August 8
117 C.E.: Hadrian named Emperor of the Roman Empire. He is remembered as the man who accepted the limits of the Roman empire, as can be seen by the construction of Hadrian’s Wall in what is today Great Britain. It was designed to keep the barbarians out of the empire and was viewed as the greatest engineering feat of the Roman legions. Hadrian was also seen as a man of culture who a devotee of Greek learning. Jews remember him as the man who brought on Bar Kochba’s Rebellion. At the end of this extended but ultimately failed clash of arms. Hadrian made war on Judaism itself. He sought to build a temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount. He hunted down the Jewish sages and created the list of martyrs some of whom we invoke by name each year on the High Holidays. In Jewish writings he is referred to as “the Wicked or the Evil One.”
1356: The King of Aragon sent his Jewish physician to tend to the wounds of a Muslim who was fighting in the king’s army.
1385: In Rome, the Senate made good on Boniface IX’s promise “to the Jewish physicians Angelo di Manuele and Solomone de Sabalduchio of Perugia” by according the Jewish community of Rome a yearly reduction of 30 florins for the taxes of the two doctors because of the services they had rendered to the city’s poor.
1391: In Barcelona, the citadel where many of the Jews had gone for protection was stormed, by the mob and more than 300 Jews were murdered, among the slain being the only son of Hasdai Crescas.
1488: Makre Dardeke (Teach of Young Children)was published for the first time in Naples Italy, by Joseph Ashkenazi. This Judaic glossary was trilingual: Hebrew, Arabic and Italian. [For more see “A history and guide to Judaic dictionaries and concordances, Volume 3, Part 1” by Shimeon Brisman]
1524: Giles of Viterbo who studied Hebrew with “grammarian Elias Levita” and provided him with sanctuary when war drove him for Padua to Rome today became Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
1541: The Jews of Great Poland were authorized by King Sigismund to elect a chief Rabbi
1588: In the war between England and Spain, the Battle of Gravelines comes to an end. Conventional commentators see it as turning point in history because it marked the end of the Spanish Armada's attempt to invade England. Any defeat suffered by Spain, the land of the Inquisition had to be seen as a plus from the Jewish point of view. More specifically, the end of the Battle of Gravelines meant that the Spanish Armada could not support the landing of Spanish troops in the Netherlands. Part of the mission of the Armada was to provide support for Spanish forces fighting to impose Catholic rule on the Protestant Dutch. The Spanish were determined to bring the Inquisition to the Netherlands to punish the heresy of the Protestants and would of course have doomed the future for the Sephardic Jews who had already settled in Holland or would be settling there. If the Spanish had been successful at Gravelines, the 23 Jews who would sail into New Amsterdam would have found a Catholic government that would have not provided them aid, shelter and a New World in which to settle. It is not too great a stretch to say that a line can be drawn from Drake’s victory over the Armada at Gravelines to the founding of the Jewish Community in America. As we have said many times in our studies in Cedar Rapids, you must understand history to understand Jewish history and seeing history through the Jewish prism is not the same as seeing history in its general form.
1641(2ndof Elul, 5401): Joseph Bueno, the Bordeaux trained doctor of medicine described as “this new Jewish physician” by the French Ambassador E’Presses who was unable to save the life of Prince Maurice of Orange and was the father of Ephraim Bueno passed away today.
1653: Birthdate of Normandy native Jacques Basnage de Deauval, the Protestant minister and author whose works included L'Histoire des Juifs (History of the Jews) which the author said is "a survey of all that pertains to the religion and the history of the Jews since Herod the Great.”
1648: Mehmed IV began his reign as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire during which Safed, the home to numerous Jewish mystics and sages “was destroyed by Arabs” and the Jews of Yemen were banished to Mawza Desert
1654: Jacob Barsimson sailed for New Amsterdam from Holland aboard the Peartree and landed on August 22. Some consider him to be the the first Jewish immigrant to travel to what is now New York City. Other dates have been giving for this sailing. Regardless, the official date of the start of the Jewish community comes later in 1654 when 23 Portuguese Jews landed in New Amsterdam.
1655: The Russians captured Vilna. As part of the peace settlement between Chmielnicki and Czar Alexis, the east bank of the Dnieper became part of the kingdom of Moscow. Jews were once again subject to expulsion and murder.
1670: After Leopold I evicted the Jews from Vienna; he sold the Jewish quarter for 100,000 florins. The Jewish quarter was then renamed Leopoldstadt in his honor. The Synagogue and the Bet Midrash (study hall) were turned into St. Margaret's Church.
1765(21st of Av, 5525): Elkalah Myers Cohen, the first wife of Myer Myers died at the age of thirty, leaving him three sons and two daughters.
1804: Birthdate of Dr. Gedelia Daniel Rudolph Warburg.
1805: Today Hungarian Rabbi Moses Münz “declared that” Aaron Chorin, the author of "'Emeḳ ha-Shaweh"“was to blamed for certain statements in the first part entitled ‘Rosh Amanah’ which were apt to mislead the public” but “reaffirmed that the book contained no heresies.”
1809: A group of 70 people led by the followers of the Vilna Gaon arrived in Eretz Yisrael.
1816: Today “the Austrian Beobachter, a semi-official government newspaper, vigorously attacked Lubeck for having expelled the Jews, without waiting for the action on the Jewish question by the Diet.”(Max J. Kohler)
1817: Frederick VI granted Hartvig Philip Ree “the right to build a sugar refinery at Aarhus.”
1820: Birthdate of composer and conductor Jules Stern the native of Breslau “who established his reputation” when he conducted the first performance of Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah” in 1847.
1821: Herman Hendricks married Abigial Rose Levein at the Great Synagogue today.
1827: Moses ben Abraham HaCohen married Beila bat Menahem Mendel at the Western Synagogue today.
1827: Ralph Solomon married Blumah Simmons today at the Great Synagogue
1829: In Paris, Lucinde Paradol and Léon Halévy the son of the writer and chazzan Élie Halévy gave birth to journalist Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol
1846: Second and concluding day dedicatory services for the Eagle Street Synagogue in Cleveland, Ohio.
1849: Birthdate of Henri Cordier, the native of New Orleans who grew up in France and eventually became President of the Société de Géographie
1850(30th of Av, 5610): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1854: It was reported today that all of the people of Jamaica, regardless of religious persuasion, have responded sympathetically to the plight of the Jews living in Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine. They have raised $2,000 to help alleviate their suffering which includes the effects of a famine brought on by an outbreak of “pestilence” and skyrocketing food prices. The suffering of the Jewish communities is blamed on Czar Nicholas who has prevented the Jews from receiving financial aid usually sent from Russia.
1857: In Fairfield, CT, “railroad tycoon William Henry Osborn and his wife, Virginia Reed Osborn gave birth to Dr. Henry Fairfield Osbron proponent of “biological determination” that was being used to keep Jewish immigrants from entering the United States as could be seen during “the hearings for the emergency immigration law o 1921.
1862: Philadelphia native Henry Arnold began his service with Company F of the 123rd Regiment, a unit that would see action four months later at the Battle of Fredericksburg.
1862: During the Civil War, Philadelphian Michael Baer began serving as a First Lieutenant in Company F of the 123rdRegiment.
1868: Baron James Mayer Rothschild purchased a Chateau for 4.4 million francs. The estate became Château Lafite Rothschild. However, Baron James, died just three months after purchasing Lafite and the estate became the joint property of his three sons: Alphonse, Gustave, and Edmond.
1871: The Court of Special Sessions in New York, Judge Shandley presiding heard an usual case today. Mr. Robert Thomas, a member of the Alanson Methodist Episcopal Church complained that a Jew named Nathan Koyofski was disturbing their Sabbath (Sunday) Services with noise made by his sewing machine. Koyofski lives in a tenement adjoining the building housing the church. Requests from church members that he stop his work had proven fruitless so they were forced to take legal action. Koyofski ‘s lawyer contended that any attempt by the state to dictate which days were for work and which were for worship “would be an infringement of fundamental American principles…” Shandley found Koyofski guilty of violating the law that stated “explicitly that no one should willfully disturb religious worship, of whatever nature it might be…” If anybody disrobed the Jews on Saturday, they would have an equal righ to complain. The Judge suspended the sentence. But he warned Koyofski that if he were brought before him again on a similar charge, he would have to go to jail.
1873: Louis and Lillian (Wolff) Seligsberg gave birth to Alice Lillie Seligsberg a social worker and Zionist who helped to found Hadassah.
1878(9th of Av, 5638):Tish'a B'Av
1879: A major fire has destroyed much of Sarajevo today including the city’s Jewish quarter.
1881(13th of Av, 5641): Just 6 days before his 52nd birthday Jules Moch a Colonel of the 130th Regiment in the French Army, the father of Gaston Moch and the grandfather of Jules S. Moch passed away.
1882: “Discontented Russian Jews” published today provided the reasons for the angry outbursts that had taken place yesterday at the offices of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society. After having been subject to indignities in various European cities as they made their way to the United States, several of the Jews felt betrayed when they found out that they would not be receiving 160 acres and enough financial support to begin life as farmers. At the same time, their lack of language skills has made them feel they will never be able to earn a living and some are so frustrated that they want to return to Russia.
1882: The Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society was reported to be sending groups of Russian immigrants to agricultural communities near Hartford, CT and Vineland, CO on a daily basis. The society is planning on sending 25 men to South Orange, NJ next week so that they can start a new colony.(The unprecedented mass migration of Eastern European Jews was already overwhelming available resources in the first of its four decades)
1883: It was reported today that the dinner provided at the recently held conference of Jewish congregations in Cincinnati was a violation of Jewish dietary laws since included Little Neck clams, soft shell crabs and shrimp salad. In response to reports that some “of the conservative congregations would withdraw from the union,” Rabbi Wise disavowed responsibility for the menu since it was paid for by private individuals who could spend their money as they please. Besides, the rabbi said that “the American Hebrews’ religion does not center in the kitchen or the stomach.”
1883: Anti-Jewish riots broke out in Budapest following the acquittal of Jews charged with the ritual murder of Esther Solymose
1884: It was reported today that “The Woskhod, the Hebrew journal, has received a warning from the authorities for violating the press laws.” (This must be a reference to Voskhod, a monthly founded by Adolph Landau in 1881. http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Voskhod
1885: “The Four Great Moses” published today identifies the leading Jews with that name – Moses of Biblical fame, Moses Ben Maimon (Maimonides), Moses Mendelssohn and Moses Montefiore, who “put into practice the teachings of his three great predecessors…”
1886(7th of Av, 5646): Gedaliah Tiktin the son Solomon Tiktin whom he succeeded as the rabbi in Breslau and who received the Order of the Red Eagle for his services rendered during the Franco-Prussian War passed away today.
1887 A payment of $1, 097.23 was made to Leopold Feiss today by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
1887: A payment of $157.57 was made to A.J. Friedlander to by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
1888(1stof Elul, 5648): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1888: In Harrisburg, PA, “ Julius Kantor, a German orthodox rabbi, and Mary, a Lithuanian, who immigrated to Pennsylvania some years earlier” gave birth to J.R. (Jacob Robert) Kantor , the American psychologist who, while at the University of Chicago married Helen rich with he had one child, “Helen J. Kantor, “the professor at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.”
1888: Birthdate of Austrian native Maurice Moses Maisel, who came to the United States in 1897 after which he moved to Albuquerque, NM where he operated a store.
1889: The funeral of Isaac Phillips is scheduled to take place today at his home in New York City.
1889: The United States Deputy Marshall said that “Simon Baruch, a Spanish Jews accused of stealing approximately $150,000 while in Austria arrived at New York aboard the SS Hammonia.
1890:N.J. Arbeely was appointed to serve as an interpreter at the Barge Office (the major entry point for immigrants in New York) based on his fluency in several foreign languages which includes Hebrew.
1890: A squad of police moved through an a area bounded by Hester, Essex, Division, Orchard and Norfolk streets arresting fifty immigrants, including a number of Jews for violating city ordinances concerning pushcarts, stands and other commercial conveyances that blocked the streets.
1890: The will of the late Alexander Bach was filed for probate today.
1890: Mendel Feldstein saw two men, one of whom was Jacob Rohnewitch bury$90 worth of jewelry that they had stolen from Israel Simovitch.
1891: Birthdate of German violinist Adolf Busch. Busch was not Jewish. But early on, he saw the dangers of the rise of Hitler and moved to Switzerland. When WW II he moved to the United States where he continued his career until his death in 1952.
1891: “No Swindle Like This One” published today described commercial machinations engineered by Steve Ryan of Atlanta, GA which victimized nearly 400 people most of whom were Jewish merchants from several locations in the United States.
1892: Birthdate of Solomon Bennett Freehof “a prominent Reform rabbi, posek, and scholar. A native of London, he moved to the U.S. in 1903, received a degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1914 and was ordained by Hebrew Union College in 1915. He was a World War I army chaplain, a liturgy professor at HUC, and a rabbi at Chicago's Congregation Kehillath Anshe Maarav before moving to Pittsburgh.”
Rabbi Freehof served as president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Beginning in 1955, he led the CCAR's work on Jewish law through its responsa committee. He also spearheaded changes to Reform liturgy with revisions to the Union Prayer Book. For many years, he served as the pulpit rabbi at Rodef Shalom in Pittsburgh, PA.” According to the congregation, "For more than 35 years, Dr. Freehof's weekly book review series attracted audiences of more than 1,500 Christians and Jews." He retired in 1966 and passed away in 1990. He was a descendant of the Alter Rebbe.
1893: Reverend Herman P. Faust of the Hebrew Christian Mission accused the United Hebrew Charities of refusing to give needy Jews. He specifically cited the case of Joseph Korman, a Russian Jew whom he said had been denied aid and when he died it was left to his group to pay for the burial and provided for his widow and orphans (more to come tomorrow)
1895: Birthdate of Annie Stein Lazarus, the wife of Sam Lazarus with whom she had
five children – Jacob, Leon, Frances, Ralph and Irwin – before passing away in 1970 and being buried in the Valdosta, Georgia.
1897: “From Cactus Aristocracy” published today described society in Los Angeles where “the big fortunes are held …by three classes: “the native ranch interest;” “the lumber dealers;” and “the Jews.” “The Jews…are socially conspicuous but less obtrusive than either of the other two.”
1897: It was reported today that Herr von Diest’s pamphlet that accuses Bismarck of “gaining wealth by questionable methods” will delight the anti-Semites because of its attacks on the Rothschilds and Gerson von Bleichröder, the Jewish banker who handled financial matters for the Chancellor and Prussia.
1898(20th of Av, 5658) Sixty-seven year old Adolph Sutro, the first Jewish mayor of San Francisco who made his fortune in the Comstock Lode passed away today.
1899 Israel Zangwill is scheduled to return to New York today after visiting with Judge Meyer Sulzberger in Philadelphia.
1899: Three days after she had passed away, Anna Hendelah Waley, the daughter of Phillip Joseph Salomons and Cecilia Salomons and the wife of Simon Waley was buried today at the Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery today.
1899: Funeral services for Myer Stern were held in the Temple Emanu-El today forenoon, and many men prominent in business and fraternal circles were present. Rabbi Gustav Gottheil and his assistant, Dr. Joseph Silverman, officiated. In an earnest eulogy Rabbi Gottheil spoke of Mr. Stern's philanthropic character, and of his activities in various organizations. In his brief eulogy Rabbi Silverman said “Myer Stern made the world better for being here. He catered neither to the great nor the strong but follolowed where the principles of truth, right and justice led.” Mr. Stern was the author of The Rise and Progress of Reform Judaism : Embracing a History Made from the Offical Records of Temple Emanu-El of New York, with a Description of Salem.
1900: In Dresden, Rosa Philippine (née Blum) and Ignatz Siodmak gave birth to German American director Robert Siodmak.
1900: Birthdate of composer and conductor Victor Young, the native of Chicago who has “received 22 Academy Award nominations.”
1902: In Yelisavetgrad, Russian Empire, “Max Corash, a Jewish doctor facing conscription into the Russian Army” and his wife gave birth to Goldie Corash who married American real estate developer David Michelson and gained fame as supercentenarian Goldie Michelson
1903: Dorothy Levitt drove the Napier motor-boat at Cowes and won the race.
1903: Morris Rosenfeld recited an original poem and A.D. Savage spoke about “Zionism from the Christian point of at today’s celebration of the 25thanniversary of the founding of Peta Tikva hostedby the CCNY Students’ Zionist Society.
1905: In Ashland, VA, Martha and William E. Dodd, FDR’s first Ambassador to Nazi Germany gave birth to William Dodd, Jr. The younger Dodd accompanied his father to the posting in Berlin and became an ardent anti-Fascist at a time when famous Americans like Lindbergh were cozying up to Hitler. Unfortunately, like many of his political persuasion he became a victim of the Right Wing Ant-Communist this college professor with a PhD ended his days as a clerk at Macy’s. Whatever their views before they came to Berlin Ambassador Dodd and both of his children saw the danger of the Nazis and tried to warn America about it.
1908: Birthdate of Arthur J. Goldberg. Son of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, Goldberg became a labor lawyer who championed the rights of the workers. President Kennedy appointed him as Secretary of Labor in 1961. In 1962, Kennedy named him as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court to succeed Felix Frankfurter. Goldberg resigned to service as Ambassador to the United Nations under President Johnson. Johnson named Abe Fortas to replace Goldberg on the High Court. Goldberg passed away in 1990.
1909: First Jewish community organization is founded in Santiago, Chile – Sociedad Unon Israelita de Chile. At the same in Argentinia, a group of Jewish students founded Juventud Israelita Argentina which produce a journal entitled Juventud, which became a favorite among Argentinian Jewish intellectuals.
1910: In the Bronx, “Rebecca (née Saperstein), a Romanian Jew, and Victor Kosow, a Russian Jewish immigrant who worked as a clothing salesman” gave birth to Sylvia Kosow who as the actress Sylvia Sidney Sydney arrived in Hollywood after playing leading roles on Broadway just as the talkie era began. She quickly became one of Paramount's top women stars along with Marlene Dietrich, Miriam Hopkins and Claudette Colbert. In the 1950’s her career seemed to come to an end. However, she gained fame toward the end of her life playing in the television comedy “WKRP” and the film Bettlejuice. She passed away at the age of 88.
1910: Birthdate of Harry A. Pearson, a graduate of Cooper Union and NYU who went on to become director of research at Sonotone Corporation.
1911: During the 62nd Congress Public Law 62-5 sets the number of representatives in the United States House of Representatives at 435. There were 5 Jews serving in the House during the 62nd Congress including, Jefferson Levy, Julius Kahn, Victor Berg, Henry Goldfogle, Adolph Sabath. By contrast, the 111th Congress (the session meeting in 2010) there were 31 Jews serving in the House of Representatives; 30 Democrats and one Republican.
1911: Moses Gaster, the Romanian born Jewish scholar who was Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic communities in England, wrote a letter to the Board of Deputies (the governing body of the British Jewish Community) protesting the wording of an amendment introduced into the Slaughter of Animals Bill before Parliament at the insistence of the Board.
1912: In Brooklyn, Helen Chugerman and attorney Samuel Chugerman gave birth to Daniel Chugerman who gained fame as director Daniel Mann, the father-in-law of Harold Ramis of “Ghostbusters” fame.
1913(5thof Av, 5673): Fifty year old Solomon H. Bauer, the Polish born rabbi who moved to Jerusalem in 1885 with “his son-in-law, Rabbi Chaim Eliezer Waks” where he “turned private homes in a residential religious college” and “cultivated Etrog orchards near Tibeiras” before finally settling in the United States where he led three Chicago Congregations ‘--Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation, Moses Montefiore Congregation and Anshe Emet – passed away today.
1914(16thof Av, 5674): Parashat Vaetchanan and Shabbat Nachamu
1914: During WW I, the Germans returned to Kalisz, a city which during the inter-war period had a population that was almost thirty per cent Jewish, and took and shot 100 hostages.
1914: German industrialist Walter Rathenau went to see the Head of the General War Department in Berlin to offer his support to the war effort. “Rathenau proposed to ‘save Germany from strangulation’, and with a few days was put in charge of a specially created War Raw Materials Department.” His job was to keep Germany in the war. But because he was a civilian and a Jew he was faced with constant hostility from the German General Staff.
1915: According to reports published today German correspondents describe German troops as being welcomed to Warsaw as liberators by crowds in the streets “filled with Poles, Jews, Germans and Russians.”
1915: After having failed in the attack on Hill 970 during the Gallipoli Campaign, troops under the command of Sir John Monash unsuccessfully attacked Hill 60 after which they were withdrawn to Lemnos.
1915: A Conference of Jewish representatives from 110 organizations took place today at the Educational Alliance Building in New York where plans were made to raise additional funds for Jews trapped on the Eastern Front which includes 600,000 of their co-religionists.
1915: “A group of secular, Yiddish-speaking socialists formed a third committee, the People's Relief Committee (PRC), whose officers were Meyer London, chairman, and Isaac Goldberg, treasurer. The Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) accepted the PRC as its third constituent member and limited the organization's activities to house to house collections from the non-Orthodox Jewish community.
1916(9thof Av, 5676): Tish’a B’Av
1916: It was reported today that in his sermon marking the start of the Tish’a B’Av observance Rabbi Mendes told the congregants at Shearith Israel that “it was particularly sorrowful to the Jews at this time to know that their co-religionists were fighting against one another under every banner in Europe” and that “in the heart of every Jew there was the hope that after the struggle (WW I) justice would be done to his race.”
1917: Birthdate of scriptwriter Malvin Wald who was responsible for the gritty film noir “The Naked City” starring Kirk Douglas
1917: During WW I, “representatives of several national Jewish organization met in Washington today and formed the Jewish Board for Welfare Relief Work in the United States Army and Navy” which will provide services “for the benefit of the 50,000 or more Jewish youths who will be among the first American fighting forces sent to war’ similar to those provided by the YMCA for non-Jewish military personnel.
1918(30thof Av, 5678): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1918: Australian troops under General John Monash spear headed the successful attack of the British army at the Battle of Amiens. Amiens was the opening round in the great allied offensive that would force the surrender of the German Army. Monash’s key role would be recognized when he was Knight Commandeer of the Order of the Bath by King George V.
1919: Birthdate of Murrey Marder, the crusading journalist who was the first to expose the tissues of lies created by Joe McCarthy during the Anti-Communist witch hunt – a smear campaign that the Right continues to in the second decade of the 21st century.
1920: Birthdate of Bernard Schoenbaum, the son of Jewish immigrants, “who in hundreds of cartoons in The New Yorker needled the relatively affluent, the media-conscious, the irony-besotted and the socially competitive.”
1920: Establishment of Gdud HaAvoda VeHaHaganah al shem Yosef Trumpeldor a “socialist Zionist work group also known as Gdud Ha’Avoda that its name from Joseph Trumpeldor, the one-armed Russian soldier who died defend Tel Hai from attacks from the Arabs.
1921: In Manhattan actress Lillian Bonner and movie producer Ephraim Asher gave birth to “William Asher, a producer, director and screenwriter in the early days of television who directed some two dozen shows — most notably “Bewitched,” which starred his wife, Elizabeth Montgomery, and more than 100 episodes of “I Love Lucy” (As reported by Denise Grady)
1922: Birthdate of Gertrude Himmelfarb, the native of Brooklyn who gained fame as Bea Kristol, the husband of Irving Kristol and mother of William Kristol who has made her career as an intellectual historian and has perhaps made her larger mark on the world as a conservative public intellectual.
“Raised in Brooklyn, Himmelfarb earned her B.A. from Brooklyn College before studying at the University of Chicago. At Chicago, beginning in 1942, she studied with a group of predominantly Jewish, immigrant, and conservative thinkers who were in the process of reformulating Western political thought. Their approach to history and politics profoundly shaped Himmelfarb's own thinking. She earned her Ph.D. in history in 1950, and later published her dissertation, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (1952). Beginning with that dissertation, which focused on a Victorian-era British parliamentarian, Himmelfarb has devoted her scholarly career to studying the Victorians on both sides of the Atlantic. As she wrote about Acton, she consistently found the Victorian era to be "highly relevant for the post World War II world." In most of her writings, she has advanced the argument that a modern decline in emphasis on personal morality is at the root of political and social problems of the late twentieth (and early twenty-first) century. The Idea of Poverty: England in the Early Industrial Age (1984) favorably examined Victorian treatment of the poor, while Marriage and Morals Among the Victorians (1986) and Poverty and Compassion: The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians (1991) both described Victorian dedication to traditional social mores as superior to the "value-free" relativism that succeeded it. Himmelfarb believed that the past was superior to the present and she extended this belief to her assessment of historical methodology. When she joined the faculty of the City University of New York in 1965, the "new social history," which emphasized the experiences of "ordinary" people over the traditional political narrative, was just taking hold. The "new social history" also emphasized quantitative methods and borrowed heavily from psychology, sociology, and Marxism. Himmelfarb condemned all of these innovations, arguing that they "belittle[d] the will ... and freedom of individuals." Later, she was equally harsh in her critique of postmodernism and multiculturalism in history.More recently, Himmelfarb has turned her pen more directly to the travails of modern society. In two books, The De-Moralization of Society(1995) and One Nation, Two Cultures (1999), she argues that a lack of moral courage is at the root of modern social ills. In the earlier volume, she contrasts modern America to the Victorian age and argues that reinstating social stigmas on out-of-wedlock births and welfare recipients, for example, could help to eliminate dependency and illegitimacy. In the later volume, she argues that the counterculture of the 1960s represented a break with a long-standing earlier social system, and that what she regards as modern social pathology (premarital sex, confessional memoirs, profanity, divorce) has its roots in that break. Her most recent book is The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments (2004). Although a New York Times reviewer called One Nation, Two Cultures"not convincing," Himmelfarb has received significant recognition for her work. She has won fellowships from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and Wilson foundations, and ten honorary degrees. In addition, through essays in Public Interest, Commentary, the Times Literary Supplement, and the New York Times, she has reached a public well beyond the academy. A 1999 New York Times essay on "compassionate conservatism," for example, showcases her voice as an influential conservative public intellectual. Himmelfarb's neoconservative identity is bolstered by her personal connections to husband Irving Kristol, editor for forty years of the journal The Public Interest, and son William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard. Himmelfarb is currently a professor emeritus at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.”
.1922: In Vienna, Siegmund Gernreich and Elisabeth (née Müller) Gernreich gave birth to Rudi Gernreich, a designer of American fashions for women who created and/or popularized such then daring items as the miniskirt and the topless bathing suit.
1922: Birthdate of Dr. Leon Eisenberg, who “conducted some of the first rigorous studies of autism, attention deficit disorder and learning delays and became a prominent advocate for children struggling with disabilities.” (As reported by Benedict Carey)
1923: Samuel J. Bloomingdale, the President of Bloomingdale Bros. hosted a luncheon at his office today during which Francis Leffler announced the completion of plans to raise funds from the manufacturers in the house furnishing trades that will help erase the $500,000 deficit in the budget of the New York Federation that supports the Jewish Philanthropic Societies. (As reported by JTA)
1924: In Bălți, Simon Greenberg and his wife gave birth to Lia Greenberg whose parents sent her to Palestine in 1940 where gained famed as Lia van Leer “the founder of the Haifa Cinematheque, the Jerusalem Cinematheque, the Israel Film Archive and the Jerusalem Film Festival.”
1924
1924:Plutario Elias Calles, President-elect of Mexico, spent a few hours in Atlantic City today for the so he could meet with Jewish labor leader Samuel Gompers and the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, which is in session here at the Ambassador Hotel.
1925: In one of their largest rallies ever, 40,000 Ku Klux Klansmen marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. The Klansmen marched in full hooded regalia and were watched by adoring throngs. The Klan was not just a Southern organization. Large groups could be found in such Mid-Western states as Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. The Klan was anti-Semitic as well as anti-Catholic and opposed to all non-Caucasian races including African-Americans. Memories of this march help to explain the timidity of the Jews in the 1930’s when it came to pressing the case for opening the doors to refugees from Nazi Europe.
1925: In Manhattan, Michael Goldman, “a native of Dublin” and “the former Rebecca Perlman” both of whom were lawyers gave birth to Arnold Perlman Gold, the Texas Longhorn undergrad and “pediatric neurologist who, along with his wife Sandra was a leading proponent of “an empathetic bedside manner.” (As reported by Richard Sandomir)
1926: Hundreds of residents of the Jewish quarter of Paris assembled at the Garenord station at 11 o'clock tonight to greet the poet Chaim Nachman Bialiak with shouts of "Heidad!", and the singing of Hatikvah on his visit to the French capital after “the conclusion of the Zionist Actions Committee in London.” (JTA)
1928
1929: Heinrich Himmler and his wife gave birth Gudrun Margarete Elfriede Emma Anna Himmler, their only biological child” who was loyal to her father up until the moment of her death in 2018.
1928(22ndof Av, 5688): Seventy-four year old Alfred S. Brandeis, the son of Adolph and Fredericka Brandeis, the husband of Jennie Brandeis and the brother of Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court passed away today.
1929: “On the ground that Alfred Dreyfus, a writer and sculptor, has been committed to a sanitarium as insane although he is of sound mind, an application was made” today “to Supreme Court Justice Frankenthaler for an order directing that the question of his sanity be determined by a jury. Dreyfus had been committed to a mental institution more than a year ago by his brother Walter Ludwig Drefyus.
1931: Birthdate of Joshua Matza Israeli political figure and “president and CEO of State of Israel Bonds, a global enterprise that generates more than $1 billion in annual sales. Israel utilizes the funds for economic development projects. Matza was recommended for the post in 2002 by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and then-Finance Minister Silvan Shalom. Matza served 18 years in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, as a member of the Likud party. He was a cabinet minister in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, holding the portfolio of minister of health. Matza also served 20 years on the Jerusalem City Council, 10 of which were in the capacity of deputy mayor.”
1931: The Arab National Association adopts a resolution indicating that the Arabs do not intend to obey the government's orders to cease agitation against sealed armories and will continue to defy the British government in Palestine.
1933: Dr. Daniel Mulvihill, a New Yorker visiting Berlin “was assaulted by a German citizen…apparently because he had failed ‘to salute a Nazi detachment.’”
1933: The police and the Aeronautics Board of the Department Commerce began an investigation today into reports that a an unidentified plane had, for the last two days, been dropping German language pamphlets on a meeting of the United Singers Society protesting the exclusion of the Friends of the New German from its activities. The Friends of Germany is pro-Nazi while the United Singers Society is a conservative German organization that does not support the Nazis. The investigation was begun at the behest of Albert F. Frosh, president of the United Singers Society.
1933: In Czernowitz, Romania, the Maccabee sports organization submits a claim for 100,000 lei as compensation for cancelling the Maccabiade, international meet of Jewish athletes, forbidden by Rumanian Government, owing to fears that Lord Melchett, head of Maccabee World Union, would be molested by anti-Semites. Lord Melchett was Sir Alfred Moritz Mond, the son of Ludwig Mond. He was a leading British businessman, politician and supporter of Zionism.
1933: The German Government announced that those East European Jews who will be deprived of their citizenship in accordance with a recent decree will be given the status of Staatenlose (men without citizenship in any country); this explanation is accompanied by estimates that 10,300 East-European Jews had been naturalized in Prussia alone since 1922.
1933: The All-German Richard Wagner Association, meeting at Beiruth to arrange for the Wagner Festival, decides to amend its by-laws so as to exclude all "non-Aryans," and to instruct its branches throughout Germany to expel Jewish members. It was actions like this that created the myth that Wagner, who was dead by now, was an anti-Semite.
1933: In Regina, the Jewish Colonization Association prepares statistics for the World's Grain Exhibition and Conference which show that 557,000 Jews in eight countries engage in agriculture and cultivate 5,410,750 acres of land, and that the Jewish farmers in Canada raise 500,000 bushels of wheat annually. The family of Ekiel Bronfman was one of those Jewish families who did not succeed in its agricultural endeavors. Thanks to Ekiel’s son Sam, they found another way to make money from grain besides growing it
1933: In Germany, The Ministry of Labor issues an ordinance which provides that no Jewish physician is to remain associated with any sick benefit association, with the exception of front-line war veterans, and establishes an official list of sick fund doctors, from which all Jews are excluded.
1935 (9th of Av): Yiddish poetess Rivka Galin passed away
1935: “Following complaints from Dr. Schacht plus reports on the public disagreement with the wave of anti-Semitic violence, Hitler ordered a stop to "individual actions" against German Jews today.”
1936: The World Jewish Congress was convened in Geneva. Stephen Wise and Nahum Goldman founded the Congress. Although they organized a boycott of German goods, they felt that a more direct approach would prompt the Nazis "to even harsher policies."
1936: “Girls’ Dormitory” starring French born actress Simone Simon whose Jewish father would die in a WW II concentration camp was distributed in the United States today by 20th Century Fox.
1937(1stof Elul, 5697): Rosh Chodesh Elul
1937(1stof Elul, 5697): Sixty-four year old Theodore A. Peyser the native of Charleston, West Virginia, passed away today while representing New York’s 17thcongressional district.
1937: As the debate over the Peel Commission Report continued Rabbi Dr. Stephen Wise, president of the Zionist Organization of America, assailed the partition plan as abandonment of trust, but his rejection did not oppose the very idea of the creation of a Jewish state. He said that Great Britain cannot say that it failed as a trustee. It failed to try and, if the whole truth be told, it has tried to fail. David Ben-Gurion refused even to consider the notion that Jews might ever remain a minority in their homeland. He wanted Eretz Yisrael to provide the solution to the entire Jewish problem. Ben-Gurion held that the Jewish state should be proclaimed immediately, as an alternative to the Peel Commission's partition. This will accelerate the country's development and Jews will become a powerful factor in Palestine. He firmly believed that Jews and Arabs can live in peace. A decade later Ben-Gurion would take an opposite stance and embrace partition with Jerusalem as an international city. Ben-Gurion was a Zionist. He was also a realist and statesman.
1937: In Los Angeles, Lillian (née Gold) and prop supervisor Harry Hoffman gave birth to their second son Dustin Hoffman, the younger brother of attorney and economist Ronald Hoffman.
1938: Sir Harold Alfred MacMichael, the High Commissioner of Trans-Jordan and Commander in Chief of Palestine issued an appeal for an end to the “ruinous campaign of murder and sabotage.
1938: An Italian newspaper, the Tevere, printed an attack on the Jewish historian Emil Ludwig. The attack on Ludwig was triggered by comments about “the race problem” made by Mussolini “in 1932 that are included in his book, Conversations With Mussolini that are in sharp contrast with the views now expressed by the Fascist dictator who has allied himself with Hitler.
1938: Hadassah headquarters in the United States received a cable from the Youth Aliyah offices in Berlin stating that fifty seven Jewish boys and girls fleeing Germany and Austria had arrived in Palestine and that another 110 young Jewish refugees embarked today for the trip to Palestine.
1938: The Nazis opened the Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration camp.
1940: Today, when Hermann Goering instructed the German Air Force to commence Operation Adler “he informed his subordinates that ‘within a short period you will wipe the British Air Force from the sky.”
(Editor’s Note – if he been correct, the Holocaust would have come to the British Isles and who knows where else. And all of the “smart people:” including Lindbergh and Joe Kennedy, the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James” thought Goering would have his airborne victory.)
1941: Neilma Myer, the daughter of Australian businessman and philanthropist Sidney Myer, became Neilma Gantner when she married Vallejo Gantner in Melbourne.
1941: In Hungary, enactment of The "Third Jewish Law" which prohibited intermarriage and penalized sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews.
1941: Georges Mandel, the Franco-Jewish journalist who became a leader of the Resistance and whom Winston Churchill “was believed to have preferred as a leader of the Free French” instead of DeGaulle was arrested “on the orders of Pierre Laval the Prime Minister of the fascist, anti-Semitic Vichy government.
1941: Corporal Hank Greenberg, the all-star baseball player now serving with the U.S. Army is placed in charge of a five man anti-tank crew.
1942: Gerhart Mortiz Riegner sent the “Riegner Telegram” describing plans for the Final Solution to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the President of the World Jewish Congress. “Have received through foreign office following message from Riegner Geneva STOP Received alarming report that in Fuhrers headquarters plan discussed and under consideration all Jews in countries occupied or controlled Germany number 3½ to 4 million should after deportation and concentration in East at one blow exterminated to resolve once and for all Jewish question in Europe.”
1942: “During World War II, six German saboteurs who secretly entered the United States on a mission to attack its civil infrastructure were executed by the United States for spying” today.
1942: All 2,000 Jews of Szczebrzeszyn refused to gather for a deportation round up. The Germans commenced a search for them. Only 400 were found. They were all killed.
1944: The Frank family and all those who had been hiding with them in attic were taken from their prison cells and sent to the Westerbork Concentration Camp.
1944: After a kangaroo trial in Berlin that was overseen by Goebbels, Hitler hung several of the German officers and other conspirators who tried to kill him. They are hung on meat hooks with chicken wire around their necks. The butchery is filmed and sent to Hitler for review. Over the next several months many more conspirators would be sent to trial.
1944: Seventy-seven year old Gustav Fruend who had been living in Prague before being deported to Terezin was murdered there today.
1944(19th of Av, 5704): Famed expressionist painter Chaim Soutine passed away. Born in Belarus in 1894, Soutine moved to Paris in 1911 where he developed his unique style. He flourished in the inter-war years. However, his good times were not to last after the invasion of France by German troops at the start of World War II. As a Jew, Soutine had to escape from the French capital and hide in order to avoid arrest by the Gestapo. He constantly moved from one place to another and was sometimes forced to seek shelter in forests, sleeping outdoors. Suffering from a stomach ulcer and bleeding badly he had to leave his safe hiding place for Paris in order to undergo emergency surgery, which failed to save his life. Chaim Soutine died of a perforated ulcer just two weeks before the French capital was freed by Allied forces. After his death his vivid colors and passionate handling of paint gained him recognition as one of the foremost Expressionist painters. If Soutine had merely been an Expressionist Painter and not a Jewish Expressionist Painter, he would have probably lived to a ripe old age covered with glory and honors.
1944: Wireless operator Denise Bloch, a French born Jewish secret agent working with the SOE (the British version of the American OSS) was shackled to one of her fellow agents today after having captured by the Nazis and was placed on a train – the first leg of a trip that would end with her execution at Ravensbruck.
1945: First baseman Mike Schemer made his major league debut with the New York Giants.
1947: The Empire Lifeguard which had suffered a hold blown its hole at Haifa while transporting Jewish DPs was “refloated today and towed to Port Said” for repairts.
1948(3rd of Av, 5708): Seventy-eight year old Leo Morris Franklin, a leading Reform rabbi who served Temple Beth El in Detroit from 1899 to 1941, passed away today.
1951: Birthdate of Bronx native Martin Brest the NYU grad who went on to a career as a director, screenwriter and producer that got its biggest start with “Going in Style” and “Beverly Hills Cop.”
1953: Birthdate of Donny Most who played Ralph in the sitcom “Happy Days.”
1953: Birthdate of Alexander Pinkhosovich Podrabinek the Russian born human rights activist and “refusnik”
1960 (15th of Av, 5720): As Jews observe Tu B’Av no love was lost as Nixon squared off against Kennedy in the presidential campaign.
1962: “Valley Jewish Center Dedication Scheduled” published today in the Los Angeles Times
1963: In New York, “comedy writer Saul Turtletaub” and his wife gave birth to director and producer Jonathan Charles “Jon” Turtletaub who is responsible for some forgettable films such as “3 Ninjas.”
1964: French music man Serge Gainsbourg and his second wife Françoise-Antoinette "Béatrice" Pancrazzi gave birth to their daughter Natacha.
1964: It was reported that Alaska Democrat Ernest Gruening was one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The two senators saw the resolution as “unconstitutional because it was ‘a pre-dated declaration of war power’ reserved to Congress. This vote cost him his seat in the Senate; a fate that many of the johnny-come-lately opponents such as the anti-Semite J. William Fulbright were spared.
1965(10thof Av, 5725): Tish’a B’Av
1965(10thof Av, 5725): Eighty-seven year old Edith Jacobi Baerwald passed away today.
1965(10thof Av, 5725: Seventy-one year old Minks native Sidney Davidson, the founder of “Davidson Brothers” a New York “underwear company, a founder, in 1939 “of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York” and the husband of “the former Sarah Machilis” with whom he had two children – Jean and Morton – passed away today after suffering a heart attack.
1966: Three months after having been released in the United Kingdom and Australia, “It Happened Here,” a film that looks at what might have happened if the Nazis had won WW II filmed by cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, was released in the United States today.
1973: “The Stone Killer” a film about murdering Italian and Jewish mobsters” directed and produced by Michael Winner starring Martin Balsam, Stuart Margolin and Norman Fell was released today in the United States.
1973: In a move that will have profound repercussions for the United States, the rest of the World (and of course the Jews, Richard Nixon delivered an address to the nation tonight saying this his Presidency would officially end tomorrow at noon.
1975: Jacob “Jack” Austin was appointed to the Upper House of the Canadian Parliament today to serve as a Senator from Vancouver.
1975: “Farewell My Lovely” the murder mystery produced by Elliot Kastner and Jerry Bruckheimer, with a screenplay by David Zelag Goodman and music by David Shire was released in the United States today.
1976(12thof Av, 5736): Sixty-six year old Berlin born Eddie Rosner, the jazz musician known as “The White Louis Armstrong,” passed away today,
1976: Three Israelis were injured when a bus was fired on near Hebron.
1977: Officials in Washington agreed that there was no evidence that more than 8,000 pounds of the lost American enriched uranium and plutonium had ever reached Israel.
1977: The Jerusalem YMCA, one of the most beautiful in the world and the only one to have a membership 98 per cent Jewish, celebrated its centenary.
1979(15thof Av, 5739): Tu B’Av
1980: Today, the National Park Service determined that Dewey House which had been designed by David Adler was eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.”
1980: As part of the on-going Soviet campaign to punish Jewish refusniks, Grigorii Geishis was put on trial at Leningrad.
1982: Just two weeks before her 84th birthdate Rosie Goldschmidt Waldeck, the author whose works include Athene Palace passed away. Born a German Jew in 1898, she converted to Catholicism and became a U.S. citizen in 19391982:“Where are the Arab ‘brothers' now?” by Daniel Pipes appears in the Chicago Tribune.
1984: Funeral services were held today in Jerusalem for “Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz, former Chief Rabbi of the Orange Free State in South Africa and more recently a Herut Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem.” (As reported by JTA)
1984: Based on an order from the Israeli Supreme Court, financer Shmuel Flatto-Sharon is scheduled to report to jail today where he is “to start a three- month sentence for bribery during his campaign for the Israeli Parliament in 1977, which was successful.”
1986: “The Transformer: The Movie” an animated feature film featuring the voices of Judd Nelson, Lionel Stander and Leonard Nimoy was released in the United States today by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group.
1986: Warner Bros. released “One Crazy Summer,” a romantic comedy produced by Michael Jaffe and featuring Jeremy Piven in the role of “Ty.”
1987: Mary Travers, the folk singer, plays Emma Lazarus, as one of a series of radio spots for a a program entitled “Voices of Freedom.” Ms Travers said her character also had such contemporary relevance. ''She doesn't talk about history as if it's frozen in time,'' Ms. Travers said of Lazarus. ''Her words are valuable not as the words of a woman willing to struggle with inequity in 1883, but as the words of an American willing to struggle with inequity in 1987.''
1987: ''Yiddish Theater in London, 1880-1987 an exhibition included in this summer's Jewish East End Celebration is scheduled to come to an end.
1987: ''Daughters of the Pale,'' an exhibition that in words and photographs documents the experiences of daughters of Jewish immigrants, is scheduled to come to an end in London
1988: Israeli Ambassador Moshe Arad met with Rev. Jesse Jackson. The two men and their advisers said they discussed a wide range of issues, including the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians; the plight of black Israelis; Israel's relationship with South Africa, and recent friction between blacks and Jews in this country, particularly in Chicago and New York.
1988: Israeli Ambassador Moshe Arad met with Rev. Jesse Jackson. The two men and their advisers said they discussed a wide range of issues, including the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians; the plight of black Israelis; Israel's relationship with South Africa, and recent friction between blacks and Jews in this country, particularly in Chicago and New York.
1989: A Broadway revival of the musical “Shenandoah” with a “book” co-authored by producer Philip Rose opened today.
1990: Oil prices fell and the stock markets in the New York and Tokyo steadied today after the United States decision to send troops to Saudi Arabia and reports that the oil-rich kingdom would increase its production in what would be part of the start of Gulf War I, the first conflict in which Israel would stand down and trust the United States to defend its airspace from Arab attack.
1990: “I’m Dangerous Tonight” a horror film featuring Natalie Schafer debuted on USA Network tonight.
1993: The third in a series of family tours to Israel sponsored by the American Jewish Congress is schedule to begin today.
1993: The Bosnian family sponsored by Temple Beth Am arrived in Seattle, Washington.
1995: Eighty-nine year old SS officer Kurt Becher who was involved in deals to trade money and goods for sparing the lives of Hungarian Jews that included dealings with Rudolf Kastner passed away.
(For more about Rudolf Kastner see Gaylen Ross’s award winning documentary “Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt With Nazis” http://www.killingkasztner.com/
and Kastner’s Train by Anna Porter and
1996: Mel Torme, an icon of the American Jazz scene, suffered a stroke which effectively ended his career.
1996: “Haifa” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
1999: PGA golfer Bruce Fleisher won the Lightpath Long Island Classic.
1999: The New York Times includes reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945 by Leo Marks, Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings: Volume 2, 1927-1934and Broke Heart Blues by Joyce Carol Oates, the author who discovered late in life her own family's Jewish history: Her grandmother, who immigrated to the United States in the 1890s, kept her religion hidden for fear of persecution.
1999: Avery Corman, the novelist, who has just completed working on a new musical with Cy Coleman, discusses ''The Musical: The American Jewish Theater in Its Heyday'' at Temple Adas Israel on Elizabeth Street in Sag Harbor
2001: Hamas claimed credit for today’s bombing at Moshav Beka’ot
2002: “Queen’s Opens J.B. Salsberg Papers to the Public” published today included a brief description of the life of the Polish born Canadian Labor Zionist.
2003(10th of Av, 5763):Third Petty Officer Roi Oren, 20, an Israel Navy commando, was shot in the head and killed in an assault on a Hamas bomb factory in Nablus.
2004: Second and final performance by the Royal English Opera Company of Rockford, Illinois of “The Nautch Girl,” a comic opera composed by Edward Solomon. These are the only times the opera has been performed in North America.
2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace by Dennis Ross
2005: Legislation is introduced in Congress that would make it illegal to deny life insurance to people based on their travel habits. Those traveling to Israel, including at least one Jewish member of the House of Representatives have been denied life insurance. While those pushing the legislation have not accused the life insurance industry of an anti-Jewish bias, one of the non-Jewish supporters of the bill noted that he had never been denied insurance even though he had taken repeated trips to his ancestral homeland, Ireland.
2005: Today “Haaretz quoted a top Palestinian Authority religious cleric, Sheikh Jamal al-Bawatna, the mufti of the Ramallah district, in a fatwa (a religious edict) banning shooting attacks against Israeli security forces and settlements, out of concern they might lead to a postponement of the pullout. According to Haaretz, this is the first time that a Muslim cleric has forbidden shooting at Israeli forces.”
2005: “Kevin Youkilis took the field in the 9th inning along with Adam Stern and Gabe Kapler, setting a "record" for the most Jewish players on the field at one time in American League history and the most in Major League Baseball history since four Jewish players took the field for the New York Giants in 1941. (Jewish Virtual Library)
2005: Wolf Blitzer began hosting The Situation Room, a two-hour afternoon/early evening program on CNN
2005(3rdof Av, 5765): Eighty-seven year Nathan “Fred” Asher, the Naval Academy Graduate, who took command of the destroyer U.S.S. Blue during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and was the husband of Slema Straus with whom he had three children – Dennis, Karen and Jeffrey – passed away today in California.
2006: Five ambulances donated to Magen David Adom by Canadian Jewry were flown to Israel from New York by CAL Cargo Airlines. The ambulances were donated as a sign of solidarity with the situation in Israel and to help with the treatment of the injured from the conflict in the northern part of the county. "The company is currently doing all it can to give preference to urgently required cargo for the security forces and other state bodies," a statement from CAL Cargo said
2006 (14th of Av, 5766): Staff Sergeant Oren Lifschitz, 21, of Kibbutz Gazit and Staff Sergeant Moran Cohen, 21, of Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov were killed in battles in the south Lebanon village of Bint Jbail. St.-Sgt. Yesmao Yallao 26, from Or Yehuda and Cap. (res.) and Gilad Balahsan, 28, of Karmiel were killed in clashes with Hezbollah near Leboneh.
2007: The last two concerts The Zimriya - The World Assembly of Choirs are held at 8 P.M., at Einav Cultural Center in Tel Aviv and at Independence Hall on Mt. Scopus. The Zimriya has been held every three years since 1952.
2007: Donald Fisher the founder of GAP “announced plans to build a 100,000-square-foot (9,300 m2) museum in the San Francisco Presidio, tentatively named the Contemporary Art Museum of the Presidio, to house his art collection” – plans which would be abandoned in 2009 when Fisher and his wife “decided to enter into a partnership with SFMOMA to display the world famous collection.”
2007(24th of Av, 5767): Melville “Mel” Shavelson, writer, director and producer passed away at the age of 90.
2008: Israeli President Shimon Peres attends the Olympic Games' opening ceremony at the invitation of the Chinese government. Since the games open on Friday, the Chinese government has agreed as a goodwill gesture to house him in a hotel within the Olympic complex so he will not desecrate the Sabbath. While Beijing and Jerusalem seem to be worried about the rituals of Shabbat, they do not seem to have the same concern about the Biblical strictures about caring for the widow, the orphan and the stranger in your midst as can be seen in Darfur and Tibet.
2008: In “Jewish Roots in India,” published today the Washington Post reviews The Girl From Foreign by Sadia Shephard in which the American born author traces the Jewish roots of her Indian grandmother who lived as a Moslem.
2008: In Virginia, Jody Wagner resigns her position as Secretary of Finance.
2008(7th of Av, 5768): Ted Solotaroff passes away at the age of 80
2009: In Jerusalem, Beit Avi Chai's Saturday night music line, directed by Shaanan Street, presents "Eve’s Women": Four musicians create a magical, diverse musical world, with fresh, new arrangements of familiar melodies and songs from Jewish tradition, klezmer tunes, and Hasidic songs. A fascinating musical journey including improvisations created in each concert.
2010: A documentary entitled “Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades” is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2010: Bankito, sometimes referred to as "Jewstock" -- a youth-oriented Jewish culture festival on the shore of Bank Lake, north of Budapest is scheduled to come to an end.
2010: First Jewish Women's Music Festival at Falls Village, CT is scheduled to come to an end.
2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including two novels set in Nazi-occupied Holland by Dutch author Hans Keilson – The Death of the Adversary and Comedy in a Minor Key, Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs, 97 Orchard by Jane Ziegelman and Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg; The Letters Edited by Bill Morgan and David Stanford
2011: The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to come to an end.
2011(8thof Av): Erev Tisha B’Av – fast starts at sundown
2011: This evening, a delegation of 18 Washington-based ambassadors from four continents and one other senior diplomat who have embarked on a fact-finding mission to Israel and the West Bank organized by The Israel Project (TIP) will go to the Old City of Jerusalem to observe the commemoration of Tisha B’Av
2011: Three mortar shells fell last night in Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, causing damage to a fence. No injuries were reported. The incident comes after a spate in rocket attacks launched from the Gaza Strip last week. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a cabinet meeting yesterday that the recent rocket fire from Gaza was carried out by Palestinian breakaway groups and an Islamic Jihad organization, adding that he views the recent escalation with great severity and believes the attacks will continue.
Since the beginning of 2011 more than 340 rockets have been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
2011: Today, the High Court of Justice rejected a petition asking that the government be ordered to deploy the Iron Dome rocket defense system in Gaza border communities.The ruling to reject the petition, which had been brought by the Eshkol Regional Council, follows an upsurge in Palestinian rocket fire against the South in recent days.Some 340 rockets and mortar shells from Gaza have hit dozens of southern communities this year, the IDF Spokesman’s Office said today In rejecting the petition, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, Justice Salim Joubran and Justice Uzi Fogelman ruled that in balancing all relevant considerations including budgets, changing security realities and operational matters, the government’s decision not to deploy the Iron Dome in the area was reasonable. The panel of justices also said that the court had no reason to intervene in operational decisions regarding where to deploy the Iron Dome system. “We believe the [government] will make the necessary decisions in accordance with the requirements of the time and place,” the justices said. Haim Yalin, head of the Eshkol Regional Council, slammed the court’s decision and said that the government must take immediate responsibility to defend residents affected by Gaza rocket fire. “The High Court ruling said it was up to the government to defend us, so we are asking them – go ahead, protect us, defend us,” Yalin told The Jerusalem Post. “The government needs to take responsibility. It’s about social justice.” In its High Court petition, the Eshkol Regional Council argued that the government should be ordered to deploy the Iron Dome to protect communities in the so-called “Gaza envelope,” specifically those located between 4.5 and seven kilometers from the Strip, from terrorist rocket fire. Homes in communities located within 4.5 kilometers of Gaza have been equipped with government-funded rocket-roof protection. However, structures located between 4.5 and seven kilometers from the Gaza security fence lack rocket protection. Iron Dome, a mobile air defense system, was developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to intercept rockets and artillery shells with a range from 4.5 to 70 kilometers. It was deployed this week outside Ashkelon in response to rocket fire from Gaza. Communities in the Eshkol Regional Council say the system should protect them too. In the petition, the council said the government has put the lives of residents living in these communities at risk by failing to deploy Iron Dome or to provide any other rocket protection. The distinction between homes located less than 4.5 kilometers from Gaza – which received government funding for rocket protection – and homes located over 4.5 kilometers from the security fence is no longer relevant, argues the Eshkol Regional Council, because the Palestinian rockets have a range well in excess of 4.5 kilometers. The petition also claimed that the government’s failure to protect communities by deploying the Iron Dome violates the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty. In response, the state argued that the High Court should not intervene in the “military decision” regarding how and where to deploy the anti-rocket system. The state noted that Iron Dome is portable, and is deployed in different areas depending on operational need. If the court were to order the state to deploy Iron Dome in a specific area, budgetary limitations would result in other communities not receiving protection, particularly as the range of Palestinian rockets has grown in recent years and therefore it is not possible to deploy Iron Dome to protect every community, the state argued. Attorney Eduardo Wasser, representing the Eshkol Regional Council, told the Post that the High Court’s ruling to reject the petition was “very disappointing. “If we understand the ruling correctly, the court found that the [government’s] pledge [to protect communities near the Gaza Strip] was made under different conditions, and that the government can retract that pledge,” he said. Wasser also noted that the justices ruled that it was the government’s responsibility to use other means, apart from the Iron Dome, to protect communities in the “Gaza envelope.” Wasser added that he was uncertain that the government would do so. “In other words, the court is telling us that we must rely on the government to take responsibility for defending us, but until an alternative means is found to protect us I’m not convinced that we can do so,” he said. Yalin said that he was now calling on the government to find a way to protect communities between 4.5 and seven kilometers from the Strip. “It is up to the government to either stop the rocket fire, or find a way to defend its citizens,” the council head said. “The residents of the ‘Gaza envelope’ are suffering, we have suffered for years – and now we will do everything in our power to make the government take responsibility and defend us from rocket attacks. Because who else apart from the government of the State of Israel can take responsibility and protect its citizens?”
2011: During a discussion on the subject, the High Court criticized the Israel Medical Association's (IMA) conduct during negotiations with the finance and health ministries. Supreme Court President Judge Dorit Beinisch said "the IMA's behavior does not arouse faith, this is no way to negotiate." The High Court decided on t0day to give doctors and representatives of the Finance Ministry another week to try to reach an agreement that would end the sanctions affecting the health system. At the end of the week there will be another hearing before the High Court and the different parties will present the progress made.
2012: The Summer Learning Institute is scheduled to begin at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio.
2012: “Hope Springs” a comedy directed by David Frankel was released today in the United States by Columbia Pictures and MGM.
2012: “Photographer David Rubinger, who immortalized paratroopers reaching the Wall in the 1967 war, recreated his iconic image with a female trio holding a Torah scroll (As reported by Aaron Kalman)
2012: Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the annual free festival of music and dance, is scheduled to present the U.S. debut of The Alaev Family, a Bukharin groove band from Israel with deep roots in the music of Tajikistan and Jewish Bukhara.
2012: Citing disappointing results for Israeli athletes in the 2012 Olympic games, Minister of Culture and Sports Limor Livnat announced today that she will establish a committee of experts to look into this year’s failures in order to bring about better results in the next Olympics, set to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the summer of 2016
2012: The British Guardian newspaper today acknowledged it was wrong to call Tel Aviv Israel’s capital, but reiterated its stance that Jerusalem is not the capital either, since it is not recognized as such by the international community.
2012: A series of Hezbollah terror attacks inside Israel were foiled recently by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) after a group of Israeli-Arabs helped smuggle 20 kilograms of high-grade explosives into Israel. Today, eight residents of Nazareth and the town of Ghajar - half of which is in Israel and the other half in Lebanon - were charged in the Nazareth District Court with assisting in the infiltration of the explosives.
2013: “Esther Broner - A Weave Of Women,” a documentary about the pioneering feminist and scholar is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
2013: At Zefat, the three day International Klexmer Festival “the biggest festival of Jewish soul music in the world” is scheduled to come to an end.
2013: Nobel Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman, a Princeton psychologist known for his application of psychology to economic analysis who “escaped Nazi Europe and served in the Israeli army” was one of the people President Obama named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
2013: In response to a “security concerns” no planes were allowed to land at or leave the Eilat airport when the IDF closed the facility for two hours today. (As reported by Asher Zeiger)
2013(2ndof Elul, 5773): Ninety-two year old Jack Zomlefer, a brilliant chemist, successful business and educated Jew who shared his last years enhancing the quality of the Jewish community in Cedar Rapids ,passed away today.
2013*2ndof Elul, 5773): Ninety-year old opera star Regina Resnik passed away today. (As reported by William Yardley)
2013(2ndof Elul, 5773): Actress Karen Black passed away today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/movies/karen-black-versatile-character-actress-dies-at-74.html?hpw
2014: Israel’s Dimona Theatre/Cultural Lab and the Classical Theatre of Harlem are scheduled to “present a succinct journey into Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Sugar Hill.
2014: “High-profile Toronto Jewish delicatessen owner Zane Caplansky is scheduled to send his food truck to the outdoor screening ‘Laila’s Birthday’ a dark comedy by Palestinian director by Rashid Masharawi.” (As reported by Renee Ghert-Zand)
2014: In Milwaukee, Congregation Shalom is scheduled to host its final concert of the summer featuring Becky Spice and Jack Forbes in “an original cabaret show.”
2014: True to its word Hamas ended the cease fire by firing rockets into Israel today including one that scored a direct hit on a house “in the embattled city of Sderot.”
2014: “United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the renewed rocket fire on Israel and also called for a return to a truce in Gaza. (As reported by Yitzhak Benhorin)
2014(12thof Av, 5774): Eighty-five year old director/producer Menahem Golan passed away today.
2015(23rdof Av): Parsha Ekev
2015(23rdof Av): Yahrzeit of Rabbi Benjamin Arron of Cracow
2015: In New York, “a live performance of chamber ensemble led by the Music Director, Israeli Cellist Elad Kabilio” is scheduled to be part of this evening’s Ballet Festival.
2015: The 92nd St is scheduled to host “Le Roc USA Party”
2016: Judge Claudio Bonadio’s decision to reopen a criminal complaint against former President Kirchner in which had been accuse of conspiring to derail an investigation into the bombing of Jewish community center in 1994 which took the lives of 85, was made public today.
2016: “Jerusalem Boxing Club is scheduled to be shown as part of The Hampton Synagogue Film Series now in its 14thyear.
2016: Noam Banai, son of Meir and cousin to Ehud, Yuval and Elisha continued his tour of Israel tonight with a performance at 26 Bialik, Beersheba.
2016: Gary Gans is scheduled to speak on “What Mourning Customs Did Our Immigrant Families Bring with Them” and Avraham Groll is scheduled to speak on “Jewish Life In Poland (10th-18th centuries) at the 36thIAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy today in Seattle.
2017: This evening in Weimar, Germany YSM is scheduled to host a series of jam session featuring Yiddish songs and klezmer music.
2017: “An ensemble of four male dancers combining hip hop with ballet, choreographed by Roderick George, a former soloist of American Dance Company Cedar Lake is scheduled to perform part of this year’s “Tel Aviv Dance.”
2018: Diarna, The Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life is scheduled to present “Beyond Tunis: A Comprehensive Mission to Tunisia” featuring photographer Chrystie Sherman as part of the Passport to Jewish History series.
2018:”Operation Wedding,” a documentary that tells the story of “young Soviet Jews seeking to escape the Soviet Union: is scheduled to be shown at the Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.
2018:”Operation Wedding,” a documentary that tells the story of “young Soviet Jews seeking to escape the Soviet Union: is scheduled to be shown at the Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema.