JUNE 13
823: Birthdate of Charles the Bald, who as Holy Roman Emperor refused to comply with anti-Semitic edicts of Amulo, the Archbishop of Lyon. In doing so, Charles was following in the footsteps of his grandfather Charlemagne who had also refused to comply with anti-Semitic edicts issued by Christian clerics.
1299: Pope Boniface VIII allowed Jews accused by the Inquisition the right to know who their accusers were.
1299: Pope Boniface VII issued a bull today that declared all the Jews "unimportant" except those who were of recognized influence.”
1489: Joshua Solomon Soncino completed the printing of Talmud Babli Hullin. During 1489, Soncino also completed the printing of Talmud Babli Shabbat and Talmud Babli Baba Kamma
1712(9thof Sivan, 5472): Leffmann “Behrends’ daughter Genenendel who had married the chief rabbi of Prague, David Oppenheim in 1681 passed away today.
1727: Moses Susman was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of Judicature for having stolen property from Moses Levy that included “silver money, bag, rings and some goods and chattles.”
1777: Marquis de Lafayette arrives to help the colonists in their War for Independence. Lafayette fell under the spell of Washington. He was instrumental in getting French support the Americans which was key to ultimate victory. The values of the American’s took root with Lafayette. Despite being an aristocrat he took part in the early days of the French Revolution. He voted in favor of a law that gave full rights to all French Jews except for those living in the northeast part of this country. Later, when commanding French forces near the city of Metz, he assured the Jews that they and their property would be protected. Unfortunately, not even the word of Lafayette could stop up against the Reign of Terror which was to follow.
1780: Rachel Pinto who had left New York when the British occupied the city and then returned at the start of June took the oath of allegiance to the crown today.
1782(1stof Tammuz, 5542): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1801: In Vienna, the “Theater an der Wien” which Maximillian Steiner managed in the 1870’s opened today.
1804: Nathaniel Nathan married Rachel Levy at the Great Synagogue in London.
1808: In Plymouth, England, Bohemian native Samuel Hyman and his wife Elizabeth gave birth to Henry S. Hyman.
1814: Joseph ‘Moses” Talano married Rebecca Romanel at Bevis Marks in London.
1815: In London, Benjamin Wolfe Levy and Martha Levy gave birth to Lewis Wolfe Levy, the successful Australian businessman.
1819: In London, Simon Marcus and the former Eleanor Levy gave birth to their third child, Julia Marcus.
1819: Carl Mayer von Rothschild and Adelheid Herz gave birth to their “eldest child and only daughter” Charlotte von Rothschild who married her cousin Lionel Rothschild in 1836.
1824: Joseph Levy married Blumah Jacobs at the Great Synagogue in London.
1827: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi S.C. Peixotto officiated at the wedding of Nathan Cohen, to Clara Harris, the third daughter of Jacob Harris, Jr.
1832: Samuel Cohen married Rebecca Joseph at the New Synagogue in the United Kingdom.
1836: Today, “two days after her seventeenth birthday, Charlotte Rothschild, the daufhter of Carol von Rothschild and sister of Mayer Carl, Adolph and Wilhelm Carl Rothschild married her cousin Lionel who was ten years older than and moved from Frankfurt to England.
1843: In Boston, a dinner was held at Faneuil Hall to celebrate the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument. Judah Touro was honored for his role in the building of the memorial. Bostonian patrician Amos Lawrence had pledged to give ten thousand dollars to the project if anybody would match his contribution. Touro, who was living in New Orleans, heard about the challenge and immediately sent ten thousand dollars to Boston. The toast read at the banquet said,
Amos and Judah venerated names,
Patriarch and prophet, press their equal claims
Like generous coursers, running neck and neck
Each aids the other by giving it a check,
Christian and Jew, they carr out one plan,
For thous of different faiths, each is in heart a man
1851: Seventy-three year old Joseph Johlson the Jewish theologian who championed such reforms as Shabbat services on Sunday, sermons in German and Confirmation for boys and girls while expressing the belief that circumcision was no longer a necessary ritual for Jews passed away today at Frankfurt am Main.
1852: “Beis Hamedrash Hagadol was established at 60 Norfolk Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Its first rav was Rabbi Avrohom Yosef Asch, zt”l, who had arrived in the United States earlier that year.”
1855: Henry Simmonds married Louisa Benjamin at the Great Synagogue in the United Kingdom.
1856: Abraham Bittan married Miriam Solomons at Bevis Marks in London.
1860: William Benjamin Collins married Dinah Abrahams in London today.
1864: In Bethnal Greem, Moses David Levy and his wife gave birth to Sir Albert Levy, the founder of Ardath Tobacco Company and member of the West London Synagogue whose philanthropy earned him a knighthood in 1929
1865: In Vienna, Austrian Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter gave birth to their second child Julius who became a surgeon.
1866: In Hamburg, Moritz Moses Warburg and Charlotte Esther Oppenheim Warburg gave birth to Dr. Abraham Moritz “Aby” Warburg, the husband of Mary Hertz Warburg and father of Max Adolph Warburg
1868: Birthdate of Edinburgh, Scotland native John Foster Fraser, the author of the Conquering Jew which contains the results the author’s studies of the Jew, his adaptability and vitality” as well as his views on the future of the Jews.
1870: “Prophetic Disraeli” published today provided a review of “Lothair,” the first novel published by Benjamin Disraeli after he became Prime Minister and discusses the as yet untitled sequel that includes several Jewish characters and themes.
1871: While visiting Jerusalem, former U.S. Secretary of State William H. Steward today described the city as occupying “two ridges of a mountain promontory, with the depress or valley between them.” According to Seward there are 4,000 Muslims living in the northeast quarter, 8,000 Jews living in the southeast quarter, 1,800 Armenians in the southwest quarter and 2,200 Christians belonging to assorted sects living in the northwest quarter.
1871: To days after he passed away, David Nathan, the husband of Deborah Saltiel with whom he had seven children, was buried at “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.
1877: Joseph Seligman, the famous New York financier arrived at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY, as he had every summer for the past ten years. When he asked for his rooms the manager told Seligman that “he was required to inform him that” Judge Henry Hilton, the owner of the hotel, “has given instruction that no Israelites shall be permitted in future to stop at this hotel.” After overcoming his astonishment Mr. Seligman asked, “Do you mean to tell me that you will not entertain Jewish people?” The manager replied, “That is our orders, Sir.” Seligman wanted to know the reason for this asking, “Are they dirty, do they misbehave themselves, or have they refused to pay their bills.” The manger replied that these were not the reason. “The reason is simply this.” Business at the hotel was not good last season and we have a large number of Jews here. Mr. Hilton came to the conclusion that Christians did not like their company, and for that reason shunned the hotel. He resolved to run the Union on a different principle this season and gave us instruction to admit no Jew.” The manager expressed his personal regret at this turn of events since Mr. Seligman had been coming there for years, but he had to obey orders. An angry Mr. Seligman returned to New York where he wrote a “bitter and sarcastic letter to Hilton” and then informed his friends as to what had happened. [Editor’s Note – the treatment of Mr. Seligman would touch off a minor cause célèbre. It would also mark the “official start” of a period of increasing anti-Semitism in the United States that would include the public banning of Jews from a variety of Christian only hotels, neighborhoods, country clubs and other such institutions as well as the banning of Jews from certain professions & occupations and the creation of quota system, the most invidious of which was the one having to do with admittance to institutions of higher learning. You might think of this period as an era of Jewish Jim Crow and would persist into the last decades of the 20th century.]
1878: “Mysterious Self-Murder” published today described the last days and self-inflicted death of Lucien Levys, a prominent member of the New York Jewish Community.
1878: Lucien Levys, who took his own life for reasons which are still not clear, is to be buried today at New York’s Salem Fields Cemetery with services provided by Mishkan Israel, the congregation to which the family belongs. Survivors include his widow, a brother, Henry and a sister, Mrs. Henry Block, all of New York City.
1878: The Congress of Berlin, a summit of European powers where leaders discussed the Balkan region including need to guarantee the civil rights for Rumanian Jews opened today.
1880: It was reported today that there are approximately 500,000 Jews living in Morocco most of whom are descendants of Jews who were exiled from Europe during the Middle Ages. They “are oppressed, hated degraded and persecuted” in Morocco in a fashion worse “than in any other country.” The Jews work in “various arts and trades” displaying “the ingenuity, pliability and tenacity of their race.”
1881: In the Pale of Settlement Esther and Israel Pinchus Antin gave birth to Maryashe Antin who gained fame American author and immigration rights activist Mary Antin.
1881: Two days after he passed away, seventeen year old Frederick Davis, the son of Hyman and Isabella Davis, was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1882: Joseph Wolf and Meyer Morris, two recent Jewish refugees who have just arrived from Russia remained in jail because they could not pay the fine assessed them for having attacked and beaten an official of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society.
1883: In Charleston, SC, Rabbi I.P. Mendes officiated at the wedding of David B. Falk and Cissie Solomons, the daughter of J.M. Solomons of Savannah, GA.
1883: Louis Ostheim began serving as 2nd Lt. in the 3rdArtillery of the United States Army.
1884(20thof Sivan 5644): Boris Moses who rose to the rank of Colonel in the French Army and “became an officer of the Legion of Honor” passed away today.
1885(30thof Sivan, 5645): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1885: In New York a bill was signed “to amend the Penal Code in regard to Jews and the observance of Sunday.
1886: The remains of James K. Gutheim who was the rabbi at Temple Sinai, lay in state at the New Orleans Reform congregation until three o’clock this afternoon when they were taken to the Metairie Cemetery in suburban New Orleans for final internment.
1887: Birthdate of Bruno Frank, the native of Stuttgart who fled German after 1933 and who wrote the screenplay for the 1939 film version of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
1888: It was reported that the staff of the Hebrew Journal plans to sponsor a reception to raise funds for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Agency.
1888(4thof Tammuz, 5648): Minsk native Hanna Keila Friedland, the daughter “of R' Gershon Ginzburg of Vilna and Rachel Leah Ginzburg” and wife “of R' Moses Aryeh Leib Friedland” passed away today in St. Petersburg
1889: New York State Senator Jacob A. Cantor is invited to the opening reception of the exclusive Harlem Club. When a member learns that Robert Bonyge has proposed Cantor for membership, he publicly tells Cantor, “Jake I have known you for a long time, and I am a friend of yours, but I must stell yout that in this club we draw the line at Hebrews.”
1890: Applications may now be filed for the Summer Session of the Hebrew Technical School which will begin when the public schools close the year.
1891(7thof Sivan, 5651): Second Day of Shavuot
1891: Archibald H. Welch, a Second Vice President with New York Life Insurance Company publicly revised the company’s previous versions surrounding their former employee Julio Merzbacher. Contrary to the first reports, Merzbacher, a 58 year old Jewish immigrant from Austria, had not retired but had left the company after reports of major financial irregularities. Contrary to previous reports, these losses did not total $325,000 but probably exceeded one million dollars.
1892: “Among The Russian Jews” published today provides a summary of the findings of Arnold White who had gone to Russia “to determine whether the Russian Jew was an agriculturist” or whether he had had ever been successful in that role. White’s report, which first appeared in the Contemporary Review went far beyond this and examined the conditions and character of Russian Jewry. For those who wonder about the bravery of Jews, White answers the question “Will the Jew fight” as follows. “If bull-dog courage be the test of manliness then the annals of the prize ring tells of brawny and burly with their fists, three quarters of a century ago in England held their own. Three Russian generals have described the dauntless courage of Hebrew soldiers at the Shipka Pass. In one instance a call for twenty-tive men to engage in a forlorn hope was answered by thirteen Jewish soldiers.(Editor’s note – The Schipka Pass is pass in the Balkans in modern day Bulgaria. In the 19th century it was the site of five fierce battles during the war between the Russians and the Ottomans. )
1893: “Russian Coercive Measures” published today the comments of Colonel John Weber, the former Superintendent of Immigration on condition of Russian and Polish Jews. New decrees “directed toward Russian Jews” include ones that will force merchants who have been in business for the last twenty years to move into the Pale. At the same time “doctors of medicine, lawyers, engineers, architects, artists, and graduates of the university…exactly the classes representing the highest” intellect are also being forced to move into the overcrowded Jewish zone. As to rumors of a mass exodus by Jews living in Poland, Weber said, “The Polish Jews would be dull indeed if they did not take expulsion of their coreligionists in Russia to hear.”
1893(29TH of Sivan, 5653): Kiva Book, Annie Katzman and Joseph Mendelsohn died when they jumped to their deaths from the burning building on Montgomery Street where they were working in various tailor’s shops. Among the injured were Israel Amberg, Meyers Mymans, Morris Nathanson, Alice Nathanson and Morris Siegel.
1893: In New York, Deputy Coroner Conway performed an autopsy an unidentified Jewish man who was found floating in the river with his hands tied together with a piece of twine.
1893: “Commissioner Senner’s Story” published today described Immigration Commissioner Joseph H. Senner’s response to an expose published in the American Israelite that claims he “is masquerading under an assumed name” and that he deserted his wife in Germany. The commissioner said this is the fourth time these charges have been made and he has been exonerated each time. He admits to Americanizing his name when he came to this country and insists that his wife who came with him still lives with him in New York. He feels that his decision “to renounce his Jewish faith” is what caused Rabbi Wise to publish these falsehoods in his newspaper.
1893: The British government is willing to receive a preliminary draft.
1894(9th of Sivan, 5654): Fifty five year old Moses Levy, a native of Alsace-Lorraine who came to the United States 25 years ago passed away. The owner of a successful flour and feed business in Brooklyn, he was a member of Temple Beth Elohim and a supporter of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.
1894: At the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum, the band and drum corps under the command of Colonel Martin Cohen entertained visiting officials from the New York State Constitutional Convention
1897: The annual confirmation exercises of the Hebrew Free Schools were held at the Hebrew Institute this afternoon.
1897: “The Zionist Movement” published today described the two meetings held by the New York Board of Jewish Ministers to prepare for the Zionist meeting which will be held next August in Munich. According to them, the Zionist movement has two main objectives. “Frist to rescue the unfortunate Hebrews who are suffering under denial of civil and social rights and to encourage them to leave their poverty and misery for agriculture in Palestine and secondly to foster” the idea of “Jewish nationality.”
1897: “The Brooklyn Board of Education” published today presented the biographies of the members including Ira Leo Bamberger, a lawyer and a Republican who is the son-in-law of Moses May, “the most influential Jew in Brooklyn.”
1898: Emile Zola published his open letter (J'accuse) in defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in Paris. This was part of the famous Dreyfus Affair that rocked French society for the better part of a decade at the turn of the last century and that gave rise to the Zionism of Theodore Herzl.
1898: Two days after he passed away, seventy-two year old Louis Sandlowitz was buried in London’s “Plashet Jewish Cemetery.”
1898: One day after he died, Lazarus Israel was buried at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1898: The Yukon Territory is formed, with Dawson chosen as its capital. In 1902, when Dawson’s Jewish population reached its high point of 200, Solomon Packer was one of its leading merchants.
1898: It was reported today that during the closing exercises of the Rodeph Shalom Religious School Nanette M Beekman received a gold medal for general excellence, Eva Heyman received a gold medal for excellence in Hebrew and Florence Robison received a silver medal for best in Hebrew
1899: Wilson W. Dunlop came before Mayor Van Wyck on charges of having caused riots on the East Side by his efforts to convert Jews to Christianity with his preaching on the corners of Orchard and Rivington Streets. The Mayor told Dunlop, “You have been using the streets for a crusade against the Jewish religion. This is a free country and you can make a fight against any religion you choose, but you can’t do it in the streets. If you want to conduct a crusade against the Jews go and hire a hall.”
1899: “The Jewish Colonial Trust” published today described the involvement of the Jews of Chicago in this Zionist venture. So far, Jews in Chicago have subscribed for two thousand shares in the Trust at a par value of five dollars. The Union National Bank of Chicago represents the Jewish Colonial Trust in the United States.
1903: I.M. Rosenthal presided over a meeting of “The Degel of Zion” at the Forsyth Street Synagogue where Jacob Massel told the attendees in “glowing terms” about the recent Zionist convention that had been held in Pittsburgh, PA.
1904(30thof Sivan, 5664): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1906: The rector of the University of Göttingen announced that Max Born had won ” the prestigious annual Philosophy Faculty Prize” today a month before “he was awarded his PhD in Mathematics, magna cum laude.
1907: Based on information provided In the confession of Abe Ruef, the May of San Francisco was convicted and removed from office today.
1910(6thof Sivan, 5670) Shavuot
1911: The Milwaukee Journal reported today that the “largest congregation in the United States” which was located at St. Louis had chosen Goodman Lipkind, the rabbi at Milwaukee’s Sinai congregation to replace Henry Messing as its new Rabbi.”
1912: Orville and Katherine Wright arrived at the home of Arthur L. Welsh's in-laws, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Harmel two days after his fatal accident.
1912: Funeral services were held for Arthur L. Welsh at Adas Israel in Washington D.C. Joseph Gulshak, the congregation’s cantor delivered the eulogy as the congregants looked at his tallit draped casket. His pallbearers included Orville Wright, one of the famous Wright Brothers, and Lt. Henry H. Arnold. Arnold would gain as “Hap” Arnold the five star general who led the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. “Arnold wrote in his autobiography years later about Arthur Welsh, ‘He taught me everything I know, but he knew much more.’”
1912: Portuguese government continues to favor a plan which is reported to be prepared to give Jews extensive concessions.
1912: In Munich, Dr. Alfred Haas and his wife Elsa, the daughter of of Joseph Schülein and Ida Schülein gave birth to Charlotte 'Lotti' Schüller
1913 Birthdate of Yitzhak Fundik the native of Krakow who made Aliyah in 1933 and as Yitzhak Pundak, rose to the rank of Major General in the IDF
1913: Birthdate of Ruth Willion, the Brooklyn native who married Morris Popkin in 1937 and as Ruth Popkin served as President of Hadassah and President of the Jewish National Fund.
1915: In the wake of the sinking of the Lusitania German press coverage includes the following from the Berlin Tageblatt, a daily newspaper first published by Rudolf Mosse and now run by his cousin Thedor Wolff who is the editor-in-chief under the headline “On the Way to An Agreement” – “An agreement is possible and the Washington government shows an honest desire to arrive at an agreement.” “The hopes of our enemies…that the Stars and Stripes soon would be floating bested the Union Jack and the Tri-color are proved false.” All indications are “that America by no means takes the position that the German Admiralty must issue an order to end the submarine warfare…”
1915: The text of the appeal from the Federation of the Rumanian Jews of America sent to Governor Slaton, which began, “Five thousand member of the Federation of the Rumanian Jews of America appeal to at this eleventh hour to exercise your power and spare the life of Leo M. Frank” was published today.
1915: In Atlanta, “another anti-Frank mass meeting was held on the Capital grounds this afternoon.”
1915: While Governor Slaton was engaged in studying the evidence today in the case of Leo M. Frank…prayers were said for the governor in several Atlanta churches” including the St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church “asking that he be divinely guided in dealing with the problem before him.”
1916: Jacob Greenberg wrote from Brooklyn today that the New York Times was in error when it said that the Reform Jews celebrated Pentecost (Shavuot) for a week and the Orthodox celebrated for eight because “the Orthodox only celebrate two days and the Reform one day.”
1917: Fifteen thousand ballots were cast in today’s election to select eighty delegates “to the Congress of Salonica Jews.”
1917: Birthdate of Israel Kugler, a leader of teachers’ and Jewish labor organizations. Born in Brooklyn, to Eastern European immigrant parent, he served in the Navy during World War II and was educated at City College and at New York University. In addition to his work as an organizer, he was a professor of social science in the CUNY system and author of the book “From Ladies to Women: The Organized Struggle for Women’s Rights in the Reconstruction Era.”Kugler’s parents were involved in the Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring, which is the national Jewish labor organization, and Kugler’s own children were sent to Workmen’s Circle shules (part-time Yiddish schools). After he retired from teaching and organizing in 1980, Kugler was elected president of the Workmen’s Circle. He held the office for two terms, until 1984. Kugler was also active in other progressive Jewish organizations, serving as an officer of the Jewish Labor Committee and of the Forward Association, the not-for-profit holding company of this newspaper. Philip Kugler followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers. He passed away in October of 2007 at the age of 90.
1917: In Chicago, the Sinai Center Players assisted by Sinai Center Orchestra is scheduled to “give the closing performance” today at the Sinai Social Center two one act plays – “Extreme Action” and “In Honor Bound.”
1917: Fourteen German bombers attacked London dropping more than one hundred bombs killing over 162 civilians. Some of the bombs landed on school where fifteen students were killed and another 27 maimed for life prompting some parents to send their children out the British capital. Among those sent out were Lev Winogradsky, the future media mogul who became Lord Grade and his brother Boruch Winogradsky, the famed theatrical impresario who became Lord Delfont
1918: The will of Mrs. Anna Shane, which named many Jewish institution as beneficiaries was admitted to probate today.
1918: Fire in a synagogue results in the total destruction of the famous Hebrew library in Belgrade. The collection contained many rare manuscripts.
1918: Fifteen thousand ballots were cast in today’s election where eighty delegates were chosen to attend the Congress of Salonica Jews.
1918: During WW I, Lester Bergman a Private serving with the 5th Regiment of the U.S. Marine Corps which was part of the AEF, attacked a German machine gun nest in fighting in the Bois de Belleau. This conspicuous bravery would lead to him being award the Silver Star.
1920: The Ahdut Ha'Avoda Party convenes in Kinneret. It decides to establish the Haganah organization for a countrywide Jewish self-defense.
1920: Birthdate of Joseph Gurwich, who as Joseph Gurwin, became a wealthy businessman and philanthropist. Unfortunately, he was also a victim of the great swindler, Bernard Maddoff
1920: Louis Marshall and Abraham Elkus are scheduled to speak at the cornerstone laying ceremony for new building being built by the Brooklyn Jewish Center which is led by Rabbi Israel H. Levinthal.
1921(7thof Sivan, 5682): Second Day of Shavuot
1923: Twenty-one year old Jewish middleweight Phil “K.O.” Kaplan who had turned pro in 1919 fought “his first big fight” today when he fought Pete Latzo “to a 12-round draw.”
1924: Bnei Brak founded on the coastal plain east of Tel Aviv. The Bnei Brak of today was established by charedi Jews from Poland, and is famed for its many yeshivas and Chassidic communities. Judah Moses Tiehberg, the grandson of the Aleksandrow Rebbe who was murdered at Treblinka re-established the dynasty at Bnei Brak in 1953. In Biblical times Bnei Brak was located in the land of the tribe of Dan. Its most lasting fame comes from the story in the Haggadah about Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues.
1925: In Manhattan Louis and Ralphina Steinhardt Lowenstein gave birth to Louis Lowenstein, founding partner of Kramer Levin and “an influential business law professor and former corporate executive who for nearly three decades dissected the excesses of Wall Street and warned of the dangers of short-term investing” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1926(1stof Tammuz, 5686): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1926: It was reported today that Rabbi Max Drob, President of the Rabbinical Assembly of JTS will be one of the speakers to address the upcoming annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Theological Seminary
1925: Birthdate of Louis Lowenstein, an influential business law professor and former corporate executive who for nearly three decades dissected the excesses of Wall Street and warned of the dangers of short-term investing
1928: Florenz Ziegfield signs a contract with MGM to produce movie musicals.
1929: Western hero Wyatt Earp passed away. Earp was not Jewish, but his last wife was. She arranged for him to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.
1931: Shortstop Louis Brower made his major league debut with the Detroit Tigers.
1931: Birthdate of Dr. Irvin David Yalom Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University, the recipient of the American Psychiatric Association’s Oscar Pfister Prize (for important contributions to religion and psychiatry) in 2000 and the husband of award winning “feminist author and historian” Marilyn Yalom
1933: In Berne, anti-Semitic pamphlets were distributed at meeting of the "Bund Nationalsozialistischer Eidgenossen" (BNSE) which was addressed by Emil Sonderegger, a former leading general in the Swiss Army.
1934(30th of Sivan, 5694): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1934: In Chicago, high school chemistry teacher Boris Duskin and his wife, poet and homemaker Rita Schayer gave birth to Ruth Sondra Duskin who began appearing on “The Quiz Kids” in 1941 and appeared in 146 episodes on radio and 11 on television after the show moved there in 1949. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1934: Hitler and Mussolini met for the first time.
1935: James J. Braddock defeated Max Baer to become heavyweight champion of the world. Baer had only been Heavy Weight Champion for a year. There was always a question as to whether or not Baer was really Jewish. He had been born in Nebraska and there were those who claimed his father had been Dutch or German and not Jewish. Regardless, Baer adopted a Jewish persona in the ring and won the hearts of the Jewish world when he defeated the German boxer Max Schmeling.
1936(23rdof Sivan, 5696):In the UK, Phoebe Levy, the widow of the James Levy of Brixton passed away at Jersey and is survived by her daughter Bessie Marks.
1936: It was reported today that “a factor in the current Palestine disorders that is little known to the general public is a long-standing political feud between the two leading Arab families, for which the Jews happen to be convenient scapegoats.” Much of the violence stems from a conflict between the Husseini family, which has filled the posts of Grand Mufti and President of the Supreme Council, and the more moderate Nashashibis who are led by the former Mayor of Jerusalem.
1936: Today, “a meeting was held in Washington, D.C. by a group of Jews who seek to” create a ‘World Jewish Congress’ which will “convene this summer.”
1936: “Immediate collective action to protect the Jews from progressive deterioration of their rights was demanded at the opening session tonight at a conference called by the American Jewish Congress” which was attended by more than 100 delegates.
1937: At the Hotel Astor, ”Dr. Henry Szozkief, a communal leader and journalist in Poland told the 29th annual convention of the Federation of Polish Jews that immediate aid was necessary” if uncounted number of Jews were to avoid death by starvation.
1938: Birthdate of Morton H. Halperin “an American expert on foreign policy and civil liberties. He served in the Johnson, Nixon and Clinton administrations and in a number of roles with think tanks, universities and other organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University.” “The NATO doctrine is that we will fight with conventional forces until we are losing, then we will fight with tactical weapons until we are losing, and then we will blow up the world.” (Morton Halperin)
1939: Five Arab villagers were slain early today in Baled Es-Sheikh, near Haifa. An armed gang, dressed in European clothes, dragged the five men from their homes and shot them. A sixth villager was reported to have been abducted. The Arabs claimed that the attackers were Jews.
1939: In what appears to be an outbreak of inter-Jewish strife between Revisionists and Laborites, “seventy persons carrying clubs studded with nails” attacked the Revisionists headquarters in Tel Aviv injuring one severely and five slightly.”
1939: “Eddie Cantor and his wife are guest of the 18,000 members of the Greater New York Chapter of Hadassah at a luncheon in the Café Tl Aviv in the Jewish Palestine Pavillion at the World’s Fair” at the same time that they are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary.
1940(7thof Sivan, 5700): Second Day of Shavuot
1940: Walter Benjamin and his sister fled Paris and sought refuge in Lourdes before the Gestapo could arrest him.
1941: Birthdate of Esther Ofarim, a sabra who became a popular Israeli entertainer and singer.
1941: The Petain Government, also known as the Vichy Government, ingratiates itself with the Nazis by announcing that 12,000 Jews have been sent to concentration camps for hindering Franco-German cooperation.
1941: Premiere of “Tom, Dick and Harry” directed by Garson Kanin.
1941: Birthdate of Esther Zaied, the native of Safed who gained fame as singer/songwriter. Esther Ofarim (she married Abi Ofarim in 1959). She actually played a role in the 1961 film “Exodus” the film adaption of Leon Uris’ novel making her one of the few Jews to appear in this pro-Zionist film.
1942(28th of Sivan, 5702): Mordecai “Mort” Starabin, the Brooklyn native an all-star tackle for Syracuse University in the 1920’s and teammate of Benny Moses and Dave Ziff who refused to play on Rosh Hashanah passed away today.
1942: Nine Jews were hanged in Warta, 2 in Lask, and 2 in Lodz Ghetto as a tool to scare Jews from resisting deportation.
1942: Three thousand Jews are deported from the Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, camp/ghetto to their deaths.
1942: British Ambassador to the Vatican Francis d'Arcy Osborne observes about Pope Pius XII that his "moral leadership is not assured by the unapplied recital of the Commandments." British comments must be taken with a grain of salt. After all, they were the ones who had written the White Paper locking the Jews out of the only place that would accept them.
1943: Lydia “Litvyak was appointed flight commander of the 3rd Aviation Squadron within 73rd GvIAP.”
1943: Mark Rothko, together with Adolph Gottlieb and Barnet Newman published the following brief manifesto in the New York Times:
"1. To us art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take the risks.
"2. This world of imagination is fancy-free and violently opposed to common sense.
"3. It is our function as artists to make the spectator see the world our way not his way.
"4. We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.
"5. It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted."
[Rothko said "this is the essence of academicism".]
"There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing.
"We assert that the subject is crucial and only that subject matter is valid which is tragic and timeless. That is why we profess spiritual kinship with primitive and archaic art."
1944: On D-Day plus 7, Roy Rogers, who had escaped from Austria before WW II, returned to Continent as he and his tank crew came ashore at Normandy as part of the British Army.
1945: Weizmann decried Churchill’s letter rejecting the request for an end to restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine as an insult to our intelligence. A bitter Weizmann declared, “If Churchill had wanted to settle things, he would have done so.” “For Ben-Gurion, Churchill’s letter was ‘the greatest blow they (the Zionists) had received.’
1946(14th of Sivan, 5706): Seventy-three year old Sigmund G. Livingston “German-born American Jewish attorney working in Chicago” who “was the founder and first President of the Anti-Defamation League” passed away in Highland Park, Illinois.
1947: Birthdate of New York Congressman Jerrod Lewis “Jerry” Nadler.
1947: Birthdate of Elyakim Rubinstein the native of Jerusalem who served Attorney General of Israel before coming a Judge on the Supreme Court of Israel.
1948(6th of Sivan, 5708): Shavuot
1948(6th of Sivan): Rabbi Abraham Mordecai Alter, the Gur rebbe, passed away
1948: Shear Yashuv Cohen, the future chief rabbi of Haifa arrived at a Jordanian prison camp after having fought in the failed defense of the Old City of Jerusalem.
1948: Rumania and Finland recognize Israel
1949: Birthdate of Brandon Tartikoff television executive with ABC and NBC who was involved in the creation of such groundbreaking hits as “The Cosby Show” and “Hill Street Blues” and whose creative light burned out tragically at the age of 48
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/28/arts/brandon-tartikoff-former-nbc-executive-who-transformed-tv-in-the-80-s-dies-at-48.html
1949: “Miss Liberty” featuring music and lyrics by Irving Berlin that “includes the song ‘Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor’, a musical setting of Emma Lazarus's sonnet "The New Colossus" (1883), which was placed at the base of the monument in 1903” opened in Philadelphia today.
1950: “An air transport agreement granting equal rights in Israel and the United States for airlines designated y the two governments was signed in Teel Aviv today by Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett and United States Ambassador James G. McDonald. This is the first air agreement between Israel and a foreign country and the first agreement with the United States on any subject.”
1950: An airplane bearing Jordanian markings which belonged to Arab Airways was forced to land after it attempted to fly over the southern Negev. The pilot, who was an American, cooperated with the intercepting Israeli aircraft and the landing took place without incident. The Israelis have made repeated requests to the international community to avoid such over-flights due to the state of war that still exists in the region.
1950: Eddie Cantor completed his day of touring immigrant camps by having lunch at the immigrant transit camp at Natahnya. While the Jewish entertainer who has raised millions for Jewish causes since the 1930 ate, he was eyed with great interest and curiosity by the six hundred orphans living at the camp.
1951: The Jerusalem Postreported that Israel vigorously protested against the decision made by Lieut.-Gen. William Riley, UN Chief of Staff, who supported the Egyptian arguments against the opening of the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping. Migdal Gad, a new immigrant town of 10,000, held its first municipal elections. There were 1,950 eligible voters. No ice for home supply was distributed in Haifa after the authorities discovered that many distributors used false weights to cheat their customers.
1951: Nine Jewish Kremlin physicians were "exposed" as British/US agents. This became known as the Doctors' Plot. It was part of Stalin’s last push to get rid of the Jews of the Soviet Union. Only his death averted what could have been a worse mass murder than the Holocaust.
1951: “Laughter in Paradise” a British comedy with music by Stanley Black was released today in the United Kingdom.
1952: “The Tales of Hoffmann, a British Technicolor film adaptation of Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann, co-written, co-produced and co-directed by Emeric Pressburger was released in the United States today.
1953(30thof Sivan, 5713): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1954: Cornerstone laid for Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM).
1954: The New York Times features a review of “The Spark and the Exodus,” in which Benedict and Nancy Freedman “have tried to recreate one of the tragic periods of Jewish history: the Czarist oppression, the pogroms that fired the Zionist dream of establishing a home land in Palestine.”
1954(12thof Sivan, 5714): Sixty-three year old Yiddish author Esther Kreitman passed away today in London.
1956: The original Broadway production of “Shangri-La,” a musical with lyrics and a book co-authored by Jerome Lawrence opened today at the Winter Garden Theatre.
1956(4thof Tammuz, 5716): Sixty-two year old “historian, literary and theater critic, editor, bibliographer, lexicographer, lecturer, teacher and librarian” Dr. Jacob Shatzky the native of Warsaw who came to the United States in 1923 and helped to found “the U.S. Section of the YIVO Institute for Jewish research” passed away today in New York City.
1959(7thof Sivan, 5719): Second Day of Shavuot
1960: Former U of Chattanooga guard and 2 year veteran of the CFL Hamilton-Cats signed with the newly minted Boston Patriots (now New England Pats) for whom he played 14 games.
1962: “Merrill’s Marauders” a film about the famous WW II fighters starring Jeff Chandler (Ira Grossel), directed by Samuel Fuller who also co-authored the script and with music by Franz Waxman was released today in the United States.
1962: A revival of “Fiorello!” a musical with a book by Jerome Weidman, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by Jerry Bock opened at the New York City Center.
1964(3rdof Tammuz, 5724): Parashat Korach
1964(3rdof Tammuz, 5724): Seventy-seven year old Washington realtor and philanthropist Morris Cafrtiz, the husband of Super Socialite Gwen Cafritz passed away today.
1965(13th of Sivan, 5725): Philosopher, author and intellectual Martin Buber passes away. There is no way to do write just a few words about Buber. His impact was too great in too many spheres. The best way to honor his memory is to take try and read a little bit of Buber. Whether it is something as complicated as I and Thou or as relatively simple as a collection of Chasidic tales, there is something for all of us.
1966: Birthdate of mathematician Grigori Perelman. True confession – I do not have a clue as to what his work is all about but the experts say the Russian born genius is best known for his work in comparison geometry. He has also published papers purporting to prove Thurston's Geometrization Conjecture and Poincare’s Conjecture. So far, nobody has found the flaw in his work
1966: Birthdate of Ben Horowitz, the native of London who was raised in the United States where he became a “high tech entrepreneur and investor.”
1970: Sixteen people led by Sylva Zalmanson and Eduard Kuznetzov “attempted to hijack a plane from the USSR…in an desperate attempt” to make the world aware of the plight of Russian Jews who wanted to move to Israel.
1971: “Drive, He Said” the movie version of Brandeis University grad Jeremy Larner’s novel by the same name with music by David Shire was released in the United States today.
1971: The New York Times“published the first of a series of articles on The Pentagon Papers today. “Gerald Gold, an editor for The New York Times had supervised the herculean task of combing through a secret 2.5-million-word Defense Department history of the Vietnam War” prior to publication.
1972(1stof Tammuz, 5732): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1972(1stof Tammuz, 5732): Fifty-nine year old Nathan Bor, the native of Fall River, Massachusetts who “was the 1932 United States Amateur Lightweight Champion and won the bronze medal in the lightweight class after winning the third place fight” Pass away today.
1973: General Benjamin “Benny” Peled, the head of the Israeli Air Force, told Defense Minister Moshe Dayan that in the event of another war with the Arabs, a pre-emptive air strike would be critical to Israeli success. Dayan assured him that if the government thought that the Arabs were about to attack, the air force would be given the same operational latitude that it had in 1967. [Editor’s note: One wonders if Dayan remembered this conversation in October of 1973 at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War.]
1974: A Gallup poll on religious worship showed that fewer Protestants and Roman Catholics were attending weekly services than ten years earlier, but that attendance at Jewish worship services had increased over the same period.
1974: Seventy-nine year old Sholom Secunda the Ukrainian born American composer who wrote the melody for "Bay mir bistu sheyn" which the Andrews Sisters turned to a surprising hit song passed away today.
1976:The Jerusalem Postreported that the former Air Force chief Mordechai Hod was granted a draft agreement allowing him to set up a separate air-freight company in Israel. In New York an estimated 75,000 marchers paraded up Fifth Avenue in the 12th annual Salute to Israel. Over 400 cars a month were reported stolen in Tel Aviv every month. In 1975 20,566 cars were stolen in Israel, an increase of 23 per cent over 1974. Gary Davis, who declared himself to be the "First Citizen of the World," was turned away by the Ben-Gurion Airport police.
1975: “A squad of” terrorists “belonging to the Arab Liberation Front” crossed into Israel from Lebanon apparently heading for the village of Kfar Yuval.
1978: The IDF withdraws from Lebanon after entering the country to root out PLO terrorists operating from this safe haven.
1979: “The Madwoman of Central Park West is a semi-autobiographical one-woman musical with a book by Arthur Laurents and Phyllis Newman and songs by various composers and lyricists” including Leonard Bernstein, Barry Manlow, Adolph Green, Stephen Sondheim and Ed Kleban opened on Broadway today.
1980: “Wholly Moses!” a Biblical spoof produced by Freddie Fields and co-starring Laraine Newman, Jack Gilford and Madeline Kahn was released today in the United States.
1984: “The Naked Face” the film treatment of Sidney Sheldon’s book by the same name, produced by Yoram Globus, Menahem Golan and Rony Yacov, starring Elliot Gould and filmed by cinematographer David Gurfinkel was released today in the United States.
1986 (6th of Sivan, 5746): First Day of Shavuot
1986 (6th of Sivan, 5746): Musical great Benny Goodman passed away. The clarinet was his instrument of choice. In the Big Band Era, he was known as "The King of Swing." He gave jazz, or at least his style of it, a certain touch of panache when he played Carnegie Hall, which in those days was the High Temple of High Culture.
1986: “The Manhattan Project” a film directed by Marshall Brickman who also co-produced and co-wrote the script was released today in the United States.
1987(16thof Sivan, 5747): Eighty-seven year old author and screenwriter Vera Louise Caspary, who created “Laura” which thanks to TCM is still thrilling movie viewers in the 21st Century, passed away today in New York.
1987: This evening in Scranton, PA, at Temple Hesed, Rabbi Milton Richman officiated at the wedding of high school guidance counselor “Ellen Oppenheim, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Oppenheim of Scranton” and Dr. Neil Feldman, “a resident in internal medicine at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia” and the son of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Feldman of Willow Grove, PA.”
1988: While serving as Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ben Briscoe declared today “Molly Malone Day” following the unveiling of the Molly Malone statute on Grafton Street.
1988: Refusniks met with Richard Shifter today.
1988: Birthdate of Gabe Carimi, the offensive tackle for the Chicago Bears who played his college football at Wisconsin where he won the Outland Trophy in 2010. Carimi’s nickname is “the Bear Jew.”
1990: David Levy began serving as Israel’s Foreign Minister replacing Moshe Arens
1991: The New York Review of Books featured a review of Wartime Lies, the first novel by Louis Begley.
1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Nanny and the Iceberg” by Ariel Dorfman and “Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a Troubled Age” by R. Stephen Humphreys.
1999: Bruce Fleisher won the BellSouth Senior Classic at Opryland.
1999: The Chicago Jewish Historical Society in cooperation with the Dawn Schuman Institute is scheduled to sponsor “Chicago Jewish Roots” a tour of the Maxwell Street area, Lawndale, Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Albany Park and Rogers Park” led by Dr. Irving Cutler.
1999: “The European premiere” of “The Eternal Road” an opera with dialogue by Kurt Weil with a libretto by Franz Wefel “conceived by Meyer Weisgal” “took place in Chemnitz, German, as part of the centennial celebrations of the composer’s birth.”
2002: Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, saw landmarks of the revived Jewish quarter in the Kazimierz district
2002: Publication of “Camp David and After” – Benny Morris’ interview with Ehud Barak.
2003(13th of Sivan, 5763) St.-Sgt. Mordechai Sayada, 22, of Tirat Carmel, was shot to death in Jenin by a Palestinian sniper as his jeep patrol passed by. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.
2004: “The Fading World of Leopold Bloom” published today described preparations to celebrate “the 100th anniversary of the day in 1904 on which Dublin's best-known fictional Jew (and cuckold), 38-year-old Leopold Bloom, wandered the city as a modern-day Odysseus and, after numerous adventures located more in his mind than on the street, circumnavigated his way home.
2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition Heart,You Bully, You Punk by Leah Hager Cohen
2004: The world takes note of what would have been Anne Frank’s 75thbirthday.
2005(6th of Sivan, 5765): Composer David Leo Diamond passed away at the age of 102.
2005(6th of Sivan, 5765): First Day of Shavuot. Showing an uncanny knack for revitalization, this previously neglected festival has gained new life in the opening decade of the 21stcentury in America. Ice cream bars and pizza (kosher of course) are now mainstays of the dairy menu and all night study sessions have increasingly become normative in many cities.
2006: On his first ever visit to China, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel called on the government to recognize Judaism as it has several other religions. Official recognition would be beneficial to the Jews living in China. For example, official recognition could lead to the Jews of Shanghai being able to use its former synagogue which is currently used as a government building
2006: The New York Times reported that an international team of archaeologists has recorded radiocarbon dates that they say show the tribes of Edom may have indeed come together in a cohesive society as early as the 12th century B.C., certainly by the 10th. The evidence was found in the ruins of a large copper-processing center and fortress at Khirbat en-Nahas, in the lowlands of what was Edom and is now part of Jordan. Dr. Levy, an archaeologist at the University of California, San Diego, said the research had yielded not only the first high-precision dates in the region, but also such telling artifacts as scarabs, ceramics, metal arrowheads, hammers, grinding stones and slag heaps. Radiocarbon analysis of charred wood, grain and fruit in several sediment layers revealed two major phases of copper processing, first in the 12th and 11th centuries, later in the 10th and 9th. The findings, Dr. Levy and Dr. Najjar added, lend credence to biblical accounts of the rivalry between Edom and the Israelites in what was then known as Judah. By extension, they said, this supported the tradition that Judah itself had by the time of David and Solomon, in the early 10th century, emerged as a kingdom with ambition and the means of fighting off the Edomites. In the context, Dr. Levy and Dr. Najjar wrote, "the biblical references to the Edomites, especially their conflicts with David and subsequent Judahite kings, garner a new plausibility."
2006: The Etty Hillesum Research Centre (EHOC)] which studies and promotes the research of Hillesum's World War II letters and diaries was officially opened as part of Ghent University with a celebration at Sint-Pietersplein 5.
2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Mohr by Frederick Reuss and The Good Fight:Why Liberals — and Only Liberals — Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Againby Peter Beinart
2006: The Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel, an organization dedicated to preserving the memory of Holocaust victims, honored the Reverend Waitstill Sharp, and his wife, Martha Sharp, posthumously as ``Righteous Among the Nations'' for risking their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
2006: Random House published Virginity or Death!: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time by Katha Pollitt, a collection of 84 of her Nationcolumns which Publishers Weeklycalled , "invariably witty, astute and relentlessly logical…”
2007: The History Channel International presents two showings of “Great Spy Stories: Mossad.” ”Born in the crucible of Israel's war of independence and honed in the struggle for survival against hostile neighbors, the intelligence service gained a reputation for ruthlessness. Whether tracking down WWII war criminals like Adolf Eichmann or eliminating terrorists like Black September, the Mossad allowed nothing to stand in its way.”
2007: Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak defeated Labor MK Ami Ayalon in the Labor Party primary.
2007: Vice Premier Shimon Peres is elected President of Israel by the Knesset.
2007: “The 350th anniversary of the readmission of Jews to the British Isles was commemorated by a service at Bevis Marks Synagogue in the presence of Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Lord Mayor, and Prime Minister Tony Blair. The synagogue is the only one in Europe which has had continuous services for over 300 years.”
2008(10th of Sivan, 5768): Eighty-four year old Albert Ullman passed away in Savannah, GA
2008: The New York Timesfeatured a review of Travel Pictures by Heinrich Heine and translated by Peter Wortsman. In this work, “religion captivates” the poet who was born Jewish, rejected and became “a Protestant convert out of convenience. Of the three religions that dominated Europe he writes, “Catholicism: “I see no pleasure in a religion in which our dear God, God help us, is dead, and it smells of incense just like at a funeral.” Protestantism: “A harmless religion, as clean as a glass of water, but it doesn’t do you any good either.” Judaism: “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. It gives you nothing but scorn and shame. I tell you, it’s no religion at all, just a lot of hard luck.”
2008:In a landmark ruling today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that Agudas Chasidei Chabad of United States (Chabad) may pursue its claims in a U.S. federal court against the Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communication, the Russian State Library, and the Russian State Military Archive to recover a collection of sacred religious books and archives.
2008: The Third International Festival of New Jewish Liturgical Music began today in Milwaukee in partnership with The Wisconsin Society For Jewish Learning, Inc.
2009: At Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids Iowa, Tessa Cohen, daughter of Brian and Terri Cohen, is called to the Torah as Bat Mitzvah. Tessa has completed her 7th grade year at Oak Ridge Middle School. She is an excellent student who plays tuba in band, electric bass guitar in jazz band and string bass in orchestra as well as singing in chorus and show choir. She also enjoys playing her tuba with the Musical Shabbat Band at Temple. Tessa has been playing soccer for 8 years. In her last game she had an awesome save as goalie and scored a goal with her left foot! Tessa’s other interests are cooking, especially cake decorating, and preserving the environment. As part of her mitzvah project, Tessa is accepting donations to the Indian Creek Nature Center in lieu of gifts. Thanks to Tessa, Am Yisrael Chai!
2009: ABC broadcast the final episode of “Pushing Daisies” produced by Bruce Cohen, co-starring Ellen Greene, featuring Paul Reubens and including guest appearances by Shelly Berman and Richard Benjamin
2009: Unknown assailants fired a Kassam rocket from Gaza tonight. No one was wounded in the rocket attack and the Kassam, which hit the Sdot Negev region, did not cause any damage. In related news, Gaza emergency services reported that an 18-year-old was electrocuted this afternoon in a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border. More than a dozen Palestinians have died in tunnel accidents this year.
2010:“Sondheim on Sondheim” is scheduled to have its final performance at Studio 54 in Manhattan.
2010(1st of Tammuz, 5770): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
2010(1st if Tammuz, 5770: Eighty-five year old Ernest Martin Fleishman, a refugee from Hitler’s German who served as executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 30 years passed away today.
2010: The New York Timesfeatured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Witz by Joshua Cohen and The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris by Peter Beinart.
2010: The 30th Greater Chicago Jewish Festival is scheduled to take place at St. Paul Woods in Morton Grove, Il.
2011(11th of Sivan, 5771): Ninety-two year old Viennese native Max Moses Heller, the son of Israel and Leah Heller, the refugee from Hitler’s Europe and husband for sixty-nine years of the former Trude Schonthal who founded the Maxon Shirt Company and Mayor of Greenville, SC from 1971 to 1979 during which he courageously “desegregated all municipal departments and commissions” passed away today in his “Adopted American hometown.”
2011: “Milton T. Okun published his memoir, Along the Cherry Lane” today.
2011: The funeral of Al Schwimmer, who smuggled planes to Israel during the War for Independence and was the founder of Israel’s Aircraft Industry, is scheduled to be held today.
2011: The Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning in New York City is scheduled to host its annual Exhibition and Reception where it will present the works of The Artists Beit Hamidrash and The Writer’s Beit Hamidrash.
2011:Sheri Blumberg is scheduled to facilitate a discussion of “Hillel: If Not Now, When?” by Joseph Telushkin at the Jewish Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
2011: Israel Police arrested three Yitzhar settlers today, charging them with incitement to racism and violating the Shin Bet Security Service laws for a website that calls for "price tag" attacks on Palestinians. The three, students of extremist Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg, operate "The Jewish Voice" website, which reports news on settlements and outposts, criticizes the IDF, shows sympathy for "price tag" attacks and publishes articles by Rabbi Ginzburg. The site also reports on Shin Bet attempts to recruit agents. The police searched the suspects' homes early this morning and confiscated computers. They also arrested a minor suspected of setting fire to a Palestinian field. The four were being questioned and will most likely be released during the day. The "Jewish Voice" website responded by saying the arrest is a violation of its right to freedom of speech. "These actions remind us of dark regimes," it said in a statement. In 2003, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein decided to indict rabbi Ginzburg for incitement to racism. Ginzburg published a book called Tipul Shoresh ("Root Treatment") which compared Arabs to a cancer.
2011: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi offered to take personal steps to try to restart stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, telling Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Rome today that he would be willing to host negotiations in Sicily..
2011:Lisa Pulver, the co-founder and director of the Muru Marri Indigenous Health Unit at the University of New South Wales, was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the annual Queen’s birthday honors list announced today. Pulver also is a professor of indigenous health at the university. Pulver is president of the Newtown Synagogue, in Sydney’s inner west, and a board member of the Lowitja Institute, Australia’s premier Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led health research body. (As reported by JTA)
2011: Israel Police arrested three Yitzhar settlers today, charging them with incitement to racism and violating the Shin Bet Security Service laws for a website that calls for "price tag" attacks on Palestinians.
2012: Canadian author Naomi Klein and her husband “journalist and documentary filmmaker Avi Lewis” gave birth to their first child, a boy named Toma.
2012: Cellist Elad Kabilio and pianist Reanana Gutman are scheduled to perform as part of MusicTalks which aims to break down the barriers between musicians and the chamber music audiences.
2012: TheJewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington’s 2012 Annual Gala is scheduled to take place this evening at Beth Sholom Congregation and Talmud Torah in Potomac, MD.
2012: President Shimon Peres received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his singular achievements leading Israel and working for peace tonight.
2013: In San Diego, the annual used book sale to benefit the Samuel & Rebecca Astor Judaica Library is scheduled to continue today.
2013: The week-long Lights Festival in the Old City is scheduled to come to an end in Jerusalem.
2013: The exhibition connected with the first Formula One Race to be run in Jerusalem is scheduled to begin today at 4 pm.
2013: In the 18th inning, Oakland A’s rookie Nate Freiman hit the game winning single against the start relief pitcher of the New York Yankees.
2013: Third baseman Kevin Youkilis played his last major league baseball game as a member of the New York Yankees.
2013: Alan Gross, who is currently imprisoned by the government of Cuba is one of the honorees at gala scheduled to be hosted this evening by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.
2013:Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that a years-long spat with the United States over thousands of Jewish religious writings should end now that some are on display in Moscow's new Jewish museum. Russia has resisted calls to return the so-called Schneerson collection to the New York-based Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch group, descendants of the last private owner of the writings, and Putin said they were part of Russia's cultural heritage.
2014: In Springfield, VA, Adat Reyim is scheduled to host a special Kabbalat Shabbat service “geared toward families with young children.
2014: “Policeman” the first feature film from writer-director Nadav Lapid is scheduled to be shown at Lincoln Center.
2014: “About 20 masked Palestinians hurled stones at police forces at the Mughrabi Bridge at the end of Friday prayers on the Temple Mount.”
2014: “A senior Islamic Jihad official called today on Palestinians to kidnap Israeli citizens, arguing that Israel had proven in the past that it was willing to negotiate the release of Palestinian security prisoners in exchange for the lives of its civilians.” (As reported by Adiv Sterman and Mitch Ginsburg)
2014(15th of Sivan, 5774): Fifty-five year old Kevin Skinner a devoted member of Temple Judah passed away today in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2014(15th of Sivan, 5774): Seventy-nine year old Brazilian banker and philanthropist Moise Y. Safra passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
2014: “Three yeshiva students in their teens are believed to have been kidnapped in the West Bank, Israeli officials announced this afternoon.” U.S. Ambassador Daniel Shapiro was informed today that one of the three victims is an American whose name has not been disclosed.
2014: “Wonders” and “Lia” are scheduled to be shown at the Israel Film Center Festival hosted by the JCC of Manhattan.
2015: The Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a concert featuring soloists from the Israeli Philharmonic.
2015: Agudas Achim Congregation which has moved from Iowa City to suburban Coralville is scheduled to host a gala honoring Rabbi Jeff Portman who is retiring after 44 years of service.
2015(26th of Sivan, 5775): Sixty-one year old executive chef Walter Schieb III was thought to have passed away today.
2016(7th of Sivan, 5776): Second day of Shavuot
2016: “Refuge in Shanghai,” an exhibit that “examines the lives of Jews who were able to flee to” that Chinese city “before WW II and to eventually settle in Oregon is scheduled to come to an end at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education today.
2016: The Knesset is scheduled to vote for a second time on the Gafni Bill which “would bar Conservative and Reform conversions from taking place at public ritual baths in Israel
2017: It as announced today that David Grossman was “the winner of the Man Booker International Prize of 2017 for his novel A Horse Walks into a Bar translated from Hebrew by Jessica Cohen which makes him the first Israeli author to win the prestigious literary award.
2017: Twenty two year old University of Virginia honors student Otto F. Warmbier who been “held by North Korea for 17 months” arrived in his native Cincinnati where he was hospitalized because he was in coma – a coma from which he would never awaken.
2017: Kenneth J. Krupsky, Esq. and Baruch A. Fellner, Esq., National Board Members, Jewish National Fund – USA are scheduled to talk about the “exciting new initiatives to deal with the challenges of overpopulation and affordable housing shortages in Israel’s center — the Jerusalem/Tel Aviv/Haifa triangle — Israel’s economic, commercial and cultural hub” at the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia/
2017: The Rabbinic Council Ma'agal Tzedek at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah is scheduled to host a session where attendees can learn “more about Hate Free Zones and how rabbis, cantors and our Jewish communities can be part of these important initiatives.”
2017: Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Manny Cantor Center a “groundbreaking new policy response to intermarriage and the evolving identities of Jewish America” will be revealed.
2018: Lindsay Simmonds, “a Lecturer at the London School of Jewish Studies (LSJS) and a PhD student at the Gender Institute at the LSE, from which she already holds a M.Phil.” is scheduled to deliver a lecture on “Korach: Form and Content” “in the Old Archive Room at Balliol College.”
2018: The Center For Jewish History is scheduled to host Joel Levy, former President and CEO of the Center for Jewish History; Herb Sturz, founder of the Vera Institute of Justice; and Kevin Keenan, Executive Vice President and Special Counsel of the Vera Institute of Justice” in a discussion about philanthropist and “business leader” Rebecca “Vera” Scwheitzer, “the founder of a hospital in Tiberias.