JUNE 12
816: Leo III, the Pope whose aggressive plan to crown Charlemagne gave the Jews of the Rhineland a comparatively benign ruler, passed away today.
1240: Nicholas Donin, a renegade Jew under the patronage of Louis IX, convinced Pope Gregory IX to confiscate the Talmud on the grounds that it was anti-Christian. A debate ensued with Rabbi Yechiel ben Yosef of Paris and three other Rabbis speaking in defense of the Talmud. Yechiel ben Yosef of Paris was a major Talmudic scholar and Tosafist from northern France, father-in-law of Isaac ben Joseph of Corbeil. He was a disciple of Rabbi Judah Messer Leon, and succeeded him in 1225 as head of the Yeshiva of Paris, which then boasted some 300 students; his best known student was Meir of Rothenburg. But even a scholar like Rabbi Yechiel could prevail since he was not allowed to counterattack or take the offensive in his argument making the outcome a foregone conclusion. Ultimately 24 carriages loaded with Jewish books including all of the available copies of the Talmud were burned. Rabbi Yechiel eventually left France and in 1260 the rabbi arrived in Eretz Yisroel (Land of Israel) along with his son and a large group of followers, settling in Acre. There he established the Talmudic academy Midrash haGadol d'Paris. He is believed to have died there between 1265 and 1268, and is buried near Haifa, at Mount Carmel.
1247:Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, the archbishop of Toledo who was so “vexed by the prosperity of the Jews in his diocese” that he led a “mob” to the Synagogue where “he dispersed” the Jews “and then began to plunder the houses of the unbelievers.”
1519: Birthdate of Cosimo de’ Medici whose reign was “originally beneficial for the Jews as can be seen by his issuance in 1551of “an invitation to merchants from the Levant, including Jews, to settle in Tuscany and do business there; previously; giving asylum to refugees from the Papal State; and his refusal “to implement the anti-Jewish restrictions issued by Pope *Paul IV or to hand over the Jews to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.” But when he wished to gain the favor of the Pope he burned the Talmud and he “rigorously applied to the obligation to wear the Jewish badge.” (Jewish Virtual Library)
1648(22ndof Sivan, 5408): Rabbi Yechiel Michael ben Eliezer, the head of the Jewish community in Nemirov was clubbed to death before his mother’s eyes during the Chmielnicki Uprising, the worst massacre of Jews until the Holocaust.
1665: The English rename New Amsterdam, New York. England had gained control of the colony as a result of winning the war with the Dutch. Ironically, Peter Stuyvesant the Dutch governor who had tried to keep the Jews out in 1654 had to leave the colony while the Jewish settlers got to stay.
1713:: “Only a few weeks after the beginning of his reign,” Frederick William I, “appointed Moses Leven Gumperts of the famous Gumperts family of Cleves as Chief Court and Army Factor.
1720: Birthdate of Isaac Pinto, translator of the first Jewish prayer book published in America. A member of Congregation Shearith Israel in the city of New York, he is remembered chiefly for having prepared what is probably the earliest Jewish prayer-book published in America, and certainly the first work of its kind printed in New York City. The work appeared in 1766, and the title-page reads as follows: "Prayers for Sabbath, Rosh-Hashanah and Kippur, or the Sabbath, the beginning of the year, and the Day of Atonement, with the Amidah and Musaf of the Moadim or Solemn Seasons, according to the Order of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. Translated by Isaac Pinto and for him printed by John Holt in New York." Pinto was the friend and correspondent of Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College, who as late as 1790 mentions him in his diary as "a learned Jew at New York." From Stiles' account it appears that Pinto was a good Hebrew scholar, studying Ibn Ezra in the original.
1755: Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who had many Jewish friends and “believed that that Judaism is concerned only with things of this world, and lacks any formulation of the concept of immortality” received his Ph.D. today. (Jewish Virtual Library)
1773: Birthdate of Amschel Mayer Rothschild “the second child and eldest son of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the founder of the dynasty, and Gutlé Rothschild née Schnapper.
1776: The Virginia Convention of Delegates unanimously adopted The Virginia Declaration of Rights which includes Article 16 that states, “That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience;” The declaration was drafted by founding father George Mason.
1777(7thof Sivan, 5537): Second Day of Shavuot
1782(30thof Sivan, 5542): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1796(6thof Sivan, 5556): Shavuot is observed for the last time under the Presidency of George Washington.
1796: Birthdate of George Bush “an American biblical scholar, pastor, abolitionist and Christian Restorationist academic” who was an early American supporter of the creation of a Jewish state of Israel. “In 1844 Bush published a book entitled ‘The Valley of Vision; or, The Dry Bones of Israel Revived.’ In it he denounced “the thralldom and oppression which has so long ground them (the Jews) to the dust,” and called for ‘elevating’ the Jews ‘to a rank of honorable repute among the nations of the earth’ by re-creating the Jewish State in the land of Israel. This, according to Bush, would benefit not only the Jews, but all of mankind, forming a ‘link of communication’ between humanity and God. ‘It will blaze in notoriety...It will flash a splendid demonstration upon all kindreds and tongues of the truth.’”
1799: Rabbi Abraham Azuby officiated at the wedding of Phillip Cohen and Eleanor Moses, the daughter of the later Myer Moses, a successful Charleston SC merchant.
1804: David Moses, the father of Rachel Moses was buried today in the UK.
1807(6thof Sivan, 5567): Shavuot
1807: For the first time since 1785, Reb Nachman of Bratslav observed Shavuot without his wife Sashia who had passed away Erev Shavuot.
1827: In London, Daniel Meyers and Hester Levy gave birth to Angel Meyers.
1829: In the United Kingdom, Ephraim and Phoebe Benjamin gave birth to Solomon Benjamin.
1830: The French begin their colonization of Algeria when they land 34,000 troops at point just to the west of the capital city, Algiers. Initially the French administration conferred citizenship only on Frenchmen living in the colony. The Jews, who had been living there for centuries, were, like the Arabs, treated as indigenous people and allowed to maintain their communal and judicial systems.
1832: Rabbi Aaron Worms was unanimously elected chief rabbi of Metz.
1844: Opening of the Rabbinical Conference of Brunswick “convoked by Levi Herzfeld and Ludwig Philippson.”
1844: In Bohemia, Lambert Furth and Cezilie Treulich gave birth to Jacob Furth, husband of Jenny Bloch, “founder of the Night School for Immigrants” in St. Louis and President of Associated Wholesale Grocers who served as a board member of the Jewish Orphan Asylum and the Mt. Sinai Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.
1847(28thof Sivan, 5607): Sixty-six year old philanthropist Abraham Muhr who fought for the full emancipation of German Jews passed away today.
1854: In Posen, Prussia, Joseph Brown and his wife gave birth to A.B.J. Brown who served as a rabbi in Seattle, San Jose and Oakland before assuming the position at Shaarey Zedek in San Francisco.
1855: In London, Jacob Quixano Henriques and Elizabeth Waley gave birth to Elizabeth Waley Henriques.
1856: “Slidell, Blemont and Buchanan” published today described the role of “Auguste Belmont, the Austrian Jew” who was John Slidell’s nephew by marriage in a conspiracy to nominate James Buchanan as President of the United States. Belmont was described as an “agent of the Rothschilds.”
1859: The Comstock Lode was discovered near Virginia City, Nevada. As with other such strikes, Jews were among those who arrived seeking to make their fortune. Among them were David H. Cohen and Marcus Goldbaum whose names appear in connection with numerous other strikes. One Jew who made did make his fortune from the Comstock Lode was Adolph Sutro. Sutro was not the run of the mill prospector. Rather he was “a self-taught financier and mining engineer” who developed a new ore extraction process and built the Sutro Tunnel that was designed to provide ventilation for the miners, “ease the hauling of ore and drain water from the mines.” He sold Nevada interests for five million dollars and moved back to the more civilized environs of San Francisco.
1859: Birthdate of Sigmund Pollitzer, the Staten Island born dermatologist.
1859: The United States Grand Lodge of the Order of Brith Abraham whose members included Samuel Dorf, Robert Strahl and Anson Stern was founded today in New York Cit.
1861: During the Civil War the Union began placing restrictions on trade with the Confederacy for those living in Paducah, KY. This was one of many attempts by the Union Army to deny the Rebels of many of the goods they could not produce for themselves. General Grant’s unfortunate order a year later was actually part of this larger attempt to cripple the Confederate Army by crippling the Southern economy. This is not meant to excuse Grant’s action but to put it into a larger context.
1862(14th of Sivan, 5622): Jacob Goodman, who had enlisted with Company D at Keokuk, Iowa, which became part of the 15th regiment died today. He had distinguished himself at the Battle of Corinth (Miss.) where he was fatally wounded.
1862: Three days after he passed away, eighty year old Barent Salomons was buried at “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery” today.
1867: Following its defeat by Prussia, Austria reorganized itself into the Austro-Hungarian Empire and granted legal equality to Jews living with the new constituent states.
1870: The annual examination of students of the Hebrew Free Schools of New York took place today at Steinway Hall. Several hundred students from the schools which were established five years ago by the Hebrew Free School Association took part in this rigorous, yet fun-filled annual event. The students were quizzed by teachers from a cross section of the faculties. They displayed “considerable proficiency” in “their knowledge of the Hebrew language and of the primary branches of English education. Follow the exams, Alderman Henry Woltman addressed the attendees. At the end, the principal, Mr. J.C. Noot distributed prizes to some fifty of the more “meritorious pupils.
1871: In Louisville, KY, Lazarus Selligman and Carrie Sabel gave birth to Alfred Selligman the graduate of University of Louisville Law School and husband of Jennie Katz who was “the Republican nominee for Commonwealth’s attorney in 1903” and two term President of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1872(6thof Sivan, 5632): Shavuot
1872: Sir Saul Samuel began a second non-consecutive term as a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales.
1873: According to a report published today the Hebrew Orphan and Benevolent Society has received contributions totaling $65,075.21 for the year 1872-1873.
1874: In Boston, Louis Hecht, Jr. and Rose Frank gave birth to Hattie Hecht who became Hattie Sloss when she married M.C. Sloss who served as a member “several Jewish charities in Boston” before moving to California where she was President of the San Francisco Section of the Council of Jewish Women.
1874: According to a report published today the Hebrew and Benevolent Society received contributions totaling $70,688.26 for the 1873-1874 reporting year.
1875: Birthdate of Russian native Philip Davis, whose education at the University of Chicago, Harve and Boston University Law School led him into the fields of social work, the law and motion pictures where he served as the President of the National Motion Bureau “from 1914 to 1940.”
1876: Two days after he passed away on Shabbat, seventy-eight year old Lewis Lazarus was buried at the “Brompton (Fulham Road) Jewish Cemetery” today.
1876: George Richardson was fined ten dollars at the Tombs Police Court for having struck Louis Raminsky with enough force to cut the bearded Jew’s lip. Richardson struck Raminsky because he mistook him for a man named Rubinstein whom he identified as a “murder”.
1877: According to reports published today in the New York Times Jews living in Bucharest are petitioning Secretary Evarts for protection. "They are Russian and Austrians Hebrews, and comprise the very worst types of the race, refusing either to work or to pay taxes
1877(1st of Tammuz, 5637): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1877: As part of their on-going and rather unsuccessful attempt to convert Jews, the Conference on Jewish Mission “under the Presidency of the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells” ended its two days of meeting this afternoon.
1878: A Coroner’s Inquest was held at the home of the late Lucien Levy to determine the cause of the death of the Jewish businessman who had died yesterday. Among those giving testimony were his widow and his brother Henry. After hearing all of the evidence, the coroner determined that the death was indeed a suicide and that no autopsy would be necessary.
1879: In Cincinnati, Ohio, “Harry Rosenbaum, who rose to prominence in the dry goods field as a director of Louis Stix & Co. in Cincinnati” and “his wife, the former Sophia Hollstein” gave birth to Edith Rosenbaum who gained fame as Edith Louise Russell, “an American fashion buyer, stylist and correspondent for Women's Wear Daily, best remembered for surviving the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic with a music box in the shape of a pig
1880(3rdof Tammuz, 5640): A Jewish child named Kate Ungerleider died at police headquarters in New York of whooping cough. Her father who was a member of the Simon Benevolent Society had abandoned Kate and her 3 siblings after their mother had eloped with one of his friends.
1881: It was reported today that no matter of foreign policy has attracted as much attention in England was “the horrible persecution of the Jews in Russia.” While several Jews are trying to get the government to aid their co-religionist, Baron Henry de Worms, the MP from Greenwich, who is not Jewish is leading the way in this manner. When Parliament is sitting, “not a night passes without” without putting one or more questions on this matter to the responsible government minister.
1882: “Jews Going of Russia” published today described the mass exodus of Jews seeking to escape the oppression of the Russian Empire and the measures being taken to deal with this in the West.
1882: Joseph Wolf and Meyer Morris, two Jewish refugees from Russia who had arrived in New York two weeks ago, were under arrest today on charges that they had attacked a member of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society when he did not comply with their latest demands.
1884(19thof Sivan, 5644): Eighty year old Rosa Gavay, passed away today at the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews today she had an accident on the elevator and fell to her death.
1884(19thof Sivan, 5644): Sixty year old Sarah Cohen who had been born in Russia in 1824 passed away today in England.
1884: At a time when many Jews were turning their backs on Hebrews, Protestants provided another example of their interest in the language when Reverend John M. Lansing was named to fill the newly created Gardner Sage Professorship of Hebrew at the Reformed Church in America’s seminary at New Brunswick, NJ.
1886: It was reported today that Rabbi James K. Gutheim passed away in New Orleans. At the time of his death he was the leader of Temple Sinai. From 1868 until 1872 he had been the “English reader” at Temple Emanu-El in New York. [Note – this was at a time when services were conducted in German] He was praised for his working to raise the level of education and health among all the people of the city regardless of their religious beliefs.
1887: Oscar Straus, the U.S. Minister to Turkey had his first audience with the Sultan
1887: It was reported today that “the officers and managers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children” are collecting funds so that, for the 9th year in a row, they can provide outings for poor and sick Jewish mothers and their children. Last year there were seven such outings which provided service to over ten thousand woman, children and infants. [These excursions were part of an effort in urban America to get youngsters out of the tenement districts for even a little while during the summer in the belief that fresh air would help their health.]
1889: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi Levy officiated at the wedding of Jacqueline De Leon, the daughter of H.H. De Leon to Sam Keller of Sheffield, Alabama.
1890: Over 500 people attended the graduation exercises of The Hebrew Technical Institute that were held this afternoon at its facility on Stuyvesant Street
1890: As of today, the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children has received $4, 017.50.
1890: Currently the officers of the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children are Nathan Lewis, President; Hezekiah Kohn, Treasurer; Joseph Davis, Secretary.
1890(24thof Sivan, 5650): Fifty year old Max Brüll de Domony the husband of Anna von Brüll de Domony passed away in Budapest.
1890: Birthdate of Shlomo Fritz Bernstein, the native of Germany who moved to Palestine in 1936 and who as Peretz Bernstein signed the Israeli declaration of independence.
1890: Texas native Oren B Meyer who had been appointed to West Point from Ohio, began serving as a 2nd Lt. in the 1st Cavalry.
1891(6thof Sivan, 5651): Shavuot
1891: Harry J. Hirsch began serving as a 2nd Lt. in the 15thInfantry.
1891: “A Trusted Agent’s Theft” published today described Julio Merzbacher’s theft of between $300,000 and $500,000 from his former employer, New York Life Insurance Company.
1891: When Morris Vender was arraigned this morning in Newark, NJ on charges of non-support he claimed that he was divorced and produced a Hebrew language document to buttress his claim
1891: “New Hebrew Cemetery Dedicated” published today described the services led by Rabbi Bernard Drachman of Park East Synagogue dedicating the new cemetery on Long Island. Joseph Blumenthal, the President of the Mount Zion Association which owns the cemetery also spoke to the attendees.
1892: The closing exercisies of the Louis Down-Town Sabbath and Day School took place this afternoon at Temple Emanu-El during which Rabbi Gustave Gottheil “administered the Confirmation Rites” on the graduating students.
1893: “Monument to Moses Mehrbach” published today described the unveiling ceremony led by Rabbi Hirsch in the Hebrew section of Cypress Hills Cemetery of a granite monument in honor of Moses Mehrbach, of blessed memory who was a note philanthropist who served as a presidential elector for the Democrats in 1884 and 1888.
1893: Colonel Weber, who had served as Superintendent of Immigration and who had been in Europe studying “the character and habits of those intending to emigrate to the United States said today that “the Polish Jews would dull indeed if they did not take the expulsion of their coreligionists in Russia to heart.” The new decrees, which could increase immigration to the United States are aimed at the hitherto protected classes (protection cost 1,000 rubles) including doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, artists and university of graduates.”
1893(28thof Sivan, 5653): The body of twenty-three year old Emanuel Weltman, a peddler living with his sister Mrs. Rosenbaum was found near High Bridge this morning.
1894: The Constitutional Convention’s subcommittee on Charities and Education visited several institutions today including Mt. Sinai Hospital and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1894: Virginia native Otho B. Rosenbaum began serving as a 2nd Lt. in the 7th Infantry.
1894: The Governor’s Tenement House Committee reportedly found that the Tenth Ward which is populated almost exclusively by Jews is in the worst condition of all wards because “its population is three times as dense as the most crowded quarter in London.” Some of the streets in the ward have taken on the characteristics “of European Juden Strassess and Ghettos.”
1894: Last will and testament of Dr. Benhard Grunhut which names Abraham Stern and William Ketcham as executors signed today.
1895: “New Publications” published today included a brief review of As Others Saw Him: A Retrospect, a novel about the life of Christ “given in the guise of letters from Meshulam Ben Zadok, a scribe of the Jews of Alexandria” written to a physician in Corinth.
1897: Birthdate of Anthony Eden. Eden was the Foreign Minister under Winston Churchill and his loyal number two. Eden was an ardent anti-Nazi but many claim that he was the English leader who prevented action being taken to save the Jews of Europe during World War II. Eden became Prime Minister in the 1950’s and was the British Prime Minister at the time of the Suez Crisis in 1956. Eden agreed to the ill-fated plan that included a joint Anglo-French seizure of the Suez Canal. Despite the success of the Israelis against the Egyptians, the whole project falls apart in the face of joint U.S.-Soviet support for Egypt. In the end, the British withdrew and Eden was forced from office.
1897: The 700 peasants working on the estate of Baron Daniel, the Hungarian Minister of Commerce attacked a Jewish farmer today. When four gendarmes were called to protect him the mob rush them, hacking at them with their scythes.
1897: Birthdate of Polish-born French pianist Alexandre Tansman.
1897: The Columbia University, home of the “Temple Emanu-El Library of Biblical and rabbinical literature, numbering 3,500 books and pamphlets rich in medieval and Modern Hebrew works” will be closed today for the first time in its history so that it can move into its new facility which will open in October.
1898: More than 100 pupils attended the closing exercises of the Religious School at Temple Rodeph Sholom this afternoon at 63rd Street and Lexington.
1899: As the Zionist movement begins to gain strength, officers of the Order of Knights of Zion in Chicago, “received official notification from the Jewish Colonial Bank of London” that it now has 100,000 shareholders.
1899: Birthdate of Fritz Albert LipmannAmerican biochemist and a co-discoverer in 1945 of coenzyme A. For this, together with other research on coenzyme A, he was awarded half the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1953.
1899: Birthdate of Usher Fellig who changed his name to Arthur Fellig after coming to the United States from Austria to fend off anti-Semitism. He is best known as Wegee the American photographer and photojournalist.
1900: At St. Mathews, South Carolina, Rabbi Lesser officiated at the wedding of Flora S. Pearlstine, the daughter of I.M. Pearlstine to Jacob Jacobs of Charleston, SC.
1901: Birthdate of Ben Welden, the native of Toledo, Ohio who carved out a career as a “character actor” – one of those faces you recognize but whose name you do not know who are critical to the success of movies and television shows which in his case included the classic mystery, “The Big Sleep.”
1902(7thof Sivan, 5662): Second Day of Shavuot
1903: Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity for Women (Alpha Chapter) was founded at the University School of Music in Ann Arbor, Michigan by seven women. Beverly Sills is one its many Laureates.
1905: In Massachusetts, incorporation of the Plymouth Rock Cemetery which was used by members of Congregation Anshe Sephard and Agudas Achim in Borckton.
1906: Today, the U.S. Senate passed The Wadsworth District Sunday Bill which would have the effect of unduly penalizing Jewish merchants in Washington, D.C. who would have to close for both days of the weekend.
1908: Birthdate of Otto Skorzeny, the Austrian born German Waffen-SS Lieutenant Colonel who may have been the only person to be decorated by Hitler with the Iron Cross and to have worked for Mossad.
1912: A kosher kitchen was installed at Ellis Island for use by immigrants.
1912: Songwriter Al Sherman and his wife gave birth to Richard M. Sherman who joined with his older brother Robert to crease scores for films including “Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Jungle Book, Charlotte's Web and The Aristocats.”
1913(7thof Sivan, 5673): Second Day of Shavuot
1913: Dr. Felix Levy and Max Shulman are scheduled to speak during Shavuot Services at the Chicago Hebrew Instiute.
1913: “Mortche” Goldberg, “his wife Rosie Goldberg, Louis Barusch, Gussie Cohen and a man still unnamed” were indicted today on charges related to their involvement with the Vice Trust that earned $1,250,000 a year in profits “and paid nearly $400,000 yearly for protection to the police.”
1914: “Der Hund von Baskerville a German silent film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervillesdirected by Rudolf Meinert, produced by Josef Greenbaum, with a script by Richard Oswald and filmed by cinematographer Karl Freund was released today.
1915: During today’s hearing on the petition of Leo M. Frank for the commutation of his sentence from death to life imprisonment which last for more than three months, Governor Slaton invited counsel for both sides to accompany him on visit to the National Pencil Factory so he can “thoroughly acquaint himself with the physical features of the building in which Mary Phagan met her death.”
1916: Birthdate of Irwin Allen who gained fame as a producer of disaster movies. Allen helped bring to the screen two of the most famous disaster films ever made – The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. His name is now synonymous with the genre – a name that can also be spotted amongst the tombstones of late and great Jewish performers in LA’s Mount Sinai cemetery.
1916: In Evansville, Indiana, Minnie Greenbaum and Mark Harry Joseph gave birth to Harry J. Sonneborn who was raised in New York by his Aunt Jeanette and her husband Louis Sonneborn who was a vice president of finances at Tastee Freeze before joining McDonald’s where he became “the first president and chief executive.”
1916: It was reported today that the officers of the Board of Directors of the Talmud Torah Ansche Zitomerer are Max Myerson, President; Abraham Mazer and Henry Linetsky, Vice Presidents; Mrs. Clara Cpazsik, President of the Ladies’ Auxiliary and Rabbi Abraham Gelerenter, School Principal.
1916: “About 500 rabbis, Presidents of congregations and prominent laymen” are scheduled “to attend a meeting” being held “this afternoon in the Aldermanic Chamber in City Hall to investigate charges that many east side and Harlem butchers have been selling fake kosher meat to Orthodox Jews” – charges verified by Joseph Hartigen, Commissioner of Weights and Measures who “has found fifty-seven butchers in the last months selling or exposing for sale meat which was falsely represented as kosh
1917 The Ziegfeld Follies of 1917 featuring Eddie Cantor opened today.
1917: The three day meeting of the Executive Board of the Jewish Congress Association is scheduled to come to an end in Chicago.
1918: Nineteen year old major league catch Robert Leon “Bob” Berman played his last game for the Washington Senators of the American League today.
1918: Birthdate of Samuel Z. Arkoff. Born in Iowa, Arkoff was an entertainment attorney when he went to work for American International Pictures or AIP. As a producer at AIP he perfected a formula for low budget films in a variety of genres including gangster, horror and "blaxploitation." His studios produced everything from "The Amityville Horror" to the series of beach party movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. He provided the training ground for a many famous directors including Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, and Fancis Ford Coppola, as well as such performers as Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, and Melanie Griffin. He died in 2001 and is buried in Mt. Sinai Cemetery in California.
1918: It was reported today that William Edlin, the editor of The Day, described “those who demand the recognition of the Soviet Government are the very same people who have been the pacifists and who have opposed the entrance of the United States into the war against Germany.
1918: At the age of 19, catcher Robert Leon “Bob” Berman played his second and last game for the Washington Senators of the American League
1918: West Point Graduate Meyer L. Casman was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers.
1919: Meyer Casman completed his service as “student officer at the Engineer School.”
1920: Birthdate of Dave Berg. Berg gained famed as a cartoonist for "Mad Magazine". He passed away in 2002.
1920: Birthday of Stanley Sheinbaum, the native of New York City who transitioned from a successful career as an economics professor to being a “peace advocate” in many venues.
1920: Having nominated Warren Harding for President, who would sign a congressional resolution endorsing the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and Calvin Coolidge for Vice President, the Republican National Convention came to a close in Chicago.
1921(6thof Sivan, 5681): Shavuot is observed for the first time during the Presidency of Warren Harding.
1923: Harry Houdini (Eric Weiss) freed himself from a straitjacket while suspended upside down forty feet above the ground in New York City.
1923: In Berlin, “German-Jewish theatre critic Alfred Kerr” and his wife, Julia Weismann “the daughter of a Prussian politician gave birth children’s author Judith Kerr “who came to Britain with her family in 1933 amid the rise of the Nazis.”
1924: The Republican National Convention which New Yorker Samuel S. Koenig attended as a delegate came to a close today.
1927: Arkansan Ben Altheimer, a long-time advocate for holiday honoring the U.S. flag is scheduled to attend “a religious and patriotic service in front of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, this afternoon.” (JTA)
1928: The second ballet version of Apollon musagète opened today in Paris “at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt” which had been renamed in honor of the actress in 1899 – a name by which it would be continued to be known until the French surrender in 1940 when the Nazis or their Vichy stooges changed the name because the actress was Jewish.
1929: In Frankfort, Edith (Hollander) Frank and Otto Frank gave birth to Anne Frank, one of the most famous diarists in the history of Western civilization.
1929: Birthdate of Frank Lawrence "Lefty" Rosenthal, sports handicapper and a former Las Vegas casino executive who also hosted a television talk show in Las Vegas during the late 1970s. He passed away on October 13, 2008.
1930: In a fight for the “vacant heavyweight championship today at Yankee Stadium Max Schmeling was knocked down in the fourth round by a low blow from Jack Sharkey” forcing his Jewish manager Joe “Jacobs to jump into the ring and continued to scream "foul" until the bewildered referee disqualified Sharkey.
1931: Mickey Cohen fought and lost a match against World Featherweight Champion Tommy Paul, having been knocked out cold after 2:20 into the first round.
1932: Birthdate of novelist Rona Jaffe.
1933: In Philadelphia, attorney Robert Abrahams and “the former Florence Kohn, a homemaker and philanthropist: gave birth to pioneering “folklorist Roger David Abrahams.” (As reported by William Grimes)
1935: Birthdate of Sanford Morton Gorssman, the frustrated sports broadcaster who “became an Emmy-winning director of National Football Games.” (As reported by Richard Sandomir)
1936: Two passengers were seriously wounded today when a bus headed for the “Jewish settlement at Attaroth, six miles north of Jerusalem,” was fired on by Arabs.
1936: Fourteen Jews were injured, five of them seriously, when a bomb was exploded in a coach as “a train that Haifa for Lydda was pulling out of Kalkilya.”
1936: “Collective security for Jews and resistance to destruction of their rights throughout the world are general topics for discussion at a two-day conference of 1,000 delegates which opened” in Washington, D.C. “under the auspices of the American Jewish Congress of which Dr. Stephen S. Wise is president.”
1936(22ndof Sivan, 5696): After a short illness, sixty-two year old Austrian author Karl Kraus passed away today.
1937: Congressman Emanuel Celler is among those scheduled to speak today “mass meeting of the American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born.” (Editor’s note – for those living in the 21st century this should serve as a reminder that the issue of immigration is a not a new and of the role Jews have played in an issue that reminds of the Biblical injunction that they should protect “the widow, the orphan and the stranger in your midst.)
1937: Samuel Untermyer is among those scheduled to speak tonight at the “29thannual convention of Polish Jews in America” which is being held at the Hotel Astor.
1938: Birthdate of French journalist and essayist Jean-Francois Kahn the brother of scientist Axel Kahn whose father was Jewish and mother was Catholic.
1939: Leonard Kaplan graduates from West Point. Leonard Kaplan served as a captain, a major, and upon leaving active duty in 1947, only eight years from graduation, he was a lieutenant colonel. While in the Army Reserves, he ultimately reached the rank of colonel. His service record included the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star with one oak leaf cluster, and a Purple Heart. During World War II he served as a battalion commander of one of the first amphibious units, serving in the South Pacific for33 months.
1939: Shooting begins on Paramount Pictures'“Dr. Cyclops, “the first horror film photographed in three-strip Technicolor. Paramount was dominated by two Jews: Adolph Zukor, the Chairman of the Board, and Barney Balaban, its President
1940(6thof Sivan, 5700) Shavuot
1940: Margaret and Hans Reys arrive at Etampes having pedaled 18 kilometers from Paris. They find suitable lodging and spend the night
1941(17th of Sivan, 5701): Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss who worked for Murder Incorporated was executed at Sing Sing.
1941(17th of Sivan, 5701): Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein who worked for Murder Incorporated was executed at Sing Sing.
1941: Birthdate of Marvin Phillip Aufrichtig, the native of Brooklyn who gained famed as the golden throated Marv Albert whose voice brought us basketball, football, hockey and tennis championships.
1942: Anne Frank received a diary on her thirteenth birthday.
1942: George Frederick “Buzz” Beurling, who died in a plane crash after having volunteered to fly for the IAF during the War for Independence, “had his baptism of fire” this morning while flying his Spitfire over Malta today.
1942: In Khmelnik, the Ukraine; babies, children and old people were ordered to assemble. The children were taken away, never to be seen again.
1943: The Jewish community at Berezhany, Ukraine, is wiped out. On Shabbat, in the morning, the Nazis led 1,180 Jews of Berezhany to face death at the city's old Jewish graveyard, where the Nazis shot into a mass grave.
1943 (9th of Sivan, 5703): In the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto, the chiefs of Jewish police are forced to witness Nazi executions of recaptured ghetto escapees: 23-year-old Hersch Fejgelis, 29-year-old Mordecai Standarowicz, and 31-year-old Abram Tandowski.
1943: Birthdate of sportscaster Marv Albert.
1944: In the weekly internal report of the War Refugee Board, it states that Ambassador MacVeagh in Cairo reports there are still 5,000 Jews hiding in Greece. "Those who have been able to join the Partisans reportedly run less risk of being exterminated by the Germans, who have thus far avoided the systematic pursuit of guerilla warriors."
1944: The Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter was established in Oswego, New York by order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was operated by the War Relocation Authority
1945(1stof Tammuz, 5705): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1945(1stof Tammuz, 5705): Sixty nine year old Theodore Hardeen, the magician and escape artist who was the brother of Harry Houdini passed away today in New York.
1946: Fifty-two of the officials and guards from the Flossenbürg concentration camp went on trial today.
1948: In New York, Phillip and Rosalyn (née Bauman) Wein gave birth to “comic book writer” Leonard Norman Wein. (As reported by Neil Genzlinger)
1950: U.S. release of 1950 film noir “Panic In the Streets” produced by Sol C. Siegel, co-starring Zero Mostel with music by Alfred Newman.
1950: Birthdate of American journalist and author and Richard Ben Cramer.
1950: Eddie Cantor, his wife Ida and Mr. and Mrs. Yolanda Markson of Los Angeles arrived in Israel this morning on what was Mr. Cantor’s first visit to Israel. Among those greeting him at the airport was United States Ambassador to Israel, James G. McDonald. Cantor has raised over ten million dollars to support the Jewish state. He said that as a good American it was his duty to support the young democracy and that doing so was in the same spirit being shown by the United States in funding the Marshall Plan which was designed to support the democracies of Western Europe.
1951: After first being released in the United Kingdom U.S. premiere of “Sirocco” based on a novel by Joseph Kessel, directed by Curtis Bernhardt with a script co-authored by Hans Jacoby co-starring Lee J. Cobb and featuring Zero Mostel and “Balukjiaan.”
1951: In the UK, premiere of “White Corridors” produced by Joseph Janni
1951: Eleven days after premiering in the United Kingdom, “Sirocco” directed by Curtis Bernhardt based on a novel Joseph Kessel with a script by Hans Jacoby and co-starring Lee J. Cobb and featuring Zero Mostel was released today in the United States.
1951(8th of Sivan, 5711): An unnamed Israeli soldier was killed when he sought to stop Jordanian troops from crossing the border into Israel.
1952(19th of Sivan, 5712): Rabbi Henry Cohen who “served Congregation B'nai Israel in Galveston, Texas from 1888 to 1952” passed away. Born in 1863, Cohen played an integral role in the Galveston Movement. The Galveston Movement operated between 1907 and 1914 to divert Jews fleeing Russia and eastern Europe away from crowded East Coast cities. Ten thousand Jewish immigrants passed through Galveston, Texas during this era, approximately one-third the number who migrated to Palestine during the same period.”
1952: Michael von Faulhaber, the Roman Catholic Cardinal who while Archbishop of Munich in 1933 defended the Old Testament against the anti-Semitism of the Nazis and courageously declared: “God always punishes the tormentors of his Chosen People, the Jews.""No Roman Catholic approves of the persecutions of Jews in Germany."
1953: “Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick” produced by William Perlberg and starring Dinah Shore was released today in Finland.
1954: Kenneth Nichols, the General Manager of the Atomic Energy Commissioner recommended that Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance not be reinstated. In five "security findings," Nichols said that Oppenheimer was "a Communist in every sense except that he did not carry a party card," and that he "is not reliable or trustworthy." The commission agreed, and Oppenheimer was stripped of his security clearance.
1954: After 115 performances at the Mark Hellinger Theatre, the theatre came down on the original Broadway production of “The Girl in Pink Tights” “a musical comedy with music by Sigmund Romberg; lyrics by Leo Robin; and a musical book by Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields.
1955(22nd of Sivan, 5715): Eighty year old “British botanist and potato breeder” Redcliff Salaman, the author of The History and Social Influence of the Potato, the 700 page tome on this edible tuber passed away today.
1955: A production of “Guys and Dolls” starring Walter Matthau as “Nathan Detroit” came to an end at the New York City Center.
1955: Outfielder Al Silvera made his major league debut with the Cincinnati Reds.
1955: Comedian Buddy Hackett married Sherry Cohen.
1955: NBC broadcast the last episode of “Mr. Peepers” a sitcom with scripts by Everett Greenbaum and featuring Tony Randall (Aryeh (Arthur) Leonard Rosenberg) “as history teacher Harvey Weski.”
1956: Recording was completed of the LP, “Bing Sings Whilst Bregman Swings” produced by Buddy Bregman and featuring songs by Irving Berlin, Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern.
1957:ITV broadcast the final episode of “The Buccaneers” a dramatic series co-produced by Hannah Weinstein.
1959(6thof Sivan, 5719): Shavuot
1961: Walworth Barbour presents his credentials as the United States Ambassador to Israel.
1961: PM East/PM West a late night talk show co-hosted by Mike Wallace is broadcast for the first time.
1962: David Ben-Gurion sends a letter to Eliezer Steinman, in which he writes, “Today, more than ever, the "religious" tend to relegate Judaism to observing dietary laws and preserving the Sabbath. This is considered religious reform. I prefer the Fifteenth Psalm, lovely are the psalms of Israel. The Shulchan Aruch is a product of our nation's life in the Exile. It was produced in the Exile, in conditions of Exile. A nation in the process of fulfilling its every task, physically and spiritually . . . must compose a "New Shulchan"--and our nation's intellectuals are required, in my opinion, to fulfill their responsibility in this.”
1963: U.S. premiere of “Cleopatra” directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz who co-authored the script with Sidney Buchman, produced by Walter Wanger, co-starring Elizabeth Taylor and Martin Landau During the filming of the this epic flic, Taylor, who had converted to Judaism and was married to Jewish crooner Eddie Fisher, began a torrid and public affair with her co-star Richard Burton. Burton and Taylor both left their respective spouses, married, divorced and remarried.
1964(2ndof Tammuz, 5724): Seventy-seven year Morris Cafritz, Washington, D.C. millionaire, pillar of the Jewish community and husband of leading hostess Gwen Cafritz passed away tonight in Hot Springs, AR.
1965: At Park Avenue Temple, Rabbi Sanford M. Shapiro officiated at the wedding of Susan Linda Weinstein, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Weinstein and Jeffrey Harold Loria, the son of Mr. Walter J. Loria, the owner of the Miami Marlins baseball team and Mrs. Loria.
1965: After 540 performances a musical version of Budd Schulberg’s “What Makes Sammy Run?” closed at the 54th Street Theatre in New York.
1967: First Israeli ship sailed through Gulf of Eilat after the Six Days War. It was the closure of the Gulf of Eilat and the blockade of the port of Eilat by the Egyptians in May that led to the June War.
1967: The INS Dolphin arrived at Eilat
1967: David Ben-Gurion “met with Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek in his Knesset office” today.
1968: “Rosemary’s Baby” the movie version of Ira Levin’s novel directed and written by Roman Polanski and featuring Charles Grodin and the voice of Tony Curtis was released in the United States today.
1969: In Manhattan Same and Aline Schneider gave birth to NHL player who “won the Stanley Cup in 1993 with the Montreal Canadiens.”
1970(8thof Sivan, 5730): Sixty-six year old Israeli political leader Yisrael Barzilai passed away. Born in Poland in 1913, he made Aliyah in 1934. A member of the Knesset, he served in several ministerial positions included Minister of Postal Services and Minister of health. Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon was named in his honor.
1972(30th of Sivan, 5732): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1972(30th of Sivan, 5732): Saul David Alinsky radical, writer and social activist, passed away. Born in 1909, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Alinsky had a passion for justice that originated from his experience growing up in Chicago's Jewish ghetto where he witnessed suffering during the Depression.
1974: “The Soviet government expressed a strong diplomatic protest” to the Jewish demonstrations that greeted the arrival of the Bolshoi today in Britain.
1975(3rdof Tammuz, 5735): Seventy four year old Arthur Kober, the husband of Lillian Hellman who gained his own measure of fame as a screenwriter and author whose works appeared in The New Yorkerpassed away today in New York.
1975: Today “The New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects conferred a "Special Citation upon Robert Caro....for reminding us once again, that ends and means are inseparable
1977: After 1,944 performances at the Imperial Theatre, the curtain came on the original Broadway production of “Pippin” the Tony-award musical with lyrics and music by Stephen Schwartz starring John Rubinstein, the son of concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein.
1979: The Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut in Storrs which was founded by the Board of Trustees in February of 1979, was formally launched at an Inaugural Program today when Nobel Laureate I.B. Singer addressed nearly 1,000 persons
1980(27thof Sivan, 5740): Seventy-six year old Rabbi and Biblical scholarBernard Jacob Bamberger, the graduate of Johns Hopkins and HUC, spiritual leader of New York’s Congregation Shaaray Tefila and the husband of Ethel “Pat” Kraus with whom he had two sons –Henry and Pat—passed away today.
1981:”Funeral services are scheduled to be held today at the East Midwood Jewish Cemetery for”Eighty-two year old Harry Halpern who served as the Rabbi at the East Midwood Jewish Center for forty nine years and “professor of pastoral psychiatry at JTS” while fighting for Civil and Human Rights
1981: U.S. premiere of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark” directed by Steven Speilberg, with a screenplay by Lawrence and story co-authored by Philip Kaufman based on finding the Ark built by Moshe.
1982: Today “500 NJA members marched in the Disarmament Rally in New York, which was at that time the largest Disarmament Rally in American history.”
1983(1stof Tammuz, 5743): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1983(1stof Tammuz, 5743): Academy award winning actress Norma Shearer who converted to Judaism when she married Irving Thalberg, passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)
1986: In “The Jewish Freud,” published today Michael Ignatieff begins his review of “Freud’s Discovery of Psychoanalysis: The Politics of Hysteri”by William J. McGrath and “Freud and His Father”by Marianne Krull with the following story. “When Sigmund Freud was twelve and out walking with his father Jacob in the streets of Vienna, his father wanted to show his son how much better things had become for Jews since the days when he was a poor peddler wearing a beaver hat and a kaftan in the shtetls of Galicia. So he told his son about the time in Tysmenitz when a gentile had crossed his path on the pavement and had knocked his hat into the gutter jeering after him, 'Jew, get off the pavement.’”
1987: “Million Dollar Mystery” starring Tom Bosley which was the “final feature-length film directed by Richard Fleischer” was released today in the United States.
1988: A revival of Stephen Schwartz’s “Godspell” opened at Lambs Theatre.
1990: Moshe Arens completed his term as Foreign Minister.
1991: Premiere of “The Boneyard, a “direct-to-video horror film” co-starring Norman Fell.
1994(3rd of Tamuz, 5754): Ronald Goldman is murdered along with Nicole Brown Simpson. OJ Simpson was found not guilty in the criminal case. The civil trial turned out with just the opposite verdict.
1994 (3 Tammuz on the Jewish calendar): The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, passed away. Rabbi Schneerson, or simply "The Rebbe" as he was known by his followers and admirers, was the leader of the Lubavitch movement for decades. He is most famous for the outreach program that he began which reached Jews throughout the world. Thanks to his effort, it is almost impossible to go any place and not find a Chabad House. He sent "lamplighters" out into to the world to bring the light of Torah to Jews who were in darkness whether they were in Moscow, Morocco or Little Rock, Arkansas. One did not have to accept all of tenets of Lubavitch to be welcome. For more about this remarkable man see the followinghttp://www.chabad.org/article.asp?AID=142232
1997(7thof Sivan, 5757): Second Day of Shavuot
1998: In an article published today describing the history of Savannah, Georgia, reporter R.W. Apple, Jr. reminded his readers of the early Jewish connection to this colonial seaport. “Only five years after General Oglethorpe's arrival in 1733 to found the last of the original 13 colonies, a group of Jews landed here, and descendants of some of them, including Sheftalls and Minises, remain prominent in Savannah's economic and cultural life. Temple Mickve Israel, built in 1876, is the only Gothic Revival synagogue in the United States; its interior has cast-iron cluster pillars, a fine Spanish chandelier and good stained glass. The temple owns the oldest Torah in America and a valuable collection of books and documents, including letters from Washington, Jefferson and Madison. Some of Savannah's prettiest squares and best antiques dealers are clustered in the same neighborhood as the temple. Prices are high, but so is quality.”
1998: “Can’t Hardly Wait” a comedy starring Seth Green and featuring Jason Segel was released in the United States today.
1998: Today Congregation Bene Naharayim sent a letter “to the members of the Iraqi Jewish Community in New York” describing the life and death of “Dr.Gourji Raby, a former Professor of Physiology at the University of Baghdad, and former Vice President of Congregation Bene Naharayim.”
1998: “Six Days, Seven Nights” directed and co-produced by Ivan Reitman along with Roger Birnbaum with music by Randy Edelman and co-starring David Schwimmer was released today in the United States.
2001(21stof Sivan, 5761): Sixty-nine year old “Amos Perlmutter, a Washington-based political scientist, author and commentator on Middle Eastern affairs” passed away today. (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)
2001: In ‘Anatomy of a Bagel” published today C. Claiborne asks “How many calories are in a plain, sesame or poppy seed bagel from a New York coffee shop? What are the ingredients and nutritional value?” and then provides the following answer: “Let us assume that you get the biggest plain, enriched bagel analyzed by the United States Department of Agriculture, 4 1/2 inches in diameter, weighing 110 grams, about 3.8 ounces. The ingredients -- flour, water, salt, yeast and malt, but no sugar, if it is a classic bagel -- are boiled and then baked. They add up to 302.5 calories, the U.S.D.A. says. On a standard nutrition facts label, the bagel would boast 1.76 grams of fat, no cholesterol, 587.4 milligrams of sodium, 111.1 milligrams of potassium, 58.74 grams of carbohydrate and 11.55 grams of protein. Vitamins and minerals include a significant amount of folate, 96.8 micrograms, from the enriched flour, but most are present in trace amounts. A bagel preserved with calcium propionate has more calcium than one without it: 81.4 milligrams, compared with 19.8 milligrams. Oddly, the U.S.D.A. does not differentiate among plain, onion, poppy seed and sesame bagels. Poppy seed, which the department considers a spice, not a food, would probably not add enough calories to make a weight watcher feel guilty. There are only about 15 calories in a teaspoonful, fewer than a spoon of sugar. Sesame seeds have perhaps 26 calories in a teaspoonful, figured at a sixth of an ounce, by volume.”
2003(12thof Sivan, 5763): Avner Maimon, 51, of Netanya, was found shot to death in his car near Yabed in northern Samaria. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. (Jewish Virtual Library)
2003(12thof Sivan, 5763): Ninety-three year old Samuel “Sam” Schulman a businessman and own of professional sports teams passed away today.
2005(5th of Sivan, 5765): Erev Shavuot
2005: Several families gather in the beit midrash at Milken Community High School in Los Angeles, where the they fulfill a commandment derived from Deuteronomy 31:19 by each writing a letter in Torah scroll that will lead to its completion.
2005: The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that Marv Levy, former coach of the Buffalo Bills and Coe College graduate was the speaker Coe’s Alumni weekend. A 1950 graduate, Levy had excelled as a college athlete and student having earned a Phi Beta Kappa Key. His topic for the alumnae address was “So You Want to Write a Book.”
2005: The Chicago Tribune featured reviews of two books that examined the role of Jews in the military. “GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation” by Deborah Dash Moore examined the impact of military service on American Jews and the gentiles with whom they came in contact during the Second World War. “Company C; An American’s Life as a Citizen-Soldier in Israel” by Haim Watzman examines the impact of military service on Jews, the Jewish character and Israeli society based on his twenty years of service as an active duty soldier and reservist. The reviewer does an artful job of showing how these two books deal with similar issues from differing points on the experiential compass.
2005:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Steinberg at The New Yorker” by Joel Smith and“Chaplin and Agee:The Untold Story of the Tramp, the Writer, and the Lost Screenplay”by John Wranovics
2006:JWA launches Katrina’s Jewish Voices, one of the first online collecting projects
2006: Representative Jan Schakowsky gave a speech in Congress today in “recognition to Joel M. Carp, who is retiring this month as the Senior Vice President for Community Services and Government Relations of the Jewish Federation/Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago.”
2007: In Los Angeles, The Skirball Cultural Center presents a double feature with the showing of two films, Sisai and Melting Siberia. “In Sisai, the title character, an Ethiopian Jew living in Israel, learns the whereabouts of his biological father in Ethiopia. Together with his adoptive father and his brother, filmmaker David Gavro, Sisai embarks on an unforgettable journey that illuminates his immigrant identity. The film was the First-prize documentary winner at the Jerusalem International Film Festival.” The dialogue is In Hebrew and Amharic with English subtitles.“Melting Siberia tells the story of Marina Haar, who is content in Israel not knowing the identity of her Russian father. But when her grown son, Ido Haar, the film's director, asks to locate his grandfather, a single phone call melts away the distance between Israel and Siberia.” The dialogue is in Hebrew and Russian with English subtitles.
2007: The Jerusalem Post reported that “Eighty three percent of Jewish Israelis are satisfied or extremely satisfied with their lives, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics annual Social Survey 2006. Assessing such daily concerns as business, finance and health, the survey questioned 7,300 people aged 20 and up over the course of the last six months. Eighty four percent of the Jewish population reported being satisfied or extremely satisfied with their work situation, while 71% of the Arab community said they felt the same way. Among the haredi population, 97% said they were satisfied or extremely satisfied with their lives; among the modern Orthodox community 86% reported being happy with life, with the traditional and secular segments of the population being 82% and 85%, happy respectively.
Furthermore, more than half the population told researchers that they believed within the next few years, life in Israel would greatly improve for them.
2007: The Washington Post reported about the programming on Shalom TV, a Jewish oriented cable television channel that has expanded in to the Washington-Baltimore region. The network offerings include a kosher cook-off program, hip-hop entertainer Russell Simmons discussing anti-Semitism, Hebrew lessons Talmud study and the “Jewish Mr. Rogers.” Television targeting Jewish audiences certainly has come a long way since “Lamp unto my Feet.”
2007: News broke that two Bear Stearns hedge funds speculating in mortgage-backed securities were melting down. (This “was the precursor to the panics and collapses” that have led to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression which, when combined with activities of Bernard Madoff, have gutted or threatened the well-being of so many Jewish communal organizations)
2007: Ehud Barak defeated Ami Ayalon in a run-off election held today for leadership of the Labor Party.
2007(26th of Sivan, 5767): Ninety-eight year old Baron Guy de Rothschild passed away today in Paris. (As reported by Paul Lewis)
2008: Hazak Week of Study begins. Hazak is the United Synagogue's organization for Jews 55 and over.
2008: The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) will honor Mildred and George Weissman at its Israel Benefit Luncheon today. Shari Eshet, director of NCJW's Israel Office, will keynote the luncheon which is being held at the Jewish Museum in New York City
2008: “Waiting for the Barbarians” an opera in two acts composed by Philip Glass was performed today at the Barbican Center in London
2009: Mark Kurlansky, the author of “A Chosen Few,” discusses and signs his new book, “The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food, Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal” at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C.
2009: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Tessa Cohen, daughter of Terri and Brian Cohen, helps in leading Friday Night Shabbat Services as she begins the weekend that marks her Bat Mitzvah.
2009: Funeral services for Ralph Lazarus are scheduled to be held this morning in Brookline, MA for Ralph Lazarus followed by burial in Sharon, MA.
2009: The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. reopened to large crowds after having been closed on Thursday to honor the memory of Stephen T. Johns, the guard murdered by a anti-Semitic white supremacist who had tried to shoot his way into the shrine on Wednesday.
2009: Opening of the Derfner Judaica Museum at Hebrew Home at Riverdale in the Bronx.
2010(30th of Sivan, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
2010: Golem with Girls In Trouble are scheduled to perform at the Washington Jewish Music Festival.
2010: The sitting of shivah by the family of Steve Averbach, who was injured thwarting an Arab terrorist attack, is scheduled to end this evening.
2011: The award winning duet "Dinner" by Israeli based Maya Stern and Tomer Sharabi is scheduled to be performed by Tomer Sharabi and Tal Kol on the fifth and final night of Contemporary Israel Dance Week.
2011: The Wisconsin Institute for Torah Study is scheduled to celebrate its 31st Anniversary and the Graduation of the WITS Class of 2011!
2011: Palestine Solidarity Group Chairman, Per Gahrton who was reportedly responsible for the segregation of the Israeli team at Malamo in 2009, is scheduled to deliver an address at the stadium where Israel will play Sweden in major international handball completion an hour after the speech.
2011: “I Married Wyatt Earp,” a musical based on the life Josephine Marcus is scheduled to have its final performance in New York. Marcus was the eccentric Jewish daughter of a successful San Francisco family who ran away from home and ended up performing in Tombstone, Arizona where she met and wed the famous lawman. It is because of Marcus that Earp is buried in a Jewish cemetery leading many to mistakenly assume that marshall who gained lasting fame at the OK Corral was Jewish.
2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You” by Eli Pariser, “A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus’s “Germania” From the Roman Empire to the Third Reich” by Christopher B. Krebs and “In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin” by Erik Larson that is a biography of William E. Dodd, FDR’s first Ambassador to Hitler’s Germany.
2011: The Goodlove Family Reunion is scheduled to take place in Central City, Iowa.
2011: In a modern day story of David beating Goliath, Mark Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks defeated the Miami Heat to win the NBA Championship.
2011: It was announced that Leonid Borisovich Nevzlin had purchased a 20% stake in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, for NIS 140m. Nevzlin's acquisition leaves the Schocken family with a 60 percent stake in the company
2011(10th of Sivan, 5771): Sixty-one year old Laura Ziskin, the American film producer who helped gives Pretty Woman and Spider Man, passed away. (As reported by Aljean Harmetz)
2011(10th of Sivan, 5771): Eighty-one year old Alan L. Haberman, the man who played a key role in popularizing the now ubiquitous bar code passed away. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
2012: “Off-White Lies” (Orhim le-Rega) is scheduled to be shown tonight at the JCC in Manhattan
2012: In an interview given today “Ellen Riotenberg discussed her Jewish family and their background on the North Side of Minneapolis” as well as the difficulty in getting jobs “even as a trained professional if you were Jewish.”
2012: “The High Court justices who recommended state support for non-Orthodox rabbis had conflicts of interest, Religious Services Minister Ya’acov Margi charged today.”
2012: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to sponsor “A Centennial Celebration of the First Jewish Aviator” honoring Arthur “Al” Walsh.
2012: Aided by Orthodox, City’s Jewish Population Is Growing Again published today described the changing face of the Big Apple’s demographics.
2012: The Foreign Ministry announced today that Russian President Putin is planning to make a visit to Israel this year, although an exact date has not been set. It would be his first visit since 2005 and comes at a time when the Russian leader is continuing to show support for the Assad government in Syria.
2012: Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said today that Israel has an obligation to remember the murder of more than a million Armenians at the hands of the Turks nearly a hundred years ago, but warned that the issue should not be turned into an attack on the Turkish government of today. The Knesset speaker made the comments at a Knesset discussion of the Armenian genocide. (As reported by Gil Hoffman)
2012: According to Joseph Berger, “After decades of decline, the Jewish population of New York City is growing again, increasing to nearly 1.1 million, fueled by the “explosive” growth of the Hasidic and other Orthodox communities, a new study has found. It is a trend that is challenging long-held notions about the group’s cultural identity and revealing widening gaps on politics, education, wealth and religious observance.
2012: “Speaking to the Haves, in a Plea to Consider All the Have-Nots” includes a review of End This Depression Now! by Paul Krugman.
2012: Seventy eight year old Elinor Ostrom, whose father was Jewish and is, as of this date the only woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, passed away today. (As reported by Catherine Rampell)
2013: “Wit’s End: The Satirical Cartoons of Stephen Roth featuring the works of the “Czech Jewish artist whose cartoons lampooned fascist dictators and put a wry spin on political events during the Second World War” is scheduled to come to an end at the Wiener Library in London, UK.
2013: The American Jewish Historical Society and Yeshiva University are scheduled to present a Curator’s Tour of “Passages Through the Fire: Jews and the Civil War.”
2013(4th of Tammuz): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Jacob Ben Meir Tam, the grandson of Rashi.
2013: In “Born Again” Nicole Krauss reminisces Yoram Kaniuk , of blessed memory..
2013: Traces of the crippling polio virus, discovered last week in Beersheba and Rahat, were found today in the sewers of Kiryat Gat and Ashdod as well. The Ministry of Health believes that the traces originated in the Bedouin village of Rahat. (As reported by Adiv Sterman & Stuart Winer)
2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yoday that Israel sought a “historic compromise” with the Palestinians to end the conflict “once and for all” and was ready to enter negotiations “without preconditions [and] without delay.”
2014: “A visitor’s center telling the story of the Eldridge Street Synagogue telling the s tory of the congregation and its place in its Baltimore neighborhood” is scheduled to open today. (As reported by Hillel Kuttler)
2014: The Israeli Film Center Festival is scheduled to open at the JCC of Manhattan with a showing of “Operation Sunflower.”
2014: In London, the Weiner Library is scheduled to host “Karl Kraus's The Last Days of Mankind as a German-Jewish Tragi-Comedy.”
2014: “David Blatt stepped down as coach of European club champion Maccabi Tel Aviv today, saying he wanted to pursue his dream of coaching in the NBA.” (Times of Israel)
2014: “A Berlin court has ordered Germany to pay the heirs of Jewish owners of a department store chain an additional €50 million ($68 million) in compensation for property seized by the Nazis” saying today that “the Schocken family lost its chain of stores, primarily in Saxony, during the Nazis’ so-called “Aryanization” of businesses in the 1930s.”
2014: The Lower East Side Film Festival is scheduled to open with a showing of “Sturgeon Queens.”
2014: “Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon today approved the extension of the IDF’s seizure of a radical Jewish learning center in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar by three more months, saying the military’s presence in the building helped reduce settler violence.” (Times of Israel)
2014: The U.S. Senate “named Stanley Fischer vice chair of the Federal Reserve “after confirming him to the board last month.”
2014: At the age of 104, actress Rebekah Isabelle "Carla" Laemmle the daughter of Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures who tried to save Jews from the Shoah, passed away today.
2015: Pennsylvania State Representative Brian K. Sims and, Deputy Consul General for the Consulate General of Israel to the Mid-Atlantic Region, Elad Strohmayer are scheduled to address a dinner sponsored by J.PROUD, Jewish Philly LGBTQ Consortium and the Young Friends of NMAJH celebrating a special Shabbat during Philadelphia Gay Pride Week.
2015: Lassana Bathily, “the Muslim store employee who saved 15 French Jews during the terrorist attack on a kosher supermarket was honored today by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who presented him with an official city proclamation honoring him for his actions in the Hyper Cacher attack in Paris.”
2015: “Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, was acquitted today of aggravated pimping charges, concluding a case that made the private lives of public figures fair game for the French news media, even if the French themselves still seemed inclined to overlook dalliances by their political leaders.”
2015: Today, “a Gaza Strip-based Salafi group affiliated with the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a rocket launched at Israel” yesterday evening.
2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host “Piano Games” as part of the Israel Festival.
2015: “Some 180,000 people marched through Tel Aviv’s streets today in the city’s 17th annual Gay Pride Parade, the nation’s largest and oldest gay pride event.”
2016(6th of Sivan, 5776): Shavuot
2016: “A woman and her infant child were attacked” today “by an Arab man in the Jerusalem neighborhood of French Hill.”
2016: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies by David Rieff and the recently released paperback editions of The Goddess Pose” The Audacious Life of Indra Evi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West by Michelle Goldberg and There Is Simply Too Much To Think About: Collected Nonfiction by Saul Bellow.
2016: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a presentation by Estelle Glaser Laughlin who “was only ten-years-old when her family was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto and hid in a secret room to avoid deportation during liquidations in 1942.”
2017: It was reported today that “the sensitive intelligence that US President Donald Trump controversially revealed to the Russians was gathered by an Israeli cyber warfare unit that penetrated an Islamic State group bomb-making cell” (As reported by Stuart Winer)
2017(18th of Sivan, 5777): Ninety-Six year old Morton Cohen, the Canadian born Columbia University doctoral student and author of Lewis Carroll: A Biography passed away today. (As reported by Richard Sandomir)
2017: In Atlanta, the Breman Museum is scheduled to host the opening of the “Summer Institute on Teaching the Holocaust.
2017: Lauren B. Strauss, Ph.D., Scholar in Residence, Department of History at American University is scheduled to lecture on “The Queen of All Migrations – Jewish Immigration in the Early 20thCentury” at Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, Va.
2017: The Manhattan Jewish Experience – West is scheduled to host a dinner followed by a discussion of the weekly Torah portion and a “conversation with Rabbi Mark Wildes.”
2018: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to “Shtisel” watch-party “followed by a discussion about the religious issues arising from the show.”
2018: The Marlene Meyerson JCC is schedule to host a “special preview” screening of “Outdoors” (Bayit Bagalil) directed by Asaf Saban.
2018: The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center is scheduled to host a presentation by “Israeli-born happiness expert Tal Ben-Shahar who taught the most popular course in Harvard’s history and has authored several books, including bestseller Happier