scheduled to be held today at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan.
1923: Maurice Duplessis who as Premier of the Province of Quebec issued the warrant which empowered the provincial police to raid “the cultural section of the Canadian Labor Circle, a Jewish fraternal organization” during which they removed “eight hundred books of the 950 volume library maintained by Jewish cultural circle” today began serving as MNA (Member National Assembly) for Trois-Rivières.
1925(11th of Shevat, 5685): Julius Fleischmann, the son of Charles Louis Fleischmann and mayor of Cincinnati, passed away.
1925: Four days after he turned 77, British author Arnold Henry White who went from blaming the Jews for the problems in East End to being a “virulent anti-Semite” who opposed Jewish immigration to the United Kingdom passed away today.
https://archive.org/details/modernjew01whitgoog
http://jewishstudies.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/docs/Kennedy_awards/KennedyAward2005%20Shacham.pdf
1926: In New York City, Arthur Hays Sulzberger and Iphigene Bertha Ochs gave birth to Arthur Sulzberger, Sr., Chairman of the Board of the New York Timesfrom 1965 to 1991.
1927: Birthdate of Marshall Rosenbluth, the American plasma physicist who won the National Medal of Science.
1927: Launch of the USCGC Northland, which after a twenty years of service would be sold for scrap, acquired by Zionists who renamed it the Jewish State and used the ship for bringing European refugees to Palestine before the creation of the state of Israel.
1929: In Holyoke, MA, “Jewish immigrants Meyer and Rose Belsky gave birth to Harold Simon Belsky, who gained fame as “drummer and session musician” Hal Blaine who can be heard on innumerable hits including recordings by the Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel.
https://www.facebook.com/HalBlaine/
1929: “The Sidewalks of New York” a film “made by animation pioneers Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer was re-released today as part of the Fleischer’s new series Screen Songs.
1930: Fifth Aliyah begins. The Fifth Aliyah, which some sources say actually started in 1929, marked a ten-year period when approximately 250,000 Jews settled in pre-War Palestine. This new wave of Jewish immigration was sparked by a number of causes including the restrictions on immigrations adopted by the United States in the 1920’s, the end of the Arab Uprising of the 1920’s and the rise of Hitler which brought a wave of German immigrants to the Jewish homeland. The arrival of the Germans changed the nature of the Jewish community, because unlike the previous immigrants they were not from Russia and they were not committed Zionists eager for life on the Kibbutz.
1930: After a half-hour’s deliberation the death sentence was imposed today upon the Jewish Constable, 22 year old Simcha Hinkas. The jury had found him guilty of the premeditated murder of an Arab family in the August, 1929. “Not more than ten minutes after the verdict was pronounced, large crimson printed notices appeared pasted on trees and signboards at Tel Aviv where the accused lived and where a spirit of deep mourning now prevails…Meir Dizengoff, Mayor of Tel Aviv said today: ‘When I contrast the death sentence imposed on this Jewish policeman with the acquittal of twelve Arabs accused of murdering seven Jews at Macleff House in Motzah, it makes me weep. What? Is this human justice?’”
1931: Eddie Cantor appeared on The Fleischmann’s Yeast Hour starring Rudy Vallee which “led to a four-week tryout with NBC’s The Chase and Sanborn Hour. (Cantor and Fleischmann were Jewish; Vallee was not)
1931: “The Man in Search of His Murderer” a comedy directed by Robert Siodmak, with a script by Curt Siodmak and Billy Wilder and music Franz Waxman was released in Germany today.
1933: In Germany All Communist Party buildings and printing presses were expropriated by Hitler’s new Nazi government. Hitler would equate his war against the Communists with his war against the Jews.
1934: David T. Wilenz was appointed Attorney General of New Jersey today.
1935: After merging with the New York Jewish Tribune, the American Hebrewappeared today as the American Hebrew and Jewish Tribune.
1936: Charlie Chaplin’s first “talkie,” "Modern Times", was released.
1936: On the closing day of its two day meeting in Louisville, KY, the Executive Board of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods denounced “compulsory military training” and endorsed the Nye-Kvale Bill.
1936: In Manhattan, Gustave Silverman, “a builder and plumber who invested in real estate and eventually bought the Hotel Wales on Madison Avenue,” and the former Bessie Goldberger gave birth to Kenneth Silverman, who won both the Bancroft Prize and the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Cotton Mather.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/books/kenneth-silverman-pulitzer-winning-author-dies-at-81.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
1936: Sir Herbert Samuel, who is in the United States to raise funds and gain public support for the settling of 100,000 Jewish refugees in Palestine and is the honorary president of the Biriths Friends of the Hebrew University in Palestine was the guest of honor at a reception hosted by Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach.
1936: Hugo Blumenthal, President of the Board of the School Nursing, presided over the 53rdannual commencement ceremonies at Mt. Sinai Hospital where 33 new nurses received their degrees.
1936: Bernhard Rust, the Minister of Culture and Education, today “forbade non-Jewish university students” from employing Jewish tutors because it was “contrary to academic dignity.”
1937: “The Holy Terror” a comedy featuring Joe E. Lewis and Leah Ray, the future wife of Sonny Werblin was released in the United States today.
1937: U.S. premiere of “Outcast” a murder drama produced by Emanuel Cohen, photographed by cinematographer Rudolph Mate and music by Ernst Toch.
1937: In an article published in the Evening Standard, Winston Churchill “continued to issue his warnings about the growing menace of Nazi tyranny.” The Baldwin government would ignore him and Europe would continue on the path that led to the Holocaust.
1938(4thof Adar I, 5698): Parashat Terumah
1938: Rabbi William F. Rosenblum is scheduled to deliver a sermon “God Save the Family” at Temple Israel.
1938: Rabbi Louis I Newman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Don Isaac Abrabanel of Spain: a 500th Anniversary Tribute” today at Temple Rodeph Sholom.
1938: Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver the sermon at Temple Emanu-El this morning.
1938: Rabbi Hyman Judah Shachtel is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “The Jews’ Contribution to Civilization” at West End Synagogue.
1938: Five hundred protestors who gathered at Columbus Circle this afternoon for a meeting sponsored by the New York State Committee Communist Party protested “the Fascist wave of terror aimed at the 900,000 Jews of Rumania” and adopted a resolution demanding “that the Government of Rumania put an end to the oppression of Jews and other national minorities.”
1938(4thof Adar I, 5698): Thirty-four year old Hans Achim Litten the Jewish lawyer who cross-examined Hitler for three hours during a trial in 1931 committed suicide in Dachau after years of incarceration and torture.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0146fs2
1939: Today, on Sunday, Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson is scheduled to deliver a sermon “It Is Later Than You Think at Temple Emanu-El.
1939: James Waterman Wise is scheduled to deliver an address on “Hitlerism Invades America: How To Defeat It” at the Free Synagogue meeting in Carnegie Hall.
1939: At a forum hosted by the West End Synagogue Stanley High is scheduled to deliver an address on “What’s Ahead of the Democracies?” at 11 A.M.
1939: Ludwig Lewisohn is scheduled to deliver an address on Confessions of a Novelist” at Temple B’Nai Jeshurun.
1939: Professor Albert P. Martin, the former head of the Quaker Committee in Berlin is scheduled to deliver an address on “The Message of Quakers in a Troubled World” this morning at Temple Rodeph Sholom.
1939: The Fort Washington Synagogue, led by Rabbi Alexander Segel, hosted a meeting of the Junior League today.
1939: Mrs. Tehilla Lichtenstein is scheduled to deliver an address on “Religion and Evolution – a Message of Optimism for Today” at the Jewish Science Society in New York.
1939: The Central Synagogue is scheduled to host the first in a series of lectures on “The History of the Jews” delivered by Rabbi Jonah B. Wise who will speak on “Jews on the Roman Empire.”
1941: “A diplomatic note from Chinune Sugihara” the Vice-Consul for the Empire of Japan in Lithuania, “to Japan's then Foreign Minister Yōsuke Matsuoka” states that “he issued 1,500 out of 2,139 transit visas to Jews and Poles.” This was only part of the picture of a man who should be called “a Japanese Schindler.”
1941: The first week-day religious school sessions under the Coudert-McLaughlin Law passed last spring at Albany, permitting students to be released from public school classes an hour a week for religious training, were held on this date. The law was passed in response to the wishes of certain Catholic leaders; not Jewish educators.
1942: In a letter today, Martha Dodd “told her Soviet contacts that her husband should be brought into their network.” Dodd was the daughter of William Dodd, the first U.S. Ambassador to Germany who tried to warn America about the menace of Hitler. Martha’s husband was Alfred Stern, the investment broker who had been married to the daughter of Julius Rosenwald. Dodd, like many during this period, saw the Soviets as allies in the fight against Fascism.
1943(30thof Shevat, 5703): Rosh Chodesh Adar 1
1943(30thof Shevat, 5703: Sigmund Freud’s sister Esther Adolfine (Dolfi) died at Theresienstadt
1943: For 14 hours the Jews of Birkenau stood in place, in the snow, during a roll call. Then each was beaten, chased or sent to the gas chamber.
1943: For one week Germans are greeted with an armed uprising as they try to deport the final group of Bialystok Jews. By February 12th, 18,000 were in hiding. Another 10,000 would end up in Treblinka.
1943: In Chicago, grocers Esther and Jack Mann gave birth to Oscar nominated director, producer and writer Michael Mann.
1943: Rutka Laskier, a fourteen year old living in Bedzin, Poland wrote in her diary: “The rope around us is getting tighter and tighter. Next month there should already be a ghetto, a real one, surrounded by walls. In the summer it will be unbearable. To sit in a gray locked cage, without being able to see fields and flowers. Last year I used to go to the fields; I always had many flowers, and it reminded me that one day it would be possible to go to Malachowska Street without taking the risk of being deported. Being able to go to the cinema in the evening; I'm already so "flooded" with the atrocities of the war that even the worst reports have no effect on me. I simply can't believe that one day I'll be able to leave the house without the yellow star. Or even that this war will end one day ... If this happens, I will probably lose my mind from joy. But now I need to think about the near future, which is the ghetto. Then it will be impossible to see anyone, neither Micka, who lives in Kamionka C, nor Janek, who lives in D, and not Nica, who lives in D. And then what will happen? Oh, good Lord. Well, Rutka, you've probably gone completely crazy. You are calling upon God as if He exists. The little faith I used to have has been completely shattered. If God existed, He would have certainly not permitted that human beings be thrown alive into furnaces, and the heads of little toddlers be smashed with butts of guns or be shoved into sacks and gassed to death ... It sounds like a fairy tale. Those who haven't seen this would never believe it. But it's not a legend; it's the truth. Or the time when they beat an old man until he became unconscious, because he didn't cross the street properly. This is already absurd; it's nothing, as long as there won't be Auschwitz ... and a green card ... The end ... When will it come? ...”
1945: Twenty-three year old Violette Szabo who played an active role in fighting the Nazis as a member of the SOE was executed by the Germans today at Ravensbruck concentration camp.
1945(22ndof Shevat, 5705): Twenty-nine year old Paris born Jewess Denis Bloch who served with British Special Operations Executive (SOE) was executed at Ravensbruck after which her body was “disposed of in the crematorium.
1946: George Arliss passed away. Arliss was not Jewish, but he won an Oscar for portraying Disraeli in a film of the same name. For many people of that era, the Arliss portrayal was synonymous with Disraeli and with English Jews.
1947: In Schwäbisch Hall, Germany, Felek and Chana Gebotszrajber (Fred and Ann Gilbert) gave birth to Yankel Gebotszjraber (Jack Gilbert), the brother of Lena R. Gilbert, who came to the United States in 1949 where he lived in Cedar Rapids before graduating with honors, from California Polytechnic State University in San Louis Obispo.
1948(25thof Shevat, 5708): Sixty-eight year old Belorussian born Columbia graduate Simeon Strunsky who began as an editor for the New International Encyclopedia before eventually joining the editorial staff of the New Yok Times in 1924 passed away today.
1948: Dr. Alexander Marx will be the guest of honor at dinner being held at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York to recognize his 45 years of service to JTS as a teacher and librarian.
1948: In Hollywood, Melrose (née Moore) a Presbyterian from Arkansas and Arnold Nathan Herzstein, a Jewish horse racing columnist gave birth to Barbara Lynn Herzstein who gained game as actress Barbara Hershey.
1949: “Tarzan’s Magic Fountain” the fifth in the series of Tarzan films directed by Lee Sholem, produced by Sol Lesser and with a script co-authored by Curt Siodmark was released today in the United States
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the cabinet held an extraordinary meeting, under the chairmanship of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, to consider the recent frequent outbreaks of violence and infiltration across the Jordanian border, including the derailing, of a goods train near Kalkilya,.
1956: Birthdate of Weizman Shiry. A native of Beersheba, this son of Iraqi Jews served in the Knesset as a member of the Labor Party.
1958: United Artists released “The Quite American,” the cinematic version of the novel of the same name which was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and featured Fred Sadoff as “Dominguez.”
1959: “Redhead,” a musical with music composed by Albert Hague and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, who with her brother, Herbert, along with Sidney Sheldon wrote the libretto opened on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre.
1960: “University of New Mexico coach Marv Levy is named head football coach at the University of California, Berkley.” (As reported by Bob Wechsler)
1962: In Hollywood Jewish thespians Vic Morrow and Barbara Turner gave birth to Jennifer Leigh Morrow who gained famed as actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.
1964: “Man in the Middle” a film based on a novel by Howard Fast, featuring Sam Wanamaker and Al Waxman was released in the United States today.
1967: Ninety-two year old Martin Saxe, who when a New York State Senator responded to Bertha Rayner Frank having been turned away from a New Jersey hotel because she was Jewish that would have banned such behavior in the state of New York.
1971: Seventy-eight year old Hungarian communist politician who repudiated his Jewish faith passed away today.
1972: “When Michael Calls” a horror film starring Michael Douglas, Marian Waldman and Al Waxman and with music by Lionel Newman premiered today on ABC.
1974: “On his way home from Cuba Brezhnev told representatives of Canadian Jewish Community of St. Johns at Gander airport, Newfoundland that the real figure of Soviet Jews wanting to emigrate was 3,500 and not 500,000 quoted by the group” and the he refused “to intervene in the case of Sylva Zalmanson, who is currently serving 10 year labor camp sentence.”
1974: “The Lovell Beach House located on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, California” which “was completed in 1926 and is now recognized as one of the most important works by Austrian born Jewish architect Rudolf Schindler” “was listed as a Registered Historic Place in California” today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovell_Beach_House#/media/File:Lovell_Beach_House_photo_D_Ramey_Logan.jpg
1975(24thof Shevat, 5735): Seventy-seven year old movie producer Lawrence Weingarten who produced two Hepburn-Tracy films – Adam’s Rib and Pat & Mike – and who won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award passed away today.
1975: The movie version of Report to the Commissioner with a screenplay co-authored by Abby Mann, music by Elmer Bernstein and featuring Yaphet Kotto and Bab Balaban was released today in the United States.
1977(17th of Shevat, 5737): Swedish physicist, Oskar Klein passed away.
1977: (17th of Shevat, 5737): Russian born chess player Izaak Boleslavski passed away at the age of 67
1980: The Egyptian Parliament voted to end the boycott of Israel. This was one of the “fruits” of the Camp David Peace Accords.
1983: Former Nazi Gestapo official Klaus Barbie was brought to trial today.
1984 (2nd of Adar I, 5744): Seventy-eight year old Manès Sperber an Austrian-French novelist, essayist and psychologist born in Austrian Galicia in 1905, passed away today in Paris. (As reported by Herbert Mitgang)
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/07/obituaries/manes-sperber-78-novelist.html
1984(2ndof Adar I, 5744): Michael Kogan the Russian born businessman who survived most of WW II living in Japan and who founded Taito Corporation in 1953 passed away today.
1987: An Italian prosecutor's report contends that a 1985 airport attack here was planned in Syria and carried out by the Abu Nidal organization, according to senior judicial officials. The report says the four gunmen in the attack intended to seize an Israeli airliner and blow it up over Tel Aviv, but were foiled when Israeli security men opened fire, the officials said. The report does not charge direct Syrian involvement although it notes evidence of links with the Abu Nidal group, the officials said.
1988: In Los Angeles, Donald E. Sanford Jr. and Debra Blair gave birth to sprinter Donald Sanford who “took up Israeli citizenship after marrying Israeli basketball player Danielle Dekel, who he met when they were both students at Central Arizona College.”
1988: U.S. premiere of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” directed by Philip Kaufman who co-authored the script, produced by Paul and Saul Zaentz and starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
1988(17thof Shevat, 5748): Eighty-five year old Hungarian-born screenwriter, director and producer Emeric Pressburger who fled to Great Britain as the Nazis began to take over Europe passed away today.
http://www.powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/Emeric/LaDoaS.html
1989 (30thof Shevat): “Charles Z. Offin, an artist, publisher and art patron, died today in Mount Sinai Hospital. He was 90 years old and lived in Manhattan. A gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is named for Mr. Offin in recognition of his gifts to the museum. He also gave grants to the Brooklyn, Guggenheim and Tel Aviv museums and endowed arts projects at universities. Mr. Offin was art editor of The Brooklyn Eagle and editor and publisher of the magazine Pictures on Exhibit. He also was director of the Etchers Guild. In World War II, he worked for the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/08/obituaries/charles-z-offin-90-artist-and-art-patron.html
1989: The New York Times features a brief review of Past Continuous by Yaakov Shabtai, translated by Dalya Bilu.
1990: Ninety-four year old Père Marie-Benoît a Capuchin Franciscan friar who helped smuggle approximately 4,000 Jews into safety from Nazi-occupied Southern France passed away. He had been named as one the “Righteous Among the Nations.”
http://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/pere-marie-benoit-and-jewish-rescue-susan-zuccotti?A=SearchResult&SearchID=4398624&ObjectID=6650851&ObjectType=35
1990: The Israeli Army said its troops had killed five heavily armed Arab guerrillas in the western Negev region of Israel after chasing them for a short distance. The army said the guerrillas had crossed into Israel from Egypt through the Sinai and apparently had timed the infiltration to coincide with the second anniversary of the Palestinian uprising. But it was not clear then to which organization the guerrillas belonged.
1990: Prime Minister Shamir will face nine different parliamentary motions of no confidence, from both left- and right- wing opponents today in Jerusalem.
1992(1st of Adar I, 5752): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
1992(1stof Adar I, 5752): Eighty year old New Jersey native Walter Wallace “Walt” Singer the Syracuse and NFL football player who played college baseball with his twin broth Milton passed away today.
1993: “3 Arts Entertainment a Beverly Hills–based talent management and television/film production company founded by Erwin Stoff in 1991” today released its first movie, “Loaded Weapon 1.”
1993(14thof Shevat, 5753): Ninety-four year old media mogul Sidney Lewis Bernstein the son of Alexander and Jane Bernstein who was elevated to the peerage as Baron Bernstein passed away today.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-lord-bernstein-1471201.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/07/obituaries/lord-bernstein-94-of-granada-television.html
1993: “The Vanishing” an American re-make of a Dutch film by the same name produced by Larry Brezner and directed by George Sluizer who “was accused by Israeli officials of a 'modern blood libel' for his claims – which in 2010 finally achieved front page level publicity in Israel – that he had witnessed the then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon personally shooting two Palestinian children from close range near the Sabra-Shatilla refugee camp in 1982” was released in the United States today.
1993 (14th of Shevat, 5753): Joseph L Mankiewicz, director and writer, passed away at the age of 83. (As reported by Peter Flint)
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/06/movies/joseph-l-mankiewicz-literate-skeptic-of-the-cinema-dies-at-83.html
1993 (14th of Shevat, 5753): Hans Jonas, who fled Nazi Germany and became an influential philosopher, passed away at his home in New Rochelle, N.Y. at the age of 89. (As reported by Eric Pace)
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/06/nyregion/hans-jonas-influential-philosopher-is-dead-at-89.html
1994(24thof Shevat, 5754): Seventy-four year old Czarna(née Zielinski) Levy, the native of Poltusk and wife of Reuven Levy passed away today in Tel Aviv.
1996(15thof Shevat, 5756): Tu B’Shevat
1997: The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors and their families.
1999(19th of Shevat, 5759): Ninety-three year old Wassily Leontief Russian born American Nobel Prize winning economist, passed away.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1973/leontief-bio.html
1999: The Times of London features a review of The World’s Banker: The history of the House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson
1999: “The Last Day” an Oscar winning documentary that ‘tell the story of five Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust” was released today in the United States.
2003: Ernst Zündel, “A German publisher infamously known for his Holocaust denial” was detained by local police in the US and deported to Canada, where he was detained for two years on a Security Certificate for being a foreign national considered a threat to national security pending a court decision on the validity of the certificate.”
2003: In “Murder In Monaco” David Kohn provides information about the death of Edmond Safra.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/murder-in-monaco-05-02-2003/
2004(13thof Shevat, 5764): Eighty-five year old “Samuel M. Rubin, who was known as "Sam the Popcorn Man" for making popcorn almost as popular in New York City movie theaters as jokes and kisses,” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/09/nyregion/09RUBI.html?ex=1391749200&en=e33f8d9c57aa1917&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
2004: "Leha'amin" (To Believe) song David D’Or co-wrote with Ehud Manor “was chosen in voting during the program "Israel Selects a Song," held during a break in a televised Maccabi Tel Aviv Euroleague basketball game in Tel Aviv at which videos of four songs sung by D'Or were shown” to represent Israel in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest.
2004: Five weeks before opening in Israel, “Walk on Water” premiered today at the Berlin International Film Festival.
2005: The London revival of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd closed today at the Ambassadors Theatre.
2006: Irwin Cotler completed his term as Minister of Justice in Canada.
2006: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Tattoo for a Slave, Hortense Calisher's elliptical memoir that stretches across two centuries, and wrestles with a grim legacy as she comes to believe that her family — Southern, German and Jewish — may have been slaveholders.
2006: The Pittsburgh Steelers for whom punter Josh Miller had played from 1996 through 2003, defeated the Seattle Seahawks for whom Sam McCullum had played wide receiver from 1976 through 1981, in Super Bowl XL an event for which Rabbis Kasriel Shemtov and Yudi Mann of The Shul in West Bloomfield created the “Chabad Jewish Center at the Super Bowl”.
http://crownheights.info/general/1495/chabad-at-the-super-bowl-xl/
2007: Defense officials told settlers that it was still likely that the security fence would be constructed in the Judean Desert, even though work there had been halted last month due to environmental concerns.
2007: The board of NBC Universal named Jeff Zucker as the company’s chairman and chief executive officer.
2008: In New York, the 92nd St Y sponsors The Beir Lecture Israel at 60 featuring Michael B. Oren who discusses the 60-year history of Israel and its quest for peace.
2008: Three Kassam rockets were fired at southern Ashkelon this evening.
2008: Pope Benedict has ordered changes to a Latin prayer for Jews at Good Friday services by traditionalist Catholics, deleting a reference to their "blindness" over Christ, the Vatican said today.
2008: A Simchah - Eli Sherman arrives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Mother and father are doing fine. Rabbi and Rabbi are doing fine as well.
2009(11thof Shevat, 5769): Eighty-nine year old Canadian director, producer and writer Leo Orenstein passed away today.
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestar/obituary.aspx?n=leo-alan-orenstein&pid=123922595#fbLoggedOut
2009: Opening of the 13th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival
2009:The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism presents a lecture by Professor Jeffrey Herf, Department of History; University of Maryland entitled "Nazi Propaganda in and towards the Middle East during World War II and the Holocaust"
2009; The CUNY Graduate Center and the European Union Center of NY present a lecture and presentation marking 50 years of Israel's relations with the European community by Benjamin Krasna, Deputy Consul General of Israel entitled "Israel and Europe: An Insider's Perspective"
2009: The UN staff discovered five rockets north of the southern Lebanese town of Nakoura which ready to be launched against Israel. Milos Strugar, a UNIFIL spokesman, said the rockets were discovered along with a launching pad by a patrol of peacekeepers near Nakoura, where the UN force is headquartered.
2009: David Miliband “made a statement to the House of Commons concerning Guantanamo Bay detainee and former British resident Benyam Mohammed.
2009: Today British actress and ardent supporter of Israel Maureen Lipman “appeared in the third series of teen drama Skins, in the episode entitled "Thomas" as Pandora Moon's Aunt Elizabeth.”
2010: David Samuel Goyer announced he would be stepping down as FlashForward showrunner to focus on feature films and directing
2010: “Eyes Wide Open,” a film set in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox community, is scheduled to have its New York debut at the Cinema Village in Manhattan.
2010: Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon arrived in Munich for an annual security meeting which was also attended by Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki al-Faisal.
2010: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown today called the record number of anti-Semitic incidents across the United Kingdom last year "deeply troubling", urging Britons to exercise greater vigilance. more
2010(21st of Shevat, 5770): Harry Schwarz, a South African Jewish leader and lawmaker who as an attorney defended Nelson Mandela, has died. Schwarz, who escaped the Nazis and came to South Africa from Germany in 1936, died today following a short illness. He was 86. As an opposition member of Parliament from 1974 to 1989, he was among the most vociferous campaigners against apartheid, according to a statement from the South Africa Jewish Board of Deputies. Schwarz in Parliament forcefully denounced the government's racial policies and spoke out strongly against anti-Semitism, the statement said. From 1990 to 1994, although still in the opposition, Schwarz served as South Africa's ambassador to the United States. As an attorney, he served on the defense team of Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists during the1963-64 Rivonia Trial. For his services to South Africa, he was awarded the Order for Meritorious Service: Class 1, Gold. Schwarz was active in Jewish communal affairs, serving from 1983 to 2000 on the National Executive, Management Committee and Gauteng Council of the Jewish Board of Deputies. He served as a navigator in the South African Air Force during World War II
2010(21st of Shevat, 5770): Beth Shulman, 60, a lawyer, author and union leader who fought for improving conditions for low-wage workers throughout her career, died today of complications from brain cancer at Georgetown University Medical Center. (As reported by Patricia Sullivan)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/08/AR2010020803776.html
http://www.bethshulman.com/
2010: Chancellor Arnold Eisen sent an e-mail today that The Jewish Theological Seminary is eliminating the position of dean of its cantorial school as part of a major reorganization and consolidation at Conservative Judaism’s flagship seminary. Chancellor Arnold Eisen said that the restructuring would take place in lieu of closing the cantorial school — the course of action recommended by an outside consultant.
2010(21st of Shevat, 5770): Frank N. Magid, 78, the television "news doctor" whose survey research and advice to local television stations in the 1970s resulted in co-anchors who chatted between stories, fast-paced graphics, sports tickers and live shots, and a heavy reliance on both crime coverage and feel-good segments, died of lymphoma today at Santa Barbara [Calif.] Cottage Hospital. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/us/14silberman.html?_r=0
2011: Yoav Gal’s “Mosheh,” an opera loosely based on the life of Moses, is scheduled to have its last performance tonight in New York City.
2011(1stof Adar I, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Adar I
2011(1stof Adar I, 5771): Eighty-six year old Charles E. Silberman, a journalist whose books addressed vast, turbulent social subjects including race, education, crime and the state of American Jewry, died today in Sarasota, Fla, He was 86. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/us/14silberman.html?_r=0
2011(1stof Adar I, 5771): Sixty-one year old “Miriam Hansen, a scholar of cinema who studied not only film itself but also the early 20th-century creation known as the film audience” passed away today in Chicago. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/arts/13hansen.html
2011: In Cedar Rapids, IA, the traditional minyan at Temple Judah celebrates Super Bowl Shabbat
2011: The Quartet – the UN, the US, the EU and Russia – “refused to heed the Palestinian call for unilateral statehood and instead continued to throw its support behind a negotiated solution, when it met today in Germany. ‘Unilateral actions by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community,’ the group said in a statement it issued after the meeting.”
2011: Ed Sabol, the founder of NFL Films who helped to turn the professional game into America’s leading form of sports entertainment was elected to the Professional Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio today.
2012: The Leo Baeck Institute is scheduled to present a recital by The Loewenberg Piano Trio
2012: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Thinking the Twentieth Century” by Tony Judt with Timothy Snyder, “No One Is Here Except All Of Us by Ramona Ausubel and the recently released paperback edition of J.D. Salinger: A Life” by Kenneth Slawenski
2012: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” by Nathan Englander
2012:Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vilnai is today expected to call for increased investment to protect Israel's cities and national infrastructure.
2012:Amid growing reports that Israel is planning to attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and increased economic sanctions, Iran will attack any country whose territory is used by "enemies" of the Islamic state to launch a military strike against its soil, the deputy head of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards told the semi-official Fars news agency today
2012: Israel has not and is not interfering in the political crisis in Syria, Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said today, adding that he did not think radical Islam would take over the country in case Syrian President Bashar Assad is ousted.
2012: At Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots lost to the New York Giants which were co-owned by Steve Tisch in Super Bowl XLVI.
2013:Rabbi Riccardo Shmuel Di Segni, M.D., Chief Rabbi of Rome, Italy is scheduled to deliver an address entitled "The Jews of Italy, the Jews of Europe : an Overview and Update" Congregation Magen David in Rockville, MD.
2013: The American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (AAJLJ) are scheduled to host an Israeli Wine-Tasting Reception in Washington, D.C.
2013:Bulgaria’s Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said today two individuals with links to Lebanon’s Shi’ite group Hezbollah were involved in a bomb attack on a bus in the Bulgarian resort of Burgas that killed five Israeli tourists last July and a Bulgarian national.
2013:The IDF stationed a third Iron Dome air defense battery in northern Israel today, amid escalated tensions following last week's reported air strikes in Syria.
2013: The New York Review of Books “began its year-long celebration of its 50thanniversary with a presentation by Robert Silvers at The Town Hall in New York City.
2013: Six incoming members of the 19th Knesset will have to have given up their foreign citizenship by today, the day when new MK’s are scheduled to be sworn as members of Israel’s parliament.
2013: “Obama Plans Visit to Israel This Spring” published today described the plans of President Obama to make his first visit to Israel since moving into the White House although he had visited the country while he was a United States Senator.
2013: Based on information supplied Chabad today marks the start of 32ndround of studying the 982 chapters of The Mishne Torah.
2014: Virginia Jewish Advocacy Day is scheduled to take place in Richmond, VA today.
2014: The Haifa Symphony Orchestra of Israel is scheduled to make its debut appearance in the United States at Bergen, NJ.
2014: Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston is scheduled to “Woman to Woman: The Power of the Arts to Transform Lives.”
2014: The Jerusalem District Attorney's Office filed charges in the city's District Court today against three Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem who planned a sadistic murder spree at a banquet hall. Anas Awisat, Basel Abidat, Ahmed Srur and Amru Abdu of Jabel Mukabar, aged 19 to 21, were charged with conspiring to assist the enemy in wartime. (As reported by Gil Ronen)
2014: Two air force fighter pilots have been handed short prison sentences and 12 others were tried for breaching military security protocols, after top-secret information was found on their smartphones, Army Radio reported today. (As reported by Itmar Sharon)
2014: Today the leadership of the Conservative movement responded to MK David Rotem’s statement yesterday that “The Reform movement is not Jewish…they are another religion” in a statement lamenting “the utter lack of leadership that makes these outrages so frequent and undermines the very aspirations that are the foundations of Judaism and the Jewish state.” Saying ‘The Jewishness of the Reform Movement is beyond question and in no need of defense,” the statement called on the government of Israel to censure Rotem and remove him from leadership roles.
2015(16thof Shevat, 5775): Eighty-five year old Holocaust survivor turned scam-artist Herman Rosenblat passed away today.(As reported by Sam Roberts)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/business/media/herman-rosenblat-85-dies-made-up-holocaust-love-story.html?_r=1
2015: Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill and the author of 80 books on a wide range of topics including World War II, the Holocaust, Israel, to name but a few and who passed away on February 3 is scheduled to be buried today at Eretz HaChaim Cemetery in Beit Shemesh, Israel. In addition to having the writing style of a novelist, Sir Martin was kind enough to answer repeated questions from amateur historians. For those of you who think 80 books are a lot, consider that before illness stilled his pen he was working on a comprehensive history of the Jews of the United Kingdom. Our hearts go out to Lady Gilbert who was his steadfast companion during these thirty four months when he fought back against the effects of hypoxia of the brain.
http://www.martingilbert.com/
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/sirmartingilbert.html
2016: Professor Paul Dilley is scheduled to speak on “The Rabbis and the Persian Empire” in Coralville, IA.
2016(26thof Shevat, 5776): Eighty-three year old veteran New York Times correspondent Arnold Lubasch passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/business/media/arnold-lubasch-who-covered-crime-for-the-times-dies-at-83.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
2016(26thof Shevat, 5776): Eighty-six year old federal Judge Miriam Cedabaum who is best known for her role in the Martha Stewart case passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/nyregion/miriam-cedarbaum-86-dies-longtime-federal-judge.html?ribbon-ad-idx=3&rref=obituaries&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Obituaries&pgtype=article
2016: The Hadassah Mission to Jerusalem and the Blooming Desert led by Marlene Post, Past National President of Hadassah is scheduled to come to an end today.
2016: “Carvalho’s Journey” which tells the exciting story of the trailblazing of the American West in 1853.is scheduled to have its San Diego premiere at that city’s 26thannual Jewish Film Festival.
2017(9thof Shevat, 5777): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Eliezer Silver, the President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis who helped to organize the March of the Rabbis in 1943.
2017: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot, The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping by Aharon Appelfeld, This Close to Happy: A Reckoning With Depression by Daphne Merkin and The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back by Kay S. Hymowitz
2017: When the Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots take the field against Arthur Blank’s Atlanta Falcons it will be the first time since 2012 that both Super Bowl teams will be owned by Jews but regardless of whom fans favor in Super Bowl LI, they can all enjoy Sabra, the official dip of the National Football League.
2017: Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots, featuring the play of Julian Edelman defeated Arthur Blank’s Atlanta Falcons.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/patriots-star-julian-edelmans-5-most-jewish-moments/
2017(9thof Shevat, 5777): Eighty-five year old producer, arranger and composer David Axelrod passed away today.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/arts/music/david-axelrod-dead-music-producer-composer.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
https://www.discogs.com/artist/5451-David-Axelrod
2017: The Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and the London Partnership Minyan are scheduled to a shiur by Rabbi Zvi Hirschfield.
2017: “John Singer Sargent’s Mrs. Carl Meyer and Her Children” is scheduled to come to a close at the Jewish Museum.
2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host guest speaker Rabbi Binyamin Miller, the native of Philadelphia and IDF veteran who is the director of the Alisa Flatow International Program.
2018: At the University of Virginia, the Brody Jewish Center is scheduled to host the “4th Year Seminar” Judaism and Post College Life” as well as a screening of “Rosenwald.”
2018: The YIVO Institute is scheduled to present “the launch of a new book of Isaac Babel translations with readings by translator Val Vinokur and discussion with Isaac Babel expert, YIVO’s Executive Director Jonathan Brent.”
2018: The YIVO Institute is scheduled to present “the launch of a new book of Isaac Babel translations with readings by translator Val Vinokur and discussion with Isaac Babel expert, YIVO’s Executive Director Jonathan Brent.”
2018: The American Sephardi Association is scheduled to present “The IV International Shashmaqam Forever Concert dedicated to Yunus Rajabi (1897-1976), a composer, musician, and scholar who collected, systematized, and transcribed more than a thousand songs and pieces from the Shashmaqam repertoire.”
2018: Some of “today’s great Broadway stars” are scheduled to perform “an extraordinary cavalcade of brilliant and beloved songs by our most illustrious Jewish American composers and lyricists” as part of the Great Jewish American Songbook at the Streicker Center.