JUNE 19
325: Promulgation of the Nicene Creed. The creed dealt with various splits among the various Christian groups and only dealt in a tangential manner with matters pertaining to Jews. The creed altered the method for selecting the date of Easter. The change did not ban Easter from ever falling on the first day of Passover. This change would be centuries away from being adopted. But by adopting even this change, the early Christian leaders showed the need to work very hard at separating their religion from Judaism.
1269: Louis IX (Saint Louis) of France, needing no urging from the Church, ordered all Jews found in public without a badge (yellow or red) to be fined ten livres of silver. The badge in France was usually a circle of red or yellow material and was known as a rouelle. The original badge was actually Moslem in origin (Caliph Omar II (717-20)) who decreed that both Jews and Christians wear a distinguishing mark. The "badge" took on different shapes colors and even dress (i.e. a hat or color of a dress) depending on the country.
1269: “King Louis IX of France …decrees that Jews found in public without a special badge will be fined ten livres of silver. Normally worn on the breast, the Jewish badge is either yellow or red and is designed to warn Christians when they are dealing with or simply near a Jew. Local officials around France repeat the requirement to better enforce the public segregation of Jews in this manner. The badges themselves are sold by the crown, so the government benefits financially two ways: first by selling them, and second by the fines when they aren't worn. (As reported by Austin Cline)
1286: Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg was imprisoned in a castle in Alsace, Lombardy. At the time of his imprisonment, Reb Meir and his followers were trying to leave Germany following a new wave of persecution brought by Rudolph I. “Tradition has it that a large ransom of 23,000 marks (approximately 15,144,900 U.S dollars today) was raised for him (by the ROSH), but Rabbi Meir refused it, for fear of encouraging the imprisonment of other rabbis. He died in prison after seven years. 14 years after his death a ransom was paid for his body by Alexander ben Shlomo (Susskind) Wimpen, who was subsequently laid to rest beside the Maharam.” Reb Meir was also known by the term Maharam. His erudition and piety earned him the appellation, ‘Light of the Exile.’ Meir was a leading commentator on Rashi’s explanations of the Talmud. Such was his reputation that Ashkenazi communities in Italy, France and Germany looked to him for guidance when questions of law and/or custom arose.
1320: John XXII issued “Cum sit absurdum” a Papal Bull that stated that “Converted Jews need not be despoiled.”
1338: “In recognition of the good-will shown by the citizens of Vienna in time of distress, and in anticipation of its continuance, the Jews declared, in a document written in Hebrew and dated today in Vienna that they would lend to the citizens of Vienna, rich as well as poor, a pound of Vienna heller at a weekly interest of three heller.”
1565: Fifty year old Viennese cartographer Wolfgang Lazius who “suggested that after Babel the earliest Hebrews had migrated from Mesopotamia to German” and who found evidence of Hebrew in European languages passed away today.
1623: Birthdate of French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. Of the Jewish people Pascal wrote, “It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people…. This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singularly long time… For where as the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation was foretold… My encounter with this people amazes me…."
1630: After having “issued the first letter of safe passage to a Jew whose name was Albert Dionis in 1619, he granted general amnesty “to all Jews permanently in residence in Glückstadt” which was then part of Denmark as well as the “right to travel freely throughout the Kingdom of Denmark which at that time included what is now Norway.
1747: Nāder Shāh Afshār, the founder of the Afsharid dynasty, passed away. During his reign he reversed the anti-Jewish policies and practices that had been put in place by the Safawid’s dynasty which had ruled during the previous century.
1768: At Uman, the Haidamak Army under the command of Maksym Zalizniak slaughtered thousands of Jews in the Gonta Massacres. The slaughter came at the end of the siege of Uman in which Ivan Gonta had betrayed the Polish garrison which led to its defeat. The Polish commandment had tried to “buy the lives” of the Poles by giving up the Jews; a ploy that failed. Led by Leib Shargorodoski and Moses Menaker, the Jews put up a valiant but futile defense. The number of dead Jews which totaled more than 2,000 was inflated by the number of refugees who had sought refuge in the town.
1772: Birthdate of Salomon Oppehneim Jr. the German Jewish banker from Bonn who at the age of 17 founded a “commissions and exchange house” that became Sal. Oppenheim Company.
1778: R’ Asher Gunzburg and Gitlé Loëw gave birth to Fogel Loew
1790: The Gazette of the United States, a newspaper published in New York City provides an account of correspondence between the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, Georgia and the newly elected President of the United States, George Washington. Washington’s letter to the Georgia Jews ends with the following sentiments. “May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination participated in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.”
1790(7th of Tammuz, 5550): Saul Lowenstam “a renowned Dutch rabbi and Talmudist” passed away. Born at Rzeszów in 1717 he was the son of Rabbi Areyh Leib ben Saul, the son-in-law of Rabbi Abraham Kahana and the father of Rabbi Jacob Moses Lowenstam. His writings included Binyan Ariel and a Torah Commentary, HeChatzer HaChadasha.
1792(29th of Sivan, 5552): Eighteen month old Heba bat Jacob Levi passed away today in the United Kingdom.
1800: Abraham Michel married Leah Isaacs at the Great Synagogue in the United Kingdom.
1805: Joseph Hart married Lee Clara at the New Synagogue in the United Kingdom.
1810: Birthdate of Hamburg native Ferdinand David, “the violin virtuoso and composer” who was born in the same house where Felix Mendelssohn had been born a year earlier.
1812: A day after Madison signed the congressional resolution declaring war on Great Britain, the public learned that the War of 1812 which resulted in Isaac Minis the son of Philip and Judith Minis serving as a private in a company of artillery that was part of the 1st Regiment of the Georgia Militia had begun.
1816: A year and a day after Wellington’s victory at Waterloo, Abraham Henry married Emma Lyon at the Hambro Synagogue.
1822: Aaron Hart married Rosa Harris at the Hambro Synagogue.
1826: Birthdate of Charles Loring Brace, author of The Unknown God; Or Inspiration Among Pre-Christian Races in which the author is impressed by the fact that there that are “so few evidences of Egyptian influence are found in the Hebrew faith.” The thinkers and teachers of the Jews were visited by those higher and purer inspirations which have made them the greatest benefactors of mankind in ancient history.
1832: Birthdate of Frédéric Emile Baron d’Erlanger, the French banker whose family converted to Christianity. Despite the family’s conversion, the Baron is often erroneously identified as being Jewish. Erlanger created one of the earliest “junk bonds” based on the cotton trade during the Civil War. This has led to other incorrect reports that Jews were responsible for financing the Confederacy’s war effort.
1843(21st of Sivan, 5603): Sixty-year old Austrian author and philosopher Ignaz Jeiteles who was working on a history of literature when he passed away today in Vienna.
1844: “The Rabbinical Conference of Brunswick “convoked by Levi Herzfeld and Ludwig Philippson” whose attendees included Solomon Formstecher, Samuel Hirsch, Mendel Hess, and Samuel Holdheim came to an end today.
1844: Moses Botibol married Jessie Myers at the Bevis Marks Synagogue.
1846: In London, Elias Benjamin and Mary Lazarus gave birth to Benjamin Raphael educated at Jews’ Free School in London who earned a doctorate of Jewish Law for Australia in 1874 and served as the rabbi at the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, Mound Street Temple in Cincinnati and the Fifteenth Street Temple in New York City before becoming the Associate Rabbi of Temple Beth Elohim at Brooklyn, NY in 1902.
1854: Birthdate of Jonas Kuppenheimer. A native of Terre Haute, Indiana, Kuppenheimer, his father Bernard and his brothers Louise and Albert moved to Chicago in 1870 where they established a clothing store that became one of the major men’s clothing brands in the United States. He passed away in 1921.
1857: The correspondent for the New York Times writes from London that the second reading of the Jew Bill has passed by an immense majority. Furthermore, the opposition seems to be waning and Rothschild is on his way to becoming “a Parliamentary saint” as opposed to an “unparliamentary martyr.”
1867: Ruthless beat out DeCourcey by a head over the old Jerome Park Racetrack to win the inaugural running of the Belmont Stakes and financed by August Belmont, Sr. for whom the race was named financed the building of the track. The Belmont Stakes would move to its current home, Belmont Park, in 1905.
1871: In Nebraska, Edward Rosewater, a Jewish immigrant who supported abolition and served as a telegrapher in the Union Army published the first edition of the Omaha Bee
1877(8thof Tammuz, 5637): Rebbe Meir Horowitz of Dzhikov, the son of Rebbe Eliezer Horowitz of Dzhikov and the grandson of Rebbe Nattaliz Tzvi passed away today.
1877: As word of Judge Hilton’s decision to bar Joseph Seligman from the Grand Union Hotel because he was Jewish spread across the United States, hotel proprietors in Philadelphia said that banning patrons because they were Jewish was wrong. Looking at it from strictly a financial point of view, they all agree that the money of “an Israelite” is as good as that “of a full-fledged American.” Both Mr. Kingsley of the Continental and Mr. Ward of St. George, leading Philadelphia hotels, have had Seligman as a guest and would gladly do so again. While Judge Hilton’s action might have been permissible in New York, in Pennsylvania it would have been illegal. Under that state’s law, hotel owners have to obtain a license that allows them “keep a hotel, inn or tavern and under the provisions of that license he cannot turn away any person from his hotel, unless he knows that such persons will cause great loss to his house and then he holds himself liable to a fine of $300 and three months imprisonment” as well as a suit for damages from the people who were denied rooms.
1877: At the popular resort of Long Branch, NJ, several hotel owners expressed their surprise that Joseph Seligman had been turned away from the Grand Union. Even though he is Jewish, the hotel owners, some of whom had had him as a guest, said that he was a desirable guest. However, many of them expressed the opinion that they did not want Jews staying at their hotels and were sympathetic with the stance taken by Judge Hilton.
1877: According to Edward Lauterbach, the attorney for Joseph Seligman, as of today hundreds of Jews have closed their accounts at the two stores owned by A.T. Stewart & Co which are controlled by Judge Hilton. This is but one example of Jewish support for Seligman whom Lauterbach declared is the leading Jew in the United States and is proudly acknowledged as such by his co-religionists. Lauterbach said that Seligman might also pursue a case under the Civil Rights Law which would leave Hilton open to fines and imprisonment.
1877: The arrival of today’s New York Times at Saratoga Spring this afternoon has caused quite a stir with its report of the dispute between Judge Hilton and Joseph Seligman over the latter’s claim that he was not allowed to rent rooms at the Grand Union because he was Jewish.
1878: Birthdate of Yakov Mikhaylovich Yurovsky, the Bolshevik leader that some credit with overseeing the execution of the Czar after the Russian Revolution.
1879: The London News published an article describing the terms of the will of the late Baron Lionel de Rothschild. The estate is valued to at 2,700,000 pounds. Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild and Mr. Alfred de Rothschild, the late Baron’s two sons, have been named as executors.
1880: It was reported today that Sarah Bernhardt has signed a contract to give 60 performances at Booth’s Theatre in New York next winter. The contract calls for her to be paid 3,000 francs a night, one-third of the gross receipts, traveling expenses for herself and three companions and 3,000 francs a month for her hotel bill. According to the great actress, she has had more lucrative offers but she accepted this because the 200,000 francs has been deposited at the Banque de France as a security bond.
1882: It was reported today that the United States manager for Sarah Bernhardt has signed a contract with Henry Irving the actor/owner of London’s Lyceum Company to perform their full repertoire during an American tour. Among other things, American audiences will be treated to The Merchant of Venice featuring Ellen Terry in her famed portrayal of Portia and Irving’s unique portrayal of Shylock. His dignified portrayal of Shakespeare’s most famous Jewish character is a departure from the norm of his time.
1882: “The Polish Jewish Colony” published today provided a detailed sketch of life among the Jews living on New York’s lower east side.
1883: The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society was among the private institutions devoted to the care of children that received a grant of funds from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment in New York City. The society received $1,810 out of a total of $30,255 in grants.
1884:Dr. Henry W. Schneeberger a Baltimore Rabbi was one of four people who signed a letter today addressed “to Sir Moses Montefiore, thanking him for his aid to the Russian Jews who had found a refuge in Baltimore. The letter continued to advise Montefiore that the Russian Jewish immigrants had established a school in honor of their benefactor. Dr. Schneeberger was one of the teachers in this school - teaching the immigrants in the daytime and also at night. Dr. Schneeberger also became their mentor in advising the Russian Jewish immigrants to become good American citizens and he cautioned against the radicalism of some in their midst.”
1884: After a rumor circulated through certain parts of the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod that a Jew had kidnapped a Christian child and taken it to a synagogue, a mob attacked the synagogue. During the riot 9 Jews were killed, six houses were wrecked and an untold number were plundered.
1886: Birthdate of Michael (Mihály) Fekete the Hungarian mathematician who made Aliyah in 1928 where he “was among the first instructors in the Institute of Mathematics at Hebrew University of Jersualem.
1886: The Manchester Guardian reported that the Visiting Committee of the Hebrew Congregations of Manchester and Liverpool has affected a "closer union between the Sephardic and Ashkenazic sections of the Jewish community."
1889: William E. Annin, the associate editor of the Omaha Bee wrote the following description today of Edward Rosewater, the Czech born Jew who was “the editor and publisher of the Omaha Bee.”
"Mr. Rosewater was par excellence the all-around man of the [Bee] establishment. He seemed to have obtained the secret of two of the attributes of Deity, he was omnipresent and apparently omniscient. He wrote heavy editorials and pungent editorial paragraphs; contributed local political news to the city page, clipped selections for the news columns, selected items for those startling chestnuts dubbed 'Connubial Bliss,''Peppermint Drops' and 'Honey for the Ladies,' regulated the business office a dozen times a day, and took subscriptions on the streets and advertising contracts from the merchants. I used to think his only sorrow was that he had not in addition been born a steam engine so that he could run the presses. . . "In addition to his ordinary duties above named, he constantly developed strong interest in local politics, and always had a dozen fights and twice that number of ward politicians on his hands. On city or county election days, The Bee office was usually depopulated and every man, from editor down, after rushing in copy, early took a whirl at the polls. After a hard day's work on election day, followed by an all night session in collecting returns, the editor would bob up serenely at 9 o'clock the next morning with his arm full of exchanges and his mouth full of suggestions about the paper, . . ."His indomitable energy, his uncompromising persistency and his invincible pluck were at once the wonder and admiration of the office. . . . Overworked himself, he took his own high tension as the norm of work, and found it difficult to understand why all of his employees could not endure cheerfully the same racking. This made him often very unpleasant as an employer
1890: Police officers Oram and English waited in vain for “a short, stout, red whiskered Polish Jew” named Marcus Goldstein to come to the Gill Engraving printing where he was supposed to retrieve plates for making lottery tickets that were thought to be part of counterfeiting scheme. (more tomorrow)
1891: It was reported today that applications for the summer session The Hebrew Technical Institute under the direction of Henry Leipziger may be made now at its building on Stuyvesant Street.
1891: The list of the graduates from Hebrew Technical Institute published today included Coleman Borwn, Jacob Brown, Joseph Elias, Morris Farkas, Joseph L. Gensler, Louis Gevertz, Arthur Gross, Philip Levenhal, Michale L. Levy, Marks Lisk, Joseph Mayer, Max Mayer, Mortimer L Newman, Hyman Rosensohn, Abraham Saruya, Rduolph Shack, August Schweitzer and Jacob Szabo.
1892: “Austrian Jew Baiters Thrashed” published today described an episode at Vienna’s Prater Restaurant, witnessed by a correspondent from the London Daily News during which three “Jew baiters” were thrashed by “a beardless youth” after enduring their taunts in silence. It turned out the young man was not Jewish but was in fact an English jockey who had several races at Vienna.
1892: It was reported today that Sarah “Bernhardt continues to play to big audiences in which is proving the most success of all her London seasons.
1892: “Rejected at the Theatre Francais” published today includes a negative review of Le Prince d'Aurec, a satire on the nobility by Henri Lavedan that features a Jewish banker named de Horn as the villain.
1893: Henry Gottgetreu, the attorney for the late Samuel Adler, spoke of behalf of himself and the family when he denied any knowledge of financial problems that Adler had been facing since they assumed that his “fortune” was “at least a quarter of a million dollars.” Mr. Adler had been active in a number of Jewish organizations including the Sons of Israel, the Sons of Benjamin and B’nai B’rith.
1893: “Hebrew Printers at Odds” published today described conflict between Jews workers including a declaration by the Central Labor Federation that “the Hebrew Typographical Union was the only true Hebrew printing union in New York” and a denunciation of the “Hebrew Typographical Union No. 317 as shoemakers, tailors and cloakmakers organized to fight Socialism.” (This small item gives a window into the internecine conflict of the Jewish working class; a conflict that was even more intense than the one with the businesses many of which were owned by Jews)
1893(5th of Tammuz, 5653): Fifty year old Adolph S. Jaeger, a prosperous cigar manufacturer who was, with his brother Morris S., co-owner of Jaeger Brothers, died today, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
1893: It was reported today that the brass band from the Hebrew Orphan Asylum played at the reception marking the opening of the Lebanon Hospital
1895: “Literary Notes” published today described the upcoming publication by G.P. Putnam of Israel Among the Nations, “as study of the Jews and anti-Semitism by Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu which has been translated into English by Frances Hellman
1895: In Vienna, Austria, Reuben Ben Mordechai Brainin and Marie (Masha, Mussa) Brainin gave birth to Joseph Brainin, a Corporal in the Jewish Legion who had enlisted while living in Montreal and after having served in Palestine was mustered out after which he married Salomea Newark and eventually served as executive Vice President of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute.
1896 The true nature of the Hebrew Technical Institute can be discerned by the papers delivered at the recent graduation exercises including
1896: “The Jews of Russia” published today describes the restrictive laws under which the Israelites have lived in the land of the Czars including the Ukase of 1727 that expelled the Jews from Russia, the Ukase of 1742 which did the same and the creation by Catherine II and Alexander I of special zone to which the Jews were to confine themselves.
1897: “The Talmud Again” published today provides an in-depth review of the two-volume New Edition of the Babylonian Talmud formulated and punctuated by Michael L Rodkinson which includes the original text and an English translation reviewed by Dr. Isaac W. Wise. Born in 1845, Rodkinson was the grandson of Aaron ha-Levi ben Moses, the son of Alexander Sender Frumkin and the half-brother of Israel Dov Bar Frumkin
1897: Among the gifts and contributions listed at the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Hebrew Technical Institute were $250 from Julius Goldschmidt for tools and physical instruments; a band saw from James Loeb; $500 from the late Bernard Cohen for lathes; $1,000 from the late Leopold Boscowitz for general supplies. (The nature of the contributions is consistent with vocational mission of the institute)
1897: “Articles of incorporation were filed” today “in the County Clerk’s office by the Sons of Abraham, a Hebrew benevolent society.”
1897: Mrs. Jennie Cohen who had been recently widowed and her four young children ranging in age from six years to four months arrived in New York from New Haven, CT and since they were destitute spent the night at the Hebrew Sheltering House Association at 210 Madison.
1897: Birthdate of comedian Moe Howard who gained fame as one of the Three Stooges
1899: In Baltimore, MD, Dr. Richard Gottheil chaired the opening session of the second annual conference of the Federation of American Zionists.
1899: As of today the Federation of American Zionists has 10,000 members divided into “125 societies” with a total of $415.92 in its treasurer.
1899: This evening Rabbi Gustave Gottheil of New York’s Temple Emanu-El addressed a mass meeting in Baltimore in which “he delivered a bitter” indictment “against the injustice done Dreyfus.
1899: In his recent announcement of his resignation as pastor of the Calvary Presbyterian Church on West 116th Street in Manhattan, Reverend James Chambers predicted that the congregation would soon disband because of the changing nature of the neighborhood where “well-to-do residents of the Jewish faith…have crowded out their Christian neighbors.”
1900: Herzl and Wolffsohn settle their differences about the Trust's affairs. And Herzl asks his good dear "Daade" to address him by the familiar "Du" instead of the formal "Sie".
1903: In Halle, Germany, Irmgard (née Wüst) and Friedrich Litten who had converted to Lutheranism gave birth to Hans Achim Litten, the attorney who defended anti-Nazis during trials held in the last years of the Weimar Republic and actually cross-examined Adolf Hitler – a cross-examination that led to his imprisonment, torture and death at Dachau.
1903: The British Foreign Office sends the first of two letters to Herzl rejecting his proposal to establish a Jewish colony in the Sinai.
1903: In Halle Irmgard (nee Wust) and Fritz Litten, “a Jews who converted to Lutheranism in order to further his career as a law professor” gave birth to Hans Litten, a lawyer who represented opponents of the Nazis – a role that ended him in Dachau where he died.
1904: Birthdate of New Yorker Lester Cole, the son of a union organizer in the garment district who was a co-founder of the Writers Guild of America and whose membership in the Communist Party led to his being blacklisted as a member of the “Hollywood Ten.”
1906: In Berlin,Margarete (née Eisner) and Michael Chain gave birth to German born and educated British chemist, Sir Ernst Boris Chain. Chain left Germany when the Nazis came to power. As an English citizen this leading biochemist won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1945 for his work on the effects of penicillin.
1908: After selecting William Howard Taft, who would become the first sitting President to attend a Seder, the Republican National Convention adjourned today in Chicago, Illinois.
1909: Birthdate of Maurice Zimring, the native of Waterloo, Iowa who gained fame as “Maurice Zimm,an American radio, television and film writer, whose most famous creation was the Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
1910: Birthdate of Abe Fortas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Fortas was a close friend and advisor to Lyndon Johnson. There are several stories about Fortas providing Johnson with what we would call a "reality check." Fortas was reluctant to give up his lucrative law practice and accept the position on the high court. He did tell Johnson that the Jewish community would not consider him as the "Jewish Justice" in the sense of a Brandies or Goldberg since he was not a part of that community. In the end Fortas gave into Lyndon’s famed arm-twisting and the rest is history. Fortas ended up resigning from the court in 1969 after questions were raised about some of his business dealings. Fortas passed away in 1982 at the age of 71.
1912: In Philadelphia, PA, Jewish immigrants Ruth (née Herzog) and Israel Gabel, a jeweler, gave birth to actor, director and producer Martin Gabel
1913: In Chicago, The Temple Emanuel Woman’s Auxiliary is scheduled to hold its annual luncheon at the Bismarck Gardens this afternoon.
1913: When the Austrian Parliament met today Ignaz Kuranda, “a leader of the assimilations section of Austrian Jewry” spoke out against the riots at Vienna University which “embitter not only the Jews but every educated man” and through which “Austrian Nationalism will not gain in power” but which “the Jews will learn to appreciate the fact that anti-Semitism is growing in this country.”
1913: Abram I. Elkus addressed the graduates at the City College commencement ceremony.
1914: Louis D. Brandeis, special counsel to the Interstate Commerce Commission in the 5 per cent. advance rate case, to-day appeared before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce in opposition to the Rayburn Stock and Bond bill, which proposes to confer authority upon the commission to control and approve issues of securities by common carriers.
1915: In the Bronx, Romanian-Jewish immigrants “Joseph and Bertha Schwartz to cartoonist Julius Schwartz who as an editor at DC Comics worked on Superman and Batman.
1915: Friends and family of Leo Frank, including his wife, father and mother visited him “in his cell in the Tower today” as they awaited word as to whether or not Governor Slaton would commute is sentence to life in prison.
1915: The Jews of Morocco suffered indignities under the French regime that were unknown while under the rule of the old sultans.
1916: The Adjutant General of the New York National guard “ended the public hearings…in the investigation to determine whether discrimination had shown against Jews in the National Guard” despite objections by Maurice Simmons “who has been presenting the case for the Jews.”
1916: It was reported today that “a gift of $165,000 to Mount Sinai Hospital has just been announced by the Guggenheim brothers of the American Smelting and Refining Company” which “supplements previous gifts of more than $500,000 already given by the Guggenheim brothers.”
1916: The delegates to the eighth annual convention of the Federation of Russian-Polish Jews of America are scheduled to meet for a second session tonight at seven o’clock at the Harlem Hebrew Educational Institute.
1916: It was reported today that Louis D. Brandies, Louis Edward Levy of Philadelphia and Dr. Harry Friedenwald are scheduled to be among the speakers at next week’s annual convention of the Federation of American Zionists which will be held at the Metropolitan Opera House in Philadelphia.
1917: In Alexandria, Egypt, Nelly Grün and Leopold Percy Hobsbaum gave birth to “Eric J. Hobsbawm, whose three-volume economic history of the rise of industrial capitalism established him as Britain’s pre-eminent Marxist historian.” (As reported by William Grimes)
1917: In Chicago, The Baron Hirsch Workers are scheduled “to hold a directors’ meeting this after at the Lincoln Park.
1917: Dr. Bernard Revel, President of the Faculty of the Rabbinical College of America opened “the first annual meeting of the Society of Jewish Academicians” in New York by delivering “an address on ‘The Place of Jewish Scholarship in America.’”
1917: Based on information from the American minister to Sweden, Abram I. Ilkus, the American Ambassador to Turkey has left Constantinople and is scheduled to arrive in Berne today.
1917: “The cornerstone of the new synagogue to be erected at 257-265 West Eighty-Eighth Street for the Congregation B’nai Jeshurun” one of the oldest congregations in New York “was set in place”
1918: In Fitzgerald, GA, gave birth to “Sam Abram, a harness maker and storekeeper born in Romania, and the former Irene Cohen, the daughter of a doctor and a granddaughter of Rabbi Elias Eppstein, one of the first Reform rabbis in the United States gave birth to Morris Berthold Abram, the advocate for Civil Rights and President of Brandeis University. (As reported by William Honan)
1919: Birthdate of movie critic Pauline Kael. As movie critic for the New York Times, Kael was one of the most influential influences in the world of cinema criticism. With her high quality of writing and edgy style, she was a trend setter in an era when women were too often consigned to the style section and gossip columns.
1920: The first anti-Semitic article appeared in the Dearborn Independent, owned by Henry Ford who was a Jew hater part excellence.
1925: In Detroit, Michigan, Morris Burros, “an unsuccessful furrier and inventor” and the former Clara Krellman gave birth to Marion Ann Burrow who gained fame as Marian Javits, the wife of Jacob Javits, the U.S. Senator from New York and a leader of the Republican Party’s liberal wing.
1925: In a cave at Tabgha, near Jerusalem, archaeologists discover a primitive human skull that bears a close resemblance to the Neanderthal man previously discovered in Europe.
1926: Birthdate of New Jersey native Dr. Erna Schneider Hoover “an American mathematician notable for inventing a computerized telephone switching method which "revolutionized modern communication" according to several reports.”
1926: “Footloose Widows” a comedy filmed by cinematographer David Abel was released in the United States today.
1926: Birthdate of Luxembourg native Arno Joseph Mayer whose family fled to the United States after the Nazi invasion which led to his successful career that culminated in being named “Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Emeritus, at Princeton University.”
1928(1stof Tammuz, 5688): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1928(1stof Tammuz, 5688): Just weeks short of his 61st birthday labor leader Joseph Baroness known as “the King of the Cloakmakers” passed away today.
http://www.jta.org/1928/06/22/archive/15000-pay-last-tribute-to-joseph-barondess-at-funeral-services
1930: Mrs. Samuel Halprin wrote to “American attorney, social worker, and philanthropist” Joseph C. Hyman
1933(25thof Sivan, 5693): Fifty-one year old Ukrainian born chazzan Jose “Yossele” Rosenblatt passed away today in Jerusalem.
1933: On a day when he received an honorary degree from Brown University Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo of the United States Supreme Court delivered an address to the alumni of that Rhode Island institution of higher education in which he declared, “The day is past when problems of public law can be solved by pulling down the law books and marking without other aids the "signposts on the road,"
1933: Cardinal Pacelli issued a concordant known as the Hitler Concordant. Hitler described it as "unrestricted acceptance of National Socialism by the Vatican." Cardinal Pacelli later became Pope Pious XII.
1934: American author Nathaniel West, the son of Litvak immigrants to the United States, published A Cool Million, the second of the three novels he created during his career which was cut short by an untimely death in an automobile accident.
1934(6th of Tammuz, 5694): Seventy-six German businessman Max Pinkus passed away at Neustadt, Germany.
1935: In Palestine, the German consulate advises Jews not to travel to Germany, not even if they are citizens and not even for short trips. According to the consul, Jews entering Germany are likely to be apprehended by the Gestapo and placed in a concentration camp.
1936: “Great Britain is determined to restore order in Palestine, ‘even if it means using inevitably harsh measures,’ Colonial Secretary William G.A. Ormsby-Gore told the House of Commons today at the end of a full-length debate on recent disturbances in the Holy Land.”
1936: Rabbi B.A. Tinner delivered the Friday night sermon at the Temple of the Covenant on West 180th Street in New York.
1936: “We Went to College” a comedy produced by Harry Rapf who co-authored the script along with Richard Maibaum was released in the United States today.
1936: Leopold S. Amery, the former Colonial Secretary told the House, “nothing could be more cruel than the position in which the German Jews are placed today.”
1936: This evening in New York Georg Bernhard, the German editor-in-chief of the Pariser Tageseitung who has been living in exile in Paris since Hitler came to power “gave a farewell address on “A World Jewish Question” in which he said that world was no longer interested in the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis” and that “consequently, the entire German Jewry is now exposed to torture and slavery.”
1936: Earl Winterton, former Under-Secretary for India told the House of Commons that he “thought the Jews had ‘behaved admirably on the whole’ and complimented them for what they had done in Palestine” adding that he loathed “the manner in which they have been treated in a certain country of Europe.”
1936: As Arab violence continues to sweep across Palestine, The Palestine Post reported that one Jew was killed and several deafened and injured by a primitive bomb which was thrown into a bus in Tel Aviv. Avraham Ben-Yehuda, one of the original founders of Atarot, died of injuries sustained when Arab snipers opened fire on a bus in Jerusalem. Trees were cut down and the aerodrome damaged at Lydda. The Jerusalem water pipe was damaged by a dynamite charge. Two Arabs injured themselves seriously while trying to blow up a road culvert near Nablus.
1938: On the 22nd anniversary of the Battle of Verdun, “1,000 Jewish and non-Jewish veterans including General Andre Weller,” attending the “unveiling of a monument at Doumont”, honoring “6,500 French Jews and 2,000 Americans and British Jews of the Foreign Legion who fell in the war” heard “Deputy Caesar Campinchi, speaking on behalf of the French Government” condemning persecution and advising “Jews to remember history, to be patient and not to despair.
1939: The Mizrachi Women's Organization opened its first independent meeting in Atlantic City. Although it was the group's fourteenth annual meeting, it was the first conducted separately from a men's organization. Now the largest religious Zionist organization in the United States (under the name AMIT), the organization owes its creation to Freda Resnikoff.
1939: Governor Lehman addressed the delegates attending the convention of the Independent Order of B’rith Abraham in Convention Hall at Saratoga Springs, NY.
1939:In Palestine, eighteen Arabs--nine men, six women and three children-- were killed and twenty-four wounded by the explosion of a time bomb. In replying to accusations by the British that Jews were responsible for the violence, “Jewish communal leaders condemned the ‘dastardly murder of innocent Arabs, women and children.’”
1940(13th of Sivan, 5700):Zalman David Levontin passed away. Born in 1856, he was one of the first of the Hovevei Zion group and one of the founders of Rishon LeZion and Yesod Hamaaleh. In 1903, Levontin founded the Anglo Palestine Bank in Jaffa and acted as its manager until 1924.
1941: Today, the residents of Metulla, “a Jewish agricultural community” were recovering from the destruction from the French artillery attacks launched from Merdjayoun.” (It is assumed that these French forces were under the control of Vichy which shows to what extent the Petain, et al would go to serve their fellow fascists.”
1941: Rabbi Leo Jung, a Professor of Ethics, presided over “special services” marking the “150th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill Rights” which were held today prior to the 10thannual Commencement Exercises at Yeshiva University.
1942(4th of Tammuz, 5702): Jews revolt at Glebokie, Belorussia; 2500 are murdered in the Borek Forest.
1942: The family of famed historian Moses Schorr including his wife, his daughter Felicia and his grandchildren were “interned at Warsaw’s Pawiak Prison as citizens of a neutral state.”
1942: Birthdate of Jack Edward Oliver author of the “Swan Esther,” a 1982 musical based on the Megalith Esther.
1943: Joseph Goebbels announces that Berlin is free of Jews.
1944(28thof Sivan, 5704): Forty-four year old Lilli Jahn “a German-Jewish doctor and victim of the Nazism in Germany who gained international fame posthumously following the publication of her letters to her five children which she wrote during her imprisonment in the labor camp Breitenau after which she was deported to the concentration camp Auschwitz where she was murdered today.
1944: Five hundred Jews were transferred from the death camp of Birkenau to the work camp at Dachau.
1945: Judge Irving Lehman, the brother of former Governor Herman Lehman, delivered the address of welcome at New York City's reception honoring General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who has returned from leading the Allies to victory over the Nazis.
1945: In Birmingham, Alabama, Rosemary (Loftus) and Arthur Samuels Wolff, an aeronautical engineer “from a Jewish background” gave birth to author Tobias Wolff who did not find out his “Jewish connection” until he was an adult.
1948: Panama and Costa Rica (recognized Israel.
1949: In Queens, NY, “Shirley and Arthur Canton, who worked in the film industry on marketing and publicity, e.g. for Lawrence of Arabia” gave birth to movie producer and Hollywood executive Mark Canton
1950: In Toronto, Ruth (née Burstyn), an interior designer, and comedian Frank Shuster gave birth to comedy writer, who during the 1970’s was the wife of Saturday Night Live’s creator Lorne MIchaels
1950: Israel apologized to the Swedish Government today for the assassination of Count Bernadotte, United Nations Mediator for Palestine, by terrorists on Sept. 17, 1948.
1951: For the first time, a Soviet citizen (Jewish) was issued an immigrant visa to Israel. The hoped-for easing of the Russian policy of not letting its citizens out would not materialize for decades to come.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Knesset passed the first reading of a bill empowering the government to sign an agreement with Bank Leumi Le'Israel, nominating the bank as the currency issue bank of Israel.
1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the secretary of the Iraqi Jewish Community Council, Dr. Habasi, was detained by police in Baghdad together with seven other Jews, on charges of hiding "huge quantities of arms." All of the detained previously renounced their Iraqi citizenship and were waiting for emigration to Israel.
1952: The original version of “I've Got a Secret” created by Allan Sherman and produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman premiered tonight.
1952:Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion expressed satisfaction today that the Zionist Organization of America at its convention in New York this week had cleared up the misunderstanding about the right of foreign Zionists to participate in the shaping of Israel's policies.
1952: Birthdate of actress Carol Kane who played Simka on the television show Taxi.
1953: Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who had been convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage, relating to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
1953: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed after having been convicted as spies.
1954: In Flushing, NY, “Hy Pearlman, who ran a dry cleaning business, and Reenie Pearlman, a school lunchroom aide” gave birth to “music executive” Louis Jay "Lou" Pearlman, “the first cousin of Art Garfunkel. (As reported by Liam Stack)
1954: François Mitterrand, the future President of France, was named to serve as Minister of the Interior in the first government head by prime Minister Pierre Mendes France who served as his own Minister of Foreign Affairs.
1954: “Them!” a highly forgettable sci-fic flic whose only claim to fame was that it featured one of the first screen appearances by Leonard Nimoy was released in the United States today.
1957: Saul Rogovin pitched his last major league baseball game.
1959: The U.S. Senate rejects Ike's appointment of Lewis Strauss for Secretary of Commerce. At a time when most Jews were Democrats, Strauss was a Republican. He was part of the liberal, internationalist wing of the party. He had worked with Herbert Hoover on war relief during World War I. Strauss made special efforts to see to that aid from the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee got to the Jews of Europe who were in dire straits. He served in the Navy during World War II and became involved in atomic energy. He was rejected because of his role in dealing with Robert J. Oppenheimer.
1962: In San Fernando, CA, Harry Abdul, a Syrian Jew raised in Brazil and the concert pianist Lorraine M. (née Rykiss), who grew up in one of the two Jewish families in Minnedosa, Manitoba in Canada gave birth to pop star Paula Abdul.
1962(17th of Sivan, 5722): Seventy-nine year old Arnold K. Israeeli the St. Petersburg born and educated lawyer who pursued a career in journalism and business that included serving as “advertising manager for General Motors in South American for five Years and the “director of information for the American Zionist Council” passed away today in Brooklyn.
1963: “PT 109” a war movie about JFK’s days in the South Pacific featuring Norman Fell was released in the United States today.
1964: The United States Senate passed The Civil Rights Bill that would eventually become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This landmark legislation outlawed a variety of forms of discrimination including that based on religion. The bill, which was primarily aimed at ending racial segregation, had support from Jewish groups and Jewish legislators. In the House, the bill was managed by Congressman Cellar who helped bring it to victory in that body.
1965: A novella entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924", the last published work of J.D. Salinger appeared today in The New Yorker magazine
1966(1st of Tammuz, 5726): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1966(1st of Tammuz, 5726): Comedian Ed Wynn passed away. Born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in 1886 in Philadelphia, Wynn’s father was a successful milliner. He did not want his son to go into show business. When the son would not yield, his father asked him to at least change his name so as not to disgrace the family. He decided to split his first name "Edwin" into Ed Wynn. Wynn was a successful comic in vaudeville and the early days of show business. He had his own show, which won an Emmy. He would appear in baggy pants suits pedaling a tricycle fitted with a piano. When his brand of clown-like comedy lost its popular appeal, Wynn followed the advice of his son and turned to acting. He appeared in a wide variety of hits including Marjorie Morningstar, The Diary of Anne Frank and Mary Poppins attesting to his real skill as an actor.
1967: Prime Minister Levi Eshkol announced that "as an interim stage, a military situation will remain in the West Bank."
1967: “In a secret decision, the government of Levi Eshkol offered Syria ‘full peace on the basis of the international border,’ with adjustments for Israeli security needs.”
1967: “The Thomas Crown Affair” an elegant crime movie featuring Jack Weston and Yaphet Kotto and filmed by cinematographer Haskell Wexler was released today in the United States.
1972: “One Is a Lonely Number” directed by Mel Stuart, produced by Stan Margulies, with a script by David Seltzer and co-starring Melvyn Douglas and Jonathan Lippe was released today in the United States.
1973: An attack on the El Al office in Athens was thwarted and the Palestinian terrorist was able to gain his freedom as part of a hostage negotiation conducted by local police.
1974: Seventy-three year old American molecular biologist Alfred Mirsky passed away.
1974: Vladimir Slepak, Anatoly Sharansky, Lev Kogan, Alexander Lunts, Yuli Kosharovsky and Zahar Tesker were among those arrested today in an attempt to silence an Jewish protest that might be planned for the upcoming visit to the Soviet Union by President Nixon.
1977: Funeral services are scheduled to be held today in New York for David Kulock, “the Past President of the Insurance Fund of the Free Sons of Israel.
1977: “A monument to the memory of the late Bella Hoffman” is scheduled to be unveiled today.
1979: Birthdate of Daniel Jonathan Sieradski “a Jewish American writer and activist” who was “the founding publisher and editor-in-chief of Jewschool, a popular left-wing Jewish weblog, as well as the weblogs Radical Torah and Orthodox Anarchist. He is also the creator of the synagogue listings and reviews website ShulShopper.”
1980: In Charleston, SC, the Greek Revival building housing Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue was designated as a National Historic Landmark. For those who think of American Jewry as being a New York or eastern creation, it comes as a surprise that this is the second oldest synagogue building in continuous operation in the United States. Also, when this congregation adopted the Reform minhag in 1824 it became one of the founding forces of the Reform Movement in the United States – something most people connect with Cincinnati, Ohio.
1980: “Rough Cut” directed by Don Siegel, produced by David Merrick and with a screenplay by Larry Gelbart was released in the United States today.
1981: The United States Security Council adopted a resolution condemning Israel’s attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor being built near Baghdad.
1983(8th of Tammuz, 5743): Simcha Erlich, the native of Poland who made Aliyah in 1938 where he became a political ally of Menachem Begin under whom he served as Deputy Prime Minister passed away today.
1984(19th of Sivan, 5744): Abstract expressionist Lee Krasner passed away.
1984(19thof Sivan, 5744) Sixty-three year old, Egyptian anesthesiologist Jack Chalon, the son of William and Helen (Hirsch) Chalon and the husband of Barbara Elizabeth Coombs with whom he had two children – Mary and Jonathan – passed away today.
1987: Ben & Jerry Ice Cream founded by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield announce a new ice cream flavor, “Cherry Garcia.”
1989(16th of Sivan, 5749): Writer and social critic I(sidor) F(einstein) Stone passes away at the age of 81.
1992: In Palermo, the Fifth International Convention of Studies of "Italia Judaica" came to a close.
1993: Philosopher and movie star Bernard-Henri Levy married actress Arielle Bombasle.
1993(30th of Tammuz, 5753): Rosh Chodesh Tammuz
1993(30th of Tammuz, 5753): Seventy-five year old philosopher Abraham Kaplan passed away in Haifa where he had been living since 1972.
1994(10th of Tammuz, 5754): Sheina Chaya, the wife Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and the daughter of Rabbi Aryeh Levin passed away.
1994: The BBC broadcast the final episode of “That’s Life!” a mixture of news and satire featuring Esther Rantzen as Presenter.
1994: The New York Timespublished a review of History of Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprisingby Israel Gutman. "They refused to surrender, preferring instead to fight to the death and thus preserve their honor," Israel Gutman writes in Resistance, his account of the band of starving Jews who fought the Nazis in Poland in April 1943. Mr. Gutman, a Holocaust survivor who teaches modern Jewish history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is the director of the research center at Israel's national Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, intelligently outlines the elements that weakened the Jewish resistance movement in Warsaw. These included not only Nazi air attacks and arson, food and water shortages and the neglect of the Polish underground resistance movement, but also the abandonment of the ghetto by its most prominent political leaders and arguments among the many rival Jewish organizations over a course of action. One wishes that Mr. Gutman had recorded events chronologically rather than switching back and forth in time. One longs for more information about heroes like Mordecai Anielewicz, the brave underground leader who escaped Warsaw but returned to command the uprising, and Yitzhak Zuckerman, the uprising's deputy commander, who survived to write about it. Still, Resistance, which is published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, lucidly illustrates how a few hundred Jewish fighters with Molotov cocktails, homemade grenades and no military training twice forced the Germans to retreat from the ghetto and refused to go like lambs to the slaughter.
1995:The cartoon strip Rhymes With Orange appeared in syndication for the first time. With its debut, twenty-five-year-old cartoonist Hilary Price became the youngest woman ever to have a nationally-syndicated cartoon strip. (JWA)
1995:David Libai begins his term as Minister of Internal Affairs.
1995: Jean-François Copé began his first term as Mayor Meaux.
1996(2nd of Tammuz, 5756): G. David Shine passed away. Roy Cohn, the Chief Counsel, named Shine as investigator for the McCarthy Committee, which was supposedly exposing the Communist Conspiracy during the 1950’s. Shine was drafted and McCarthy claimed the drafting of his investigator was part of the Communist Conspiracy to thwart his efforts. He attacked the U.S. Army for being involved in the Communist Conspiracy. These charges led to the famous Army-McCarthy Hearings, which led to his downfall.
1996(2nd of Tammuz, 5756): Bessie Margolin the Russian born labor attorney who grew up at the Jewish Children’s Home in New Orleans before graduating from Sophie Newcomb College and Tulane Law School passed away today.
1996: The Eldridge Street Synagogue was designated as a National Historic Landmark. Located at 12 Eldridge Street on New York’s lower east side, it was built in 1887 to meet the needs of the growing population of eastern European Jews. As demographics changed, the synagogue fell on hard times in the 1950’s. In the 1980’s restoration projects began which reinvigorate and physically restore the synagogue.
2001(28th of Sivan, 5761): Fifteen year old Yevgeniya Dorfman from Bat Yam died today from the injuries she suffered during the Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.
1998(25th of Sivan, 5758): Eighty-nine year old New York native Dora Goldwater, the daughter of Pauline Meltsner and Joseph Goldwater passed away today in Florida.
2001(28th of Sivan, 5761): Seventy-nine year old Rabbi Bernard Mandelbaum, president from 1966 to 1971 of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the academic and spiritual center of Conservative Judaism, passed away today (As reported by Ari L. Goldman)
2002(9th of Tammuz, 5762): Seven people were killed and 50 injured, three of them critically, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded bus stop and hitchhiking post at the French Hill intersection in northern Jerusalem shortly after 7:00 P.M., as people were returning home from work. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. The victims: Noa Alon, 60, of Ofra; Gal Eisenman, 5, of Ma’ale Adumim; Michal Franklin, 22, of Jerusalem; Tatiana Igelski, 43, of Moldova; Hadassah Jungreis, 20, of Migdal Haemek; Gila Sara Kessler, 19, of Eli; and Shmuel Yerushalmi, 17, of Shilo
2003: In New York, The Israel Fest Foundation proudly presented Academy Award winning director Milos Forman with the 19th Israel Film Festival 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award and Israeli director Dina Zvi Riklis with the 2003 IFF Cinematic Award. The Award Ceremony is followed by the premiere of the hit romantic comedy Wisdom of the Pretzel directed by Ilan Heitner, starring Guy Loel, Osnat Hakim& Yoram Sachs.
2003: Rudy Giuliani led the U.S. delegation to the first Organization for Security and Cooperation conference on anti-Semitism being held in Vienna. The conference came about, in part, because of the strong support from the Bush Administration.
2003(19th of Sivan, 5763): Avner Mordechai, 58, of Moshav Sde Trumot, was killed when a suicide bomber blew up in his grocery on Sde Trumot, south of Beit Shean. The suicide bomber was killed. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.
2005: Seventy-five year old foreign correspondent James Feron, who covered the Six Days War for the New York Times passed away today.
2005: Eric Edelman completes his service as United States Ambassador to Trukey.
2005: The Washington Post reported that meetings had been held over the weekend at Yifat, Israel in which Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres announced that he would seek the top spot in Israel’s government. Despite the fact that he is now 81 and that he has failed to accomplish the goal in four previous attempts. Peres thinks that now is the time for him to finally reach his goal.
2005: The Washington Post reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared from Jerusalem, “that her meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders convinced her that both sides share a commitment to ensuring Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza takes place smoothly and peacefully.” At the end of the same article the Post reported that “Coinciding with Rice’s visit Sunday, Palestinians…attacked Israelis…in the southern Gaza Strip killing one Israeli and wounding two others…The attack was the second major assault on Israeli targets in recent days.” Islamic Jihad and a group affiliated with Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement took credit for the attack. As head of the PLA, Abbas is one of those Palestinian leaders whom Secretary Rice said was committed to a smooth and peaceful Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
2005:The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently release paperback editions of Letters to a Young Lawyer by Alan Dershowitz and Sweet Land Storiesby E.L. Doctorow.
2006: Haaretz reported on the Sderot's municipal council decision to seal off the city's entrance for a 24-hour period in protest of continuing Qassam rocket attacks by Palestinians against the western Negev city. “Sderot is going on strike and no one will enter or leave it," Sderot mayor Eli Moyal said. Kassam attacks have left five dead and dozens wounded over the past months.
2006: In Romania and France, premiere of “Them” a Franco-Romanian horror film starring Michaël Cohen as “Lucas.”
2006: Jerusalem Finding 'Oxygen' In Revival of Creative Arts, published today describes the renaissance of the arts taking place in Jerusalem. The artistic renaissance covers a full spectrum of endeavors and is having a positive influence on the spiritual rejuvenation of the City of David. [Editor’s Note - What is even more amazing, this is article is devoid of the usual “stuff” that permeates almost all reporting on Israel and Jewish culture in the Middle East.]
2006:Israel's ambassador to Germany presented medals of honor on to relatives of five members of the first "European Union" - an anti-Nazi resistance group whose members hid and fed Jews during World War Two. This European Union, which had the same name but nothing to do with the modern 25-nation bloc of European countries, was an underground, Marxist-oriented group with around 50 to 60 German members, according to a protocol prepared by Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.
2006: Carol Vogel described the history of Gustav Klimt’s Adele Bloch-Bauer I in “Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt Portrait.”
2007(3rdof Tammuz, 5767):Seventy four year old Zeev Schiff, the dean of Israeli military correspondents, defense editor of the newspaper Haaretz and author of numerous books, died today in Tel Aviv.
2007: The second annual Jerusalem Jazz Festival opens in Israel’s capital city.
2007(3rdof Tammuz, 5767): Yahrzeit for the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.
2007: Rachel Elizabeth Levin, daughter of Michelle and Michael Levin, sister of Jacob Levin, arrives in Lubbock, Texas.
2008: Hazak Week of Study comes to an end.
2008: At Temple Chai in Long Grove, Illinois, Israeli author Eva Etzioni-Halevy speaks about her latest biblical novel, “The Triumph of Deborah.”
2008:More than 100 Israeli political and cultural leaders from across the political spectrum have signed a petition to Yad Vashem that they present to Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev urging the Holocaust museum to add material about the Holocaust rescue activists known as the Bergson Group to its exhibits. “The Bergson Group was a maverick activist group in the US in the 1940s, led by Peter Bergson, also known as Hillel Kook that raised public awareness of the Holocaust and campaigned for US rescue action to save European Jewry during World War II. At the time, mainstream American Jewish leaders viewed the organization as being too forthright in its criticism of the Roosevelt administration's failure to rescue Jewish refugees. However, in recent years most Jewish leaders have come to recognize the group's contribution to the belated rescue effort. The Bergson Group is credited with helping to persuade the US president in 1944 to establish the War Refugee Board, which ultimately saved 200,000 Jewish lives - including future Congressman Tom Lantos, who passed away earlier this year. Despite opposition from mainstream US Jewish leaders, the group actively campaigned to save the doomed Jews of Europe through theatrical pageants, lobbying on Capitol Hill, the placement of more than 200 newspaper advertisements, and a march in Washington by 400 rabbis, which the Wyman Institute said was the only rally for rescue held in the nation's capital during the Holocaust.”
2008:The agreement for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip is to go into effect at 6 A.M.
2008: The United Nations’ Children Fund (UNICEF) swore off any relationship with Israeli diamond mogul, Lev Leviev because of his construction of settlements on the West Bank.
2009:Police officers, Holocaust survivors and employees of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum gathered at the Ebenezer AME Church on Allentown Road in Fort Washington today for the funeral services for security officer Stephen T. Johns who was slain last week in an attack at the popular Washington museum. The funeral began about 11 a.m. but the first mourners got to the church around 7:30. Johns's bronze coffin arrived at the church in a white hearse and was carried in by an honor guard of officers from the Metropolitan Police Department and the Smithsonian Museum. At 9 a.m. mourners were allowed in to view the body, walking up to two security guards posted on both sides of the open casket. Leading the mourners were Johns's fellow security officers from Wackenhut security firm. Several officers saluted the casket as they walked by. Johns was dressed in a cream linen suit, a toy butterfly on the pillow next to him. A recording of local recording artist Jeff Majors's "Psalm 23" was played as mourners streamed in to view the body. Police officers from a variety of law enforcement agencies were present. Assistant D.C. Assistant Police Chief Alfred Durham and Joseph Persichini, head of the FBI's Washington field office, led a platoon of police officials into the church. Durham praised Johns's sacrifice saying he "laid down his life to protect something. it means a lot to all of us." Persichini, after walking past Johns's casket, talked about the special bond among all who wear law enforcement uniforms and said that extends to "the response to the shooting incident and now the investigation being done and conducted jointly." Evelyn Gambell, 67, did not know Johns but left her Bladensburg home at 5:30 to come to the church pay her respects. "This touched my heart. I had to come," Gambell said. "We live in a cruel world, but I believe he's resting in the arms of the Lord." Several sections within the 3,000 seat sanctuary were reserved. One section was for Holocaust survivors who came to the funeral. Nesse Godin, 81, a Holocaust survivor who volunteers at the museum, said Johns and the other officers would greet them with a kiss on the cheek and a hug each morning when she arrived."He was a wonderful man," she said. About 9:30 a.m. a caravan of buses rolled up to the church, carrying several hundred staff members from the Holocaust Museum. Johns was working as a security guard last week at the museum when white supremacist James W. von Brunn, 88, allegedly walked in with a rifle and fatally shot Johns after the officer opened the door for him, authorities say. Von Brunn was charged with killing while in possession of a firearm in a federal facility. He remains in a hospital with gunshot wounds from another officer. The Holocaust Museum will be closed until 3 p.m. to allow employees and volunteers to attend the services. Museum officials set up a memorial fund for the Johns family. To make an online contribution, go to the Johns Family Fund at http://www.ushmm.org. Checks payable to the Johns Family Fund may be mailed to the museum at 100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl. SW, Washington, D.C. 20024. Contributions can also be made by calling 877-918-7466.
2009: The funeral for Seymour “Sy” Brody author of Jewish Heroes of America and Jewish Heroes and Heroines in America is scheduled to take place today at Morris Plains, NJ.
2009: As her Bat Mitzvah weekend begins, Rachel Maikon helps to lead Friday evening services at Temple Judah in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
2010: The Jewish National Fund is scheduled to host Shabbat in the Park at New York’s Central Park Zoo.
2010:In a unique way to say farewell to Shabbat, a pre-camp Havdallah and swim party for campers and their families is scheduled to be held at the 14th Street Y in New York City.
2011: “The People in the Picture” by Iris Rainer Dart has its final showing at the Round About Theatre.
2011: In San Diego, CA, The Used Book Sale to benefit the Samuel & Rebecca Astor Judaica Library is scheduled to come to a close.
2011: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish author and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture” by David Mamet and “House of Exile: The Lives and Times of Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kroeger-Mann” by Evelyn Juers
2011: Elbit, with headquarters in Haifa, announced that its subsidiary Elisra Electronic Systems Ltd. was awarded a contract valued at approximately €5 million to supply hundreds of units of its AN/PRC-684 Personal Locator Beacon to the French Ministry of Defense, equipping the French Air Force, Army, Navy and DGA (Direction Générale de l'Armement).
2011(17th of Sivan, 5771): Centenarian plus 2, Charlotte Bloomberg, the mother of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg passed away.
2011(17th of Sivan, 5771): Ninety year old Don Diamond passed away. For those who watched television in the 1950’s and 1960’s, they saw him in many episodes of F-Troop and Zorro as well as later series as “Newhart,” “L.A. Law,” “MacGyver,” “Dallas” and “Dynasty,” “Lou Grant,” “Chico and the Man” and “The Streets of San Francisco”
2011(17th of Sivan, 5771): Ninety-year old Holocaust survivor Samuil Manski passed away. Manski credited his survival to a transit visa issued to him by a Japanese diplomat name Chiune Sughira who risked his career by acting against the orders of his country. At the time of his death, Manski was working to Sughira recognized as a Righteous Gentile.
2012: “When Israel Went Out,” a film that retraces the danger-filled route traveled by the Falasha during the 1980’s is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan.
2012: Dr. Anthony Grenville, author of ‘Jewish Refugees from Germany and Austria in Britain’ and film director Dr. Bea Lewkowicz are scheduled to take part in a Q&A following a screening of “Double Exposure” at the Wiener Library in London.
2012: The National Endowment for the Arts announced that Andy Statman would be awarded a National Heritage Fellowship, the nation's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts
2012:Hamas has launched a barrage of rockets toward southern Israel this afternoon, after months of restraint on behalf of the Gaza rulers. Seven rockets exploded in open areas in Eshkol Regional Council this afternoon, after four rockets were fired at Hof Ashkelon and Sha'ar Hanegev regional councils overnight Monday. More rockets were subsequently fired, but caused no casualties or damage.
2012: “As part of his plans to expand on hardware, today, Steve Ballmer revealed Microsoft's first ever computer device, a tablet called Microsoft Surface at an event held in Hollywood.”
2012:Ta'al MK Ahmed Tibi condemned plans to name a new space center in his north-central Arab village Taybeh after Israel's first and only astronaut, the late Ilan Ramon. In a letter to the Science and Technology Ministy, Tibi said Ramon served in the IAF as a fighter pilot, which could offend the Arab community. Calling the decision "distasteful" and "unjustified," Tibi noted that during Ramon's military service, he attacked civilian targets in Lebanon and participated in the attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor.
2012(29th of Sivan, 5772): Eight-one year old futurist Anthony Weiner passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
2013: In London, the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism scheduled to host the International Consortium for Research on Antisemitism and Racism.
2013: Leo Baeck Institute and Chelsea Music Festival are scheduled to present “From Pompeii to Fingal's Cave - A Mendelssohn Perspective”
2013: “The New Catch Herring Season” is scheduled to begin Russ & Daughters.
2013: Ian Paul Livingston, Baron Livingston of Parkhead, “the fourth generation son of Polish-Lithuanian Jews who arrived in Scotland 120 years ago” “announced that he is leaving BT Group to become the Minister for Trade and Investment in the UK Government.
2013: Friends and family of Rachel Levin celebrate the birthday of the world’s greatest granddaughter.
2013: Four Jewish Israelis were arrested at the Temple Mount today after praying in the Jerusalem compound, considered Judaism’s holiest site.
2013: This morning Palestinians fired a rocket from the Gaza strip toward southern Israel, setting off alarms in the coastal city of Ashkelon and its environs.
2014: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide is scheduled to host “a special creative writing workshop exploring the lives and contributions of refugees in their new country of residence led by facilitator Lynette Craig
2014: “Luis Moses Gomez: Pioneer Merchant in Colonial America” is scheduled to open at the Center for Jewish History
2014: “Magic Men” is scheduled to be shown at the JCC in Manhattan on the last night of the Israel Film Center Festival.
2014: “Charlotte Salomon: Life? Or Theatre?” an exhibition of the works of the 23 year old Jewish from Berlin who ended up in Auschwitz is scheduled to open today at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.
2014: All eyes are on Columbus Ohio for the celebration of the birthday of the amazing Rachel Levin.
2014: “The IDF arrested 30 Hamas men across the West Bank early today, as part of its ongoing large-scale operation to find the three Israeli teenagers – Naftali Frankel, Gil-ad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach — who were kidnapped last week.
2014: U.S. Ambassador to Israel today visited the family of Naftali Frankel, one of three Yeshiva students kidnapped last week to offer the support of the U.S government as well as his own strong personal support.
2014: John Rubinstein, the original Pippin in 1972, replaced Terrence Mann in the role of Charles in Stephen Schwartz’s Tony Award-winning musical “Pippin.”
2014: “Former Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment today and fined half a million shekels ($145,000) for accepting bribes in the Holyland affair.”
2014(21st of Sivan, 5774): Seventy-five year old songwriter Gerry Goffin passed away today. (As reported by William Yardley and Peter Keepnews)
2014(21st of Sivan, 5774): Eighty-six year old Avraham Shalom, the former director of Shin Bet, passed away today
2015: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host “Leavers’ Friday Night Dinner.”
2015(2nd of Tammuz, 5775): “A Palestinian group claiming affiliation with Hamas took responsibility for a cold-blooded terrorist attack” today in which a 25 year old electrical engineering student from Lod Israeli man was killed and a second Israeli was injured.
2015:” WJC President Ronald S. Lauder presented the Helen Mirren with the WJC Recognition Award for her work in the film “Woman in Gold” in which she portrayed Maria Altmann, who fought the Austrian government for years to secure the return of five Gustav Klimt paintings stolen from her Jewish family during World War II.”
2015(2nd of Tammuz, 5775): Ninety year old author James Salter passed away today. (As reported by Helen T. Verongos)
2015: In Columbia, MD, Beth Shalom Congregation is scheduled to host “From Dust to Dust? Shiva and Cremations” in which Rabbi Susan Grossman and Ira Levinson, of Sol Levinson and Brothers Funeral Home tackle such questions as “Why does Judaism prohibit cremation and what do we do when a loved one requests cremation? Can their ashes be buried in a Jewish cemetery? Can we sit shiva?”
2015: In Coralville, Iowa, Agudas Achim is scheduled to host its annual Father’s Day Shabbat “that will include participation of fathers and their sons/daughters in the service, readings about fathers, and an Oneg Shabbat that will have a slide show of fathers…”
2015: “The Jewish Theological Seminary plans to sell a 1455 edition of the Book of Esther from a rare Gutenberg Bible at auction today, the latest sign that the school is grappling with a long-running financial crisis.” (As reported by Josh Nathan-Kazis)
2016(13th of Sivan, 5776): Twenty-seven year old Anton Viktorovich Yelchin, the Russian born American actor best for his playing “Pavel Chekov” in “three Star Trek films” died today in a freak automobile accident.
2016: “The Kind Words” and “Time to Say Goodbye” are scheduled to be shown at the Portland Jewish Film Festival.
2016: “Wounded Land” is scheduled to be shown at the 13th annual Israeli Film Festival in Ottawa, Canada.
2016: “Inheritance is a 2006 documentary film about Monika Hertwig a.k.a. Monika Christiane Knauss, the daughter of Ruth Irene Kalder and Amon Goeth, Commandant of Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp” is scheduled to be shown at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center today.
2016: “Ruth Gruber, Photojournalist” an exhibition at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education is scheduled to come to an end today.
2016: Final performance of “Suddenly, A Knock at the Door” based on stories by Israeli author and filmmaker Etgar Keret at the Theatre for the New City is scheduled to take place this evening.
2016: The New York Times featured books by Jewish authors and or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity and the Unmaking of the American Dream by Chris Lehmann and an interview with A.B. Yehosua.
2017: In London, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Dough.”
2017(25th of Sivan, 5777): Twenty-two year old Otto F. Warmbier, “the University of Virginia honors student” who was released in a coma after spending 17 months in a North Korean prison passed away today.
2017: Steve Eisenberg is scheduled to discuss the weekly Torah Portion followed by an informal “conversation” with Rabbi Mark Wildes in Manhattan.
2018: The Jerusalem Municipality sports department is scheduled to host a class in Kickboxing at the First Station complex
2018: Dr. Dovid Gottlieb, the rabbi who was a Professor of Philosophy at John Hopkins University is scheduled to lecture on “Reason to Believe” this evening at the OU Israel Center in Jerusalem.
2018: In Manchester, UK, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Zuzana: Music is Life” that tells the story of “90-year-old Zuzana Ruzickova survived three concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and decades-long oppression and harassment under the totalitarian regime in her native Czech Republic to become a world-famous harpsichordist and the only musician to ever record all the keyboard works of Bach.”
2018: “Israeli poet Amir Or” is scheduled to visit Bryant Park Reading Room for a celebration of “the publication of his latest collection, Wings, in an English translation by Seth Michelson.”
2018: From Ohio, to Oklahoma, to Iowa friends and family prepare to celebrate Rachel Levin’s natal day.