February 17
1411: Musa Celebi became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. During his reign the small Jewish community of Manisa grew in size and wealth after it had been conquered by the Ottomans.
1525(24th of Adar): Rabbi Isaac Eizik Margoliot author of Seder Gitten ve-Halizahpassed away.
1537: “Pope Paul III” issued “a call for a general council to deal with the Reformation.” This is the same pontiff who issued “Licet Judaei” a bull that spoke against the blood libel.
1609: Fifty-nine year old Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany who “enacted an edict of tolerance for Jews and who issued an invitation to Jewish merchants asking them to settle in Livorno and Pisa passed away today.
1634: After a year’s imprisonment in the Tower of London, the Puritan leader who was an outspoken opponent of re-admitting Jews to England, “was sentenced today to be imprisoned during life, to be fined £5,000, to be expelled from Lincoln's Inn, to be deprived of his degree by the university of Oxford, and to lose both his ears in the pillory” for his attacks on dramatic performances and King Charles I.
1732: Birthdate of English dramatist Richard Cumberland who “The Jew” a comedy about a Jewish moneylender that was first produced at London’s Drury Lane Theatre in May of 1794. Unlike earlier English portrayals of Jewish moneylenders, in this case, Sheva the moneylender is the benevolent hero.
1772: First partition of Poland by Russia, Prussia and Austria. The multi-parted partition of Poland would mean the demise of the Polish nation until after World War I. Much to the disappointment of the Russians, they acquired a large Jewish population as a result of the partition; a Jewish population that the Russians did not want.
1776(27thof Shevat, 5536): The first volume of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was published today.
From the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives, and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation which was exercised by the arms of the legions against a race of fanatics whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but of human kind.
- Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776)
1785: Birthdate of Nachman Kohen Krochmal, the native of Brody who interrupted his studies to become a business man who wrote Moreh Nebuke ha-Zeman
1801: An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives. Thomas Jefferson was the first President to appoint a Jew to a Federal post. In 1801 he named Reuben Etting of Baltimore as U.S. Marshall for Maryland. More importantly from a Jewish perspective was the fact that Jefferson was a strong defender of the concept of separation of church and state.
1809: Miami University is chartered by the State of Ohio. According to recent figures a thousand of the school’s 15,000 undergrads are Jewish and 100 of its 1,000 grad students are Jewish. The school offers approximately 20 Jewish Studies courses and a Major in Jewish Studies. The school hosts a robust Hillel Chapter offering a wide variety of programs including a weekly Friday night Shabbat services and dinner.
1819: Birthdate of historian Philip Jaffe who overcame German anti-Semitism to “one of the most important medievalists of the 19th century.”
1828: Moshe Simeon ben Joseph married Bluma bat Jacob today at the Western Synagogue
1829: In Paris James Mayer de Rothschild and Betty Salomon von Rothschild gave birth to their second son Gustave Samuel de Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild, the “consul-general for Austria-Hungary, director of the Chemin de Fer du Nord and the Paris-Lyons and Mediterranean Railway; member of the board of directors of the Rothschild Hospital and Hospice and president of the Jewish Consistory of Paris
1830: Israel Phillips married Maria Sampson today at the Western Synaogue.
1830: David D. Cohen married Mary Hart, “the eldest daughter of Nathan Hart” in Charleston, SC, today.
1846: Birthdate of Bestland, VA native Solomon W. Fleishman, the operator of mercantile businesses in Danville and Richmond who passed away in December of 1916 leaving large bequests to several organizations including Hebrew Union College, the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Society, the Home for Confederate Women and the Hebrew Home for Aged and Infirm.
1847: In Frankfurt, Charlotte Rothschild and Anselm von Rothschild the manager of “the family-owned S M von Rothschild bank” in Vienna gave birth to their “eighth and youngest child” Alice Charlotte von Rothschild
https://trc-leiden.nl/trc-needles/people-and-functions/collectors/rothschild-alice-charlotte-von-1847-1922
1847: Israel Coleman married Julia Cohen at the Great Synagogue today.
1850: Yehuda ben Aharon married Ryna bat Mikal at the Great Synagogue today.
1852(27th of Shevat, 5612): Five days before his 40th birthday, Hebrew Poet Micha Joseph Levenson passed away.
1853: A Hungarian tailor makes an unsuccessful attempt on the life of Emperor Franz Josef. Jews are erroneously thought to have colluded with Italian dissidents in the attempt.
1856(11thof Adar I, 5616): “English tenor and composer John Braham” who received his earliest musical training in the Great Synagogue where his father Abraham was a chorister” and who “in 181t collaborated with Isaac Nathan on a work called ‘Hebrew Melodies” for which Lord Byron wrote the text” passed away today.
http://www.cornishwonder.com/page3.htm
1857: Abel Dreyfous, an immigrant from Belfort Alsace and Caroline Kaufman Dreyfous, a native of Bavaria gave birth to Felix Jonathan Dreyfous in New Orleans “at the corner of Florida Walk (then Marigny Canal) and Elysian Fields Street where” they “for a time attempted to operate a soap factory under unfavorable circumstatnces.
1856: Heinrich Heine passed away. The famed poet was born to a Jewish family but converted to Christianity in 1825 seeing it as the only way to fully enter German and European society. Reportedly Heine saw his conversion as matter of practical convenience saying that “As Henry IV said, 'Paris is worth a mass'; I say, 'Berlin is worth the sermon.'" Heine remained ambivalent about his decision for the rest of his life. When the Nazis decided to burn books by Jewish authors, they included the works of Heine. Heine has prophetically written, “Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people."
1863: Birthdate of British political leader David Lloyd George. Lloyd George was the Prime Minster of Great Britain during the last half of World War I. His resolve helped to bring victory to the Allies. For Jews, Lloyd George will be remembered as the Prime Minister whose government issued the famous Balfour Declaration. Unlike some of his wartime contemporaries, Lloyd George remained a loyal supporter to both the letter and the spirit of the Balfour Declaration after the Great War when it was no longer fashionable to keep the promises made to the Jewish people.
1866: A correspondent for the New York Times arrived in Kai-fun-fee, the capital of Honan where he has gone in search of the remnants of an ancient community of Chinese Jews.
1866: In New York City Jacob Strauss and Betty Danenbaum gave birth to Carrie Strauss, who as Carrie Taubenhaus, the wife of Rabbi Godfrey Taubenhaus, who served as a trustee of the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Hebrew Educational Society and was the “first president of Brooklyn Section of the Council of Jewish Women.”
1870: In Milwaukee, WI, Temple Emanu-E which had been formed in 1869 was formally incorporated, making I the city’s second oldest congregation. E.M.V. Brown was the first Rabbi to serve the congregation.
1871(26thof Shevat, 5631): Sixty-four year old Eleazer (Eugene) Moss, the son of John Moss and Rebecca Lyons and husband of Mary Levy passed away today in Philadelpha.
1871: The victorious Prussian Army parades though Paris after the end of the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. Jews fought in the armies of the victorious Prussians and the vanquished French. More importantly, the humiliating defeat in 1871 led to World War I which in turn led to World War II and the Shoah.
1872: It was reported today that of the $528,742.47 that New York City gave to sectarian charitable institutions in 1869 and 1870, Hebrew institutions received $14,404.49 as compared to the $412,082.56 that went to Roman Catholic Intuitions.
1874(30thof Shevat, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Adar
1874: Benjamin Disraeli finished serving as leader of the Loyal Opposition as he prepared to assume the role of Prime Minister following the conclusion of the General Election in which the Conservative Party won a majority of seats in the House of Commons.
1875: Twenty-one year old Sophie Seligman became Sophie Walter when she married Moritz Walter today.
1875: The Israelite General Benevolent Society gave its 9th annual ball at the Turn Hall tonight. The affair was a fundraiser to raise money for destitute and poor Jewish families.
1877(4thof Adar, 5637): Fifty-six year old German-born Austrian writer Salomon Hermann Mosenthal known for his “opera libretti” passed away today.
1877: In Hungary, Max and Regina Goldstein Englander to Henry Englander who came to the United States in 1879, graduated from the University of Cincinnati and HUC in 1901 who served as rabbi at several congregations staring with Ahavath Sholom Temple in Ligonier, Indiana before pursuing a career in Judaic academia.
1878: “Daniel – The Third Ruler in the Kingdom” published today discusses why Daniel who interpreted the inscription for the Babylonian king was referred to as the “third ruler” when Joseph who interpreted the dream for the Pharaoh was referred to as the “second ruler.”
1878: It was reported today that after four years, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association of New York City has 900 members.
1878: It was reported today that the Gemeindebund ("Union of Judæo-German Congregations") has been reorganized to better protect the Jewish communities in Germany
1878: It was reported today that more than one third of the Jews living in Amsterdam are paupers. These 13,000 individuals are supported by the Jewish community and the government. The Congregational Council spent 130,214 florins in 1877 to support a variety of community officials and institutions including a Chief Rabbi, Chief Cantor, free religious schools for 1,800 boys and 600 girls, a rabbinical college, an orphan asylum and a hospital and lunatic asylum “considered the best in the country.”
1879: In the United States Circuit Court, Judge Wallace and the jury began hearing the case brought by M.L. Hiller, who identified himself as “a Prussian and a Jew” who had become a Universalist had brought against the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Company of Nebraska for breach of contract.
1880: “Historic Balds,” a comic look at the lack of hair among men through the ages printed today, not that based on the story of Elisha “baldness seems to have been considered a disgrace in remote ages…” On the other hand, the stories of Samson and Absalom would indicate that flowing locks are not a guarantee of good fortune or divine approval.
1880: After having been charged with arson, Jacob Naftal, a Jewish clothing merchant, went on trial today for his role in starting a fire at Red Bank, NY which destroyed 9 buildings. The 9 buildings, which included a store owned by the defendant, were in the town’s business district. The trial is expected to last for several days.
1881: Rabbi E.M. Meyer Rafael of Brooklyn provided his version of the conflict between Raphael Joseffy and Matthew Arbuckle who were supposed to be participating in an upcoming concert to provide funds for his Brooklyn synagogue. According to Meyer, Arbuckle, one of the leading coronet players had agreed to charge a reduced price for his performance and the Joseffy, one of the leading pianists, had agreed to play for free. However, when Joseffy’s secretary found out the Arbuckle was performing, the secretary said Joseffy would not perform if a coronet was being played. Joseffy expressed no opinion about Arbuckle. The objection would have been the same if it had been another coronet player. The dispute could derail this benefit event.
1881: Seventy-four year old German historian Theodor Hirsch who converted to Christianity was the cousin of historian Siegfried Hirsh, passed away today.
1882: The description of the conditions of the Jews in Kiev and its surrounding area provided by Russian speaking Protestant Englishman who had visited the area were published today. According to him the homes of the Jews had been “completely wrecked…with the…doors and windows…torn from their hinges. At least 2,000 Jews – men, women and children – were left with nothing but the clothes on their backs. During one 48 hour period of carnage, “numerous defenseless young women were completely at the mercy of the mob…” The authorities did nothing to prevent the violence and expressed sympathy for the attackers. When some of the attackers were put on trial, “the government prosecutor expressed sympathy with the motives” of the attackers. The light sentences showed that the populace supported the attacks and the violence. In some of the small towns outside of Kiev, the soldiers who were ordered to protect the Jews actually joined the rioters.
1882: Hamilton Disston wrote a letter from Jacksonville, FL to Mayor King of Philadelphia offering a free 40 acre tract of land owned by Okeechobee Land and Improvement Company of Florida to each of the 50 Jewish families fleeing Russian persecution that are on a boat bound for the City of Brotherly Love.
1882: It was reported today that at Kiev, Odessa, Elizabethgrad and other Russian cities “more than 250 women were outraged by Jewbaiters during the disturbances [“Outraged” is a euphemism for rape and “disturbances is a euphemism for Pogrom.]
1882: It was reported today that petroleum was poured on a Jew’s head in Odessa and that he was then set on fire.
1882: It was reported that at Kiev, General Dreutlen refused to protect the Jews because it was not worth risking the lives of his soldiers to do so.
1882: It was reported today that F.D. Moccatta has contributed £ 1,000 to the relief fund for the Jews of Russia. He has also to contribute 1 per cent of any sum collected within the next two years in an amount not to exceed £ 1,000,000. [F.D. Moccatta is Frederick David Mocatta]
1888: Birthdate of Otto Stern, 1943 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
1889: Birthdate of Canadian native mezzo-soprano Irene Pavloska
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1962/02/14/107174368.pdf
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/irene-pavloska-emc/
1890: It was reported that the funds raised by the concert and reception hosted by the Seligman Solomon Society would go to the Seligman Solomon Prize Fund for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. The society which is was founded three years ago is made up of those who had lived at the asylum and the late Seligman Solomon was one of its leading patrons.
1890: United States Commissioner John A. Shields continued to hear testimony regarding the Sixth National Bank case, which if true, would mean that Siegmund T. Meyer and his sons Philip and Arthur, “raided” the financial institution.
1890(27thof Shevat, 5650): Herman Frohman a wealthy New York butcher, the husband of Mary Frohman and the father of Henrietta Frohman, Lena Frohman Vollman, Fannie Frohman Adler, Bertha Frohman and Rebecca Frohman passed away today.
1890: The Hebrew Home for the Aged and Infirm of Richmond, VA led by President Henry S. Hutzler, Vice President Philip Whitlock and Secretary and Treasurer Isaac Held was incorporated today.
1891: In Winnsboro, SC, Rabbi David Levy of Charleston officiated at the wedding Sam Nathan from Denver, CO and Etta L. Wolfe,” the daughter of Saling and Sarah Wolfe”
1891: Birthdate of Abraham Fraenkel, the Munich native and “fervent Zionist” who became the first Dean of Mathematics at Hebrew University.
1891(9th of Adar I, 5651): In Leadville, CO, Abe Oliner passed away just two months short of his sixth birthday. Abe came to Leadville in 1885 with his father Isaac, age 30, mother Gilla, age 25, brother Jacob, age 4 and sister Fannie, age 2.
1891: Birthdate of German born Israeli mathematician Abraham Halevi Fraenkel.
1894(18th of Adar I, 5654): Sixty-three year old Albert S. Rosenbaum, a retired tobacco merchant and hotel proprietor passed away today in New York. A native of Cassel, Germany he came to the United States when he was 18 and settled in California where he made his fortune investing in San Francisco real estate. He moved to New York to better manage his tobacco interest.
1895: “Heine’s Pension” published today described Heinrich Heine’s life in France beginning with “his exile in Paris in 1831.” (Heine was the German literary figure who converted, a decision that he later came to regret but never rectified.)
1895: In St. Louis, Russian, Austrian, Polish, Hungarian and Scandinavian Jews who had become naturalized citizens of the United States form the Progressive Order of the West, a fraternal and benevolent organization. The Progressive Order's objectives were to familiarize members with the laws, customs, and institutions of this country; to create a fund to be used for charitable purposes, and to provide for the payment of death benefits to the families of members. In 1898, 7 lodges were in existence in St. Louis and steps were being taken to extend the order to other cities.
1895: It is reported today that the Government in Germany has taken the side of the striking tailors and seamstresses. (Considering the reactionary nature of the German ruling class this would seem rather strange except that the owners are described as being “mostly Jews.”)
1895: “Are Sisters of Mercy” published today described the Temple Emanu-El Sisterhood as one of “the pioneer of all Jewish sisterhoods: and “one of the most excellent institutions among…Hebrew charities.”
1896: It was reported today that Baron von Leonrod, the Bavarian Minister of Justice has said that it would be impossible to refund the 80,000 marks that Louis Stern of New York had left as bail even though he had received a pardon from the Prince Regent.
1896(3rdof Adar I, 5656): Sixty-four French author Aristide Félix Cohen passed away today.
1896: Under the will of the late Adolphe de Rothschild, with today’s date, he “bequeathed to the Institution for Sick Foreign Jews in Frankfort, founded in memory of his daughter, Georgine Sara, 2,000,000 marks and to the orthodox Jewish Congregation in Frankfort 200,000 marks, in trust, to distribute to the income among poor Jews of good character, on the anniversaries of his death and that of his wife.
1897: It was reported today that Professor Felix Adler is one of the speakers scheduled to address the upcoming conference on improving housing conditions in New York City.
1897: “Large Gift to Orphans” published today described the offer of Emanuel Lehman to provide “$100,00 for the endowment of an industrial and provident fund for the benefit of graduates” who have been under the care of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society.
1897: As Emanuel Lehman celebrated his 70th birthday it was reported today that “every charitable association” in New York City “in which Lehman is interested received a handsome check from him…with an explanatory note that it was a birthday present.
1897: “Work of the United Hebrew Charities” published today showed that during January 114 people had received money to be used for transportation to other parts of the United States or Europe. During January, the UHC provided 53 free burials and provided medical assistance to 394 people including medicine and visits to the doctor. Finally the UHC provided clothing, shoes, furniture, lodgings, meals and cash to 5,422 applicants.
1898: Judge Meyer S. Isaacs will deliver a lecture entitled “The Old Guard” tonight at Temple Israel sponsored by the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1903: Herzl meets Dr. Abdullah Djevdet Bey whose poetry he reviewed in the Neue Freie Presse. Djevdet offers his help in gaining support for the Zionists in Turkey. Leopold Greenberg reports from Egypt that it will be impossible to obtain a Charter that will support Jewish colonization.
1904: In Akron, Ohio, 22 year old Bert A. Polsky, the son of Abram and Mollie Polsky who worked at A.Polsky, the family owned business married Hazel Steiner who would become a charter member and president of the Women’s Auxiliary Board of the Akron City Hospital.
1904: Birthdate of political scientist and historian Hans J. Morgenthau. Born and educated in Germany, Morgenthau came to the United States in the 1930’s. He gained fame as director of the Center for the Study of American Foreign and Military Policy while teaching at the University of Chicago. Morgenthau was a realist and opposed the Vietnam War “because the risks of military participation outweighed any benefits.” He was a leader in the fight to improve the conditions of Soviet Jewry and he spoke out against the PLO as a terrorist organization. He passed away in 1980.
1905: Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, the brother of Emperor Alexander III and the nephew of Emperor Nicholas II who while serving as Governor General of Moscow oversaw “the expulsion of 20,000 Jews from Moscow” was assassinated today in Moscow.
1906: Carl Stettauer, “who represented the United States and Great Britain in the general distribution of the Jewish Relief Fund in Russia” met with a New York Times reporter today at the Waldorf-Astoria where he described his visit to Russia during which two million dollars, half of which had been raised in the United states was spent on relieving the suffering of the Jewish population.
1910: In New York City, Minerva Norma (née Sugarman) Goldsmith and Israel Simon Goldsmith gave birth to Max Goldsmith who gained fame as American cinema actor Marc Lawrence who was a friend and acting contemporary of John Garfield. Like Garfield, Lawrence ran into trouble during the McCarthy Period. Unlike Garfield, Lawrence survived professionally and personally. He passed away in 2005.
1911: Birthdate of Oskar Koplowitz, a native of Silesia, who as Oskar Seidlin became a noted American “literary scholar, poet and” an author of detective novels and books for children.
1913: The Armory Show opens in New York City, displaying works of artists who are to become some of the most influential painters of the early 20th century. William Zorach, Max Weber, Elie Nadelman, Maurice Becket and Abraham Walkowitz were among the Jewish artists invited to display their work.
1913: U.S. premiere of “The Miracle,” a British silent, color film based on the play by Max Reinhardt.
1914: “In a 142 page decision, the Georgia Supreme court denied Leo Frank a new trial” by dismissing allegations of juror bias and the influence of spectators on the verdict of the trial court.
1915: “Plea to New York Jews” published today described willingness of the U.S. Navy to ship “flour, sugar, rice and matzoth for Passover” aboard one of its vessels provided the Jewish community can raise the funds for the supplies which will unloaded at Jaffa.
1915: In Rhodes Island, at Brown University, several faculty members took part in a discussion following a lecture on Zionism delivered by Professor Richard Gottheil of Columbia University.
1915: In Chicago, Pia “Fannie” Brin and Solomon Brin gave birth to “Herb Brin, pugnacious journalist, editor, poet and dogged campaigner for liberal and Jewish causes.”
http://www.davidbrin.com/herbbrin/obituary.html
1915: Reverend Thomas Kelly Cheyne, the former Oriel Professor of Interpretation of the Scriptures at Oxford and who was one of the first “English scholars” to apply “the methods of Higher Criticism” to the study of the Old Testament – a methodology that had already become popular among some German-Jewish scholars – passed away today. Cheyne was the author of Job and Solomon: The Wisdom of the Old Testament, The Prophecies of Isaiah in two volumes and work on the prophet of Jeremiah.
1916: “Robinson Crusoe, Jr” a musical co-authored by Sigmund Romberg, co-starring Al Jolson and produced by Lee and Jacob Schubert opened at the Winter Garden Theatre.
1916: “A committee of those who have been active in Jewish relief work in New York City” headed by Leo Kamaiky and Mrs. Samuel Elkeles “called upon President Wilson” today “and thanked him for hiving set aside January 27 by proclamation as a day when all could contribute to relieve the destitute Jews in the war zone” who reportedly to number at least nine million souls.
1917: Rabbi Marius Ranson is scheduled to lead services today at Temple Israel of Harlem.
1917: Dr. Samuel Schulman is scheduled to deliver the sermon this morning at Temple Beth-El on Fifth Avenue.
1917: “The Women’s Proclamation Committee, the national women’s organization for Jewish relief” today “sent to the Joint Distribution Committee for Jewish War Relief a check for $3,000, its monthly contribution to the great 1917 fund being raised here for destitute Jews in the warring countries.”
1917: At Temple Emanu-El, Dr. Silverman is scheduled to deliver a sermon on “Sacredness of Life: Thou Shalt Not Murder” at Saturday morning services.
1917: “A young girl refugee” who “is a native Mihailovo Poland, a village about forty miles from the German border” “who after three months efforts succeeded in getting out Poland” and escaping to the United States made a statement from her uncle’s home on Seventh Avenue that “The Jews in that part of Russian Poland which is now occupied by Germans thought, before the war that the Russians were hard taskmasters. Now, they go down on their knees every night and pray for the return of the Russians; they do so covertly, though for if they were caught they would be beaten or imprisoned.”
1917: General James Rowan O’Beirne, the Civil War and Medal of Honor winner who served as Superintended of Immigration in the 1890’s who opposed Jess Seilgman’s efforts to gain admittance to the United States for the 86 Jewish passengers aboard the SS Marsala passed away.
1918: Jacob H. Schiff, head of the special committee of the American Jewish Relief Committee that arranged the plan whereby the workers of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union will forego the holiday on Washington's Birthday and give their day's earnings to the Jewish war sufferers announced that almost no factory organized by the ILGU would be open and that many owners would be paying time and half or double time.
1918: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise announced that the Palestine Restoration Fund now totals more than $800,000 of which $250,000 was collected in New York.
1918: Saul J. Cohen, editor The Maccabean, the official Zionist journal received a cable from Israel Zangwill, founder of the Jewish Territorial Organization, saying that he has altered his position following the issuance of the Balfour Declaration and “now looks toward Palestine as the land of the Jews.”
1918: Morris Rothenberg, Chairman of the Zionist Committee of New York presided over a meeting of Zionists at the Casino Theatre who had gathered to honor the memory of Dr. Jechiel Tchlenow who died last month in London.
1919: Norman Hapgood, President of the League of Nations Association, Judge Julian W. Mack, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, Max Pam and Dr. Benzion Mossinson are the guests of honor at a kosher banquet scheduled to be held this evening at the Morrison Hotel as part of the Zionist Convention being held in Chicago.
1920: Birthdate of Bella Levy, of blessed memory, a pillar of the Little Rock Jewish Community and the wife of Manford Levy.
1921: Herah Lerner, his wife Elka and their daughter who had been born two days ago while aboard a ship bringing these Jews to the United States arrived in New York.
1921: After having been informed by the New York World that “the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which he has been reprinting with anti-Semitic commentary in his own newspaper the Dearborn Independent, are a forgery” Ford said he did not care replying "The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. Indeed they do."
1922: In Chile, Mary Grisel Lehmann (née Bissett) and Andrew William Lehmann, a mining engineer, gave birth to Professor Andrew George Lehmann
1925: In York, PA, Dorothy and Joseph Rosenmiller gave birth to Joseph Lewis Rosenmiller, Jr. “who earned a fortune building a chain of radio stations and then donated tens of millions to promote causes that he felt traditional philanthropies largely ignored, like voting rights and the empowerment of domestic workers…” (As reported by Leslie Kaufman)
1925, Florence Prag Kahn won a special election, becoming the fifth woman and first Jewish woman to serve in the United States Congress.
1925: Birthdate of Libby Drescher Isaacs (Leiba bat Shmuel) who was buried in Durham, NC when she passed away in 1982.
1925: Harold Ross and Jane Grant found The New Yorker magazine. Numerous Jewish writers and artists have contributed to the sophisticated journal. These include two cartoonists – Jules Feifer and Roz Chast as well as such authors as Dorothy Park and S.J. Pearlman.
1926: In Brooklyn, “Joseph and Sarah Postel, who ran an egg and dairy products store” gave birth to Miriam Postel the future wife of diamond cutter Max Weinstein with whom she had two sons – movie-men Harvey and Bob Weinstein.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/movies/miriam-weinstein-died-miramax.html?hpw&rref=obituaries&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=1
1927: David T. WIlentz, the Attorney General of New Jersey who prosecuted Bruno Hauptmann and his wife gave birth to Robert Wilentz, the longest serving Chief Just of the New Jersey Supreme Court.
1928: Birthdate of Bronx native Erwin “E.M.” Nathanson the author and novelist best known for writing The Dirty Dozen which provided the inspiration for one of the most famous WW II movies.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/em-nathanson-dead-dirty-dozen-881401
1929: In New York, Benjamin Max and Mollie (Friedman) Potok gave birth to Chaim Potok A graduate of Yeshiva University, Potok was ordained as a Conservative Rabbi after studying at The Jewish Theological Society. He earned a PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. He decided to become a writer after reading Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited in 1945. He was fourteen years old, and all he had read were magazines and pulp fiction. He wanted to read a serious adult book, and he chose Brideshead Revisited at random from the public library. He later said about reading it, "I found myself inside a world the merest existence of which I had known nothing about. I lived more deeply inside the world in that book than I lived inside my own world." Potok’s work draws on his own life’s experiences – Judaism (The Chosen, The Promise,) and a stint as an Army Chaplain serving in the Far East (The Book of Lights) – as well as the conflicts he faced including becoming an artist despite family and cultural opposition (My Name Is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev). His success stems from many factors. One is that he opened doors to worlds that people did not know existed i.e. Chasidic Judaism and the Orient. The second is that he dealt with larger issues such as how a minority culture copes with a majority culture, how to temper brilliance with humanity, and the challenge of effective parenting in changing world, to name but a few.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/chaim-potok
http://potok.lasierra.edu/Potok.biographical.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/24/books/chaim-potok-73-dies-novelist-illumined-the-world-of-hasidic-judaism.html
1930: “The Vagabond King,” a musical operetta, produced by Adolph Zukor, written by Herman J. Mankiewicz and co-starring Lillian Roth was released in the United States today.
1930: Herman Bernstein was appointed the U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Albania today.
1930: “Sol M Strock, the newly elected chairman of the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Board of Director told the annual meeting of the Seminary’s Philadelphia branch” about a soon to be launch $5,000,000 endowment fund campaign. (As reported by JTA)
1932: Irving Berlin and Moss Hart’s musical "Face the Music" premiered in New York.
1932: Senator Norris, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee appointed Senators Robinson, Schall and Ashurst to a subcommittee to hear people “who have protested the appointment of Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo to the Supreme Court.
1933: German author and socialist Oskar Graf, the husband of Mirjam Sachs and brother-in-law of Jewish journalist Manford George traveled to Vienna ostensibly to deliver a lecture but actuality to begin a self-imposed exile.
1933: The first edition of Newsweek makes its appearance. In 1961, America’s “perennially #2 newsweekly” will be purchased by Katherine Graham’s Washington Post Co.
1935(14th of Adar I, 5695): Purim Katan
1936: “A vigorous attack on anti-Semitism was made today by Premier Koscialkowski in a speech to the Sejm introducing the budget” today in Warsaw.
1936: S. N. (Samuel] Nathaniel) Behrman's "End of Summer" premiered in New York.
1937: Bronislaw Huberman, the violinist and founder of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, received a rousing tribute at a concert here tonight with the Concertgebouw, under the auspices of the Society for Art for All.
1938: In New York, Evelyn D. and Jacob Levi gave birth to artist Josef Lev
http://www.wrgallery.com/josef_levi.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Levi#mediaviewer/File:Josef-Levi-Self-Portrait-2011.jpg
1938: The Palestine Post reported that Austria had capitulated to the German ultimatum and appointed pro-Nazis to the cabinet, marking the effective end of the country's independence.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that there was a major, festive ceremony when the District Commissioner, Mr. Keith Roach, opened Kalia, the first hotel and health resort on the Dead Sea, with the keys handed to him by Major T.C. Tuloch, Chairman of the Kalia Health Resort Company.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that Mohammed el-Rab, a Palestinian Arab, was executed at the Acre prison, one week after his arrest and an immediate Military Court trial, for possession of a loaded automatic gun and ammunition.
1938(16thof Adar I, 5698): David I Aaron passed away today after which he was buried at Beth Hamedrash Hagodol-Beth Jacob Cemetery in McKees Rocks, PA.
1938: In Vienna, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency issued a “reassuring” statement “to the effect that the change in government would not alter Dr. Schuschnigg’s toward the Jews” – statement which must have helped quell the fears in Austria “that Jewish alarm may start a flight of capital.”
1939: U.S. premiere of “The Three Musketeers,” a musical comedy co-starring the Ritz Brothers as “the Three Lackeys,” Joseph Schildkraut as “King Louis XIII” and Binnie Barnes (whose father was JewishP as “Milady De Winter.”
1939: U.S. premiere of “Gunga Din,” a film set in the days of the Raj starring Sam Jaffe as “Gunga Din” with a score by Alfred Newman.
1940: “Castle on the Hudson” a movie set in Sing Sing Prison directed and produced by Anatole Litvak and starring John Garfield was released today in the United States.
1940: Birthdate of Dennis Gamsy a South African cricketer who played in two Tests in 1970.
1943(10th of Adar II, 5703): Fifty-three year old Victor Atler, the Jewish socialist who was a leader of the Bund was executed today on charges of spying for Hitler. The execution was carried out with Stalin’s approval.
1943: Dutch churches protested against Seyss-Inquart’s persecution of Jews. The Austrian born Seyss-Inquartbecame Reich Commissioner of the Netherlands in May, 1940.The Dutch churches were protesting against "the forced sterilization of Jewish partners in mixed-marriages. For once, the Germans relented and ended this one form of inhumanity. At the end of the war Seyss-Inquart was arrested and charged with war crimes in Nuremberg. At his trial it was pointed out that of the 140,000 Dutch Jews, only 8,000 survived in hiding and only 5,450 came home from camps in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Seyss-Inquart was found guilty and hanged on 16th October, 1946.
1944: Fifty-eight year old Franz Kaufman the German jurist who was baptized as a child but treated as Jew under Nazi racial laws and who worked with an underground group that aided Jews during the Holocaust was murdered at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.
1944: U.S. premiere of “Phantom Lady” a film noir directed by Robert Siodmak.
1945: U.S. premiere of “Objective Burma” a war movie set in the jungles of southeast Asia produced by Jerry Wald, with music by Franz Waxman, featuring George Tobias as “Cpl. Gabby Gordon)
1945: Nicholas George Winton, the Englishman who organized “the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport” “was promoted to war substantive flying officer” in the RAF. Winton, who was later knighted, was not Jewish. He was a decent human being who, unlike so many others, did the right thing during “the long, dark European Night.”
1946: Birthdate of Steve Grossman the Treasurer and Receiver-General of Massachusetts and the former President of Grossman Marketing Group, a family-owned marketing company based in Somerville, Massachusetts. From 1992 to 1997, he was the chair of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and from 1997 to 1999 he was the chair of the Democratic National Committee. Grossman received his Bachelor's from Princeton University, and his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He is married to Barbara Wallace Grossman, a Professor of Theater at Tufts University, and they have three children.
1948: In the aftermath of today's coup in which the ruler of Yemen was assassinated, "the Jews were accused of murdering two young Muslim girls and throwing their bodies down a well." This Arab-world version of the blood libel led to the leaders of Yemen's Jewish community being beaten and imprisoned while a mob looted and robbed those living in the Jewish Quarter.
1949: Chaim Weizmann was sworn in as the first president of Israel. The election took place in Jerusalem, a city that had been under siege by the Arabs and almost lost to the invading enemy. The election of a President of the state of Israel was one of the first items of business for the Knesset which was holding its first meeting in Jerusalem. Weizmann was elected by a vote of 83 to 15. In Israel, the President is a figurehead. The Prime Minister holds the political power. The election of Weizmann was recognition for his long, untiring decades of service to the Zionist cause. One of his proudest accomplishments was getting the British Government of adopt the Balfour Declaration which gave international recognition and approval to the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The President of Israel is called "Nasi" a term which means ruler or prince. In the early centuries of the Diaspora it had been a honorific title applied to the heads of various Talmudic academies and Jewish communities. To give you some idea of the esteem in which Weitzman was held, he was the first person to be called a Nasi in almost 1500 years.
1949: “Caught” a “film noir” directed by Max Ophüls, with a screenplay by Arthur Laurents was released in the United States today.
1950: “When Willie Comes Marching Home” a comedy “based on the 1945 short story When Leo Comes Marching Home by Sy Gomberg” and with music by Alfred Newman was released in the United States today.
1951: “I'd Climb the Highest Mountain” a movie version of the novel with the same name with a score by Sol Kaplan was released in the United States today.
1952: Dolph Schayes took the floor tonight in the first of what would be a record 706 games played without a miss.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that in a statement read to the Knesset, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion stressed that the recent bombing of the Soviet Legation in Tel Aviv was no justification for a rupture of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. The Soviet action was the culmination of "a campaign of defamatory propaganda against the State of Israel, the Zionist Movement and World Jewry which had been proceeding for a long time." Holland agreed to represent Israeli interests in Moscow.
1957: The Suez Canal re-opens marking the end of the Suez Crisis that had started in October of 1956.
1958: Time published “Historical Notes: Diary of Anne Frank – The End”
The diary of 15-year-old Anne Frank ended abruptly when the Nazis broke into her family's hiding place in Amsterdam. What happened next? Of the last days of one of the world's best-known modern heroines, little was known except that she had died, like millions of other Jews, in a German concentration camp. To fill out the chronicle of her short life, West German Publisher S. Fischer last year assigned Author Ernst Schnabel to search the German and Dutch archives and interview survivors of the camps who might have known her. In Paris Le Figaro Littéraire printed excerpts from Schnabel's findings, to be published as a book in the U.S. this fall. Anne, her sister Margot, and her father and mother were first taken to Westerbork prison in The Netherlands, then shipped by cattle car to Auschwitz. Recalls a woman fellow prisoner: "The doors of the cars were opened violently, and the first thing we saw at Auschwitz was the garish light of the searchlights trained on the cars . . . The voice of a loudspeaker dominated all others; it bellowed: 'Women to the left, men to the right!' I saw them go away: Mr. Van Daan, Mr. Dussel, Peter, Mr. Frank." The men never saw the women again. The women were told that trucks were ready to take the small children and the sick to the prison. But those who fought their way into the trucks never reached the camp; they vanished from-the face of the earth. At Auschwitz, Anne's long hair was clipped and her eyes seemed to grow larger and larger as she grew thinner. Her gaiety disappeared but not her indomitable spirit. The women were divided into groups of five and, though the youngest of her group, Anne became its leader, partly because she was efficient at scrounging necessities. When during cold weather she and the others were reduced to sackcloth smocks, Anne found somewhere a supply of men's long underwear. She even magically produced a cup of coffee for an exhausted prisoner. Most of the adults tried to armor themselves against reality: "Who bothered to look at the flames billowing up from the crematory? When, suddenly, an order came to barricade the neighboring block, who was disturbed? We well knew that they were being readied for the gas chamber, but we were too well-trained to worry about it. We no longer heard anything, saw anything." But Anne Frank did, right up to the end. Said a survivor: "I can still see her standing by the door, watching a group of naked young gypsy girls being shoved along to the crematory. Anne watched them, weeping. And she also wept when we filed past Hungarian children waiting, twelve hours naked under the rain, for their turn to enter the gas chamber. Anne cried: 'Look at their eyes!' She wept when most of us had no tears left." On Oct. 30, 1944, there was a selection of the youngest and strongest to be sent to the concentration camp at Belsen. Single file, the undressed women were ordered into a hall where, seated behind the glare of a searchlight, a doctor chose this one for Belsen, that one for the gas chamber. "Anne's face remained unchanged, even in the cruel light of the projector. She took Margot's arm and they came forward. I can see them now, stripped naked. Anne turned her serene face toward us; then they were led away. It was impossible to see what happened behind the light, and Mrs. Frank cried: 'The children! My God! My God!'" In the hell of Belsen, Anne and Margot Frank lasted scarcely five months. They both became ill. Margot was in a coma for several days and was found, fallen from her bunk, dead. Anne was so sick that no one told her of Margot's fate. Says a fellow prisoner who watched: "Several days later she died peacefully, in the certitude that death was not a calamity.
1959: Birthdate of Arhey Deir, the Moroccan born Israeli political leader of Shas.1961: Premier in Italy of “Esther and the King” a Biblical epic film based on the Book of Esther, starring Joan Collins whose father was Jewish in the title role.
1962(13th of Adar I, 5722): Conductor Bruno Walter passed away.
1963: The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan which is credited with sparking the modern feminist movement was published today.
1965(15thof Adar I, 5725): Eighty-six New York native “Paul Joseph Sachs, the first associate director of the Fogg Museum and a Harvard professor” and husband of Meta Pollak with whom he had three daughters – “Elizabeth Pollock Weiss, Cecilia Robinson and Marjorie Pickhardt Wilson -- passed away today.
http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~art00010
1965: Birthdate of actor Michael Benjamin Bay who “was raised Jewish” by his adoptive parents.
1969(29th of Shevat, 5729): Levi Eshkol, third Prime Minister of Israel, died suddenly. In one of the great ironies of history, it was the mild-mannered Eshkol and not any of his more flamboyant contemporaries who led the Israeli government during the June, 1967 War that resulted in the re-unification of Jerusalem.https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/eshkol.html
http://research.haifa.ac.il/~eshkol/
1969: Golda Meir sworn in as Israel's 1st female prime minister. Goldie Mabovitch (who later Hebraized her name to Golda Meir) was a Russian immigrant living in Milwaukee. In 1918 she wanted to join the Jewish Legion, a British unit organized to fight the Turks in World War I. Mrs. Meir made Aliyah and eventually became a major political figure in the Zionist Community and later in the state of Israel. Her description of being in Moscow for Simchat Torah after the creation of the state of Israel is a moving story. She served as Foreign Minister and following the death of Levi Eshkol became Prime Minister. She led the country through the trying days of the Yom Kippur War and its aftermath. By the time Anwar Sadat made his memorable trip to Israel, Mrs. Meir was no longer in the government. When the two adversaries met she is reported to have said, "Long after we have forgiven you for killing our sons, we will be working to forgive you for turning our sons into killers." This modern Devorah took no pleasure in being involved in so many military adventures.
1970(11th of Adar I, 5730): Shmuel Yosef or S.Y. Agnon (Hebrew: שמואל יוסף עגנון; born Shmuel Yosef Czaczkes) passed away. Agnon was the first Hebrew author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He won the prize in 1966. Since this is beyond my area of expertise, included find this canned summary. “Shmuel Yosef Agnon was born in Galicia in 1888. He immigrated to Jaffa in 1908, but spent 1913 through 1924 in Germany. In 1924 he returned to Jerusalem, where he lived until his death in 1970. A prolific novelist and short-story writer from an early age, Agnon received numerous literary awards, including the Israel Prize on two occasions. Called "a man of unquestionable genius" and "one of the great storytellers of our time," S.Y. Agnon is among the most effusively praised and widely translated Hebrew authors. His unique style and language have influenced the writing of subsequent generations of Hebrew authors. Much of his writing attempts to recapture the lives and traditions of a former time, but his stories are never a simple act of preservation. Agnon's tales deal with the most important psychological and philosophical problems of his generation. "Via realistic and surrealistic modes," writes the New York Times, "Agnon has transmuted in his many words the tensions inherent in modern man's loss of innocence, and his spiritual turmoil when removed from home, homeland and faith." An observant Jew throughout most of his life, he was able to capture "the hopelessness and spiritual desolation" of a world standing on the threshold of a new age. Extolled for his "peculiar tenderness and beauty," for his "comic mastery" and for the "richness and depth" of his writing, it is S.Y. Agnon's contribution to the renewal of the language that has been seminal for all subsequent Hebrew writing.” Some of his works that have been translated into English includeA Book That Was Los : And Other Stories.; A dwelling place of my people : sixteen stories of the Chassidim; A Guest for the Night; Gollancz, A Simple Story; Agnon's Aleph Bet Poems; The Bridal Canopy;Days of Awe : A Treasury of Jewish Wisdom for Reflection, Repentance, and Renewal on the High Holy Days;In the Heart of the Seas : A Story of a Journey to the Land of Israel.; Present at Sinai : The Giving of the Law : Commentaries Selected by S.Y. Agnon; Shira; Twenty-one stories.
1970: One Jordanian and two Iraqis were arrested today when they tried to hijack an El Al plane at the Munich Airport.
1972: President Richard Nixon begins his historic trip to China. This major diplomatic breakthrough was orchestrated by White House advisor Henry Kissinger who would become the first Jewish Secretary of State.
1974: It was reported today that 35,000 Jews were permitted to emigrate to Israel in 1973 and 32,000 in 1972.
1976: The Second World Conference of Jewish Communities on Soviet Jewry opened today in Brussels despite protests from the Soviet Union to the Belgian Government.
1977: In “Imperial Germany’s Jewish Banker” published today A.J.P.Taylor reviewed Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire by Fritz Stern
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1977/feb/17/imperial-germanys-jewish-banker/?pagination=false
1977: In New York City, the first Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy comes to a close. The two day meeting led to the founding of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance
1979(20thof Shevat, 5739): Seventy-two year old lyricist Al Stillman (born Albert Silverman) who wrote such hits as “Home for the Holidays” and “Chances Are” passed away today.
http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C282?exhibitId=282
1981: In “Yiddish Book Collection Grows in New England,” Michael Knight described the work of the Yiddish Book Exchange.
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/17/arts/yiddish-book-collection-grows-in-new-england.html?pagewanted=print
1981: In Los Angeles, Dennis Levitt, the news director for the Pacifica Radio and Jane Gordon gave birth to Joseph Gordon-Levitt an American actor best known for his role as Tommy Solomon on “3rd Rock from the Sun.”
1982(24th of Shevat, 5742): Lee [Israel] Strasberg, father of method acting passed away at the age of 80. Strasberg also enjoyed a career as an actor with one of his most roles coming at the end of his life when he played the “Meyer Lansky” figure in The Godfather Part II.
1983: “Local Hero” a British comedy with music by Mark Knopfler was released today in the United Kingdom.
1984: “The Right Stuff” the movie version of the book by the same name directed by Philip Kaufman who also wrote the screenplay and produced by Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff was released throughout the United States after a limited release three months earlier.
1984: In Holland, PA, Mark and Harriet Levin gave birth to Michael Levin who as a 22 year old member of the IDF’s Paratroopers Brigade “was killed in action in the Second Lebanon War, during the first round of fighting in the Lebanese town of Ayta ash-Shab.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301539.html
1985: Martin Eli Segal “served as the General Chairman of the “Night of 100 Stars II, the first AIDS benefit held by the Actors’ Fund of American.
1985: David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” was performed for the final time during its initial Broadway run.
1987: In “Warsaw Journal: An Album of the Doomed” published today, Michael T. Kaufman examined the “art of Auschwitz.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/18/world/warsaw-journal-an-album-of-hte-doomed-the-art-of-auschwitz.html
1987: Aulcie Perry Jr., a former basketball player who had become an Israeli citizen and was hailed as a sports champion in Israel, went on trial today on charges of conspiracy to import heroin, importation of heroin and possession of heroin with intent to distribute. The 6-foot-10-inch Perry, who holds a dual citizenship, joined the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team in Israel in 1977 and helped bring it a European Cup championship that year and in 1979. He remained on the team until 1984. Perry's cousin, Kenneth Johnson, 29, who was charged with Perry, pleaded guilty earlier this month and is awaiting sentencing.
1988: The United States announced that it is planning to change ambassadors to Israel next summer. According to State Department officials, William A. Brown, currently ambassador to Thailand, will replace Thomas R. Pickering, who has served in Tel Aviv since 1985. Mr. Pickering is scheduled to return to Washington to become Under Secretary of State for management. The State Department also plans to replace Morris Draper, the Consul General in Jerusalem, with Philip C. Wilcox Jr., a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State who deals with Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. The Consul General in Jerusalem has something approaching ambassadorial status. He reports directly to the State Department, not to the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv, a situation that reflects Washington's refusal to recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem.
1988: A dozen Israeli playwrights, poets and other intellectuals made an urgent appeal to the Government tonight to ''talk peace with the Palestinians.'' Amos Oz, the Israeli novelist, started and ended his address to the group with the words, ''What was, will not be again.'' Seventy New York writers, artists and performers sent a telegram expressing their support to the Israeli Playwrights' Association, a gesture welcomed by Israelis here who feel support from abroad can put effective pressure on the Government. Among the signers were Erica Jong, Allen Ginsburg, Grace Paley, Gloria Steinem, E. L. Doctorow, Arthur Miller, Norman Mailer and Susan Sontag.
1988: The violence in the occupied territories continued today, as Israeli soldiers shot and killed one Palestinian and wounded at least three others while dispersing riots in the West Bank village of Shuyukh, near Hebron, an army spokesman said. ''The army was trying to clear a roadblock, when they were attacked with rocks, stones and bottles,'' the spokesman said. ''They were in a life-threatening situation, so the commander and one officer shot at the legs of the protesters.''
''Sometimes you don't get exactly where you aim,'' he said. ''They were aiming at the legs.''
1993: “Belushi Is No Stranger To a Bar Owner’s Role Despite the Movie Image” published today described how Judd Hirsch was replaced during the Broadway run of “Conversations With My Father,” a play that “presents the saga of a first generation of American Jews who came of age in the Depression and were assimilated at a high price during and after World War II.”
1994 (6th of Adar, 5754): Yuval Golan who was stabbed on December 29, 1993 by a terrorist near Adarim in the Hebron area he died of his wounds.
1996: In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, world champion Garry Kasparov beats the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match. Kasparov’s mother is Armenian and his father is Jewish.
1998(21stof Shevat, 5758): Eighty-nine year old Pauline Endler Loeb passed away today after which she was interred at the Jewish Cemetery in Morgan City, LA.
1999(1stof Adar, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Adar is observed for the last time in the 20thcentury.
2001: At the Library of Congress of an exhibition entitled “Herblock’s History: Political Cartoons from the Crash to the Millennium” which presents works by cartoonist Herb Block, who chronicled the nation’s political history and caricatured twelve American presidents from Herbert Hoover to Bill Clinton comes to an end.
2003(15th of Adar I, 5763): Seventy-eight year old art dealer Felix Landau passed away today (As reported by Eric Pace)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/us/felix-landau-78-gallery-owner-with-an-eye-for-influential-art.html
2005: Today, in the wake of the bankruptcy of Sunbeam Products, Ron Perelman filed a lawsuit against Morgan Stanley, claiming that Morgan had defrauded him by knowingly misleading him about the financial condition of Sunbeam Products. The Sunbeam acquisition was only one in a long series of such deals in which this Jewish philanthropist and businessman had engaged in over the past four decades starting with the purchase of Esslinger Brewery in 1961. He and his father bought the company for “$800,000, then sold it three years later for a $1 million profit.”
2006: Thousands of mourners gathered at the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv this morning to pay their final respects to ShoshannaDamari, who lay in state on the stage until the memorial service began shortly before noon. During the memorial service President Moshe Katsav said "One can say of her that she was the voice of Israel," he said. "We have lost her, but not her songs
2006: Israel's hopes for an Olympic medal took a blow when ice dancer Galit Chait fell during the compulsory program of the Pairs Ice Dancing competition.
2006: In “Early Simon, Dressed by Mizrahi” published today Ben Brantley reviewed a “torturous new revival of Neil Simon’s ‘Barefoot in the Park.’”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/theater/reviews/17park.html?_r=0
2007: Shabbat Shekalim – The Sabbath of the Shekel.
2007: Ninety-six year old Maurice Papon, the Vichy official convicted of “complicity in Nazi crimes against humanity” died today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/world/europe/18papon.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
2007: Celebration of Fred Rodgers birthday: a brand plucked from the flames of the Holocaust and pillar of the Jewish community.
2008: Final performance of “Fabrik: The Legend of M. Rabinowitz” at the Urban Stages Theatre in Manhattan. This adult puppet show traces the life of Moritz Rabinowitz, a Polish Jew sent to Norway by his family to escape pre-World War II pogroms, who became a successful businessman before ending up at Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin.
2008: The Sunday Los Angeles Times book section featured reviews of The Bad Wife Handbook by Jewish poet Rachel Zucker and The Life of the Skies by Jonathan Rosen
2008: An exhibition entitled “Sosúa: A Refuge for Jews in the Dominican Republic” opens at The Museum of Jewish Heritage.
2008: An exhibition entitled “To return to the land…” Paul Goldman’s Photographs of the Birth of Israel opens at The Museum of Jewish Heritage.Hungarian-born photojournalist Paul Goldman fled to the British Mandate of
2009: In Manhattan’s East Village, the fourth and final part of a four part series The Comedy and Kabbalah of Relationships featuring Rabbi YY Jacobson
2009: At New York University, Professor Yoram Peri, head of the Chaim Herzog Institute for Media, Politics and Society at Tel Aviv University delivers a public lecture entitled "New Leadership in Israel and the Peace Process"
2010: The CJH is scheduled to co-sponsor “Music in the Age of the Wittgensteins,” featuring a performance by the Phoenix Chamber Ensemble.
2010: In Arkansas, Bella Levy, wife of Manford Levy, celebrates her 90thbirthday. Bella is an Ashes Chayel in the truest sense of the word. All who know are blessed by the experience.
2010:The heads of various medical associations held an emergency meeting today, and the president of the Israel Medical Association( IMA) Dr. Leonid Eidelman, said the organization would not hesitate to carry out its threat to strike if necessary, in its escalating battle with Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman should its Scientific Council be transferred to the ministry.
2010:According to JTA, “lawyers for the estate Adrian Jacobs added J.K. Rowling's name to a lawsuit it filed in the High Court of England last June -- some 12 years after Jacobs died penniless in Nightingale House, a home for elderly Jews in south London. Adrian Jacobs, an art collector, lawyer and accountant who made millions on the stock market before going bust, wrote a children’s book in 1987 titled The Adventures of Willy the Wizard: No. 1 Livid Land.” The suit claims that Rowling plagiarized ideas for her fourth book, the best-selling “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (2000), from "Willy the Wizard No. 1."
2011: A job fair, held in conjunction with the Orthodox Union Job Board, is scheduled to take place at Sasson v’ Simcha Hall located in Brooklyn.
2011:Gainsbourg, “the boldly imaginative and wildly entertaining biopic of Jewish French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, one of the most iconic and diversely talented music artists of the 20th Century” is scheduled to be shown at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.
2011: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman attempted to dispel rumors that relations between him and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had soured, saying on today that "our relations are intact.""I spoke to the prime minister," after vetoing Uzi Arad, Netanyahu's choice for ambassador to London, Lieberman said. "We'll keep working together."
2011: A Lebanese military court convicted a man of spying for Israel and sentenced him to death late today. Amin al-Baba was found guilty of giving Israeli intelligence agents information in return for money. He was also found guilty of entering an enemy state. Al-Baba, who was sentenced late today, had been spying for Israel from 1997 until his 2009 arrest. The new sentence brings the number of people sentenced to death for spying for Israel to nine.
2011: “A Night of Outrageous Comedy” with Julie Goldman is scheduled for tonight at the Washington DCJCC.
2011: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman attempted to dispel rumors that relations between him and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had soured, saying on Thursday that "our relations are intact.""I spoke to the prime minister," after vetoing Uzi Arad, Netanyahu's choice for ambassador to London, Lieberman said. "We'll keep working together."
2011: Israel Defense Forces soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians near the Gaza Strip border zone today, said Palestinian medics who recovered the bodies. An IDF spokesperson confirmed that the troops had opened fire after observeing the Palestinians approaching the security fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip attempting to plant explosives. A spokesman for the armed wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine - a small group that only rarely carries out attacks - sent a text message to reporters identifying one of the men as a member of the group “killed during a mission carried out by our military wing."
2011: The Washington Post featured a review of Heart of the City: Nine Stories of Love and Serendipity on the Streets of New York by Ariel Sabar, the son Yona Sabar, a Kurdish Jewish scholar, linguist and researcher.
2011: Last Damage, the fifth crime novel by Sophie Hannah, the daughter of Norman and Adele Geras was published today.
http://www.sophiehannah.com/
2012(24thof Shevat, 5772): Seventy-seven year old “Peter Novick, a history professor at the University of Chicago who stirred controversy in 1999 with a book contending that the legacy of the Holocaust had come to unduly dominate American Jewish identity” passed away today (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/us/peter-novick-wrote-divisive-holocaust-book-dies-at-77.html?_r=1&hpw
2012: Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein is scheduled to deliver a Friday night talk entitled “True Love..How to Find It and Keep It” at the Magen David Sephardic Congregation in Rockville, MD.
2012: Following Carlebach Services and dinner, Dr. Jerry Muller, Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History,Catholic University of America, Washington DC is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Capitalism and the Jews” as part of the Scholar-In-Residence Weekend at Tifereth Israel in Washington, DC.
2012: Opening session of LimmudLA
2012: Tali Yehoshua-Koren, the wife of the Defense Ministry's representative to India who was moderately injured in the attack on Israel’s embassy in New Delhi gave a testimony to police, which may change previously held assumptions about the attack and its perpetrator, the Times of India reported today. Yehoshua-Koren gave the testimony in hospital before returning to Israel in an air ambulance. She told police that the bomb exploded a full 30 to 40 seconds after it was attached to her car, and that the perpetrator was dressed in black, and riding a black motorcycle.
2012: Palestinian terrorists fired an RPG at IDF forces stationed near the Gaza border fence today, according to the IDF Spokesman's Office.
2013: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Four New Messages by Joshua Cohen and the recently released paperback editions of In Our Prime: The Fascinating History and Promising Future of Middle Age by Patricia Cohen
2013: Professor Brian Horowitz is scheduled to deliver the opening remarks of two day conference at Tulane University – “Jewish Secular Utopias and Distopias in Central and Eastern Europe”2013: The Toronto Jewish Film Society is scheduled to present “The Barber of Stamford Hill” and “The 10th Man” at the Miles Nadel JCC.
2013: “Six Million and One” is among the movies scheduled to be shown at the final night of the 17th Denver Jewish Film Festival.
2013: In “Online Battle Over Sacred Scrolls, Real-World Consequences” published in print today, John Leland describes the efforts of Raphael Haim Gold”s less than honorable attempts “to advance his father’s views about the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/nyregion/online-battle-over-ancient-scrolls-spawns-real-world-consequences.html?pagewanted=print2013(7thof Adar, 5773): Seventy seven year old Israeli entertainer Shmuel "Shmulik" Kraus passed away.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-musician-shmulik-kraus-dies-at-77/2013: A Knesset panel will launch an independent investigation into the jailing and suicide of Mossad agent Ben Zygier, following growing calls for an official accounting of the case, the committee said tonight.
2013: A delegation of Israeli security officials visited Cairo to discuss the security situation in the region with their Egyptian counterparts today, the second such trip in less than a week.
2014: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia Cultural Arts Department in Fairfax is scheduled to hold auditions for the one-act family theatre production of “Cinder-Rachella,” an original play with music that celebrates Israeli culture through the eyes of the iconic fairytale Princess
2014: “Broken Lines,” a film about “Jake, a working class Jewish boy…and his fiancée Zoe” is scheduled to be shown for the first time at as part of the UK Jewish Film Festival.
2014: Naftali Bennett reportedly told American Jewish leaders today that Israel wants more control over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a holy site that has long been a contentious point with the Muslim world.
2014: “The Knesset Law Committee voted to advance a bill today that would allow a much wider circle of state rabbis to conduct conversions.” (As reported by Haviv Rettig Gur)
2014: “A lawyer for the elderly art collector whose $1.4 billion-worth of works were seized by German police two years ago said he is in negotiations with six claimants who are seeking items stolen from them or their families by the Nazis.” (As reported by Amanda Borshel-Dan)
2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to sponsor a lecture by Dr. Rakhmiel Peltz on “Planning for the Jewish Future: Standards for Yiddish in the 20thand 21st century.”
2015: Stuart Cohen of Bar-Ilan University is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Generals Wearing Yarmulkes. Does the Israel Defense Force Face a Threat of Dual Authority?” at FIU.
2015: Beth Goldman is scheduled to start her new position at NYLAG, who replaced Yisroel Schulman who had “stepped down amid a federal investigation in his alleged accounting irregularities.”
2016: Sayed Kashua is scheduled to discuss his new book Native: Dispatches from an Israeli-Palestinian Life at the 92nd Street Y.
2016: Bo’i Kalah: Here Comes the Bride an exhibition featuring “12 sensational bridal gowns reflecting Jewish cultural and family traditions from around the world” is scheduled to open at the Skirball Center.
2016: Bella Meyer is scheduled to speak on “Marc Chagall: Reflections of a Granddaughter” at the YIVO Institute for Jewish History.
2016: “Kurt Weill, the talented Jewish composer who was the most successful composer in Germany prior to his fleeing Nazi Germany, is scheduled to be the subject of a rare cabaret performance by singer Bremner Duthie and a jazz trio this evening at the Marigny Opera House in New Orleans, LA. (As reported by Alan Smason)
2017: At the University of Iowa, Hillel is scheduled to host its Shabbat Alumni Dinner for what some might call the Hebrew Hawkeyes.
2017: “The Women’s Balcony” and “Germans and Jews” are scheduled to be shown at the 27thAnnual San Diego Jewish Film Festival.
2017: Limmud NY is scheduled to open today with a noontime lunch followed by programs on “A Brief History of Contemporary Jewish A Cappella, Niggun and Transformation and Jewish Moral Frameworks in a Multi-Cultural World
2017(21stof Shevat, 5777: Eighty-five year old Tulane drop-out Theodore Lowi the Cornell University Professor and ground-breaking political scientist and historian passed away today.
2018: In London, “Rothschild and Sons” final performance is scheduled to take place this evening.
2018: The Jackson Hole Jewish Community is scheduled to host “Havd’Challah” where attendees bid farewell to Shabbat with “hot toddies and challah.”